12. Fecit! He poisoned himself with hydrocyanic acid on the 4th
November, 1920.
13. This is the same gentleman who informs us, on page 166, "I have
lived, however, very temperately, avoiding much wine." We learn from the
Dictionary of National Biography that he was born in 1803; he must
therefore have been twenty-five years old when he bemused the
coastguard. Only twenty-five; and already at this stage. We are further
told that he was tutor to somebody's son. Unhappy child!
14. Not all of them are true thistles. Abbadé's Guide to the Abruzzi
(1903) enumerates 1476 plants from this region.
15. Manifestly unfair, all this. For the rest, the critic, in speaking
of a plot, may have meant what young ladies call by that name--a love
intrigue, in which case he is to be blamed solely for misuse of a good
word. I am consoled by the New York Dial calling my plot "rightly
filmy." Nobody could have expressed it better.
16. Three spring months, at Florence, had been spent in making a
scientific collection of local imprecations--abusive, vituperative or
profane expletives; swear-words, in short--enriched with elaborate
commentary. I would gladly print this little study in folk-lore as an
appendix to the present volume, were it fit for publication.
17. Since this was written, the gospel of imperialism has made
considerable progress in the peninsula.
18. This is a survival of the Greek kakkabos. Gargiuli and others have
garnered Hellenic derivations among the place-names here, and to their
list may be added that of the rock on which stood the villa of Pollius
Felix; it is now known as Punta Calcarella, but used to be called
Petrapoli; pure Greek: Pollio's rock. There is still a mine of such
material to be exploited by all who care to study the vernacular. The
giant euphorbia, for instance, common on these hills, is locally known
as "totomaglie"; pure Greek again: tithymalos.
19. Query: whether there be no connection between brachycephalism and
this modern deification of machinery?
20. Robert L. Bowles, M.D. "Sunburn on the Alps" (Alpine Journal,
November, 1888) and "The Influence of Light on the Skin" (British
Journal of Dermatology, No. 105, Vol. 9).