Certain tales told to him by the Italian woman, and the picturesque town and its surroundings formed the basis of the story “The Rape of the Sabines” which appeared later in The Pagan Review. At the end of March he left Rome, to his great regret; he joined me at Pisa and thence we journeyed to Provence and stayed awhile at Arles, whence he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:
30: 3: 91.
Gento Catarino,
You see I address you à la Provençale already! We left Italy last week, and came to Provence. Marseilles, I admit, seemed to me an unattractive place after Rome—and indeed all of Provence we have seen as yet is somewhat chill and barren after Italy. No doubt the charm will grow. For one thing, Spring is very late here this year....
Arles we like much. It is a quaint and pleasant little town: and once I can get my mind free of those haunting hill-towns of the Sabines and Albans I love so much—(is there any hill range in the world to equal that swing of the Apennines stretching beyond Rome eastward, southward, and southwestward?)—I shall get to love it too, no doubt. But oh, Italy, Italy! Not Rome: though Rome has an infinite charm, even now when the jerry-builder is fast ruining it: but “greater Rome,” the Agro Romano! When I think of happy days at the Lake of Nemi, high up in the Albans, of Albano, and L’Ariccia, and Castel Gandolfo—of Tivoli, and the lonely Montecelli, and S. Polo dei Cavalieri, and Castel Madama, and Anticoli Corrado, etc., among the Sabines—of the ever new, mysterious, fascinating Campagna, from the Maremma on the North to the Pontine Marshes, my heart is full of longing. I love North Italy too, all Umbria and Tuscany: and to know Venice well is to have a secret of perpetual joy: and yet, the Agro Romano! How I wish you could have been there this winter and spring! You will find something of my passion for it, and of that still deeper longing and passion for the Beautiful, in my “Sospiri di Roma,” which ought to reach you before the end of April, or at any rate early in May. This very day it is being finally printed off to the sound of the Cascades of the Anio at Tivoli, in the Sabines—one of which turns the machinery of the Socièta Laziale’s printing-works. I do hope the book will appeal to you, as there is so much of myself in it. No doubt it will be too frankly impressionistic to suit some people, and its unconventionality in form as well as in matter will be a cause of offence here and there. You shall have one of the earliest copies.
Yesterday was a fortunate day for arrival. It was a great festa, and all the women were out in their refined and picturesque costumes. The Amphitheatre was filled, tier upon tier, and full of colour (particularly owing to some three or four hundred Zouaves, grouped in threes or fours every here and there) for the occasion of “a grand Bull-Fight.” It was a brilliant and amusing scene, though (fortunately) the “fight” was of the most tame and harmless kind: much less dangerous even for the most unwary of the not very daring Arlesians than a walk across the remoter parts of the Campagna....
Letters from Mr. Meredith and Miss Blind, in acknowledgment of the privately published volume of poems, greatly pleased their author:
Box Hill, April 15, 1891.
Dear Sharp,
I have sent a card to the Grosvenor Club. I have much to say for the Sospiri, with some criticism. Impressionistic work where the heart is hot surpasses all but highest verse. When, mind. It can be of that heat only at intervals. In the ‘Wild Mare’ you have hit the mark. It is an unrivalled piece.