EUROPE TO-DAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 51, 28 January 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

MATCHLESS ITALY. Who is not deeply stirred at the very thought of Italy? It is like a casket of rare jewels, this glorious land, like jewels heaped on jewels, and the mind wanders when we think of it—now to Rome, where we seem to walk again in the spacious days of Caesar; now to Pisa, where we turn the corner of its clean, white streets and look upon a vision that has moved the hearts of men for century after century; now to Naples, where Pompeii is'turning over in the sleep of ages; now to Venice and the glory that is greater than words; now to Florence, the little heaven set up' by human hands upon the earth. From one place to another the mind of man runs, yet they are only as the peaks in a mountain range. Between them, from Venice to Naples, in that long strip of earth guarded by the rising mountains and the rolling sea, lie more wonderful places, more marvellous things, more mighty works of the hand of man and more deathless memories of the human race, than can be found in any other land beneath the sky. Still its nncient cities ring with the hammer of Michael Angelo, still we seem to catch the music of Giotto’s dream. The sweep of Raphael’s brush is fresh upon its walls; the children of Dolla Robbia look down upon its floor; the tenderness of Fra Angelico haunts its cloistered shades; the images of Donatello give out their inspiration still. And from every corner of this magic land the wonderful towers rise high toward the sky. They point upward and upward, and they tell of the- striving of man to reach the mighty heights. How high the mind of man has climbed in this land no words can tell; we must live among this wonder if we would know a little of it all.— (G.)