The Jesuits, I doubt not, learnt as much from Ramage as he
from them....
I wish I had encountered this book earlier. It would have been useful to
me when writing my own pages on the country it describes. I am always
finding myself in accord with the author's opinions, even in trivial
matters such as the hopeless inadequacy of an Italian breakfast. He was
personally acquainted with several men whose names I have
mentioned - Capialbi, Zicari, Masci; he saw the Purple Codex at Rossano;
in fact, there are numberless points on which I could have quoted him
with profit. And even at an earlier time; for I once claimed to have
discovered the ruins of a Roman palace on the larger of the Siren islets
(the Galli, opposite Positano) - now I find him forestalling me by nearly
a century. It is often thus, with archaeological discoveries.
He saw, near Cotrone, that island of the enchantress Calypso which has
disappeared since his day, and would have sailed there but for the fact
that no boat was procurable. I forget whether Swinburne, who landed
here, found any prehistoric remains on the spot; I should doubt it. On
another Mediterranean island, that of Ponza, I myself detected the
relics of what would formerly have been described as the residence of
that second Homeric witch, Circe. [30]
The mention of discoveries reminds me that I have already, of course,
discovered my ideal family at Alatri. Two ideal families....
One of them dwells in what ought to be called the "Conca d'Oro," that
luxuriant tract of land beyond the monastery where the waters flow - that
verdant dale which supplies Alatri, perched on its stony hill, with
fruit and vegetables of every kind. The man is a market-gardener with
wife and children, a humble serf, Eumaeus-like, steeped in the rich
philosophy of earth and cloud and sunshine. I bring him a cigar in the
cool of the evening and we smoke on the threshold of his two-roomed
abode, or wander about those tiny patches of culture, geometrically
disposed, where he guides the water with cunning hand athwart the roots
of cabbages and salads. He is not prone to talk of his misfortunes;
intuitive civility has taught him to avoid troubling a stranger with
personal concerns.
The mother is more communicative; she suffers more acutely. They are
hopelessly poor, she tells me, and in debt; unlucky, moreover, in their
offspring. Two boys had already died. There are only two left.
"And this one here is in a bad way. He has grown too ill to work. He can
only mope about the place. Nothing stays in his stomach - nothing; not
milk, not an egg. Everything is rejected. The Alatri doctor treated him
for stomach trouble; so did he of Frosinone. It has done no good. Now
there is no more money for doctors. It is hard to see your children
dying before your eyes.
