They who could look up
from the dizzy, frivolous life below saw far, far above them, in the
blue Italian air, thousands of glorified saints standing on a thousand
airy points of brilliant whiteness, ever solemnly adoring. The marble
which below was somewhat touched and soiled with the dust of the street
seemed gradually to refine and brighten as it rose into the pure regions
of the air, till at last in those thousand distant pinnacles it had the
ethereal translucence of wintry frost-work, and now began to glow with
the violet and rose hues of evening, in solemn splendor.
The ducal cortege sweeps by; but we have mounted the dizzy, dark
staircase that leads to the roof, where, amid the bustling life of the
city, there is a promenade of still and wondrous solitude. One seems to
have ascended in those few moments far beyond the tumult and dust of
earthly things, to the silence, the clearness, the tranquillity of
ethereal regions. The noise of the rushing tides of life below rises
only in a soft and distant murmur; while around, in the wide, clear
distance, is spread a prospect which has not on earth its like or its
equal. The beautiful plains of Lombardy lie beneath like a map, and the
northern horizon-line is glittering with the entire sweep of the Alps,
like a solemn senate of archangels with diamond mail and glittering
crowns. Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa with his countenance of light, the
Jungfrau and all the weird brothers of the Oberland, rise one after
another to the delighted gaze, and the range of the Tyrol melts far off
into the blue of the sky.
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