The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-19
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME.
The Curious Contrasts Presented by the
Eternal City.

Inc curious Contrasts Presented by the
Eternal City.
Miss Florence Kelley in National Tribune.
The hrst great surprise on reaching Rome
is finding the city ugly. There is scarcely
an externally beautiful building to be seen
IN traversing Rome from any one of its many
gates to any other. Even the beautiful skv
and warm delicious air cannot make beauty
appear IN narrow streets closely crowded
with irregular buildings of brownish-yellow
stone. Not only are the streets narrow; they
are crooked beyond description, wanting in
sidewalks and crowded with rushing vehicles.
10 add to the bizarre appearance of the city,
the ruins of the ancient buildings of the EN-
pire are scattered about among modern
surroundings not at all as if these
if the ruins hsd dropped crashing
from the sky, breaking in their fall
and jostling the plan of the city out of all
symmetry. Then, too it is difficult to ac-
custom the Imagination to so many sorts
and degrees of antiquity. For instance, the
jump from the walls OF Romulus to the
palace of Julius Cesar is tremendous, and
one has mental indigestion on finding that
the traces of the two are within a stones
throw of each other. The historical interval
OF $50 years vanishes, and the traces seem
equally old.
This is no sooner done and one begins to
feel composed than the basilica of Constan-
tine comes in sight, and another mental
jump must be made and a historic inter-
val OF three hundred years disposed of
and all the time the basilica of Constantine
looks as old as the palace of Caesar or the
hill OF Romulus. After some days prowl
ing among the Ron relics this sort of
mental exercise grows easier, and the imag-
ination begins to be occupied with the
ecclesiastical features of Rome. But these
have an absurd trick of seeming more old
fashioned than the ruins or than Rome
sfoalf I fak o1.l die
ing around the Coliseum late one sunny
afternoon, and he seemed to belong to an
order of human affairs far older than the
ruin. And another priest thoroughly spir-
itual-looking, who was peacefully studying
his red guide-book IN the Vatican, seemed
hardly more to belong to the stirring world
of to-day than the Greek marble he had
turned his back to i'm his enthusiasm to know
what Baedeker said of it.
The wealth of beauty stored within walls
Is in overwhelming contrast with the lack of
external grandeur and symmetry, and after a
few days of feasting upon this interior rich
ness, the unobtrusive ugliness of the outer
city comes to have certain restful quality.
This is the more agreeable because the ugli-
ness is picturesque and the air and sunshine
are exquisitely soft and reposeful. While
Rome is far from seeming q city of 1900
years growth, it is not jarringiy modern,
and but for the tourists, who swarm every
where in Holy Week, i'll travelling coat and
panoply of gulde-book and umbrella, it
would be hard to tell in what epoch of the
worlds history this year might be. Certain
streets, the Corso especially, are modern
ALSO and have charming modern shops; but
short walk, to the right or the left leaves
the modern streets far away and plunges the
providing tourist far back in the past.
One curious little feature of the Roman
streets is always striking the Imagination
afresh. This is the sudden appearance in
1it1fa
sculpture, a corner-post or small relief, a
lions head or the Roman wolf, built in and
left, as a matter of course. This adds to the
scrappy effect of the present Rome, and falls
| in with ones impressions received on seeing
in the midnight drive from the railroad
station to the hotel the sign Telegraph
Office of the Baths of Diocletian." The same
slight shock, in less degree comes from
! finding the design of Romulus and the wolf
used as q letterstamp.