A long, slow decline from the temperature of October to the lowest
level of January without the vicissitudes of other autumns. The
embrowning or reddening or yellowing leaves turn sere, but drop or cling
to their parent boughs as they choose, for there is seldom a frost to
loosen their hold, and seldom a storm to tear them away.
So it is said by those who profess a more intimate acquaintance with the
Roman meteorology than I can boast, but from the little I know I can
believe anything of it that is of good report. Everywhere the prevalence
of the ilex, the orange, the laurel, the pine, flatters January with an
illusion of June, and under our hotel windows I was witness of the
success of the sycamore leaves in keeping a grip of their native twigs
even after the new buds came to push them away. In the last days of
March a plum-tree hung its robe of white blossoms over the wall of the
Capuchin convent from the garden within; but the almond-trees had been
in bloom for six weeks before, and the deeper pink of the peach had more
warmly flushed the suburbs for fully a fortnight.
Still, a mild winter and an endurable summer will not of themselves make
a great capital, and it was probably the Romans themselves who in the
past made Rome the capital of the world, first politically and then
religiously.
