hat are they in comparison with the adventures of the spirit?
I am in Italy--in Genoa, to be sure, which of all Italian cities
passes for the unfriendliest to the Muse: but that is my probation.
I have embraced the mission of my life. Here in Italy--here in the
land of the vine, the olive--of Maecenas and the Medicis--it shall
be mine to revive the arts and to make them pay; and if I can win out
of this city of skinflints at a profit, I shall have served my
apprenticeship and shall know my success assured. The Genoese,
cavalier, are a banausic race, and penurious at that; they will go
where the devil cannot, which is between the oak and the rind;
opportunity given, they would sneak the breeches off a highlander:
they divide their time between commercialism and a licentiousness of
which, sordid as it is, they habitually beat down the price. And yet
Genoa is Italy, and has the feeling of Italy--the golden atmosphere,
the clean outlines, the amplitude of its public spaces, the very
shadows in the square, the statues looking down upon the crowd, the
pose, the colouring, of any chance poor onion-seller in the market--"

But here Mr. Fett broke off his harangue to rise and salute the
Princess, who, entering with our host at her heels, turned to
Marc'antonio and bade him, as purse-bearer, count out the money for a
week's lodging. Payment in advance (it seemed) was the rule in
Genoa. Messer' Fazio bit each coin carefully as it was tendered, and
had scarcely pocketed the last before a noise at the front-door
followed by peals of laughter announced the arrival of our
fellow-lodgers. They burst into the room singing a chorus,
_O pescatore da maremma_, and led by Mr. Badcock, who wore a wreath
of seaweed a-cock over one eye and waved a dripping basket of
sea-urchins. Two pretty girls held on to him, one by each arm, and
thrust him staggering through the doorway.

"O pesca--to--o--o--" Mr. Badcock's eyes, alighting on me, grew
suddenly large as gooseberries and he checked himself in the middle
of a roulade. "Eh! why! bless my soul, if it's not--"

"Precisely," interjected Mr. Fett, with a quick warning wink and a
wave of his hand to introduce us. "_I pescatori da maremma_.
. . . To them enter Proteus with his attendant nymphs. . . . They
rush on him and bind him with strings of sausages (will the Donna
Julia oblige by tucking up her sleeves and fetching the sausages from
the back kitchen, _with_ a brazier?) The music,