But why another world? And another world even from that of the rest of the French Riviera? It is partly the climate and the consequent flora, but mostly the light. The general aridity of the Riviera, with the prevalence of everbrowns and evergreens, strikes unpleasantly at first the visitor from the North. Sunshine and riotous colors of flowers and blossoming trees do not make up for the absence of water-fed green. When it rains, the Northerner's depression cannot be fought off. The chill gets to his soul as well as to his bones. He prays for the sun he has come south to seek. But when the sun returns, the dust annoys him. The high wind gets on his nerves.
The casual tourist, whose stay is brief, even if he has come in the most favorable season, is "not so sure about the Riviera, you know." He is impatient with himself because, after the first vivid impression, panoramas and landscapes leave him unsatisfied. There is no compensation for the absence of water-fed green in the canvas of nature _until one becomes responsive to other colors_. I do not mean particular patches of color in flowers and blossoms. These are of a season. Often they pass in a week. The sun that gives rich life kills quickly. The glory of south lands, especially along the sea, is the constant changing of colors. These colors you will drink in only when by familiarity you have become sensitive to lights and shadows.
If you stay long enough at a place like Menton you will be ready for Southern Italy and Greece. You will be able to drink in the beauty of landscapes without foliage. And when you have acquired this sense, your own country will be a new world to you. Never again, as long as you live, will you tire of any landscape.
The sun veils and unveils itself more often and more quickly and more unexpectedly at Menton than at any place on the Riviera. And the setting for watching the changes is perfect. Menton can say, in the words of the old sundial,
San Marino and Andorra have maintained their independence from the Middle Ages, but as republics. The only reigning families who kept their domains from being engulfed in the evolution of modern Europe are those of Liechtenstein and Monaco. What will happen to Liechtenstein with the disappearance of the Hapsburg Empire is uncertain. Wedged in between the Vorarlberg portion of the Austrian Tyrol and Switzerland, Liechtenstein is almost as out of the way, as forgotten, as unimportant, as San Marino and Andorra. Monaco is in a different situation. The smallest country in the world covers only eight square miles, and never was very much larger than it is today. Until half a century ago Monaco was an Italian principality and not at all an anomaly. For Italy had been broken up into small political units from the Roman days. At the time of the unification of Italy, the Italians had to part with a portion of the Riviera to France. Monaco lost a bit of her coast line--the Menton district--and became an enclave in France.