I Say On The Surface; No Remark That I Heard
Could Be Called Original Or Striking; But The Choice Of Topics And
The Mode Of Viewing Them Was Distinctly Intellectual.
Phrases often
occurred such as have no equivalent on the lips of everyday people
in our own country.
For instance, a young fellow in no way
distinguished from his companions, fell to talking about a leading
townsman, and praised him for his ingenio simpatico, his bella
intelligenza, with exclamations of approval from those who
listened. No, it is not merely the difference between homely
Anglo-Saxon and a language of classic origin; there is a radical
distinction of thought. These people have an innate respect for
things of the mind, which is wholly lacking to a typical Englishman.
One need not dwell upon the point that their animation was supported
by a tiny cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade; this is a matter of
climate and racial constitution; but I noticed the entire absence of
a certain kind of jocoseness which is so naturally associated with
spirituous liquors; no talk could have been less offensive. From
many a bar-parlour in English country towns I have gone away heavy
with tedium and disgust; the cafe at Catanzaro seemed, in
comparison, a place of assembly for wits and philosophers.
Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I
must not hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top;
it would be well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further
course by the Ionian Sea. Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.
CHAPTER XIV
SQUILLACE
In meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that
I should see Squillace. For Squillace (Virgil's "ship-wrecking
Scylaceum") was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat
when he became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the
liberal statesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his
old Roman world and bids a sad farewell to its glories. He had
niched himself in my imagination. Once when I was spending a silent
winter upon the shore of Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes
of his works, and patiently read the better part of them; it was
more fruitful than a study of all the modern historians who have
written about his time. I saw the man; caught many a glimpse of his
mind and heart, and names which had been to me but symbols in a
period of obscure history became things living and recognizable.
I could have travelled from Catanzaro by railway to the sea-coast
station called Squillace, but the town itself is perched upon a
mountain some miles inland, and it was simpler to perform the whole
journey by road, a drive of four hours, which, if the weather
favoured me, would be thoroughly enjoyable. On my last evening Don
Pasquale gave a good account of the sky; he thought I might
hopefully set forth on the morrow, and, though I was to leave at
eight o'clock, promised to come and see me off.
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