very bad name in Italy among educated people. I
read an article in the _Stampa_--very humorous it was. Humph!

"I talked it over with the Skipper next day. It is a strange thing to me
how men value one sentiment and underrate another. If I'd gone to the
Old Man and said, 'I want to go home, Captain, and see my wife,' he
would have asked me if I was crazy. But as soon as I said--showing him
the black-edged letter--that the kid was dead, he pulled a long face
and said he'd see the agents at once. I wrote to my old uncle in London
explaining matters. The Second got his step and they got a new Fourth
off a meat-boat of the company's that was loading at the time. When I
was paid off I took my dunnage and bought me a second-class ticket for
Genoa on a Rubattino boat.

"To a certain extent I had no reason to be dissatisfied with my success
in life. Many a man has done worse at thirty-three. I was married; I had
money in the bank; I could eat and drink and sleep well; I enjoyed
reading and smoking. Beyond that, I have grown to think a man need not
go. For you gentlemen, of course, it's different. You are out for fame.
You work at high and low pressure, whereas I work in a vacuum, so to
speak. I thought a good deal about life on that voyage to Genoa as a
passenger. It was a new experience to me, I can tell you. For the first
day or two I was lost. There seemed nothing to do. I'd walk up and down
the promenade deck listening to the beat of the twin-engines, wondering
if the Second was a good man ... habit, you see? And then I found a
little library abaft the smoking-room full-up with leather-bound books
that nobody wanted to read. They were Italian, of course, for it was an
Italian ship, and it struck me that I'd have some fun rubbing up my
knowledge of the language. For let me tell you that colloquial Genoese
doesn't take you very far into Dante or Boccaccio! I think that was one
reason why Rosa had disliked the idea of living in Italy. Although I
didn't notice it much, being a foreigner, her speech was not refined.
How could it be, down on the Via Milano with Rebecca for a teacher?
Well, I started in and every day I worked my way through a chapter or
two. Perhaps it is because I know modern Italian writing so well--for a
foreigner--that I don't take much stock in all these great men English
and Americans boom so. They seem to me smart Alecks, but the
high-pressure men are Latins. I can't help thinking, after reading the
moder