He tells us that the diaries of his
tours through the central and northern regions were written; that he
visited "every celebrated spot in Umbria and Etruria" and wandered "as
far as the valley of the Po." Where are these notes?
Those on Etruria,
especially, would make good reading at this distance of time, when even
Dennis has acquired an old-world aroma. The Dictionary of National
Biography might tell us something about him, but that handy little
volume is not here; moreover, it has a knack of telling you everything
about people save what you ought to know.
So, for example, I had occasion not long ago to look up the account of
Charles Waterton the naturalist. [3] He did good work in his line, but
nothing is more peculiar to the man than his waywardness. It was
impossible for him to do anything after the manner of other folks. In
all his words and actions he was a freak, a curiosity, the prince of
eccentrics. Yet this, the essence of the man, the fundamental trait of
his character which shines out of every page of his writing and every
detail of his daily life - this, the feature by which he was known to his
fellows and ought to be known to posterity - it is intelligible from that
account only if you read between the lines. Is that the way to write
"biography"?
Fortunately he has written himself down; so has Ramage; and it is
instructive to compare the wayside reflections of these two
contemporaries as they rove about the ruins of Italy; the first, ardent
Catholic, his horizon close-bounded by what the good fathers of
Stonyhurst had seen fit to teach him; the other, less complacent, all
alive indeed with Calvinistic disputatiousness and ready to embark upon
bold speculations anent the origin of heathen gods and their modern
representatives in the Church of Rome; amiable scholars and gentlemen,
both of them; yet neither venturing to draw those plain conclusions
which the "classic remains of paganism" would have forced upon anybody
else - upon anybody, that is, who lacked their initial warp, whose mind
had not been twisted in youth or divided, rather, into watertight
compartments.
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