Morbid fleshliness is mark Of the modern (sham) Art-lover. Vulgar seems the soaring lark, Music (and meat) are in the plover. Painters once made pink the flesh Of their Titianesque creations; Caught in Sham's sepulchral mesh Art now raves of _Green_ Carnations! * * * * * FIRST IMPRESSIONS. [Illustration] _At Lugano._--Geographically this seems to be Italy. But people remind one always of the artificial frontier which makes it Switzerland. What's that matter? Get up early. Ha! there it is. Cloudless sky! And such a blue! Ultramarine at a guinea the thimbleful. Hurry down to enjoy its beauty as long as possible. Fortunate I did so, for by ten o'clock it has all vanished. Go up a hill. View from top would be fairly clear for Helvellyn. But for Italy! Amiable and chatty Italian reminds me that I am not in Italy. Ah, of course not. Will get there as soon as I can. Meanwhile mope in hotel, for it is now raining steadily. Not a magnificent mountain downpour, with thunder and lightning, howling of wind, crashing of elements, alarums and excursions, and that sort of thing; only a quiet, steady rain, which would be disliked even in Ambleside. But in Ambleside there would be a fire. Here I sit in a draughty, chilly corridor, with some melancholy Germans, all of us wearing overcoats indoors. They remind me that I am not in Italy. Anyone could see that. _At Pallanza._--Here on Lago Maggiore there must really be the ROWBOTHAM effects. My room looks over the lake. "_La vista è bellissima_," says the waiter in the evening. Hooray! Now to forget the gloom of Switzerland and England. Wake early. Misty morning. Good sign of fine weather probably. Into bed again. Wake again. Only half-past seven. Still misty. Into bed again. Wake once more. Still misty. Evidently quite early. Hullo! still half-past seven. Watch stopped. Ring. "_Si, Signore_," says the chambermaid, in the mixed dialect which she has invented for foreigners, "_il est dieci heures_." Ten! By Jove! With that fog? She assures me it will clear away, "_se non oggi, domani_." _Bellissima vista_ looks exactly like Derwentwater in rain. Grey water, grey sky, grey mountains, wreathed in grey mist. It does not clear to-day, so it may to-morrow.