t, and I
felt a less cheery social atmosphere than at Taranto or at Catanzaro.
One recurring incident did not tend to exhilarate. Sitting in view of a
closed door, I saw children's faces pressed against the glass, peering
little faces, which sought a favourable moment; suddenly the door would
open, and there sounded a thin voice, begging for _un pezzo di pane_--a
bit of bread. Whenever the waiter caught sight of these little
mendicants, he rushed out with simulated fury, and pursued them along
the pavement. I have no happy recollection of my Reggian meals.

An interesting feature of the streets is the frequency of carved
inscriptions, commemorating citizens who died in their struggle for
liberty. Amid quiet by-ways, for instance, I discovered a tablet with
the name of a young soldier who fell at that spot, fighting against the
Bourbon, in 1860: "_offerse per l'unita della patria sua vita
quadrilustre_." The very insignificance of this young life makes the
fact more touching; one thinks of the unnumbered lives sacrificed upon
this soil, age after age, to the wild-beast instinct of mankind, and
how pathetic the attempt to preserve the memory of one boy, so soon to
become a meaningless name! His own voice seems to plead with us for a
regretful thought, to speak from the stone in sad arraignment of
tyranny and bloodshed. A voice which has no accent of hope. In the days
to come, as through all time that is past, man will lord it over his
fellow, and earth will be stained red from veins of young and old. That
sweet and sounding name of _patria_ becomes an illusion and a curse;
linked with the pretentious modernism, _civilization_, it serves as
plea to the latter-day barbarian, ravening and reckless under his civil
garb. How can one greatly wish for the consolidation and prosperity of
Italy, knowing that national vigour tends more and more to
international fear and hatred? They who perished that Italy might be
born again, dreamt of other things than old savagery clanging in new
weapons. In our day there is but one Italian patriot; he who tills the
soil, and sows, and reaps, ignorant or careless of all beyond his
furrowed field.

Whilst I was still thinking of that memorial tablet, I found myself in
front of the Cathedral. As a structure it makes small appeal, dating
only from the seventeenth century, and heavily restored in times more
recent; but the first sight of the facade is strangely stirring. For
across the whole front