Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) 📗

enjoy deep emotions in the face of such practicality. I put up my handkerchief and moved off into another room.

Besides pictures, these galleries contain rare gems of art in bronze, crystal, precious stones, coins, arms, helmets, etc., etc. Enough as I say to keep one’s mind rousted up and busy for years and years.

Dorothy said she couldn’t leave Florence without seeing the house where Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and writ her immortal poems and I felt jest so; I felt that I must see the place sanctified by her pure spirit and genius. So Robert Strong got a carriage and took Dorothy and me there one fine afternoon. A plate let into the front of the house tells where she lived in body. But in sperit she inhabited the hull world, and duz now. Her home is in the hearts of all who love pure and exalted poetry.

Here she lived her happy life as the wife of Robert Browning and mother of her boy. Here she passed on up to the higher school, for which she had prepared her sweet soul below, graduated in the earth school and promoted up to the higher one above.

I had a sight of emotions here and Robert and Dorothy quoted from her all the way back to our tarven, and so I did. I thought more of such poems as “Mother and Poet,” and “The Sleep,” etc. But they quoted a sight from “Geraldine’s Courtship” and “Portuguese Songs,” for so every heart selects its own nutriment. Their young hearts translated it into glowing language I mistrusted, though I didn’t say nothin’.

From Florence we went to Rome. I had read a sight about Rome and how she sot on her seven hills and from her throne of glory ruled the world. But them hills are lowered down a good deal by the hand of Time, just as Rome’s glory is; she don’t rule the world now, fur from it.

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There is in reality ten hills, but the ruins of old Rome––the Rome of Julius Cæsar––has filled in the hollers a good deal and the new city has grown old agin, as cities must, and I, and Josiah, and everybody and everything.

Robert Strong had writ ahead and got us some comfortable rooms in a tarven on the Corso. When Robert Strong first spoke on’t Josiah looked agitated. He thought it wuz a buryin’ ground. But it didn’t have anything to do with a corse.

The Corso is one of the finest streets in Rome, and handsome shops are on each side on’t, and carriages and folks in fine array and them not so fine are seen there. Most all of the big crowd wuz dressed as they do in Jonesville and Paris and London, though occasionally we met Italians in picturesque costooms.

There are three hundred and eighty Catholic meetin’-houses in Rome, quite a few on ’em dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and lots of costly gifts are laid on her altar. But the one I wanted to see and so did the rest of our party wuz the one that stood on the spot where once the circus of Nero stood, weak, mizable creeter. The most agreeable actin’ to him and his cruel pardner wuz the death struggles of martyrs and bloodshed and agony.

What a inspiring idee it is to think that right on that very spot, that bloody pagan pleasure house of hissen is changed into the biggest meetin’-house in the world. Of course we had seen St. Peter’s from a distance ever since we’d got nigh the city, and we sot out the very next mornin’ after we got there, to see it at clost view.

Now I had thought, comparin’ it to the Jonesville meetin’-house, which I guess is about fifty by sixty feet, and will, on a pinch, set four hundred and fifty, and comparin’ that with the cathedral in New York I had thought that that Catholic Cathedral in New York was about as big a meetin’-house as a minister could handle easy; but the area of that is 357 forty-three thousand, whilst St. Peter’s at Rome is two hundred and twelve thousand.

The difference these figgers make in the two meetin’-houses is bigger than my writin’ can show you, no matter how big a pen I use or how black my ink is.

As I stood in St. Peter’s Church in Rome I had a great number of emotions and large, very large in size. Right here where Mr. Nero (the mean, misable creeter) got hilarious over the dyin’ struggles of the Christian martyrs, right here where St. Peter met his death with the glory of heaven lightin’ up his dyin’ eyes (I am just as sure on’t as if I see it myself) stands this immense meetin’-house.

Three hundred years of labor and sixty millions of dollars have been expended on it and the end is not yet. But I would not done it for a cent less if I had took the job, I couldn’t afford it nor Josiah couldn’t.

Why, when we stood in front on’t I didn’t feel no bigger than the head of a pin, not a hat pin or a shawl pin, but the smallest kind they make, and Josiah dwindled down so in size as compared to the edifice that I ’most thought I should lose him right there with my eyes glued onto his liniment.

You go through a large double door which shuts up behind you as noiselessly and securely as if you wuz walled in to stay. My first feelin’ after I entered wuz the immensity of the place. Some of the statutes you see that didn’t look so big as Josiah, when you come clost up to ’em you found wuz sixteen feet high. And the little cherubs holdin’ the shell of holy water at the entrance you see are six feet high. You look fur down the meetin’-house as you look down the road into a big piece of woods, only here the distant trees turn into statutes and shrines and altars and things. Fur off like distant stars shinin’ down into the forest you see the lamps, one hundred and twelve of ’em, burnin’ day and night around the tomb of St. Peter.

As you stand under the dome and look up it is like looking at the very ruff of the sky. It is supported by four great 358 pillars and the interior of the immense globe is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in circumference measured on the inside.

