ABSTRACT
As one reads Our Friend the Charlatan one thinks constantly, somehow, of the author's nights at Cosenza. 'One goes to bed early at Cosenza; the night air is dangerous ... darkness brings with it no sort of pastime. I did manage to read a little in my miserable room by an antique lamp, but the effort was dispiriting; better to lie in the dark and think ofGoth and Roman.' (By the Ionian Sea) One thinks of him resignedly thinking, all alone in the dark. There is something 'jolly fine' about that, as William Morris used to say.
