None the less, they have a public garden; even more immature than that
of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a
forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is _a
priori_ a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be
impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close quarters--just
across the moat.

I lamented this fact to a solitary gentleman who was strolling about
here and who replied, upon due deliberation:

"One cannot have everything."

Then he added, as a suggestive afterthought:

"Inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another."

I pause, to observe parenthetically that this habit of uttering
platitudes in the grand manner as though disclosing an idea of vital
novelty (which Charles Lamb, poor fellow, thought peculiar to natives of
Scotland) is as common among Italians as among Englishmen. But veiled in
sonorous Latinisms, the staleness of such remarks assumes an air of
profundity.

"For my part," he went on, warming to his theme, "I am thoroughly
satisfied. Who will complain of the trees? Only a few makers of bad
pictures. They can go elsewhere. Our country, dear sir, is _encrusted,_
with old castles and other feudal absurdities, and if I had the
management of things----"