Do not smile in any derision at the phrase, good reader; the words are classic by newspaper authority; and whatever popular preachers may aver to the contrary, we live in a most charming world, where singleness is blessed and marriage is happy, public speaking is always eloquent, and soldiery ever gallant. Still, even a sterner critic might have admitted that the epithet was not misapplied; for there are worse things in life than to be a viscount with a very beautiful wife, rolling pleasantly along the Via Mala on Collinge's best patent, with six smoking posters, on a bright day of November. This for his share; as to hers, I shall not speak of it. And yet, why should I not? Whatever may be the conflict in the close citadel of the heart, how much of pleasure is derivable from the mere aspect of a beautiful country as one drives rapidly along, swift enough to bring the changes of scene agreeably before the eye, and yet not too fast to admit of many a look at some spot especially beautiful. And then how charming to lose oneself in that-dreamland, where, peopling the landscape with figures of long, long ago, we too have our part, and ride forth at daybreak from some deep-vaulted portal in jingling mail, or gaze from some lone tower over the wide expanse that forms our baronial realm,—visions of ambition, fancies of a lowly, humble life, alternating as the rock-crowned castle or the sheltered cot succeed each other! And lastly, that strange, proud sentiment we feel as we sweep past town and village, where human life goes on in its accustomed track,—the crowd in the market-place, the little group around the inn, the heavy wagon unloading at the little quay, the children hastening on to school,—all these signs of a small, small world of its own, that we, in our greatness, are never again to gaze on, our higher destiny bearing us ever onward to grander and more pretentious scenes.
“And this is Italy?” said Lizzy, half aloud, as, emerging from the mists of the Higher Alps, the carriage wound its zigzag descent from the Splügen, little glimpses of the vast plain of Lombardy coming into view at each turn of the way, and then the picturesque outlines of old ruinous Chiavenna, its tumble-down houses, half hid in trellised vines, and farther on, again, the head of the Lake of Como, with its shores of rugged rock.
“Yes, and this miserable dog-hole here is called Campo Dolcino!” said Beecher, as he turned over the leaves of his “John Murray.” “That's the most remarkable thing about these Italians; they have such high-sounding names for everything, and we are fools enough to be taken in by the sound.”
“It is a delusion that we are rather disposed to indulge in, generally,” said Lizzy. “The words, 'your Majesty' or 'your Highness,' have their own magic in them, even when the representatives respond but little to the station.”
“It was your father, I fancy, taught you that lesson,” said he, peevishly.
“What lesson do you mean?”
“To hold people of high rank cheaply; to imagine that they must be all cheats and impositions.”
“No,” said she, calmly but resolutely. “If he taught me anything on this subject, it was to attribute to persons of exalted station very lofty qualities. What I have to fear is that my expectation will be far above the reality. I can imagine what they might be, but I 'm not so sure it is what I shall find them.”