m_; who, asked the
curator sadly, would supply money to purchase the rest? Place had been
found on the walls for certain modern pictures of local interest. One
represented a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and their
cattle amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summits
enclosing them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountain
scene, but sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushing
torrent, the lonely wilderness. Naming the painter, my despondent
companion shook his head, and sighed "_Morto! Morto!_"

Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature. Some twenty
pages only had been covered since the founding of the museum, and most
of the names were German. Fortunately, I glanced at the beginning, and
there, on the first page, was written "Francois Lenormant, Membre de
l'Institut de France"--the date, 1882. The small, delicate character
was very suggestive of the man as I conceived him; to come upon his
name thus unexpectedly gave me a thrill of pleasure; it was like being
brought of a sudden into the very presence of him whose spirit had
guided, instructed, borne me delightful company throughout my
wanderings. When I turned to the curator, and spoke of this discovery,
sympathy at once lighted up his face. Yes, yes! He remembered the
visit; he had the clearest recollection of Lenormant--"_un bravo
giovane_!" Thereupon, he directed my attention to a little slip of
paper pasted into the inner cover of the book, on which were written in
pencil a few Greek letters; they were from the hand of Lenormant
himself, who had taken out his pencil to illustrate something he was
saying about a Greek inscription in the museum. Carefully had this
scrap been preserved by the good curator; his piety touched and
delighted me.

I could have desired no happier incident for the close of my journey;
by lucky chance this visit to the museum had been postponed till the
last morning, and, as I idled through the afternoon about the Via
Plutino, my farewell mood was in full harmony with that in which I had
landed from Naples upon the Calabrian shore. So hard a thing to catch
and to retain, the mood corresponding perfectly to an intellectual
bias--hard, at all events, for him who cannot shape his life as he
will, and whom circumstance ever menaces with dreary harassment. Alone
and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the evening fall on
cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling light