This attack of nostalgia was probably largely due to atmospheric conditions, for at least one thunderstorm seems to have been a matter of daily occurrence. This, added to the noisome odors arising from the canals, affected his health, for he complains of feeling more unwell than at any time since he left home. It must, therefore, have been with no feelings of great regret that he packed his belongings and prepared to leave Venice with a companion, Mr. Ferguson, of Natchez, on the 18th of July. His objective point was Paris, but he planned to linger by the way and take a leisurely course through the Italian lake region, Switzerland, and Germany. The notebooks give a detailed but rather dry account of the daily happenings. It was, presumably, Morse's intention to elaborate these, at some future day, into a more entertaining record of his wanderings; but this was never done. I shall, therefore, pass on rapidly, touching but lightly on the incidents of the journey, which were, in the main, without special interest. The route lay through Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia to Milan. From Vicenza a side trip was made to the watering-place of Recoaro, where a few days were most delightfully spent in the company of the English consul at Venice, Mr. Money, and his family.
"Recoaro, like all watering-places, is beginning to be the resort of the fashionable world. The Grand Duchess of Tuscany is now here, and on Saturday the Vice-Queen of Italy is expected from Milan to visit her aunt, the Grand Duchess…. Towards evening parties of ladies and gentlemen are seen promenading or riding on donkeys along the brows of the mountains and among the trees, and many priests are seen disfiguring the landscape with their tasteless, uncouth dresses; most of them coming, I was informed on the best authority, for the purpose of gambling and dissipating that time of which, from the trifling nature of their duties and the almost countless increase of their numbers, they have so much to spare. Cards have the most fascination for them."
Another incident of the stay at Recoaro is worth recording. Referring to the family of Mr. Money, he says:—
"In the afternoon took an excursion on donkeys with the whole family among the wild and romantic scenery. In returning, while riding by the side of Mr. Money and in conversation with him, my donkey stumbled upon his knees and threw me over his head, without injury to me, but Mrs. Money, who was just before me, seeing the accident, was near fainting and, during the rest of the day, was invisible. I was somewhat surprised at the effect produced on her until I learned that the news of the loss of her son in India by a fall from his horse, which had recently reached her, had rendered her nerves peculiarly sensitive."
Two days later, however, he joined them in another excursion.
"On returning we stopped to take tea at Mrs. Ireland's lodgings, an English lady who is here with her two daughters, accomplished and highly agreeable people. I was told by them that after I left Rome a most diabolical attempt was made to poison the English artists who had made a party to Grotto Ferrata. They were mistaken by the persons who attempted the deed for Germans. They all became exceedingly ill immediately after dinner, and, as the wine was the only thing they had taken there, having brought their food with them, it was suspected and a strong solution of copper was proved to be in it. I was told that Messrs. Gibson and Desoulavy suffered a great deal, the latter being confined to his bed for three weeks. Had I been in Rome it is more than probable I should have been of their party, for I had never visited Grotto Ferrata, and the company of those with whom I had associated would have induced me to join them without a doubt."
Morse enjoyed his stay at Recoaro so much that he was persuaded by his hospitable friends to prolong his visit for a few days longer than he had planned, but, on July 27, he and his friend Mr. Ferguson bade adieu and proceeded on their journey. Verona and Brescia were visited and on July 29 they came to Milan. The cathedral he finds "a most gorgeous building, far exceeding my conception of it"; and of the beautiful street of the Corso Porta Orientale he says: "It is wider than Broadway and as superior as white marble palaces are to red brick houses. There is an opinion prevalent among some of our good citizens that Broadway is not only the longest and widest, but the most superbly built, street in the world. The sooner they are undeceived the better. Broadway is a beautiful street, a very beautiful street, but it is absurd to think that our brick houses of twenty-five feet front, with plain doors and windows, built by contract in two or three months, and holding together long enough to be let, can rival the spacious stone palaces of hundreds of feet in length, with lofty gates and balconied windows, and their foundations deeply laid and slowly constructed to last for ages." This was, of course, when Broadway even below Fourteenth Street, was a residence street.
Attending service in the cathedral on Sunday, and being, as usual, wearied by the monotony and apparent insincerity of it all, he again gives vent to his feelings:—
"How admirably contrived is every part of the structure of this system to take captive the imagination. It is a religion of the imagination; all the arts of the imagination are pressed into its service; architecture, painting, sculpture, music, have lent all their charm to enchant the senses and impose on the understanding by substituting for the solemn truths of God's Word, which are addressed to the understanding, the fictions of poetry and the delusions of feeling. The theatre is a daughter of this prolific mother of abominations, and a child worthy of its dam. The lessons of morality are pretended to be taught by both, and much in the same way, by scenic effect and pantomime, and the fruits are much the same.
"I am sometimes even constrained to doubt the lawfulness of my own art when I perceive its prostitution, were I not fully persuaded that the art itself, when used for its legitimate purposes, is one of the greatest correcters of grossness and promoters of refinement. I have been led, since I have been in Italy, to think much of the propriety of introducing pictures into churches in aid of devotion. I have certainly every inducement to decide in favor of the practice did I consult alone the seeming interest of art. That pictures may and do have the effect upon some rightly to raise the affections, I have no doubt, and, abstractly considered, the practice would not merely be harmless but useful; but, knowing that man is led astray by his imagination more than by any of his other faculties, I consider it so dangerous to his best interests that I had rather sacrifice the interests of the arts, if there is any collision, than run the risk of endangering those compared with which all others are not for a moment to be considered. But more of this another time."