He Declared Himself Satisfied With The State Of The
Currency Of France, With Which, If Fortunes Were Not Suddenly Built Up
They Were Not Suddenly Overthrown, And Periods Of Apparent Prosperity Were
Not Followed By Seasons Of Real Distress.
I made the journey from Marseilles to Florence by land.
How grand and wild
are the mountains that overlook the Mediterranean; how intense was the
heat as we wound our way along the galleries of rock cut to form a road;
how excellent are the fruits, and how thick the mosquitoes at Nice; how
sumptuous are the palaces, how narrow and dark the streets, and how pallid
the dames of Genoa; and how beautiful we found our path among the trees
overrun with vines as we approached southern Italy, are matters which I
will take some other opportunity of relating. On the 12th of September
our _vetturino_ set us down safe at the _Hotel de l'Europe_ in Florence.
I think I shall return to America even a better patriot than when I left
it. A citizen of the United States travelling on the continent of Europe,
finds the contrast between a government of power and a government of
opinion forced upon him at every step. He finds himself delayed at every
large town and at every frontier of a kingdom or principality, to submit
to a strict examination of the passport with which the jealousy of the
rulers of these countries has compelled him to furnish himself. He sees
everywhere guards and sentinels armed to the teeth, stationed in the midst
of a population engaged in their ordinary occupations in a time of
profound peace; and to supply the place of the young and robust thus
withdrawn from the labors of agriculture he beholds women performing the
work of the fields.
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