y under century, each
also represented by little more than foot-prints, bases of gone
columns, foundations of rough edifices. Among these neatly-dug-out
layers of nothingness, these tidy heaps of chips with so few things,
stand out the few old column- and temple-ends which Piranesi already
drew.

I felt very keenly that the past is only a creation of the present.
Boni, a very interesting and ardent mind, poetical and mystical,
showed us things not really of this earth, not really laid bare by the
spade, but existing in realms of fantastic speculation, shaped by
argument, faultlessly cast in logical moulds. Too faultlessly
methought, for looking at the mere heaps of architectural rubbish, let
alone the earth, the various vegetations which have accumulated upon
it, I had a sense of the infinite intricacy of all reality, and of the
partiality and insufficiency of the paths which our reason (or our
fancy in the garb of reason) cuts into it. Rituals and laws whose
meaning had become mere shibboleths two thousand years ago, races
whose very mien and aspect (often their language) can only be
speculated on: all this reappears, takes precision and certainty. But
is not this a mere creation, like that of art or of systematic
metaphysics? What struck me as the only certainty among these
admirable cogent arguments was that the once tank of Juturna, round
whose double springs Rome must have arisen to drink and worship, this
sacred and healing water where the Dioscuri watered their steeds after
Lake Regillus, has been fouled by human privies so deeply that years
of dredging and pumping will be required to restore its purity. Of how
many things is not this tank a symbol as cogent as any which our
archaeologist ascribed to those old symbol-mongers of his discourse!

With us was a man who took no interest in all these matters; none in
the significance of rituals, symbols, or the laws of racial growth and
decadence. _He_ wanted to be shown the place where Caesar had fallen;
he was a survivor of the old school of historical interest. Very out
of date and droll; but is not this old-fashioned interest in
half-imaginary dramatic figures as legitimate as our playing with
races, rituals, the laws, the metaphysical essence of the past?

_February_ 27.

III.

THE MEET.

The meet the other day, at Maglianella, beyond Porta S. Pancrazio.
Desolate, rolling country, pale green wide dells, where streams should
be, but are not; roads