"Meanwhile Madame Ste. Aldegonde had fallen into a rapture, and with clasped hands was returning thanks for the privilege vouchsafed to her. 'Oh mon Dieu! mon Dieu! quelle grâce! quelle grâce!' Shortly after this the French Abbé saw it also. 'Il n'y a pas le moindre doute,' he said; 'il bouge les yeux, mais le voilà, le voilà.' They all now began to distress themselves about Mrs. De Selby. 'Surely you must see something,' they said; 'it is impossible that you should see nothing.' But Mrs. De Selby continued stubbornly to declare that she saw nothing. While Madame Ste. Aldegonde was exclaiming, and when the scene was at its height, I could fancy that I saw something like a scintillation, a speculation, in one of the eyes of the Crucified One, but I could not be certain. As we left the church, the other ladies said, apropos of Mrs. De Selby, 'Well, you know, after all, it is not a thing we are obliged to believe,' and one of them, turning to her, added consolingly, 'And you know you did see a miracle at Vicovaro.'
"Mrs. Goldsmid declared that she was so shocked at my want of faith, that she should take me immediately to the Sepolti Vivi, to request the prayers of the abbess there. So we drove thither at once. The convent is most carefully concealed. Opposite the Church of S. Maria del Monte, a little recess in the street, which looks like a cul de sac, runs up to one of those large street shrines with a picture, so common in Naples, but of which there are very few at Rome. When you get up to the picture, you find the cul de sac is an illusion. In the left of the shrine a staircase in the wall leads you up round the walls of the adjoining house to a platform on the roof. Here you are surrounded by heavy doors, all strongly barred and bolted. In the wall there projects what looks like a small green barrel. Mrs. Goldsmid stooped down and rapped loudly on the barrel. This she continued to do for some time. At last a faint muffled voice was heard issuing from behind the barrel, and demanding what was wanted. 'I am Margaret Goldsmid,' said our companion, 'and I want to speak to the abbess.'—'Speak again,' said the strange voice, and again Mrs. G. declared that she was Margaret Goldsmid. Then the invisible nun recognised the voice, and very slowly, to my great surprise, the green barrel began to move. Round and round it went, till at last in its innermost recesses was disclosed a key. Mrs. Goldsmid knew the meaning of this, and taking the key, led us round to a small postern door, which she unlocked, and we entered a small courtyard. Beyond this, other doors opened in a similar manner, till we reached a small white-washed room. Over the door was an inscription bidding those who entered that chamber to leave all worldly thoughts behind them. Round the walls of the room were inscribed: 'Qui non diligit, manet in morte'—'Militia est vita hominis super terram'—'Alter alterius onera portate,' and on the side opposite the door—
'Vi esorto a rimirar
La vita del mondo
Nella guisa che il mira
Un moribondo.'
Immediately beneath this inscription was a double grille, and beyond it what looked at first like pitch darkness, but what was afterwards shown to be a thick plate of iron, pierced, like the rose of a watering-pot, with small round holes, through which the voice might penetrate. Behind this plate of iron the abbess of the Sepolti Vivi receives her visitors. She is even then veiled from head to foot, and folds of thick serge fell over her face. Pope Gregory XVI., who of course could penetrate within the convent, once wishing to try her faith, said to her, 'Sorella mia, levate il velo.'—'No, mio Padre,' replied the abbess, 'é vietato dalle regole del nostro ordine.'
