She
Was A Swede; And Here The Student Being Exhausted As A Topic, And My Own
Nationality Being Ascertained, What Steps, The Tea-Girl Asked, Should
One Take If One Wished To Go To New York In Order To Secure A Place As
Cashier In A Restaurant?
My facts were not equal to the demand upon them, nor are they equal to
anything like exact knowledge of the intellectual pursuits of the many
studious foreign youth of all ages and sexes whom one meets in Rome.
As
I say, our acquaintance with Italian is far less useful, however
ornamental, than it used to be. The Romans are so quick that they
understand you when they speak no English, and take your meaning before
you can formulate it in their own tongue. A classically languaged
friend of mine, who was hard bested in bargaining for rooms, tried his
potential landlord in Latin, and was promptly answered in Latin. It was
a charming proof that in the home of the Church her mother-speech had
never ceased to be spoken by some of her children, but I never heard of
any Americans, except my friend, recurring to their college courses in
order to meet the modern Latins in their ancient parlance. In spite of
this instance, and that of the Swedish votary of Italian, I decided that
the studies of most strangers were archaeological rather than
philological, historical rather than literary, topographical rather than
critical. I do not say that I had due confirmation of my theory from the
talk of the fellow-sojourners whom one is always meeting at teas and
lunches and dinners in Rome. Generally the talk did not get beyond an
exchange of enthusiasms for the place, and of experiences of the
morning, in the respective researches of the talkers.
Such of us as were staying the winter, of course held aloof from the
hurried passers-through, or looked with kindly tolerance on their
struggles to get more out of Rome in a given moment than she perhaps
yielded with perfect acquiescence. We fancied that she kept something
back; she is very subtle, and has her reserves even with people who pass
a whole winter within her gates. The fact is, there are a great many of
her, though we knew her afar as one mighty personality. There is the
antique Rome, the mediaeval Rome, the modern Rome; but that is only the
beginning. There is the Rome of the State and the Rome of the Church,
which divide between them the Rome of politics and the Rome of fashion;
but here is a field so vast that Ave may not enter it without danger of
being promptly lost in it. There is the Rome of the visiting
nationalities, severally and collectively; there is especially the
Anglo-American Rome, which if not so populous as the German, for
instance, is more important to the Anglo-Saxons. It sees a great deal of
itself socially, but not to the exclusion of the sympathetic Southern
temperaments which seem to have a strange but not unnatural affinity
with it.
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