Though d'Annunzio takes high rank among the modern poets, many of his
admirers holding him to be the greatest one alive, he is a far greater
orator. His diction is perfect, his wealth of imagery exhaustless; I
have seen him sway a vast audience as a wheat-field is swayed by the
wind. His life he values not at all; the four rows of ribbons which on
the breast of his uniform make a splotch of color were not won by his
verses. Though well past the half-century mark, he has participated in a
score of aerial combats, occupying the observer's seat in his fighting
Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his
military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and
bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to
the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among
all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known
as the _Combatenti_, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the
Italian armies. He is a jingo of the jingoes, his plans for Italian
expansion reaching far beyond the annexation of Fiume or even all of
Dalmatia, for he has said again and again that he dreams of that day
when Italy will have extended her rule over all that territory which
once was held by Rome.

[Illustration: THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS
RAIDERS

"Save only Barcelona, Fiume has the most excitable population of any
place that I know."

The patron saint of the city is, appropriately enough, St. Vitus]

He is a very picturesque and interesting figure, is Gabriele