Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/143

 "Let us hope so; but in all public works our taste already is gone. One may say, without vanity, that in full sense of beauty and of proportion, Italy surpassed of old all the world: how is it, I often ask myself, that we have lost so much of this? Here in Floralia, if we require gas-works we erect their chimneys on the very bank of our river, ruining one of the loveliest views in the world, and one that has been a tradition of beauty for ages. If it be deemed necessary to break down and widen our picturesque old bridges, we render them hideous as any railway road, by hedging them with frightful monotonous parapets of cast-iron, the heaviest, most soulless, most hateful thing that is manufactured. Do we make a fine hill-drive, costing us enormously, when we have no money to pay for it, we make one, indeed, as fine as any in Europe; and having made it, then we ruin it by planting at every step cafes, and guinguettes, and guard houses, and every artificial abomination and vulgarity in stucco and brick-work that can render its noble scenery ridiculous. Do we deem it advisable, for sanitary or other