January, 1882.--The lake and the mountains and the white city do not seem so beautiful to us to-day, for the little girl who loved them most of all, lies in the next room covered with flowers.
Juliet’s Tomb, Verona.
*****
All was changed to us this past summer. In October we made a fourth trip to Italy; this time to the lake regions at the foot of the Alps. There is something about life in Northern Italy that seems to make a stay there almost more desirable than in other places in the world. The scenery is still Alpine, but it is the Alps with perpetual sunshine on them, and warm laughing lakes about them. I think the peasants more picturesque here than elsewhere. They carry red umbrellas, and the peasant women wear short skirts, showing bright stockings of red or white or blue. The low, white wooden sandals, with the red leather band over the instep, worn by the women, are very pretty, too. Only one wonders how they keep them on their feet. With every step the sandals go click, clack, up and down, at the heels. The headgear of the girls is a bit of black lace thrown over the head and hanging down behind. The whole outfit, with the pretty black eyes of the girls, the bright faces, and the merry demeanor, make one think that here, in the sunshine of North Italy, is a happy peasantry. The men also wear bright colors; the poorest has at least a cravat of blue and a red band on his roguish soft felt hat.
The soft Italian language, and the singers with their guitars in the moonlight by the lakes, add to the real romance of the scene.
The people of the lake regions are rather poor, spite of the rich productiveness of the soil. There are too many of them, and too many rocky heights, and mountains and lakes. The little stone-built villages cling to some of these heights like crow nests on tree tops, but somewhere, near to every height, on some spot of land beautiful as Eden, we see the gardens and villas of the rich. These are the summer homes of the aristocrats of Milan and cities farther south.
Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, sitting among the lemon trees, its gardens washed by the blue waters, its halls and salons filled with the works of genius, could tempt one to want to live there always.
And Villa Giulia, on that fair promontory running out into Lake Lecco at Bellagio, seen of a summer evening with the deep blue waters on either side, the snow white Alps in front of it, and groves of citron and boxwood and lemon behind it, wakes the feeling in one that here indeed is the fairest scene of all; here one could be happy.
*****