... The cold is setting in and today there is a fierce east wind. I scarcely dare think of what you are enjoying. I had hoped to join you at the end of this month, but the fates are unkind. When I do get away I may first have to go to the Desert as I am meditating some work there. Then I hope to make my way there to Sicily but only late in Spring. Will you still be there? There is magic in its air—or else beauty acts on the body as powerfully as on the soul, and purifies the blood as well as the soul....
Every sentence I write wrings my heart. I ought not to write about Sicily. Felix was begun in that delightful room at Maniace—with Webster, thoughtfully posed by Alec—on a side table within easy reach.
Thank you again for your kind inspiring letter. I value praise from you.
Yours cordially,
Robert Hichens.
Miss Hill and I returned to Sta. Caterina and left my husband at Maniace, whence a few days later he wrote to me:
Castello di Maniace,
15th Nov., 1902.
How you would have enjoyed today!... one of the most beautiful of its kind I’ve ever had. It was quite dark when we rose shortly before six, but lovely dawn by 6.15, and after a gigantic breakfast we all set off all armed with rifles and revolvers. We drove up to the cutting to the left, 1/4 of a mile below Otaheite, and there diverged and went up the wild road of the Zambuco Pass, and for another five miles of ascent. Then we were met by the forest guard and Meli with great jennets (huge hill-mules as big as horses) and rode over the Serraspina (6,000 feet). To my great pleasure it was decided we could risk the further ascent of the great central Watershed of Sicily, the Serra del Rè (8,000 ft.) and I shall never forget it. All the way from about 4,000 ft. the air was extraordinarily light and intoxicating—and the views of Central Sicily magnificent beyond words. When we had ridden to about 7,500 feet thro’ wild mountain gorges, up vast slopes, across great plateaux, and at last into the beginning of the vast dense primeval beech-forests (all an indescribable glory of colour) we dismounted and did the remaining half hour on foot. Then at last we were on the summit of the great central watershed. Thence everything to the south flows to the Ionian Sea, everything to the north to the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean.
And oh the views and the extraordinary clarity! Even with the naked eye I saw all the inland mountains and valleys and lost forgotten towns, Troina on its two hills, Castrogiovanni and Alcara, etc. etc. And with the powerful binoculars I could see all the houses, and trace the streets and ruined temples etc. in Castrogiovanni on its extraordinary raised altar-like mountain plateau. Then, below us, lay all the northern shores of Sicily from Capo Cefalù to Milazzo on its beautiful great bay, and Capo Milazzo, and the Lipari Islands (so close with the glass I could see the few houses on their wild precipitous shores), from ‘Volcano,’ the original home of Vulcan, and Lipari itself to Stromboli, and white ships sailing. Enna (Castrogiovanni) immensely imposing and unforgettable. And, behind us, Etna vaster, sheerer, more majestic, more terrible, than I had ever dreamed of it.