Ascending
Vesuvius was often on the itinerary of people visiting Naples—and still is.
There are myriads of published accounts of it (and I will write about the
Shelleys’ experience—and mine—in a bit), but one of my favorite appears in
Charles Dickens’ memoir Pictures from
Italy, 1846, the story of his year-long sojourn and travels with his family
in that country (1844–45).
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| Dickens' travels in Italy |
He has quite
a lengthy description of his ascent of (and adventures on) Vesuvius near the
end of Pictures—and you can find the
whole thing with an easy Google search (link)—but I want to include here two of his
wonderful paragraphs about getting near the edge—and peering over—at a time
when the mountain was spitting fire.
There is something in the fire and roar,
that generates an irresistible desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest long,
without starting off, two of us, on our hands and knees, accompanied by the
head-guide, to climb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in.
Meanwhile, the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous
proceeding, and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out
of their wits.
What with their noise, and what with the
trembling of the thin crust of ground, that seems about to open underneath our
feet and plunge us in the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if
there be any); and what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the
shower of red-hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and
sulphur; we may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we
contrive to climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the Hell of
boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and
singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy: and each with his dress alight in
half-a-dozen places.[1]
I’ve alluded
in other writing to this moment—the moment that writers cannot resist: peering
over the edges which others fear to approach, feeling an irresistible desire while doing so, then returning, scorched, and hot, and giddy, ready to
write the truths that they have witnessed. And survived.
The Shelleys’
experience was a bit less … fiery, and mine was … well … read on.
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