When in Rome before I was
overflowing with Shakespeare, Byron and Macaulay, and would wander
away alone and recite to myself on the appropriate sites the
passages connected with them. This time I fear our friends proved
too congenial. We dwelt too much in the happy present to give
ourselves up to the historical past; but I do not think one gets
the sweetest juices out of Rome unless he gives way to the
melancholy vein now and then, and "stalks apart in joyless
reverie."
Another reason for the difference suggests itself. One fresh from
Egypt, where he has been digging among the five thousand years
B.C., and lost in amazement at what the race was even then
producing, must experience some difficulty in getting up a
respectable amount of enthusiasm for structures so recent as the
time of Christ; the "rascally comparative" intrudes to chill it
with its cold breath.
There is a third reason, perhaps--and reasons do seem as plenty as
blackberries, now that I begin to write them down--we are so near
home the echoes of business affairs begin to sound in our ears. We
snuff the battle as it were afar off. It is impossible to become
so entirely absorbed in the story of the Cenci as to prevent the
morning's telegram from home intruding, and so it came about that
this time we did less moralizing than before. We were fortunate in
being in Rome during Easter Week, which gave us an opportunity to
hear the best music; and certainly there is no choir for vocal
music which can rank with that of the Pope.
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