By Pope Julius the
Second restored by the great Michelangelo taken away by the French
in 1797 but returned in 1815 made of Carara marble holding in
his hand a portion of the bow with which he slew the Python observe
please the beauty of the pose the realistic attitude of the limbs
the noble and exalted expression of the face of Apollo Belvidere
he being known also as Phoebus the god of oracles the god of
music and medicine the son of Leto and Jupiter - "
Here he ran out of breath and stopped. Fora moment no one spoke.
Then from a flat-chested little spinster came this query in tired
yet interested tones:
"Was he - was he married?"
He who is intent upon studying the effect of foreign climes upon
the American temperament should by no means overlook the colonies
of resident Americans in the larger European cities, particularly
the colonies in such cities as Paris and Rome and Florence. In
Berlin, the American colony is largely made up of music students
and in Vienna of physicians; but in the other places many folks
of many minds and many callings constitute the groups. Some few
have left their country for their country's good and some have
expatriated themselves because, as they explain in bursts of
confidence, living is cheaper in France than it is in America. I
suppose it is, too, if one can only become reconciled to doing
without most of the comforts which make life worth while in America
or anywhere else. Included among this class are many rather unhappy
old ladies who somehow impress you as having been shunted off to
foreign parts because there were no places for them in the homes
of their children and their grandchildren. So now they are spending
their last years among strangers, trying with a desperate eagerness
to be interested in people and things for which they really care
not a fig, with no home except a cheerless pension.
Also there are certain folk - products, in the main, of the Eastern
seaboard - who, from having originally lived in America and spent
most of their time abroad, have now progressed to the point where
they now live mostly abroad and visit America fleetingly once in
a blue moon. As a rule these persons know a good deal about Europe
and very little about the country that gave them birth. The
stock-talk of European literature is at their tongue's tip. They
speak of Ibsen in the tone of one mourning the passing of a near,
dear, personal friend, and as for Zola - ah, how they miss the
influence of his compelling personality! But for the moment they
cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the Police Gazette or
wrote the "Trail of the Lonesome Pine."
They are up on the history of the Old World.
