enough.  As I paused to listen to the solitude, I heard the grind of a distant invisible cart, and the sound of a distant voice singing.  Slowly the cart came up over the crest of the hill, a dark spot against the twilight sky, and mounted on the top of a load of brushwood sat a contadino, who was singing to himself these words,—­not very consolatory, perhaps, but so completely in harmony with the scene and the time that they struck me forcibly:—­

  “E, bella, tu non piangera-a-a-i,
  Sul giorno ch’io saro mor-or-or-to-o-o-o-o-o."[D]

[Footnote D: 

  “And, dearest, you will never weep for me-e-e-e,
  The day when I shall be no mo-o-o-ore.”]

Whether this constant habit of song among the Southern people, while at their work, indicates happiness and content, I will not undertake to say; but it is pleasanter in effect than the sad silence in which we Anglo-Saxons perform our tasks,—­and it seems to show a less harassed and anxious spirit.  But I feel quite sure that these people are more easily pleased, contented with less, less morose, and less envious of the ranks above them, than we are.  They give little thought to the differences of caste, have little ambition to make fortunes or rise out of their condition, and are satisfied with the commonest fare, if they can get enough of it.  The demon of dissatisfaction never harries them.  When you speak to them, they answer with a smile which is nowhere else to be found.  The nation is old, but the people are children in disposition.  Their character is like their climate, generally sunny,—­subject to violent occasional storms, but never growling life away in an uncomfortable drizzle of discontent.  They live upon Nature, —­sympathize with it and love it,—­are susceptible to the least touch of beauty,—­are ardent, if not enduring, in their affectations,—­and, unless provoked and irritated, are very peaceful and amiable.  The flaw in their nature is jealousy, and it is a great flaw.  Their want of truth is the result of their education.  We who are of the more active and busy nations despise them for not having that irritated discontent which urges us forward to change our condition; and we think our ambition better than their supineness.  But there is good in both.  We do more,—­they enjoy more; we make violent efforts to be happy,—­invent, create, labor, to arrive at that quiet enjoyment which they own without struggle, and which our anxious strife unfits us to enjoy when the means for it are obtained.  The general, popular idea, that an Italian is quarrelsome, and ill-tempered, and that the best are only bandits in disguise, is quite a mistake; and when studied as they exist out of the track of travel, where they are often debased and denaturalized, they will be found to be simple, kind-hearted, and generous.

A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.