Ah, Here Are Politics And News Of The World, At Last.
A promising
article on the "Direttissimo Roma-Napoli" - the railway line that is to
connect the two towns by way of the Pontine Marshes.
. . . Dear me! This
reads very familiarly. . . . Why, to be sure, it is the identical
dissertation, with a few changes by the office-boy, that has cropped up
periodically in these pages for the last half-century, or whenever the
railway was first projected. The line, as usual, is being projected more
strenuously than before, and certain members of the government have
goneso far as to declare. . .. H'm! Let me try something else: "The
Feminist Movement in England" by Our London Correspondent (who lives in
a little side street off the Toledo); that sounds stimulating. . . . The
advanced English Feminists - so it runs - are taking the lead in
encouraging their torpid sisters on the Continent. . . . Hardly a day
passes, that some new manifestation of the Feminist Movement ... in
fact, it may be avowed that the Feminist Movement in England. . . .
The air is cooler, as I awake, and looking out of the window I perceive
from the mellow light-effects that day is declining.
Towards this sunset hour the unbroken dome of the sky often undergoes a
brief transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen
accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every
quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky
vapours - you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some
drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in
vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save
unquiet breaths of wind that raise dust-eddies from the country roads
and lash the sea into a mock frenzy of crisp little waves. It is the
merest interlude. Soon the blue-black drifts have fled away from the
mountains that stand out, clear and refreshed, in the twilight. The wind
has died down, the storm is over and Cotrone thirsts, as ever, for rain
that never comes. Yet they have a Madonna-picture here - a celebrated
black Madonna, painted by Saint Luke - who "always procures rain, when
prayed to."
Once indeed the tail of a shower must have passed overhead, for there
fell a few sad drops. I hurried abroad, together with some other
citizens, to observe the phenomenon. There was no doubt about the
matter; it was genuine rain; the drops lay, at respectable intervals, on
the white dust of the station turnpike. A boy, who happened to be
passing in a cart, remarked that if the shower could have been collected
into a saucer or some other small receptacle, it might have sufficed to
quench the thirst of a puppy-dog.
I usually take a final dip in the sea, at this time of the evening.
After that, it is advisable to absorb an ice or two - they are excellent,
at Cotrone - and a glass of Strega liqueur, to ward off the effects of
over-work. Next, a brief promenade through the clean, well-lighted
streets and now populous streets, or along the boulevard Margherita to
view the rank and fashion taking the air by the murmuring waves, under
the cliff-like battlements of Charles the Fifth's castle; and so to dinner.
This meal marks the termination of my daily tasks; nothing serious is
allowed to engage my attention, once that repast is ended; I call for a
chair and sit down at one of the small marble-topped tables in the open
street and watch the crowd as it floats around me, smoking a Neapolitan
cigar and imbibing, alternately, ices and black coffee until, towards
midnight, a final bottle of vino di Ciro is uncorked - fit seal for the
labours of the day.
One might say much in praise of Calabrian wine. The land is full of
pleasant surprises for the cenophilist, and one of these days I hope to
embody my experiences in the publication of a wine-chart of the province
with descriptive text running alongside - the purchasers of which, if
few, will certainly be of the right kind. The good Dr. Barth - all praise
to him! - has already done something of the kind for certain parts of
Italy, but does not so much as mention Calabria. And yet here nearly
every village has its own type of wine and every self-respecting family
its own peculiar method of preparation, little known though they be
outside the place of production, on account of the octroi laws which
strangle internal trade and remove all stimulus to manufacture a good
article for export. This wine of Ciro, for instance, is purest nectar,
and so is that which grows still nearer at hand in the classical vale of
the Neto and was praised, long ago, by old Pliny; and so are at least
two dozen more. For even as Gregorovius says that the smallest Italian
community possesses its duly informed antiquarian, if you can but put
your hand upon him, so, I may be allowed to add, every little place
hereabouts can boast of at least one individual who will give you good
wine, provided - provided you go properly to work to find him.
Now although, when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed beaute
du diable which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to
totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him
at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby
cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood - that is what a
foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid.
To this end, I generally apply to the priests; not because they are the
greatest drunkards (far from it; they are mildly epicurean, or even
abstemious) but by reason of their unrivalled knowledge of
personalities. They know exactly who has been able to keep his liquor of
such and such a year, and who has been obliged to sell or partially
adulterate it; they know, from the confessional of the wives, the why
and wherefore of all such private family affairs and share, with the
chemist, the gift of seeing furthest into the tangled web of home life.
They are "gialosi," however, of these acquirements, and must be
approached in the right spirit - a spirit of humility.
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