Charles Fish Howell

“ A passing of silver from me, from Luigi a twisted smile and a regretful “buon riposo,”—the last, I fear, that I shall ever hear from him,—and I take leave of my amiable companion for the sputtering lights and exciting diversions of the swarming Carmine Gate and Mercato. From the tide-washed Castello dell’ Ovo to the prison heights of Sant’ Elmo and the charming cloisters of San Martino, and from the huts of the Mergellina fishermen to far beyond where I am standing on the eastern front of the city, all Naples is sparkling with lights and humming with an intense and multi-phased tumult. ”

“ Hundreds of Berliners are idling along the asphalt walks that entice to the Palace Bridge that arches the Spree in a double line of marble groups and so opens up the long, tree-shaded perspective of the Linden. To see it at this hour one would not guess that this fair Lustgarten had once been a neglected palace-close and even a dusty drill-ground; no more than one could believe that the occasional decrepit church or twisting, narrow street in the district in the rear is all that marks antiquity in the whole of the city. ”

“ And thus in solemn pomp, attended by nobles and lighted by countless tapers, the pageant passed out of San Marco, crossed the Rialto, and came at last to the church of the Frari. And there what is left of Doge Foscari lies to this day. It is not a poor place to be in, either. The bones of Titian and Canova are beside him, a Titian masterpiece glorifies the choir, and on the opposite wall are two altar pieces of Bellini’s so lovely as to mark the very zenith of Venetian art.
A pause in the music of the serenade brings us suddenly back to the Venice of to-night. A vast scramble is in progress. ”

“ It was at Chioggia that we loitered, a few days back, and fed on picturesqueness to satiety. We have but to close our eyes—and there are the grizzled old fellows in red berrettas, trousers rolled to their wiry brown knees and great hoops of yellow gold in their ears. When the midday sun was hottest we found them sitting in the shade of their fishing-boats’ sails, mending their nets with wooden bodkins and brown twine. In the old days, when the hand of Venice was all-powerful in this part of the world, the Chioggians were the gayest and most picturesque people of these islands. ”

“ It is one of the proud distinctions of Place Verte to be at the very portals of Antwerp’s glorious cathedral, the largest, richest, and most beautiful in the Netherlands. From his café chair the visitor watches its great shadow steal over him as the afternoon wanes, while at any moment by merely raising his eyes he may revel in the graceful outlines of its sweep of ambulatory chapels and let the aspiring tips of delicate pinnacles and arches entice his vision to the loftiest point of its one finished and matchless tower. ”

“ And so Bohemia, for all her exterior of gracious courtesy, is bitter and hard at heart; a people of a passionate, thwarted patriotism; a people that has suffered and been degraded, but that has never for a moment forgotten. Prague is an expression of all this; in her sullen, gloomy architecture; in the persistence of national types and characteristics; and peculiarly in the wild, reckless Moldau, which visualizes the traditional, savage intolerance that is bred in the bone of the fatalistic Slav. ”

“ At this hour the sturdy, besculptured Palace Bridge [167] is thronged with loiterers leaning over the broad balustrades to admire the festoons of lichen on the opposite masonry embankment or gaze down into the languid blue Spree. These waters have journeyed wearily all the way from distant Saxony, and with little enough to delight them along the road, excepting, perhaps, the scenes of the romantic and picturesque forest—Venice of Spreewald, where the strange Wendish people in outlandish garb pole flat market-barges through the labyrinth of canals and jabber to each other in a foreign tongue. ”

“ It is like getting home to be back on the boulevards,—gay, gleaming, brimming, and confused. The air hums with the incessant shuffle of feet on the asphalt sidewalks and the pounding of hoofs on the wood-paved streets. The eyes ache with trying to miss none of the faces that flash past or any of the good-fellowship that abounds. The bubbling current drifts one along by little kiosks all a-flutter with magazines and newspapers, by advertising pillars flaming in play-bills of many colors, by crowded curb benches, glowing shop windows and table-lined café fronts. ”

“ For there are no “sights” here, the castle excepted. The quaint old town is friendly and genial, though not more so than many others of this comfortable German father-land; nor is the serene Neckar so exceptional as to occasion pilgrimage.
Heidelberg’s appeals are to the mind, the heart, and the senses: the mind is inspired by her impressive achievements in learning; the heart is touched by her tragic history; and the senses are spellbound by the exceptional charm of her natural beauty. She is never so fair as in the early evening. ”

“ Spacious, elegant Rome has nothing more charming and exquisite than such gardens as these. Art and antiquity are everywhere in restful profusion—“storied urn and animated bust.” It is even said that sculptures are to be found almost anywhere underground for the mere pains of exhuming. One rests with infinite satisfaction in the deep shade of eucalyptus, cypress, ilex, and laurel, to the sweet singing of multitudes of birds. There are roses and oranges in bloom, and tall hedges of clipped box, and musical little cascades tumble down from terrace to terrace and drip over mossy marble steps. ”

“ A bottle of cheap wine, a loaf of bread, and a guitar provide joy enough for an army in the family parties of the poor that float out on to the lagoon in rough market gondolas at sunset. Verdi and Rossini make work light for women, walk to business with the men, and hum comfort and courage all day. And so one needs to be discreet and silent when a solo begins or be prepared for an instant and tempestuous rebuke. But there seems little need for a warning to-night, with the hand of Venice so strong upon us. ”

