aboring in his father's fields. Not every man
could continue to work, circumstanced as he is, at the end of the
half-century. For him the only sad thing in my mind is that his works
are not worth working, though of merit in composition and execution,
yet ideally a product of the galvanized piety of the German school,
more mutton-like than lamb-like to my unchurched eyes.

You are likely to have a work to look at in the United States by the
great master of that school, Overbeck; Mr. Perkins of Boston, who
knows how to spend his money with equal generosity and discretion,
having bought his "Wise and Foolish Virgins." It will be precious to
the country from great artistic merits. As to the spirit, "blessed are
the poor in spirit." That kind of severity is, perhaps has become, the
nature of Overbeck. He seems like a monk, but a really pious and pure
one. This spirit is not what I seek; I deem it too narrow for our
day, but being deeply sincere in him, its expression is at times also
deeply touching. Barabbas borne in triumph, and the child Jesus,
who, playing with his father's tools, has made himself a cross, are
subjects best adapted for expression of this spirit.

I have written too carelessly,--much writing hath made me mad of late.
Forgive if the "style be not neat, terse, and sparkling," if there be
naught of the "thrilling," if the sentences seem not "written with a
diamond pen," like all else that is published in America. Some time I
must try to do better. For this time

"Forgive my faults; forgive my virtues too."

March 21.

Day before yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph. He is supposed to
have acquired a fondness for fried rice-cakes during his residence
in Egypt. Many are eaten in the open street, in arbors made for the
occasion. One was made beneath my window, on Piazza Barberini. All the
day and evening men, cleanly dressed in white aprons and liberty
caps, quite new, of fine, red cloth, were frying cakes for crowds of
laughing, gesticulating customers. It rained a little, and they held
an umbrella over the frying-pan, but not over themselves. The arbor
is still there, and little children are playing in and out of it; one
still lesser runs in its leading-strings, followed by the bold, gay
nurse, to the brink of the fountain, after its orange which has
rolled before it. Tenerani's workmen are coming out of his studio,
the priests are coming home from Ponte Pio, the Contadini beginning
to play at _mor