Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Sicily
I first became acquainted with 1' 55014 incantevole on a large wall-map, a delightful, unforgettable map, the one piece of generous colour in a sombre room, that obtained an amount of attention out of all proportion to the time allotted to geography in the curriculum. The lavish expenditure of paint culminated in the Mediterranean, a long sprawl of deliciously crude blue, set central in which was Sicily, a shining yellow triangle, the toe of a truculent red boot almost touch ing it, and seemingly in the act to kick. Nothing else in the map offered the same absorbing interest as that descending foot and that precariously placed triangle. I was proud of the aloofness and careless ?aunt of the British Isles, the promontories of Scotland streaming into the blue like a flaming and tattered battle-?ag but the British Isles I felt I knew, I had only to look out of the window to see them, and the rest of Europe was somewhat amorphous, mere inert provision for geography lessons. Here, in amid-mediterranean, was action, or, at least, a state of imminent action most promising for mischief. It could not be for nothing that all the volcanoes of the continent were congregated at that dramatic spot; sooner or later something must happen there. Three continents stood round in stolid expectancy; on the other side of the wall, the two Americas must certainly be aware that the old world contained this unstable area; sometimes, I believe, I half expected to see a ripple and hear a splash.
Of such literature, too, as came Within childish studies, Sicily was the enchanted island, a borderland of fact and fable, the meeting-ground of gods and men, the haunt of quaint monsters and heroes, of half humanized powers of air, water and the nether world. The fascination survived into authentic annals. No people worth anything seemed able to keep their hands of? Sicily. Even When history ceased to be Specially concerned with the Mediterranean - that delightful domain of the story-teller - Sicily was always turn ing up with engaging irrelevance. One had not a notion of how the Saracens came to be there, but nothing could be better. Saracens always gave a ballad-lilt to history, and on this occasion afforded just the opening needed for an audacious Norman adventure. Even when the lamentable advance of civilization reduced most history to the dead level of modern politics, Sicily preserved a medieval liveliness by way of brigands and the Mafia. It was clearly a place to go to and see life.
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