It is so in much of Genoa,
where the precipitous nature of the site makes this vivid contrast
between the levels of the front door and the back gate. Many of the
streets have been widened since Heine saw the gossiping neighbors
touching knees across them, but nothing less than an earthquake could
change the temperamental topography of the place. It has its advantages;
when there is a ring at the door the housemaid, instead of panting up
from the kitchen to answer it, has merely to fall down five pairs of
stairs. It cannot he denied, either, that the steep incline gives a
charm to the streets which overcome it with sidewalks and driveways and
trolley-tracks. Such a street as the Via Garibaldi (there is a Via
Garibaldi in every Italian city, town, and village, and ought to be a
dozen), compactly built, but giving here and there over the houses'
shoulders glimpses of the gardens lurking behind them, is of a dignity
full of the energy which a flat thoroughfare never displays or imparts.
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