but the tone of mind which might have been expected.
The truth is, that he who expects to find in the people of this race the
sentiment of awe or reverence under any circumstances whatever does not
know them. It is not in them. The capacity for it is not in them. It is
not a question of more or less education, or of this or that condition
of life. The higher and the lower classes, the clergy and the laity, are
equally destitute of the capacity for feeling or comprehending the
sentiment which makes so large a part of the lives of the people of a
different race. To me the observation, far from being suggested by what
met my eye on the occasion in question, is the outcome of more than a
quarter of a century's experience of Italian ways and thoughts. But the
exhibition of the peculiarity on that occasion was very striking.
Doubtless there was many a mother among that throng whose heart had been
wrung, whose very soul had been struck chill within her, by the loss of
the child on whose grave she was about to place the humble tribute of
common flowers which she carried in her hand. No doubt many a
truly-sorrowing husband and yet more deeply-stricken wife were on the
way to visit the sod beneath which their hopes of happiness had been
buried with their lost ones. But whatever might have been in their
hearts was not manifested by any token of _reverential_ feeling. There
were tears, there were even sobs occasionally to be heard, but there was
neither reverence nor what we should deem decency of behavior.

Within the cemetery "distance lent enchantment to the view." As seen
from the cloister which surrounds the great square, as has been
mentioned, the outlook over the "poor quarter" of the vast burial-ground
was very striking. Amid the wilderness of black crosses, which extends
farther than eye could see, numerous figures were flitting hither and
thither, many of them with lights in their hands. In the farther
distance, where the figures were invisible, the lights could still be
seen mysteriously, as it seemed, moving over the closely-ranged graves
like corpse-candles, as the old superstition termed the phosphoric
lights which may in certain states of the atmosphere be seen in crowded
graveyards. In the foreground, where the figures could be distinguished,
many were seen on their knees in the damp and malarious evening air at
the graves of their lost relatives. But not even in the bearing these
could anything of real earnestness