t came into
this paradise of fairy angels, (for a paradise is the valley of the Po), I
mistook this bloom of youth and glow of health and vigor for the lambent
flames which flash from the countenances of the intellectual--it seemed to
me that I must be surrounded by a halo of literary sages and muses, all
gifted alike with every grace and charm that nature can bestow or art
improve; but when I observed the youths at work in the fields and the
maidens at the garden gates, who turned for a moment from their respective
tasks to see our train move along, look as happy, as gay and as beautiful
as the belles of the cafes and the beaus of the cities, I concluded that
it must be the healthy state of the body that makes every face look rosy
and bright in this fair and sunny clime. At Milan I asked some of my
companions how far this _paradise of beauties_ extended southward in
Italy. "To Florence," was the answer. But I did not find that to be quite
correct, for though Florence may have more fair people than any northern
city, the proportion of beauties to the whole population, which is perhaps
ninety per cent, in Turin and Milan, cannot be more than 20 or 30 per
cent, in Florence. In order to be able to correct any false impression
that I might have imbibed in my first visit to the valley of the Po, I
paid particular attention to the same subject on my return from Egypt. At
Milan there was then an immense concourse of people assembled from all
parts of Europe to see Emperor William of Germany and King Victor Emanuel
of Italy parade the streets of that elegant city, with a retinue of over
20,000 soldiers; the consequence was, that the fair people of Milan were
lost in the multitude. But on my return to Turin, I found that her
beautiful sons and daughters, again presented the same dream-like and
enchanting scene of a pleasure-garden full of fair and merry beings
possessed of angelic beauty, and enjoying their blessed existance just as
I had seen them a month before.

I met travelers that say the same thing of Nature's children in other
sunny lands--Spain for example. The truth seems to be, that in warm
climates only, will man attain that perfect healthy and beautiful physical
development which has constituted the model of the artist and the theme of
the poet, in every age. I have heard some pronounce the statue of Venus de
Medici, the ideal perfection of female form and beauty. It is probably as
near as sculpture can reach it, but