Happily, the musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you
dine. The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright,
as comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little
rooms, and something of the old gusto for _zuppa di vongole_. The
homely wine of Posillipo smacks as in days gone by, and is commended
to one's lips by a song of the South. . . .

Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning
I awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey.
I shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a
steamboat as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores
where once were Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man
has his intellectual desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and
dream myself into that old world which was the imaginative delight
of my boyhood. The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others;
they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that
time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of
things beautiful. The world of the Greeks and Romans is my land of
romance; a quotation in either language thrills me strangely, and
there are passages of Greek and Latin verse which I cannot read
without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot repeat aloud because
my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of two fountains
mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the draught!

I drove with my luggage to the Immacolatella, and a boatman put me
aboard the steamer. Luggage, I say advisedly; it is a rather heavy
portmanteau, and I know it will be a nuisance. But the length of my
wanderings is so uncertain, its conditions are so vaguely
anticipated. I must have books if only for rainy days; I must have
clothing against a change of season. At one time I thought of taking