Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1886-11-03
ITALIAN WOMEN.

Beautiful Creatures Who Are Entirely
Free From Simpering Sentimentality.
With the budding leaves and fragrant
flowers and the first flush of golden
rays on the pavements, the streets, av-
enues and piazzas get to be daily
thronged with the womanhood of the
city. / think that for foreigner there
is not any more interesting sight in
Italy than that of an Italian girl in her
youth and beauty. | do not, of course,
allude to the signorina in her bread
and-butter stage-when she has scarce
~ well abandoned the romping gait
and gestures peculiar to bib and tuck
ers-but to the exquisitely rounded
damsel a little more than half way
through her teens, who has all the
fullness and more than the mellow
qualities of a Parisienne of twenty
one, Girls, by the by, become mobile
here at fourteen and half wears. but
on the other hand they rarely keep a
firm grip of their charms on the shady
side of thirty. During the fifteen years
of their womanly glory, however, their
features. generally speaking, are SO
fair and winsome that the most invet-
crate bachelors snccumb to the coy
Establishments of the delicious crea-
lures. There is no sickly, simpering
sentimentality in the Italian woman.
Her passions are strong and often in
comfortable. When she loves, it is
with her whole heart and soul; and
during the meridian hours of her at
tachment she would sooner kill herself
and her lover rather than see him cast
ing sleeps eyes at another female.
Here, at least, Mormons have not the
slightest chance of putting into practice
the peculiar tenets of their persuasion.
for the Italian woman is a fearful ieal-
Gus being, and woe betide her Lothario
if he should forget the pledges he made
or the duty he owes her. If he abandons
her, and she can not discover his
whereabouts, she plunges aknife in her
heart, asphyxiates herself in her room
or ends her life in neighboring river
or canal.
She is, moreover, as capricious as
the climate of her country. How often
in the midst of calm, breathless, sui
try day would not the storm blasts
sweep over hill and plain like so many
dread simooms. At one moment the
sky is blue from horizon to horizon
not the tiniest feathery speck, being
visible in it's monotonous azure. The
next moment the armament would be
black with thick masses of cloud scud-
ding hither and thither in all direc-
tons; an almost impenetrable darkness
would brood over the city; shop lamps
would have to be lit, and torches i'm
provised for business purposes, while
the rain comes pattering down, like SO
many hailstones on rooftree and pave
ment. After brief half hour, how
ever, the storm would disappear; the
whole heavens would become one scene
of azure and all their surroundings
would resume their wontcd appear
ance. The Italian woman is well
charged with such capricious electric
ity. Within the space of five minutes
she can be both the dearest of BESIDE
monas and the fiercest of Medusas.
The intensity of her anger renders it
only ephemeral; but while she writhes
under its influence there is scarcely
tigress more savage than She Poets
and novelists usually endow this crea-
ture with pair of coal-black eyes and
wealth of raven tressses. Neapolitan
and Roman orbs and locks possess to a
very large extent these characteristics;
and although there are many Milanese
women of the same pattern as their
southern sisters, find among them no
small proportion of the bluest of eyes
and the blondest of tresses. The Ger
man blood of these girls is accounted
for by the fact that the Austrians, dur
Ing their occupation of Lombardy, in
termarried with the natives and thus
blended the cream-like whiteness of
the Teuton with the dark, bronzed hue
of the Italian. Milan (Italy) Cor. San
Francisco Chronicle l5F,