One that suffers as little as any,
if not the very least, is the Pantheon, on whose glorious porch you are
apt to come suddenly, either from a narrow street beside it or across
its piazza, beyond the fountain fringed with post-card boys and their
bargains. In spite of them, the sight of the temple does mightily lift
the heart; and though you may have had, as I had, forty-odd years to
believe in it, you must waver in doubt of its reality whenever you see
it. It seems too great to be true, standing there in its immortal
sublimity, the temple of all the gods by pagan creation, and all the
saints by Christian consecration, and challenging your veneration
equally as classic or catholic. It is worthy the honor ascribed to it in
the very latest edition of Murray's _Handbook_ as "the best-preserved
monument of ancient Rome"; worthy the praise of the fastidious and
difficult Hare as "the most perfect pagan building in the city"; worthy
whatever higher laud my unconsulted Baedeker bestows upon it.
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