roper funeral-torch
beside the dead Alexander, who, at a touch, collapses into a handful
of dust." "The artist does not get far with feelings of this kind,"
said Dian, "he must look upon everlasting beauties on the right hand
and on the left." "Where," Albano went on asking, "is the old lake of
Curtius--the Rostrum--the pila Horatia--the temple of Vesta--of Venus,
and of all those solitary columns?" "And where is the marble Forum
itself?" said Dian; "it lies thirty span deep below our feet." "Where
is the great, free people, the senate of kings, the voice of the
orators, the procession to the Capitol? Buried under the mountain of
potsherds! O Dian, how can a man who loses a father, a beloved, in
Rome shed a single tear or look round him with consternation, when he
comes out here before this battle-field of time and looks into the
charnel-house of the nations? Dian, one would wish here an iron heart,
for fate has an iron hand!"

Dian, who nowhere stayed more reluctantly than upon such tragic cliffs
hanging over, as it were, into the sea of eternity, almost leaped off
from them with a joke; like the Greeks, he blended dances with
tragedy! "Many a thing is preserved here, friend!" said he; "in
Adrian's church yonder they will still show you the bones of the three
men that walked in the fire." "That is just the frightful play of
destiny," replied Albano, "to occupy the heights of the mighty
ancients with monks shorn down into slaves."

"The stream of time drives new wheels," said Dian "yonder lies Raphael
twice buried.[5]" * * * And so they climbed silently and speedily over
rubbish and torsos of columns, and neither gave heed to the mighty
emotion of the other.

Rome, like the Creation, is an entire wonder, which gradually
dismembers itself into new wonders, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, St.
Peter's church, Raphael, etc.

With the passage through the church of St. Peter, the knight began the
noble course through Immortality. The Princess let herself, by the tie
of Art, be bound to the circle of the men. As Albano was more smitten
with edifices than with any other work of man, so did he see from
afar, with holy heart, the long mountain-chain of Art, which again
bore upon itself hills, so did he stop before the plain, around which
the enormous colonnades run like Corsos, bearing a people of statues.
In the centre shoots up the Obelisk, and on its right and left an
eternal fountain, and from the lofty steps the proud Churc