VI. SCHAFFHAUSEN AND MILAN 107

design and distribution of store-cellars under the seats, secret drawers under front windows, invisible pockets under padded lining, safe from dust, and accessible only by insidious slits, or necromantic valves like Aladdin’s trap-door; the fitting of cushions where they would not slip, the rounding of corners for more delicate repose; the prudent attachments and springs of blinds; the perfect fitting of windows, on which one-half the comfort of a travelling carriage really depends; and the adaptation of all these concentrated luxuries to the probabilities of who would sit where, in the little apartment which was to be virtually one’s home for five or six months;-all this was an imaginary journey in itself, with every pleasure, and none of the discomfort, of practical travelling.

124. On the grand occasion of our first continental journey-which was meant to be half a year long-the carriage was chosen with, or in addition fitted with, a front seat outside for my father and Mary, a dickey, unusually large, for Anne and the courier, and four inside seats, though those in front very small, that papa and Mary might be received inside in stress of weather.¹ I recollect, when we had finally settled which carriage we would have, the polite Mr. Hopkinson, advised of my dawning literary reputation, asking me (to the joy of my father) if I could translate the motto of the former possessor, under his painted arms,--“Vix ea nostra voco,”²-which I accomplishing successfully, farther wittily observed that however by right belonging to the former possessor, the motto was with greater propriety applicable to us.

125. For a family carriage of this solid construction, with its luggage, and load of six or more persons, four

¹ [A drawing of the “Interior of Mr. Hopkinson’s carriage,” done by Ruskin in 1835, was No. 26 in the Exhibition at Coniston, 1900; it was lent by Mr. Bolding, son of Mary Richardson.]

² [Ovid’s Metamorphoses, xiii. 140:-

“Nam genus, et proavos, et quć non fecimus ipsi,

Vix ea nostra voco”-

the motto of the Duke of Argyll (as Lord Sundridge), of the Earl of Warwick, and of other families. Ruskin would have known it from Waverley, ch. x.]

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