as of old, under the statued bridge of St. Angelo,--and then we plunge
into long, damp, narrow, dirty streets. Yet--shall I confess it?--they
had a charm for me. Twilight was deepening into dark as we passed
through them. Confused cries and loud Italian voices sounded about me.
Children were screaming,--men howling their wares for sale. Bells were
ringing everywhere. Priests, soldiers, _contadini_, and beggars thronged
along. The _Trasteverini_ were going home, with their jackets hanging
over one shoulder. Women, in their rough woollen gowns, stood in the
doorways bare-headed, or looked out from windows and balconies, their
black hair shining under the lanterns. Lights were twinkling in the
little cavernous shops, and under the Madonna-shrines far within them. A
funeral procession, with its black banners, gilt with a death's-head
and cross-bones, was passing by, its wavering candles borne by the
_confraternita_, who marched carelessly along, shrouded from head to
foot in white, with only two holes for the eyes to glare through.

It was dirty, but it was Rome; and to any one who has long lived in Rome
even its very dirt has a charm which the neatness of no other place ever
had. All depends, of course, on what we call dirt. No one would defend
the condition of some of the streets or some of the habits of the
people. But the soil and stain which many call dirt I call color, and
the cleanliness of Amsterdam would ruin Rome for the artist. Thrift and
exceeding cleanness are sadly at war with the picturesque. To whatever
the hand of man builds the hand of Time adds a grace, and nothing is
so prosaic as the rawly new. Fancy for a moment the difference for
the worse, if all the grim, browned, rotted walls of Rome, with their
peeling mortar, their thousand daubs of varying grays and yellows, their
jutting brickwork and patched stonework, from whose intervals the cement
has crumbled off, their waving weeds and grasses and flowers, now
sparsely fringing their top, now thickly protruding from their sides, or
clinging and making a home in the clefts and crevices of decay, were to
be smoothed to a complete level, and whitewashed over into one uniform
and monotonous tint. What a gain in cleanliness! what a loss in beauty!
One old wall like this I remember on the road from Grotta Ferrata to
Frascati, which was to my eyes a constant delight. One day the owner
took it into his head to whitewash it all over,--to clean it, as some
would say