s swing high to
right and left. Or the singers from the choir go by, in violet silk and
lace, hurrying along the inner south aisle to the door of the sacristy,
where heavy yellow cherubs support marble draperies under the monument
of Pius the Eighth. If you stand by your pillar a little while,
something will surely happen to help your dream, and sweep you back a
century or two.

And if not, and if you have a little imagination of your own which can
stir itself without help from outside, you can call up the figures of
those that lie dead below, and of those who in ages gone have walked the
dim aisles of the ancient church. Up the long nave comes Pelagius,
Justinian's pope, with Narses by his side, to swear by holy cross and
sacred gospel that he has not slain Vigilius, Pope before him: and this
Narses, smooth-faced, passionless, thoughtful, is the conqueror of the
Goths, and having conquered them, he would not suffer that a hair of the
remnant of them should be hurt, because he had given his word.
High-handed Henry the Fifth, claiming power over the Church, being
refused full coronation by Pope Paschal till he yields, seizes Pope and
College of Cardinals then and there, and imprisons them till he has
starved them to submission, and half requites the Church for Gregory's
humiliation of the father whom he himself thrust from the throne--of
that Henry whom the strong Hildebrand made to do penance barefoot on the
snow in the courtyard of Matilda's Castle at Canossa. And Matilda
herself, the Great Countess, the once all beautiful, betrayed in love,
the half sainted, the all romantic, rises before you from her tomb
below, in straight, rich robes and flowing golden hair, and once more
makes gift of all her vast possessions to the Church of Rome. Nicholas
Rienzi strides by, strange compound of heroism, vanity and high poetry,
calling himself in one breath the people's tribune, and Augustus, and an
emperor's son. There is a rush of armed men shouting furiously in
Spanish, 'Carne! Sangre! Bourbon!' There is a clanging of steel, a
breaking down of gates, and the Constable of Bourbon's horde pours in,
irresistible, ravaging all, while he himself lies stark and stiff
outside, pierced by Bernardino Passeri's short bolt, and Clement
trembles in Sant' Angelo. Christina of Sweden, Monaldeschi's murder red
upon her soul, comes next, fawning for forgiveness, to die in due time
over there in the Corsini palace by the Tiber.

A man may cal