Alone
by
Norman Douglas
Part 5 out of 5
Mill, J. S.
Militarism, the modern infame
Milvain Bridge
Mineralogy
Momio, village
Monogamous habits, bad for songsters
Mons Canutarius
Montalto, cliff
Monte-Carlo, its well-groomed flowers; lamentable episode at Casino
Montecelio
Monterosso
Mortella, cliff
Mortola, village
Mosquitoes in Rome
Moulinet
Mummies, Peruvian
Munitions Office, develops a craving for bankers
Mure of Caldwell, traveller
Muretta, mountain
Museum, Kircher; delle Terme
Music
Mythopoeic faculty, example of
Neighbours, an over-rated class
Nerano
Newspaper reading, to be discouraged
Nice
Nietzsche, his blind spot
Nightingales, too much of a good thing; cease from troubling
Ninetta, an attractive maiden
Nose, degeneration of
Odysseus at Alatri
Office-hunters, should respect their betters
Olevano, its nightingales; oak grove at; first English resident at
Opi, town
Ornithology
Orte, town
Orvinio
Ouida, her writings and character
Paestum, roses of
Pais, Prof. E.
Palombaro
Pantheon
Patriotism, chilled
Pavements, life on
Peira Cava
Perfumes, react on physiognomy
Persico, G. B.
Pescasseroli; its bears
Peutinger Table
Philosophers, contradistinguished from metaphysicians
Piccadilly Goat
Pietrasanta
Pig, in distress
Pines, at Levanto; at Viareggio
Pisa in war-time
Plaster-casts, how to dispose of
Plato
Pliny
Pollius Felix
Pontine Marshes
Ponza island, megalithic ruin on
Portovenere, marble
Potter, Major Frederick, discovers Olevano
Pottery, index of national taste
Powder magazine, explosion of
Preccia, mountain
Prehistoric races, possible reasons for their extinction
Press, the daily, its disastrous functions
"Prison, The," a Socratic dialogue
Race ideals, contrasted with individual
Ramage, Craufurd Tait, a centrifugal Scotsman, his book and umbrella;
mania for hurrying; other travels of; compared with Waterton;
on Italian country life; gets drunk; makes formal profession of
sobriety;
his tolerance; sensitive to female charms; still hustling; his
humanistic outlook; little failings; other publications; zest for
knowledge; at Licenza
Rat-hunts
Ravens, their conjugal fidelity
Reading, to be done with reverence
Recomone, inlet
Red colour, unfashionable in Italy; in favour with other races
Rhetoric, necessary to success in courtship
Rhodian marble
Ripa, a liquid poison
Rivers, Italian
Riviera, French, its inanity; typical visitors to; lack of native genius
Roccaraso
Rojate
Rolfe, Neville
Romanelli, painter
Romans and British, their world dominion; unimaginative people
Rome, changed aspect of railway station; protestant cemetery; explosion
near; its fountains; tramcar nuisance; shadelessness; disadvantages of
site; evening breeze; neglected cats; bad food; its building stone;
unpleasant experience at; dearth of apartments
Rubinstein, A.
Sagittario, stream
Saint Domenico
Saint-Jacques, chemin de
Saint-Louis, bridge
Saint Martin, his cave
Saint Michael, hermitage
Salatino, Dr.
Salis-Marschlins, U. von
San Costanzo, mountain and chapel
San Remo
San Rossore
Sant' Egidio, hermitage
Sant' Elia, farm
Saracinesca, village
Scalambra, mountain
Scanno, cemetery at; memories of; revisited
Schadona pass
Scheffel, V. von
Schopenhauer; anticipates "recognition marks"
Scolastica, Saint
Seaton
Sebastiani, A.
Segni
Self-indulgence, a debased expression
Sergi, Prof. G.
Serpentaro, oak grove
Serpents, with ears; human hatred of
Serrano, village
Serravezza
Shelley, an evangelist; at Viareggio; recommends caverns to his readers,
but lives comfortably himself
Sicilians
Siena, in winter; a Florentine's opinion of
Sirena, survival of name
Siren islets (Galli); ruin on
Sirocco in Rome
Sitting still, the true traveller's gift
Sleep, its sacred nature
Smollett
Snakes
Snow, Dr. H.
Sora
Soracte, mountain
Soriano; its pleasant tavern
Sospel
Spezia
Spy-mania in Italy
Stabiae (Castellamare)
Statius
Strabo
Strega liqueur, horribly adulterated; how to stop the scandal
Subiaco, strawberries at
Sunburn, pretty effects of
Surrentum
Swinburne, H.
Switzerland, its manifold beauties
Symonds, J. A.
