Some miles of brooding water, darkened by the dark
slopes around it. Its darkness recalled the dark time before the dawn
of our saved and happy world.
At its hither end a hill, that had once been a cone in the crater,
stood out all covered with a dense wood. It was the Hill of Venus.
There was no temple, nor no sacrifice, nor no ritual for the Divinity,
save this solemn attitude of perennial silence; but under the
influence which still remained and gave the place its savour, it was
impossible to believe that the gods were dead. There were no men in
that hollow; nor was there any memory of men, save of men dead these
thousands of years. There was no life of visible things. The mind
released itself and was in touch with whatever survives of conquered
but immortal Spirits.
Thus ready for worship, and in a mood of adoration; filled also with
the genius which inhabits its native place and is too subtle or too
pure to suffer the effect of time, I passed down the ridge-way of the
mountain rim, and came to the edge overlooking that arena whereon was
first fought out and decided the chief destiny of the world.
For all below was the Campagna. Names that are at the origin of things
attached to every cleft and distant rock beyond the spreading level,
or sanctified the gleams of rivers. There below me was Veii; beyond,
in the Wall of the Apennines, only just escaped from clouds, was Tibur
that dignified the ravine at the edge of their rising; that crest to
the right was Tusculum, and far to the south, but clear, on a mountain
answering my own, was the mother of the City, Alba Longa. The Tiber, a
dense, brown fog rolling over and concealing it, was the god of the
wide plain.
There and at that moment I should have seen the City. I stood up on
the bank and shaded my eyes, straining to catch the dome at least in
the sunlight; but I could not, for Rome was hidden by the low Sabinian
hills.
Soracte I saw there - Soracte, of which I had read as a boy. It stood
up like an acropolis, but it was a citadel for no city. It stood
alone, like that soul which once haunted its recesses and prophesied
the conquering advent of the northern kings.
