edge of art, or Rome to
one who remembers her history vaguely as something that she "took" at
school, is simply maddening to one who forgets the technicalities of
dates and formulas, and rapturously breathes it in, scarcely knowing
whence came the love or knowledge of it, but realizing that one has at
last come into one's kingdom.

I was singularly fortunate from time to time in discovering these
kindred, sympathetic spirits. I met one party of three in Egypt, and
found them again in Greece, and crossed to Italy with them. It was a
mother and son and a lovely girl. They will never know, unless they
happen across this page, how much they were to me on the Adriatic, and
what a void they filled in Athens.

I found another such at Capri and Pompeii, and those beautiful days
stand out in my mind more for the company I was in than even the
wonders we went to see. That statement is strong but true. Yet my
various other fellow-travellers who were lacking in the one essential
of soul would never believe it, inasmuch as a person without a soul
cannot miss what she never had, and will not believe what she cannot
comprehend. I met one ill-assorted couple of that kind once. They were
two young women--sisters. One had imagination, soul, fire, poetry, and
all that goes to make up genius; but lacking as she did executive
ability and perseverance, her genius was inarticulate. The impersonal
world would never know her beauties, but her friends were rich in her
acquaintance. Her sister was a walking Baedeker--red cover, gold
letters, and all. She was "doing Europe." She read her guide-book, she
saw nothing beyond, and the only time that she really blossomed was
when dressing for _table d'hote_ dinners. I found them at the Grand
Hotel at Rome--one of the most beautiful and well-kept hotels, and one
admirably adapted to display the tourist who tours on principle.

This gorgeous hotel on Easter week is a sight for gods and men. We
engaged our rooms here while we were on the Nile, two months before,
and reminded them once a week all during that time that we were
coming; otherwise, on account of its extreme popularity in the
fashionable world, they might not have been able to hold them for us.
We reached there late on the Saturday evening before Easter, and dined
in our own apartments. But the next day, and indeed until war broke
out and we fled from Rome, the Grand Hotel was as delightful as it was
possible to make a gorgeous, luxurious, a