The Argosy — page 392: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 369 town. Thescenery to begin with was flat. A long straight road, a wide plain, distant hills or mountains. All this preparation and packing and ceremony was for a drive that, altogether, would not last much above three hours. You see we were not going to the ends of the earth—wherever they may be situated in Mallorca. I cannot rave to you about luxuriance of vegetation, because we had not very much of it. It is winter here, though not the winter of our discontent, I am glad to say. In England we should be happy with such a winter as this all the year round. Our English summers are little more than a snare and a delusion, and we have no sooner lost our six weeks’ spring east winds than we seem to plunge at once into the equinoxial gales of autumn. There was, then, not very much luxuriance of vegetation to be seen to-day. But here and there a date tree reared its head, spread- ing its plumes, and allowing its fruit to hang in rich clusters. And occasionally a palm tree gladdened our eyes, giving such distinctive character to the landscape, and standing out so picturesquely against the background of the blue sky, for which it seems specially to have been made. How unlike England it all is. How it transports one at once to everything Eastern ; everything Italian or Spanish. With what strange glow and rapture it somehow fills the soul. What emotions it raises within us, that, try as we will, can never be put into words. ‘“ This song of soul I struggle to outbear Through portals of the sense sublime and whole, And utter all myself into the air: But if I did it—as the thunder-roll Breaks its own cloud—my flesh would perish there, Before that dread apocalypse of soul.’’ What is this longing, this soul-voice, which makes itself heard and felt, but to which we can give neither name nor expression? What is this vital spark? Whence cometh it and whither does it go? And why is life made by it so weighty a burden, so awful a reality, so exquisite a joy that we scarce can live it out? Who wonders at Shelley proposing to overturn his boat, and so put an end to the mystery of the unknown, which weighed so terribly upon him also? Who wonders, yet does not shudder? For who would rashly raise the Veil with his own hand, and rush into the Presence Chamber unbidden and unblessed P We found the trees all bare; the olives picked and the figs garnered. ‘Those lovely, luscious figs: green outside if you will, but red and soft and juicy within. Here and there the landscape was enlivened by white farm-houses, some of them by the roadside. Yellow strings of Indian corn decorated them ; and long strings of the red capsicum give a picturesque and rich colouring to their surroundings. On first seeing them in the distance we were puzzled to know what these rich red ropes could be. conmicooolks Co