The Argosy — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

242 In Sunny Climes. illimitable space given over to chaos. A few lights twinkling uporf it here and there look like lamps of another world waiting to light you on your journey from this. At length you reach the bottom. A nervous and devout Italian © would ejaculate a fervent Paternoster, and you utter a no less earnest thanksgiving. The excursion is over, the danger is past. You do not like deeds of darkness, and you are glad. It had to be done, it ought to be done; but it really required a little courage. All this, no doubt, adds zest to the recollection, charm to the afterthought, By day the excursion is very different. It is not half so thrilling The sense of mystery is lost. The fascination of the horrible and the terrible and the portentous has evaporated with the shades o: night. The mountain is not much more awe-inspiring than a ghos at mid-day. But ghosts are wise ; wiser than we are. We often maké mistakes, they never do. They never appear at mid-day, for they know that such a visit would be of none effect. They never waste their power and influence. } So, comparatively speaking, going up Vesuvius by daylight is a very tame and ordinary affair: especia!ly in these days when theré is a royal road to the crater, and the ascent is made shamefully easy. | But then you have a reward of another kind. All round and abou! you is one of the most glorious views in the world. Surely it ic almost matchless. As you ascend higher and higher, so you becomé¢ more and more impressed. The view expands only to show forth fresh beauties. That black column of smoke above you enchain: your attention far less than the surrounding magnificence. Far, far above you is such a canopy of Heaven as in England you never dream of: tor you cannot dream of what you have never con ceived: a blue vaulted dome, high and ethereal, in which rides ¢ burning, molten, glowing, golden sun. In this rarified air the hea exhilarates you. Here you can perfectly imagine ‘that there have been, that there are, sun worshippers. You pity the benightec heathen, but you do not wonder at them. What object in naturt is so glorious as that health-giving, warmth-bestowing, ever-travellin; globe? His presence is light and life; his absence seems death itself Light and life he certainly is to-day, gilding everything with magi unutterable. A fairy world lies around you, renowned in history extolled in song. The charm of sadness is there equally with thi tangible joys of a full nervous existence. And these sad recollection of the past are as valuable as is water to a landscape, beauty to: woman, voice to the nightingale. Our sweetest songs are those tha tell of saddest thought, and the luxury of pain enters into our mos impressive moods. Thus it is certain that if Naples would not b Naples without Vesuvius, so Vesuvius in its turn would lose half it charm were it not for the shadow of sorrow which surrounds it the magic words of Herculaneum and Pompeii. CONNIECLOO KS aeolian)