Trinita Di Monte [pp. 144-148]

TRINITA DI MONTE.
TRINITA DI MONTE.
R OME, 62 Piazza di Siagna. I
have been out on the Corso this
afternoon with several thousand other
fools. This is the last day of the car nival; to- morrow is Ash- Wednesday.
Once more in my own rooms, I sit down
to write.
A harmless habit this, for the most
part; but when one stops to think of it,
what an ocean of chronicled small beer
there must be in the world. Count up
the boarding-schools with their gushing
misses; the lonely people who have no
one to talk to; the tourists, who are
afraid they will forget something- there
must be an inconceivable amount of these
daily note-makings. It would be a curious subject for study, this -what people
write in their journals. Almost every
man lives a different life under the crust.
Once in a while a whole diary gets into
print; and there seems to be a strange
law of inverse proportion about them,
so that the bigger the fool the better the
diary. It takes such men as Pepys and
Boswell to succeed in this work. Compare with theirs the published note-books
of our great authors. Digging into the
grave of a great man don't pay. A few
years ago some vandals of gold-seekers
plundered all the ancient tombs of the
Montezumas. They found a few little
crude images of gold, to be sure; but
what a mass of rubbish and old skeletons
they turned over. Let the dead kings be.
We never saw them but in their royal
robes, and we have no desire to see them
as disjointed bones.
But this is not what I meant to say.
I have been out to the Corso, and afterward to Trinita di Montea: to the Corso,
because every body goes there; and to
Trinita di Monte, because they don't.
And in the Corso the motley world
simpered and smirked and giggled,
shouted and clapped and howled, until
they came near driving me mad. A nar row street that you can toss a rose across,
high houses on both sides, with innumer able balconies, in the balconies innumer able ladies, in the street innumerable
carriages, (a double line moving up and
down) every opening between the car riages filled with men, the carriages
spouting up to the balconies a double
stream of bouquets and confetti, the
balconies raining confetti and bouquets,
upon the street, men and women dressed
in all the colors of the rainbow, as much
outdoing the lilies as they outdid Solomon, a Babel of tongues, a Pandemonium of yells -this is called amusement
in the capital city of Christendom, in this
present year of grace, one thousand eight
hundred and sixty-nine. Yet they are
not entirely dependent upon these things
for happiness. A half-dozen horses are
adorned with rattles and sharp-pointed
barbs, a narrow passage opened in the
street, and the terrified beasts are sent
flying down the long stretch, with Julging eyes and muscles that play like
lightning. There are said to be three
hundred and sixty-five churches in this
city, all to save men's souls- and such
souls!
"I said of laughter, it is mad.'" I
turned away from the Corso gladly
enough. Moreover, it was plain that all
Rome was there, so I could go to my
favorite lounging-place- the terrace before the church of the Trinita di Monte,
where from the Pincian it overlooks the
city-and be alone.
What a noble flight of stairs this is
that leads up from the busy piazza to the
quiet church - so wide, so gentle in ascent, that a dozen horsemen could ride
144
[AUGUST,