And was any ever set in a fairer country? It is a plain, yet no monotony of level, for a spine of the encircling hills tilts the gardens to the evening sun, while the shadow of the mountains wards off the fierce glare of the heat till long past noon. And what fertility! Is there on the surface of the earth such a lush wild glade of orange groves, three generations, "father, son, and grandson," as the Sorrentines say, hanging on a single tree; while as they hang and ripen, the scented flowers are continually budding in the shadow of the dark green leaves, and every waft of air is sweetened by the fragrance of the blossom. But at Surriento all the airs are sweet. If they do not blow across the orange groves they carry down the scent of rosemary and myrtle from the mountains, which are knee-deep in delicious scrub; or they come off the sea in sharp, cool breezes, bringing the gladness and fresh movement of the deep, scattering the stagnant heats and making all the plain laugh with pleasure in the joy of life. How long the lovely summer lasts at Surriento, and how short are the bad winter days! "A Cannelora," say the peasants, "state rinto e vierno fora!" What is "Cannelora"? It is the second day of February, when England still has full three months of winter! Then it is that summer returns to the Piano di Sorrento and chases winter away across the hills. Is it true? "Chi lo sa." Perhaps not quite, but what of that? The Sorrentines themselves have another saying, which runs thus: "A neve 'e Marzo nu' fa male,"--that is, "Snow does no harm in March." So the summer which comes at Cannelora is not incompatible with snow! Yet even in fibs there must be probability, or where would be the use of them? To declare that an English summer began at Cannelora would be simply dull.
The plain, I say, is not one unbroken level, nor is it wide enough to be monotonous. One cannot look out far in any direction over the olive woods which like a soft grey flood surge over the fertile country, without being checked by the cool, shadowy mountains, St. Angelo vast and lovely, Vico Alvano thrusting up an almost perfect cone; and many another peak showing towards Sorrento a slope of crag and pasture-land which on its other face drops in sheer precipices to the Gulf of Salerno. One knows that from the summit of the ridge there is an outlook over both the gulfs; and from my post, here on the hillside known as Capo di Monte, I can see the red monastery called the Deserto, because it was indeed erected in a solitary waste, where the soul of man might hope to tread down underfoot him who, in the language of the place, is rarely spoken of by name, but indicated more gently as "Chillo che sta sotto San Michele"--"He who lies beneath St. Michael."