great in those
years, when men were fresh enough of heart to feel emotion and not
ashamed to show it. Think of Petrarca's entry into Rome; think of the
superb life of Raffael; think of the crowds that hung on the lips of
the Improvisatori: think of the influence of S. Bruno, of S. Bernard, of
S. Francis; think of the enormous power on his generation of Fra
Girolamo! And if one were not great at all, but only a sort of brute
with stronger sinews than most men, what a fearless and happy brute one
might be, riding with Hawkwood's Lances, or fighting with the Black
Bands! Whilst, if one were a peaceable, gentle soul, with a turn for art
and grace, what a calm, tender life one might lead in little, old, quiet
cities, painting praying saints on their tiptoes, or moulding
marriage-plates in majolica! It must have been such a great thing to
live when the world was still all open-eyed with wonder at itself, like
a child on its sixth birthday. Now-a-days, science makes a great
discovery; the tired world yawns, feels its pockets, and only asks,
"Will it pay?" Galileo ran the risk of the stake, and Giordano Bruno
suffered at it; but I think that chance of the faggots must have been
better to bear than the languid apathy and the absorbed avarice of the
present age, which is chiefly tolerant because it has no interest except
in new invented ways for getting money and for spending it."

_IN MAREMMA._

He remembered two years before, when he had passed through Italy on his
way eastward, pausing in Ferrara, and Brescia, and Mantua, and staying
longer in the latter city on account of a trial then in course of
hearing in the court of justice, which had interested him by its
passionate and romantic history; it had been the trial of the young
Count d'Este, accused of the assassination of his mistress. Sanctis had
gone with the rest of the town to the hearing of the long and tedious
examination of the witnesses and of accused. It had been a warm day in
early autumn, three months after the night of the murder; Mantua had
looked beautiful in her golden mantle of sunshine and silver veil of
mist; there was a white, light fog on the water meadows and the lakes,
and under it the willows waved and the tall reeds rustled; whilst the
dark towers, the forked battlements, the vast Lombard walls, seemed to
float on it like sombre vessels on a foamy sea.

He remembered the country people flocking in over the bridge, the bells
ringing, the red