The very mention of Rome suggests the same continually repeated series of antecedent tragedy and consequent wandering,—­pointing backward to the fabled siege of Troy and the flight of Aeneas,—­“profugus” from Asia to Italy,—­and forward to the quick-coming footsteps of the Northern profugi, who were eager, even this side the grave, to enter the Valhalla of their dreams.

It is said that the Phoenician cities sent out colonies from a desire of gain, and because they were crowded at home.  It is said, too, that, in search of gold, thousands upon thousands went to El Dorado, to California, and Australia; but who does not know that the greater part of these thousands left their homes for reasons which, if fully exposed, would reveal a tragedy in view of which gold appears a glittering mockery?

The great movement of the race westward is but an extension of this epic flight.  Thus, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England,—­the grandest profugi of all time,—­or even the bold adventurers of Spain, would have been moved only by intense suffering, in some form, to exchange their homes for a wilderness.

The world is full of these wanderings, under various pretences of gain, adventure, or curiosity, hiding the real impulse of flight.  So with the strong-flowing current in the streets of a great city; for how else shall we interpret this intricate net-work of human feature and movement,—­this flux of life toward some troubled centre, and then its reflux toward some uncertain and undefined circumference?

And as Nature is the mirror of human life, so at the source of those vast movements by which she buries in oblivion her own works and the works of man there is hidden the type of human suffering, both for the race and the individual.  And hence it is, that, over against the eternal solitude within us, there ever waits without us a second solitude, into which, sooner or later, we pass with restless flight,—­a solitude vast, shadowy, and unfamiliar in its outline, but inevitable in its reality,—­haunting, bewildering, overshadowing us!

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“Who is it that shall interpret this intricate evolution of human footsteps, in its meaning of sorrow?—­who is it that shall give us rest?” Such is the half-conscious prayer of all these fugitives,—­of our Lady and all her children.  This it is which gives meaning to the torch-light procession on the fifth night of the Festival; but to-morrow it shall find an answer in the Saviour Dionysus, who shall change the flight of search into the pomp of triumph.

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