“You are in an ill humor to day, I see, Clarence,” goodnaturedly replied Morton, as he walked to and fro in our dingy dining-room with his hands under his coat tails; “but it is not Rome that vexes you, half as much as the comfortless dreary way in which they manage everything here. If we could only transport our English neatness and comfort to this beautiful climate, it would be a heaven on earth.”
At this moment Peppo returned with the intelligence that the cook absolutely could not serve dinner a moment before the time appointed.
“Well, what can’t be cured, must be endured,” responded Morton, with a shrug of the shoulders. “But since we have two hours on our hands, and nothing to amuse us in-doors, suppose we take a walk toward the Coliseum, and take another look at it. It bears observation more than once. There is a fine artist, Signor Carrara, who lives in that vicinity, and, with your leave, we will drop in at his studio, and examine his gallery of paintings.”
“As you please, Augustus,” I answered; for Morton being five years my senior, naturally took the lead. We had graduated at Oxford together; and on leaving England for a two years’ jaunt to the continent, my father had particularly recommended his darling son to Morton’s fraternal care. We had spent some time in Paris, flirting with the prettiest women we saw; but that’s not saying much for them, after all; for the French women do not depend for their attractions on beauty. They are sprightly, piquant, and witty generally, but they do not possess that native beauty of form and face, we meet with so frequently among the higher classes of the German and English women. Taste in dress and the arts of coquetry, so well understood and practised by the French women, supply the place of greater personal beauty. While in Paris, Morton had purchased and shipped for England a perfect cabinet shop of curiosities; but I, being less influenced by the mania for everything foreign, bought but little.
We had descended the Rhine together, and together admired the wild majesty of its scenery. And sometimes as our bark glided past one of those perpendicular mountains, whose summit seems to kiss the clouds, on top of which, you frequently see perched the ruins of one of those castles built in the olden days of feudal war and terror. Sometimes, I say, I felt a desire to fix my abode, and pass my days in solitude, far from the busy haunts of men, on the banks of that noble river. But then, the thought recurred to my mind: A life spent in dreamy abstraction is a useless one. A life without action, is like a body without a soul. The busy world; the cares, disappointments, and numberless vexations one meets with, all tend to develope many faculties of mind, which, buried in the depths of solitude, might remain forever undiscovered.
We had visited Vienna, the seat of elegance and learning; and after spending sometime in the smaller towns of Germany and Switzerland, we found ourselves one bright day at Rome. During a fortnight we had been occupied every day in sight-seeing; visiting the Vatican, Saint Peter’s, his Holiness the Pope, and all the wonders of the eternal city; and eternal to me, in sober truth, it seemed, as, entering the ancient town by Romulus’ gate, the city dawned upon my view like a vast ocean before me.
But where did I leave my friend? Oh, he took his hat, and so, cautious reader, will I take mine, and follow him. We traversed several grass grown streets, faced on each side, by old houses, built in the Italian style, now fast tottering to decay. Before one of these, stood a company of street singers. A man advanced in years, whose gray hair was illumined by the bright rays of the sun, stood playing on a hand-organ, while a sweet little girl of eight or nine years, with light hair and fine blue eyes, jingled a tambourine at his side. There was something in the sad subdued look of the child, as she timidly advanced toward us, perceiving we were strangers, that almost called the tears to my eyes, as Morton and myself simultaneously threw a gold piece into the old tambourine she extended to receive it.
We passed on, and the next corner hid them from our view. “What a pity such a pretty child should be trained to beggary,” remarked I, as we walked on.
“Yes, it is; but such things are so common in this country, they have ceased to astonish me: indeed, it would be difficult to say what had best be done for the amelioration of the Italians; like everything else, they have had their day; and now night and darkness are hanging over them.”
I scarcely heard him; for now we came full in view of that massive structure, the Coliseum. One side of it is much decayed and crumbled away, and forms a gap in the round outline. We entered through one of the ivy-hung arches, and found ourselves in the vast interior. Several little shrines, the devout offerings of humble superstition, occupied the vast space, where, so many hundred years ago, the gladiators had fought in the yearly games. At one of these, covered with a white cloth, on which were placed a crucifix and bottle of holy water, knelt a young woman with her hands clasped in prayer. She wore the picturesque costume of the Neapolitans. The attitude of devotion contrasted strangely with my recollection of the scenes of which that place had once been the theatre of action.