To most travellers a visit to Asisi is a flying visit. They drive over
from Perugia or up from the railway station, and if, besides San
Francesco and Santa Chiara, they see the cathedral and San Damiano,
they believe themselves to have exhausted the sights of the town. The
beautiful front of what was once a temple of Minerva can be seen in
passing through the piazza in which it stands: the departing visitors
glance back at the city from the plain, and--"Buona notte, Asisi!"

Yet this town, as well as most Italian _paesi_, would reward a more
lengthened stay, and, unlike many of them, a refined life is possible
here. A person at once studiously and economically inclined might do
much worse than commit himself to spend several months in the city of
St. Francis. We did so last year, on the same principle that made us in
childhood prefer the cherries that the birds had pecked, finding them
the sweetest. We had heard Asisi abused: it was out of the world, it
was desperately dull and there was nothing to eat. We therefore sent
and engaged an apartment for the summer, and our confidence was not
betrayed.

Perhaps the hotels are not good: we have never tried them. But the
market is excellent for a mountain-city, and in the autumn figs and
grapes are cheap and abundant. There are apartments to be let, and
servants to be had who, with a little instruction, soon learn to cook
in a civilized manner.

We have a fancy that there is a different moral atmosphere in a town
surrounded by olive trees and one set in vineyards, the former being
more sober and reserved, the latter more joyous and expansive. The
latter may, indeed, carry its spirit too far--like the little city of