Kimball enterprise. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1883, 1883-06-15
FIRST IMPRESSION ROME.
The Curious Contrasts Presented by
the Eternal City.

Ihe curious contrasts PRESENTED by
the Eternal City.
Miss Florence Kelley in National Tribune.
The first 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 sky and warm delicious
air cannot make beauty appear in mar
row streets closely crowded with irregu-
lar buildings of brownish yellow stone.
Not only are the streets narrow; they
are crooked beyond description, wanting
in sidewalks and crowded with rushing
vehicles. To add to the bizarre appear
ance of the city, the ruins of the ancient
buildings of the Empire are scattered
about among modern surroundings not
at all as if these had grown up more re-
Gently but as if the ruins had dropped
crashing from the sky, breaking in their
fall and jostling the plan of the city out
of all symmetry. Then, too, it is diff
cult to accustom the imagination to so
many sorts and degrees of antiquity.
For instance, the jump from the walls of
Romulus to the Palace of Julius Caesar is
tremendous. and one has mental indi-
gestion on finding that the traces of the
two are within stones throw OF each
other. The historical interval of 75O
years vanishes, and the traces seem
equally old.
This is no sooner done and one begins
to feel composed than the Basilica of
of Constantine comes in sight, and an
n thor ,Y,orto1 1,a do n
historic interval of 800 years disposed
of; and all the time the Basilica Of Con-
stantine looks as the old palace of Caesar
or the hill of fRomulus. After some days
prowling among the Roman relics this
sort of mental exercise grows easier,
and the imagination begins to be occu-
pied with the eccle siastical features of
Rome. But these have an absurd trick
of seeming more old-fashioned than the
ruins or than Rome itself, l saw a fat,
comfortable priest driving around the
coliseum late one sunny afternoon, and
he seemed to belong to an order of hui
man affairs far older than the ruin. An
other priest, thoroughly spiritual look
ing. who was peacefully studying his red
guide-book in the vatican; seemed
hardly more to belong to the stirriug
world of to-day than the Greek marble
he had turned his back to in his en-
thusiasm to know what Baedeker said of
it.
The wealth ofbeauty stored within these
walls is in overwhelming contrast with
the lack of external grandeur and SYM
metry, and, after few days of feasting
upon this interior richness, the unobtru-
sive ugliness Of the outer city comes to
have certain restful quality. This is
fba
is picturesque and the air and sunshine
are expuisitely soft and reposeful:
While Rome is far from seeing city of
5000 years growth, it is not only singly
modern, and but for the tourists, was
warm everywhere in Holy Week, in
travelling coats and panoply Of guide
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 a
short walk, to the right or the left,
leaves the modern streets far away and
plunges the prowling tourist far back ir
the past.
One curious little feature of the Ro-
man streets is always striking the imag.
ination fresh. This is the sudden ap-
pearance in some uninteresting wall ofa
scrap of ancient sculpture, corner.post
or small relief, lions head or the
Roman wolf, built in and left, as mat.
ter of course. This adds to the scrappy
effect of the present Rome, and falls in
with ones impressions received on seeing
station to the hotel the sign Telegraph
Office Of the baths of Diocetian." The
same slight shock, in less degree, comes
from fin1inp tha dasiuD of Rnr,r i,,c anI