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. 



