Loti has moulded upon Sicily phrases lovely and indestructible as the coins of Siracusa, which preserve the unforgettable beauty of youth. It is surpassing strange that I who was always moved to emotion by the prose of Loti, who tried so many times and failed to look upon his face, should receive almost the last letter he wrote, and that he should sign his name to his calling card to send me, just before he died. Love, perhaps, is a powerful magnet. The avenues of the air are now plotted and mapped, the trackless roads of the sea, the land, but the roads of the spirit are still free, unmarked, and sure-leading. Baedeker, thank God, has neglected to chart them! Loti called this young girl’s diary charming. He said it made him want to read other things. Ada Negri went to Sicily a few years ago, in a journey she made to Italian places of pleasure. She writes of this journey in a prose book called _Le Strade_ (_Streets_). Delightful poet that she is, with lines that flame in memory, her prose is commonplace. Not many have written well both prose and verse. Calzini was quite mad over Sicily. He tarried longest in Siracusa, to worship at the feet of the _Landolina Venus_. Somewhere he exclaims, thinking of the statue, “we have come to you across nations and across time; we have come from a civilization which has put so much despair, so much sadness and worry into love. Let us learn to worship again in you the power of creating, _generating_, profound and eternal as the sun of Sicily.” Sicily gave birth to two delightful composers, one of whom was Scarlatti. It pleases me to know that Wagner wrote his greatest love music, the music of Isolda, by the canals of Venice, and his music of inspired spiritual vision, when he flashed forth in tone, sublime knowledge of a life that surpasses death, in Sicily. Hear Andrew Lang: Ah! Leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar Of London and the bustling street, For still by the Sicilian shore The murmur of the Muse is sweet, * * * * * And shepherds still their songs repeat Where breaks the blue Sicilian Sea. How England has loved lands of sun! There was a young English clergyman, by name Lefroy, who in the Eighties went to Sicily and wrote some memorable verses there. I can recall the first line of one: On shores of Sicily a shape of Greece! That is just what men can find there today, the vivid memory of something perfect. Few things happened to mar the long hot monotony of the sun-swept plains. Few people of importance came. Dude-ranching was of the future.