History Is A
Very Baffling Study, And One May Be Well Content To Know Little Or
Nothing About It.
I knew so little or had forgotten so much that I
scarcely deserved to be taken down into the
Crypt of this church and
shown the skeletons of four conspirators for Anjou whom Aragon had put
to death - two laymen and an archbishop by beheading, and a woman by
dividing crosswise into thirds. The skeletons lay in their tattered and
dusty shrouds, and I suppose were authentic enough; but I had met them,
poor things, too late in my life to Avish for their further
acquaintance. Once I could have exulted to search out their story and
make much of it; but now I must leave it to the reader's imagination,
along with most other facts of my observation in Naples.
I was at some pains to look up the traces of my lost youth there, and if
I could have found more of them no doubt I should have been more
interested in these skeletons. Eor forty-odd years I had remembered the
prodigious picturesqueness of certain streets branching from a busy
avenue and ascending to uplands above by stately successions of steps.
When I demanded these of my guide, he promptly satisfied me, and in a
few moments, there in the Chiaja, we stood at the foot of such a public
staircase. I had no wish to climb it, but I found it more charming even
than I remembered.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 54 of 353
Words from 14592 to 14841
of 97259
