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Updated: May 6, 2025
Over Soracte rises the sun, over his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks.
Does not romance come originally from Roma, as well as Romulus? He wished to stand where Casar stood, to behold the snowy Soracte of Horace, and to read Virgil's description of an Italian night on Italian ground.
"Speaking of Horace," continued the Doctor, in a voice slightly husky with feeling, "he gives us glowing descriptions of his winter circles of friends, where mirth and wine, music and beauty, charm away the hours, and of summer-day recreations beneath the vine-wedded elms of the Tiber or on the breezy slopes of Soracte; yet I seldom read them without a feeling of sadness.
But the most important of all the Italian fairs was that which was held at Soracte in the grove of Feronia, a situation than which none could be found more favourable for the exchange of commodities among the three great nations. Roman merchants regularly made their appearance there, and the wrongs of which they complained gave rise to many a quarrel with the Sabines.
Headaches every morning, debts and disgrace, varied by occasional imprisonments." "The Emperor sits naked in a grotto at the foot of Soracte." "Vides ut alta stet nive candidum, Soracte." "As we are speaking, life the envious flits away. Enjoy the present day, nor trust the morrow!" "And the Pope is going to hold a midnight mass he who has no faith in it himself."
Soracte rose before us, bulging up quite abruptly out of the plain, and keeping itself entirely distinct from a whole horizon of hills. Byron well compares it to a wave just on the bend, and about to break over towards the spectator.
I climbed up a high bank by the roadside, and the whole scene came in view. Perhaps eighteen miles distant rose the dome of St. Peter's, near the horizon a small spot on the vast plain. Beyond it and further east, were the mountains of Albano on our left Soracte and the Appenines, and a blue line along the west betrayed the Mediterranean.
Of course I have not asked whether she showed any care; but that little spot of silence affects me as the sight of a tree remaining leafless in the woods where everything else is turning green. To-day I was standing at a window, looking out at the aged row of cedars, now laden with snow, and thinking of Horace and Soracte.
Thither he came, with his wife and his little son, and there he fitted himself up a study; setting his writing table at a window that overlooked an immensity of country, and Mont Soracté closing the horizon with its fiery pyramid. In his correspondence of this time there are suddenly noticeable a gayety and an insouciance which are elements wholly new in his letters.
"Speaking of Horace," continued the Doctor, in a voice slightly husky with feeling, "he gives us glowing descriptions of his winter circles of friends, where mirth and wine, music and beauty, charm away the hours, and of summer-day recreations beneath the vine-wedded elms of the Tiber or on the breezy slopes of Soracte; yet I seldom read them without a feeling of sadness.
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