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:
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