284 ELIZABETH CARY 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 siécle, 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. 
Rome, Hétel 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 
