Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/295

 then the lovely, softening effect of the years; the moss, the lichen; the endearing dilapidation! So many things appeal to your heart as you pass through Italy. Oh I don't know how to describe it; but luckily you've been here, and we generally feel things alike, you and I; so you'll know what I mean. Poor little pathetic houses, painted red, blue, or yellow! You laugh at them, and want to cry over them, and love them, too. And the reds, yellows, and blues are like no other reds, yellows, and blues in the world. Fancy, if we had houses like that in our new land! How frightful they would be! We would want the painters to be put in prison for their crime.

I can tell you this: That first day of ours was like hurrying through a whole gallery of Turner's paintings. I love Turner, and I often wonder if my world isn't as different from many people's old grey worlds as his was!

Another thing, we had become phenomenal. That is, we were in a motor-car-less region. Ours was the only car, whereas on the other side of Mentone we met a rival every ten minutes. I do get cause and effect so mixed up. Aren't there many automobiles in Italy because there are such lots of places where you can't buy petrol; or can't you buy petrol because people won't go in automobiles?

We went flashing along past pretty little Ospedaletti, with its big white casino, and into gay and colourful San Remo, where we bought inferior petrol and paid twice as much for it as in France. I wonder if any small watering-place ever had as many attractive-looking hotels in it as San Remo? If I