EUROPE 285 



churches on seemingly almost inaccessible heights 

 — and then when we came to the seashores ! But it is 

 of no use to write about it. I am sure a mere word 

 calls it all up to you. 



Rome is still closed to us. We arrived in pitch dark- 

 ness and are greeted by rain today, and no glimpse 

 of ruins or of the Rome of my imagination in sight. 

 But yesterday was enough for one day. I can well 

 afford to wait, and meanwhile we are settling in to 

 what will be our home, I suppose, for two months. 



TO MISS SARAH G. GARY 



Hotel Royal, Rome, December 8, 1894 

 The morning after our arrival a dripping rain greeted 

 us. Yesterday was again a rainy day, but in the after- 

 noon we went to St. Peter's thinking that the great 

 church would have its own light and atmosphere 

 independent of weather — and so it was. As Quin 

 lifted the heavy curtain for us to pass in, I thought of 

 what Mother wrote me after first seeing that won- 

 derful interior, "No one's church — the World's 

 church." I always thought it a very expressive phrase 

 and Quin said he thought it would be difficult to de- 

 scribe it better. 



How impossible it is to represent the great things 

 of the world by any artificial means ! When I saw the 

 Yosemite every photograph ceased to have any rela- 

 tion to it, and so it was with St. Peter's, and so the 

 next day with the Coliseum. 



