Sorrento

“ The abbé was a native of Brescia, but he had chosen Sorrento as his residence. He had three thousand crowns a year, and lived well, enjoying all the gifts of Bacchus, Ceres, Comus, and Venus, the latter being his favourite divinity. He had only to desire to attain, and no man could desire greater pleasure than he enjoyed at Sorrento. I was vexed to see Count Medini with him; we were enemies, and gave each other the coldest of greetings.
We were twenty-two at table and enjoyed delicious fare, for in that land everything is good; the very bread is sweeter than elsewhere. ”

“ He came to Sorrento every season, but usually not till the middle of August, and then [193] to spend no more than a fortnight. He had rather a disdain for Sorrento, he who had travelled over the whole of Europe. This year he came in the first week of July; and he was determined to stay until Anna Dias left. He was genuinely in love with her; in his own way, of course. The mystery that hung over her past, and her love for Cesare Dias, which Luigi knew to be unrequited, made her all the dearer to him. He was in love, as men are in love who have loved many times before. ”

“ Despite the glories of the Amalfi road our tourists decided it was more pleasant to loiter around Sorrento for a time than to undertake further excursions. The mornings and evenings were chill, but during the middle of the day the air was warm and delicious; so the girls carried their books and fancy-work into the beautiful gardens or wandered lazily through the high-walled lanes that shut in the villas and orange groves. ”

“ SAINT ANTONINO The most serviceable saint whom I know is St. Antonino. He is the patron saint of the good town of Sorrento; he is the good genius of all sailors and fishermen; and he has a humbler office,—that of protector of the pigs. On his day the pigs are brought into the public square to be blessed; and this is one reason why the pork of Sorrento is reputed so sweet and wholesome. The saint is the friend, and, so to say, companion of the common people. They seem to be all fond of him, and there is little of fear in their confiding relation. ”

“ Back of it are the famous gardens, and as you emerge from these you find yourself upon the narrow main street of Sorrento, not far from the Square of Tasso.
As our little party entered this street they were immediately espied by the vetturini, or cabmen, who rushed toward them with loud cries while they waved their whips frantically to attract attention. One tall fellow was dressed in a most imposing uniform of blue and gold, with a high hat bearing a cockade a la Inglese and shiny top boots. ”

“ The clouds are flying low across the city, so that now one dome and now another flashes into light and the orange groves shine green and gold among the square white houses. All the high range of the Sorrento mountains lies in shadow, but on the sea the colours are glowing warm and bright, here a tender blue, there deepening into grey, and again, nearer into shore, a marvellous rich tint which has no name, but is azure and emerald in a single moment. Away across the crescent of the gulf a crowd of fishing boats are putting forth from Torre del Greco or Torre dell' Annunziata. ”

“ The deep ravine is filled with the whispering echoes of a stream, which does not fill the bottom of the hollow, but leaves space for orange groves, deep thatched with boughs. Cottages are built out on jutting rocks, overhanging the precipice with strange indifference to the probable results of even little earthquakes; and the lanes are alive with brown, half-naked children. The sheer rocky chasms, the swarming population, the ancient walls, recall 266 memories of an older Sorrento than one can recover easily upon the sea-front, or in the tortuous streets which skirt it. ”

“ No lemons or oranges here, are there, Andrea?”
“No, Alberto. You must know that the soil is unfavourable to them. Besides, we are too far inland; they thrive well along the coast. Have you many at Sorrento?”
“Oh, a good many; and, sai, they yield six per cent. free of income-tax, while other produce only yields two and a half.”
Lucia broke in with her faint, dragging intonation:
“Alberto, why don’t we build a villa at Sorrento?”
“Eh! It wouldn’t be a bad plan. I have thought of it sometimes myself; but building runs away with time and money....” ”

“ To Sorrento, was Dolly's fond hope. But when they got to Naples, she found that all the men of the party were against proceeding further, at least before the pleasures and novelties of that place had also bean tasted.
"There's a famous museum here, Dolly," said her father. "You could not pass that?"
"And Pompeii—don't you want to see Pompeii?" cried Rupert.
"It will be pleasanter at Sorrento later in the season," said Lawrence; "much pleasanter. Wait till it grows warm here; then Sorrento will be delightful. We are taking everything just at the right time." ”

“ Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill through the region of vines and olives, until we have passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins our descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano di Sorrento, a plateau above the cliffs, some four miles in length by one in breadth. Poets of antiquity and bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted in glowing colours of inspired verse its race of happy peasants, its fruitful fields and orchards, its luscious vines, its excellent flocks. ”

“ Not alone the mystery, the beauty, the aloofness from the world, the balmy air or the odorous vegetation of the hillsides,—all these elements exist upon the mainland, yet there is no town, not even Sorrento, which wins such instant or such enduring love. It is partly in the people that the secret lies. They have charm. They are simple, friendly, gracious; they accost the stranger from the outset as a kindly friend, who must mean well, and whom they are disposed to like. If they beg, which is but rarely, they ask without importunity, and accept refusal with good temper. ”

“ It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still appre [pg 247] ciative of its honour as the birth-place of the great Italian poet. The citizens have erected a statue of marble in one of their open spaces; they have called street, hotel and trattoria by his illustrious name; and can the modern spirit of grateful acknowledgment go further than this? His father’s house has perished, it is true, through “Nature’s changing force untrimmed,” for the greedy waves have undermined and swallowed up the tufa cliff which once supported the old Tasso villa. ”

“ In order to prevent further acts of violence he was shut up, at first in his room, and later in the monastery of St. Francis, under the care of a physician. On July 27 he broke the door and escaped. Horsemen were sent after him, but being [Pg 320] disguised as a peasant, he escaped, and after many adventures, often begging his way as a common beggar, he reached Sorrento, where, in the quiet seclusion of his sister's house, surrounded by all the tokens of her love and sympathy, he enjoyed a short period of rest and peace. ”

