+FOREIGN TRAVEL+
ON the very loveliest of summer mornings, in the leafy month of June,
Evelyn and myself, with the little fair-haired Ella, a maid, and a
courier, started by the mail train for Dover. We were in the highest
spirits, and anticipated much enjoyment in our projected journey.
If a shade of tender melancholy lingered on the cheek of my fair
companion, at the thought of her recent parting with a handsome and
devoted admirer, it was soon dissipated as she called to mind his
promise to join us, either at Venice or Florence, as soon as his
military duties would permit him to take advantage of the usual autumn
regimental leave.
Our journey through “_la belle France_” was a hurried one. Our first
halt was at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva. Here we remained a few days,
enjoying the view of the snow-capped mountains—Mont Blanc, like a hoary
giant, faintly discerned in the distance. We made a pilgrimage to “Sweet
Clarens,” rendered far more interesting through the graphic pen of our
own immortal Byron, than as the abode of that disgusting
sensualist—Rousseau, whose writings, (such of them, at least, as I have
seen), I utterly abhor.
I may be permitted here to remark, that, apart from its exquisite poetic
beauties, we found Childe Harold the best and truest of descriptive
guide books, for a work of true genius in poetry as in music, though
capable of satisfying the highest intellectual requirements, is also
adapted to interest and please the million.
At Vevay we engaged a vetturino to take us over the magnificent Simplon
pass to the head of the Lake of Como, whence we intended crossing in the
steamer to the town, which takes its name from the lake, and is situated
at its lower extremity.
The pass of the Simplon presents to the traveller every variety of
scenery, from the verdant and flowery valley, with its murmuring brook
and rich pasturage, to the rugged and barren heights, where eternal snow
usurps the place of vegetation, and the ear is constantly assailed by
the crash of the avalanche, as it leaps from crag to crag and is finally
lost in some unfathomable abyss, into whose depths the sun never
penetrates.
Our journey usually commenced at sunrise. Having taken a cup of coffee,
or a glass of delicious new milk, we entered the carriage, enjoying the
exquisite freshness and fragrance of the morning air. At about eleven, a
two-hours’ rest for the horses brought us to some shady road-side inn,
where a breakfast of mountain trout, fresh caught from the stream, and
perhaps a chamois cutlet awaited us. Much less tempting fare would, as
my readers may imagine, have had ample justice done to it, under such
favorable circumstances for exciting an appetite.
Between one and two our second start was made. Our route, perhaps, then
led through a forest of pines, rendered doubly aromatic by the magnetism
of the sun’s beams; or, it might be, the bed of a torrent skirted our
path, which we had more than once to cross, on the most picturesque of
bridges. The road over this grandly terrible pass is sufficiently wide
to admit of two _diligences_ passing abreast, without any danger of
falling down the awful precipice, which ever yawns on one side of the
road, and sometimes on either. To construct such a route over such a
mountain, it required the genius of a Napoleon to conceive and to
execute; and each step taken by the Alpine traveller, whether his way
lie over the Splügen, the Cenis, or the still finer and more easy
Simplon pass, must raise his admiration for the herculean labors of this
wonder-working architect.
Between five and six, we halted for the night, probably in the vicinity
of some cataract, the rushing of whose waters lulled us to that sweet
sleep which was ever ready to come to our pillow. As far as my
experience goes, these little way-side inns, frequented by _vetturini_
are by far the cleanest, best, and cheapest I ever entered; and from our
large city hotels, I have frequently looked back to their homely
comforts with regret.
Our prolonged journey permitted my turning the conversation,
occasionally, on Colonel Melville. I learned from Evelyn, that her
acquaintance with him commenced in rather a romantic manner. He was
hunting in their neighborhood, and in taking a leap, his horse fell with
him, and he had the misfortune to break his leg. Captain Travers, who
witnessed the accident, ordered Melville to be carried to Woodlands,
where, unable to be moved without risk, he remained for six weeks
confined to his bed. Evelyn tended him through his illness, and a strong
sympathy springing up between them, he became a constant and welcome
guest at the Abbey, until old Mrs. Travers, lynx-eyed as are most
dowagers, perceiving a growing attachment between the parties, persuaded
her son to be rude to Melville, and to suspect the prudence of his wife.
