eek since I wrote a line in my notebook, and, judging only from
my sensations, it seems like a year. Events rapidly succeeding, always
make time seem longer in retrospect. It is only monotony is brief to
look back upon.

I expected ere this to have been at Naples, if not Palermo; and here I
linger on the Lake of Como, as if my frail health had left me any choice
of a resting-place. And yet, why should this not be as healthful as it
is beautiful?

Looking out from this window, beneath which, not three paces distant,
the blue lake is plashing--the music of its waves the only sound
heard--great mountains rise grandly from the water to the very skies,
the sides one tangled mass of olive, vine, and fig-tree. The dark-leaved
laurel, the oleander, the cactus and the magnolia cluster around each
rugged rocky eminence, and hang in graceful drapery over the glassy
water. Palaces, temples, and villas are seen on every side; some, boldly
standing out, are reflected in the calm lake, their marble columns
tremulous as the gentle wind steals past; others, half hid among the
embowering trees, display but a window or a portico, or perchance a deep
arched entrance for the gondolas, above which some heavy banner slowly
waves its drooping folds, touching the very water. The closed jalousies,
the cloudless sky, the unruffled water, over which no boat is seen to
glide, the universal stillness, all tell that it is noon--the noon of
Italy, and truly the northern midnight is not a season of such unbroken
repose. Looking at this scene, and fancying to myself the lethargic life
of ease, which not even thought disturbs, of these people, I half wonder
within me how had it fared with us of England beneath such a sun, and in
such a clime. Had the untiring spirit of enterprise, the active zeal and
thirst for wealth, triumphed over every obstacle, and refused to accept,
as a season of rest, the hours of the bright and glaring sunshine?

Here, the very fishermen are sleeping beneath their canvass awnings,
and their boats lie resting in the dark shadows. There is something
inexpressibly calm and tranquillising in all this. The stillness of
night we accept as its natural and fitting accompaniment, but to look
out upon this fair scene, one is insensibly reminded of the condition
of life which leaves these busiest of mortal hours, elsewhere, free
to peaceful repose, and with how little labour all wants are met and
satisfied.

How came I here? is a quest