Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-07

t5ES& kEyD q @sts.& better to have loved
-. ~ Esstsssa and lost than not to
- have loved at all.
OF course, it is better to have had the ex-
perience of love. 1 do not believe it hurt
the feelings of Adam and Eve to remember
Paradise. The recollection of enjoyment is
often the better part of it
! have seen Rome in three short davs, and
an not ashamed What have seen? Why,
first coming out of the darkness that was
chaos, the lights of living city; then re-
Spectable railroad station, and line of
hacks like New York or Paris; then st.
Peters with its immense front, that at first
disappoints. as Niagara Falls does; the
majestic approach, the grand, simple out
side; then the lifting of the ponderous
leather curtain and the entrance upon the
marvellous interior.
The Glory OF ST. Peters.
The matchless splendor of marbles; the
surprising sweep of the arches OF crystal;
the tombs, austere, glistening, gigantic; the
Byzantine pillars; the acres of mosaics; the
sumptuous corners where genius has
wrought during lifetimes to compose but an
atom of the masonry of the gods, laid in
light that is heaped about the horizon. If
JSlhpONS were IDe arches Oh some CELESTIAL
squeduct, and could be hewn out and organ
lied as an edifce, this might be it. And
the dome, that, as it scars away, an inner
sky, is still benignant and exalting, and
crowns the whoie-indeed, it was here ''the
unconscious stones TO beauty grew"
If 1 could have seen but ST. Peters for
an hour, it was worth goingto Rome for.
The great church is something more to me
now than big house, or dream, hope, or
fancy. Mine eyes have beheld the glory
that the photograph does not tell, and mine
ears have heard the solemn chanting in the
chapels, and the echoes from the fields of
beauty of the golden ceilings, the haunting
melodies Of historic words, freighted with
centuries of sorrows and joys; and there is
sounding through and above all the ring of
the notes of the trumpeters, that tell only
the triumphant tales of infinite victories.
A Suggestive Panorama.
There is the Colosseum; one five minutes
gaze at it, with an italian sky behind it, is
picture seen in no other gallery; and the
Pantheon has stains that are the touches of
thousands Of years. There are the arches
of so-called triumphs; the columns erected to
vanities, not the less frail because imperial;
the dismal heaps of venerable walls: the
litter OF obelisks. the SCARED Castle of ST.
Angelo, ancient history in the concrete; the
shattered marbles of.the Forum; the stones
of the sacred road; some of the pillars that
looked on when the body of Julius Caesar
was burned; the butt of the Capitol, with
the gilt statue of Marcus. Aurelius,
spared from sacrilegious devastation because
long believed to be the work and the likeness
of Constantine; the Tarpeian rock from
which offenders were hurled, and that is
rock crowned with a garden. while under
the steep are the red tiles of the roofs of
old houses; the Tiber, none the worse for a
modern bridge or two; the grand view of
the whole city, the old domes contrasting
with the new houses spreading over spaces
long deserted; the rim of mountains, the
everlasting frame of the Eternal City-one
day will do for this, and the rest is detail
There are galleries stored with incompara-
bic treasures; ceilings, chapels, frescoes,
paintings, statues, fragments that are price
less, marred figures and faces, every line
precious; but The great gallery is out of
doors and Rome itself is the supreme fact,
and Rome may be seen in a day, and might
be studied through all the years and yet
not be mastered.
Making the Best of Time.
One must break away, and perhaps can
do it rather better after three days than
three weeks. 1t is an afectation that
veTges upon impertinence in some Ameri-
cans to speak of others reproachfuliy as be-
ing in a hurry. Well, people who have
much to do must make haste. It il good
thing TO ge: there, even if you have to go
away quickly. 1t is worth while to see Eu-
rope now fighty American, if you have
only three weeks to do it in-two weeks for
the ocean and one for London and Paris
It is better, though, to have a couple more
weeks and see the Rhine and Rome. One
cannot eat everything, and yet one can ap-
preciate agreeable favors fin many dishes
without stuffing, and it is not necessary to
drink barrel OF wine to taste it.
To travel wisely, city must be taken BY
features. Three active months in Rome
would he an educating experience, but / am
glad to have had three days They were
lovely days, too-May days in December
while the sun skone, but when the sun was
down there came q chill from the mountains
or the sea such that 1 wonder the old
Romans did not provide themselves with
more appropriate garments than any have
seen on the stage.
The Tiber seems to me to be an elusive
river had associated it so intimately with
Rome that it was desirable it should be
much in evidence. Byron had required it
TO rise with its yellow waves and mantle the
ruins in their distress. 1t now occurs to
NE that those ruins might have been man
tied too much, and not by the Tiber.
INC 1lDer commonplace alter All.
We should have crossed the Tiber coming
from the north, and entering the city on the
Eouth side, and Of course we did; but 1
missed the mighty streaml 1 crossed it
three or four times at high speed in an open
cab (taking the driver bv the course, or his
speed wonld not have been high), and the
stream appeared unsatisfactory, not rushing
or vehement or voluminous, and 1 noticed
they were giving it more space on the st.
Peters side of the river; but there was no
news that the laborcrs mad found the golden
candlesticks with seven branches taken from
Solomon's Temple A hill was recommend
ed as showing the course of the Tber
through the city; and there was the city and
the Tiher was not to any great extent there.
ST. Peters dome, L thought was in a
sense suspended over Rome; but it was not
so when L was there. That particular dome
seldom was seen. There are many domes,
though, and they are so much alike that the
disparities in dimensions are not always no.
ticeable. The absence of the Tiber and the
dome was disquieting, and the disappear