Our attitude toward a city is usually quite different. We are not at our ease. We are querulous and anxious, and our interest takes a feverish turn. For the cities of our Western world are new-fangled contrivances which we are not used to, and we are worried as we try to find out whether they will work. These aggregations of humanity have not existed long enough to seem to belong to the nature of things. It is exciting to be invited to "see Seattle grow," but the exhibition does not yield a "harvest of a quiet eye." If Seattle should cease to grow while we are looking at it, what should we do then?
But with Rome it is different. Here is a city which has been so long in existence that we look upon it as a part of nature. It is not accidental or artificial. Nothing can happen to it but what has happened already. It has been burned with fire, it has been ravaged by the sword, it has been ruined by luxury, it has been pillaged by barbarians and left for dead. And here it is to-day the scene of eager life. Pagans, Christians, reformers, priests, artists, soldiers, honest workmen, idlers, philosophers, saints, were here centuries ago. They are here to-day. They have continuously opposed each other, and yet no species has been exterminated. Their combined activities make the city.
When one comes to feel the stirring of primal sympathies for the manifold life of the city, as he does for the manifold life of the woods, Rome ceases to be distracting. The old city is like the mountain which has withstood the hurts of time, and remains for us, "the grand affirmer of the present tense."
THE AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT
I
Stopping at some selected spot on the mountain road, the stage-driver will direct the stranger's attention to a projecting mass of rock which bears some resemblance to a human countenance. There is the "Old Man of the Mountains," or the "Old Woman," as the case may be.
If the stranger be of a docile disposition he will see what he is told to see. But he will be content with the vague suggestion and will not push the analogy too far. The similitude is strictly confined to the locality. It is enough if from a single point the mountain seems almost human. From any other point it will seem to be merely mountainous.
A similar caution is necessary in regard to the resemblances between a nation and an individual. When we talk of a national character or temperament, we are using an interesting and bold figure of speech. We speak of millions of people as if they were one. Of course, a nation is not one kind of person; it is composed of many kinds of persons. These persons are diverse in character. All Scotchmen are not canny, nor all Irishmen happy-go-lucky. Those who know a great many Chinamen are acquainted with those who are idealists with little taste for plodding industry. It is only the outsider who is greatly impressed by the family resemblance. To the more analytic mind of the parent each child is, in a most remarkable degree, different from the others.