290 PRÆTERITA-II

made the Apennines one prison wall, and all the modern life of Italy one captivity of shame and crime; alike against the honour of her ancestors, and the kindness of her God.

With these strong insights into the faults of others, there came also at Naples, I am thankful to say, some stroke of volcanic lightning on my own. The sense of the uselessness of all Naples and its gulph to me, in my then state of illness and gloom, was borne in upon me with reproach: the chrysalid envelope began to tear itself open here and there to some purpose, and I bade farewell to the last outlines of Monte St. Angelo as they faded in the south, with dim notions of bettering my ways in future.

52. At Mola di Gaeta we stopped a whole day that I might go back to draw the castle of Itri. It was hinted darkly to us that Itri was of no good repute; we disdained all imputations on such a lovely place, and drove back there for a day’s rambling. While I drew, my mother and Mary went at their own sweet wills up and down; Mary had by this time, at school and on the road, made herself mistress of syllables enough to express some sympathy with any contadina who wore a pretty cap, or carried a pretty baby; and, the appearance of English women being rare at Itri, the contadine were pleased, and everything that was amiable to mamma and Mary. I made an excellent sketch,¹ and we returned in exultation to the orange-groves of Mola. We afterwards heard that the entire population of Itri consisted of banditti, and never troubled ourselves about banditti any more.

We stopped at Albano for the Sunday, and I went out in the morning for a walk through its ilex groves with my father and mother and Mary. For some time back, the little cough bringing blood had not troubled me, and I had been taking longer walks and otherwise counting

¹ [Here reproduced; Plate XV.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]