It gives one a
strange thrill to stand in places rich with dim associations, to
stand by the tombs of heroes and saints, to see the scenes made
familiar by art or history, the homes of famous men. Such travel is
full of weariness and disappointment. The place one had desired
half a lifetime to behold turns out to be much like other places,
devoid of inspiration. A tiresome companion casts dreariness as
from an inky cloud upon the mind. Do I not remember visiting the
Palatine with a friend bursting with archaeological information, who
led us from room to room, and identified all by means of a folding
plan, to find at the conclusion that he had begun at the wrong end,
and that even the central room was not identified correctly,
because the number of rooms was even, and not odd?
But, for all that, there come blessed unutterable moments, when the
mood and the scene and the companion are all attuned in a soft
harmony. Such moments come back to me as I write. I see the
mouldering brickwork of a crumbling tomb all overgrown with grasses
and snapdragons, far out in the Campagna; or feel the plunge of the
boat through the reed-beds of the Anapo, as we slid into the silent
pool of blue water in the heart of the marsh, where the sand danced
at the bottom, and the springs bubbled up, while a great bittern
flew booming away from a reedy pool hard by.
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