.
Barrymore's help, I could trace one line of fortification after another,
from the earliest Roman, through Charlemagne and the Scaligers, down to
the modern Austrian.

No wonder that Verona was the first halting-place for the tribes of
Germans, pouring down from their cold forests in the north to cross the
Alps and rejoice in the sunshine of Italy! For Verona's nearness to the
north and her striking difference to the north impressed me sharply, as
a black line of shadow is cut out by the sun. Up a gap in the dark
barrier of mountains I gazed where Mr. Barrymore pointed, towards the
great Brenner Pass, leading straight to Innsbruck through Tyrol. How
close the northern nations lay, yet in the warm Italian brightness how
far away they seemed.

But soon Verona disappeared, and we were speeding along a level road
with far-off purple peaks upon our left, and away in front some floating
blue shapes which it thrilled me to hear were actually the Euganean
Hills. The Chauffeulier set them to music by quoting from Shelley's
"Lines Written in Dejection in the Euganean Hills"--a sweet
old-fashioned title of other days, and words so beautiful that for a
moment I was depressed in sympathy--though I couldn't help feeling that
_I_ should be happy in the Euganean Hills. They called across the plain
with siren voices, asking me to come and explore their fastnesses of
blue and gold, but Aunt Kathryn couldn't understand why. "They're not
half so imposing as lots of mountains we've passed," she said. "And
anyway, I think the beauty of mountains is overestimated. What are they
to admire so much, anyhow, when you think of it, more than flat places?
They are only great lumps at best."

"Well," replied Sir Ralph, "if it comes to that, what's the sea but a
big wet thing?"

"And what are people but a kind of superior ant, and the grandest
palaces but big anthills?" Beechy chimed in. "I've often thought,
supposing there were--well, Things, between gods and men, living here
somewhere, invisible to us as we are to lots of little creatures, what
kind of an idea _would_ They get of us and our ways? They'd be always
spying on us, of course, and making scientific observations, as we do on
insects. I used to believe in Them, and be awfully afraid, when I was
younger, because I used to think all the accidents and bad things that
happened might be due to Their experiments. You see They'd be wondering
why we did certain things; why lots of us all run