I cannot do more for him without doing less, and yet I know it
is a palette rather than a picture I am giving him.
All the while I was there, the guest of the French nation by the payment
of fifty centimes gate-money, I was obscurely resenting its retention of
a place which Bonaparte bestowed upon the First Eepublic with so much
other loot from Italy. But now I have lately heard that the magnanimous
Third Republic is going to restore it to the people rightfully its
owners, and the remembrance of my morning in the Villa Medici will
remain a pure joy. So few joys in this world, even in the very capital
of it, are without some touch of abatement. I could not so much as visit
the Catacombs of Domatilla without suffering a frustration which, though
incidental merely, left a lasting pang of unrequited interest. As we
drew toward the place, I saw in a field the beginning of one of those
domestic dramas which are not attributable to Italy alone. Three
peasants, a man and two women, were engaged in controversy which, on his
side, the man supported with both hands flapping wildly at the heads of
the women, who alertly dodged and circled around him in the endeavor to
close in upon him.
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