oses and hyacinths
and lilies of the valley into delicate bloom and floating fragrance
until the Eternal City is no more Rome, but Arcady, instead--one should
never be in haste to toss his penny into the _Fontane de Trevi_. Yet in
another way it may work for him an immediate spell that defies all other
necromancy. Judiciously thrown in, on the very eve of departure, it is
the conjurer that insures his return; but at any time prior to this it
may even weave the irresistible enchantment that falls upon him and may
prevent his leaving at all. Nor can he summon up the moral courage to
regret even the missing of all other engagements, and the failure to
keep faith with his plans. For in the May days Rome falls upon him anew,
like a revelation, and he is ready to confess that he has never seen her
who sees her not in her springtime loveliness. The Italian winter by no
means lives up to its reputation. It is not the chill of any one special
day that discourages one from any further effort to continue in this
vale of tears, but the cold that has, apparently, the chill and dampness
and cold of all those two thousand and two hundred and sixty winters
that have gone before which concentrate themselves in the atmosphere.
One could presumably endure with some degree of courage, if not
equanimity, the chill in the air of any _one_ winter; but when all the
chill and cold that has ever existed in more than the two thousand
winters of the past concentrates itself in the winter, say, of 1906-7,
why, patience ceases to be a virtue although one that the sojourner in
Rome is particularly called upon to practise if he fares forth to visit
churches and galleries in the winter.

Torrents of rain pour down, rivalling the cloud-bursts of Arizona.
Virgil's cave of the winds apparently lets loose its sharpest blasts.
Tramontana and sirocco alternate, and each is more unendurable than the
other.

The encircling mountains are white with snow. The streets are a sea of
mud, for they are paved with small stones, and except in the new Villa
Ludovisi quarter and along the Via Nazionale and a few other of the
newer thoroughfares there are no sidewalks, the foot passengers (in all
old Rome) pressing close to the wall to avoid the dangerously near
proximity of carts and cabs. This rough pavement makes all driving hard
and walking difficult. The Roman lady, indeed, does not walk; and the
visitors who cannot forego the joy of daily promenades enter into the