It gave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed
into the world of those romancers who forecast the future; a
slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon
trees and date palms, suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer
whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism. To my mind this had no
place amid the landscape which spread about me. It checked my
progress; I turned abruptly, to lose the impression as soon as
possible.
No such trouble has been taken to provide comely housing for the
collection of antiquities which the town possesses. The curator who
led me through the museum (of course I was the sole visitor)
lamented that it was only communal, the Italian Government not
having yet cared to take it under control; he was an enthusiast, and
spoke with feeling of the time and care he had spent upon these
precious relics--_sedici anni di vita_--sixteen years of life,
and, after all, who cared for them? There was a little library of
archaeological works, which contained two volumes only of the
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_; who, asked the curator sadly,
would supply money to purchase the rest? Place had been found on the
walls for certain modern pictures of local interest.
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