The stone-trumpet will be heard to
blow, we daresay, about the same time that the serpent of Sant' Ambrogio
will be heard to hiss.

I was now to bid farewell to Milan, and turn my face towards the blue
Adriatic. But one unpleasant preliminary must first be gone through. The
police had opened the gates of Milan to admit me, and the same
authorities must open them for my departure. I walked to the passport
office, where the officials received me with great politeness, and bade
me be seated while my passport was being got ready. This interesting
process was only a few minutes in doing; and, on payment of the
customary fee, was handed me "all right" for Venice, bating the
innumerable intermediate inspections and _vises_ by the way; for a
passport, like a chronometer, must be continually compared with the
meridian, and put right. I put my passport into my pocket; but on
opening it afterwards, I got a surprise. Its pages were getting covered
all over with little creatures with wings, and, as my fancy suggested,
with stings,--the black eagles of Austria. How was I to carry in my
pocket such a cage of imps? How was I to sleep at night in their
company? Should they take it into their head to creep out of my book,
and buzz round my bed, would it not give me unpleasant dreams? And yet
part with them I could not. These black, impish creatures must be my
pioneers to Venice.

I now made haste to take my last look of the several objects which had
endeared themselves to me during my short stay. I felt towards them as
friends,--long known and beloved friends; and never should I turn and
look on the track of my past existence without seeing their forms of
beauty, dim and indistinct, it might be, as the haze of lapsed time
should gather over them; still, always visible,--never altogether
blotted out. I walked round the Cathedral for the last time. There it
stood,--beauty, like an eternal halo, sitting rainbow-like upon its
towers and pinnacles. Its thousand statues and cherubs stood silent and
entranced, tranquil as ever, all unmoved by the city's din, reminding
one of dwellers in some region of deep and unbroken bliss. "Glorious
pile!" said I, apostrophizing it, "I am but a pilgrim, a shadow; so are
all who now look on thee,--shadows. But you will continue to delight the
ages to come, as you have done those that are past." I had a run, too,
to the _Piazza di Armi_, to see Beauty incarnate, if I may so express
myself, in the form of th