Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino | Page 5

Lane. It is often said that this has been spoiled by the London, Chatham,
and Dover Railway bridge over Ludgate Hill; I think, however, the
effect is more imposing now than it was before the bridge was built.
Time has already softened it; it does not obtrude itself; it adds greatly
to the sense of size, and makes us doubly aware of the movement of life,
the colossal circulation to which London owes so much of its
impressiveness. We gain more by this than we lose by the infraction of
some pedant's canon about the artistically correct intersection of right
lines. Vast as is the world below the bridge, there is a vaster still on
high, and when trains are passing, the steam from the engine will throw
the dome of St. Paul's into the clouds, and make it seem as though there
were a commingling of earth and some far-off mysterious palace in
dreamland. I am not very fond of Milton, but I admit that he does at
times put me in mind of Fleet Street.
While on the subject of Fleet Street, I would put in a word in favour of
the much-abused griffin. The whole monument is one of the
handsomest in London. As for its being an obstruction, I have
discoursed with a large number of omnibus conductors on the subject,
and am satisfied that the obstruction is imaginary.
When, again, I think of Waterloo Bridge, and the huge wide-opened
jaws of those two Behemoths, the Cannon Street and Charing Cross
railway stations, I am not sure that the prospect here is not even finer
than in Fleet Street. See how they belch forth puffing trains as the
breath of their nostrils, gorging and disgorging incessantly those human
atoms whose movement is the life of the city. How like it all is to some
great bodily mechanism of which the people are the blood. And then,
above all, see the ineffable St. Paul's. I was once on Waterloo Bridge

after a heavy thunderstorm in summer. A thick darkness was upon the
river and the buildings upon the north side, but just below I could see
the water hurrying onward as in an abyss, dark, gloomy, and
mysterious. On a level with the eye there was an absolute blank, but
above, the sky was clear, and out of the gloom the dome and towers of
St. Paul's rose up sharply, looking higher than they actually were, and
as though they rested upon space.
Then as for the neighbourhood within, we will say, a radius of thirty
miles. It is one of the main businesses of my life to explore this district.
I have walked several thousands of miles in doing so, and I mark where
I have been in red upon the Ordnance map, so that I may see at a glance
what parts I know least well, and direct my attention to them as soon as
possible. For ten months in the year I continue my walks in the home
counties, every week adding some new village or farmhouse to my list
of things worth seeing; and no matter where else I may have been, I
find a charm in the villages of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, which in its
way I know not where to rival.
I have ventured to say the above, because during the remainder of my
book I shall be occupied almost exclusively with Italy, and wish to
make it clear that my Italian rambles are taken not because I prefer Italy
to England, but as by way of parergon, or by-work, as every man
should have both his profession and his hobby. I have chosen Italy as
my second country, and would dedicate this book to her as a
thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded me.

CHAPTER II
--Faido

For some years past I have paid a visit of greater or less length to Faido
in the Canton Ticino, which though politically Swiss is as much Italian
in character as any part of Italy. I was attracted to this place, in the first
instance, chiefly because it is one of the easiest places on the Italian
side of the Alps to reach from England. This merit it will soon possess
in a still greater degree, for when the St. Gothard tunnel is open, it will
be possible to leave London, we will say, on a Monday morning and be
at Faido by six or seven o'clock the next evening, just as one can now

do with S. Ambrogio on the line between Susa and Turin, of which
more hereafter.
True, by making use of the tunnel one will miss the St. Gothard scenery,
but I would not, if I were the reader, lay this too much to heart.
Mountain scenery,