This Terrible Traffic
Pervades All Southern Europe, And Everywhere Pesters The Meeting
Traveller With Undesired Bargains.
In its presence it is almost
impossible to fit a scene with the apposite phrase; and yet one must own
that it has its rights.
What would those boys do if they did not sell,
or fail to sell, postal-cards. It is another aspect of the labor
problem, so many-faced in our time. Would it be better that they should
take to open mendicancy, or try to win the soft American heart with such
acquired slang as "Skiddoo to twenty-three"? One who had no postal-cards
had English enough to say he would go away for a penny; it was his
price, and I did not see how he could take less; when he was reproached
by a citizen of uncommon austerity for his shameless annoyance of
strangers, I could not see that he looked abashed - in fact, he went away
singing. He did not take with him the divine beauty of the afternoon
light on the sea and mountains; and, if he was satisfied, we were
content with our bargain.
In fact, it would be impossible to exaggerate in the praise of that
incomparable environment. At every hour of the day, and, for all I know,
the night, it had a varying beauty and a constant loveliness. Six days
out of the week of our stay the sunshine was glorious, and five days of
at least a May or September warmth; and though one day was shrill and
stiff with the _tramontana,_ it was of as glorious sunshine as the rest.
The gale had blown my window open and chilled my room, but with that sun
blazing outside I could not believe in the hurricane which seemed to
blow our car up the funicular railway when we mounted to the height
where the famous old Convent of San Martino stands, and then blew us all
about the dust-clouded streets of that upland in our search for the
right way to the monastery. It was worth more than we suffered in
finding it; for the museum is a record of the most significant events of
Neapolitan history from the time of the Spanish domination down to that
of the Garibaldian invasion; and the church and corridors through which
the wind hustled us abound in paintings and frescos such as one would be
willing to give a whole week of quiet weather to. I do not know but I
should like to walk always in the convent garden, or merely look into it
from my window in the cloister wall, and gossip with my fellow-friars at
their windows. We should all be ghosts, of course, but the more easily
could the sun warm us through in spite of the _tramontana._
I do not know that Naples is very beautiful in certain phases in which
Venice and Genoa are excellent. Those cities were adorned by their sons
with palaces of an outlook worthy of their splendor.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 30 of 186
Words from 15125 to 15629
of 97259
