NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
45 
The Fascinations of the Fountain. 
(Continued from Page 8) 
pears down a hill, in the distance, at 
the exact point whcre its presence 
ceased to be desirable. 
Nevertheless, when figures are in- 
troduced into those Italian foun- 
tains, how gracefully the thing is 
done! See how the single jets com- 
bine with the marble figures, in this 
- miration. 
eroup from a Roman garden. The 
child Moses and his rescuer are the 
subjects rendered with a chaste 
severity of treatment and a beauty 
of environment that challenge ad- 
After all, the fountain it- 
self would be spoiled, without a 
proper setting of shrubs and trees, 
and this is hard to. plan for, as the 
erowth of the surrounding vegeta- 
tion causes its height-to change con- 
stantly, and to change the ratio be- 
‘tween itself and the proportions of 
the fountain. 
Those workmen in the older coun- 
tries have a way of planning for 
things centuries ahead, and then 
waiting for them to grow. Such a 
garden as this one, where we find the 
fountain of Venus, requires from two 
to three hundred years, to reach per- 
fection. ©The fountain was de- 
signed by the famous Giovanni of 
Bologna, and is wholly worthy of our 
most careful attention. It was a 
pretty thought, to place this pure 
white marble against a background 
of darkest evergreens, whose pillar- 
like forms have a certain similarity 
to the outline of the fountain itself. 
Another group of statuary de- 
signed by the same sculptor is the 
fountain of Old Ocean, in the Garden 
of Boboli, at Firenze. While its sur- 
roundings are beautiful, they lack 
the charm of the last mentioned ex- 
ample. The appeal of the water is 
wholly subordinated to that of the 
statuary and its surroundings, in the 
celebrated ‘‘ Little Fountain,’’ of the 
Borghese Villa, at Rome, and in the 
beautiful Fontana d’Ereole, at Fi- 
renze, and this basin at Bagnaia. 
The eye seeks vainly for something 
that it does not find, and we come 
back, with a sense of rest and _ re- 
freshment, to the lovely single jet in 
the Villa Torlonia. ~ After all, a 
fountain does not need statuary ! 
Very beautiful are these old 
Italian founts. Even when defaced 
‘by time and mained by vandal 
hands, they are ivy-grown and moss- 
covered, draped in a delicate and 
graceful plant which is popularly 
? 
known as ‘‘the hair of Venus’’; so 
that they do not lack decoration by 
the hand of Nature, even though the 
hand of man has failed them, and the 
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festival of the Fontinalia is no longer 
celebrated, as in heathen Rome, with 
wells full of nosegays and fountains 
erowned with flowers. 
It sometimes seems to me that 
common use has blunted our sensibil- 
ities where water is concerned so that 
we have lost, in a great degree, that 
love and admiration for it which 
was possessed by ancients. We turn a 
faucet, and the aqueduct water flows 
as freely as we wish, whether for 
bath or for drinking purposes. It has 
no beauty, when presented to us in 
this manner, and is so close at hand 
that we take it before we ever really 
crave its comfort. Thus the natural 
founts and streams, and the living 
quality of pure-cold water make no 
such strong appeal to us as to the 
forefathers ofthe race. Their rever- 
enee for natural fountains rose to 
the pitch where they were ready to 
endow the sparkling water with 
supernatural powers. The Greeks 
reckoned their Castalian Fountain to 
be of a prophetic nature, and the 
Druids of ancient Briton claimed the 
power of predicting events from holy 
wells and running streams, as well 
as from rain water or snow water, 
which they had stirred up with a 
magic wand made from the sacred 
oak. 
Even after Christianity was intro- 
duced into England, it was the cus- 
tom, upon Holy Thursday, to have 
religious rites performed at wells all 
over the kingdom. These wells were 
decorated with boughs of trees, gar- 
lands of tulips, or hawthorn 
branches; and often, after daily 
prayers had been recited at the 
churches, clergymen and choristers 
would assemble with the people, to 
pray and sing psalms at the natural 
fountains. 
Near the parish church of Kirkmi- 
chael, in Seotland, a great natural 
fountain gushed forth from the rock 
and to it was piously given the name 
of St. Michael’s Well. Its borders 
were planted with fragrant flowers, 
tended by anxious votaries; for the 
guardian spirit of the well, in the 
shape of a great dragon-fly, hovered 
about it continually, and by his de- 
meanor gave predictions of the fu- 
ture to those who consulted hin. 
Here came _ parted lovers, and 
anxious wives, and mothers whose 
children were going astray. Here 
came the sick and the sorry and the 
trouble-hearted. They watched his 
movements in silent awe, and drew 
conclusions as to their own success 
or failure, according to the apparent 
cheerfulness or dejection of the in- 
sect. By old Druidical teachings, he 
was supposed never to die, like the 
King of Great Britain, according to 
English law. What might seem 
death to the eye of the ignorant ob- 
server, would really be transition to 
another and similar form, which 
‘transmigration would hardly affect 
the identity of the magic guardian of 
St. Michael’s Well. 
How the sound of running water 
comes down to us, in song and story! 
Its music furnishes an obligato to 
how many passages of lightest 
comedy, of darkest tragedy, laden 
with love, or heavy with hate! Some- 
times, among these old Italian scenes, 
the murmurous accompaniment goes 
on, although the central theme has 
ceased; sometimes the fountain lies: 
as cold and dead as the master hand 
that worked its secret springs. Then 
it is that 
So wlook 
song, 
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,— 
Dumb are their fountains, and their chan- 
nels dry,— 
Yet run forever, by the muse’s skill, 
And in the smooth description murmur 
still. ?? 
for streams, immortalized in 
