Do not smile in any derision at the phrase, good reader; the words are
classic by newspaper authority; and whatever popular preachers may aver
to the contrary, we live in a most charming world, where singleness is
blessed and marriage is happy, public speaking is always eloquent, and
soldiery ever gallant. Still, even a sterner critic might have admitted
that the epithet was not misapplied; for there are worse things in life
than to be a viscount with a very beautiful wife, rolling pleasantly
along the Via Mala on Collinge's best patent, with six smoking posters,
on a bright day of November. This for his share; as to hers, I shall not
speak of it. And yet, why should I not? Whatever may be the conflict in
the close citadel of the heart, how much of pleasure is derivable from
the mere aspect of a beautiful country as one drives rapidly along,
swift enough to bring the changes of scene agreeably before the eye,
and yet not too fast to admit of many a look at some spot especially
beautiful. And then how charming to lose oneself in that-dreamland,
where, peopling the landscape with figures of long, long ago, we too
have our part, and ride forth at daybreak from some deep-vaulted portal
in jingling mail, or gaze from some lone tower over the wide expanse
that forms our baronial realm,--visions of ambition, fancies of a lowly,
humble life, alternating as the rock-crowned castle or the sheltered cot
succeed each other! And lastly, that strange, proud sentiment we feel
as we sweep past town and village, where human life goes on in its
accustomed track,--the crowd in the market-place, the little group
around the inn, the heavy wagon unloading at the little quay, the
children hastening on to school,--all these signs of a small, small
world of its own, that we, in our greatness, are never again to gaze
on, our higher destiny bearing us ever onward to grander and more
pretentious scenes.

"And this is Italy?" said Lizzy, half aloud, as, emerging from the
mists of the Higher Alps, the carriage wound its zigzag descent from the
Spluegen, little glimpses of the vast plain of Lombardy coming into
view at each turn of the way, and then the picturesque outlines of old
ruinous Chiavenna, its tumble-down houses, half hid in trellised vines,
and farther on, again, the head of the Lake of Como, with its shores of
rugged rock.

"Yes, and this miserable dog-hole here is called Campo Dolcino!" said
Beecher, as he turned over the leaves of his