DOI chapter:
Chapter XI: Ischia
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0440
Naples
There were a few English. A Swedish lady, whose cure
consisted not only of mud ablutions, but also of a
self-originated diet of hard nuts and milk, over which
her doctor, figuratively, wept in despair. There was
also a German blonde who, between every meal, slept
with her head upon the dining-room table, to the
great confusion of the waiters ; and in one corner a
typical Neapolitan bourgeois family sat, who seemed to
grow daily in size, as all fat people do. But foreign
“ types ” rarely fit into a landscape harmoniously, and
when thinking of Ischia the mind’s eye sees the peasant
life only—the dark Eastern faces of the girls as they
pass by bearing the classic pitcher on their heads;
little groups of dirty children under the shade of
flowering oleanders bright with double flowers ; goats,
absurdly clad donkeys, labourers resting upon the way-
side and devouring neatly peeled Indian figs; and
across the sea the continually changing sun effects
upon the water.
It is a picture little changed, I imagine, since when,
a century ago, Lamartine visited Ischia in his happy
married life, in love with life and nature and disdainful
of probable earthquakes. He was one of the very
few who have known how to gather inspiration from
the island’s beauty ; and here he composed in his sober
middle age that romance, every page of which glows
with passionate youth and poetry. But the novels
of the early nineteenth century are little read now,
and the age of the Romanticists which grew, not
only from the art galleries, but also from the real
208
There were a few English. A Swedish lady, whose cure
consisted not only of mud ablutions, but also of a
self-originated diet of hard nuts and milk, over which
her doctor, figuratively, wept in despair. There was
also a German blonde who, between every meal, slept
with her head upon the dining-room table, to the
great confusion of the waiters ; and in one corner a
typical Neapolitan bourgeois family sat, who seemed to
grow daily in size, as all fat people do. But foreign
“ types ” rarely fit into a landscape harmoniously, and
when thinking of Ischia the mind’s eye sees the peasant
life only—the dark Eastern faces of the girls as they
pass by bearing the classic pitcher on their heads;
little groups of dirty children under the shade of
flowering oleanders bright with double flowers ; goats,
absurdly clad donkeys, labourers resting upon the way-
side and devouring neatly peeled Indian figs; and
across the sea the continually changing sun effects
upon the water.
It is a picture little changed, I imagine, since when,
a century ago, Lamartine visited Ischia in his happy
married life, in love with life and nature and disdainful
of probable earthquakes. He was one of the very
few who have known how to gather inspiration from
the island’s beauty ; and here he composed in his sober
middle age that romance, every page of which glows
with passionate youth and poetry. But the novels
of the early nineteenth century are little read now,
and the age of the Romanticists which grew, not
only from the art galleries, but also from the real
208