the other treasures of the gallery tedious in my eagerness to come to
that. I do not believe that so much pathos is wrought into any other
block of stone. Like all works of the highest excellence, however, it
makes great demands upon the spectator. He must make a generous gift of
his sympathies to the sculptor, and help out his skill with all his
heart, or else he will see little more than a skilfully wrought surface.
It suggests far more than it shows. I looked long at this statue, and
little at anything else, though, among other famous works, a statue of
Antinous was in the same room.

I was glad when we left the museum, which, by the by, was piercingly
chill, as if the multitude of statues radiated cold out of their marble
substance. We might have gone to see the pictures in the Palace of the
Conservatori, and S-----, whose receptivity is unlimited and forever
fresh, would willingly have done so; but I objected, and we went towards
the Forum. I had noticed, two or three times, an inscription over a
mean-looking door in this neighborhood, stating that here was the
entrance to the prison of the holy apostles Peter and Paul; and we soon
found the spot, not far from the Forum, with two wretched frescos of the
apostles above the inscription. We knocked at the door without effect;
but a lame beggar, who sat at another door of the same house (which
looked exceedingly like a liquor-shop), desired us to follow him, and
began to ascend to the Capitol, by the causeway leading from the Forum.
A little way upward we met a woman, to whom the beggar delivered us over,
and she led us into a church or chapel door, and pointed to a long flight
of steps, which descended through twilight into utter darkness. She
called to somebody in the lower regions, and then went away, leaving us
to get down this mysterious staircase by ourselves. Down we went,
farther and farther from the daylight, and found ourselves, anon, in a
dark chamber or cell, the shape or boundaries of which we could not make