hanters 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.

MONKISH PERCHES

On heights at either end of the Piano di Sorrento, and commanding
it, stood two religious houses: the Convent of the Carnaldoli to the
northeast, on the crest of the hill above Meta; the Carthusian Monastery
of the Deserto, to the southwest, three miles above Sorrento. The longer
I stay here, the more respect I have for the taste of the monks of the
Middle Ages. They invariably secured the best places for themselves.
They seized all the strategic points; they appropriated all the
commanding heights; they knew where the sun would best strike the
grapevines; they perched themselves wherever there was a royal view.
When I see how unerringly they did select and occupy the eligible
places, I think they were moved by a sort of inspiration. In those days,
when the Church took the first choice in everything, the temptation to a
Christian life must have been strong.

The monastery at the Deserto was suppressed by the French of the first
republic, and has long been in a ruinous condition. Its buildings crown
the apex of the highest elevation in this part of the promontory:
from its roof the fathers paternally looked down upon the churches and
chapels and nunneries which thickly studded all this region; so that I
fancy the air must have been full of the sound of bells, and of incense
perpetually ascending. They looked also upon St. Agata under the hill,
with a church bigger than itself; upon more distinct Massa, with its
chapels and cathedral and overlooking feudal tower; upon Torca, the
Greek Theorica, with its Temple of Apollo, the scene yet of an annual
religious festival, to which the peasants of Sorrento go as their
ancestors did to the shrine of the heathen god; upon olive and orange
orchards, and winding paths and wayside shrines innumerable. A sweet and
peacef