Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/13

 sure to know where any place, either in France or England, is, though he may be sometimes a little lifeless in his way of dealing with it.

I have now pretty well done with the history of the Norman Conquest of England, except so far as I still hope to put forth my story on a scale intermediate between five—or rather seven—large volumes and one very small one. But I should be well pleased to go on with another piece of history of the same date, the essential importance of which and its close connexion with that with which I have been dealing is being always brought more and fully home to me. The Norman in the great island of the Ocean and the Norman in the great island of the Mediterranean naturally form companion pieces. I have made some acquaintance with the Rogers and Williams of Sicily in their own home, and I should be well pleased to make that acquaintance more intimate. Palermo follows naturally on Winchester and Rouen. The pleasure-house of William the Bad is the skeleton of the Conqueror's Tower with a wholly different life breathed into it by Saracenic artists. But the points of view from which we may approach Sicily, the meeting-place of the nations, and the rich and various sources of interest which are supplied by the history of that illustrious island, are simply endless.

In all technical points these volumes follow the exact pattern of the History of the Norman Conquest. And I take a knowledge of that work for granted, and I assume all points which I believe