found again glittering upon
the Bay of Naples. We stood at the car-window and watched it for an
hour, for all that time our train was winding its way around the shore
into Naples.

That curve of the shore, that sheet of rippling sapphire, the glint of
the moon on the water, the train trailing its slow length around the
bay, are associated in my mind with one of those emotional upheavals
which travellers must often experience in passing from one phase of
civilization to another. It marks one of the mile-stones in my inner
life. I was leaving the East, the pagan East, with its mysterious
influence, and I was getting back to Cooks' tourists and Italy. My
mind was in a whirl. Which was best? Why should I so love one, and why
did the other bore me? I was afraid to follow the yearnings of my own
soul, and yet I knew that only there lay happiness. To make up one's
mind to be true to one's love--even if it be only the love of
beauty--requires courage. And the trial of my bravery came to me on
that curve of the Bay of Naples. I dared. I am daring now. I am still
true to the Orient.

As I look back I remember that the phrase, "See Naples and die," gave
me the hazy idea that it must be very beautiful, but just how I did
not know, and did not particularly care. I knew the bay would be
lovely; I only hoped it would be as lovely as I expected. Celebrated
beauties are so apt to be disappointing. I imagined that all
Neapolitan boys wore their shirt-collars open and that a wavy lock of
coal-black hair was continually blowing across their brown foreheads.
That eternal porcelain miniature has maddened me with its omnipresence
ever since I was a child. But aside from these half-thoughts and dim
expectations I had no hopes at all. I was prepared to be gently and
tranquilly pleased; not wildly excited, but satisfied; not happy, but
contented with its beauty. But I have found more. The bay is more
lovely than I anticipated, and I have discovered that Italian hair is
not coal-black; it begins to be black at the roots, and evidently had
every intention of being black when it started out, but it grew weary
of so much energy, and ended in sundry shades of russet brown and
sunburned tans. It generally has these two colors, black and tan, like
the silky coat of a fine terrier, and it waves in lovely little
tendrils, and is much prettier than hair either all black or all
brown.

But I am ahead of my narrative. I am trying to decide whether Naple