fect of the years; the moss, the lichen; the
endearing dilapidation! So many things appeal to your _heart_ as you
pass through Italy. Oh I don't know how to describe it; but luckily
you've been here, and we generally feel things alike, you and I; so
you'll know what I mean. Poor little pathetic houses, painted red, blue,
or yellow! You laugh at them, and want to cry over them, and love them,
too. And the reds, yellows, and blues are like no other reds, yellows,
and blues in the world. Fancy, if we had houses like that in our new
land! How frightful they would be! We would want the painters to be put
in prison for their crime.

I can tell you this: That first day of ours was like hurrying through a
whole gallery of Turner's paintings. I love Turner, and I often wonder
if _my_ world isn't as different from many people's old grey worlds as
his was!

Another thing, we had become phenomenal. That is, we were in a
motor-car-less region. Ours was the only car, whereas on the other side
of Mentone we met a rival every ten minutes. I do get cause and effect
so mixed up. Aren't there many automobiles in Italy because there are
such lots of places where you can't buy petrol; or can't you buy petrol
because people won't go in automobiles?

We went flashing along past pretty little Ospedaletti, with its big
white casino, and into gay and colourful San Remo, where we bought
inferior petrol and paid twice as much for it as in France. I wonder if
any small watering-place ever had as many attractive-looking hotels in
it as San Remo? If I were staying there, I should weep because I
couldn't live in them all at once. But one would be obliged to have
about thirty astral bodies to go round, and each one would have to be a
well-dressed astral body. That would come expensive; or do astral bodies
exude frocks, so to speak?

I insisted on stopping for a few moments within sight of Taggia, because
a great friend of mine lived there, or rather, the author of his being.
His name was "Doctor Antonio," and he existed in the pages of a book
written by a famous Italian, John Ruffini. Brown gave me the book for a
Christmas present, apologising for the liberty; but, you see, it was all
about Bordighera, and he thought I would like to have it. So I did, for
it is one of the most enchanting stories I have ever read, though
written in an old-fashioned style, and also with a pretty little heroine
who was so old-fashionedly meek I could have shaken her.