"We slept near the top,at the Village of Simplon,in a very fair and well-warmed inn,close to a mountain stream,which is one of the great ornaments of this side of the road.We have here passed into a region of granite,from that of limestone,and what is called gneiss.The valleys are sharper and closer,--like cracks in a hard and solid mass;--and there is much more of the startling contrast of light and shade,as well as more angular boldness of outline;to all which the more abundant waters add a fresh and vivacious interest.Looking back through one of these abysmal gorges,one sees two torrents dashing together,the precipice and ridge on one side,pitch-black with shade;and that on the other all flaming gold;while behind rises,in a huge cone,one of the glacier summits of the chain.The stream at one's feet rushes at a leap some two hundred feet down,and is bordered with pines and beeches,struggling through a ruined world of clefts and boulders.I never saw anything so much resembling some of the _Circles_described by Dante.From Simplon we made for Duomo d'Ossola;having broken out,as through the mouth of a mine,into green and fertile valleys full of vines and chestnuts,and white villages,--in short,into sunshine and Italy.
"At this place we dismissed our Swiss voiturier,and took an Italian one;who conveyed us to Omegna on the Lake of Orta;a place little visited by English travellers,but which fully repaid us the trouble of going there.We were lodged in a ****** and even rude Italian inn;where they cannot speak a word of French;where we occupied a barn-like room,with a huge chimney fit to lodge a hundred ghosts,whom we expelled by dint of a hot woodfire.There were two beds,and as it happened good ones,in this strange old apartment;which was adorned by pictures of Architecture,and by Heads of Saints,better than many at the Royal Academy Exhibition,and which one paid nothing for looking at.The thorough Italian character of the whole scene amused us,much more than Meurice's at Paris would have done;for we had voluble,commonplace good-humor,with the aspect and accessories of a den of banditti.
"To-day we have seen the Lake of Orta,have walked for some miles among its vineyards and chestnuts;and thence have come,by Baveno,to this place;--having seen by the way,I believe,the most beautiful part of the Lago Maggiore,and certainly the most cheerful,complete and extended example of fine scenery I have ever fallen in with.Here we are,much to my wonder,--for it seems too good to be true,--fairly in Italy;and as yet my journey has been a pleasanter and more instructive,and in point of health a more successful one,than I at all imagined possible.Calvert and I go on as well as can be.I let him have his way about natural science,and he only laughs benignly when he thinks me absurd in my moral speculations.My only regrets are caused by my separation from my family and friends,and by the hurry I have been living in,which has prevented me doing any work,--and compelled me to write to you at a good deal faster rate than the _vapore_moves on the Lago Maggiore.It will take me to-morrow to Sesto Calende,whence we go to Varese.We shall not be at Milan for some days.Write thither,if you are kind enough to write at all,till I give you another address.Love to my Father.
"Your affectionate son,"JOHN STERLING."
Omitting Milan,Florence nearly all,and much about "Art,"Michael Angelo,and other aerial matters,here are some select terrestrial glimpses,the fittest I can find,of his progress towards Rome:--_To his Mother_.
"_Lucca,Nov.27th_,1838.--I had dreams,like other people,before Icame here,of what the Lombard Lakes must be;and the week I spent among them has left me an image,not only more distinct,but far more warm,shining and various,and more deeply attractive in innumerable respects,than all I had before conceived of them.And so also it has been with Florence;where I spent three weeks:enough for the first hazy radiant dawn of sympathy to pass away;yet constantly adding an increase of knowledge and of love,while I examined,and tried to understand,the wonderful minds that have left behind them there such abundant traces of their presence....On Sunday,the day before Ileft Florence,I went to the highest part of the Grand Duke's Garden of Boboli,which commands a view of most of the City,and of the vale of the Arno to the westward;where,as we had been visited by several rainy days,and now at last had a very fine one,the whole prospect was in its highest beauty.The mass of buildings,chiefly on the other side of the River,is sufficient to fill the eye,without perplexing the mind by vastness like that of London;and its name and history,its outline and large and picturesque buildings,give it grandeur of a higher order than that of mere multitudinous extent.
The Hills that border the Valley of the Arno are also very pleasing and striking to look upon;and the view of the rich Plain,glimmering away into blue distance,covered with an endless web of villages and country-houses,is one of the most delightful images of human well-being I have ever seen....
"Very shortly before leaving Florence,I went through the house of Michael Angelo;which is still possessed by persons of the same family,descendants,I believe,of his Nephew.There is in it his 'first work in marble,'as it is called;and a few drawings,--all with the stamp of his enginery upon them,which was more powerful than all the steam in London....On the whole,though I have done no work in Florence that can be of any use or pleasure to others,except my Letters to my Wife,--I leave it with the certainty of much valuable knowledge gained there,and with a most pleasant remembrance of the busy and thoughtful days I owe to it.