nion, apparently
otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to
all seeming unaware of my presence.

"Will my smoking annoy you, sir?" asked I, as I was ready to begin.

"No," said he, without looking up. "I'd like to know where one could go
to live nowadays if it did."

"Very true," said I; "the practice is almost universal"

"So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and
poisoning by strychnine."

I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I
said, in a tone intended to invite converse, "You are no admirer, then,
of what some are fain to call progress?"

He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, "I'd rather
you'd touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful
word at my ears. If there's a thing I hate the most, it's what cant--a
vile modern slang--calls 'Progress.' You're just in the spot at this
moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?" "Not in
the least; never was here before." "Well, sir, I have known it, I'll not
stop to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where
you see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a
beautiful little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where
you perceive that red glare--the flame of a smelting furnace--there was
an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse
stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now,
turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four
main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen
timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the
other, led--ay, and not four years ago--along the margin of the sea,
with a forest of chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias
forming a shade along it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you
might walk it in delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene
was mirrored, and not a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not
pictured below. It was, in a word, a little paradise; nor were the
people all unworthy of their lovely birthplace. They were a quiet,
civil, obliging, simple-minded set--if not inviting strangers to settle
amongst them, never rude or repelling to them; equitable in dealings,
and strange to all disturbance or outrage. What they are now is no more
easy to say than what a rivulet is when a torrent has carried away its