Menton

“ Thomas Stevenson
[Menton] , March 20, 1874.
I. My Cloak.—An exception occurs to me to the frugality described a letter (or may be two) ago; my 119 cloak: it would certainly have been possible to have got something less expensive; still it is a fine thought for absent parents that their son possesses simply the greatest vestment in Mentone. It is great in size, and unspeakably great in design; qua raiment, it has not its equal. ”

“ ON THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA
"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together, wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. ”

“ No doubt there are a good many invalids at Mentone, and some of them have all the appearance of being so, but they do not predominate by any means. Many of them keep their rooms, and those who go out seldom go beyond the promenade, except for a drive. It is indeed painful sometimes to see some delicate invalids who are hopelessly beyond recovery, and particularly young men, thin, gaunt, and white, well wrapped up, even on sunny days; but they are never so numerous as to make Mentone a painful residence. The English people, as a rule, are wiser than the Continental. ”

“ Clary. "Those who confine themselves to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must see. I think the mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do not know them, you are no true Israelite."
Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. ”

“ When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat becomes oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous, up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels. ”

“ This English use of "quietly," by-the-way, always amused Margaret and myself greatly. Lloyd and Verney were constantly suggesting that we should go here or there "quietly," as though otherwise we should be likely to go with banners, trumpets, and drums. The longer one remains in Mentone, the stronger grows attachment to the olive groves. But they do not seem fit places for the young, whose gay voices resound through their gray aisles; neither are they for the old, who need the cheer and warmth of the sun. ”

“ Mentone (8) , town and seaport in France, on the Mediterranean, 11⁄2 m. from the Italian border; was under the princes of Monaco till 1848, when it subjected itself to Sardinia, which afterwards handed it over to France; protected by the Alps, the climate is delightful, and renders it a favourite health resort in winter and spring; it exports olive-oil and fruit.
Mentor, a friend of Ulysses, and the tutor of his son Telemachus, whose form and voice Athena assumed in order to persuade his pupil to retain and maintain the courage and astuteness of his father. ”

“ We breathe more freely when he is past—this terrible man of office. But nothing afraid, three women of Mentone are close upon his heels, perhaps in gaping admiration. Two of them bear on their heads each a large basket of dirty clothes they are taking to some dirty pool to wash. The third leads a child, and wears a broad Mentone flat hat, 16 inches wide at the very least. All are sturdy, and their carriage is erect. ”

“ Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a pæan moment" for us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in remembrance.
One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city, Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the pavement behind her. ”

“ And presently from the rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were amusing themselves by dancing also. ”

“ He had not left Mentone at once.
‘Come down,’ he repeated persuasively, and yet commandingly.
I could feel my heart beating against the marble parapet of the balcony. I seemed to be caught, to be trapped. I could not argue with him in that position. I could not leave him shouting in the garden. So I nodded to pacify him, and disappeared quickly from the balcony, almost scurrying away. ”

“ And they were not all delicious xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them, brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."
"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from the east, make up your mind that they come directly from the west. ”

“ Louis, with the picturesque ravine it crosses, had been passed, and the pretty town of Mentone was full in view, when we caught sight of the other diligence, some way on the road before us, brought once more to a stand-still, while a crowd of persons surrounded it, and its passengers were to be seen, in the distance, descending, with the baby cap among them. At this instant, an excited French official darted out from a doorway by the side of the road near us, raising his arms distractedly, and throwing his sentences up at the conductor, who understood him to say that there was no going on ”

“ There can be few who will not admit that the modern town of Mentone is commonplace and rather characterless, but, at the same time, it must be insisted that a large proportion of the Mentone villas are—from every point of view—charming and free from the charge of being vulgar. ”

“ It was the very uncertainty that pleased him; men love the women of whom they are not quite certain, all the more. From Nice they wandered to Mentone, but the proximity of the Monte Carlo tables had no charm for Anthony Pennell. He was not a speculative man: his brain was filled with better things, and he only visited such places for the sake of reproduction. Although the autumn was now far advanced, the air of Mentone was too enervating to suit either of them, and Pennell proposed that they should move on to Italy. ”

“ Mentone is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and has always had a very warm corner in my heart since first I knew it eleven years ago.
11th December.—I live in the same hotel with Lord X. He has black whiskers, and has been successful in raising some kids; rather a melancholy success; they are weedy looking kids in Highland clo’. They have a tutor with 91 them who respires Piety and that kind of humble your-lordship’s-most-obedient sort of gentlemanliness that noblemen’s tutors have generally. ”

