Out of the world.”
Looking from one of these bridges on the proud, powerful, self-sufficient city, Wordsworth was once moved to exclaim that “earth has not anything to show more fair.” Certainly it has few things to show more stirring and impressive, few to move the heart more profoundly, few that in achievement, resourcefulness, and power embody more completely to men of to-day
“The grandeur that was Rome.”
NAPLES
8 P.M. TO 9 P.M.
Drifting lazily of a summer evening over the Bay of Naples in a brown old fishing felucca with a friendly ancient boatman for companion, careless of time or direction; the night winds soft; the moon clear; indolent boating-parties in joyous relaxation all about; languorous, plaintive songs of Italy near by and far away; Vesuvius glorious and mysterious in the purple offing, and the gray old city, touched with silver, beaming down from all her crescent hillsides,—here, indeed, is the stuff of which day dreams are compounded! Chimes in shadowy belfries take soft, musical notice of the hour; and my thoughts recede with those fading echoes and retrace the bright and pleasant stages that have led me this evening into an environment of such charm and romance.
Thus, then, it was. Two hours ago, as I loitered along the crowded Via Caracciolo on the Bay front and watched Neapolitan Fashion take the air, I again encountered my Old Man of the Sea at his landing-place,—swarthy, wrinkled Luigi of the hoop earrings and faded blue trousers rolled to the knees. Little was he bothering his grizzled head over the frivolity that fluttered above him; and yet it was, in fact, a charming show. Old Luigi makes a mistake, in my opinion, in ignoring the elegant passeggiata; for afternoon promenading on the Caracciolo is something that most of Naples will do more than lift its head to see. Besides, what an attractive setting it has! The boasted park, the Villa Nazionale, arrays the western front in a pleasant old woods of broad and shady trees, along the water side of which stretches the handsome boulevard of the Caracciolo. The distinguishing mark is thus supplied to divide society between the carriage set who hector it here and along the Villa’s winding drives, and those lesser lights who venture to raise their heads secure from snubs in the promenading spaces under the trees and before the cafés and bandstand. With the latter, as the elders salute friends, renew acquaintances, and exchange civilities with jubilant exclamations, delighted shrugs, and storms of exultant gestures, the younger men, in flannel suits and foppish canes, flirt desperately by twirling their waxed little mustaches, and the snappy-eyed signorinas respond in kind by a subtle and discrete use of the fan. The contemplative promenader will stroll along the cool, statue-lined allées, issuing forth from time to time to enjoy the brisk music of the band. The hardened idler will take a mean delight in penetrating the retired and romantic retreats in the neighborhood of the Pæstum Fountain and thus arousing whole coveys of indignant lovers who have regarded this region as peculiarly their own from time immemorial; in the event of threatened reprisals the disturber can seek sanctuary in the renowned Aquarium, just at hand, and there spend his time to better advantage in contemplating octopi and sensitive plants, and all sorts of astonishing fishes. But the real show, of course, is en voiture. With a clatter and dash along they come: The jeunesse dorée, with straw hats cocked rakishly, shouting loudly to their horses and sawing desperately on the reins; young beauties in the latest word of milliner and modiste loll back in handsome victorias, reveling in the sensation they are creating, and with great black eyes flashing in curious contrast to the studied placidity of their quiet faces; consequential senators down from Rome; fat merchants trying to appear at ease; and all the usual remnants of the fashionable rout. On the wide sidewalks the promenaders proceed leisurely and with more good-humored democracy: prim little girls with governesses; romping schoolboys in caps of all colors; back-robed students; long-haired artisti; and priests by the score strolling sedately and gesturing earnestly with dark, nervous hands.
To all this brave parade Luigi turns a blind eye and a deaf ear; but he always manages to see me, I have noticed. This afternoon his programme was the attractive one of a sail down to the Cape of Posilipo for a fish-dinner at a rustic little ristoranti, with the table to be spread under a chestnut-tree on a weathered stone terrace at the water’s edge where the spray from an occasional wave-top could spatter the cloth and I might fleck the ashes of my cigar straight down into the Bay. This old fellow can interest any one, I believe, when he wrinkles up into his insinuating and enthusiastic grin and plays that trump card, “And after dinner, if the signore wish, we can drift about the Bay or sail over toward Capri and Sorrento.” Naturally, this is my cue to enter. Into the boat I go; off come hat, coat, collar, and tie, and up go sleeves to the shoulder. I am allowed the tiller, and the genial old fisherman stretches at his ease beside the slanting mast and lights a long, black, quill-stemmed cheroot. Now for comfort and romance and all the delights of Buchanan Read’s inspired vision:
“I heed not if