There is the very tenderness of desolation upon the Appian Way.

To me it suggested nothing of the splendour of Roman villas and the tragedy of flying Emperors.

It spoke only of itself, lying over the wide silence of the noon-day fields, historic doubtless, but noon-day certainly.
Something lives upon the warm stretches of the Appian Way, something that talks of the eternal and unchangeable, and yet has the pathos of the fragmentary and the lost.

Perhaps it is the ghost of a genius that has failed of reincarnation, and inspires the weeds and the leaf-shadows instead.

Thinking of it, one remembers only an almond tree in flower, that grew beside a ruined arch by the wayside--both quite alone in the sunlight--and perhaps of a meek, young, marble Cecilia, unquestioningly prostrate, submissive to the axe.
We were on our way to the Catacombs, momma, the Senator, and Mrs.
Portheris in one carriage, R.Dod, Mr.Mafferton, Isabel, and I in the other.