ducted regardless of cost would yield up to the world the most
marvellous and valuable results.

Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina and Torre del Greco,
which has been destroyed time after time by the lava streams descending
from "that peak of Hell rising out of Paradise," as Goethe once named the
burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless, the Torrese continue to sit
patiently at the feet of the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is
angry, pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon meekly their
homes when he renders them insupportable by his furious outbursts. Yet
these people never fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
death and destruction. And little can we blame them for their fatalism,
when we gaze upon the glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky islands of Ischia and
Capri, the aerial heights of Monte Sant' Angelo and all the features of
the placid bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of unsurpassed
loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black and sinister, that contrast
strangely in their sombre hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky,
lie little beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens of half-naked
brown-skinned imps, children of the fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who
wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a
century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his
darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh
impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his
soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or so, it is still
possible to catch the spirit in which that melancholy wanderer indited one
of his most exquisite lyrics:--sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our reverie; and how
true and perfect a picture has the poet-artist drawn for us of this
beautiful Vesuvian shore!

"The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent light:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of