Monasteries are almost invariably disappointing to one who goes in search of what gives virtue and solidity to human life; and even Monte Cassino was no exception. This ought not to be otherwise, seeing what a peculiar sympathy with the monastic institution is required to make these cloisters comprehensible. The atmosphere of operose indolence, prolonged through centuries and centuries, stifles; nor can antiquity and influence impose upon a mind which resents monkery itself as an essential evil. That Monte Cassino supplied the Church with several potentates is incontestable. That mediæval learning and morality would have suffered more without this brotherhood cannot be doubted. Yet it is difficult to name men of very eminent genius whom the Cassinesi claim as their alumni; nor, with Boccaccio's testimony to their carelessness, and with the evidence of their library before our eyes, can we rate their services to civilised erudition very highly. I longed to possess the spirit, for one moment, of Montalembert. I longed for what is called historical imagination, for the indiscriminate voracity of those men to whom world-famous sites are in themselves soul-stirring.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's Hendecasyllabi (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the amusements of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have translated them:
With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina,
With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiæ,
Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who
Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite.
Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter;
Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness;
Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too,
Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides
Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather,
Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets
Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces,
Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses,
Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber.
Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments;
Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seashore,
Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus
Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy.
MAY IN UMBRIA.
From Rome to Terni.
We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunder-clouds, casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus and thistle, embroider it with patterns infinite and intricate beyond the power of art. They have already mown the hay in part; and the billowy tracts of greyish green, where no flowers are now in bloom, supply a restful groundwork to those brilliant patches of diapered fioriture. These are like praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of a mosque whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the mowers flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising their heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome.