millo Cavour, then Minister of the Interior, was the
only great statesman Italy ever produced in modern times. His premature
death is deplorably felt at the present day. He was a real genius, and
the most masterly act of his administration was that of sending an army
to act in concert with the French and English in the Crimean war. By it
he at once gave Italy the rank of an independent European power, which
was the first step towards Italian unity. He was delightful and cheerful
in society, and extremely beloved by his family and friends.

* * * * *

In spring we hired a villa on the Colline above Turin. The house was in
a garden, with a terrace, whence the ground sank rapidly to the plain;
low hills, clothed with chestnut forests, abounding in lilies of the
valley, surrounded us behind. The summer had been stormy, and one
evening we walked on the terrace to look at the lightning, which was
very fine, illuminating the chain of Alps. By-and-by it ceased, and the
darkness was intense; but we continued to walk, when, to our surprise, a
pale bluish light rose in the Val di Susa, which gradually spread along
the summit of the Alps, and the tops of the hills behind our house; then
a column of the same pale blue light, actually within our reach, came
curling up from the slope close to the terrace, exactly as if wet weeds
had been burning. In about ten minutes the whole vanished; but in less
than a quarter of an hour the phenomena were repeated exactly as
described, and were followed by a dark night and torrents of rain. It
was a very unusual instance of what is known as electric glow; that is,
electricity without tension.

On our road to Genoa, we went to see some kind Piedmontese friends, who
have a chateau in the Monferrat, not many miles from Asti, where we left
the railroad. We had not gone many miles when the carriage we had hired
was upset, and, although nobody had broken bones, I got so severe a blow
on my forehead that I was confined to bed for nearly a month, and my
face was black and blue for a much longer time. Nothing could equal the
unwearied kindness of our friends during my illness.

When I was able to travel, we went to Genoa for the winter, and lived on
the second floor of a large house on the Acqua Sola, and overlooking the
sea. Here first began our friendship with the Marchesa Teresa Doria,
whose maiden name was Durazzo; in her youth one of the handsomest women
in Genoa, a lady dist