“The finest _show_ I have seen in Rome is the illumination of St. Peter’s. Just after sunset I saw from the head of the _scalinata_, the little points of light creeping down from the cross and lantern (trickling, as it were) over the dome. Then I walked over to the Piazza di San Pietro, and the first glimpse I caught of it again was from the Ponte Sant’ Angelo. I could not have believed it would have been so beautiful. There was no time or space to pause here. Foot passengers crowding hither and thither as they heard the shout of _Avanti!_ from the coachmen behind--dragoon-horses getting unmanageable just where there were most women to be run over--and all the while the dome drawing all eyes and thoughts the wrong way, made a hubbub to be got out of as soon as possible. Five minutes more of starting and dodging, and we were in the piazza. You have seen it and know how it seems, as if the setting sun had lodged upon the horizon and then burnt out, the fire still clinging to its golden ribs as they stand out against the evening sky. You know how, as you come nearer, you can see the soft travertine of the façade suffused with a tremulous golden gloom like the innermost shrine of a water-lily. And then the change comes as if the wind had suddenly fanned what was embers before into flame. If you could see _one_ sunset in a lifetime and were obliged to travel four thousand miles to see it, it would give you a similar sensation; but an everyday sunset does not, for we take the gifts of God as a matter of course. “After wondering long enough in the piazza, I went back to the Pincio (or rather the Trinità dei Monti) and watched it for an hour longer. I did not wish to see it go out. To me it seemed better to go home with the consciousness that it was still throbbing, as if I could make myself believe that there was a kind of permanence in it, and that I should see it there again some happy evening. Before leaving it, I went away and came back several times, and at every return it was a new miracle--the more miraculous for being a human piece of fairy work.