How many such moments come back to me as my thoughts wander!  Dim little trattorie in city byways, inns smelling of the sun in forgotten valleys, on the mountain side, or by the tideless shore, where the grape has given me of its blood, and made life a rapture.  Who but the veriest fanatic of teetotalism would grudge me those hours so gloriously redeemed?  No draught of wine amid the old tombs under the violet sky but made me for the time a better man, larger of brain, more courageous, more gentle.  ’Twas a revelry whereon came no repentance.  Could I but live for ever in thoughts and feelings such as those born to me in the shadow of the Italian vine!  There I listened to the sacred poets; there I walked with the wise of old; there did the gods reveal to me the secret of their eternal calm.  I hear the red rillet as it flows into the rustic glass; I see the purple light upon the hills.  Fill to me again, thou of the Roman visage and all but Roman speech!  Is not yonder the long gleaming of the Appian Way?  Chant in the old measure, the song imperishable

   “dum Capitolium
   Scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex—­”

aye, and for how many an age when Pontiff and Vestal sleep in the eternal silence.  Let the slave of the iron gods chatter what he will; for him flows no Falernian, for him the Muses have no smile, no melody.  Ere the sun set, and the darkness fall about us, fill again!

XXI.

Is there, at this moment, any boy of twenty, fairly educated, but without means, without help, with nothing but the glow in his brain and steadfast courage in his heart, who sits in a London garret, and writes for dear life?  There must be, I suppose; yet all that I have read and heard of late years about young writers, shows them in a very different aspect.  No garretteers, these novelists and journalists awaiting their promotion.  They eat—­and entertain their critics—­at fashionable restaurants; they are seen in expensive seats at the theatre; they inhabit handsome flats—­photographed for an illustrated paper on the first excuse.  At the worst, they belong to a reputable club, and have garments which permit them to attend a garden party or an evening “at home” without attracting unpleasant notice.  Many biographical sketches have I read, during the last decade, making personal introduction of young Mr. This or young Miss That, whose book was—­as the sweet language of the day will have it—­“booming”; but never one in which there was a hint of stern struggle, of the pinched stomach and frozen fingers.  I surmise that the path of “literature” is being made too easy.  Doubtless it is a rare thing nowadays for a lad whose education ranks him with the upper middle class to find himself utterly without resources, should he wish to devote himself to the profession of letters.  And there is the root of the matter; writing has come to be recognized