It is impossible, without their
manners, to express their elegance, their superior delicacy, graceful
without diffusion, and terse without laconicism. You ask the way to the
town of a peasant girl, and she replies, "_Passato'l Ponte, o pur
barcato'l Fiume, eccola a Sienna_[AD]." And as we drove towards the city
in the evening, our postillion sung improviso verses on his sweetheart,
a widow who lived down at Pistoja, they told me. I was ashamed to think
that no desk or study was likely to have produced better on so trite a
subject. Candour must confess, however, that no thought was new, though
the language made them for a moment seem so.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AC: Being baptized as she is, we will leave her a Christian.]
[Footnote AD: The bridge once passed, or the river crossed, Sienna lies
before you.]
This town is neat and cleanly, and comfortable and airy. The prospect
from the public walks wants no beauty but water; and here is a
suppressed convent on the neighbouring hill, where we half-longed to
build a pretty cottage, as the ground is now to be disposed of vastly
cheap; and half one's work is already done in the apartments once
occupied by friars. With half a word's persuasion I should fix for life
here.
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