I
The traveller who on his way to Italy passes along the Riviera di
Ponente, through Marseilles, Nice, and Mentone to Ventimiglia, or
crossing the Alps touches Italian soil, though scarcely Italy indeed, at
Turin, on coming to Genoa finds himself really at last in the South, the
true South, of which Genoa la Superba is the gate, her narrow streets,
the various life of her port, her picturesque colour and dirt, her
immense palaces of precious marbles, her oranges and pomegranates and
lemons, her armsful of children, and above all the sun, which lends an
eternal gladness to all these characteristic or delightful things,
telling him at once that the North is far behind, that even Cisalpine
Gaul is crossed and done with, and that here at last by the waves of
that old and great sea is the true Italy, that beloved and ancient land
to which we owe almost everything that is precious and valuable in our
lives, and in which still, if we be young, we may find all our dreams.
What to us are the weary miles of Eastern France if we come by road, the
dreadful tunnels full of despair and filth if we come by rail, now that
we have at last returned to her, or best of all, perhaps, found her for
the first time in the spring at twenty-one or so, like a fair woman
forlorn upon the mountains, the Ariadne of our race who placed in our
hand the golden thread that led us out of the cavern of the savage to
the sunlight and to her. But though, indeed, I think all this may be
clearer to those who come to her in their first youth by the long white
roads with a song on their lips and a dream in their hearts--for the
song is drowned by the iron wheels that doubtless have their own music,
and the dream is apt to escape in the horror of the night imprisoned
with your fellows; still, as we are so quick to assure ourselves, there
are other ways of coming to Italy than on foot: in a motor-car, for
instance, our own modern way, ah! so much better than the train, and
truly almost as good as walking. For there is the start in the early
morning, the sweet fresh air of the fields and the hills, the long halt
at midday at the old inn, or best of all by the roadside, the afternoon
full of serenity, that gradually passes into excitement and eager
expectancy as you approach some unknown town; and every night you sleep
in a new place, and every morning the joy of the wanderer is yours. You
never "find yourself" in any city, having won to it through many
adventures, nor ever are you too far away from the place you lay at on
the night before. And so, as you pass on and on and on, till the road
which at first had entranced you, wearies you, terrifies you,
relentlessly opening before you in a monstrous white vista, and you who
began by thinking little of distance find, as I have done, that only the
roads are endless, even for you too the endless way must stop when it
comes to the sea; and there you have won at last to Italy, at Genoa.
If you come by Ventimiglia, starting early, all the afternoon that white
vision will rise before you like some heavenly city, very pure and full
of light, beckoning you even from a long way off across innumerable and
lovely bays, splendid upon the sea. While if you come from Turin, it is
only at sunset you will see her, suddenly in a cleft of the mountains,
the sun just gilding the Pharos before night comes over the sea,
opening like some great flower full of coolness and fragrance.
It was by sea that John Evelyn came to Genoa after many adventures; and
though we must be content to forego much of the surprise and romance of
an advent such as that, yet for us too there remain many wonderful
things which we may share with him. The waking at dawn, for instance,
for the first time in the South, with the noise in our ears of the bells
of the mules carrying merchandise to and from the ships in the _Porto_;
the sudden delight that we had not felt or realised, weary as we were on
the night before, at finding ourselves really at last in the way of such
things, the shouting of the muleteers, the songs of the sailors getting
their ships in gear for the seas, the blaze of sunlight, the pleasant
heat, the sense of everlasting summer. These things, and so much more
than these, abide for ever; the splendour of that ancient sea, the
gesture of the everlasting mountains, the calmness, joy, and serenity of
the soft sky.
Something like this is what I always feel on coming to that proud city
of palaces, a sort of assurance, a spirit of delight. And in spite of
all Tennyson may have thought to say, for me it is not the North but the
South that is bright "and true and tender." For in the North the sky is
seldom seen and is full of clouds, while here it stretches up to God.
And then, the South has been true to all her ancient faiths and works,
to the Catholic religion, for instance, and to agriculture, the old
labour of the corn and the wine and the oil, while we are gone after
Luther and what he leads to, and, forsaking the fields, have taken to
minding machines.
And so, in some dim way I cannot explain, to come to Italy is like
coming home, as though after a long journey one were to come suddenly
upon one's mistress at a corner of the lane in a shady place.
It is perhaps with some such joy in the heart as this that the fortunate
traveller will come to Genoa the Proud, by the sea, lying on the bosom
of the mountains, whiter than the foam of her waves, the beautiful gate
of Italy.