Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

AN ORIGINAL ORDERLY. 28 1
Acquire a high position among servantes, and Succor parents and
brothers, and Worthily educate his children. To the memory of
his excellent father is This book dedicated by The author
Antonio Tranci, instead of Michael Lessona. On another page :
To Pietro Tranci my Father Who in announcing
to the Subalpine
Parliament The disaster of Novara Fell fainting to the
And died within a few days I Consecrate this Poem, etc.
floor,
Farther down : At Cagliari (instead of Trent) Not yet represented
in the Italian Parliament, etc., Antonio Franci, instead
of Giovanni Prati, etc
That which most surprised me in him (for he had seen nothing)
was an absolute lack of the sentiment of surprise at any
thing, no matter how extraordinary, which he might see.
witnessed, while in Florence, the fetes attendant upon the marriage
of Prince Humbert saw the ; opera and ball at the Pergola
(he had never seen a theatre) ;
saw the carnival fetes and
the fancy illumination of the Viale dei Colli ; saw, in fact, a
hundred new things which ought to have astonished, amused,
and made him talk, but there was nothing of the kind. His
admiration never went beyond his usual formula " It : is not
bad." Santa Maria del Fiore. . . . it is not bad ;
Giotto's
Tower. . . . not bad ;
the Pitti Palace. . . . not
bad. I firmly believe that if the good Lord himself should
have asked him in propria persona what he thought of the
Creation, he would have replied that it was n't bad.
From the first to the last day that he remained with me, he
was always in the same humor, half serious, half gay he was
;
always docile, always dazed, always punctual in misunderstanding
things, and ever immersed in a beatific apathy, and ever
extravagant in a certain way. The day upon which he re-
He