NOTE.
Acknowledgments are due to the following publishing houses for the permissions which they have courteously granted for translations of extracts from works published by them to be included in this volume:—To Mr. Ulrico Hoepli, for permission to include the extract from the Veglie di Neri, by Renato Fucini; to Mr. G. Barbera, of Florence, for permission to include the extract from his edition of In Provincia, by Mario Pratesi, and the extract from San Pantaleone, by Gabriele d’Annunzio; to Messrs. Fratelli Trèves, for permission to include the extracts from Verga and Edmondo de Amicis; and to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, for permission to include the extract from Mr. Story’s Roba di Roma. Thanks are also due to Mr. Luigi Capuana for his courteous permission to include the translations contained in this volume of extracts from his works.
THE HUMOUR OF ITALY.
THE POET COMPLAINS OF UNREASONABLE FRIENDS.
“Make me a sonnet or a canzonet,”
Says one who’s scant and short of memory.
It seems to him that, having given me
The theme, he’s left me nought my soul should fret.
Alas! he knows not how I’m sorely let
And hindered,—nor what sleepless nights I dree,