I Had Then Found It So Far From Such A Frightfully
Precipitous Height As I Had Led Myself To Expect That I Came Away And
Rather Mocked It In Print.
But now, possibly because the years had
moderated all my expectations in life, I thought the Tarpeian Rock very
Respectably steep and quite impressively lofty; either the houses at its
foot had sunk with their chimneys and balconies, or the rock had risen,
so that one could no longer be hurled from it with impunity. We looked
at it from an arbor of the lovely little garden which we were let into
beyond the top of the rock, and which was the pleasance of some sort of
hospital. I think there were probably flowers there, since it was a
garden, but what was best was the almond-tree covering the whole space
with a roof of bloom, and in this roof a score of birds that sang
divinely.
I am aware of bringing a great many birds into these papers; but really
Rome would not be Rome without them; and I could not exaggerate their
number or the sweetness of their song. They particularly abounded in the
cloistered and gardened close of the Cistercian Convent, which three
hundred years ago ensconsed itself within the ruinous Baths of
Diocletian. I have no fable at hand to explain what seems the special
preference of the birds for this garden; it is possibly an idiosyncrasy,
something like that of the cats which make Trajan's Forum their favorite
resort.
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