for this purpose centuries ago.  So nothing but the mere workmanship costs; still that is expensive —­the bill foots up six hundred and eighty-four millions of francs thus far (considerably over a hundred millions of dollars,) and it is estimated that it will take a hundred and twenty years yet to finish the cathedral.  It looks complete, but is far from being so.  We saw a new statue put in its niche yesterday, alongside of one which had been standing these four hundred years, they said.  There are four staircases leading up to the main steeple, each of which cost a hundred thousand dollars, with the four hundred and eight statues which adorn them.  Marco Compioni was the architect who designed the wonderful structure more than five hundred years ago, and it took him forty-six years to work out the plan and get it ready to hand over to the builders.  He is dead now.  The building was begun a little less than five hundred years ago, and the third generation hence will not see it completed.

The building looks best by moonlight, because the older portions of it, being stained with age, contrast unpleasantly with the newer and whiter portions.  It seems somewhat too broad for its height, but may be familiarity with it might dissipate this impression.

They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter’s at Rome.  I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands.

We bid it good-bye, now—­possibly for all time.  How surely, in some future day, when the memory of it shall have lost its vividness, shall we half believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream, but never with waking eyes!

CHAPTER XIX.

“Do you wis zo haut can be?”

That was what the guide asked when we were looking up at the bronze horses on the Arch of Peace.  It meant, do you wish to go up there?  I give it as a specimen of guide-English.  These are the people that make life a burthen to the tourist.  Their tongues are never still.  They talk forever and forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they use.  Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them.  If they would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a venerable tomb, or a prison-house, or a battle-field, hallowed by touching memories or historical reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step aside and hold still for ten minutes and let you think, it would not be so bad.  But they interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling.  Sometimes when I have been standing before some cherished old idol of mine that I remembered years and years ago in pictures in the geography at school, I have thought I would give a whole world if the human parrot at my side would suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to gaze, and ponder, and worship.

No, we did not “wis zo haut can be.”  We wished to go to La Scala, the largest theater in the world, I think they call it.  We did so.  It was a large place.  Seven separate and distinct masses of humanity—­six great circles and a monster parquette.