They Were Upstanding, And Very Fine And Noble In The
Lines Of The Face.
On their walls is set a marble tablet, on which it
is registered that the people of Tuscany, being
Asked whether they
would have their hereditary Duke or the House of Savoy, voted for the
latter by such and such a great majority; and this kind of tablet I
afterwards found was common to all these small towns. Then passing
down their long street I came, at the farther gate, to a great sight,
which the twilight still permitted me to receive in its entirety.
For San Quirico is built on the edge of a kind of swell in the land,
and here where I stood one looked over the next great wave; for the
shape of the view was, on a vast scale, just what one sees from a
lonely boat looking forward over a following sea.
The trough of the wave was a shallow purple valley, its arid quality
hidden by the kindly glimmer of evening; few trees stood in it to
break its sweep, and its irregularities and mouldings were just those
of a sweep of water after a gale. The crest of the wave beyond was
seventeen miles away. It had, as have also such crests at sea, one
highest, toppling peak in its long line, and this, against the clear
sky, one could see to be marked by buildings. These buildings were the
ruined castle and walls of Radicofani, and it lay straight on my way
to Rome.
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