the growing heat, and so risking his fair fame by an act of petty larceny. When he sees a boat moored to one of the islands, unmindful of his skirts and thinking only of Pliny, he rushes across the narrow wooden bridge to seize the bark, only to return with crestfallen look and report that it is water-logged.

We cannot help wondering whether Pliny saw and rejoiced in all this gorgeous colouring of the pool. His only allusion to colour is when he speaks of the water as snowy. He seems here to be confusing what we moderns mean by whiteness with great brightness.1 Had he been familiar with glacier streams he would perhaps have distinguished. One may infer from this and from his silence about the variegated tints of the bottom of the pool that like others of his time he was but little susceptible to the distinctive charm of colour. To us, at any rate, as we feast our eyes on the beauties of the pool, it is not the mere brilliance of its inner light which holds us spellbound, but the prismatic variety of vivid and lustrous tint into which this light breaks up, the various greens of the aquatic plants, the warmer tints of the exposed earth, and the gleaming silvery blues of the oup-like hollows where springs are said to rise.

All is still in this cool retreat, even the poplar leaves. We do not need their rustling sound to add to our sense of

the coolness. The silence itself seems to-day to reinforce the feeling. One of the tiny sources makes a little fall, and this gives forth a soft tinkling sound. Now and again our ear catches the faint twitter of a bird or croaking of a distant frog, both half hypnotised like the trout by the rising heat. This is all the sound that the acutest ear can detect, and it serves merely to punctuate the deep silence. The stillness of things, the drowsy willows bending over our heads, the gathering heat which is felt to be near, most of all the crystalgazing into the pellucid waters, dispose us to an inalert somnolent state of mind favourable to the indulgence of pleasing illusions. Our watchful guide, perceiving our condition, plies us with stories of the miracles wrought by the river. Among others he gives us a modern and less preposterous variant of the ancient legend of the miraculous power of the river; according to which a glass bottle, if left a fortnight in the stream, will come out with a rosy or amethystine tint. So sure is he of our easy receptive mood that, though a man of delicate consideration for other's feelings, he does not trouble to qualify his bold assertions by si dice ("it is said "), which other clerical ciceroni in Italy are wont to add when reciting miracles to sight-seers who may be suspected of scepticism. So little disposed, indeed, are we at this

"Thy sweetest wave

beginning to recreate the charming old myths of Clitumnus. One of these is recited by the late Roman poet, Claudian, in his panegyric of Honorius. He reminds the Emperor that when visiting the Clitumnus he had not overlooked the miracle of the source, the waters of which when one approaches softly move slowly, whereas if one rushes on them noisily they become agitated and turbulent. He shrewdly adds that although it is certainly the nature of all streams to mirror the objects near them, only this one can boast of being able to imitate human behaviour. Looking into this glassy pool one easily glides into this sort of optical illusion,1 The absence of of all floating particles on the surface of the pure water leaves us uncertain whether it is still or moving. Only a soft tremulous movement due to the little cascade can be detected. Hence, as we continue to gaze, we find ourselves taking the surface to be still or moving according as our fancy wavers. And we feel in our present mood as if we could easily succeed in reproducing the greater wonder revealed to the Emperor.

The secret of the river's fascination lies in its preternatural and dazzling clearness. Just as it was 66 pure and glassy" to Pliny, so to Byron when he wrote:

This surpassing purity is the source of its dazzling beauty, of its crystalline brilliance as well as of its vivid luminous tints. It is at the root, too, of the graceful myths which have added to its fame. So far as they involve the idea of snowy water transferring its colour to the cattle which bathe in it, or drink of it, they seem to illustrate the habit of mind of the child and the savage when they argue as if men and animals ought to acquire the qualities of what is taken into their body.

Yet the super

the

stition has a firmer basis than this. We know that the river divinities were regarded as giving fertility not only to the land but to the people. This shows that the veneration of them rested on a practical idea, that of their utility to men. The sanctity of riverheads, as of springs generally, especially those which had pure as well as cool water-a sanctity illustrated in horror which was excited by Nero's impious act when he defiled the source of the Aqua Marcia by bathing in it-reposed on a sense of the great value of pure water not only for drinking but for bathing and cleansing generally. As with the marvellous cleansing powers of the Clitumnus, so with its supernatural gift of imitating the movements and sounds of mortals. We all

tend in dreamy uncritical moments to project our own moods and even our own movements into the objects which surround us; and the effect on the spectator's mind of gazing on the magic clearness of this stream would of course strongly predispose him to this kind of illusion.

The day's heat grows apace, and fearful of the full noonday glare we tear ourselves from the river's fascination. We,

too, feel like Byron-who must have been here on just such a day as ours-that the freshness of the scene has sprinkled its coolness on our heart: that

we

"from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave(d) it clean With nature's baptism."

Our indefatigable guide insists on our stopping at the village of San Giacomo where his friend, the parocco, will show us the frescoes of Lo Spagna. But though the Canon does his best to whip up our flagging enthusiasm, the tender

graces of form and soft harmonies of colour of the Umbrian painters fail for once to exercise their charm; while the problem of discriminating a genuine work of Lo Spagna from that of a pupil and imitator makes no appeal to our drowsy faculties. Nor does it fare better with us when we inspect the crumbling walls of the large medieval castle opposite the church which to-day harbour peasants domiciled in slummy looking alleys. These medieval things fall out of their historical perspective, and look far off and outworn after the living freshness of the classic river. Our enthusiastic guide is not imposed on by our forced attempts to look interested in his saints, their miracles, and their weird symbols. He is just a little shocked for a moment by our apathy, till he reflects that not only are we jaded with the heat but that for this one day another miracle-worker, Clitumnus, claims us as his worshippers.

Ma'amzelle is small and slight and stoops a little. Her hair is quite white and has pretty waves and pale silver gleams in it. Her flush, which once, they tell you, was quick to come and go, has decided to remain in permanence on her cheeks. This, with the bright flashes of her eyes and a touch of grimness in the lines of her mouth, gives her a somewhat fierce appearance; but no one is afraid of Ma'amzelle-not even the babies. And if you are not of those who can go back from the sear autumn of the tree to its green youth, you must take it on the word of the older Behnslebenites that Ma'amzelle was once very beautiful.

The Prisoner of War is somewhat careless of her appearance. She might be said to clothe, rather than dress, herself. The general effect is picturesque, and no more unpleasing than any other autumnal untidiness. It is highly characteristic, too, of one who

VOL. CLXXXV.-NO. MCXXIV.

Ma'amzelle is at war with her neighbours, and they are at peace with her. She bristles with hostility to her surroundings. She accepts no kind offices that are in any way avoidable, and the Behnslebenite is not yet born who would dare to offer the insult of a compliment to the Prisoner of War. But she does not do unto her neighbours as she will have it that they shall do unto her, for she is a very fountain of secret benevolence, and is only rich on dividend days. That she has two sides to her character is not extraordinary, for she has two graves in her heart-a French grave and a Prussian grave.

When Behnsleben society speaks of Mademoiselle Genlis, it more than occasionally assumes a pitiful air, gives a knowing wag of its collective head and whispers not unkindly, "Just a little-you understand?" But it has no monopoly in this; for when Ma'amzelle speaks of Behnsleben society she frowns, purses up her lips, raps herself upon

3 I