Such moments are
illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, in my memory, with the
dusky greenness of the Jardin de la Fontaine.
The fountain proper--the source of all these distributed waters--is the
prettiest thing in the world, a reduced copy of Vaucluse. It gushes up at
the foot of the Mont Cavalier, at a point where that eminence rises with a
certain cliff-like effect, and, like other springs in the same
circumstances, appears to issue from the rock with a sort of quivering
stillness. I trudge up the Mont Cavalier,--it is a matter of five
minutes,--and having committed this cockneyism enhanced it presently by
another. I ascended the stupid Tour Magne, the mysterious structure I
mentioned a moment ago. The only feature of this dateless tube, except the
inevitable collection of photographs to which you are introduced by the
doorkeeper, is the view you enjoy from its summit. This view is, of
course, remarkably fine but I am ashamed to say I have not the smallest
recollection of it; for while I looked into the brilliant spaces of the
air I seemed still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman
baths--the image, disastrously confused and vague, of a vanished world.
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