The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-05-11
Naples, Bright and Slovenly, Mag
nificent and Detestable, Retro
gressive Yet Progressive.
Memory Stirred to Activity While
Sailing on the Mediter-
ranean.
Gulf of Naples and Surrounding Country
The Home of Immortals in Art and
Poesy-The Modern City.

Especial Correspondence of the Independent. ]
NAPLES. Italy, April 9.-There can be
nothing more restful and delicious than the
trip by steamer from Palermo, Sicily, across
the Italian arm of the Mediterranean to the
testable metropolis of Italy, landlord
cursed, nobility housing, revolution-breed-
ing, lazzaroni-producing, retrogressive, yet
always progressive, Naples.
Aside from the soft and tender skies, the
landward perfumes which, despite ones
highest effort at mental activity, insidious-
~ impel siesta and sleep, and such intoxi-
eating zephyrs that one no longer wonders
at the inspiration to an art which left us the
Farnese Narcissus, the Venus of Capua, or
Mile, the impalpable Echo turned to an eter-
nal human listener in countless forms by
brush or chisel, or as many matchless Dia-
full Endymions to kiss them back to con-
seriousness, all the way eastward toward the
Neapolitan shore the mind and heart are
marvelously wrought by the story of the
peoples and places of this wave,washed
western peninsula-edge of Italy. The sky,
air and sea are tenderly enthralling to the
physical sense; but there is an intensity of
mental interest that fills the soul of thought
With as tender and hushed solemnity. In
front of this shore one stands face to face
with human tragedies of the densest old
world populations and activities for LOCO
years: indeed for time when mythology
ellis us that gods were half men and men
were demi-gods. down past that almost in
conceivable reach of time in which the very
face of sea and earth were changed, innum-
Prable races and dynasties grew to perfec-
ion and passed away, miracles of cities
we're built. lost from sight, dug out again
nd repeopled, and the splendid vet pathetic
tally of to-day sits buried in bloom and
line about the half-known monuments OF
past no renaissance of power and art can
yer again produce. The night, the sea, the
aimy airs and the glowing stars com
weeps of thought-life, resist them
You may. But when the morning comes
nd sets just there before you an hundred
piles OF storied shore-the sunny islands
earest. the background Of green and pur-
ie mountains With Vesuyius looming over
Inning arms to the right and left about the
luminous bay, and then a half hundred
ties and villages climbing the craggy
bore, like professions of cowled monks
ilRrlming to as many mountain shrihes-
be consciousness of presence and reality,
here in ones thought throughout the life,
me before all had been al a vague and
histy dream, stirs the heart and mind mag
kally TO their rrofoundest depths.
The irst complete view OF the Gulf of
aples sweeps the thought to a time when,
zen ages back Of the peopling of the first
aples, old Parthenope, by the Greeks. the
resent conformation of shore, outreachine
romontories and farther vince islands
- made by the action Of some monstrous
ehisforic volcano with a crater an hum
red times ~ vast as that possessed by
Their Etna or yesuvius to-day. This.
airing in head above the ssa, boiled and
AIRED, perhaps for othsr saaa, and than
= haGk bsnsa4h ~ WIVES. Ths waters