for this purpose centuries ago. So nothing but
the mere workmanship costs; still that is expensive
—the bill foots up six hundred and eighty-four
millions of francs thus far (considerably over a hundred
millions of dollars,) and it is estimated that it
will take a hundred and twenty years yet to finish
the cathedral. It looks complete, but is far
from being so. We saw a new statue put in its
niche yesterday, alongside of one which had been standing
these four hundred years, they said. There are
four staircases leading up to the main steeple, each
of which cost a hundred thousand dollars, with the
four hundred and eight statues which adorn them.
Marco Compioni was the architect who designed the
wonderful structure more than five hundred years ago,
and it took him forty-six years to work out the plan
and get it ready to hand over to the builders.
He is dead now. The building was begun a little
less than five hundred years ago, and the third generation
hence will not see it completed.
The building looks best by moonlight, because the
older portions of it, being stained with age, contrast
unpleasantly with the newer and whiter portions.
It seems somewhat too broad for its height, but may
be familiarity with it might dissipate this impression.
They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only
to St. Peter’s at Rome. I cannot understand
how it can be second to anything made by human hands.
We bid it good-bye, now—possibly for all
time. How surely, in some future day, when the
memory of it shall have lost its vividness, shall we
half believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream,
but never with waking eyes!
“Do you wis zo haut can be?”
That was what the guide asked when we were looking
up at the bronze horses on the Arch of Peace.
It meant, do you wish to go up there? I give
it as a specimen of guide-English. These are
the people that make life a burthen to the tourist.
Their tongues are never still. They talk forever
and forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they
use. Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend
them. If they would only show you a masterpiece
of art, or a venerable tomb, or a prison-house, or
a battle-field, hallowed by touching memories or historical
reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step
aside and hold still for ten minutes and let you think,
it would not be so bad. But they interrupt every
dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their
tiresome cackling. Sometimes when I have been
standing before some cherished old idol of mine that
I remembered years and years ago in pictures in the
geography at school, I have thought I would give a
whole world if the human parrot at my side would suddenly
perish where he stood and leave me to gaze, and ponder,
and worship.
No, we did not “wis zo haut can be.”
We wished to go to La Scala, the largest theater
in the world, I think they call it. We did so.
It was a large place. Seven separate and distinct
masses of humanity—six great circles and
a monster parquette.
