You will be shocked, I am sure, when I tell you that I do not agree with Mr. Howells, nor yet with my beloved Hawthorne, for I love modern Rome. To be sure, Hawthorne wrote of Rome in 1858, and Mr. Howells in 1864, and it may be the shops were not so altogether enticing in those early days, or it may be because they were not women that the shops had no charm for them; but if they had known Castellani, the goldsmith on the Piazzi di Trevi, who executes designs from the old Grecian, Etruscan and Byzantine models, or Roccheggiani's exquisite mosaics and cameo carvings, it is probable their opinions would be modified.
Michelangelo's "Moses" is not in the big St. Peter's of the Vatican, but in St. Peter's of Vincoli. This was a surprise to me, for I had supposed to the contrary. I had asked many times, to no avail, why Michelangelo put horns on his "Moses," until a learnèd monk told me that, in an early translation of the Scriptures, the word "horns" was incorrectly given for "skin." Notwithstanding the disproportion of its outlines, the gigantic statue is, to me, the most wonderful thing ever cut from a block of marble.
We have an ascensor in our pension. The big concierge puts me in, locks the door, unlocks the catch, and lets it go. When it gets to my floor it is supposed to stop, and in the same breath to have its door unfastened, and all I have to do is to walk out. Sometimes, however, it stops midway between floors, and then I wish I had walked up. I find Roman and Spanish steps just as fatiguing to climb as any others, and patronize the ascensors with vigor.
We went by appointment one day to the Rospigliosi Palazzo to return the visit of our Portuguese friends, Signor and Signora A., and were taken into another part of the palace to see Guido Reni's "Aurora." The picture is painted on the ceiling, and there is an arrangement of mirrors by which one can view it without having to tire the neck with looking up so constantly. It is the greatest painting that has been done in the last two hundred years. In the evening we all went to hear "Gioconda" at the Teâtro Adriano. The Italian audience seemed, by the uproarious applause that greeted each aria, to appreciate the music, but talked continually through it all.
We have revisited many of the places which most interested us during our three days' drive with the cicerone, and have whiled away many delightful mornings in the shops. We rest a little in the early part of each afternoon, and then, almost invariably, we drive on the Corso and to the Pincian Gardens, where the band plays from five until an hour after Ave Maria. Here one sees the smart Romans, and in fact people of nearly every race on earth, in their best attire, on pleasure bent.