Across the sea, polished as a pool of molten metal, the Southern sun strews his golden highway; the frail forest of masts stiffens, congealed like a fine etched pattern; side by side lie the herds of steamers, silent, drowsy, vermilion-bellied beasts; and over there, to the left, high above the city, the slim silhouette of Notre-Dame de la Garde shows a glimmer of dusky gilt....
Oh! for the crude crowd of blatant hues and the flood of fierce vitality that belong to old Marseilles at midday!
MONTE CARLO
High, beneath the lofty dome of sullen sky, like a great white globe of electric light, the full moon hangs; beyond the bay, the twinkling lights of Monaco are dropping long golden tears into the sea: no breath of breeze to sway the black drooping palms; only the full, solemn phrase of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” slowly recurring to linger in the still, grave air of the night....
The moonbeams spangle with silver the twin minarets of the temple of Chance; and stately officials swing back its portals to meet the silent tide of worshippers that ceaselessly ebbs and flows, blackening the broad flight of marble steps.
Within, through the great marble vestibule, where the shuffle of feet rings hollow, they hurry to huddle around the bright green shrines of the goddess, to await, with tense, yellow faces, the unflagging tide of her relentless caprices.
AT THE CERTOSA DI VAL D’EMA
I sat on the terrace of the old palace, waiting for the coming of the rain-clouds. The sunshine was gone, and with it the city’s witty sparkle; the sirocco’s breath puffed warm and moist; and Florence, all ruddled and sullen, lay chaunting her ponderous notes of bronze.
Below, knee-deep in the yellow, straggling stream, a fisherman swayed his net, slowly straining the supple framework; and while I watched him, of a sudden, a fitful longing to see the place again laid hold of me—to see it, just as it had been last year, on that mellow September afternoon, all garnished with soft light, all fragrant with coquettish simplicity and pleasant, prosperous peace. And soon, as the sky darkened, and the rain-clouds—a sombre, swelling herd—gathered above the cypresses of San Miniato, I seemed to hear the organ’s stately roll, and to perceive, through the obscurity of the half-darkened chapel, a crowding circle of white-robed figures. The chaunt of the church bells beat the air: all else seemed stilled—love and the quickening joy of life—and with a sort of childish inconsequence, bred perhaps of the curious, literary habit, I fell to envying them a little—those tall, white-robed fathers—their miniature rows of monkish gardens, and their solitary pacings beneath the pale-lemon cloisters....
So I started to go there, rattling through the dust in the face of the coming storm. By the roadside, the grey olives matched the sky; all around, the vines hung delicately dying, drooping in tired curves their fragile garlands of pallid-gold leaves; and here and there peeped specks of scarlet, like lingering traces of some bygone fête.