I have looked on three thousand
years of human life upon this hill; something of what they have yielded,
if you will have patience with such a tract of time, I will set down.
My author is Monsignore Giovanni di Giovanni, a Taorminian, who
flourished in the last century. He was a man of vast erudition, and
there is in his pages the Old-World learning which delights me. He was
born before the days of historic doubt. He tells a true story. To allege
an authority is with him to prove a fact, and to cite all writers who
repeat the original source is to render truth impregnable. Rarely does
he show any symptom of the modern malady of incredulity. _Scripta
littera_ is reason enough, unless the fair fame of his city chances to
be at stake. He was really learned, and I do wrong to seem to diminish
his authority. He was a patient investigator of manuscripts, and did
important service to Sicilian history. The simplicity I have alluded to
affects mainly the ecclesiastical part of his narrative. A few
statements also in regard to the prehistoric period might disturb the
modern mind, but I own to finding in them the charm of lost things.
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