There is something in the impulse with which one sympathizes;
though I am afraid the destroyers were not sufficiently aware of the
mischief they did to enjoy it fully. Probably, too, the early Christians
were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan temples, before the
happy thought occurred of converting them into churches.
March 3d.--This morning was U----'s birthday, and we celebrated it by
taking a barouche, and driving (the whole family) out on the Appian Way
as far as the tomb of Cecilia Metella. For the first time since we came
to Rome, the weather was really warm,--a kind of heat producing languor
and disinclination to active movement, though still a little breeze which
was stirring threw an occasional coolness over us, and made us distrust
the almost sultry atmosphere. I cannot think the Roman climate healthy
in any of its moods that I have experienced.
Close on the other side of the road are the ruins of a Gothic chapel,
little more than a few bare walls and painted windows, and some other
fragmentary structures which we did not particularly examine.
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