"
So let us welcome "The Evergreen" and the planters thereof, stunted and
mean though its growth be as yet; for not only in Scotland may they bring
refreshment, but in that larger world where analysis and criticism have
ended in degeneration and despair.
FIESOLE AND FLORENCE
At Fiesole I just missed a sensation. Two friends of mine were climbing
at midnight the steep hill to the village, when from beneath a dark arch
there dashed down towards them two breathless _carabinieri_, their cloaks
flapping in the moonlight like the wings of the demon-bats of pantomime.
"Is it your way that the murdered man lies?" they panted. "Murdered man!"
At once a hundred shadowy reminiscences stirred in my friends' minds:
Prosper Merimee's novels, stories of vendettas, plots of plays, _morceaux
d'operas_, even of comic operas; and it was with a feeling in which the
latter element predominated that they answered that they had come across
no corpse. The police-officers thanked them and hurried off, so my
friends soon understood, as far as possible from the scene of the event;
for, passing through the arch, the _Inglesi_ came upon a track of blood,
black and clotted in the moonlight. But it did not seem real to
them--they still had a consciousness of comic opera, a consciousness
which was intensified rather than lessened when they emerged upon a group
of excited villagers discussing the crime, and learnt its cause.
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