Going further south, a stage further is reached in crude externality of vision. People of the South are the only born realists. To them that comes natural which in others is either affectation or the fruits of what the French call l'amour du laid—a morbid love of the hideous, such as marred the fine genius of Baudelaire. At Naples death is a matter of corruption naked in the sunlight. When the Neapolitan takes his mandoline amongst the tombs he unveils their sorry secrets, not because he gloats over them, but because the habit of a reserve of speech is entirely undeveloped in him. He dares to sing thus of his lost love—
Her lattice ever lit no light displays.
My Nella! can it be that you are ill?
Her sister from the window looks and says:
"Your Nella in the grave lies cold and still.
Ofttimes she wept to waste her life unwed,
And now, poor child, she sleeps beside the dead."
Go to the church and lift the winding-sheet,
Gaze on my Nella's face—how changed, alas!
See 'twixt those lips whence issued flowers so sweet