Taxidermy, study of
Telephone, an abomination
Termini, village
Terrata, mountain
Theophrastus
Tiber
Tiryns, citadel
Torco, village
Trafalgar Square, its fauna
Trajan's Forum
Tramcars, an abomination
Tree-creeper, bird
Trevi Fountain
Trifles, importance of
Truth-telling, a matter of longitude; not in vogue to-day
Tuscan speech, its peculiar savour
Urquehart, D.
Valiante, Marquis
Valmontone; its upper terrace; capture of a deserter at, Pergola, tavern
Velino, mountain
Velletri
Venice
Ventimiglia, wine of
Verde antico, marble
Veroli
Via Appia; Flaminia; Labiena; Nomentana
Viareggio, an objectionable place; its Vittoria hotel; pine woods
Victorians, their perverse sense of duty
Villalago
Villetta Barrea
Viterbo
Voss, R.
Wallace, A. R.
Walpole, Horace
War, the present, local opinions concerning; repercussion on thoughtful
non-combatants; effects on agriculture War Office, pandemonium; confuses
Turkish and Russian
Waterton, C., a freak
Whistling, denotes mental vacuity
White, colour, unpopular in South Italy
Will-o'-the-wisp
Wine, red and black
Wolf, at Mentone; at Frattura
Wryneck, bird
Young, J.
Youth, should be temperate
Yucca, plant
Zagarola
"Zone of defense," drawbacks of
Zurich, its attractions
* * * * * * * * * * *
1. There exists a fine one, but you must go to San Remo to see it.
2. Discovered, according to Corsi, in 1547, and not to be confounded
with the yet more beautiful black and yellow Rhodian marble of the
ancients.
3. See North American Review, September, 1913. Ramage's Calabrian tour
of 1828, by the way, was an extremely risky undertaking. The few
travellers who then penetrated into this country kept to the main roads
and never moved without a military escort. One of them actually hired a
brigand as a protection.
4. Sometimes at this season there is not the smallest trickle in the
stream-bed--mere disconnected pools to show where the river was, and
will be. Then you may walk across it, even in Florence. Grant Duff says
he has seen the Arno "blue." So have I: a hepatic blue.
5. It afterwards passed into the hands of the German Crown Prince.
6. He was afterwards imprisoned for this, and has since died.
7. I am told the Florentines at no period adopted the method of the
Parisians, and that I am also wrong in saying that the older monuments
are in better condition than the new ones. We live and learn.
8. The late Henry Maudsley. He says, in one of his letters, "... I am
writing without due consideration of the interesting point. But this
possible explanation occurs to me: children are active motor machines,
always restless and moving when not asleep. When asleep, the motor
tendencies, being not quite passive, translate themselves into the
dreaming consciousness of motion, pleasant or painful, according to
bodily states pleasing or disturbing. As the muscles are almost passive
in sleep, the outlet is into dreaming activity--into dreams of flying
when bodily states are pleasant, into falling down precipices, etc.,
when they are out of sorts. This is quite a hasty reflection...."
9. "The Prison. A Dialogue." By H. B. Brewster. (Williams and Norgate,
1891.)
10. Parkstone, Dorset. July 19, 1894. "Many thanks for your reference to
Schopenhauer's remarks on Recognition Marks, which I thought I was the
first to fully point out. It is a most interesting anticipation. I do
not read German, but from what I have heard of his works he was the last
man I should have expected to make such an acute suggestion in Natural
History."
11. Written during the U-boat scare and food-restrictions.
12. Fecit! He poisoned himself with hydrocyanic acid on the 4th
November, 1920.
13. This is the same gentleman who informs us, on page 166, "I have
lived, however, very temperately, avoiding much wine." We learn from the
Dictionary of National Biography that he was born in 1803; he must
therefore have been twenty-five years old when he bemused the
coastguard. Only twenty-five; and already at this stage. We are further
told that he was tutor to somebody's son. Unhappy child!
14. Not all of them are true thistles. Abbade's Guide to the Abruzzi
(1903) enumerates 1476 plants from this region.
15. Manifestly unfair, all this. For the rest, the critic, in speaking
of a plot, may have meant what young ladies call by that name--a love
intrigue, in which case he is to be blamed solely for misuse of a good
word. I am consoled by the New York Dial calling my plot "rightly
filmy." Nobody could have expressed it better.
16. Three spring months, at Florence, had been spent in making a
scientific collection of local imprecations--abusive, vituperative or
profane expletives; swear-words, in short--enriched with elaborate
commentary. I would gladly print this little study in folk-lore as an
appendix to the present volume, were it fit for publication.
17. Since this was written, the gospel of imperialism has made
considerable progress in the peninsula.
