'Quattro di brillante,
Quaranta di durante,'
and the King said that in Naples there was a superstition of the same kind as that of our St. Swithin in England.
"As another set of people came in, we rose to go, kissing the Queen's hand, except Helen, who kissed her face. The King[323] shook hands and walked with us to the door, expressing a wish that we should return to Rome; and replying, when I said how much my mother benefited by the climate here, that Madame my mother ought always to make the most of whatever climate suited her health and remain in it. In the anteroom the Duca della Regina and the old lady were waiting to see Helen again.
"To-day Mrs. Ramsay asked me the difference between the Italian words mezzo-caldo and semi-freddo. One would think they were the same, but mezzo-caldo is hot punch and semi-freddo is cold cream!"
I have put in these extracts from my journal, as they describe a state of things at Rome which seemed then as if it would last for ever, but which is utterly swept away now and rapidly passing into oblivion. The English society was as frivolous then as it is now, but much more primitive. It was the custom in those days, when any one gave a larger party than usual, to ask Mrs. Miller, a respectable old Anglo-German baker who lived in the Via della Croce, to make tea and manage the refreshments, and one knew whether the party that one was invited to was going to be a large or small one by looking to see if there was "To meet Mrs. Miller" in the corner.
Our days were for the most part spent in drawing, and many were the delightful hours we passed in the Villa Negroni, which has now entirely disappeared, in spite of its endless historic associations, or in the desolate and beautiful vigne of the Esquiline, which have also been destroyed since the Sardinian occupation of Rome. Indeed, those who visit Rome now that it is a very squalid modern city, can have no idea of the wealth and glory of picturesqueness which adorned its every corner before 1870, or of how romantic were the passing figures—the crimson Cardinals; the venerable generals of religious orders with their flowing white beards; the endless monks and nuns; the pifferari with their pipes; the peasant women from Cori and Arpino and Subiaco, with their great gold earrings, coral necklaces, and snowy head-dresses; the contadini in their sheep-skins and goat-skins; the handsome stalwart Guardia Nobile in splendid tight-fitting uniforms; and above all, the grand figure and beneficent face of Pius IX. so frequently passing, seated in his glass coach, in his snow-white robes, with the stoic self-estimation of the Popes, but with his own kindly smile and his fingers constantly raised in benediction.
The heat was very great before we left Rome in April. We went first to Narni, where we stayed several days in a very primitive lodging, with the smallest possible amount of furniture, and nothing to eat except cold goat and rosemary, but in a glorious situation on the terrace which overlooks the deep rift of the Nar, clothed everywhere with ilex, box, and arbutus; and we spent long hours drawing the two grand old bridges—Roman and Mediæval—which stride across the river, even Lea being stimulated by the intense beauty to a trial of her artistic powers, and making a very creditable performance of the two grand cypresses on the slope of the hill, which have disappeared under the Sardinian rule.
