What is the basic note of Horace Walpole's iridescent
worldliness - what about veracity? How one yearns, nowadays, for that
spacious and playful outlook of his; or, better still, for some
altogether Golden Age where everybody is corrupt and delightful and has
nothing whatever to do, and does it well....
My second ideal family at Alatri lives along a side path which diverges
off the main road to Ferentino. They are peasant proprietors, more
wealthy and civilised than those others, but lacking their terrestrial
pathos. They live among their own vines and fruit-trees on the hillside.
The female parent, a massive matron, would certainly never send those
winsome children into the Pontine Marshes, not for a single day, not for
their weight in gold. The father is quite an uncommon creature. I look
at him and ask myself; where have I seen that face before, so classic
and sinewy and versatile? I have seen it on Greek vases, and among the
sailors of the Cyclades and on the Bosphorus. It is a non-Latin face,
with sparkling eyes, brown hair, rounded forehead and crisply curling
beard; a legendary face. How came Odysseus to Alatri?
Not far from this homestead where I have spent sundry pleasant hours
there is a fountain gushing out of a hollow. In olden days it would have
been hung with votive offerings to the nymphs, and rightly. One
appreciates this nature-cult in a dry land. I have worshipped at many
such shrines where the water bounds forth, a living joy, out of the
rocky cleft - unlike those sluggish springs of the North that ooze
regretfully upwards, as though ready to slink home again unless they
were kicked from behind, and then trickle along, with barely perceptible
movement, amid weeds and slime.
Now this particular fountain (I think it is called acqua santa), while
nowise remarkable as regards natural beauty, is renowned for curing
every disease. It is not an ordinary rill; it has medicinal properties.
Hither those two little demons, the younger children, conducted me all
unsuspecting two days ago, desirous that I should taste the far-famed
spring.
"Try it," they said.
I refused at first, since water of every kind has a knack of disagreeing
with my weak digestion. As for them, they gulped down tumblers of it,
being manifestly inured to what I afterwards discovered to be its
catastrophic effects.
"Look at us drinking it," they went on. "Ah, how good! Delicious! It is
like Fiuggi, only better."
"Am I an invalid, to drink Fiuggi water?"
"It is not quite the same as Fiuggi. (True. I was soon wishing it had
been.) How many men would pay dearly for your privilege! Never let it be
said that you went away thirsting from this blessed spot."
"I am not thirsty just now. Not at all thirsty, thank you."
"We have seen you drink without being thirsty.
