How Should A
Youngster's Imagination Be Nurtured In This Atmosphere Of Savourless
Modernism?
Then I asked myself:
Who comes to these regions, now that
invalids have learnt the drawbacks of their climate? Decayed Muscovites,
Englishmen such as you will vainly seek in England, and their painted
women-folk with stony, Medusa-like gambling eyes, a Turk or two, Jews
and cosmopolitan sharks and sharpers, flamboyant Americans, Brazilian,
Peruvian, Chilian, Bolivian rastaqueros with names that read like a
nightmare (see "List of Arrivals" in New York Herald) - the whole exotic
riff-raff enlivened and perfumed by a copious sprinkling of
horizontales.
And I let my glance wander along that ancient Roman road which led from
Italy to Arles and can still be traced, here and there; I took in the
section from Genoa to Marseille, an enormous stretch of country, and
wondered: what has this coast ever produced in the way of thought or
action, of great men or great women? There is Doria at Genoa, and Gaby
Deslys at Marseille; that may well exhaust the list. Ah, and half-way
through, a couple of generals, born at Nice. It is really an instructive
phenomenon, and one that should appeal to students of Buckle - this
relative dearth of every form of human genius in one of the most
favoured regions of the globe. Here, for unexplained reasons, the
Italian loses his better qualities; so does the Frenchman. Are the
natives descended from those mysterious Ligurians? Their reputation was
none of the best; they were more prompt, says Crinagoras, in devising
evil than good.
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