“ The summer moon touches each carven arch and column, each stone-lace balcony, each fretted embrasure, each delicate ogive window and sculptured [304] capital, and lo, a magician’s wand has reared a dream-land of unearthly beauty!
In the soft and odorous darkness the birds that love this Venice are securely nesting—the gulls, that in winter whirl up the canals with harsh clamors of the coming storms, are now at rest along the beaches of their blue Adriatic; the swallows and pigeons are sleeping among the red tiles of the crooked gables ”

“ Few topers and bullies here, but vigorous, wholesome youth.
The outlook from the Grand Balcony is upon a sea of foliage so vast as completely to surround castle, gardens, and terraces and convert them into just such an enchanted island as springs so naturally out of the pages of the “Arabian Nights.” Evidences of sorcery and magic multiply as we make the rounds of our fortress, for voices and music come up out of the tremulous green depths, and companion isles emerge in the moonlit distance, but lifted far above us and set on prodigious wave-shoulders of steadily increasing height. ”

“ Howells to exclaim, “It makes you glad to be living in this world,” and under the blaze of its rimming of clustered lights and shops and thronged cafés, there storms and chatters a vigorous, cheery, light-hearted multitude fresh from the stimulus of the glittering water pageant. It comes in through the piazzetta with such a rush that one looks for the band and band-stand, too, to be swept the full length of the square and out under the arches of the Royal Palace. Such laughing and uproar! ”

“ Within a cable length of where our gondola is now resting a black, tarry fishing-bark tugs at anchor. If it were day and her sails were set, one could not help being delighted over the oranges and reds and blues of her patched and weathered canvas, the curve of the elaborately painted bow, and the spirited air of the curious figurehead. Unchanged survivors of the fading Past are these sturdy old bragozzi of Chioggia, and one could not ask for a braver show than they present when they hoist their painted sails to dry in one long line from the Public Gardens to the Doge’s Palace. ”

“ If the visitor be a lover of music—of Wagner’s music—the surrounding uproar and confusion will shortly fade into a charming reverie as he gazes far down the glittering zigzag of the Scheldt and some distant glimmer will take the form of the swan-boat of Lohengrin with the Grail knight leaning on his shining shield. The docks and quays will have disappeared, and in their place will once more lie the old low meadows, and, under the Oak of Justice, King Henry the Fowler will take seat on his throne with the nobles of Brabant ranged about him. ”

“ Expressing, as only Prague does, so much that is dear and beautiful to him, it centres in itself the most burning and passionate interests of the race. Without some knowledge of this desperate attachment one would fail utterly to grasp the force and truth of such a fine observation as Mr. Arthur Symons has made on the devotion of the Bohemian to this city: “He sees it, as a man sees the woman he loves, with her first beauty; and he loves it, as a man loves a woman, more for what she has suffered.” ”

“ The night is fragrant with the breath of roses, carnations, and camellias from palace gardens and with spicy honeysuckle from the neighboring Zattere. Visions of stirring romance and adventure crowd in on the mind. Down the pebbly paths of yonder garden surely some lover has just passed, brave in velvet doublet and silken hose, from laying his roses at the satin-slippered feet of his lady! Presently he will drift this way in his cushioned gondola and the soft night winds will bear her the mellow throb of his guitar and many a plaintive [305] sigh of love and Venice. ”

“ It is comparatively narrow and with sadly straitened sidewalks, but no street in Naples is so long or so continually used; if it is followed, through all its changes of names, it will carry one past the Museo and away up to the very doors of the summer palace at Capodimonte, running due north all the way. Shops of all descriptions line it, and it is thronged to the overflow of the sidewalks and the hysterical abuse of distracted cabmen in the middle of the street. One thinks of Paris when he sees the newspaper kiosks and the many bright little stands decked out with fruit and gay trifles. ”

“ At no hour does it appear to such advantage as at twilight. The dusky shadows lie heavy about the great circular field of trees and shrubbery, shrouding the sculptured mass of the vast Reichstag building until its huge glass dome looms like a colossal moon in a lake of emerald. Bismarck and Von Moltke rise above their statue-groups like demigods of bronze, and the lofty Column of Victory, studded with captured cannon, rears its brisk and lightly-poised angel to acclaim the glories of Germany to an invisible world among the skies. ”

“ For half a millennium it has dug its broad arches into the bottom of the Moldau, stoutly defiant of flood or storm. Its massive buttresses are crowned with heroic statues so deeply revered that pilgrimages are made by the faithful to pay their devotions before them. For a third of a mile this old veteran strides the stream, and at each end he lifts an amazing mediæval tower well worth a journey to stare at. These ponderous structures, weathered by centuries of storm to a rich brownish black, are pierced by a deep Gothic archway through which the street traffic pours all day. ”

“ At this hour the Trevi Fountain is doubly appealing [90] and refreshing, rejoicing the whole side of its roomy square with sparkling waters that dash merrily about Neptune and his allies in the wall niches. Devoted as one may be to the venerable tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Appian Way, he will fervently commend Pope Clement for having pillaged some of its stone to supply this cheery fountain with its dramatic setting. Were this our last day in the city we should certainly toss a copper coin over our left shoulder into these boiling waters, to insure a return to Rome. ”