We therefore turned back with them to Genoa.
"But oh, Cavalier! these bodily happenings which I recite to you,
what are they in comparison with the adventures of the spirit?
I am in Italy--in Genoa, to be sure, which of all Italian cities
passes for the unfriendliest to the Muse: but that is my probation.
I have embraced the mission of my life. Here in Italy--here in the
land of the vine, the olive--of Maecenas and the Medicis--it shall
be mine to revive the arts and to make them pay; and if I can win out
of this city of skinflints at a profit, I shall have served my
apprenticeship and shall know my success assured. The Genoese,
cavalier, are a banausic race, and penurious at that; they will go
where the devil cannot, which is between the oak and the rind;
opportunity given, they would sneak the breeches off a highlander:
they divide their time between commercialism and a licentiousness of
which, sordid as it is, they habitually beat down the price. And yet
Genoa is Italy, and has the feeling of Italy--the golden atmosphere,
the clean outlines, the amplitude of its public spaces, the very
shadows in the square, the statues looking down upon the crowd, the
pose, the colouring, of any chance poor onion-seller in the market--"
But here Mr.
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