so primitive as that. You may have at any restaurant a smaller
morsel than an ox or even an ox's shoulder; and as to ladies' finery,
there is no _article de Paris_, no indispensable inutility, no
crinoline, hoop, or cage, of impossible materials, shape, and
dimensions, which you may not find under the Portici, or in Vianuova,
a facility of which the Turinese beauties give themselves the benefit
rather freely. What I meant to say, when I spoke of life on a broad,
homely scale, was simply this:--that in Turin, generally speaking, the
great art of putting the appearance in the place of the substance, and
juggling the principal under the accessories, has yet to be learned. If
you ask for a room, a dinner, a bath, they take you in good earnest,
and supply you with the genuine article. When I put up at the _Hotel de
Londres_, from which I am writing, I had to run no gantlet between a
double line of solemn-looking, white-cravated waiters; yet I have only
to ring my bell, to be attended to with promptitude, with zeal, nay,
_con amore_. My kind hostess, Signora Viarengo, does not wear a triple
or quadruple row of flounces, but looks after my wardrobe when I am out,
and, if anything wants mending, has it mended. The room which I occupy
is not furnished in a dashing style, nor has it a _parquet cire_, but it
is on the first floor, and thrice as large and lofty and half as dear as
that I had at Meurice's on the _quatrieme_; and a Titan might stretch
himself down at ease on the bed in which I sleep. The dining-room of the
hotel is not glittering with gilt stucco and chandeliers; but the dinner
served to me there (and served at any hour) is copious and first-rate,--
four dishes of _entremets_, butter, _salame_, celery, radishes, to whet
the appetite,--a soup,--a first course of three dishes, two of meat, one
of vegetables,--a second of three dishes, one of them a roasted fowl,
--salad, a sweet dish,--a mountain of Parmesan, or Gorgonzola, with
peaches, pears, and grapes, for dessert. Gargantua would cry for mercy.
For all this, and a bottle of wine, I pay three francs. For the bath
establishment, close by, I lack the satisfaction, it is true, of seeing
my revered image reproduced _ad infinitum_, by a vista of mirrors; but I
have a bathing-tub like a lake, and linen enough to dry a hippopotamus.
If I go to the theatre, (there are five open at this season, November,
without reckoning three or four minor ones: Italian opera at the
Nazion