become resonant of itself with those living harmonies heard only in the
Psalmist's song. It seemed a lyre for the centuries; and I thought over
how many a conqueror, how many a race, that requiem had been lifted upon
it as they passed to their death on this shore. I came back slowly in
the twilight, and was roused from my reverie by the cold wind breathing
on me as I reached the top of the hill, pure and keen and frosted like
the bright December breezes of my own land. It was the kiss of Etna on
my cheek.


V

Will you hear the legend of Taormina?--for in these days I dare not call
it history. Noble and romantic it is, and age-long. I had not hoped to
recover it; but my friend the librarian has brought me books in which
patriotic Taorminians have written the story celebrating their dear
city. I was touched by the simplicity with which he informed me that the
town authorities had been unwilling to waste on a passing stranger these
little paper-bound memorials of their city. "But," he said, "I told them
I had given you my word." So I possess these books with a pleasant
association of Sicilian honour, and I have read them with real interest.
As I turned the pages I was reminded once more how impossible it is to
know the past. The past survives in human institutions, in the
temperament of races, and in the creations of ideal art; but only in the
last is it immortal. Custom and law are for an age: race after race is
pushed to the sea, and dies; only epic and saga and psalm have one date
with man, one destiny with the breath of his lips, one silence at the
last with them. Least of all does the past survive in the living
memories of men. Here and there the earth cherishes a coin or a statue,
the desert embalms some solitary city, a few leagues of rainless air