Naples from the Heights

‎This view was taken on the 5th of June, 1894. We are looking eastward across the famous bay of Naples. The site of the city is unequaled on earth. Mountains, plain, bay and sea combine to satisfy the eye, and to stimulate the imagination. There is little in Naples itself to attract the traveler except its collections of antiquities, especially from the exhumed Herculaneum and Pompeii, and some fine works of art, chiefly ancient. Other Italian cities show finer specimens of architecture and more extensive picture galleries. The great opera house, San Carlo, is perhaps the finest structure in the city, and one of the grandest in Europe. But the glory of Naples is to be found in its natural elements. As a graceful pen has said: “The sun shines his brightest, and the zephyrs blow their softest; the sea is of the deepest blue, and the mountains of the most glorious purple.” Mrs. Jameson, in her “Diary of an Ennuyée,” says: “Whoever would truly enjoy nature should see her in this delicious land. For here she seems to keep holiday all the year round. To stand upon my balcony, looking out upon the sunshine and the glorious bay, the blue sea and the pure skies, and to feel that indefinite sensation of excitement quickening every pulse, and thrilling through every nerve, is a pleasure peculiar to this climate, where the mere consciousness of existence is happiness enough.” How lovely is this world! And if from the hearts of its inhabitants the taint of sin and the love of it could be taken, what a heaven it would be! What glories of the heavens overhang it, and what splendors of vegetation adorn it! What majesty of mountains, and graceful curves of shore, and expanses of sea and ocean, ennoble it!