We Achieved The Other Sights Of Milan, In Due Course, And A Fine
City It Is, Though Not So Unmistakably Italian As To Possess The
Characteristic Qualities Of Many Towns Far Less Important In
Themselves.
The Corso, where the Milanese gentry ride up and down
in carriages, and rather than not do which, they would half starve
themselves at home, is a most noble public promenade, shaded by
long avenues of trees.
In the splendid theatre of La Scala, there
was a ballet of action performed after the opera, under the title
of Prometheus: in the beginning of which, some hundred or two of
men and women represented our mortal race before the refinements of
the arts and sciences, and loves and graces, came on earth to
soften them. I never saw anything more effective. Generally
speaking, the pantomimic action of the Italians is more remarkable
for its sudden and impetuous character than for its delicate
expression, but, in this case, the drooping monotony: the weary,
miserable, listless, moping life: the sordid passions and desires
of human creatures, destitute of those elevating influences to
which we owe so much, and to whose promoters we render so little:
were expressed in a manner really powerful and affecting. I should
have thought it almost impossible to present such an idea so
strongly on the stage, without the aid of speech.
Milan soon lay behind us, at five o'clock in the morning; and
before the golden statue on the summit of the cathedral spire was
lost in the blue sky, the Alps, stupendously confused in lofty
peaks and ridges, clouds and snow, were towering in our path.
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