There Was A Little Library Of
Archaeological Works, Which Contained Two Volumes Only Of The
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; Who, Asked The Curator Sadly,
Would Supply Money To Purchase The Rest?
Place had been found on the
walls for certain modern pictures of local interest.
One represented
a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and their cattle
amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summits enclosing
them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountain scene, but
sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushing torrent,
the lonely wilderness. Naming the painter, my despondent companion
shook his head, and sighed "Morto! Morto!"
Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature. Some
twenty pages only had been covered since the founding of the museum,
and most of the names were German. Fortunately, I glanced at the
beginning, and there, on the first page, was written "Francois
Lenormant, Membre de l'Institut de France" - the date, 1882. The
small, delicate character was very suggestive of the man as I
conceived him; to come upon his name thus unexpectedly gave me a
thrill of pleasure; it was like being brought of a sudden into the
very presence of him whose spirit had guided, instructed, borne me
delightful company throughout my wanderings. When I turned to the
curator, and spoke of this discovery, sympathy at once lighted up
his face. Yes, yes! He remembered the visit; he had the clearest
recollection of Lenormant - "un bravo giovane!" Thereupon, he
directed my attention to a little slip of paper pasted into the
inner cover of the book, on which were written in pencil a few Greek
letters; they were from the hand of Lenormant himself, who had taken
out his pencil to illustrate something he was saying about a Greek
inscription in the museum. Carefully had this scrap been preserved
by the good curator; his piety touched and delighted me.
I could have desired no happier incident for the close of my
journey; by lucky chance this visit to the museum had been postponed
till the last morning, and, as I idled through the afternoon about
the Via Plutino, my farewell mood was in full harmony with that in
which I had landed from Naples upon the Calabrian shore. So hard a
thing to catch and to retain, the mood corresponding perfectly to an
intellectual bias - hard, at all events, for him who cannot shape
his life as he will, and whom circumstance ever menaces with dreary
harassment. Alone and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw
the evening fall on cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come
forth on Scylla and Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the
Ionian Sea, I wished it were mine to wander endlessly amid the
silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten.
THE END.
End of By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing
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