But Naples is a lovely city, reposing serenely on one of the world’s most beautiful bays, surrounded by the most perfect ruins of the everyday life of the ancient world, but far enough off from the fiery mountain which first wrought their ruin and then preserved them, (hermetically sealed in lava, for the delight of people born two thousand years later,) to regard it as a mere incident in the landscape, or a curio for the amusement of the citizens and the attraction of strangers.
Marvellous is the atmosphere in which Naples lives her lotus life: the blueness of the sky and sea are proverbial; there are hills for breezy villas, and mountains for sanatoriums all round; soft warm sea to bathe in, medicinal springs to drink; and a soil that would grow anything, to provide wine and oil and corn and fruit. While from the other side of the lofty range of mountains, which guards her health from the malaria, stretches the vast meadow between the Apennines and the sea, where countless flocks and herds wander round the eternal Temples of Paestum.
Yes, Naples is a Delilah—a beautiful creature without morals, without chasteness, without honour, but capable of forgetting herself in soft love—a creature that loves banqueting and excitement and lights and music and flowers—a creature, in fact, typified by the merry music which her light-hearted beggars play in her streets. And as Naples is, so is her territory, except the grim Calabria, which saved her in her hour of need.
But very different is Sicily, the beautiful slave, darkest of the daughters of Europe, who has worn the fetters of one master after another, sometimes after desperate resistance, sometimes with calm submission to the inevitable, but always with deep black hatred in her heart.
You can hardly be an hour in Sicily without feeling that you are among a nation suffering from ancient and incurable wrongs. There is something in the very physiognomy of the Sicilians which suggests a spirit brooding over the national curse.
The Sicilians are not courageous, but they are desperate. The regiment of Highlanders which carried the day on the Heights of Abraham, and so won Quebec and won Canada, could defeat the whole population of Sicily on a level plain. But the knowledge that they have this power, and that their vengeance would come like an act of God on the following day, would not deter a Sicilian from slaughtering stragglers. An army of Sicilians would not stand for a moment against the vehement bayonets and claymores; but the Sicilian will always strike when he has the power, undeterred by consequences.
And no less contrasted than kingdom with kingdom and people with people, is capital with capital. There is no light-hearted music in Palermo streets, save that which comes from Naples. And the Sicilian is too grave and dignified to chaffer or to make himself cheap or dear. And with the Sicilian Delilah the story is not one of banqueting and music, but one of wild passion and desperate to-morrows.
It is not often that I find myself thinking such fine thoughts as these; but I own that I was amazingly impressed by the difference that the short sail between Naples and Palermo made in the atmosphere of the Court and the temperament of the Admiral. In fact, his whole nature seemed to be changed from the time that he set foot on what the chaplain says was called by the ancients “the Laughing Land.”
He wrote himself to Lady Parker, when they had been but a day or two over the month at Palermo:—
“I am worse than ever; my spirits have received such a shock that I think they cannot recover it. You who remember me always laughing and gay would hardly believe the change. But who can see what I have and be well in health?—kingdoms lost and a Royal Family in distress. But they are pleased to place confidence in me; and whilst I live, and my services can be useful to them, I shall never leave this country, although I know that nothing but the air of England, and peace and quietness, can perfectly restore me.”