"I only know that in this last week the whole tenor of my life seems to have changed. I am tasting for the first time of the larger, fuller life in which men and women enjoy perfect companionship of each other. I hope there is nothing wicked in it! I hope there is nothing wicked in it! God knows I do it with a pure heart. He has said that 'to the pure all things are pure.'" CHAPTER XII.[3]--Of a Visit to Pompeji in 1798, in which there were Lovers, and of the Supper in the Inn at Resina. [3] Much of this chapter is taken from an account of a visit to "Pompeii" written in 1802. The Admiral "found more to detain him in Naples than he had anticipated." I write these words with a smile: they were his own. We did not sail for Malta till October 15th, and then we had to go all round Sicily. My Lady, partly, I suppose, for reasons to which I have already alluded, was never satisfied without the Admiral went somewhere by _barca_ or carriage. She loved open-air parties, and I firmly believe loved the getting-up of them as much as any part of the expedition. The Admiral said, with the very best grace, that he was under his hostess's orders, and she was so infinitely charming and full of entertainment that it did not cost a man much to be at her orders. In good truth, she tried to anticipate every wish of his, except it might be that of leaving him to rest in some pleasant corner of her palace within hail of her voice. She certainly did not at this time plan for secret meetings with him, though her manner was more caressing to him in public than a prudent woman would have allowed herself. For one kind of expedition he was always ready: he was much interested in the monuments of Roman and Greek history--especially Roman, for the Admiral had in his heart a profound respect for the Romans as lords of the world, and as anticipating the place that he meant England should have; and he had a sneaking contempt for the Greeks, holding that they never fought like men save when they had a bridge broken down behind them, or mere Asiatics opposed to them. The city of Naples is not rich in such monuments, although the whole half of the bay, from Naples to the ancient Misenum at the end of one of the enclosing horns, is full of the villas and what not of the most famous people of the court of Cæsar Augustus. And there are at the foot of Mount Vesuvius cities of late years begun to be excavated. At Forum Pompeji especially there is almost a whole city to be seen, and the ancients have told us so much about the eruption which caused its destruction that every traveller of intelligence who proceeds to Naples dare scarcely leave it without having made an examination of these ruins.