tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have an international
reputation, so to speak. But above all, he was to have the horror, every
evening upon going to his room, of passing through those uniform and
desolate corridors, faintly lighted by gas, where before each door are
pairs of cosmopolitan shoes--heavy alpine shoes, filthy German boots, the
conjugal boots of my lord and my lady, which make one think, by their
size, of the troglodyte giants--awaiting, with a fatigued air, their
morning polish.

The imprudent Amedee was destined to all sorts of weariness, all sorts of
deceptions, and all the homesickness of a solitary traveller. At the
sight of the famous monuments and celebrated sites, which have become in
some way looked upon as models for painters and material for literary
development, Amedee felt that sensation of "already seen" which paralyzes
the faculty of admiration. Dare we say it? The dome in Milan, that
enormous quiver of white marble arrows, did not move him. He was
indifferent to the sublime medley of bronze in the Baptistery in
Florence; and the leaning tower at Pisa produced simply the effect of
mystification. He walked miles through the museums and silent galleries,
satiated with art and glutted with masterpieces. He was disgusted to
find that he could not tolerate a dozen "Adorations of the Shepherds," or
fourteen "Descents from the Cross," consecutively, even if they were
signed with the most glorious names. The scenes of suffering and
martyrdom, so many times repeated, were particularly distasteful to him;
and he took a still greater dislike even to a certain monk, always
represented on his knees in prayer with an axe sticking in his tonsure,
than to the everlasting St. Sebastian pierced with arrows. His deadened
and depraved attention discerned only the disagreeable and ugly side of a
work of art. In the adorable artless originals he could see only
childish and barbarous drawing, and he thought the old colorists' yolk-