Seen through a cutting wind,
the marble palaces, the gardens, the magnificent water-view of Genoa,
failed to charm. Only at Naples have I found _my_ Italy. Between
Leghorn and Naples, our boat was run into by another, and we only just
escaped being drowned.
ROME.
_Rome, May_, 1847.--Of the fragments of the great time, I have now
seen nearly all that are treasured up here. I have as yet nothing of
consequence to say of them. Others have often given good hints as
to how they _look_. As to what they _are_, it can only be known by
approximating to the state of soul out of which they grew. They are
many and precious; yet is there not so much of high excellence as
I looked for. They will not float the heart on a boundless sea of
feeling, like the starry night on our Western Prairies. Yet I love
much to see the galleries of marbles, even where there are not many
separately admirable, amid the cypresses and ilexes of Roman villas;
and a picture that is good at all, looks best in one of these old
palaces. I have heard owls hoot in the Colosseum by moonlight, and
they spoke more to the purpose than I ever heard any other voice on
that subject. I have seen all the pomps of Holy Week in St.
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