cend to the romantic for an hour,
because in Rome such deeds have been dared, such loves have been loved,
such deaths have been died, that any romance, no matter how wild, has
larger probability in the light of what has actually been the lot of
real men and women. So going alone through the winding moonlit ways
about Tor de' Conti, Santa Maria dei Monti and San Pietro in Vincoli, a
man need take no account of modern fashions in sensation; and if he will
but let himself be charmed, the enchantment will take hold of him and
lead him on through a city of dreams and visions, and memories strange
and great, without end. Ever since Rome began there must have been just
such silvery nights; just such a voice rang through the same air ages
ago; just as now the velvet shadows fell pall-like and unrolled
themselves along the grey pavement under the lofty columns of Mars the
Avenger and beneath the wall of the Forum of Augustus.

[Illustration: PIAZZA COLONNA]

Perhaps it is true that the impressions which Rome makes upon a
thoughtful man vary more according to the wind and the time of day than
those he feels in other cities. Perhaps, too, there is no capital in all
the world which has such contrasts to show within a mile of each
other--one might almost say within a dozen steps. One of the most
crowded thoroughfares of Rome, for instance, is the Via del Tritone,
which is the only passage through the valley between the Pincian and the
Quirinal hills, from the region of Piazza Colonna towards the railway
station and the new quarter. During the busy hours of the day a carriage
can rarely move through its narrower portions any faster than at a foot
pace, and the insufficient pavements are thronged with pedestrians. In a
measure, the Tritone in Rome corresponds to Galata bridge in
Constantinople. In the course of the week most of the population of the
city must have passed at least once through the crowded little street,
which somehow in the rain of millions that lasted for two years, did not
manage to attract to itself even the small sum which would have sufficed
to widen it by a few yards. It is as though the contents of Rome were
daily drawn through a keyhole. In the Tritone are to be seen magnificent
equipages, jammed in the line between milk carts, omnibuses and
dustmen's barrows, preceded by butcher's vans and followed by miserable
cabs, smart dogcarts and high-wheeled country vehicles driven by rough,
booted men wearing green-li