To Me There Seemed No Stint Of Water In Any Of The
Fountains Of Rome.
In some a mere wasteful spilth seems the sole design
of the artist, as in the Fontana Paolina on the Janiculum, where the
cold wash of its deluge seemed to add a piercing chill to our windy
afternoon.
The other fountains have each a quaint grace or absolute
charm or pleasing absurdity, whether the waters shower over groups of
more or less irrelevant statuary in their basins or spout into the air
in columns unfurling flags of spray and keeping the pavement about them
green with tender mould. The most sympathetic is the Fountain of the
Triton, who blows the water through his wreathed horn and on the coldest
day seems not to mind its refluent splash on his mossy back; in fact, he
seems rather to like it.
He is one of many tritons, rivers, sea-gods, and aqueous allegories
similarly employed in Rome and similarly indifferent to what flesh and
blood might find the hardship of their calling. I had rashly said to
myself that their respective fountains needed the sun on them to be just
what one could wish, but the first gray days taught me better. Then the
thinly clouded sky dropped a softened light over their glitter and
sparkle and gave them a spirituality as much removed from the suggestion
of physical cold as any diaphanous apparition would suggest. Then they
seemed rapt into a finer beauty than that of earth, though I will not
pretend that they were alike beautiful.
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