The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-02-26

then the nightngales that flutter innnmer
able brown wings in the roses and rare
shrubbery take up the music where the
Kings band left off. and sing their short
half hour of twilight when all is still in
Rome; for you inhale the evening or chill
night air here at the peril Of your life.
Yet for all this malaria. fatal in so many
cases, Rome is building right along. The
age OF city-bnildng is upon u.s. Rome, like
many another city in Europe. has more
than doubled her area and population with
in the last two decades
You can see long lines OF narrow brick
houses going up where once stood the
spacious baths aud gardens of Caracalla
handsome officers of the army, in sword
and uniform Keeping watch over all that is
done: for you dare not so much dig in
your garden deeper than twelve inches with
out reporting the fact to the Government
Everything found belongs 10 the state. ana
il is surprising how many broken-nosed and
armless old philosophers are continually be-
ing discovered.
And why does the world continue to pour
into Rome and people her and build and >
build? Well, ST. Paul was beheaded here,
ST. Peter crucfed here, St. Cecilia sang
here, and out yonder, down in one of the
easacombs in stone coffin. you see her
lying asleep, still almost perfect in form
after all these centuries.
These, and a thousand like things, |
think, not the twelve Cesers or their kind
at all. make It imperative that any man or
woman, whether religious or irrelgiOus,
must see Rome at least once. But when
you 20 to Rome go prepared to stay. TO melt
into the place absorb ID and take it with
you. The trouble with Us slap-dash Amer
leans il, we are always in boiling
hurry. We know but very little OF art when
we arrive there, and we know less when we
leave. For we buy red book, read 1t
through in night. run through Rome in a
day. and so out of il all. and get hut very
little more than the malaria. The Vatican
alone with its 5000 rooms packed full of
art works and antiquities, could well occupy
every day of any year and then only be
glanced at. Think OF 800 heads of Socrates.
burrowed from the ruins OF Greece, every
one with a broken nose, and probably not
one of them an autheJtic likeness; at least
| hope not, for these battered old marbles
represent him as hideuusly ugly. and he
really looks like an idiot, with his broken
short nose. What a gathering OF all Chimes
of all times and characters in these vast
Repositories of the Vatican. Quiet and
curious, learned old men. all the time NOUS
ing and prowling through them, hoping to
ind something new.
l remember how Ole Bull disappeared
from his favorite haunis when we two
were once wntering in Rome nj the same
time. / finally found him buried amid
the parchments of the Vatican. taking
only time to eat and sleep elsewhere. He
had become fascinated with tic idea that
north countrymen voyaging to America
before the time of Columbus He found
nothing there, he afterward told me, ex-
cept the malaria. and lost an entire winter
Two other men, or rather boys, remem-
her, were at the same time trying 10 swal-
low the indlgeslitle contents of the Vatican
in a single season. One was black man
a mixture OF many races. painter OF won
drons promise, from South America. The
other was painter also. from Boston. He
- tsDx
alongside his father, VINO was soldier
in the ranks. l think these Two sensitive
and shy young painters from the far Ameri-
cas- were piteously poor. l know they had /
a studio away down in the poorest and
most dismal part of Rome on the banks of
the deadly fever breeding Tiber, and the
black man fell Ill. and the white man. the
drummer-b0y, nursed him, watched with
him al! alone in that dismal place and then
all alone buried his dead, how / do not
know, for l knew nothing OF IL, except that
/ missed sight of the shy boys, till IL was
ali over. This drummer-boy painter is now
the one towering and conspicuous figure in
the field of art in that Babel OF confusion.
the Worlds Fair at Chicago. His name Is
Frank ID. Millet
art center properly. True, many pictures
are done there, many marbles made to
speak; but the artist turns his face TO
France for encouragement or mention OF
any sOrt the money coming mainly from
America In the end There are In Rome of
course. great many artists In each of the
several branches Of art from America. bur
not one in a dozen ever comes TO the sur
face. Some die Of fevers. some starve to
death, some marry their models and settle
down to pot boiling and taking care of their
pretty babies as time slips by.
The hotels now are mostly quite English,
and are, of course. costly. You cannot
avoid them very well. You have friends
there, and then you are afraid OF the feyers
down on tho Tiber or oyerfowed part OF the
town. And so you helDlessly DRIFT into an
English caravansary. are plundered of yonr
sheKels and almost deprived Of your mind
by the crowds of hungry guides, begpars
and general deadbeats that besiege you the
instant you set foot out Of doors. And the
sad part of it is you are learning nothing
at all about the heart or soul OF real Rome
and Romans.
Fortunately for myself was so miserably
poor when / first settled down in Rome.
now more than twenty years ago, that /
had to take room down in the old lew
quarter. had seen and learned enough to
get on the warm. dry hillside, up under tie
Tarpeian Rock; and although ] had not
learned to take qulnine and whisky as l
learned IN after years, and advise others TO
when visiting Rome. Mexico City and all
like malarial places, l kept perfectly well
during the better part OF tue year spent
there | had found little stone house on
this steep hillside, with geraniums and
roses in the window and the sign OF rooms
to rent. They can neither read nor write,
these very poor people. and so, all through
Italy. they merely paste a blank piece
OF paper on the Inside. The pretty
flowers told me that only gentle
people lived there. though poor.
shall never find happier home, nor learn
short a time. The one ambition OF this
little household WAS to get tleIr little Inv