“ To them those human mysteries, the keeper of the pension, the petty trader and the laundress are as an open book. They fill the frivolous bachelor with reverential alarm, but their acquaintance with the rate of exchange, the price of butter and the cheap shop is supreme in its intricacy. These “aunts” are to be found in larger numbers in Mentone than in any other resort of the English in France.
The old town of Mentone is small and circumscribed. It stands in the centre of the place as a low hillock or promontory. ”

“ Trescott and Margaret. This left Mrs. Clary and myself together (Miss Graves having remained at home) , and Inness, Baker, the Professor, Verney, and the other artist, whose name was Lloyd, all trying to walk with Janet, while Miss Elaine devoted herself in turn to the unsuccessful ones, and never from first to last perceived the real situation.
We went eastward. Presently we passed a small house bearing the following naïve inscription in French on the side towards the road: "The first villa built at Mentone, in 1855, to attract hither the strangers. ”

“ But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day. The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World laundress would scorn ”

“ Mentone was “invented” by Dr. J. Henry Bennet, whose delightful book on Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean, 1861, has gone through several editions, and is still the best guide to such as are in quest of a winter resort. He settled at Mentone in 1859, and speedily appreciated its climatic advantages. These advantages are inestimable for the worst winter months. But when the sun gathers strength, it is advisable for the traveller to break his return journey to the cold and fogs of England by a cool bath in S. Raphael “ventosa.” ”

“ I fear much that, from year to year, as people continue to flock to Mentone, and more lodging-room becomes requisite (for in sixteen or eighteen years Mentone has risen from being, so far as strangers are concerned, a mere wayside stopping-place to its present ample dimensions, embracing a native population of above 5000, besides a stranger population of probably 3000 more) , and as land becomes in consequence more valuable, this peculiar charm of rurality will disappear ”

“ The work is hard, of course, but it does not seem to have developed any weaknesses or maladies unknown to other peasant or labouring folk, hence there seems no reason why it should not continue. Certainly the Mentonnaises have a certain grace of carriage and suppleness in their walk which the dames of fashion might well imitate. ”

“ Not many are the glad memories I shall carry from Mentone. I can think of no more than two.
There is my landlady, to begin with, who spies out every detail of my daily life; of decent birth and richer than Croesus, but inflamed with a peevish penuriousness which no amount of plain speaking on my part will correct. Never a day passes that she does not permit herself some jocular observation anent my spendthrift habits. ”

“ Mencke was so confirmed in her opinion that Violet was not living that she assumed mourning for her, and while she remained in Mentone her deeply bordered handkerchiefs were never out of her hands, and were frequently brought into ostentatious use.
The day before the one set for their departure was intensely warm and oppressive, and everybody was almost prostrated by the heat.
Lady Cameron and Mrs. Mencke could only exist by lying, lightly clad, in hammocks swung upon the north piazza of the hotel, while Mr. ”

“ I found him busy over the flowers and plants which his most attentive and energetic father brings to him from all the mountains around, cheerful and happy, but I fear he will hardly be able to complete his illustrations of the botany of Mentone. Late in the afternoon, after enjoying the picnic, a carriage took us to Mentone, and thence to Monaco,{572} where we slept, in order that the next day might not be too fatiguing to Mrs. ”

“ Madam de Menthon made me stay for dinner two or three days, to chat with me, and soon found I was too dull for her purpose. I felt this myself, and was humiliated at the discovery, envying the talents of my friend Venture; though I should rather have been obliged to my stupidity for keeping me out of the reach of danger. I remained, therefore, Madam de Menthon's daughter's singing-master, and nothing more! but I lived happily, and was ever well received at Chambery, which was a thousand times more desirable than passing for a wit with her, and for a serpent with everybody else. ”

“ You young fellows should have some mercy on these delicate creatures, for they en’t made of iron, and there’s none too many of ’em. By the way, sir, who was the gentleman that desired you to present him to Miss, but you refused?”
I was watching Mr Menotti with all my eyes from behind my masque, as you’ll guess, Amelia, and it seemed to me that he changed colour a very little. Yet he answered with the greatest unconcern imaginable, “Why, that I don’t know, sir, which was my reason for refusing him the honour he asked. ”

“ I wish I could start a sturdy sect like old Menno Simonis did. They should dress as these have done, and be as stubborn and rigid in their discipline. They should farm as these have done, but on reaching the point where the Mennonite buys the automobile, that money and energy should go into the making of cross-roads palaces for the people, golden as the harvest field, and disciplined well-parked villages, good as a psalm, and cities fair as a Mennonite lady in her prayer-covering, delicate and noble as Athens the unforgotten, the divine. ”