I say it again,
they are like what one feels when music is played.
I entered Como between ten and eleven faint for food, and then a new
interest came to fill my mind with memories of this great adventure.
The lake was in flood, and all the town was water.
Como dry must be interesting enough; Como flooded is a marvel. What
else is Venice? And here is a Venice at the foot of high mountains,
and _all_ in the water, no streets or squares; a fine even depth of
three feet and a half or so for navigators, much what you have in the
Spitway in London River at low spring tides.
There were a few boats about, but the traffic and pleasure of Como was
passing along planks laid on trestles over the water here and there
like bridges; and for those who were in haste, and could afford it
(such as take cabs in London), there were wheelbarrows, coster carts,
and what not, pulled about by men for hire; and it was a sight to
remember all one's life to see the rich men of Como squatting on these
carts and barrows, and being pulled about over the water by the poor
men of Como, being, indeed, an epitome of all modern sociology and
economics and religion and organized charity and strenuousness and
liberalism and sophistry generally.
For my part I was determined to explore this curious town in the
water, and I especially desired to see it on the lake side, because
there one would get the best impression of its being really an aquatic
town; so I went northward, as I was directed, and came quite
unexpectedly upon the astonishing cathedral. It seemed built of
polished marble, and it was in every way so exquisite in proportion,
so delicate in sculpture, and so triumphant in attitude, that I
thought to myself -
'No wonder men praise Italy if this first Italian town has such a
building as this.'
But, as you will learn later, many of the things praised are ugly, and
are praised only by certain followers of charlatans.
So I went on till I got to the lake, and there I found a little port
about as big as a dining-room (for the Italian lakes play at being
little seas. They have little ports, little lighthouses, little
fleets for war, and little custom-houses, and little storms and little
lines of steamers. Indeed, if one wanted to give a rich child a
perfect model or toy, one could not give him anything better than an
Italian lake), and when I had long gazed at the town, standing, as it
seemed, right in the lake, I felt giddy, and said to myself, 'This is
the lack of food,' for I had eaten nothing but my coffee and bread
eleven miles before, at dawn.
