May He Not Cut Off It, As His Due,
Twenty-Five Miserable Little Miles In The Train?' Sleep Coming Over Me
After My Meal Increased The Temptation.
Alas!
How true is the great
phrase of Averroes (or it may be Boa-ed-din: anyhow, the Arabic
escapes me, but the meaning is plain enough), that when one has once
fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from
cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling)....
Examine the horse's knees before you buy him; take no ticket-of-leave
man into your house for charity; touch no prospectus that has
founders' shares, and do not play with firearms or knives and never go
near the water till you know how to swim. Oh! blessed wisdom of the
ages! sole patrimony of the poor! The road lay white in the sun, and
the railway ran just beyond.
If the people of Milo did well to put up a statue in gold to the man
that invented wheels, so should we also put one up in Portland stone
or plaster to the man that invented rails, whose property it is not
only to increase the speed and ease of travel, but also to bring on
slumber as can no drug: not even poppies gathered under a waning moon.
The rails have a rhythm of slight falls and rises ... they make a loud
roar like a perpetual torrent; they cover up the mind with a veil.
Once only, when a number of men were shouting 'POGGI-BON-SI,' like a
war-cry to the clank of bronze, did I open my eyes sleepily to see a
hill, a castle wall, many cypresses, and a strange tower bulging out
at the top (such towers I learned were the feature of Tuscany). Then
in a moment, as it seemed, I awoke in the station of Siena, where the
railway ends and goes no farther.
It was still only morning; but the glare was beyond bearing as I
passed through the enormous gate of the town, a gate pierced in high
and stupendous walls that are here guarded by lions. In the narrow
main street there was full shade, and it was made cooler by the
contrast of the blaze on the higher storeys of the northern side. The
wonders of Siena kept sleep a moment from my mind. I saw their great
square where a tower of vast height marks the guildhall. I heard Mass
in a chapel of their cathedral: a chapel all frescoed, and built, as
it were, out of doors, and right below the altar-end or choir. I noted
how the city stood like a queen of hills dominating all Tuscany: above
the Elsa northward, southward above the province round Mount Amiato.
And this great mountain I saw also hazily far off on the horizon. I
suffered the vulgarities of the main street all in English and
American, like a show. I took my money and changed it; then, having so
passed not a full hour, and oppressed by weariness, I said to myself:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 166 of 189
Words from 85852 to 86373
of 97758
