It Is A Great Sheet Like A Sea; But As One Knows One Is On A High
Plateau, And As
There is but a short dip down to it; as it is round
and has all about it a rim
Of low even hills, therefore one knows it
for an old and gigantic crater now full of pure water; and there are
islands in it and palaces on the islands. Indeed it was an impression
of silence and recollection, for the water lay all upturned to heaven,
and, in the sky above me, the moon at her quarter hung still pale in
the daylight, waiting for glory.
I sat on the coping of a wall, drank a little of my wine, ate a little
bread and sausage; but still song demanded some outlet in the cool
evening, and companionship was more of an appetite in me than
landscape. Please God, I had become southern and took beauty for
granted.
Anyhow, seeing a little two-wheeled cart come through the gate,
harnessed to a ramshackle little pony, bony and hard, and driven by a
little, brown, smiling, and contented old fellow with black hair, I
made a sign to him and he stopped.
This time there was no temptation of the devil; if anything the
advance was from my side. I was determined to ride, and I sprang up
beside the driver. We raced down the hill, clattering and banging and
rattling like a piece of ordnance, and he, my brother, unasked began
to sing. I sang in turn. He sang of Italy, I of four countries:
America, France, England, and Ireland. I could not understand his
songs nor he mine, but there was wine in common between us, and
_salami_ and a merry heart, bread which is the bond of all mankind,
and that prime solution of ill-ease - I mean the forgetfulness of
money.
That was a good drive, an honest drive, a human aspiring drive, a
drive of Christians, a glorifying and uplifted drive, a drive worthy
of remembrance for ever. The moon has shone on but few like it though
she is old; the lake of Bolsena has glittered beneath none like it
since the Etruscans here unbended after the solemnities of a triumph.
It broke my vow to pieces; there was not a shadow of excuse for this
use of wheels: it was done openly and wantonly in the face of the wide
sky for pleasure. And what is there else but pleasure, and to what
else does beauty move on? Not I hope to contemplation! A hideous
oriental trick! No, but to loud notes and comradeship and the riot of
galloping, and laughter ringing through old trees. Who would change
(says Aristippus of Pslinthon) the moon and all the stars for so much
wine as can be held in the cup of a bottle upturned? The honest man!
And in his time (note you) they did not make the devilish deep and
fraudulent bottoms they do now that cheat you of half your liquor.
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