majesty of the purple, and
last of all comes the Pope himself, the steel sabres of his guard
ringing on the marble floor with a clang that breaks the harmonious
silence most discordantly. Then in a moment all is hushed again. The
cardinals go one by one to pay their homage to their spiritual father,
kneeling and kissing the cross on his mantle, he blessing them all, as
duteous children, in return. If you are an American and a Catholic, you
look on devoutly, feeling, perhaps, at moments, although you take good
care not to say so, that, although highly edifying, it is a little dull;
if an American and a Protestant, you think of the morning prayer in
Congress, and members with newspapers or half-read letters in their
hands, a very busy one now and then forgetting that he is standing with
his hat on, and all of them in a hurry to have it over and enter upon
the business of the day,--or of a reception-night, perhaps, at the White
House, with the President shaking hands as fast as they can be held out,
and trying hard to smile each new-comer into the belief that the
"present incumbent" is the very best man he can vote for at the next
election.

But hush! the Pope is speaking,--not always as orators speak, it is
true, but gravely, at least, and with that indefinable air of dignity
which the habit of command seldom fails to impart. The language is
sonorous, and if you have had the good sense to unlearn your barbarous
application of English sounds--cunningly devised by Nature herself to
keep damp fogs and cold winds out of the mouth--to Italian vowels, which
the same judicious mother framed with equal cunning to let soft and
odoriferous airs into it, you will probably understand what he says, for
his speech is generally in Latin, and very good Latin too.[B]

But still you grow tired, and, like the actors in the splendid pageant,
are heartily glad when it is all over,--well pleased to have seen it,
but, unless a sight-seer by nature, equally pleased to feel that you
will never be compelled by your duty to your guide-book and _cicerone_
to see it again.

There are three kinds of consistory,--the private, the public, and the
semi-public. The most interesting are those in which ambassadors are
received, for the ambassador's speech gives some variety to the routine.
But in substance they are all equally splendid, equally formal, and--now
that the world no longer looks to the Vatican for its creeds--all
equally insignificant and d