For instance, a young fellow in no way
distinguished from his companions, fell to talking about a leading
townsman, and praised him for his ingenio simpatico, his bella
intelligenza, with exclamations of approval from those who
listened. No, it is not merely the difference between homely
Anglo-Saxon and a language of classic origin; there is a radical
distinction of thought. These people have an innate respect for
things of the mind, which is wholly lacking to a typical Englishman.
One need not dwell upon the point that their animation was supported
by a tiny cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade; this is a matter of
climate and racial constitution; but I noticed the entire absence of
a certain kind of jocoseness which is so naturally associated with
spirituous liquors; no talk could have been less offensive. From
many a bar-parlour in English country towns I have gone away heavy
with tedium and disgust; the cafe at Catanzaro seemed, in
comparison, a place of assembly for wits and philosophers.
Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I
must not hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top;
it would be well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further
course by the Ionian Sea. Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.
CHAPTER XIV
SQUILLACE
In meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that
I should see Squillace. For Squillace (Virgil's "ship-wrecking
Scylaceum") was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat
when he became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the
liberal statesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his
old Roman world and bids a sad farewell to its glories. He had
niched himself in my imagination. Once when I was spending a silent
winter upon the shore of Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes
of his works, and patiently read the better part of them; it was
more fruitful than a study of all the modern historians who have
written about his time. I saw the man; caught many a glimpse of his
mind and heart, and names which had been to me but symbols in a
period of obscure history became things living and recognizable.
I could have travelled from Catanzaro by railway to the sea-coast
station called Squillace, but the town itself is perched upon a
mountain some miles inland, and it was simpler to perform the whole
journey by road, a drive of four hours, which, if the weather
favoured me, would be thoroughly enjoyable. On my last evening Don
Pasquale gave a good account of the sky; he thought I might
hopefully set forth on the morrow, and, though I was to leave at
eight o'clock, promised to come and see me off.
