James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[368] Nibus written upon it; and the omnibus, he remarks, typifies Asso-Ciation, the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to renovate the world of industry and production, substituting abundance and comfort for penury and misery. For Man, he thought, this quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice, it is too late.

Rome our hurrying traveler reached through much tribulation. Even his patience gave way when the petty and numberless exactions of passport officials, hotel runners, postilions, and porters, had wrung the last copper from his pocket. After he and his fellow-passengers had paid every conceivable demand, when they supposed they had bought off every enemy, and had nothing to do but drive quietly into the city, ‘our postilion,’ says the indignant traveler, ‘came down upon us for more money for taking us to a hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled with the postilion, who grumbled and scolded, though we paid him more than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, which the “facchini” rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh demand for porterage. “Don't you belong to the hotel?” “Yes.” “Then vanish instantly!” I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX.’

But he was in Rome, and Rome impressed him deeply; for, in the nature of Horace Greeley, the poetical element exists as undeniably as the practical. He has an eye for a picture and a prospect, as well as for a potato-field and a sub-soil plough.

The greater part of his week in Rome was spent in the galleries