around the interior by a sacristan who desired us to note that the
pillars were "All inlady, all inlady" with different marbles, and, after
a chilly moment in San Lorenzo, which the worshippers and the masons
were sharing between them in the prayers and repairs always going on in
cathedrals, we drove for luncheon to the hotel where we had sojourned in
great comfort three years before. Genoa has rather a bad name for its
hotels, but we had found this one charming, perhaps because when we had
objected to going five flights up the landlord had led us yet a floor
higher, that we might walk into the garden. It is so in much of Genoa,
where the precipitous nature of the site makes this vivid contrast
between the levels of the front door and the back gate. Many of the
streets have been widened since Heine saw the gossiping neighbors
touching knees across them, but nothing less than an earthquake could
change the temperamental topography of the place. It has its advantages;
when there is a ring at the door the housemaid, instead of panting up
from the kitchen to answer it, has merely to fall down five pairs of
stairs. It cannot he denied, either, that the steep incline gives a
charm to the streets which overcome it with sidewalks and driveways and
trolley-tracks. Such a street as the Via Garibaldi (there is a Via
Garibaldi in every Italian city, town, and village, and ought to be a
dozen), compactly built, but giving here and there over the houses'
shoulders glimpses of the gardens lurking behind them, is of a dignity
full of the energy which a flat thoroughfare never displays or imparts.
Without the inspiration lent us by the street, I am sure we should never
have got to the top of it with our cab when we went to the Campo Santo;
and, as it was, we had to help our horses upward by involuntarily
straining forward from our places. But the Campo Santo was richly worth
the effort, for to visit that famous cemetery is to enjoy an experience
of which it is the unique opportunity.