tter no more actively at the end of March than at the beginning of
February; on the first days of April a heap of old leaves and stalks was
sending up the ruddy flame and pleasant smell that the like burning
heaps do with us at the like hour of spring--in fact, vegetation had
much more reason to be cheerful throughout February than at any time in
March. Those February days were really incomparable. They had not the
melting heat of the warm spells that sometimes come in our Februaries;
but their suns were golden, and their skies unutterably blue, and their
airs mild, yet fresh. You always wanted a heavy coat for driving or for
the shade in walking; otherwise the temperature was that of a New
England April which was resolved to begin as it could carry out. But
March came with cold rains of whole days, and with suns that might
overheat but could not be trusted to warm you. The last Sunday of
January I found ice in the Colosseum; but that was the only time I saw
ice anywhere in Rome. In March, however, in a moment of great
exasperation from the mountains, it almost snowed. Yet that month would
in our climate have been remembered for its beauty and for a prevailing
kindness of temperature. The worst you could say of it was that it left
the spring in the Capuchin garden where it found it. But possibly, since
the temporal power was overthrown, the seasons are neglected and
indifferent. Certainly man seems so in the case of the Capuchin convent.
Great stretches of the poor old plain edifice look vacant, and the high
wall which encloses it is plastered and painted with huge advertisements
of clothiers and hotels and druggists, and announcements of races and
other events out of keeping with its character and tradition.

The sentimentalists who overrun Rome from all the Northern lands will
tell you that this is of a piece with all the Newer Rome which has
sprung into existence since the Italian occupation. Their griefs with
the thing that is are loud and they are long; but I, who am a
sentimentalist too, though of another make, do not share them. No doubt
the Newer Rome has made mistakes, but, without defending her
indiscriminately, I am a Newer-Roman to the core, perhaps because I knew
the Older Rome and what it was like; and not all my brother and sister
sentimentalists can say as much.

II. A PRAISE OF NEW ROME

Rome and I had both grown older since I had seen her last, but she
seemed not to show so much as I the fort