Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-11
MENreN GARAvoN, Feb, 1898

Fashionable People About the Ta-
 bIes.
 MENTION GARAvos, Feb, 1893. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER. Which Is best In the contrasts of Euro pesn seenes, to watch from your window in Florence that wonder of GIotto's Tow CT, whose rainbow tinted marbles change in the light of every fresh hour; to see in the rich Duoms front floating visions of fast centuries, or to come away from all the beauty, the passion, the romance and tragedy, and lastly the winter chill of that strangely fascinating Italy, up to the Rlvi- era where the blue Mediterranean washes the shore in lazy, luxurious, Ioafipg Men ton.
 The contrast Is great from the ceaseless absorbing of history and art to this idle rambling, this basking in the tropical suu- shine. In small wsys too you feel the change from the gay pOliteness of the Italian servants with their "brson 'appeti- ts" and "felics notte," to the stolid immo- bility of these German walters.
 The visitors here all have an irresponsi- ble, happy go-lucky kind of an air. His tory Is not on their minds. There are no sight seers as in Florence, women carrying their red Baedekers and their black flares (not on their heads) with s determined, rather harassed look as If trying to unravel the intrioseiea of Guelph and Gnibeline feuds, wondering what conspirstor was hung here, what gonfsloniere was slain there. No suppressed convents are there here, with groups of tourists, distracted and absorbed, studying the frescoes and Ruskin with an exclusive, touch-me-not air.
 There are, believe. some skeletons In a cave somewhere not far away, but nobody goes to see them.
 confess 1t was not with unmixed pleas rre that heard there was 8 genuine Last Judgment of Michael Angelo's in the church of little picturesque Roquebruns, perched high up on the mountain side be | tween here and Monte Carlo.
 | You hardly care, even should you know | enough, to trace out the elements which form the language of southern France. The Mentonsr's speech l believe Is resi- | dIum of nine different tongues which al various times have bsen superimposed upon this region. But away with all phil osophiczl thoughts. No more epgrossine duty lies before you than to ssunter about | among roses and hsliotropes, orange and \ lemon trees; to listen to the strollipg mu
 sicians, to watch hour after hour In thi'
 sheltered Baie Gsravon, the moods of thi,
 tideless Mediterranean, one day tranquil a, | & sea of glass, sauther day flashing tn,
 shore with 6 green and white sullen fury
 If you have the energy to rise early | Corsica is often visible before sunrise, ana
 very rarely on clear afternoons. her towrJ
 cliffs loom low in a yelled shsdowry in
 distirctness one hundred miles away
 Then you think gently, not too fshguing ly, about Napoleon. This fascinating haz
 over his birth place suits the one innocent
 tranquil phase of that checkered, havoc
 making career.
 Another day one sees, far out, glidinl
 swiftly by, the low white pslsce-like steam
 CTS of the German Lloyd line bound iron | Genoa to New York. This might bring
 home sick paDg were It not that she zoe
 back to snow, ice and blizzards-
 | Here the spring is longest
 Summer borrows months beyond her OWE; | Twice tho teemIng fiocks arefruitfnl,
 TSice the laden orchards groan
 | The blue or the heulteIThusAu has Dcsi
 occasionally commented on in the worldi
 history, but every fresh traveller must se' 1t for herself. On the few cloudy days
 there are but eighty in the yesr-then thu
 sun revspges itself by spreading iato [ l great band of red and flame color, shO
 through with streaks of purple, just wher'
 the grsy-blus of the sea meets the sky This gray blus has its own soothing chArm but the prevailing atmosphere is oloudles and balmy, like our middle of May, whel . every sense tells of approaching summer , Then the blue before us Is glad smiliuI holiday color much like the blue of Como , The very rare rainy day st the Riviera 1 sad indeed. When this daucing, joyous radiant macs of color transforms itsel E into a sombre, watery waste, overhunI , with mist, most dresry to look upon, 1t re minds one of shadowed homes, of dark 2 | ened friendships where the music ha grown mute, of far of great city in Ns' ] England, mourning that its heart hss bee
 plucked out.
 s A fight is 1t ou these days If the mistrl