It Is This Laziness Which Is The
Ruin Of Many; But Not Of Pilgrims, For Here Was I Off To
Cross the
plain of Arno in one night, and reach by morning the mouth and gate of
that valley of
The Elsa, which same is a very manifest proof of how
Rome was intended to be the end and centre of all roads, the chief
city of the world, and the Popes' residence - as, indeed, it plainly is
to this day, for all the world to deny at their peril, spiritual,
geographical, historical, sociological, economic, and philosophical.
For if some such primeval and predestinarian quality were not inherent
in the City, how, think you, would the valley of the Serchio - the hot,
droughty, and baking Garfagnana - lead down pointing straight to Rome;
and how would that same line, prolonged across the plain, find fitting
it exactly beyond that plain this vale of the Elsa, itself leading up
directly towards Rome? I say, nowhere in the world is such a
coincidence observable, and they that will not take it for a portent
may go back to their rationalism and consort with microbes and make
their meals off logarithms, washed down with an exact distillation of
the root of minus one; and the peace of fools, that is the deepest and
most balmy of all, be theirs for ever and ever.
Here again you fall into errors as you read, ever expecting something
new; for of that night's march there is nothing to tell, save that it
was cool, full of mist, and an easy matter after the royal
entertainment and sleep of the princely Albergo that dignifies Lucca.
The villages were silent, the moon soon left the sky, and the stars
could not show through the fog, which deepened in the hours after
midnight.
A map I had bought in Lucca made the difficulties of the first part of
the road (though there were many cross-ways) easy enough; and the
second part, in midnight and the early hours, was very plain sailing,
till - having crossed the main line and having, at last, very weary,
come up to the branch railway at a slant from the west and north, I
crossed that also under the full light - I stood fairly in the Elsa
valley and on the highroad which follows the railway straight to
Siena. That long march, I say, had been easy enough in the coolness
and in the dark; but I saw nothing; my interior thoughts alone would
have afforded matter for this part; but of these if you have not had
enough in near six hundred miles of travel, you are a stouter fellow
than I took you for.
Though it was midsummer, the light had come quickly. Long after
sunrise the mist dispersed, and the nature of the valley appeared.
It was in no way mountainous, but easy, pleasant, and comfortable,
bounded by low, rounded hills, having upon them here and there a row
of cypresses against the sky; and it was populous with pleasant farms.
Though the soil was baked and dry, as indeed it is everywhere in this
south, yet little regular streams (or canals) irrigated it and
nourished many trees - - but the deep grass of the north was wanting.
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