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20 June 1910 — Mezzaratta, Bologna | |
Monday. 20th [June 1910]. A long pleasant day sitting with Da Laura on the little terrace leading from the house. Bologna at our feet sending up sounds of church bells & carillons of clocks, military music & trumpeting surrounded as we were with green trees & bright flowers. After lunch we retired to our rooms for a couple of hours rest that Da Laura might get her usual siesta. She is a wonderful person for her 82 years, interested in every thing—affectionate and kind. Abt 6 we went for a turn arm in arm in the little garden & she at once began the chase of her pet horror a weed called “escalongaia”. To get at some of them she climbed up a slight bank & coming back missed her footing & came to the ground head formost. My utmost efforts could not prevent this but I managed to make her fall a soft one. It was not easy to get her up again as we were on a slight hill—besides wh we both set a laughing– At last I got her up & we relieved to find she was none the worse. In the middle of it arrived Prof. Ciamician to spend the eveng!! & great was his alarm at seeing this scene thro’ the garden gate. However he was reassured by finding us in such good spirits & we walked in the garden with him & he being a botanist told us many interesting scientific facts, such as the reason of the smell of some flowers. At the moment the Irises are in full flower & those in the garden are almost overpowering & he said that in fact they contain a poison in the flower in infinitesimally small quantities. While talking after dinner Da Laura asked him why having being a great chemist he now had turned to botany wh is on a lower level. He said that by 50 a man had generally come to the limit of his knowledge & that there fore he had taken up a lower science with the hope of raising it. He said that the greatest scientists generally got to a certain point after wh they made no further progress & merely went over & over the same ground—& that it was better to leave it to the younger ones. In the mean while thro’ the open windows we remarked the fireflies & he told us that they only had their lights in the breeding season—being the male of the glow worm– I asked him how it was that in England where we have the glowworm we have not got the firefly. He could not tell me. Da Laura also talked about dreams & about sleep. He said sleep was caused by bad essences in the human body wh acting on us made us unconscious & established the health of the body. That dreaming is not yet understood but is also probably a kind of disease in the cells of the brain. Da Laura has just being reading a book of Prof. Drummond on Spiritual Law & asked his opinion upon the subject of the next world—& whether we shall not continue in the justice of the Almighty to form part spiritually of the Universe. So we sat talking & listening till 10 o’cl when the 2 men of our party went off back to Bologna for the night. | |
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