of grass-grown stones allowing less than space enough to embrace the
whole result of proportion and color: one cannot go far enough off to
escape details. An account of those details would require a volume, and
one has already been written which leaves no more to be said;[1] yet
fain would we take the reader with us into that noble nave, where the
"glorious company of the apostles" stands colossal in marble beside the
pillars whose sculptured capitals are like leafy branches blown by the
wind; where the light comes rich and mellow through stained glass and
semilucent alabaster, like Indian-summer sunshine in autumn woods; where
Fra Angelico's and Benozzo Gozzoli's angelic host smile upon us with
ineffable mildness from above the struggle and strife of Luca
Signorelli's "Last Judgment," the great forerunner of Michael Angelo's.
It added greatly to the impressiveness that there was never a single
human being in the cathedral: except one afternoon at vespers we had it
all to ourselves. There is little else to see in the place, although it
is highly picturesque and the inhabitants wear a more complete costume
than any other I saw in Italy--the women, bright bodices, striped skirts
and red stockings; the men, jaunty jackets and breeches, peaked hats and
splendid sashes.

The discomfort of Perugia was luxury to what we found at Orvieto, and it
was no longer May but December, when it is nearly as cold north of Rome
as with us; and Rome was drawing us with her mighty magnet. So, one
wintry morning, soon after daybreak, we set out in a close carriage with
four horses, wrapped as if we were going in a sleigh, with a
_scaldino_ (or little brazier) under our feet, for the nearest
railway station on our route, a nine hours' drive. Our way lay through
the snow-covered hills and their leafless forest, and long after we had
left Orvieto behind again and again a rise in the road would bring it
full in sight on its base of tufa, girt by its walls, the Gothic lines