Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/258



Where men’s wants are few and easily supplied, where a benignant climate clothes the earth in abundance, and nature is the indulgent mother instead of the stern overseer of our species, men have leisure, and, if they are idle, they become vicious. The air of Rome inspires lassitude, and renders the inhabitants inert. The Romans who live in the healthy parts of the city are all inclined to grow fat; their language, unidiomatic, and, so to speak, long-winded in its expressions, is pronounced with a grace of accent, a slow and melodious emphasis, that renders it more agreeable than any other Italian to the ears of strangers, and is strangely in harmony with the dreamy contentment of their minds. Accustomed to receive and to gain by foreigners, they are courteous, amiable, and ready to serve; there is among them an air of easy indolence, which, though it militates against our notions of manly energy, yet is never brutalized into stupidity. The women are among the most beautiful of the Italians. You feel as if all lived under a spell; and so they do; for, troubled and unquiet as is the rest of the papal dominions, Rome and its