"Lastly, we come to the much-debated point: I mean the aesthetic side of
the matter. No doubt, to judge by some old pictures such as those of the
renowned Mantegna, there must have been a time when men thought long
hair in children rather beautiful than otherwise. And I am not so
rigorous as to deny a certain charm to these portraits--a charm which is
largely due I fancy, to the becoming costumes of the period. At the same
time----"

The stranger did not trust himself to listen any longer. He threw down a
coin and walked out of the shop with his son, muttering something not
very complimentary to the barber's female relations.

But the other was quite unmoved. "And after all," he continued,
addressing the half-opened door through which his visitor had fled, "the
true question is this: What is 'too short'? Don't cut it too short,
you said. _Che vuol dire?_ An ambiguous phrase!

"Too short for one man may be too long for another. Everything is
relative. Yes, gentlemen" (turning to myself and his shop-assistant),
"everything on this earth is relative."

With this sole exception, I have hitherto garnered no Hellenic traits in
Taranto.

Visible even from Giadrezze, on the other side of the inland sea and
beyond the arsenal, there stands a tall, solitary palm. It is the last,
the very last, or almost the very last, of a race of giants that adorned
the gardens which have now been converted into the "New Quarter." I
imagine it is the highest existing palm in Italy, and am glad to have