well worth the ten days'
illness which paid for them. After this night they never returned; I
hoped for their renewal, but in vain. When I spoke of the experience to
Dr. Sculco, he was much amused, and afterwards he often asked me
whether I had had any more _visioni_. That gate of dreams was closed,
but I shall always feel that, for an hour, it was granted to me to see
the vanished life so dear to my imagination. If the picture
corresponded to nothing real, tell me who can, by what power I
reconstructed, to the last perfection of intimacy, a world known to me
only in ruined fragments.

Daylight again, but no gleam of sun. I longed for the sunshine; it
seemed to me a miserable chance that I should lie ill by the Ionian Sea
and behold no better sky than the far north might have shown me. That
grey obstruction of heaven's light always weighs upon my spirit; on a
summer's day, there has but to pass a floating cloud, which for a
moment veils the sun, and I am touched with chill discouragement; heart
and hope fail me, until the golden radiance is restored.

About noon, when I had just laid down the newspaper bought the night
before--the Roman _Tribuna_, which was full of dreary politics--a
sudden clamour in the street drew my attention. I heard the angry
shouting of many voices, not in the piazza before the hotel, but at
some little distance; it was impossible to distinguish any meaning in
the tumultuous cries. This went on for a long time, swelling at moments
into a roar of frenzied rage, then sinking to an uneven growl, broken
by spasmodic yells. On asking what it meant, I was told that a crowd of
poor folk had gathered before the Municipio to demonstrate against an
oppressive tax called the _fuocatico_. This is simply hearth-money, an
impost on each fireplace where food is cooked; the same tax which made
trouble in old England, and was happily got rid of long ago. But the
hungry plebs of Cotrone lacked vigour for any effective self-assertion;
they merely exhausted themselves with shouting "_Abbass' 'o sindaco_!"
and dispersed to the hearths which paid for an all but imaginary
service. I wondered whether the Sindaco and his portly friend sat in
their comfortable room whilst the roaring went on; whether they smoked
their cigars as usual, and continued to chat at their ease. Very
likely. The privileged classes in Italy are slow to move, and may well
believe in the boundless endurance of those below them. Some day, no
doubt,