of flowering capitals and window-traceries, of many-carven breadths
and heights, wherein all Nature breathes and blossoms again! There is
neither Greek perfection, nor winning Byzantine languor, nor insolent
Renaissance opulence, which may compare with this loveliness of yours!
Alas that the interior of this Gothic temple of Genoa should abound in
the abomination of rococo restoration! They say that the dust of St.
John the Baptist lies there within a costly shrine; and I wonder that
it can sleep in peace amid all that heathenish show of bad taste. But
the poor saints have to suffer a great deal in Italy.

Outside, in the piazza before the church, there was an idle, cruel
crowd, amusing itself with the efforts of a blind old man to find
the entrance. He had a number of books which he desperately laid down
while he ran his helpless hands over the clustered columns, and which
he then desperately caught up again, in fear of losing them. At other
times he paused, and wildly clasped his hands upon his eyes, or wildly
threw up his arms; and then began to run to and fro again uneasily,
while the crowd laughed and jeered. Doubtless a taint of madness
afflicted him; but not the less he seemed the type of a blind soul
that gropes darkly about through life, to find the doorway of some
divine truth or beauty,--touched by the heavenly harmonies from
within, and miserably failing, amid the scornful cries and bitter glee
of those who have no will but to mock aspiration.

The girl turning somersaults in another place had far more popular
sympathy than the blind madman at the temple door, but she was hardly
a more cheerful spectacle. For all her festive spangles and fairy-like
brevity of skirts, she had quite a work-a-day look upon her honest,
blood-red face, as if this were business though it looked like sport,
and her part of the diversion were as practical as that of the famous