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BOHEMIANISM IN ANTICOLI-CORRADO.

i.

WE are but human after all, and cannot for ever bear the strain of intense exaltation of mind. The spirit, however cultured, cannot be forced to adore beyond a certain point. The Litany must be followed by the Hymn — the day of intensest liglit by the soothing neutral tints of evening. Even in Rome we cannot day after day be brought before the world's masterpieces of painting, of decoration, of sculpture, and of architecture, without the soul (unless it be that of a god or a prig) calling out that it is surfeited, that it can no more, that it is suffering from aesthetic indigestion.

Some such thoughts as these, coupled with the approaching heat, which now, in the middle of May, was already turning the Eternal City into a temporary bakehouse, made me turn with delight to the consideration of a friend's proposal to come and join him at Anticoli-Corrado, a village which, he had assured me, combined a perfectly rural isolation with a very acceptable economy of living. So, acting, as one should always do if one wishes to enjoy a delightful trip, upon the impulse of the moment I packed up a very few traps, as I had been warned that in Anticoli one did not 'dress for dinner,' and that ' a proud look and a high collar' were regarded with suspicion, and took my ticket for the last station that has as yet been finished on the Tivoli Railway, to a place called Cineto. Cineto is at the most thirty miles from Rome, but they nftmage to spend three and a half hours over the journey, the engine-driver and guards chatting to their friends at every little station in the Campagna, until they have exhausted every topic of interest.

So, as I left Rome at five, it was half-past eight before I arrived at Cineto. Anticoli is away up on the hills, literally cradled among them, four miles from Cineto. The usual mode of approaching it is on mule-back, but, as there had been a misunderstanding about the time of my arrival, no mule had been sent, so I had to avail myself of a very old-world-looking, tumble-down coach, which is dignified by the name of the Post. Indeed even this I nearly missed, as, having asked the coachman how much he would take me for to as near to Anticoli as the coach went, he replied, 'A franc and a half.' Whereupon, feeling myself in duty bound to ask him to take me for a franc — used as I was to the usual mode of bargaining in other parts of Italy, where a franc asked means, as a rule, that 40 centimes will be taken — he replied by instantly whipping up his horses, and I should have been left to find out my way to Anticoli alone, in the night-time,