They might be picturesque, but they weren't creditable; they gave
you the impression that the country was on the down grade. "You needn't
call my attention to any more of them, Augusta," he added; "but if you
see any building that looks like progress, now, anything that gives you
the idea of modern improvements inside, I shouldn't like to miss it."
And he returned to the thirty-second page of the Sunday _New York
World_.
"I sometimes wish," said momma, "that I were not the only person in this
family with the artistic temperament."
Sometimes we stopped at the little yellow towns and saw quite closely
their queer old defences and belfrys and clock towers, and guessed at
the pomegranates and oleanders behind their high courtyard walls. They
had musical names, even in the mouths of the railway guards, who sang
every one of them with a high note and a full octave on the syllable of
stress--"Rosign_a_no!" "Car_m_iglia!" The Senator was fascinated with
the spectacle of a railway guard who could express himself intelligibly,
to say nothing of the charm; he spoke of introducing the system in the
United States, but we tried it on "New York," "Washington," "Kansas
City," and it didn't seem the same.
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