18. This is a survival of the Greek kakkabos. Gargiuli and others have
garnered Hellenic derivations among the place-names here, and to their
list may be added that of the rock on which stood the villa of Pollius
Felix; it is now known as Punta Calcarella, but used to be called
Petrapoli; pure Greek: Pollio's rock. There is still a mine of such
material to be exploited by all who care to study the vernacular. The
giant euphorbia, for instance, common on these hills, is locally known
as "totomaglie"; pure Greek again: tithymalos.
19. Query: whether there be no connection between brachycephalism and
this modern deification of machinery?
20. Robert L. Bowles, M.D. "Sunburn on the Alps" (Alpine Journal,
November, 1888) and "The Influence of Light on the Skin" (British
Journal of Dermatology, No. 105, Vol. 9).
21. It has now been cleaned--with inevitable results.
22. Maupassant himself was partial to scents. See his valet's diary.
23. Since this was written (1917) the condition of these beasts has
improved. Somebody now feeds them--which could hardly have been expected
during those stressful times of war, when bread barely sufficed for the
human population. They are also fewer in numbers. Their owners, I fancy,
can afford to keep them at home once more.
24. This is my last (7 July, 1894) and somewhat mysterious letter from
the old fellow. "The question you ask is one of great ornithological
importance and I believe has never been worked out, but I am absolutely
afraid to ask any questions in the British Museum, as they jump at an
idea and cut the ground from under the original man's feet. This I
regret to say is my experience. I have been asked what does it matter
who makes the discovery? I reply, 'Render unto Caesar, etc.' If you are
going to work it out, keep it dark. The British Museum have not the
necessary specimens--in this country I believe it is not known how the
change takes place. I tried some years ago to work it out with live
specimens, but failed because I could not get young birds. Now in answer
to your question, my belief is that the young bird moults into the
winter plumages direct and that this is changed into the full plumage in
spring either by a spring moult or by a shedding of the tips of the
feathers. This is private because it is theoretical, and for your
private use to verify...."
Of the Finland seal, by the way, Dr. Guenther wrote: "The skin differs in
nothing from that of Phoca foetida. In the skull I observe that the
nasal bones are conspicuously narrower than in typical specimens from
the northern coasts. There is also a remarkable thinness of bone, a want
of osseous substance; but it is impossible to say whether this is due to
altered physical conditions or should be accounted for by the youth of
the specimen, or whether it is an individual peculiarity."
25. Winter 1882-1883; possibly later.
26. The centre of this usage, so far as Europe is concerned, seems to
have been the Caucasus.
27. I have been there since, and vainly endeavoured to track the legend
to its lair. Its only possible foundation is that I possessed the
ordinary tourists' map of the district.
28. Add to all the other varieties, now, the countless legions of the
guardie regie, which threaten to absorb the entire youth of Italy. At
this moment there is a distressing dearth of housing accommodation all
over the peninsula; in Rome alone, they say, apartments are needed for
10,000 practically homeless persons, and a mathematician may calculate
the number of houses required to contain them. How shall they ever be
built, if all the potential builders are loafing about in uniforms at
the public expense?
29. Some of these Beautiful Thoughts went through more than one edition.
30. From an old article: "I was pleased to observe on Ponza the relics
of a great pre-Roman civilization. Above the town, where the cemetery
now stands, is a likely site for a citadel, and on examining it from the
sea I noticed, sure enough, a few blocks of prehistoric structure of the
so-called Cyclopean type underneath a corner of the cemetery wall. There
is a portion in better preservation between the 'Baths of Pilate' and
the harbour, where a little path winds up from the sea. The blocks are
joined without mortar, and some of them are over a metre in length. This
megalithic wall may be taken to be contemporaneous with similar works of
defence found in various parts of Italy, but I believe its existence on
Ponza has not yet been recorded. Livy says that Volscians inhabited the
island till they were supplanted by the Romans, and a tradition
preserved by Strabo and Virgil locates here the palace of the
enchantress Circe, who transformed the companions of Ulysses into
bristly swine...." Some one may have anticipated me here again, as did
Salis-Marschlins in the eighteenth century with those roses of Passtum
whose disappearance Ramage, like every one else, laments--those roses
which I thought I was the first to re-discover. They grow on the spot in
considerable quantities, though one needs good eyes to see them. They
are not flourishing as of yore, being dwarfs not more than a few inches
in height. One which I carried away and kept three years in a pot and
six more in the earth grew to a length of about sixteen feet, and is
probably alive at this moment, I never saw a flower.
31. For the abject condition of these slaves (such they are) see Chapter
VII of The Roman Campagna by Arnaldo Cervesato.
32. Written in 1917.
33. D.H. Lawrence: Twilight in Italy.
34. The title Alone strikes me, on reflection, as rather an inapt one
for this volume. Let it stand!
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