Then there was
another which I noticed the first day I landed, more than twenty
years since, and whose song descended by very nearly perfect
semitones as follows:-
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
but the semitones are here and there in this bird's song a trifle
out of tune, whereas in that of the other there was no departure
from the diatonic scale. Be this, however, as it may, none of
these please me so much as the passero solitario.
The only mammals that I can call to mind at this moment as showing
any even apparent approach to an appreciation of the diatonic scale
are the elephant and the rhinoceros. The braying (or whatever is
the technical term for it) of an elephant comprises a pretty
accurate third, and is of a rich mellow tone with a good deal of
brass in it. The rhinoceros grunts a good fourth, beginning, we
will say, on C, and dropping correctly on to the G below.
The Monte Generoso, then, is a good place to stay a few days at,
but one soon comes to an end of it. The top of a mountain is like
an island in the air, one is cooped up upon it unless one descends;
in the case of the Monte Generoso there is the view of the lake of
Lugano, the walk to the Colma, the walk along the crest of the hill
by the farm, and the view over Lombardy, and that is all. If one
goes far down one is haunted by the recollection that when one is
tired in the evening one will have all one's climbing to do, and,
beautiful as the upper parts of the Monte Generoso are, there is
little for a painter there except to study cattle, goats, and
clouds.
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