'iIAiLiCE O; THE LEA THERSTONEPAUGHS. [.IULY, tion.
For have not their feet wandered
where the Czesars' feet have trod, till that
famous ground has become common earth to them? Have they not dwelt in the shadow of mountains that have trem bled beneath the tramp of Goth, Visigoth and Ostrogoth, till those shadows have become every-day shadows to them? Have they not often watched beneath the same stars that shone upon knightly vigils, till the whiteness of those shining hosts has made pure their souls as it purified the heroic ones of old? Have
I I
they not listened to the singing and sigh ing of the selfsame winds that sung and sighed about the spot where kingly Numa wooed a nymph, till it must be that into the commoner natures has entered some of the sweetness and wisdom of that half divine communion? Thus the dreamer comes to Rome ex pecting to enter and become enfolded by those poetic mists, to live an ideal life amid the tender melancholy that broods over stately and storied ruin, and to for get for evermore, while within the won
"t;nosrs or FLEAS" (cornzo non sxr-rrcuss or WILLIAM BLAKE). drous precincts, that aught more prosaic
"ghosts " of their kind? Does one any where come oftener in from wet streets, "a est visions of art and dreams of poesy. dem'd moist, unpleasant body," to more So came the Leatherstonepaughs. And tomblike rooms ? Is one anywhere so so have the Leatherstonepaughs some ceaselessly haunted by the disagreeable times wondered if, after all, to come to consciousness that one pays ten times as Rome is not more of a loss than a gain much for everything one buys as a native in the dimming of one of their fairest pays, and that the trousered descendant ideals. For is there another city in the of the toga'd Roman regards the West world where certain of the vulgar verities ern barbarian as quite as much his legiti of life press themselves more prominent mate prey as the barbarian's barelegged ly into view than in the Eternal City? ancestors were the prey of his forefathers Can one anywhere have a more forcible before the tables of history were turned, Rome fallen and breeches supplied to conviction that greasy cookery is bile all the world ? And are any mortal vis provoking, and that it is because the syl van bovine ruminates so long upon the tas more gorgeously illuminated by the red guidebook of the Tourist than are the melancholy Campagna that one's din ners become such a heavy and sorrow - stately and storied ruins where the sen ful matter in Rome? Is there any city timentalist seeketh the brooding of a ten in the universe where fleas dwarf more der melancholy, and findeth it not in the colossally and fiendishly Blake's famous presence of couriers, cabmen, beggars,
exists than the heroes of history, the fair
