So this old man had been there. And I remembered an expression in a book recently written by a friend of mine who, oddly enough, had encountered some of these very Italians in Zurich. He talks of its "horrible dead ordinariness"--some such phrase. [33] It is apt. Zurich: fearsome town! Its ugliness is of the active kind; it grips you by the throat and sits on your chest like a nightmare. I looked at the old fellow. He was sound; he had escaped the contagion. Those others, those many hundred thousand others in Switzerland and America--they can nevermore shake off the horrible dead ordinariness of that life among machines. Future generations will hardly recognise the Italian race from our descriptions. A new type is being formed, cold and loveless, with all the divinity drained out of them. Having a long walk before me and being due home for luncheon, I rose to depart, and in so doing bestowed a vigorous kick upon Barone, in order to test the truth of his master's theory. It worked. The glowering and snarling ceased. He was a good dog--almost human. I think, with a few more kicks, he might have grown quite friendly. Along that hot road the spectre of Zurich pursued me, in all its starkness. A land without atmosphere, and deficient in every element of the picturesque, whether of man or nature. Four harsh, dominant tones, which never overlap or intermingle: blue sky, white snow, black fir-woods, green fields, and, if you insist upon having a fifth, then take--yes, take and keep--that theatrical pink Alpenglühen which is turned on at fixed hours for the delectation of gaping tourists, like a tap of strontium light or the display of electric fluid at Schaffhausen Falls. "Did you observe the illumination of the Falls, sir, last night?" "How can one avoid seeing the beastly thing?" "Ah! Then we must add two francs to the bill." Many are the schools of art that have grown up in England and elsewhere and flourished side by side, vying with one another to express the protean graces of man, of architecture and domestic interior, of earth and sky and sea. Where is the Swiss school? Where, in any public gallery, will you find a masterpiece which triumphantly vindicates the charm of Swiss scenery? You will, find it vindicated only on condensed milk tins. These folks can write. My taste in lyrics may be peculiar, but I used to love my Leuthold--I wish I had him here at this moment; the bold strokes of Keller, the miniature work, the cameo-like touches, of C. F. Meyer--they can write! They would doubtless paint, were there anything to paint. Holbein: did the landscape of Switzerland seduce him? And Boecklin? He fled out of its welter of raw materialism. Even his Swiss landscapes are mediterraneanized. Boecklin----