SKETCHES IN ITALY ***
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SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE
BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
AUTHOR OF "RENAISSANCE IN ITALY", "STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS," ETC
FIRST SERIES
NEW EDITION
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1914
PREFATORY NOTE
In preparing this new edition of the late J.A. Symonds's three volumes of travels, 'Sketches in Italy and Greece,' 'Sketches and Studies in Italy,' and 'Italian Byways,' nothing has been changed except the order of the Essays. For the convenience of travellers a topographical arrangement has been adopted. This implied a new title to cover the contents of all three volumes, and 'Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece' has been chosen as departing least from the author's own phraseology.
HORATIO F. BROWN. Venice: _June_ 1898.
CONTENTS
THE LOVE OF THE ALPS
WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS
BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN
OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE
THE CORNICE
AJACCIO
MONTE GENEROSO
LOMBARD VIGNETTES
COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO
BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI
CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX
CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE
A VENETIAN MEDLEY
THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING
A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS
TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY
SKETCHES AND STUDIES
IN
ITALY AND GREECE
_THE LOVE OF THE ALPS_[1]
Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day's journey from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel to Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony of French plains,--their sluggish streams and never-ending poplar trees--for the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach to the great Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about Mulhausen that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields broaden into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams; the green Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set, the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights; and he feels--yes, indeed, there is now no mistake--the well-known, well-loved magical fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy mountains and meadows watered by perennial streams. The last hour is one of exquisite enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle, he scarcely sleeps all night for hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies, and knowing that the moon is shining on its waters, through the town, beneath the bridges, between pasture-lands and copses, up the still mountain-girdled valleys to the ice-caves where the water springs. There is nothing in all experience of travelling like this. We may greet the Mediterranean at Marseilles with enthusiasm; on entering Rome by the Porta del Popolo, we may reflect with pride that we have reached the goal of our pilgrimage, and are at last among world-shaking memories. But neither Rome nor the Riviera wins our hearts like Switzerland. We do not lie awake in London thinking of them; we do not long so intensely, as the year comes round, to revisit them. Our affection is less a passion than that which we cherish for Switzerland.
