ABSTRACT
A perusal of Mr George Gissing's volume By the Ionian Sea naturally suggests a comparison thereof with the chapters of Sensations d'Italie, which deal with Magna Graecia. Bourget's wanderings were considerably more widely extended and led him over more unfrequented and inaccessible ways than those attempted by Mr Gissing, whose travels, indeed, amounted to nothing more ambitious than a steamboat voyage from Naples to Paola, a rough drive to Cosenza, a pilgrimage to the legendary tomb of Alaric, a railway journey along the coast as far as Taranto and then back to Reggio, at the 'toe of the boot.' But, in spite of the more ambitious scale of M. Bourget's work-of the extraordinary interest clinging to places like Oria and Lucera (unvisited by Mr Gissing) with their memories of the splendid State maintained by Frederic II and ofhis Saracen hordes, of the opportunity thus given for copious and apposite literary illustration-it certainly does not surpass in charm the volume before us. We doubt, indeed, whether M. Bourget equals Mr Gissing in just appreciation of the episodes of travel, in comprehensive insight as to their attractions and in sympathetic delineation. Mr Gissing possesses that happily constituted nature which is stirred by impetuous desire to visit in the flesh those famous spots whose names are linked with romantic and momentous events in the world's history. Perhaps the wisest are those who carefully plan their voyage to this and that renowned city, and wait and wait till Anno Domini tells them their day for such expeditions is past. Whether
the more adventurous spirits who put their wishes into action choose the better part is a question which each one must answer according to his own temperament. In the final sentence of his book Mr Gissing sighs for a life in which he might 'wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten.' These words were written when his Calabrian wanderings were over, when he was once more in comparative comfort and civilization at Reggio, and they are almost certainly infected with the spirit of forgiveness ofpast discomforts which possesses us when we are happy in the consciousness that we have done with them for good and all, and shall behold their ugly faces no more. This, however, is a matter which concerns Mr Gissing himself; it was certainly a stroke of good luck for his readers that he did not listen to the gloomy vaticinations of his friends in Naples when he spoke of his journey to Calabria, or allow himself to be dissuaded therefrom. Every appreciative reader knows how to suffer with his author, to weep sympathetic tears over the troubles which beset travellers in the few by-ways now left in the world; and we, as we acknowledge Mr Gissing's vicarious sacrifice on behalf of arm-chair explorers, can assure him that the result achieved by him has not been purchased too dearly, even though the price paid included the horrors of the inn at Squillace and the attack of fever at Cotrone.
