r the
right way to the monastery. It was worth more than we suffered in
finding it; for the museum is a record of the most significant events of
Neapolitan history from the time of the Spanish domination down to that
of the Garibaldian invasion; and the church and corridors through which
the wind hustled us abound in paintings and frescos such as one would be
willing to give a whole week of quiet weather to. I do not know but I
should like to walk always in the convent garden, or merely look into it
from my window in the cloister wall, and gossip with my fellow-friars at
their windows. We should all be ghosts, of course, but the more easily
could the sun warm us through in spite of the _tramontana._

[Illustration: 11 NAPLES AND THE CASTEL ST. ELMO FROM THE MOLE]

I do not know that Naples is very beautiful in certain phases in which
Venice and Genoa are excellent. Those cities were adorned by their sons
with palaces of an outlook worthy of their splendor. But in the other
Italian cities the homes of her patricians were crowded into the narrow
streets where their architecture fails of its due effect. It is so with
them in Naples, and even along the Villa Nazionale, where many palatial
villas are set, they seclude themselves in gardens where one fancies
rather than sees them. These are, in fact, sometimes the houses of the
richest bourgeoisie--bankers and financiers--and the houses which have
names conspicuous in the mainly inglorious turmoil of Neapolitan history
help unnoted to darken the narrow and winding ways of the old city. A
glimpse of a deep court or of a towering facade is what you get in
passing, but it is to be said of the sunless streets over which they
gloom that they are kept in a modern neatness beside which the dirt of
New York is mediaeval. It is so with most other streets in Naples,
except those poorest ones where the out-door life insists upon the most
intimate domestic expression. Even such streets are no worse than our
worst streets, and the good streets are all better kept than our best.

I am not sure that there are even more beggars in Naples than in New
York, though I will own that I kept no count. In both cities beggary is
common enough, and I am not noting it with disfavor in either, for it is
one of my heresies that comfort should be constantly reminded of misery
by the sight of it--comfort is so forgetful. Besides, in Italy charity
costs so little; a cent of our money pays a man for the los