Chapter 81

OCCUPATIONS AND PEREGRINATIONS OF BUTTONS.

If Buttons had spent little time in his room before he now spent less. He was exploring the ruins of Rome, the churches, the picture galleries, and the palaces under new auspices. He knew the name of every palace and church in the place. He acquired this knowledge by means of superhuman application to "Murray's Hand-book" on the evenings after leaving his companions. They were enthusiastic, particularly the ladies. They were perfectly familiar with all the Spanish painters and many of the Italian. Buttons felt himself far inferior to them in real familiarity with Art, but he made amends by brilliant criticisms of a transcendental nature.

It was certainly a pleasant occupation for youth, sprightliness, and beauty. To wander all day long through that central world from which forever emanate all that is fairest and most enticing in Art, Antiquity, and Religion; to have a soul open to the reception of all these influences, and to have all things glorified by Almighty love; in short, to be in love in Rome.

Rome is an inexhaustible store-house of attractions. For the lovers of gayety there are the drives of the Pincian Hill, or the Villa Borghese. For the student, ruins whose very dust is eloquent. For the artist, treasures beyond price. For the devotee, religion. How fortunate, thought Buttons, that in addition to all this there is, for the lovers of the beautiful, beauty!

Day after day they visited new scenes. Upon the whole, perhaps, the best way to see the city, when one can not spend one's life there, is to take Murray's Hand-book, and, armed with that red necessity, dash energetically at the work; see every thing that is mentioned; hurry it up in the orthodox manner; then throw the book away, and go over the ground anew, wandering easily wherever fancy leads.