The Spectacle Of A Man Clattering Through The
Streets On Horseback, Such As One Often Sees At Venosa, Would Cause Them
To Barricade Their Doors And Prepare For The Last Judgment.
Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or
novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general.
The
breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the
joys of rivers and green lanes - all these things are a closed book to
them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case of
partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not
sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so
supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays - it
helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But
save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long
and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue
exertions.
A change is at hand.
Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now
spotless.
He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed, and
the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller may
be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is there
any museum in Italy not "partially closed for alterations"?). New
accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately
discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite, 30
centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century.
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