We have a notion in Ireland that the Italian lives on maccaroni; depend upon it, Tom, he seasons it with something better. In the little village beside me, there are three butchers' shops, and as the wealthy of the neighborhood all market at Como, these are the recourse of the poorer classes. Of wine he has abundance; and as to vegetables and fruits, the soil teems with them in a rich luxuriance of which I cannot give you a notion. Great barges pass my window every morning, with melons, cucumbers, and cauliflowers, piled up half-mast high. How a Dutch painter would revel in the picturesque profusion of grapes, peaches, figs, and apricots, heaped up amidst huge pumpkins of bursting ripeness, and those brilliant "love apples," the allusion to which was so costly to Mr. Pickwick. You are smacking your lips already at the bare idea of such an existence. Yes, Tom, you are reproaching Fate for not having "raised" you, as Jonathan says, on the right side of the Alps, and left you to the enjoyments of an easy life, with lax principles, little garments, and a fine climate. But let me tell you, Idleness is only a luxury WHERE OTHER PEOPLE ARE OBLIGED TO WORK; where every one indulges in it, it is worth nothing. I remember, when sitting listlessly on a river's bank, of a sunny day, listening to the hum of the bees, or watching the splash of a trout in the water, I used to hug myself in the notion of all the fellows that were screaming away their lungs in the Law Courts, or sitting upon tall stools in dark counting-houses, or poring over Blue-books in a committee-room, or maybe broiling on the banks of the Ganges; and then bethink me of the easy, careless, happy flow of my own existence. I was quite a philosopher in this way,--I despised riches, and smiled at all ambition. Now there is no such resources for me here. There are eight or nine fellows that pass the day--and the night also, I believe--under my window, that would beat me hollow in the art of doing nothing, and seem to understand it as a science besides. There they lie--and a nice group they are--on their backs, in the broiling sun; their red nightcaps drawn a little over their faces for shade; their brawny chests and sinewy limbs displayed, as if in derision of their laziness. The very squalor of their rags seems heightened by the tawdry pretension of a scarlet sash round the waist, or a gay flower stuck jauntily in a filthy bonnet. The very knife that stands half buried in the water-melon beside them has its significance,--you have but to glance at the shape to see that, like its owner, its purpose is an evil one. What do these fellows know of labor? Nothing; nor will they, ever, till condemned to it at the galleys. And what a contrast to all around them,--ragged, dirty, and wretched, in the midst of a teeming and glorious abundance; barbarous, in a land that breathes of the very highest civilization, and sunk in brutal ignorance, beside the greatest triumphs of human genius.