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.
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