-trees with twisted limbs and dusky foliage. In the Pamphili
grounds, the elm-trees steeped the paths in a delicious half-light, the
lake with its weeping willows and tufts of reeds had a dreamy aspect,
while down below the _parterre_ displayed a fantastic floral mosaic
bright with the various hues of flowers and foliage. That which most
particularly struck Pierre, however, in this, the noblest, most spacious,
and most carefully tended garden of Rome, was the novel and unexpected
view that he suddenly obtained of St. Peter's, whilst skirting a low
wall: a view whose symbolism for ever clung to him. Rome had completely
vanished, and between the slopes of Monte Mario and another wooded height
which hid the city, there only appeared the colossal dome which seemed to
be poised on an infinity of scattered blocks, now white, now red. These
were the houses of the Borgo, the jumbled piles of the Vatican and the
Basilica which the huge dome surmounted and annihilated, showing greyly
blue in the light blue of the heavens, whilst far away stretched a
delicate, boundless vista of the Campagna, likewise of a bluish tint.

It was, however, more particularly in the less sumptuous gardens, those
of a more homely grace, that Pierre realised that even things have souls.
Ah! that Villa Mattei on one side of the Coelius with its terraced
grounds, its sloping alleys edged with laurel, aloe, and spindle tree,
its box-plants forming arbours, its oranges, its roses, and its
fountains! Pierre spent some delicious hours there, and only found a
similar charm on visiting the Aventine, where three churches are
embowered in verdure. The little garden of Santa Sabina, the birthplace
of the Dominican order, is closed on all sides and affords no view: it
slumbers in quiescence, warm and perfumed by its orange-trees, amongst
which that planted by St. Dominic stands huge and gnarled but still laden
with ripe fruit. At the adjoining Priorato, however, the garden, perched
high above the Tiber, overlooks a vast expanse, with the river and the
buildings on either bank as far as the summit of the Janiculum. And in
these gardens of Rome Pierre ever found the same clipped box-shrubs, the
same eucalypti with white trunks and pale leaves long like hair, the same
ilex-trees squat and dusky, the same giant pines, the same black
cypresses, the same marbles whitening amidst tufts of roses, and the same
fountains gurgling under mantling ivy. Never did he enjoy more gent