Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-10-27
IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
A Disappointed Tourist in Rome-1he Ro
man and the Greek.

A Disappointed Tourist IN Rome-The Iso-
man and the Greek.
1t was not unlike shock of pain or disap-
pointment when for the first time threaded
my way through the Roman streets, passed
out into the Forum and wandered around the
Coliseum. So dingy and denuded did the
relics of old Rome appear to me that they
were more like the few brown bones which
the spade Of the sexton has Just thrown up
by the side Of reopened grave | have never
seen place where the remains were so few
| and the suggestions of what was lost were so
| many. Rome looked like place which first
| had been a cradle and afterwards had been
| turned into a grave.
1t seemed as if everything had been born
there, everything had grown old there, every
thing had died there, and everything had
been buried there Rome is the city Of the
Holy Sepulchre. At Jerusalem pilgrims
visit the spot where Christ was once laid. At
Rome we seem to visit the shrine where old
Time himself had been buried. Under this
head may briefly note down few first i'm
pressions.
1t was said that Augustus found Rome of
brick and left it Of marble. 1t might be
added that the Goths, the popes and the
mobiles found Rome of marble and left it Of
brick, so completely have these despoiling
powers peeled off the beautiful white flesh
and left Rome like a body, brown, shapeles:
and divested of every trace Of her former
loveliness. But the Romans themselves pre-
pared the way for this desolation. Their par
simony brought its own punishment. Fol
parsimony, We must remember, is a sin fol
lowed up by its special retribution, quite a.
much as prodigality. The men of Rome
hard, practical and utilitarian-were as pc
nurious in all works of art as they wer'
shamefully extravagant in all pursuit
of physical enjoyment. Even in the us
! of the cheap travertine stone they wer
ridiculously stingy. But when it cam
to marble they were by necessity a
well as by nature most economical in the us
> of it. Athens had whole mount Of marbl
at her back door. and could hew out o
Pentelius all the shrines and statues sh
\ wanted. Rome had almost the same advar
, tages, for it can hardly be urged as an apo
ogy for the city on the Tiber, that she was a
. distance from the mountains of Luna an
the great quarries of Carrara, when we r,
!, | member that an easy waterway was eve
9 | open between the shores of Liguria and tn
foot of the Palatine; and when we remember
:, moreover, how no obstacles were allowed I
g remain between the Roman and the objeC
of his ambition or his appetite-both {
: which he was ready TO crafty at an VI
bounded price.
But when it comes to works of taste Il
!, Roman betrayed his true nature. With hn
nothing was too much when lavished on box
= ily qualification, nothing was too Little whe
2 spent on art. The Athenian built his tempt,
"a worthily of the gods in solid blocks of ma
, bic, in unmeasured splendor, giving to tt
! deities what cost him something. The Romal
% when he came to raise his temples, was col
; tent to make them of brick or stucco or chea
NJ stone. and then to sheathe these in thin ca
: Ing of marble. When, therefore, the destro,
"a ing hands OF Goth or the Gothic hands of Lat
n, Roman MOBILES, such as the Colonnss, Il
= Farnese and the Borghese families, were la
N upon the ancient ediices, it was an easy tas
in as well as a great temptation, to remo'
these light coats of marble and to inve
m their rising palaces with such apparel
l. many colors as the marbles of old Rome pr
n sented, ready made, to their rapacious hand
1, Had the men of Rome followed the examp
y of the men of Athens, and dedicated to the
~ divinities a few sanctuaries of solid marbl
"A they would have left behind them such mo
m uments as would have dehed the assaults
q later generations, and would have col
ii manded at this day the wonder Of the worl
a. H Bernard Carpenter in Boston Globe.