Nature’s Chiaroscuro in Italy 
drop of light, and Nature has given them 
the power to give it out to us, if you will, 
in thousands of radiant smiles. 
“ These old villas with their deserted gar¬ 
dens make me so insufferably sad ! ” Thus 
spoke a lady to me at dinner the other night. 
She put me in a passion, and yet when 1 go 
into the d’Este palace (which by the bye 
is but the worse half of the villa proper) 1 
can sympathize with her. I grant these old 
Italian palaces, no matter how magnificent, 
how architecturally sublime, give me what 
children call the shivers. The huge bar¬ 
rack-like apartments, the dim-lit spaces, the 
dark recesses, the damp oozing from old 
masonry, these give the most forlorn of feel¬ 
ings. Dilapidation, the vanity of wealth and 
pomp and power, the gruesomeness of past 
comedy, the dull weight of bygone tragedy, 
the sense of dust to dust, hang over the 
spirits like a pall. 
But in the gardens all is different. Over 
each garden, however 
desolate, Nature has 
thrown her veil of 
beauty. In those out¬ 
door realms stray sun¬ 
beams play at hide and 
seek among the ruined 
balustrades. The sun it¬ 
self peeps at me through 
yonder green vista. 
Lizards laze in the 
very loneliest places 
and a chance bird 
chirps somewhere in 
the branches. 
I step upon the 
moss-grown terrace. 
From the distance I 
catch sounds like the 
buzzing of a swarm of 
bees. It is only a 
little jumble of brown¬ 
skinned urchins who 
are calling out to each 
other while they tum¬ 
ble about at play in 
the street a dozen rods 
below. 
Over on the hill be¬ 
yond the cypresses that 
lift impressive fingers 
skyward, one insignif¬ 
icant dot, that means a 
man, a donkey and a 
cart, moves slowly 
along the shining road. 
Truly, life is not stren¬ 
uous here, but none 
the less is there life 
and love and joy, and 
doubtless also sorrow. 
But we have dreamed 
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