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. CARY 
Hétel Royal, Rome, December 8, 1894 
TuE 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. 
