the cypresses and ilexes of Roman villas; and a picture that is good at all, looks best in one of these old palaces.  I have heard owls hoot in the Colosseum by moonlight, and they spoke more to the purpose than I ever heard any other voice on that subject.  I have seen all the pomps of Holy Week in St. Peter’s, and found them less imposing than an habitual acquaintance with the church itself, with processions of monks and nuns stealing in, now and then, or the swell of vespers from some side chapel.  The ceremonies of the church have been numerous and splendid, during our stay, and they borrow unusual interest from the love and expectation inspired by the present pontiff.  He is a man of noble and good aspect, who has set his heart on doing something solid for the benefit of man.  A week or two ago, the Cardinal Secretary published a circular, inviting the departments to measures which would give the people a sort of representative council.  Nothing could seem more limited than this improvement, but it was a great measure for Rome.  At night, the Corso was illuminated, and many thousands passed through it in a torch-bearing procession, on their way to the Quirinal, to thank the Pope, upbearing a banner on which the edict was printed.

TO W.H.C.

Rome, May 7, 1847.—­I write not to you about these countries, of the famous people I see, of magnificent shows and places.  All these things are only to me an illuminated margin on the text of my inward life.  Earlier, they would have been more.  Art is not important to me now.  I like only what little I find that is transcendently good, and even with that feel very familiar and calm.  I take interest in the state of the people, their manners, the state of the race in them.  I see the future dawning; it is in important aspects Fourier’s future.  But I like no Fourierites; they are terribly wearisome here in Europe; the tide of things does not wash through them as violently as with us, and they have time to run in the tread-mill of system.  Still, they serve this great future which I shall not live to see.  I must be born again.

TO R.W.E.

Florence, June 20, 1847.—­I have just come hither from Rome.  Every minute, day and night, there is something to be seen or done at Rome, which we cannot bear to lose.  We lived on the Corso, and all night long, after the weather became fine, there was conversation or music before my window.  I never seemed really to sleep while there, and now, at Florence, where there is less to excite, and I live in a more quiet quarter, I feel as if I needed to sleep all the time, and cannot rest as I ought, there is so much to do.

I now speak French fluently, though not correctly, yet well enough to make my thoughts avail in the cultivated society here, where it is much spoken.  But to know the common people, and to feel truly in Italy, I ought to speak and understand the spoken Italian well, and I am now cultivating this sedulously.  If I remain, I shall have, for many reasons, advantages for observation and enjoyment, such as are seldom permitted to a foreigner.