Como

“ Love-song of birds, laughter of men and women, the passionate blue above, the sun-warmed cobblestones underfoot—in these also there is magic, unseizable, irresistible as the happiness of a child. There is nothing great about Como, nothing in the measured beauty of her encircling hills to uplift or strike awe into the soul of a man. ”

“ A great feature of Como’s attractiveness is the multitude of pretty houses and gardens that cluster upon its shores and on its mountain sides. They look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when every thing seems to slumber, and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one almost believes that nowhere else than on the Lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil repose. ”

“ The Lake of Como, on a fine day of summer or early autumn, and with a heart moderately free from the anxieties and sorrows of life, is a very enjoyable locality, and essentially so to a man of the world like the noble Viscount, who liked to have the more romantic features of the scene blended with associations of ease and pleasure, and be able to turn from the contemplation of Alpine ruggedness to the sight of some terraced garden, glowing in the luxuriance of its vegetation. Never, perhaps, was there ever a spot so calculated to appeal successfully to the feelings of men of his stamp. ”

“ It is surrounded by Olive yards and Orange groves, and near by is the beautiful lake of Como. This is one of the most beautiful of all lakes of lovely Italy we have seen, and we had seen several from our carriage windows, and it was only from this point we could gaze upon this scene of loveliness. Time did not permit us to leave the train to explore and to enjoy. We could see its blue waters shimmering under a warm glow of sunshine. The surroundings are very interesting and beautiful, the eye does not grow weary in tracing the outline of the hills which surround it. ”

“ The rags of sentimentality flutter from every crag and olive-tree and orange-tree in all Italy—like the wilted paper collars which vulgar tourists leave by our own mountains and streams, to commemorate their enjoyment of the landscape.
The town of Como lies, a swarm of lights, behind us; the hills and shadows gloom around; the lake is a sheet of tremulous silver. There is no telling how we get back to our hotel, or with what satisfied hearts we fall asleep in our room there. The steamer starts for the head of the lake at eight o'clock in the morning, and we go on board at that hour. ”

“ At the present day Como is best known as a starting-point for tourists who board the steamers at the quay and leave their decks at one of the many delightful spots which fringe the shores of a lake whose attractions cannot be overwritten. The sun shines on an endless panorama which changes every minute as the steamer pants over the blue waters, breaking up and dispelling the reflections of verdure-clad slopes and stern crags which lie mirrored on the surface. ”

“ For the villa is situated at one of the loveliest points on beautiful Como, commanding on all sides a panorama of distant mountains, with here and there a snow-capped peak, of peaceful water glistening in the warm April sun, of little white villages dotting the shores of the lake, of quaint little chapels in nooks and corners of the mountains, of peach trees and almonds adding a touch of pink to the landscape, of blue skies and fleecy clouds surmounting the whole like a brilliant canopy. ”

“ We went to Como, occupying our villa at the lake. It was an old house with wainscotings of yellow stucco and a sad air of ruined stateliness, of a splendor that even in its prime had pretended to more than it really was. It was quite different than my memory had pictured it. Much humbler, smaller - a weak and feeble reflection of the solid marble splendor of antique and renaissance which it affected to imitate. ”

“ Wherever the hills do not descend sheer into Como, a pretty town nestles on the brink, or, if not a town, then a villa, or else a cottage, if there is room for nothing more. Many little towns climb the heights half-way, and where the hills are green and cultivated in vines or olives, peasants' houses scale them to the crest. They grow loftier and loftier as we leave our starting-place farther behind, and as we draw near Colico they wear light wreaths of cloud and snow. ”

“ We are bound for the lake of Como, a place of sad renown for wreck and danger; and my son’s passion for the water is the inducement that leads him to fix on it for his visit. What wonder that I, of all people, looking on the peaceful valley of Baden-Baden, with its mountain torrent that would not sail a paper boat, wistfully incline to stay here and be safe. But that which forms, in this sort of back-current manner, its attraction to me, renders it devoid of any to my companions: besides, study and solitude is their aim. ”

“ COMO (anc. Comum) , a city and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, the capital of the province of Como, situated at the S. end of the W. branch of the Lake of Como, 30 m. by rail N. by W. of Milan. Pop. (1881) 25,560; (1905) 34,272 (town) , 41,124 (commune) . The city lies in a valley enclosed by mountains, the slopes of which command fine views of the lake. The old town, which preserves its rectangular plan from Roman times, is enclosed by walls, with towers constructed in the 12th century. ”

“ When spring descends upon the shores of the Lago di Como, she brings with her all the graces, all the beauties, all the fine, delicate, and temperate delights of which earth and sky are capable, and she pours them forth upon a land of perfect loveliness. ”

“ All that was very well; but the drive next day from Bellinzona to Como is to my mind what gives its supreme beauty to this great pass. One can't describe the beauty of the Italian lakes, nor would one try if one could; the floweriest rhetoric can recall it only as a picture on a fireboard recalls a Claude. But it lay spread before me for a whole perfect day: in the long gleam of the Major, from whose head the diligence swerves away and begins to climb the bosky hills that divide it from Lugano; in the shimmering, melting azure of the southern slopes and masses ”

“ The train moved slowly through the vineyards and gardens, gradually descending, until with a sudden turn the whole northern end of Como burst gloriously into view. Never was sky a lovelier blue and never did water more splendidly reflect its azure hue. Far away the snowy Alps gave a touch of the sublime to a view of surpassing grandeur. In a moment the scene changed, and Bellagio with its white villas stood before us, separating the two arms of the lake. Then Varenna with its solitary tower, and finally, at the edge of the water, the village of Menaggio itself. ”

