The cabmen at our corner, lying in wait by scores for
the strangers whom it is their convention to suppose ignorant of their
want of a carriage, quarrelled rhythmically with one another; the
mendicants, lying everywhere in wait for charity, murmured a modulated
appeal; if you heard shouts or yells afar off they died upon your ear in
a strain of melody at the moment when they were lifted highest. I am
aware of seeming to burlesque the operatic fact which every one must
have noticed in Naples; and I will not say that the neglected or
affronted babe, or the trodden dog, is as tuneful as the midnight cat
there, but only that they approach it in the prevailing tendency of all
the local discords to soften and lose themselves in the general unison.
This embraces the clatter of the cabs, which are seldom less than fifty
years old, and of a looseness in all their joints responsive to their
effect of dusty decrepitude. Their clatter penetrates the volumed tread
of the myriad feet in a city where, if you did not see all sorts of
people driving, you would say the whole population walked.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70