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It may be because the intellect
finds a home there more than in any other spot in the world, and wins the
heart to stay with it, in spite of a good many things strewn all about to
disgust us.
The road in the earlier part of the way was not particularly
picturesque,--the country undulated, but scarcely rose into hills, and
was destitute of trees; there were a few shapeless ruins, too indistinct
for us to make out whether they were Roman or mediaeval. Nothing struck
one so much, in the forenoon, as the spectacle of a peasant-woman riding
on horseback as if she were a man. The houses were few, and those of a
dreary aspect, built of gray stone, and looking bare and desolate, with
not the slightest promise of comfort within doors. We passed two or
three locandas or inns, and finally came to the village (if village it
were, for I remember no houses except our osteria) of Castel Nuovo di
Porta, where we were to take a dejeuner a la fourchette, which was put
upon the table between twelve and one.


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