The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diversions in Sicily, by H. Festing Jones

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Title: Diversions in Sicily

Author: H. Festing Jones

Release Date: February 19, 2008 [eBook #24652]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIVERSIONS IN SICILY***

This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

DIVERSIONS IN
SICILY

BY
HENRY FESTING JONES

[Picture: Title illustration]

LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD 1920

_First Published_ . . . 1909
_Re-issued_ . . . 1920

TO
ENRICO PAMPALONE

MY DEAR ENRICO,

Your father and I, sitting one summer night on the terrace at
Castellinaria watching the moon on the water, agreed that this book might
be dedicated to you, although you have not yet put it into my power to
ask your permission.

"After all," exclaimed your father, "what is existence?" And I was
unable to give him a satisfactory reply.

When Orlando and his Paladins were overcome at Roncisvalle through the
treachery of Gano di Magonza, were they all slain? When "the Crusaders'
streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise," did none
linger? When the angel carried up to heaven the soul of Guido Santo, did
he never fight another battle? The young men of your island hardly think
so; their thoughts and actions are still coloured by the magnificent
language and the chivalrous exploits of Christian and Turk. As long as
there is an imaginative shoeblack in the Quattro Canti working for
pennies by day, so long will those pennies be paid for the story to be
told by night in the marionette theatre. Often will Angelica recover her
ring, and as often be robbed of it again; often will the ghostly voice of
Astolfo, imprisoned in a myrtle upon Alcina's magic isle, reveal the
secret of his woe; often will Rinaldo drink of the Fountains of Hatred
and of Love, and, forgetful of the properties of