Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson

[312] earnest type of civilization, as shown by the fact that all the large works of art in the Naples Museum are from Herculaneum, and secondly, because the iron solidity of the lava walls, with ends of implements or; works of art sticking out here and there, waiting to be quarried, seems to make its exploration a work far more heroic than to shovel away the earth and ashes from the Pompeian surface. In all, Herculaneum belongs to Greek tradition and Pompeii to the lighter mood of Rome in its decline. The latter is charming and graceful, but represents a decadent, watering-place sort of life; and it will be a good thing when it is all explored and the world comes back to the graver civilization of Herculaneum.

. . We have pleasant calls or cards or invitations from old and new acquaintances — the American minister, the artists Richard Greenough and Vedder, Luigi Monti (formerly teacher at Harvard), and others. Those who interested me most are ecclesiastics, for whom I have letters which Miss Metcalf got for me and through whom I hope to get a shade nearer to the inner life of the Catholic Church, beyond the merely spectacular. A very interesting man spent the evening with me, Monsignor O'Connell, who has lived here thirty or forty years and to whom Archbishop Keane gave me a letter. He is of Virginian birth with the pleasant Southern manner, and has also plenty of Irish humor. He is strong in the belief that the old simplicity and village-like quality of the Roman peasant is lost with the dependence of the forestieri and that it is only in country villages that one finds it