he voted himself to gathering snail-shells, of which there are many
sorts; afterwards he had a fever for marbles, pieces of which he found on
the banks of the Tiber, just on the edge of its muddy waters, and in the
Palace of the Caesars, the Baths of Caracalla, and indeed wherever else
his fancy led him; verde antique, rosso antico, porphyry, giallo antico,
serpentine, sometimes fragments of bas-reliefs and mouldings, bits of
mosaic, still firmly stuck together, on which the foot of a Caesar had
perhaps once trodden; pieces of Roman glass, with the iridescence glowing
on them; and all such things, of which the soil of Rome is full. It
would not be difficult, from the spoil of his boyish rambles, to furnish
what would be looked upon as a curious and valuable museum in America.

Yesterday we went to the sculpture-galleries of the Vatican. I think I
enjoy these noble galleries and their contents and beautiful arrangement
better than anything else in the way of art, and often I seem to have a
deep feeling of something wonderful in what I look at. The Laocoon on
this visit impressed me not less than before; it is such a type of human
beings, struggling with an inextricable trouble, and entangled in a
complication which they cannot free themselves from by their own efforts,
and out of which Heaven alone can help them. It was a most powerful
mind, and one capable of reducing a complex idea to unity, that imagined
this group. I looked at Canova's Perseus, and thought it exceedingly
beautiful, but, found myself less and less contented after a moment or
two, though I could not tell why. Afterwards, looking at the Apollo, the
recollection of the Perseus disgusted me, and yet really I cannot explain
how one is better than the other.

I was interested in looking at the busts of the Triumvirs, Antony,
Augustus, and Lepidus. The first two are men of intellect, evidently,
though they do not recommend themselves to one's affections by their