The sea, with its vessels, and their destinations, presents wholly new matters for reflection. The frigate for Palermo started yesterday, with a strong, direct, north wind. This time it certainly will not be more than six-and-thirty hours on the passage. With what longing did I not watch the full sails as the vessel passed between Capri and Cape Minerva, until at last it disappeared. Who could see one's beloved thus sailing away and survive? The sirocco (south wind) is now blowing; if the wind becomes stronger, the breakers over the Mole will be glorious.
To-day being Friday, is the grand promenade of the nobility, when every one displays his equipages, and especially his stud. It is almost impossible to see finer horses anywhere than in Naples. For the first time in my life I have felt an interest in these animals.
Naples, March 3, 1787.
Here you have a few leaves, as reporters of the entertainment I have met with in this place; also a corner of the cover of your letter, stained with smoke, in testimony of its having been with me on Vesuvius. You must not, however, fancy, either in your waking thoughts or in your dreams, that I am surrounded by perils; be assured that wherever I venture, there is no more danger than on the road to Belvedere. The earth is everywhere the Lord's; may be well said in reference to such objects. I never seek adventure out of a mere rage for singularity; but even because I am most cool, and can catch at a glance, the peculiarities of any object, I may well do and venture more than many others. The passage to Sicily is anything but dangerous. A few days ago, the frigate sailed for Palermo with a favorable breeze from the north, and, leaving Capri on the right, has, no doubt, accomplished the voyage in six-and-thirty hours. In all such expeditions, one finds the danger to be far less in reality than, at a distance, one is apt to imagine.
Of earthquakes, there is not at present a vestige in Lower Italy; in the upper provinces Rimini and its neighbourhood has lately suffered. Thus the earth has strange humours, and people talk of earthquakes here just as we do of wind and weather, and as in Thuringia they talk of conflagrations.
I am delighted to find that you are now familiar with the two editions of my "Iphigenia," but still more pleased should I he had you been more sensible of the difference between them. I know what I have done for it, and may well speak thereof, since I feel that I could make still further improvements. If it be a bliss to enjoy the good, it is still greater happiness to discern the better; for in art the best only is good enough.
Naples, March 5, 1787.
We spent the second Sunday of Lent in visiting church after church. As in Rome all is highly solemn; so here every horn is merry and cheerful. The Neapolitan school of painting, too, can only be understood in Naples. One is astonished to see the whole front of a church painted from top to bottom. Over the door of one, Christ is driving out of the temple the buyers and sellers, who, terribly frightened, are nimbly huddling up their wares, and hurrying down the steps on both sides. In another church, there is a room over the entrance, which is richly ornamented with frescoes representing the deprivation of Heliodorus.[5] Luca Giordano must indeed have painted rapidly, to fill such large areas in a lifetime. The pulpit, too, is here not always a mere cathedra, as it is in other places,—a place where one only may teach at a time; but a gallery. Along one of these I once saw a Capuchin walking backwards and forwards, and, now from one end, now from another, reproaching the people with their sins. What had he not to tell them!