When he sees me approach, there is always the same pantomime.Ipropose to take some of the fruit he is sorting.With a knowing air, and an appearance of great mystery, he raises his left hand, the palm toward me, as one says hush.Having dispatched his business, he takes an empty basket, and with another mysterious flourish, desiring me to remain quiet, he goes to a storehouse in one corner of the garden, and returns with a load of immense oranges, all soaked with the sun, ripe and fragrant, and more tempting than lumps of gold.Itake one, and ask him if it is sweet.He shrugs his shoulders, raises his hands, and, with a sidewise shake of the head, and a look which says, How can you be so faithless? makes me ashamed of my doubts.
I cut the thick skin, which easily falls apart and discloses the luscious quarters, plump, juicy, and waiting to melt in the mouth.Ilook for a moment at the rich pulp in its soft incasement, and then try a delicious morsel.I nod.My gardener again shrugs his shoulders, with a slight smile, as much as to say, It could not be otherwise, and is evidently delighted to have me enjoy his fruit.Ifill capacious pockets with the choicest; and, if I have friends with me, they do the same.I give our silent but most expressive entertainer half a franc, never more; and he always seems surprised at the size of the largesse.We exhaust his basket, and he proposes to get more.
When I am alone, I stroll about under the heavily-laden trees, and pick up the largest, where they lie thickly on the ground, liking to hold them in my hand and feel the agreeable weight, even when I can carry away no more.The gardener neither follows nor watches me; and I think perhaps knows, and is not stingy about it, that more valuable to me than the oranges I eat or take away are those on the trees among the shining leaves.And perhaps he opines that I am from a country of snow and ice, where the year has six hostile months, and that I have not money enough to pay for the rich possession of the eye, the picture of beauty, which I take with me.
FASCINATION
There are three places where I should like to live; naming them in the inverse order of preference,--the Isle of Wight, Sorrento, and Heaven.The first two have something in common, the almost mystic union of sky and sea and shore, a soft atmospheric suffusion that works an enchantment, and puts one into a dreamy mood.And yet there are decided contrasts.The superabundant, soaking sunshine of Sorrento is of very different quality from that of the Isle of Wight.
On the island there is a sense of home, which one misses on this promontory, the fascination of which, no less strong, is that of a southern beauty, whose charms conquer rather than win.I remember with what feeling I one day unexpectedly read on a white slab, in the little inclosure of Bonchurch, where the sea whispered as gently as the rustle of the ivy-leaves, the name of John Sterling.Could there be any fitter resting-place for that most, weary, and gentle spirit?
There I seemed to know he had the rest that he could not have anywhere on these brilliant historic shores.Yet so impressible was his sensitive nature, that I doubt not, if he had given himself up to the enchantment of these coasts in his lifetime, it would have led him by a spell he could not break.
I am sometimes in doubt what is the spell of Sorrento, and half believe that it is independent of anything visible.There is said to be a fatal enchantment about Capri.The influences of Sorrento are not so dangerous, but are almost as marked.I do not wonder that the Greeks peopled every cove and sea-cave with divinities, and built temples on every headland and rocky islet here; that the Romans built upon the Grecian ruins; that the ecclesiastics in succeeding centuries gained possession of all the heights, and built convents and monasteries, and set out vineyards, and orchards of olives and oranges, and took root as the creeping plants do, spreading themselves abroad in the sunshine and charming air.The Italian of to-day does not willingly emigrate, is tempted by no seduction of better fortune in any foreign clime.And so in all ages the swarming populations have clung to these shores, filling all the coasts and every nook in these almost inaccessible hills with life.Perhaps the delicious climate, which avoids all extremes, sufficiently accounts for this; and yet I have sometimes thought there is a more subtle reason why travelers from far lands are spellbound here, often against will and judgment, week after week, month after month.
However this may be, it is certain that strangers who come here, and remain long enough to get entangled in the meshes which some influence, I know not what, throws around them, are in danger of never departing.I know there are scores of travelers, who whisk down from Naples, guidebook in hand, goaded by the fell purpose of seeing every place in Europe, ascend some height, buy a load of the beautiful inlaid woodwork, perhaps row over to Capri and stay five minutes in the azure grotto, and then whisk away again, untouched by the glamour of the place.Enough that they write "delightful spot"in their diaries, and hurry off to new scenes, and more noisy life.