that the Pope again had temporal, power, the
political affairs of the city were in the hands of Cardinal Antonelli,
who suppressed political agitation with great severity. It was not only
an American audience before North Market Hall in Clark Street, Chicago,
that denied the freedom of speech. Cardinals were up to the same thing,
as well as mobs.

Serafino told me calmly, with occasional profanity, of the arrest of
large numbers of Italians who belonged to the Unita Italiana at Naples,
whose condemnation was speedily followed by hideous dungeons and
atrocious cruelties. There was slavery in Italy too!

Italy was under the heel of Austria. Religious bigotry, more subtle and
more powerful than the slavocracy of America, was crushing hope from the
lives of the Italians, while Mazzini and Cavour battled like Titans
against the powerful hierarchy of monarchy and Catholicism. There was
little of the history of Italy, of ancient Rome, that was seemingly
unknown to Serafino. He had read all his life; and he had been in the
actual conflicts of awakening Italy. Now his head shook a little when
his face reddened from suppressed wrath. He cursed quietly, but with a
terrible energy. He was poor; but there was a refinement in his personal
appearance. His worn shoes were always polished, his coat and trousers
of many years service were always brushed. He would appear at the
appointed hour, bright of eye, cleanly shaven, and always with wonderful
suggestions for sightseeing for the afternoon. He lived somewhere near
the Forum. Having never married he was continuing a friendship formed
long ago with a woman who kept house for him and lived with him. As he
was no longer fitted for a battle or strife he was now an adviser to
younger men. He was no doubt suspected but he seemed to have no fear. As
we went about among priests and soldiers he smiled and spoke to them.

He knew them of old and a certain security seemed to be his. His two
interests were politics and art, but art had won him almost completely.
What he knew of history and of art, his life-long residence in Rome made
him the most interesting of couriers.

Our conversations widened and deepened day by day. Had he heard of
Douglas? No. He had read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. What did I know of Mrs.
Stowe? I ran over the list of our notables. They meant nothing to him.
State sovereignty, popular sovereignty, the Missouri Compromise, the
Compromises of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act were