Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . ome keeps open doors, andthe stranger wanders through the city as freely as the wind. The air has grown lighterhere, and we seem to breathe more easily, we who remember the manifold obstructionsand vexations of a tyrannous government which the traveller had perforce to suffer withpatience in former days. The whole town has grown airier, cheerfuller, and more habitable ; but as to theimperial purple hem on her new toga,—that has yet to be sewn on by some tailor of thefuture! The town is, as yet, in a state of growth and transition. This is obvious themoment w
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . ome keeps open doors, andthe stranger wanders through the city as freely as the wind. The air has grown lighterhere, and we seem to breathe more easily, we who remember the manifold obstructionsand vexations of a tyrannous government which the traveller had perforce to suffer withpatience in former days. The whole town has grown airier, cheerfuller, and more habitable ; but as to theimperial purple hem on her new toga,—that has yet to be sewn on by some tailor of thefuture! The town is, as yet, in a state of growth and transition. This is obvious themoment we pass out of the precincts of the railway station on to the wide piazza in frontof it. The trees and plants in the newly laid out garden are in an embryonic condition,and the pavement consists more of good intentions than solid stone. It is difficult to sayof the masses of cut and uncut stone piled up all around us, whether they have alreadyserved for old buildings, or are waiting to serve for new ones. To the right is a mass of. Of THE UNIVERSITY 0 ? THE ETERNAL CITY IN A MODERN TOGA. 233 ruinous constructions :—the gigantic Baths of Diocletian, in which, and out of which,numerous modern churches, convents, houses and halls, have been built. And theselatter again,—as though infected by the contact of ruin,—are already themselves almostruinous ; as may be seen by their dusky, dusty hue, their cracks and crevices, their blindwindows unopened for many a long year, and their rotting doors. Here, as at the PortaViminalis, Rome consisted solely and wholely of ruins but a few years ago :—ruins
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
