But In The Other
Italian Cities The Homes Of Her Patricians Were Crowded Into The Narrow
Streets Where Their Architecture Fails Of Its Due Effect.
It is so with
them in Naples, and even along the Villa Nazionale, where many palatial
villas are set, they seclude themselves in gardens where one fancies
rather than sees them.
These are, in fact, sometimes the houses of the
richest bourgeoisie - bankers and financiers - and the houses which have
names conspicuous in the mainly inglorious turmoil of Neapolitan history
help unnoted to darken the narrow and winding ways of the old city. A
glimpse of a deep court or of a towering facade is what you get in
passing, but it is to be said of the sunless streets over which they
gloom that they are kept in a modern neatness beside which the dirt of
New York is mediaeval. It is so with most other streets in Naples,
except those poorest ones where the out-door life insists upon the most
intimate domestic expression. Even such streets are no worse than our
worst streets, and the good streets are all better kept than our best.
I am not sure that there are even more beggars in Naples than in New
York, though I will own that I kept no count. In both cities beggary is
common enough, and I am not noting it with disfavor in either, for it is
one of my heresies that comfort should be constantly reminded of misery
by the sight of it - comfort is so forgetful. Besides, in Italy charity
costs so little; a cent of our money pays a man for the loss of a leg or
an arm; two cents is the compensation for total blindness; a sick mother
with a brood of starving children is richly rewarded for her pains with
a nickel worth four cents. Organized charity is not absent in the midst
of such volunteers of poverty; one day, when we thought we had passed
the last outpost of want in our drive, two Sisters of Charity suddenly
appeared with out-stretched tin cups. Our driver did not imagine our
inexhaustible benovelence; he drove on, and before we could bring him to
a halt the Sisters of Charity ran us down, their black robes flying
abroad and their sweet faces flushed with the pursuit. Upon the whole it
was very humiliating; we could have wished to offer our excuses and
regrets; but our silver seemed enough, and the gentle sisters fell back
when we had given it.
That was while we were driving toward Posilipo for the beauty of the
prospect along the sea and shore, and for a sense of which any colored
postal-card will suffice better than the most hectic word-painting. The
worst of Italy is the superabundance of the riches it offers ear and eye
and nose - offers every sense - ending in a glut of pleasure. At the point
where we descended from our carriage to look from the upland out over
the vast hollow of land and sea toward Pozzuoli, which is so interesting
as the scene of Jove's memorable struggle with the Titans, and just when
we were really beginning to feel equal to it, a company of minstrels
suddenly burst upon us with guitars and mandolins and comic songs much
dramatized, while the immediate natives offered us violets and other
distracting flowers.
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