The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Over the irregular walls of the subdued white and mellow gray houses and
palaces, beyond the Tiber running red in the dying sunlight, over the
round-walled castle of San Angelo, the dome of Saint Peter's rises full
in the midst of the twinkling, hazy, red and golden light. Passing the
stone-pines crowning Monte Mario, there gleam away to the left the far
waters of the sea, over which the purple mist of young night tenderly,
softly falls. Once thoughtfully noted, you will remember this glowing
scene years after sublimer and wilder views are lost to memory or grown
so faint that they are to you but as dull colors seen in dreams of old
age compared to the flashing brightness of those presented to the closed
eyes of youth.
As the sun sets and those in carriages and on foot slowly leave the
hights of the Pincio, and descend once more to the old city, you will
hear, as the evening star shines brighter and brighter, the first
liquid, thrilling notes of the nightingales; then as you lean over the
stone parapet, dreamily looking into the dense foliage of trees and
shrubs beneath you, you will feel the beauty of those lines:
Seek the nightingale's sequestered tower,
Who with her love-lorn melody
So bewitched thee in the vernal hour:
When she ceased to love, she ceased to be.
It is from the months of May to November, when travelers have left Rome,
and the city is in the hands of the Romans, that your walks on the
Pincio will prove something more than a mere repetition of a stroll in
Baden-Baden, or a revival of ideas common to the Prado or Prater. No
longer the little prettinesses of the Medicean Venus flirt by you in the
nervous silks that flutter along these walks, but something nobly
womanly, of a solid past, slow and stately, moves solemnly, by. We know
the lives of these copies of the Venus of Milos, we know its most
commonplace and vulgar attributes, but we know, too, its strength! The
city of Rome holds in its women the mothers of heroes, when Providence
shall withdraw the black veil now hung over their rude minds, and let in
the light of knowledge. We who laugh at their sad ignorance, think what
we would be without liberty--our minds enslaved, geography tabooed!
Egypt is a paradise compared to Rome.
The advantages of foreign travel to an intelligent American are to teach
him ... the disadvantages of living any where save in America. And
though the artistic eye dwells with such loving repose on the soothing
colors of Italy, and particularly on the subdued white and gray tones of
Roman ruins and palaces, walls and houses, yet the owner of that
artistic eye should restrain his wrath at the fiery red bricks of our
own cities, for let him reflect that this color goads him on, as it doth
a bull, to make valorous efforts--to do something!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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