men that walked in the fire." "That is just the frightful play of
destiny," replied Albano, "to occupy the heights of the mighty
ancients with monks shorn down into slaves."

"The stream of time drives new wheels," said Dian "yonder lies Raphael
twice buried.[5]" * * * And so they climbed silently and speedily over
rubbish and torsos of columns, and neither gave heed to the mighty
emotion of the other.

Rome, like the Creation, is an entire wonder, which gradually
dismembers itself into new wonders, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, St.
Peter's church, Raphael, etc.

With the passage through the church of St. Peter, the knight began the
noble course through Immortality. The Princess let herself, by the tie
of Art, be bound to the circle of the men. As Albano was more smitten
with edifices than with any other work of man, so did he see from
afar, with holy heart, the long mountain-chain of Art, which again
bore upon itself hills, so did he stop before the plain, around which
the enormous colonnades run like Corsos, bearing a people of statues.
In the centre shoots up the Obelisk, and on its right and left an
eternal fountain, and from the lofty steps the proud Church of the
world, inwardly filled with churches, rearing upon itself a temple
toward Heaven, looks down upon the earth. But how wonderfully, as they
drew near, had its columns and its rocky wall mounted up and flown
away from the vision!

He entered the magic church, which gave the world blessings, curses,
kings and popes, with the consciousness, that, like the world-edifice,
it was continually enlarging and receding more and more the longer one