The Duomo of Milan is like no other building in the world, it belongs to no distinct style of architecture, and in art it had neither parents nor children. Nothing was ever built like it before, and nothing will ever be built like it again. We do not say that it is the most beautiful church ever built, nor do we deny that, architecturally speaking, it possesses many grave faults, but what we mean is this: Of all other churches we say they are built in such and such a style, or are of such and such an order of architecture. But of this we say simply, it is the Duomo of Milan. When this vast structure, with its countless pinnacles of pure white marble glittering in the sun, and backed-up by a dark blue sky, breaks upon our astonished gaze, the mind is absorbed with wonder. Is it a vision? What have we seen before like it—possibly only one thing—the snow-clad peaks of the Alps. One cannot get rid of the notion that some kind of relationship exists between the two. We begin almost to suspect that some mighty Alp, with its snow-clad peaks, must have been its mother—so much is it like the kind of architecture that would have sprung from the mountains. It was after leaving the Duomo that the two bachelors had their first quarrel. This is how it came about:—The older bachelor, who is impressionable and of a poetical and non-technical turn of mind, enjoys an undisturbed first sight of a magnificent building, without first of all inquiring into its structural and architectural details; and if there is one thing more than another which annoys him, it is to have the “dry bones” of workmanship dinned into his ears and thrust before his mental vision when the complete building should rather impress on him all that it has to say of great achievement and power. Now the younger bachelor is technical and fond of dates, so seized the opportunity of showing off his knowledge of history and archæology at the very moment when his friend was first gazing at the religious splendour of the interior of the cathedral. This made No. 2 insist on a judicial separation, at any rate for the first hour, so the greater part of the building was explored in “single blessedness.” The quarrel, postponed, of course, until we had left the Duomo, was happily of short duration, and the two bachelors compared notes, and came to the conclusion that, after all, more permanent unity is created by contradictory temperaments. Whether this would apply in the case of man and wife they unfortunately could offer no opinion founded on experience, so they wended their way through some very narrow, uninteresting streets to the church of St. Ambrose, at the west of the city.