All the houses in Jonesville could be piled up on top of each other in this immense space and Zoar and Shackville piled onto them and not half fill it.

As we stood under the great dome the canopy over St. Peter’s tomb seemed to us no bigger than the band stand in Jonesville. But when we got up to it we see that it wuz ’most a hundred feet high, for fur up the mosaic medallions of the four evangelists lookin’ none too big for the place come to examine ’em, the pen of St. Luke is six feet long and his nose is big enough for a spare bedroom. The writing that runs along under the dome each letter is six feet high, higher than Thomas Jefferson on tip toes, or Josiah on stilts. The idee!

I don’t spoze that Peter, that earnest, hot-tempered fisherman ever spozed he would have such a buildin’ erected to his honor, and I wondered as I looked through the immense distances of this meetin’-house how many turned their thoughts from the glory about ’em onto Peter’s inspired words when he wuz here in the flesh. This huge pile seemed as if Time could have no power over it, but his own words rung in my ear:

“The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night and all these things shall be dissolved. Nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

And as I thought of his death right here on this very spot agin his words sounded in my heart:

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning this fiery trial which is to try you––But rejoice––Partakers of Christ’s suffering––”

And even as I listened to the chantin’ of the priests I methought I heard Peter speaking of the Voice which come down from Heaven which they heard who wuz with Him on the mount. I thought of the sure word of prophecy. “The 359 light shining in a dark place”––“Until the day dawns and the day star arise in our hearts.”

Yes, the real Peter wuz enshrined in my heart as I trod the grand aisles of that meetin’-house of hisen, and I didn’t think nothin’ at all in comparison of that statute of Peter settin’ on a white stun throne holdin’ his foot out for the masses to kiss.

He sets up there with a queer lookin’ thing on his head. Josiah said it wuz a sass pan, and I sez: “No, Josiah, it is a halo.” And he sez:

“Samantha, if I’m ever sculped and sot up in the Jonesville meetin’-house, I don’t want any halo on my head.”

And I told him I guessed there wuzn’t any danger of his ever wearin’ a halo on this earth.

And Josiah said before the subject wuz broached that never, never should he kiss that toe. And he sez it to me in reproachful axents as if I’d been teasin’ him to. But I hadn’t thought on’t and told him so. But right whilst we stood there we see folks of all classes from peasants to nobles and of all ages from childhood to old age walk up and kneel and kiss that onconscious big toe and go into some chapel countin’ the beads of their rosaries.

Good land! Peter don’t care anything about that mummery unless he has changed for the worse since he left this mortal spear, which hain’t very likely bein’ the man he wuz. And as I thought of the evil things done in the name of the power that rared up that figger, I methought I hearn him say:

“The time has come when judgment must begin at the house of the Lord.”

I had lots of emotions as I walked to and fro and didn’t want to talk to anybody or hear the talkin’ round me.

I hearn Tommy talkin’ sunthin’ to Carabi and I catched these words, “I wonner, oh, I wonner what good it duz ’em to kiss that toe.” And Arvilly and Josiah jined in in sharp criticism. And agin Josiah sez: “I know I am a leadin’ man 360 in Jonesville and have been called more’n once a pillar in the meetin’-house, but never, never do I want to be made a statter with a sass pan on my head, and the bretheren and sistern kissin’ my toes.”

And agin I sez, “It hain’t a sass pan.” But they kep’ on to that extent that I had to say, “Josiah and Arvilly, the one that figger represents, said: ‘Above all things have charity, for charity covers a multitude of sin.’”

Miss Meechim and Dorothy and Robert Strong clumb clear up into the dome twice as high as Bunker Hill monument or ruther walked up for they hain’t stairs, but a smooth wooden way leads up, up to that hite. Miss Meechim told me when they come down that though there wuz a high railin’ it seemed so frightful to look down that immense height she didn’t hardly dare to look off and enjoy herself, though the view wuz sublime.

But I can’t describe St. Peter’s no more than a ant can describe the Zodiac, I mean an a-n-t, not mother’s sister. Why, the great side chapels are big enough for meetin’-houses and fur grander than we shall ever see in Jonesville or the environin’ townships. And the tomb and monuments and altars, etc., are more gorgeous than I could ever tell on if I should try a year.

There wuz one statute by Canova of Clement XIII that is lovely, the marble figure of the pope and on each side kneelin’ figures of Religion and Death. Down below as if guardin’ the tomb stands two noble lions.

And Pope Innocent, I d’no whether his name agreed with his nater or not, but he sets there holdin’ the lance that pierced the side of our Lord, so they say. But I don’t believe that it wuz the same one nor Robert Strong don’t; I should have had different feelin’s when I looked at it if it had been the one.

Besides this relic they claim to have at St. Peter’s a piece of the cross and the napkin that wuz laid to our Lord’s face when he wuz faintin’ under the burden of the cross, and 361 that still holds the imprint of his face, so they say. They are shown on sacred days. They say that there is confessionals at St. Peter’s where