Ab incursu et demonio meridiano. The midday
demon - that southern Haunter of calm blue spaces. . . .
So may some enchantment of kindlier intent have crept over Phaedrus and
his friend, at converse in the noontide under the whispering plane-tree.
And the genius dwelling about this old headland of the Column is candid
and benign.
This corner of Magna Graecia is a severely parsimonious manifestation of
nature. Rocks and waters! But these rocks and waters are actualities;
the stuff whereof man is made. A landscape so luminous, so resolutely
scornful of accessories, hints at brave and simple forms of expression;
it brings us to the ground, where we belong; it medicines to the disease
of introspection and stimulates a capacity which we are in danger of
unlearning amid our morbid hyperborean gloom - the capacity for honest
contempt: contempt of that scarecrow of a theory which would have us
neglect what is earthly, tangible. What is life well lived but a blithe
discarding of primordial husks, of those comfortable intangibilities
that lurk about us, waiting for our weak moments?
The sage, that perfect savage, will be the last to withdraw himself from
the influence of these radiant realities. He will strive to knit closer
the bond, and to devise a more durable and affectionate relationship
between himself and them. Let him open his eyes. For a reasonable
adjustment lies at his feet. From these brown stones that seam the
tranquil Ionian, from this gracious solitude, he can carve out, and bear
away into the cheerful din of cities, the rudiments of something clean
and veracious and wholly terrestrial - some tonic philosophy that shall
foster sunny mischiefs and farewell regret.
