“It was really awe-striking to stand in rooms used by Augustus, by Livia and by Drusus; in the case of the latter the frescoes are as fresh as if done a few months since....
“I wonder if I shall ever have the delight of introducing you to the world of wonders concentrated in Rome?”
My own memories of her in Rome are curiously comprehensive of the whole range of interest in the Eternal City: heathen, Christian, mediæval, artistic, patriotic; in each and all of which she was equally at home.
On our first Sunday afternoon we had gone to the Palatine, first pausing to try to imagine the splendour of Nero’s Golden House, before we went on to stand at the bar where St. Paul must have stood before the Cæsar to whom he had made appeal. A portion of the marble rail stands now as it stood then, and there we tried to picture that memorable scene. Miss Buss described to us how the heathen Court of Justice had become the Christian Church, and so vivid was the whole impression that to this moment I can still see the graceful careless emperor, in the centre of the semicircle of fawning, sneering courtiers, all making merry at the claim to Roman citizenship of this mean Jew; with some pride too, no doubt, at the far sweep of the Roman power to which her most distant subject could appeal and not in vain.
As we stood there, lost in the past, there came a sudden clash and clang of all the church bells in Rome—once there had been one for each day in the year—and all the blue air was full of sound. Here was the echo, still clear and strong, of the message of the despised Christian, while of Nero’s Golden House there is not a single trace.
Again, we are standing on the terrace in front of St. Gregorio, and seem to watch the descending figure of the monk Augustine—our Saint of Canterbury—as he had just received the blessing of the Great Gregory, and was departing on his mission to those fair-haired Angles who are so like—and so unlike—the angels. Then we turn into the refectory, where, day by day, the saint entertained his twelve poor pilgrims, and we hear how to his large charity was given the grace of entertaining angels not “unawares,” since, on the face of one of his guests whose special need had called out special service, the faithful servant saw a light which showed him that the Master of the Feast Himself was there in very truth:—
“Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungry neighbour, and Me.”
On another day we had gone to see the Moses of Michael Angelo—earth’s most lasting symbol of the imperishable Divine Law—and, as we came out of the church, we paused to look at the picture made by the convent with the tall palm-tree against the Frangipani Tower, and heard how in time of famine the Frangipani—the “bread-breakers”—earned their noble name, as true lords (hláford, or “loaf-ward”) in sharp contrast to the Borgias—the spoilers of the poor—whose palace still stands to the right of the steps down which we passed, going through the archway, that we might look up to the balcony where the beautiful Lucrezia must often have stood, to cool her throbbing brow, under the quiet stars so high above all futile ambition and fleeting passion.
And yet another well-remembered walk, from the Piazza di Spagna, past the studio of Canova, to the Via di Ripetta, to look for the bust that marks the house of Angelo Brunetti—