284 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



great organ at its deepest and fullest roll through 

 those wonderful arches, where as you look down their 

 full length all things grow dim and distant at the far- 

 ther end. Since I have been here, I have come to be 

 deeply interested in the history of Paris. It is a won- 

 derful story taken from the beginning to this present 

 fin de siecle, and there are so many monuments of the 

 past, still preserved, still beautiful, still picturesque; 

 they are like stepping stones to cross this gulf of time, 

 and they make the whole connected and in a way 

 comprehensible. If ever the history of a nation can be 

 made clear, one ought to understand something of 

 the history of France in Paris. 



Romey Hotel Royal, December 6, 1894 

 You did not know that I was entering Rome yester- 

 day on my seventy-second birthday. Italy and Rome 

 — was not that the most beautiful birthday gift that 

 Pauline and Quin have ever given me? Yes, at last I 

 am in your Italy, dear Mollie, and I thought of you so 

 often yesterday as we pursued our way from Turin, 

 leaving the snow mountains still in sight for the cul- 

 tivated plain, and then through Genoa and Pisa and 

 along the coast to Civitavecchia, reaching Rome at 

 11.30. I felt with you that it is an enchanted land. 

 The descent into the plain of Italy, and the vast ex- 

 tent of beautifully cultivated land with its soft green 

 furrows and rich brown soil between, every field a 

 picture, and* then, as you have always said, the 

 human interest gives it such a charm — the little 

 towns clustered so close upon the rising grounds, the 



