cks in vain to find the perfect
phrasing; novelists have come and gone and have carried away peace and
inspiration; and painters have painted it from a thousand points of view,
and perhaps are painting it from another thousand this very minute. It is
the Place of Honeymoons. Rich lovers come and idle there; and lovers of
modest means rush up to it and down from it to catch the next steamer to
Menaggio. Eros was not born in Greece: of all barren mountains,
unstirring, Hymettus, or Olympus, or whatever they called it in the days
of the junketing gods, is completest. No; Venus went a-touring and abode a
while upon this same gracious spot, once dear to Pliny the younger.

Between the blessed ledge and the towering mountains over the way, rolls a
small valley, caressed on either side by the lakes. There are flower
gardens, from which in summer rises the spicy perfume of lavender; there
are rows upon rows of grape-vines, terraced downward; there are purple
figs and white and ruby mulberries. Around and about, rising sheer from
the waters, wherever the eye may rove, heaven-touching, salmon-tinted
mountains abound, with scarfs of filmy cloud aslant their rugged profiles,
and beauty-patches of snow. And everywhere the dark and brooding cypress,
the copper beech, the green pine accentuate the pink and blue and white
stucco of the villas, the rich and the humble.

Behind the terrace is a promontory, three or four hundred feet above the
waters. Upon the crest is a cultivated forest of all known evergreens.
There are ten miles of cool and fragrant paths, well trodden by the
devotees of Eros. The call of love is heard here; the echoes to-day
reverberate with the impassioned declarations of yesterday. The
Englishman's reserve melts, the American forgets his coupons, the German
puts his arm around the robust waist of his frau or fraeulein. (This is
nothing for him; he does it unconcernedly up and down the great urban
highways of the world.)

Again, between the terrace ledge and the forest lies a square of velvet
green, abounding in four-leaf clover. _Buona fortuna!_ In the center there
is a fountain. The water tinkles in drops. One hears its soft music at all
times. Along the terrace parapet are tea-tables; a monster oak protects
one from the sun. If one (or two) lingers over tea and cakes, one may
witness the fiery lances of the setting sun burn across one arm of water
while the silver spars of the rising moon shimmer across the othe