d starve upon. He has no fireplace at home, and, if
he had, he has no fuel. Wood is very dear, and coal there is none. If he
gets wet through there is no hearth to dry himself or his clothes at.
Cold means fever, and fever with low diet means death. Besides, there is
little loss in staying at home on rainy days. In England or the Lowlands
the peasant farmer who couldn't "bide a shower" would lose half the
year, but a rainy day along the Cornice is so rare a thing that it makes
little difference in the year's account.

It is much the same with the townsman, the trader, the professional man.
When work in the shop or office is over his life circles round the cafe.
Society and home mean for him the chatty, gesticulating group of friends
camped out round their little tables on the pavement under the huge
awning that gives them shade. When winter breaks up the pleasant circle,
and the dark, chilly evenings drive him, as we say, "home," he has no
home to flee unto. He is not used to domestic life, or to conversation
with his wife or his children. Above all there is no fire, no "hearth
and home." Going home in fact means going to bed. An Italian doctor or
an Italian lawyer knows nothing of the cosy evenings of the North, of
the bright fire, the brighter chat round it, or the quiet book till
sleep comes. Somebody has said truly enough that if a man wanted to see
human life at its best he would spend his winters in England and his
summers in Italy. We have so much winter that we have faced it, made a
study of it, and beaten it. Our houses are a great nuisance in warm
weather, but their thick walls and close-fitting windows and broad
fireplaces are admirably adapted for cold. Italians, on the other hand,
have so little winter that when the cold does come it is completely
their master. The large, dark, cool rooms that are so grateful in July
are simply ice-houses in December. The large windows are full of
crevices and draughts. An ordinary Italian positively dreads a fire from
his knowledge of the perils it entails in rooms so draughty as Italian
rooms commonly are. He infinitely prefers to rub his blue little hands
and wait till this inscrutable mystery of bad weather be overpast. But
it is only the thought of what he suffers during the winter, short as it
is in comparison with our own, that enables us to understand the ecstasy
of his joy at the reappearance of the spring. Everybody meets everybody
with greetings on the warmth and