Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers
John Stuart Mill · en
A burial–place such as this would at home cost such an enormous amount
of money as practically to remove from our thoughts the possibility
of erecting it. I presume it is only possible in Italy from the
circumstance that the sculptor’s occupation is more common, and is less
handsomely remunerated; but much also is due to the proximity of the
material, and to an appreciation on the part of the public of the forms
of high art. In regarding this wonderful enclosure, a mingled feeling
will in many minds arise; for its solemn impressiveness, its silent
grandeur, its touching monuments and bas–reliefs, its very unadorned
inscriptions, carry us away in thought and sympathy to sad scenes of
death and sorrow; while the brightness and purity, and the exquisite
forms and seraphic tranquillity of the sculptured white marble, point
to that beatific life beyond the tomb, where all is bright and pure
and exceeding lovely—where the spirits of just men made perfect, in
serene, undisturbed calm, dwell for ever in the rapture of heavenly
joy, and, arrayed in the beauty of holiness, are surpassing glad
amidst the burning thrill of boundless love and the celestial beams of
ineffable glory, and the sweet music of angel song—for, they stand in
the presence of GOD.
XI.
_SPEZIA, PISA, SIENNA._
WE had to hurry away from the Campo Santo to get money changed, prepare
for travelling, and be in time for the train at half–past one. When
we reached the hotel, we found there were about forty leaving by the
same train. We were therefore advised to take the first omnibus, but
it involved waiting an hour in the cold _salle–d’attente_ at the
station. I had taken at Nice, Cook’s tickets from Genoa to Rome, with a
potentiality of stopping at three places by the way; so that all I had
to do was to get the tickets marked for Spezia, our first stoppage, and
stamped for the commencement of the journey, and to get luggage weighed
and paid for. The trouble saved by taking these tickets was, I found,
so insignificant that I never afterwards procured them.
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