The moon was shining over the old gate-towers of Genazzano when Caper mounted his horse, and, in company with two Segnians, rode forth from the fifth _festa_, and over the hills through Cavi, and over the valley past Valmontone, and then up the steep road to his summer home; wondering if in far-away America they were dreaming of a man who was going through a course of weekly Fourth-of-July's, and how long it would be before the world came to an end if such a state of things existed in any country where people had liberty to study geography, and were ruled by politicians instead of priests? * * * * * 'May I ask your candid opinion of the great moral effect of so many holidays on an uneducated population?' inquired Caper one day of Rocjean, while speaking of the festivals of the Papal States. 'Certainly you may! My opinion is that the head of the state, carrying out the gigantic policy of his predecessors, believes: 'That that government governs best that gives the greatest amount of fiddling to the greatest amount of its children.'' 'But,' objected Caper, 'I don't see where the fiddling comes in.' 'In the churches!' sententiously remarked the Sieur de Rocjean. 'Oh,' quoth Caper, 'I was thinking of festivals.' Reader, do you think likewise, when you are with the Romans. THOUGHT. Life is but an outer wall Round the realm of thought unseen; Ah! to let the drawbridge fall Leading to that magic hall! Ah! to let creation in. Kings that with the world contended, What remains of all the splendid Misery their hands have wrought? Hushed and silent now the thunder They have made the world rock under; But the ages bow in wonder To a thought. Ah! the many tragic parts That are played by human hearts In that golden drama, fame. These are minor actors truly, That should not be seen unduly, Letting idle recollection Trifle with the play's perfection, Letting an unwritten anguish Make the brilliant pageant languish. Alas for every hero's story, That the woes which chiefly make it Must surge from the heart, or break it, And show the stuff that fashions glory. Pyramids and templed wonders At the best are wise men's blunders; The subtle spell of thought and fancy, It is Nature's necromancy. In that land where all things real Blossom into the ideal, In that realm of hidden powers Moving this gross world of ours, He that would inherit fame, Let him on the magic wall Of some bright, ideal hall Write his name; He and glory then shall be Comrades through eternity.