but who have not gone towards the end of February,—who
daily talk of going, and little by little unpack their
wardrobe, as their determination oozes out. It
is easy enough to decide at night to go next day;
but in the morning, when the soft sunshine comes in
at the window, and when we descend and walk in the
garden, all our good intentions vanish. It is
not simply that we do not go away, but we have lost
the motive for those long excursions which we made
at first, and which more adventurous travelers indulge
in. There are those here who have intended for
weeks to spend a day on Capri. Perfect day for
the expedition succeeds perfect day, boatload after
boatload sails away from the little marina at the base
of the cliff, which we follow with eves of desire,
but—to-morrow will do as well. We
are powerless to break the enchantment.
I confess to the fancy that there is some subtle influence
working this sea-change in us, which the guidebooks,
in their enumeration of the delights of the region,
do not touch, and which maybe reaches back beyond
the Christian era. I have always supposed that
the story of Ulysses and the Sirens was only a fiction
of the poets, intended to illustrate the allurements
of a soul given over to pleasure, and deaf to the
call of duty and the excitement of a grapple with the
world. But a lady here, herself one of the entranced,
tells me that whoever climbs the hills behind Sorrento,
and looks upon the Isle of the Sirens, is struck with
an inability to form a desire to depart from these
coasts. I have gazed at those islands more than
once, as they lie there in the Bay of Salerno; and
it has always happened that they have been in a half-misty
and not uncolored sunlight, but not so draped that
I could not see they were only three irregular rocks,
not far from shore, one of them with some ruins on
it. There are neither sirens there now, nor any
other creatures; but I should be sorry to think I
should never see them again. When I look down
on them, I can also turn and behold on the other side,
across the Bay of Naples, the Posilipo, where one
of the enchanters who threw magic over them is said
to lie in his high tomb at the opening of the grotto.
Whether he does sleep in his urn in that exact spot
is of no moment. Modern life has disillusioned
this region to a great extent; but the romance that
the old poets have woven about these bays and rocky
promontories comes very easily back upon one who submits
himself long to the eternal influences of sky and
sea which made them sing. It is all one,—to
be a Roman poet in his villa, a lazy friar of the Middle
Ages toasting in the sun, or a modern idler, who has
drifted here out of the active currents of life, and
cannot make up his mind to depart.
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