At the frontier takes a strict view of what is due to his
employers. I had, perhaps, a couple of ounces of tobacco in my
pouch, but was made to pay duty on it, and the searching of our
small amount of luggage was little less than inquisitorial.
From Varese we went without stopping to the Sacro Monte, four or
five miles beyond, and several hundred feet higher than the town
itself. Close to the first chapel, and just below the arch through
which the more sacred part of the mountain is entered upon, there
is an excellent hotel called the Hotel Riposo, kept by Signor
Piotti; it is very comfortable, and not at all too hot even in the
dog-days; it commands magnificent views, and makes very good
headquarters.
Here we rested and watched the pilgrims going up and down. They
seemed very good-humoured and merry. Then we looked through the
grating of the first chapel inside the arch, and found it to
contain a representation of the Annunciation. The Virgin had a
real washing-stand, with a basin and jug, and a piece of real soap.
Her slippers were disposed neatly under the bed, so also were her
shoes, and, if I remember rightly, there was everything else that
Messrs. Heal & Co. would send for the furnishing of a lady's
bedroom.
I have already said perhaps too much about the realism of these
groups of painted statuary, but will venture a word or two more
which may help the reader to understand the matter better as it
appears to Catholics themselves. The object is to bring the scene
as vividly as possible before people who have not had the
opportunity of being able to realise it to themselves through
travel or general cultivation of the imaginative faculties. How
can an Italian peasant realise to himself the notion of the
Annunciation so well as by seeing such a chapel as that at Varese?
Common sense says, either tell the peasant nothing about the
Annunciation, or put every facility in his way by the help of which
he will be able to conceive the idea with some definiteness.
We stuff the dead bodies of birds and animals which we think it
worth while to put into our museums. We put them in the most life-
like attitudes we can, with bits of grass and bush, and painted
landscape behind them: by doing this we give people who have never
seen the actual animals, a more vivid idea concerning them than we
know how to give by any other means. We have not room in the
British Museum to give a loose rein to realism in the matter of
accessories, but each bird or animal in the collection is so
stuffed as to make it look as much alive as the stuffer can make
it - even to the insertion of glass eyes.
