And the passing of this "relic of old dacincy," the shabby genteel
of the earth from Rome--even if the passing is a temporary social
phenomenon, has a curious symbolic timeliness, coming when the
working class is rising. It leaves Rome almost as middle class as
Kansas City and Los Angeles! For in Rome one feels that the upper
class, the ruling class of other centuries, is weaker than it is
elsewhere in the world. They tell you flippantly that the king is
training his son to run for president. The high caste Romans have
an Austrian pride, that "goeth before destruction." For politically
their power is sadly on the wane. They are miserably moth-eaten
compared to our own arrogant princes of Wall Street or even compared
to the dazed dukes and earls of England, who are looking out at
the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds about them. One feels
vaguely that these Italian nobles are passing through a rather
mean stage of decay. For a time during the latter part of the last
century and during the first decade of this century, the Italian
noblemen tried to edge into business. They lent their names
to promotion schemes, and the schemes, upon the whole, turned out
badly, and the people learned to distrust all financial schemes
under noble patronage; so the nobility is going to work. A few
strong families remain--the present royal house of Savoy is among
the strong ones.

Our business led us to a call on the Duke of Genoa, uncle to the
King, who in the King's absence at the front with his soldiers, was
a sort of acting king on the job in Rome. The automobile took us
into the first court of the Royal Palace. Now the Royal Palace--save
for a few executive offices--has been turned into an army hospital
and we saw doctors and nurses dodging in and out of the innumerable
corridors, and smelled iodoform everywhere. A major domo, in scarlet,