If I pass into the Tramontano garden, it is not to escape the presence of history, or to get into the modern world, where travelers are arriving, and where there is the bustle and proverbial discontent of those who travel to enjoy themselves.In the pretty garden, which is a constant surprise of odd nooks and sunny hiding-places, with ruins, and most luxuriant ivy, is a little cottage where, I am told in confidence, the young king of Bavaria slept three nights not very long ago.I hope he slept well.But more important than the sleep, or even death, of a king, is the birth of a poet, I take it; and within this inclosure, on the eleventh day of March, 1541, Torquato Tasso, most melancholy of men, first saw the light; and here was born his noble sister Cornelia, the descendants of whose union with the cavalier Spasiano still live here, and in a manner keep the memory of the poet green with the present generation.I am indebted to a gentleman who is of this lineage for many favors, and for precise information as to the position in the house that stood here of the very room in which Tasso was born.It is also minutely given in a memoir of Tasso and his family, by Bartolommeo Capasso, whose careful researches have disproved the slipshod statements of the guidebooks, that the poet was born in a house which is still standing, farther to the west, and that the room has fallen into the sea.The descendant of the sister pointed out to me the spot on the terrace of the Tramontano where the room itself was, when the house still stood;and, of course, seeing is believing.The sun shone full upon it, as we stood there; and the air was full of the scent of tropical fruit and just-coming blossoms.One could not desire a more tranquil scene of advent into life; and the wandering, broken-hearted author of "Jerusalem Delivered " never found at court or palace any retreat so soothing as that offered him here by his steadfast sister.
If I were an antiquarian, I think I should have had Tasso born at the Villa Nardi, where I like best to stay, and where I find traces of many pilgrims from other countries.Here, in a little corner room on the terrace, Mrs.Stowe dreamed and wrote; and I expect, every morning, as I take my morning sun here by the gate, Agnes of Sorrento will come down the sweet-scented path with a basket of oranges on her head.
SEA AND SHORE
It is not always easy, when one stands upon the highlands which encircle the Piano di Sorrento, in some conditions of the atmosphere, to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins.It seems.
practicable, at such times, for one to take ship and sail up into heaven.I have often, indeed, seen white sails climbing up there, and fishing-boats, at secure anchor I suppose, riding apparently like balloons in the hazy air.Sea and air and land here are all kin, Isuspect, and have certain immaterial qualities in common.The contours of the shores and the outlines of the hills are as graceful as the mobile waves; and if there is anywhere ruggedness and sharpness, the atmosphere throws a friendly veil over it, and tones all that is inharmonious into the repose of beauty.
The atmosphere is really something more than a medium: it is a drapery, woven, one could affirm, with colors, or dipped in oriental dyes.One might account thus for the prismatic colors I have often seen on the horizon at noon, when the sun was pouring down floods of clear golden light.The simple light here, if one could ever represent it by pen, pencil, or brush, would draw the world hither to bathe in it.It is not thin sunshine, but a royal profusion, a golden substance, a transforming quality, a vesture of splendor for all these Mediterranean shores.
The most comprehensive idea of Sorrento and the great plain on which it stands, imbedded almost out of sight in foliage, we obtained one day from our boat, as we put out round the Capo di Sorrento, and stood away for Capri.There was not wind enough for sails, but there were chopping waves, and swell enough to toss us about, and to produce bright flashes of light far out at sea.The red-shirted rowers silently bent to their long sweeps; and I lay in the tossing bow, and studied the high, receding shore.The picture is simple, a precipice of rock or earth, faced with masonry in spots, almost of uniform height from point to point of the little bay, except where a deep gorge has split the rock, and comes to the sea, forming a cove, where a cluster of rude buildings is likely to gather.Along the precipice, which now juts and now recedes a little, are villas, hotels, old convents, gardens, and groves.I can see steps and galleries cut in the face of the cliff, and caves and caverns, natural and artificial: for one can cut this tufa with a knife; and it would hardly seem preposterous to attempt to dig out a cool, roomy mansion in this rocky front with a spade.
As we pull away, I begin to see the depth of the plain of Sorrento, with its villages, walled roads, its groves of oranges, olives, lemons, its figs, pomegranates, almonds, mulberries, and acacias; and soon the terraces above, where the vineyards are planted, and the olives also.These terraces must be a brave sight in the spring, when the masses of olives are white as snow with blossoms, which fill all the plain with their sweet perfume.Above the terraces, the eye reaches the fine outline of the hill; and, to the east, the bare precipice of rock, softened by the purple light; and turning still to the left, as the boat lazily swings, I have Vesuvius, the graceful dip into the plain, and the rise to the heights of Naples, Nisida, the shining houses of Pozzuoli, Cape Misenum, Procida, and rough Ischia.Rounding the headland, Capri is before us, so sharp and clear that we seem close to it; but it is a weary pull before we get under its rocky side.