The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-17
ROME.
The Eternal City as Viewed by am

l AAAO csSAAAA my ~ NAGWCth Oy an
| American
Charles Warren Stoddard gives ven
to some reflections on Rome as a whole
He says 1 think of it as a city of tan
gled, dirty, and very ugly streets; of tn,
people as a mass of cheerful, quarrel
some, superficial souls, who work hare
for a living-it is hard work loafing il
this climate-and who have no home
life according to our creed. The Ro
man houses are great barns, as ugly and
as inconvenient as possible. The pal
aces-any large house that has once
been occupied by dignitary is palace
forevermore-the palaces are little
larger, a little less ugly, and little
more convenient than the rest of the
buildings, and this is the only differ
ence. You occupy a room or a suite
of rooms on fiat, and it is by no means
necessary to be on speaking terms with
the rest of the house. You have your
servants who provide for your table in
the house, or you go cut to cafe, as
you please. The rooms are usually
furnished with cheap and gaudy trim
mings, quantity of very bad paintings,
and tolerable proportion of useless,
ugly, and antiquated furniture. You
receive your guests, who are directed to
your door through dark or badly lit
hall by porter or porteress sitting at
the hall door, which is nearly always
suggestive of stable. You go out of
an evening (or by day., walk in the mid
die of the street, or ride if you prefer
it; haunt the thres or four villas that
are thrown open to us, overrun by
the very mixed public. There is no Sc
clusion, no rest for the spirit, no COM
fort for the body. 1t is almost fatal to
bathe in Rome; you may moisten your
self occasionally, but there is an ever
lasting fear of fever, and the fever is
almost as serious as death itself. The
hotels are like all hotels, kind of con-
ventual life without any of the gracious
benefits of a convent. There are innu-
merable petty cliques in this poor old
city-modern innovations. The young
Protestants, who here spring up like
mushrooms and flourish like them; the
Catholic party, having a grand con-
tempt for the outsiders; the Court
party, chiefly represented by youEg
officers, resplendent in gold lace and
with the slim legs so common In Italy
most of them disappear mysteriously
at night, but reappear in the morning
as gorgeous and slender as ever. /
know some one who has trapped several
of these dashing young men and found
them in exceedingly close quarters
but, rest their souls, they have no salary
to speak of, and most of it goes to their
ia lor. The artists are by themselves
a house of many mansions, of course,
but one that excludes the inartistic.
Then come the resident foreigners, who
have almost forgotten where they orig
inated-a very common form of insanity
in Europe-but each one will give his
or her reception, drumming up some
floating celebrity for an attraction, and
so they manage to rival one another,
making and losing friends with aston
ishing facility. Yet let me not forget
certain dear friends 1 have made and
must leave here. Poor old Rome l
wonder if the Romans of old we're any
smaller than these moderns 1t seems |
almost impossible that any one could |
have been; yet how they blew hot and
cold in the cause of Rienzi, and all these |
modern champions are later Rienzis,
who pretend to be doing wonders for
the old city that is past redemption. 1t
is common for a certain class of Ameri- |
cans, after having been abroad for a
liTited period, to ignore their race.
This is, perhaps, nowhere more no.
ticeable than in Rome. They affect |
foreign manners and foreign friends
even find it hard to express themselve
in good English (if they ever possessed
that rare accomplishment and take
pains to avoid their countrymen, some
lines speaking scornfully of the land of
heir birth. Well, it is all right, L
you. Whenever you find an
American who ignores his kind you may
De pretty sure he has good private
.easons for being ashamed of his i'm
Mediate ancestors. Blood will tell, es-
if it is little tainted. AS for
Door Italy, she sleeps in the streets
hese warm days; she mends shoes at
every street door; she sleeps in the sun,
pegs of the foristeri, sells matches at an
figure, poses on the Span
sh steps, torments you with infinitely
mall bouquets for your button-hole,
md will never take no for an answer.
She is q rather pretty, very healthy,
md a somewhat dishonest bore. All
hat is honestly social in Rome can be
hut up in one room. You and your
riend al the best specimens; without
s envy, jealousy, malice, defamation,
les. sorrow (skin deep, suffering ESQ
veil advertised that it becomes posi-
i've luxury to be born cripple; and,
N the whole, Rome is gleat, splendid,
memorable disappointment, and when l
ret away from (which I hope to at
nce-I will fall to worshiping it's
aemory and dreaming of it as kind of
hadow of city, grand, eternal, holy
be cradle of art, poetry, religion, and all
hat sort of thing.