physiognomy; but Lepidus has the strangest, most commonplace countenance
that can be imagined,--small-featured, weak, such a face as you meet
anywhere in a man of no mark, but are amazed to find in one of the three
foremost men of the world. I suppose that it is these weak and shallow
men, when chance raises them above their proper sphere, who commit
enormous crimes without any such restraint as stronger men would feel,
and without any retribution in the depth of their conscience. These old
Roman busts, of which there are so many in the Vatican, have often a most
lifelike aspect, a striking individuality. One recognizes them as
faithful portraits, just as certainly as if the living originals were
standing beside them. The arrangement of the hair and beard too, in many
cases, is just what we see now, the fashions of two thousand years ago
having come round again.


March 25th.--On Tuesday we went to breakfast at William Story's in the
Palazzo Barberini. We had a very pleasant time. He is one of the most
agreeable men I know in society. He showed us a note from Thackeray, an
invitation to dinner, written in hieroglyphics, with great fun and
pictorial merit. He spoke of an expansion of the story of Blue Beard,
which he himself had either written or thought of writing, in which the
contents of the several chambers which Fatima opened, before arriving at
the fatal one, were to be described. This idea has haunted my mind ever
since, and if it had but been my own I am pretty sure that it would
develop itself into something very rich. I mean to press William Story
to work it out. The chamber of Blue Beard, too (and this was a part of
his suggestion), might be so handled as to become powerfully interesting.
Were I to take up the story I would create an interest by suggesting a
secret in the first chamber, which would develop itself more and more in
every successive hall of the great palace, and lead the wife irresistibly