"Mrs. Goldsmid said to the abbess that she had brought with her two heretics, one in a state of partial grace, the other in a state of blind and outer darkness, that she might request her prayers and those of her sisterhood. The heretic in partial grace was Mrs. Dawkins, the heretic in blind darkness was myself. Then came back the muffled voice of the abbess, as if from another world, 'Bisogna essere convertiti, perchè ci si sta poco in questo mondo: bisogna avere le lampane accese, perchè non si sa l'ora quando il Signore chiamerà, ma bisogna che le lampane siano accese coll' olio della vera fede, e se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto.' There was much more that she said, but it was all in the same strain. When she said, 'Se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto,' Mrs. Goldsmid was very much displeased, because she had constantly tried to persuade Mrs. Dawkins that it was not necessary to receive all, and the abbess had unconsciously interfered with the whole line of her argument. Afterwards we asked the abbess about her convent. They were 'Farnesiani,' she said; 'Sepolti Vivi' was only 'un nome popolare;' but she did not know why they were called Farnesiani, or who founded their order. She said the nuns did not dig their graves every day, that also was only a popular story. When they died, she said, 'they only enjoyed their graves a short time, like the Cappuccini (a year, I think), and then, if their bodies were whole when they were dug up, they were preserved; but if their limbs had separated, they were thrown away. She said the nuns could speak to their 'parenti stretti' four times a year, but when I asked if they ever saw them, she laughed in fits at the very idea, 'ma perchè bisogna vederli?' Mrs. Goldsmid was once inside the convent, but could not get an order this year, because, when it had been countersigned by all the other authorities, old Cardinal Patrizi remembered that she had been in before, and withdrew it.
"I heard afterwards that generally when the crucifixion at S. Marcellino is shown, a nun of S. Teresa, with her face covered, and robed from head to foot in a long blue veil, stands by it immovable, like a pillar, the whole time."
"January 27.—Gibson the sculptor died this morning. He was first taken ill while calling on Mrs. Caldwell. She saw that he could not speak, and, making him lie down, brought water and restoratives. He grew better and insisted on walking home. She wished to send for a carriage, but he would not hear of it, and he was able to walk home perfectly. That evening a paralytic seizure came. Ever since, for nineteen days and nights, Miss Dowdeswell had nursed him. He will be a great loss to Miss Hosmer (the sculptress), whom he regarded as a daughter. They used to dine together with old Mr. Hay every Saturday. It was an institution. Mr. Gibson was writing his memoirs then, and he used to take what he had written and read it aloud to Mr. Hay on the Saturday evenings. Mr. Hay also dictated memoirs of his own life to Miss Hosmer, and she wrote them down."
"January 29.—I had a paper last night begging me to be present at a meeting about Gibson's funeral, but I could not go. The greater part of his friends wished for a regular funeral procession on foot through the streets, but this was overruled by Colonel Caldwell and others. A guard of honour, offered by the French general, was however accepted. The body lay for some hours in the little chapel at the cemetery, the cross of the Legion of Honour fixed upon the coffin. It was brought to the grave with muffled drums, all the artists following. Many ladies who had known and loved him were crying bitterly, and there was an immense attendance of men. The day before he died there was a temporary rally, and those with him hoped for his life. It was during this time that the telegraph of inquiry from the Queen came, and Gibson was able to receive pleasure from it, and held it in his hand for an hour.
"Gibson—'Don Giovanni,' as his friends called him—had a quaint dry humour which was all his own. He used to tell how a famous art-critic, whose name must not be mentioned, came to his studio to visit his newly-born statue of Bacchus. 'Now pray criticise it as much as you like,' said the great sculptor. 'Well, since you ask me to find fault,' said the critic, 'I think perhaps there is something not quite right about the left leg.'—'About the leg! that is rather a wide expression,' said Gibson; 'but about what part of the leg?'—'Well, just here, about the bone of the leg.'—'Well,' said Gibson, 'I am relieved that that is the fault you have to find, for the bone of the leg is on the other side!'
"Gibson used to relate with great gusto something which happened to him when he was travelling by diligence before the time of railways. He had got as far as the Mont Cenis, and, while crossing it, entered into conversation with his fellow-traveller—an Englishman, not an American. Gibson asked where he had been, and he mentioned several places, and then said, 'There was one town I saw which I thought curious, the name of which I cannot for the life of me remember, but I know it began with an R.'—'Was it Ronciglione,' said Gibson, 'or perhaps Radicofani?' thinking of all the unimportant places beginning with R. 'No, no; it was a much shorter name—a one-syllable name. I remember we entered it by a gate near a very big church with lots of pillars in front of it, and there was a sort of square with two fountains.'—'You cannot possibly mean Rome?'—'Oh yes, Rome—that was the name of the place.'"