“ Still each lover of the beautiful may give his vote; and mine, like that of shepherd Paris, is already given to the Larian goddess. Words fail in attempting to set forth charms which have to be enjoyed, or can at best but lightly be touched with most consummate tact, even as great poets have already touched on Como Lake—from Virgil with his 'Lari maxume,' to Tennyson and the Italian Manzoni. The threshold of the shrine is, however, less consecrated ground; and the Cathedral of Como may form a vestibule to the temple where silence is more golden than the speech of a describer. ”

“ With what serious yet quick joy do such sights fill me; and dearer still is the aspiring thought that seeks the Creator in his works, as the soul yearns to throw off the chains of flesh that hold it in, and to dissolve and become a part of that which surrounds it.
This evening my friends are gone to Como, and I sat long on my favourite seat, listening to the ripplet of the calm lake splashing at my feet; to the murmur of running streams, and to the hollow roar of the mysterious torrent—the Fiume Latte—which is borne, softened by distance, from the opposite shore ”

“ I always had an idea that Como was a vast basin of water, like Tahoe, shut in by great mountains. Well, the border of huge mountains is here, but the lake itself is not a basin. It is as crooked as any brook, and only from one-quarter to two-thirds as wide as the Mississippi. There is not a yard of low ground on either side of it—nothing but endless chains of mountains that spring abruptly from the water's edge and tower to altitudes varying from a thousand to two thousand feet. ”

“ We reach a bend in the lake, and all the roofs and towers of the city of Como pass from view, as if they had been so much architecture painted on a scene and shifted out of sight at a theatre. But other roofs and towers constantly succeed them, not less lovely and picturesque than they, with every curve of the many-curving lake. We advance over charming expanses of water lying between lofty hills ”

“ They agreed it was the earthly paradise, and they passed the mornings in strolls through the cedarn alleys of classic villas and the evenings afloat beneath the stars, in a circle of outlined mountains, to the music of silver-trickling oars. One afternoon the two young men wandered away together as they had wandered of old. They followed the winding foot path that led toward Como, close to the lakeside, past the gates of villas and the walls of vineyards, through little hamlets propped on a dozen arches and bathing their feet and their pendent tatters in the grey-green ripple ”

“ Twice he tried in vain to climb as far as the loophole, but the third time, with trousers ruined and one hand bleeding, he succeeded in crawling on to the ledge below the opening so that he could look inside. He almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of his own pleasure in doing so. Some rich, heavy scent met him as he looked down, but, fresh from the gardens of Como, this garden looked to him both heavy and desolate—heavy in its great hedges broken by statuary in alcoves cut in the green, and desolate in its burnt turf and its trailing rose trees loaded with dead roses. ”

“ They run greedily to the hand of man, and, before they become his food, seek dainties from him.
He described the town as rich in vineyards and olive woods, cornfields and villas.
He awarded the palm of beauty to Como and its lake, and although he wrote in the clumsy language of a decaying literature, this sixth-century sketch still strikes us as surprisingly complete and artistic in feeling:
Como, with its precipitous mountains and its vast expanse of lake, seems placed there for the defence of the Province of Liguria ”

“ Wonderful and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July—wonderful to hear them maddening themselves with love and music, and almost splitting their slender throats with the bursting bubbles of burning song,—but there is something, perhaps, more dreamily enchanting still,—to hear them warbling less passionately but more plaintively, beneath the drooping leafage of those grand old trees, some of which may have stretched their branches in shadowy benediction over the sacred head of the grandest poet in the world. ”

“ CHAPTER III. Varenna, Lake of Como.
Italy at last! I have crossed the Alps and reached my goal, and now I turn and look at that winding road which, for above two thousand feet, traverses the steep mountain-side, and involuntarily a sadness steals over me—that I am never to re-cross it! These same “last-times” are very sorrowful things, all emblems as they are of that one great “last-time” when the curtain falls for ever! ”

“ GIUSEPPE AND LUCIA.
In a little mountain town not far from the beautiful lake of Como, in the North of Italy, in the early part of the last war between the Austrians and the Italians, a poor peasant-woman lay dying. Beside her bed stood a fine, sturdy-looking lad, some fourteen years of age, listening reverently to the last words of his mother. ”

“ On Monday morning we reached Como, after taking possession of the castle on the rock of Musso, and were joyfully received all along the lake, by the chief citizens and gentlemen of the district, who came out in boats to meet us. At the gates of the city, the whole population received us with incredible rejoicing and loud acclamations. Yesterday we slept at Mirabello, a house of the Landriani, about a mile out of Milan. All the way from Como crowds of gentlemen and citizens streamed out to meet us on foot or on horseback, in continually increasing numbers, and cries of Moro! Moro! ”

“ From Chamouny they returned to Martigny, and went from thence, along the Rhine, to Brig, where, quitting the Valais, they made for the Alps, which they crossed at Simplon, and visited the Lake Como, in Italy. Wordsworth’s description of the scenery round Como, is in his highest manner:—
“The banks,” he says, “of many of the Italian and Swiss lakes are so steep and rocky as not to admit of roads; that of Como, is partly of this character. A small footpath is all the communication by land between one village and another, on the side along which we passed for upwards of thirty miles. ”

“ This Lake of Como seems the paradise of ci-devant theatrical folk; all the prima donnas who have amassed millions, and all the dancers that have pirouetted into great wealth, appear to have fixed their ambition on retiring to this spot. Of a truth, it is the very antithesis to a stage existence. The silent and almost solemn grandeur of the scene, the massive Alps, the deep dense woods, the calm unbroken stillness, are strong contrasts to the crash and tumult, the unreality and uproar of a theatre. ”