The Innocents Abroad


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missed some pleasant faces which we would rather have found at dinner,  
and at night there were gaps in the euchre-parties which could not be  
satisfactorily filled. "Moult" was in England, Jack in Switzerland,  
Charley in Spain. Blucher was gone, none could tell where. But we were  
at sea again, and we had the stars and the ocean to look at, and plenty  
of room to meditate in.  
In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and as we stood gazing from  
the decks, early in the bright summer morning, the stately city of Genoa  
rose up out of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her hundred  
palaces.  
Here we rest for the present--or rather, here we have been trying to  
rest, for some little time, but we run about too much to accomplish a  
great deal in that line.  
I would like to remain here. I had rather not go any further. There may  
be prettier women in Europe, but I doubt it. The population of Genoa is  
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20,000; two-thirds of these are women, I think, and at least two-thirds  
of the women are beautiful. They are as dressy and as tasteful and as  
graceful as they could possibly be without being angels. However, angels  
are not very dressy, I believe. At least the angels in pictures are not  
--they wear nothing but wings. But these Genoese women do look so  
charming. Most of the young demoiselles are robed in a cloud of white  
from head to foot, though many trick themselves out more elaborately.  
Nine-tenths of them wear nothing on their heads but a filmy sort of veil,  
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Page
178 179 180 181 182

Quick Jump
1 187 374 560 747