What least contributes to the beauty of the country
however, is perhaps most subservient to its profits. I am ashamed to
write down the returns of money gained by the oil alone in this
territory and that of Lucca, where I was much struck with the colour as
well as the excellence of this useful commodity. Nor can I tell why none
of that green cast comes over to England, unless it is, that, like
essential oil of chamomile, it loses the tint by exposure to the air.
An olive tree, however, is no elegantly-growing or happily-coloured
plant: straggling and dusky, one is forced to think of its produce,
before one can be pleased with its merits, as in a deformed and ugly
friend or companion.
The fogs now begin to fall pretty heavily in a morning, and rising about
the middle of the day, leave the sun at liberty to exert his violence
very powerfully. At night come forth the inhabitants, like dor-beetles
at sunset on the coast of Sussex; then is their season to walk and chat,
and sing and make love, and run about the street with a girl and a
guittar; to eat ice and drink lemonade; but never to be seen drunk or
quarrelsome, or riotous. Though night is the true season of Italian
felicity, they place not their happiness in brutal frolics, any more
than in malicious titterings; they are idle and they are merry: it is, I
think, the worst we can say of them; they are idle because there is
little for them to do, and merry because they have little given them to
think about.
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