Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/434

450 Superga, may be seen the union of the river Dorariparia, with the Po, which now, with majestic force, speeds along over the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy. The Po has the dignity and the aspect of the great river. This point—that of the large bridge over the river—is the most beautiful I have yet discovered in Turin, which, for the rest, seems to me to be a city of but little architectural interest, and which has something of the American city's wearisome regularity. Streets cross one another in all directions, at right angles. One sees on all hands, handsome houses and outward prosperity. Beggars slink away ashamed into the twilight. Gens-d'armes march proudly along the streets, which are broad and stiff, multitudinous and long.

I have been told that Turin is not a perfectly Italian city, and that it does not possess a perfectly Italian life. Yet one sees bare-headed and bare-footed monks wandering along the streets, also great numbers of priests with broad hats and small legs. Here and there one sees a little girl with castanettes dancing cachuca to a circle of spectators, and another circle gathered round a comic female singer who is very bold in her behavior to the bystanders. Life exhibits itself in forms of bright contrast, and is not afraid of so exhibiting itself. This is the manner of the southern people. But without regarding the question of how much or how little of the theatrical life of Italy is possessed by Turin, I will speak of that which Turin, of that which Piedmont possesses at the present time of distinctive peculiar life, and which the rest of Italy has—not that life, by means of which, the state