Pencillings by the Way: Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in EuropeWillis, Nathaniel Parker
General
Pencillings by the Way: Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in Europe
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
Europe -- Description and travel
scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I close my book to go
upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the
same object, to catch the first breath that blows seaward.
It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes
ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell comes in from the
Mediterranean as smooth as glass; the sails of a beautiful yacht,
belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now
in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts; the sky is without
a speck, the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of
the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in America I have
felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the
fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes
the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and
genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down
their mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall,
talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen on the
quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in his boat,
the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about
us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly
to-day.
* * * * *
We have had two new arrivals this morning--a boat from Antibes, with a
company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French
deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat,
and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew
nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their
arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The
new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we
have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia
is not spared in their voluble denunciations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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