“ The descriptions of the religious observances of the inhabitants of Sorrento have a certain piquancy, when one remembers that they were addressed to a minister of the Scottish Presbyterian Church. Bute wrote on such matters currente calamo, and took for granted—no doubt with reason—that his friend would be as much interested in such matters as he was himself. ”

“ Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than some of the long walks in a sharp exhilarating air, and though days are short and nights are often chilly, one can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento, though it is as well to be prepared for departure in case of a sudden spell of stormy weather, for winter sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di Sorrento. ”

“ Sorrento contains only a few ancient remains, and its present prosperity depends mainly on its reputation as a place of resort both in winter and in summer, its northerly aspect rendering it comparatively cool. Its climate is delightful and healthy, and it is situated amid picturesque coast scenery. The chief local industries are the inlaying of wood, silk and lace-making and straw-plaiting, and the growing of oranges and lemons. ”

“ At length they came in sight of the valley of Sorrento. It lay broadly expanded before them, full of groves of orange and lemon trees, among which were to be seen every where lofty walls of enclosure running in all directions, and roofs of houses, and villas, without number, rising among the trees. Towards the sea the ground terminated in a range of cliffs that were almost as smooth and perpendicular as a wall.
The carriage gradually descended into this valley, and then went on across it. ”

“ The genius, energy, and prophetic enthusiasm of Savonarola had made, it is true, a desperate rally on the verge of the precipice; but no one man has ever power to turn back the downward slide of a whole generation.
When Father Antonio left Sorrento in company with the cavalier, it was the intention of the latter to go with him only so far as their respective routes should lie together. The band under the command of Agostino was posted in a ruined fortress in one of those airily perched old mountain-towns which form so picturesque and characteristic a feature of the Italian landscape. ”

“ The Lactarian Mountains protect the plain of Sorrento in summer from the scorching rays of the sun, and lay their beneficent shadow for several hours of the long hot summer’s day over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile Piano di Sorrento at their base. ”

“ It was an extremely lively season at Sorrento. There were a good many foreigners in the town; amongst them two or three wild American girls, who swam, rowed, played croquet and lawn-tennis, were very charming, and had handsome dowries. It became the fashion for the men to make love to these young persons, a thing that was sufficiently unusual in a society where flirtation with unmarried women is supposed to be forbidden. Cesare told Anna that it was a propitious moment for launching Laura ”

“ An Englishman, named Sparkes, threw himself into one of the jagged volcanic ravines that seam the tongue of Sorrento; but there is hardly a place in Italy, high or low, where some Englishman has not suicided himself. ”

“ Further west the plain before us opens out upon the sea, while the mountains are continued in the precipitous coast of the peninsula of Sorrento. Height crowds upon height, with villages wreathed in olive orchards lying between. ”

“ The dear Lord hath put it into the heart of a pious young maid of this vicinity to erect a shrine to the honor of our Lady and her dear Son in this gorge of Sorrento, hard by. It is a gloomy place in the night, and hath been said to be haunted by evil spirits ”

“ The men and women, old and young, form a line upon the beach, take hold upon the rope, and with a graceful, swinging motion pull in the seine inch by inch, as they did in the days of St. Peter. The Sorrentines are a handsome and seem a kindly people; there are comparatively few beggars here.
Throughout the Piano di Sorrento thousands of men and women are employed in the manufacture of silk stockings, scarfs, carved and inlaid wood, coral ornaments, tortoise-shell combs, and jewelry. I dare not enter a shop for fear of temptation. The Italian spoken is far pleasanter than the nasal Neapolitan ”

“ The winter had been hard again, and we were very poor; but the child was well, and how could we complain? God knows what is best for us! So the next morning we set out for Sorrento with our little favoured one; and who shall be able to say how happy we were, as we thought of our trouble there on the same day a year before!
"After our return, on the evening of that same day, about the Ave Maria, my wife and I were [222] sitting outside our door, and the child had wandered away among the rocks, when suddenly we heard her voice, and, looking up, we saw her in the arms of sua eccellenza. ”

“ Stowe. The "Annie" referred to was Miss Annie Howard.
"The author was spending some weeks with a party of choice and very dear friends, on an excursion to southern Italy. Nothing could have been more fabulously and dreamily bright and beautiful than the whole time thus employed. Naples, Sorrento, Salerno, Pæstum, Pompeii, are names of enchantment which will never fade from the remembrance of any of that party. At Salerno, within a day's ride of Pæstum, the whole company were detained by a storm for a day and a night. ”

“ He furnishes us a curious picture of the beggars who assembled about his residence daily in Sorrento, to whom he invariably gave a grano apiece. The company, starting out from one or two, had been steadily reinforced by recruits from far and near, till it ran up to the neighborhood of a hundred men, who regularly presented themselves for their pittance. ”

“ Having satisfied his mind as to his sister’s genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed his true character, whereupon the pair embraced with transports of joy, though it was deemed prudent not to acquaint their friends with the arrival of Torquato, who was represented to the good people of Sorrento as a distant relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale now entreated the poet to take up his abode permanently in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of the cruel world without in the enjoyment of family ties and affections ”

“ The San Reve shot a sharp, inquiring glance at Storri from her sea-green, sea-gray eyes.
Storri, being feline, was as has been written no one hard to rout, and could be readily driven from an enterprise. With the loss of those French shares, his designs on Mr. Harley and his power over Dorothy had fallen to the ground. He was left with nothing more potent than his naked hatred. He was more hungry than before for harm against the Harleys, but the new conditions baffled him as might some bridgeless gulf. He could see no open way through which he might find his enemies and overcome them. ”