not, however, in the long roll of the famous figures of our beach forget
that our English Richard the Lion-hearted was entertained here by
Tancred in crusading days; and of notable sieges let me name at least
that which the city suffered for its loyalty to the brave and generous
Manfred when the Messenians surprised and wasted it, and that which with
less destruction the enemies of the second Frederick inflicted on it,
and that of the French under Charles II, who, contrary to his word, gave
up the surrendered city to the soldiery for eight whole days--a terrible
sack, of which Monsignore has heard old men tell. What part the citizens
took in the Sicilian Vespers, and how the Parliament that vainly sought
a king for all Sicily was held here, and in later times the marches of
the Germans, Spaniards, and English--these were too long a tale. With
one more signal memory I close this world-history, as it began, with a
noble name. It was from our beach yonder that Garibaldi set out for
Italy in the campaign of Aspromonte; hither he was brought back,
wounded, to the friendly people, still faithful to that love of liberty
which flowed in the old Taorminian blood.

I shut my books; but to my eyes the rock is scriptured now. What a leaf
it is from the world-history of man upon the planet! Every race has
splashed it with blood; every faith has cried from it to heaven. It is
only a hill-station in the realm of empire; but in the records of such a
city, lying somewhat aside and out of common vision, the course of human
fate may be more simply impressive than in the story of world-cities.
Athens, Rome, Constantinople, London, Paris, are great centres of
history; but in them the mind is confused by the multiplicity and awed
by the majesty of events. Here on this bare rock there is no thronging
of illustrious names, and little of that glory that conceals imperial
crime, the massacre of armies, and the people's woe. Again I use the
figure: it is like a rock of the sea, set here in the midst of the