Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/205



STE'S had been the usual tranquil, amorous, unoccupied life of young Italian men in old Italian cities that are away from the common track of travel: a life of sleepy calm, of often harmless dalliance, that usually has its story told from birth to death within the circle of the old town walls. Why not? Men used to be greater when they lived only on one spot, and more content. Unhappily, now, the greatness and the content are gone, because that which used to be repose too often 1s now but apathy, languor, rust.

He had studied under monks in an ecclesiastical college, ancient and solemn in art and architecture, where no boy laughed