I
Understood It, But I Will Not Say That I Understood
Petrarch.
He must have been very self-supporting, and
Madonna Laura must indeed have been much to him.
The aridity of the hills that shut in the valley is
complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed
by that very expressive French epithet _morne_. There
are the very fragmentary ruins of a castle (of one of
the bishops of Cavaillon) on a high spur of the moun-
tain, above the river; and there is another remnant of
a feudal habitation on one of the more accessible
ledges. Having half an hour to spare before my
omnibus was to leave (I must beg the reader's pardon
for this atrociously false note; call the vehicle a _dili-
gence_, and for some undiscoverable reason the offence
is minimized), I clambered up to this latter spot, and
sat among the rocks in the company of a few stunted
olives. The Sorgues, beneath me, reaching the plain,
flung itself crookedly across the meadows, like an un-
rolled blue ribbon. I tried to think of the _amant de
Laure_, for literature's sake; but I had no great success,
and the most I could, do was to say to myself that I
must try again. Several months have elapsed since
then, and I am ashamed to confess that the trial has
not yet come off. The only very definite conviction I
arrived at was that Vaucluse is indeed cockneyfied,
but that I should have been a fool, all the same, not
to come.
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