Here there is a good buffet, and a French breakfast ready for those who wish it.
And now farewell to fair Italia! Her loveliness of Nature and beautiful works of art; her magnificent Cathedrals and splendid Palaces; her treasure-filled galleries and wonderful museums; her noble monuments and queenly ruins--fit emblems of her glorious past; and to her generous and patriotic men and women a reluctant adieu and tender farewell.
Alas, that there should be any reverse to such a picture! that there should still linger in her churches and religious life the fluttering rays of a blighting superstition! that there should be a want of true modesty and cleanliness in the habits of her people! that an ignoble love of ease should still characterize her upper classes, while the lowest orders generally are steeped in ignorance and importunate mendicancy! and that enervating and dirty habits should be engendered in her people by their inveterate indulgence in the cheap wine and tobacco of the country!--though, in common fairness, I should add that it is as rare to see drunkenness in Italy as, unfortunately, it is common in our own country.
There are things in fair Italy, as doubtless there are in fair England, to which there is no reluctance on our part to bid adieu, and among them, to descend to smaller grievances, are the exorbitant hotel charges; disgusting railway station accommodation; and dirty railway carriages, owing chiefly to the national habit of persistent smoking, and the difficulty of keeping the smokers to their own compartments.
Yet with all these drawbacks, one cannot but feel that Italy is springing into a noble national life. I believe she has a great heart and a great future before her, which will prove worthy of her past nobility and glory, and of the generous sympathy felt for her--perhaps most unselfishly so by England. I think we are justified in feeling a greater sympathy for Italy than for France, for I believe she truly reciprocates it; while the French show towards us a dislike almost verging on jealous antipathy, while in themselves they are entirely given to frivolity and caprice--a hopeless scepticism and impudent immorality: their naturally great powers seem exclusively devoted to selfish objects, and the worship of Fashion and Pleasure!