The Mere Mention Of These Storied Places Will Kindle In The Reader's
Fancy A Fire Which He Will Feel All The Need Of If Ever He Verifies My
Account Of Them In Touring Rome On So Cold An Afternoon As That Of Our
Excursion.
The wind rose with our ascent of every elevation, if it did
not fall with our return to a
Lower level; on the Janiculum it blew a
blizzard in which the incongruous ilexes and laurels bowed and writhed,
and some groups of almond-trees in their pale bloom on a distant upland
mocked us with a derisive image of spring. At the foot of the steps to
the Campidoglio, where some of our party dismounted to go up and view
the statue of Marcus Aurelius, it was so cold that nothing but the sense
of a strong common interest prevented those who remained from persuading
the chauffeur to go on without the sight-seers. But we forbore, both
because we knew we were then very near the end of our tour, and because
we felt it would have been cruel to abandon the lady who had got out of
the car only by turning herself sidewise and could not have made her way
home on foot without sufferings which would justly have brought us to
shame. Certain idle particulars will always cling to the memory which
lets so many ennobling facts slip from it; and I find myself helpless
against the recollection of this poor lady's wearing a thick
motoring-veil which no curiosity could pierce, but which, when she
lifted it, revealed a complexion of heated copper and a gray mustache
such as nature vouchsafes to few women.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 199 of 353
Words from 54619 to 54901
of 97259
