its of
clothing, and they wash sometimes. In that land are mountains far higher
than the Alban mountains; the vast Roman Campagna, a hundred miles long
and full forty broad, is really small compared to the United States of
America; the Tiber, that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its
mighty course almost two hundred miles, and which a lad can scarcely
throw a stone across at Rome, is not so long, nor yet so wide, as the
American Mississippi--nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hudson. In America
the people are absolutely wiser and know much more than their
grandfathers did. They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet with
a three-cornered block of wood that merely scratches the top of the
ground. We do that because our fathers did, three thousand years ago, I
suppose. But those people have no holy reverence for their ancestors.
They plow with a plow that is a sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts
into the earth full five inches. And this is not all. They cut their
grain with a horrid machine that mows down whole fields in a day. If I
dared, I would say that sometimes they use a blasphemous plow that works
by fire and vapor and tears up an acre of ground in a single hour--but
--but--I see by your looks that you do not believe the things I am telling
you. Alas, my character is ruined, and I am a branded speaker of
untruths!"

Of course we have been to the monster Church of St. Peter, frequently.
I knew its dimensions. I knew it was a prodigious structure. I knew it
was just about the length of the capitol at Washington--say seven hundred
and thirty feet. I knew it was three hundred and sixty-four feet wide,
and consequently wider than the capitol. I knew that the cross on the
top of the dome of the church was four hundred and thirty-eight feet
above the ground, and therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and
twenty-five feet higher than the dome of the capitol.--Thus I had one
gauge. I wished to come as near forming a correct idea of how it was
going to look, as possible; I had a curiosity to see how much I would
err. I erred considerably. St. Peter's did not look nearly so large as
the capitol, and certainly not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the
outside.

When we reached the door, and stood fairly within the church, it was
impossible to comprehend that it was a very large building. I had to
cipher a comprehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for some more
similes. St. Pet