All this to carry the
water of a couple of springs to a little provincial city! The conduit on
the top has retained its shape and traces of the cement with which it
was lined. When the vague twilight began to gather, the lonely valley
seemed to fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if the
mighty empire were still as erect as the supports of the aqueduct; and
it was open to a solitary tourist, sitting there sentimental, to believe
that no people has ever been, or will ever be, as great as that,
measured, as we measure the greatness of an individual, by the push they
gave to what they undertook. The Pont du Gard is one of the three or
four deepest impressions they have left; it speaks of them in a manner
with which they might have been satisfied.
I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the whereabouts of
the chateau of the obliging young man I had met on the way from Nimes; I
must content myself with saying that it nestled in an enchanting
valley,--_dans le fond_, as they say in France,--and that I took my
course thither on foot, after leaving the Pont du Gard. I find it noted
in my journal as "an adorable little corner." The principal feature of
the place is a couple of very ancient towers, brownish-yellow in hue,
and mantled in scarlet Virginia-creeper. One of these towers, reputed to
be of Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more effective; the
other is incorporated in the house, which is delightfully fragmentary
and irregular.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247