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.
Such things are worth paying a heavy price for, because they bring a
sort of aerial distance into the mind, they touch the spirit with a
hope that the desire for beauty and perfection is not, after all, wholly
unrealisable, but that there is a sort of treasure to be found even upon
earth, if one diligently goes in search of it.
Of one thing, however, I am quite certain, and that is that travel
should not be a feverish garnering of impressions, but a delicious and
leisurely plunge into a different atmosphere. It is better to visit few
places, and to become at home in each, than to race from place to place,
guide-book in hand. A beautiful scene does not yield up its secrets to
the eye of the collector. What one wants is not definite impressions but
indefinite influences. It is of little use to enter a church, unless one
tries to worship there, because the essence of the place is worship, and
only through worship can the secret of the shrine be apprehended. It
is of little use to survey a landscape, unless one has an overpowering
desire to spend the remainder of one's days there; because it is the
life of the place, and not the sight of it, in which one desires to have
a part. Above all, one must not let one's memories sleep as in a dusty
lumber-room of the mind. In a quiet firelit hour one must draw near, and
scrutinise them afresh, and ask oneself what remains. As I write, I open
the door of my treasury and look round. What comes up before me? I see
an opalescent sky, and the great soft blue rollers of a sapphire sea. I
am journeying, it seems, in no mortal boat, though it was a commonplace
vessel enough at the time, twenty years ago, and singularly destitute of
bodily provision. What is that over the sea's rim, where the tremulous,
shifting, blue line of billows shimmers and fluctuates? A long, low
promontory, and in the centre, over white clustered houses and masts
of shipping, rises a white dome like the shrine of some celestial city.
That is Cadiz for me. I dare say the picture is all wrong, and I shall
be told that Cadiz has a tower and is full of factory chimneys; but
for me the dome, ghostly white, rises as though moulded out of a single
pearl, upon the shifting edges of the haze. Whatever I have seen in my
life, that at least is immortal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account