On the other side lies spread the Adriatic, with Miramar, poor
Maximilian's home and hobby, lying on a rock projecting into the blue
water, and on the opposite coast are the Carnian Alps, capped with snow.
'Why we live so high up,' explained Captain Burton, 'is easily explained.
To begin with we are in good condition, and run up and down stairs like
squirrels. We live on the fourth story because there is no fifth. If
I had a _campagna_, and gardens and servants, and horses and carriages,
I should feel tied, weighed down in fact. With a flat and two or three
maid-servants one has only to lock the door and go. It feels like "light
marching order," as if we were always ready for an expedition; and it is
a comfortable place to some back to. Look at our land-and-sea-scape: we
have air, light, and tranquillity; no dust, no noise, no street smells.
Here my wife receives something like seventy very intimate friends every
Friday--an exercise of hospitality to which I have no objection save one,
and that is met by the height we live at. There is in every town a lot
of old women of both sexes, who sit for hours talking about the weather
and the scandal of the place and this contingent cannot face the stairs.'
. . .
"The _menage Burton_ is conducted on the early rising principle. About
four or five o'clock our hosts are astir, and already in their 'den,'
drinking tea made over a spirit-lamp, and eating bread and fruit, reading
and studying languages.
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