CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION. 17 carrying out His system of universal brotherhood and community of goods, is he not looked upon pityingly? Do we not shake our heads wisely at him, and say, "Poor fellow, there is a bee in his bonnet! It would be better to put him into an insane asylum"? Wandering through these woods, where nature preaches her sweet and beautiful gospel, in these autumnal afternoons, I plagued my mind with these thoughts; and before I have finished this little book you will see why I am thus tormented, and why I foolishly doubt that perhaps we have not, after all our boasting, and all our fine words, and all our huzzas for liberty and union, not only not solved the great problem of government, but perhaps got hold of it by the wrong end, and why it sometimes seems to one as if we had organised the devil's scheme instead of Christ's. But we will put aside these considerations for the moment, and yield ourselves up to na B ture, and bask in the sun, and drink of the cup of beauty, and enjoy the blessings that There may God has given as well as we can. be a fly in the cup, but no matter. A beautiful walk of about eight miles carries. us from our lonely house, through exquisite passages of scenery, through golden chestnutgroves and solemn fir-forests, to the ancient monastery of Vallombrosa. The road commands through its whole course the valley of the Sieve, and the rolling hills that swell and sink and rise again in ever-varying lines and masses, like the heaving of the billows in midocean, and lift themselves far away against the horizon. Thousands of wild flowers smile along our path. The wild clematis climbs the shrubs, and drapes them with its silvery tufts. The spiring broom clusters everywhere. The wild rose, wearing now its coral hips, stretches and gropes about in the air. Daisies and WALK TO THE MONASTERY. 19 buttercups, purple scabias and pale pansies, delicate blue-bells, pale-purple malva, white broad-faced hemlock and silvery thistles, golden arnica, autumnal cyclamen, blue corn-flowers, St John's wort, and, in a word, all the common people of the wild flowers, enamel the rough sward. Here, too, long after the summer has passed, still hides in the grass the wild strawberry, for which Vallombrosa was famed of old.1 At last we come to a small rill, which, tumbling over a rugged shelf of rock, goes its way through a cleft of dark pines down into the plain. This is the Salto del Diavolo, so called; for, as the legend goes, here the good saint Giovanni Gualberto was pursued by Satan, who caught him in his claws and cast him down the declivity. But it is difficult to kill a saint, and he fell unharmed into the valley. We now descend through a deep dark defile 1 "Et vaga prata ferunt æstu redolentia fraga," says Emylus Acerbus, in his panegyric of San Giovanni Gualberto. of pines, where the sunshine even at high noon scarcely penetrates, save here and there to freckle with spots of light the brown damp carpet,-a place that recalls that "deep romantic chasm" of Kubla Khan, "which slanted" "Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover,- And again climbing, we see before us the noble old monastery-placed as only the monks knew how to place a building, and commanding one of the most magnificent views that can be found even in this beautiful Italy. On one side the sloping hills are dark with miles of serried firs; on the other, they are golden-brown with glowing chestnuts; and above, forests of beeches lift their smooth trunks and climb the mountains. On a flat terrace, in the midst of all this, stands the monastery, a huge square building with inner courts, in the centre of which is the church, with its THE HOLY FOUNTAIN. 21 square tower lifting itself above the mass in the sun. In front is an enclosed court, laid out as a garden, and within a wall; and passing out from this through the gateway, we come upon a large enclosed basin of purest water, fed by a perennial and gushing stream, in which the monks of old kept their preserves of trout in prosperous days. Still beyond are walks through alleys of trees; and on the left, about five hundred paces from the gate, is a fountain which was once thought to possess miraculous powers of healing. "Fontis hujus aqua contra diversos dolores corporis est attributa: ibi blanda medicina confertur, sine tormento cura, sine horrore remedia et sanitas impunita," says Cassiodorus (Variarum, lib. ii. cap. 39). Such was the number of miracles performed by this fountain, that for centuries it was visited by pilgrims, and was held holy, somewhat as the waters of Lourdes are to-day, though by a far more limited number of believers. |