It was the Elethian Muse who inspired that Oxford undergraduate’s peroration to his essay on the Characteristics of St. John’s Gospel—
‘Furthermore, we may add that St. John’s Gospel is characterised by a tone of fervent piety which is totally wanting in those of the other Evangelists’—
and she hovered over the journalist who, writing for a paper which we need not name, referred to Bacchus as
‘that deity whose identity in Greek and Roman mythology is inseparably connected with the over-indulgence of intoxicating liquors.’
There are prose beauties, Elethian jewels, hidden away in Baedeker’s mines of pregnant information and barren fact. I know it is fashionable to sneer at Baedeker, especially when you are writing little rhapsodies about remoter parts of Italy, where you have found his knowledge indispensable, if exiguous. You must always kick away the ladder when you arrive at literary distinction. I, who am still climbing and still clinging, can afford to be more generous. Let me, therefore, crown Baedeker with an essayist’s parsley, or an academic laurel, ere I too become selfish, forgetful, egoistical, and famous.
In Southern France, 1891 edition, p. 137, you find—
To the Pic de Nere, 3¾ hrs. from Luz, there and back 6½ hrs.; a delightful excursion, which can be made on horseback part of the way: guide 12, horse 10 fr.; adders abound.
For synthetic prose you will have to go to Tacitus to find the equal of that passage. No more is heard of the excursion. ‘We leave Luz by the Barege road,’ the text goes on to say. Reflections and picturesque word-painting are left for Mr. Maurice Hewlett, Mr. Arthur Symons, and Murray.
In Southern Italy, Baedeker yields to softer and more Virgilian influences. The purple patches are longer and more frequent. On page 99 we learn not only how to get to Baiae, but that
Luxury and profligacy, however, soon took up their abode at Baiae, and the desolate ruins, which now alone encounter the eye, point the usual moral!