youth, now idealized, and the grosser reality which he had now adopted
into her place; while on the new wife's finger it should give pressures,
shooting pangs into her heart, jealousies of the past, and all such
miserable emotions.

By the by, the tombs which we looked at and entered may have been
originally above ground, like that of Cecilia Metella, and a hundred
others along the Appian Way; though, even in this case, the beautiful
chambers must have been shut up in darkness. Had there been windows,
letting in the light upon the rich frescos and exquisite sculptures,
there would have been a satisfaction in thinking of the existence of so
much visual beauty, though no eye had the privilege to see it. But
darkness, to objects of sight, is annihilation, as long as the darkness
lasts.


May 9th.--Mrs. Jameson called this forenoon to ask us to go and see her
this evening; . . . . so that I had to receive her alone, devolving part
of the burden on Miss Shepard and the three children, all of whom I
introduced to her notice. Finding that I had not been farther beyond the
walls of Rome than the tomb of Cecilia Metella, she invited me to take a
drive of a few miles with her this afternoon. . . . . The poor lady seems
to be very lame; and I am sure I was grateful to her for having taken the
trouble to climb up the seventy steps of our staircase, and felt pain at
seeing her go down them again. It looks fearfully like the gout, the
affection being apparently in one foot. The hands, by the way, are
white, and must once have been, perhaps now are, beautiful. She must
have been a perfectly pretty woman in her day,--a blue or gray eyed,
fair-haired beauty. I think that her hair is not white, but only flaxen
in the extreme.