lived--who have actually comprehended what pleasure is--who have crowded

long lifetimes of ecstasy into a single moment.

What is there in Rome for me to see that others have not seen before me?

What is there for me to touch that others have not touched? What is

there for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall thrill me

before it pass to others? What can I discover?--Nothing. Nothing

whatsoever. One charm of travel dies here. But if I were only a Roman!

--If, added to my own I could be gifted with modern Roman sloth, modern

Roman superstition, and modern Roman boundlessness of ignorance, what

bewildering worlds of unsuspected wonders I would discover! Ah, if I

were only a habitant of the Campagna five and twenty miles from Rome!

Then I would travel.

I would go to America, and see, and learn, and return to the Campagna and

stand before my countrymen an illustrious discoverer. I would say:

"I saw there a country which has no overshadowing Mother Church, and yet

the people survive. I saw a government which never was protected by

foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required to carry on the

government itself. I saw common men and common women who could read;

I even saw small children of common country people reading from books;

if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they could write,

also.

"In the cities I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of chalk

299

The Innocents Abroad