The Common Sort Are A Jolly, Lively Kind
Of Animals, More Industrious Than Italians Usually Are; They Work Till
Evening;
Then they take their lute or guitar (for they all play) and
walk about the city or upon the seashore
With it, to enjoy the fresco."
There was, in fact, a bold gayety in the aspect of the city, without the
refinement which you do not begin to feel till you get into North Italy.
When I came upon church after church, with its facade of Spanish
baroque, I lamented the want of Gothic delicacy and beauty, but I was
consoled abundantly later in the churches antedating the Spanish
domination. I had no reason, such as travellers give for hating places,
to be dissatisfied with Naples in any way. I had been warned that the
customs officers were terrible there, and that I might be kept hours
with my baggage. But the inspector, after the politest demand for a
declaration of tobacco, ordered only a small valise, the Benjamin of its
tribe, opened and then closed untouched; and his courteous forbearance,
acknowledged later through the hotel porter, cost me but a dollar. The
hotel itself was inexpressibly better in lighting, heating, service, and
table than any New York hotel at twice the money - in fact, no money
could buy the like with us at any hotel I know of; but this is a theme
which I hope to treat more fully hereafter. It is true that the streets
of Naples are very long and rather narrow and pretty crooked, and full
of a damp cold that no sunlight seems ever to hunt out of them; but then
they are seldom ironed down with trolley-tracks; the cabs feel their way
among the swarming crowds with warning voices and smacking whips; even
the prepotent automobile shows some tenderness for human life and limb,
and proceeds still more cautiously than the cabs and carts - in fact, I
thought I saw recurrent proofs of that respect for the average man which
seems the characteristic note of Italian liberty; and this belief of
mine, bred of my first observations in Naples, did not, after twelve
weeks in Italy, prove an illusion.
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