Provoked at her mother-in-law’s ill-nature, and angry at the unjust
aspersions of her husband, Evelyn confessed that she had kept up a
clandestine correspondence with the young man, by letter, and also had
occasionally met him alone in the park. She added, that, aware of her
unhappiness, Melville had presumed even to speak to her of marriage,
should she ever regain her freedom. Since her widowhood, however, she
told me she had forbidden him ever to allude to the subject of their
future union till a decent time should have elapsed since the death of
her husband.
I was glad to receive her confidence, but thought it my duty to chide
her imprudence, in permitting herself, as a married woman, clandestine
meetings with an avowed lover. I showed her, that however innocent her
feelings and intentions, her husband would have had a right to suspect
the worst, adding that even to Col. Melville she had given but too much
occasion to think lightly of her discretion, but that I trusted having
proved that she loved him to the very verge of imprudence, she would
later become to him the most faithful and modest of wives. Whatever
reply Evelyn might have made, was cut short by Ella’s exclamation—
“See, mama! how lovely!”
We looked—and there lay the beauteous Como, with her waters of sapphire,
sparkling as if gemmed with a thousand diamonds, in the beams of the
mid-day sun, her banks studded with innumerable villas, white as Parian
marble. We reached Colico in time to take the steamer to the foot of the
lake. At the small town of Como we found the train waiting to convey us
to Milan.
I will not here detain my readers to describe the fine Cathedral, with
its lofty dome, filled with that “dim religious light,” which insensibly
recalls us from the multiform distractions of daily life, and disposes
the mind to devotion. I pity the man who could enter such an edifice
without breathing a prayer, however short, to the Author of all good. I
do not envy him, if he could leave that sacred building, and not feel,
at least momentarily, the desire to become “a wiser and a better man.”
We remained but one day in Milan—just glanced at Padua, Mantua,
Verona—all interesting cities in themselves, but still more so from the
association of their names in the divine comedies of the “sweet swan of
Avon,” our own immortal Shakespeare.—These fair cities were powerless to
arrest our steps. A fever was upon our spirits, which brooked not
delay—and wherefore? Beautiful city of my dreams! thou “sea Cybele,”
rising from the blue waters of the Adriatic, with thy numerous palaces
and thy countless spires, gleaming so white in the pure Italian
moonlight—was it not to look upon thy loveliness as in a vision, that we
pressed onward, and still onward, as the young lover to greet his
beloved. The stormy ocean kisses thy marble feet in homage—wert thou not
his bride of old?—Thou most silent Queen, dost thou mourn in voiceless
grief the decay of thy sculptured halls, once so brilliant in the
festive scene, ere yet untrodden by the armed heel of the ruthless
Saxon? Or dost thou weep in thy desolation for thy dark-eyed sons, whose
godlike brows are bowed down, and whose cheeks pale beneath the yoke of
the stranger? Oh, Garibaldi! hero of the lion heart, how long wilt thou
leave her in her anguish, a slave amid slaves!
Fairy-like and unreal appeared that city to us, and yet so like my young
imaginings, that I sometimes doubted whether I actually beheld fair
Venice with my waking eyes. Those hearse-like gondolas, how silently do
they thread the streets; only the ceaseless plash of the water is heard
on the steps of the palaces—now, alas! crumbling into ruins. Looking on
the Piazza di San Marco, I could not divest myself of the idea that I
beheld a scene at the opera—there was the Basilico, the costumes, the
moonlight—all that I had seen so frequently portrayed at Covent Garden,
and her Majesty’s theatre. Nor was music wanting to complete the
illusion. Airs from Marino Faliero, Othello, and other familiar strains,
were played by the Austrian band; and as we sipped our coffee, or ate
our ices, seated under the trees in this beautiful piazza, Evelyn would
declare that it was not possible to live at Venice without an _Amoroso_,
and even my old maidhood confessed that the softly voluptuous breezes,
the dream-like beauty of the city, the seclusion of the gondolas—all
spake to the fancy, of love, mystery, and romance.
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