The Goddess
Stands, Half-Timidly, While Eros Alights In Airy Fashion On Her
Shoulders And Fans Her With His Wings - An Exquisite Little Thing.
He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed
here.
But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be
desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may
peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of them.
Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which
gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called
"Cose di Puglie," and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of
this province of old Calabria, [Footnote: It included the heel of
Italy.] on matters of exclusively local interest - its history,
meteorology, dialects, classical references to the country, extracts
from old economic documents, notes on the development of Apulian
printing, examples of modern local caricature, descriptions of mediaeval
monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of provincial lore. The
typography, paper and illustrations of this remarkable volume are beyond
all praise; they would do honour to the best firm in London or Paris.
What is this book? It is no commercial speculation at all; it is a
wedding present to a newly married couple - a bouquet of flowers, of
intellectual blossoms, culled from their native Apulian meadows. One
notes with pleasure that the happy pair are neither dukes nor princes.
There is no trace of snobbishness in the offering, which is simply a
spontaneous expression of good wishes on the part of a few friends.
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