was no occupation but literature, and literature, to the Roman
mind of 1867, and in the Roman meaning of the word, was
scholarship. The introduction to a literary career was supposed to
be obtained only by a profound study of the classics, with a view
to avoiding everything classical, both in language and ideas,
except Cicero, the apostle of the ancient Roman Philistines; and
the tendency to clothe stale truisms and feeble sentiments in
high-sounding language is still found in Italian prose and is
indirectly traceable to the same source. As for the literature of
the country since the Latins, it consisted, and still consists, in
the works of the four poets, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch.
Leopardi is more read now than then, but is too unhealthily
melancholy to be read long by any one. There used to be Roman
princes who spent years in committing to memory the verses of
those four poets, just as the young Brahman of to-day learns to
recite the Rig Veda. That was called the pursuit of literature.

The Saracinesca were thought very original and different from
other men, because they gave some attention to their estates. It
seemed very like business to try and improve the possessions one
had inherited or acquired by marriage, and business was
degradation. Nevertheless, the Saracinesca were strong enough to
laugh at other people's scruples, and did what seemed best in
their own eyes without troubling themselves to ask what the world
thought. But the care of such matters was not enough to occupy
Giovanni all day. He had much time on his hands, for he was an
active man, who slept little and rarely needed rest. Formerly he
had been used to disappear from Rome periodically, making long
journeys, generally ending in shooting expeditions in some half-
explored country. That was in the days before his marriage, and