The second fortunately prevailed. In the meantime, in
accordance with a supreme law of his being, his spirit craved that
refreshment which Gissing found in revisiting Italy. 'I want,' he cried,
'to see the ruins of Rome: I want to see the Tiber, the Clitumnus, the
Aufidus, the Alban Hills, Lake Trasimenus! It is strange how these old
times have taken hold of me. The mere names in Roman history make my blood
warm.' Of him the saying of Michelet was perpetually true: 'J'ai passe a
cote du monde, et j'ai pris l'histoire pour la vie.' His guide-books in
Italy, through which he journeyed in 1897 (_en prince_ as compared with his
former visit, now that his revenue had risen steadily to between three and
four hundred a year), were Gibbon, his _semper eadem_, Lenormant (_la
Grande-Grece_), and Cassiodorus, of whose epistles, the foundation of the
material of _Veranilda_, he now began to make a special study. The dirt,
the poverty, the rancid oil, and the inequable climate of Calabria must
have been a trial and something of a disappointment to him. But physical
discomfort and even sickness was whelmed by the old and overmastering
enthusiasm, which combined with his hatred of modernity and consumed
Gissing as by fire.
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