He avoided, in an extraordinary degree, all communication with the Italians, whose language he seemed scarcely to understand, but was occasionally seen to converse with some accomplished foreigner, whose gestures and appearance might attract him amid his solemn haunts. He spoke Latin, and especially Greek, with fluency, and with a peculiar but sweet accent; he had apparently acquired a knowledge of the northern languages of Europe. There was no circumstance connected with him that gave the least intimation of his country, his origin, or his occupation. His dress was strange, but splendid and solemn. He was forever alone. The literati of Rome thought him a curiosity, but there was something in his manner unintelligible but impressive, which awed their obtrusions into distance and silence. The countrymen, whose path he rarely crossed, returning by starlight from their market at Campo Vaccino, called him, with that strange mixture of religious and historical ideas so common in Italy, _Il Diavolo di Bruto_. Such was the figure which interrupted the contemplations, if they were so engaged, of the strangers, by addressing them in the clear, and exact, but unidiomatic phrases of their native language:--“Strangers, you are two; behold the third in this great city, to whom alone the spectacle of these mighty ruins is more delightful than the mockeries of a superstition which destroyed them.” “I see nothing,” said the old man. “What do you here, then?” “I listen to the sweet singing of the birds, and the sound of my daughter’s breathing composes me like the soft murmur of water--and I feel the sun-warm wind--and this is pleasant to me.” “Wretched old man, know you not that these are the ruins of the Coliseum?”-- “Alas! stranger,” said the girl, in a voice like mournful music, “speak not so--he is blind.”-- The stranger’s eyes were suddenly filled with tears, and the lines of his countenance became relaxed. “Blind!” he exclaimed, in a tone of suffering, which was more than an apology; and seated himself apart on a flight of shattered and mossy stairs which wound up among the labyrinths of the ruin. “My sweet Helen,” said the old man, “you did not tell me that this was the Coliseum.” “How should I tell you, dearest father, what I knew not? I was on the point of inquiring the way to that building, when we entered this circle of ruins, and, until the stranger accosted us, I remained silent, subdued by the greatness of what I see.” “It is your custom, sweetest child, to describe to me the objects that gave you delight. You array them in the soft radiance of your words, and whilst you speak I only feel the infirmity which holds me in such dear dependence, as a blessing. Why have you been silent now?” “I know not--first the wonder and pleasure of the sight, then the words of the stranger, and then thinking on what he had said, and how he had looked--and now, beloved father, your own words.” “Well, tell me now, what do you see?”