It really seems as though some of these foreign cousins of ours endeavored to do things in the most difficult way.
ISCHIA
So waited I until it came—
God's daily miracle,—oh, shame
That I had seen so many days
Unthankful, without wondering praise.
Lowell, "At Sea," Fireside Travels.
CASAMICCIOLA:
What slaves of sentiment we mortals are! Here I am at Ischia again—Ischia that has been enshrined in our hearts for years! And yet it is not the enchanted island of our younger dreams.
Will the memory of that first visit ever be effaced? Can you not recall, as though it were yesterday, how our hearts beat when we found the invitation to dine at the old castello on a promontory of Ischia? How we donned our spotlessest white, and boarded one of the smaller craft that plies between the island towns! How we threaded our way through the myriad of boats which crowded the Bay of Naples! How fascinated we were with everything, from the fairyland of islands to the old captain who would lean far over the rail and scold at people coming to meet the boat, if they were late, and yet who would stop his boat anywhere to take them on board! How even the rain that threatened to undo our spotlessness seemed part of the scheme, and how, when the wind arose and the waves ran high, you declared we would not go ashore like the common herd! How, when we arrived at our destination, the young officer got the biggest, whitest and cleanest of the rowboats around to the sea-side of our ship, avoiding the crowd which was filling the boats on the other side.