Having seen the Viale, I was shown round the whole establishment, and can imagine nothing better ordered. I was taken over the dormitories—very nice and comfortable—and, finally, not without being much abashed, into the room where the young ladies were engaged upon needlework. It reminded me of nothing so much as of the Education of the Virgin Chapel at Oropa. [282] I was taken to each young lady and did my best to acquit myself properly in praising her beautiful work but, beautiful as the work of one and all was, it could not compare with that of Signora Carletti. I asked her if she could not get some of the young ladies to help her in the less important parts of her work, but she said she preferred doing it all herself. They all looked well and happy and as though they were well cared for, as I am sure they are.
Then Signora Carletti took me to the top of the house to show me the meteorological room of which she is superintendent, and which is in connection with the main meteorological observatory at Rome. Again I found everything in admirable order, and left the house not a little pleased and impressed with everything I had seen. [1889.]
Homer’s Hot and Cold Springs
The following extract is taken from a memorandum Butler made of a visit he paid to Greece and the Troad in the spring of 1895. In the Iliad (xxii. 145) Homer mentions hot and cold springs where the Trojan women used to wash their clothes. There are no such springs near Hissarlik, where they ought to be, but the American Consul at the Dardanelles told Butler there was something of the kind on Mount Ida, at the sources of the Scamander, and he determined to see them after visiting Hissarlik. He was provided with an interpreter, Yakoub, an attendant, Ahmed, an escort of one soldier and a horse. He went first to the Consul’s farm at Thymbra, about five miles from Hissarlik, where he spent the night and found it “all very like a first-class New Zealand sheep-station.” The next day he went to Hissarlik and saw no reason for disagreeing with the received opinion that it is the site of Troy. He then proceeded to Bunarbashi and so to Bairemitch, passing on the way a saw-mill where there was a Government official with twenty soldiers under him. This official was much interested in the traveller and directed his men to take carpets and a dish of trout, caught that morning in the Scamander, and carry them up to the hot and cold springs while he himself accompanied Butler. So they set off and the official, Ismail, showed him the way and pointed out the springs, and there is a long note about the hot and cold water.
And now let me return to Ismail Gusbashi, the excellent Turkish official who, by the way, was with me during all my examination of the springs, and whose assurances of their twofold temperature I should have found it impossible to doubt, even though I had not caught one warmer cupful myself. His men, while we were at the springs, had spread a large Turkey carpet on the flower-bespangled grass under the trees, and there were three smaller rugs at three of the corners. On these Ismail and Yakoub and I took our places. The other two were cross-legged, but I reclining anyhow. The sun shimmered through the spring foliage. I saw two hoopoes and many beautiful birds whose names I knew not. Through the trees I could see the snow-fields of Ida far above me, but it was hopeless to think of reaching them. The soldiers and Ahmed cooked the trout and the eggs all together; then we had boiled eggs, bread and cheese and, of course, more lamb’s liver done on skewers like cats’ meat. I ate with my pocket-knife, the others using their fingers in true Homeric fashion.
When we had put from us “the desire of meat and drink,” Ismail began to talk to me. He said he had now for the first time in his life found himself in familiar conversation with Wisdom from the West (that was me), and that, as he greatly doubted whether such another opportunity would be ever vouchsafed to him, he should wish to consult me upon a matter which had greatly exercised him. He was now fifty years old and had never married. Sometimes he thought he had done a wise thing, and sometimes it seemed to him that he had been very foolish. Would I kindly tell him which it was and advise him as to the future? I said he was addressing one who was in much the same condition as himself, only that I was some ten years older. We had a saying in England that if a man marries he will regret it, and that if he does not marry he will regret it.
“Ah!” said Ismail, who was leaning towards me and trying to catch every word I spoke, though he could not understand a syllable till Yakoub interpreted my Italian into Turkish. “Ah!” he said, “that is a true word.”
In my younger days, I said (may Heaven forgive me!), I had been passionately in love with a most beautiful young lady, but—and here my voice faltered, and I looked very sad, waiting for Yakoub to interpret what I had said—but it had been the will of Allah that she should marry another gentleman, and this had broken my heart for many years. After a time, however, I concluded that these things were all settled for us by a higher Power.
“Ah! that is a true word.”
“And so, my dear sir, in your case I should reflect that if Allah” (and I raised my hand to Heaven) “had desired your being married, he would have signified his will to you in some way that you could hardly mistake. As he does not appear to have done so, I should recommend you to remain single until you receive some distinct intimation that you are to marry.”