I could never come in to the breakfast table either there, or at Rome, or in Venice, or Milan, without encountering a large company of that peculiarly American brand of sightseers, not enormously rich, of no great dignity, but comfortable and above all enormously pleased with themselves. I could never look at any of this tribe, comfortably clothed, very pursy and fussy, without thinking what a far cry it is from the temperament which makes for art or great originality to the temperament which makes for normality--the great, so-called sane, conservative mass. God spare me! I’ll admit that for general purposes, the value of breeding, trading, rearing of children in comfort, producing the living atmosphere of life in which we “find” ourselves and from which art, by the grace of great public occasions may rise, people of this type are essential. But seen individually, dissociated from great background masses, they are--but let me not go wild. Viewed from the artistic angle, the stress of great occasions, great emotion, great necessities, they fall into such pigmy weaknesses, almost ridiculous. Here abroad they come so regularly, Pa and Ma. Pa infrequently, and a little vague-looking from overwork and limited vision of soul; Ma not infrequently, a little superior, vain, stuffy, envious, dull and hard. I never see such a woman as that but my gorge rises a little. The one idea of a pair like this, particularly of the mother, is the getting her children (if there be any) properly married, the girls particularly, and in this phase of family politics Pa has obviously little to say. Their appearance abroad, accompanied by Henry and George, Junior, and Mary and Anabel, is for--I scarcely know what. It is so plain on the face of it that no single one of them has the least inkling of what he is seeing. I sat in a carriage with two of them in Rome, viewing the ruins of the Via Appia, and when we reached the tomb of Cæcilia Metella I heard: “Oh, yes. There it is. What was _she_, anyhow? He was a Roman general, I think, and _she_ was his wife. His house was next door and he built this tomb here so she would be near him. Isn’t it wonderful? Such a nice idea!”