The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

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with which they are familiar; while to the traveler, who
returns to the ancient city year after year, with neverwaning delight and enthusiasm, it is never twice alike.
Day after day we wandered among its underground ruins,
its basilicas, churches, monuments, palaces, gardens, and
galleries of art. These remain the great teachers of the
world. For after our students of art have exhausted all
modern instruction, they cross the sea, and sit down at the
feet of the great artists of the past, and learn of them
through their masterpieces.
We made repeated visits to St. Peter's, whose dim ensions are simply stupendous. Rome wA( the center of
pagan civilization, and the massive Colosseum, with its
brutal record, best defines it. iRome was also the birthplace of the Christian civilization, and St. Peter's, with its
harmonious and perfect proportions, is its best exponent.
Almost every one is disappointed on first entering this
magnificent temple, for it appears smaller than one has
anticipated, and this is caused by its very perfection of
form, and harmony of proportion. It is only by repeated
visits that its vastness becomes apparent, and that one comprehends its grandeur, its perfect adjustment, and its faultless interior.
Distant people appear like children. The fluting of a
column makes a niche large enough for a life-size statue.
The cherubs that support a vessel of holy water, and which
are seemingly infantile in dimensions, prove to be six feet
tall, as you approach them. As you walk slowly up the
long nave, empaneled with the richest marbles,- as through
lofty arches you catch opening views of side-chapels, large