Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife, Marietta Holley [best e reader for academics .txt] 📗

folks of every language in the world can confess and be absolved by a priest that understands ’em. Well, I shouldn’t wonder, it is big enough, it seems like a world in itself. But I couldn’t help thinkin’ of our great High Priest whose confessional is broad and high as the needs and sorrows of a world and the “silent liftin’ of an eye can bring us there to be,” and who understands not only every language under the sun, but every secret and hidden thought and aspiration of the soul, good or evil, and whose forgiveness and compassion never fails the penitent soul. I couldn’t help thinkin’ on’t, and I felt that St. Peter if he could speak would say, “Josiah Allen’s wife, I don’t blame you for your methinkin’, I think just so myself.”

One day we all went to see the Arch of Titus; it wuz big and massive lookin’ with a lot of writin’ over the top that I couldn’t read nor Josiah couldn’t, but interestin’ like all the remains of imperial Rome that ruled over almost the hull of the known world. It was erected about the year 70 to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem.

There wuz another arch fur more interestin’ to me, and that wuz the arch of Constantine. It is perfectly beautiful, and would be, even if it wuz built by a misable pagan. But it wuz built by Mr. Constantine when he declared himself in favor of Christianity. I sot store by him.

It is a grand and beautiful structure, richly ornamented, and has three passages. I didn’t like all the base reliefs on it; indeed, I considered some on ’em as real base, such as Mr. Tragan’s offerin’s to the gods, etc. But then I realized that I wuzn’t obleeged to look at ’em. And some on ’em wuz very good showin’ off Mr. Tragan educatin’ poor children, etc. And some of Constantine’s doin’s there I liked first-rate.

And I d’no as I see anything in Rome that interested me more than the tomb of Celia Crassus––Celia Matella 362 that wuz. It is a round, massive structure that stands on the Appian Way and is about two thousand years old. It wuz once all covered with costly marble, but the hand of Time and other thieves, in mortal shape, have stole it a long time ago. But enough is left to show what it wuz. Nobody knows jest who Celia wuz and what she did do, or didn’t do, to git such a monument. But I shall always believe she wuz a real likely woman and smart. ’Tennyrate, I said her pardner must have thought high on her and mourned her loss like a dog or he never would have rared such a magnificent tomb to her memory.

But Arvilly looked at it different. She said she believed her husband drinked and got led off into all sorts of sins and made Celia no end of trouble and riz this monument up to smooth things over.

But I sez, “Mebby things wuz different then;” but didn’t really spoze so, human nater havin’ capered about the same from the start. “’Tennyrate,” sez I, “I shall always believe that Miss Crassus wuz good as gold, and this great massive monument that it seems as if the hand of Time can’t ever throw down I take as a great compliment to my sect as well as Celia Crassus.”

But Arvilly wuz as firm as a rock to the last in her belief that Mr. Crassus drinked and that Miss Crassus wuz broken-hearted by her grief and anxiety and tryin’ to cover up her pardner’s doin’s as the wives of drunkards will, and tryin’ to keep her children from follerin’ their pa’s dretful example, and then after he’d jest killed her with these doin’s he rared up this great monument as a conscience soother.

Josiah thought Celia wuz equinomical and a wonderful good cook, and her grateful pardner riz this up in honor of his blissful life with her.

Miss Meechim thought that at all events she must have been genteel.

Robert and Dorothy looked at its massive walls, and I 363 hearn him say sunthin’ to her kinder low about “how love wuz stronger than time or death.”

But Tommy just wonnered at it, wonnered who Celia Matella wuz, how she looked, how old she wuz, if she had any little boys and girls. He jest wonnered and nothin’ else, and in the end I did, too.

You have no idee till you see how big the Colosseum is. It is as long as from our house to she that wuz Submit Tewksberry’s, and so on round by Solomon Gowdey’s back agin. You may not believe it, but it is true, and I d’no but it is bigger. It used to accommodate one hundred thousand people in its palmy days, or so I spoze they called it, when some time durin’ one season five thousand beasts would be killed there fightin’ with human bein’s, hull armies of captives bein’ torn to pieces there for the delight of them old pagans. Fathers bein’ made to kill their wives and children right there for their delight.

Oh, how I wished, as I told Arvilly, I could git holt of Mr. Titus and Mr. Nero and some of the rest of them leadin’ men.

The conqueror, Mr. Titus, brought back twelve thousand of the conquered Jews and made ’em work and toil to build up that lofty arch in memory of their own defeat and captivity and his glory. You’d think that wuz enough trouble for ’em, but I’ve hearn, and it come pretty straight to me, that he misused ’em more or less while they wuz workin’ away at it.

’Tennyrate, they say a Jew won’t go under that arch to this day and they’ve been seen to spit at it, and I spoze they throw things at it more or less on the sly.

Sez I, “I’d gin ’em a piece of my mind if I knowed they would make me fight with a elephant the next minute.”

Arvilly thought that if she could sold them the “Twin Crimes” it might have helped ’em to do better, but I d’no as it would. But that great amphitheatre where the blood and 364 agony of the martyrs cried to heaven, was afterwards dedicated to these Christian martyrs. There are eighty arches of entrance. Only a part of the immense circular wall is now standing, but you can see what it wuz. There are four stories of arches, one hundred and fifty-seven feet high in all, the arena it encloses is two hundred and eighty-seven feet long.

Dorothy and Robert Strong and Miss Meechim went and see it by moonlight, and they say that it wuz a more beautiful sight than words can describe. But I bein’ a little afraid of the rumatiz, thought that I had better go by broad daylight, and Josiah did, too. I mistrusted that Robert and Dorothy beheld it by a sweeter and softer light than even the Italian moonlight, but I kep’ in and didn’t speak my mistrustin’. I dast as soon die as gin vent to any such idee before Albina Meechim.

We went one day to see the Pantheon, built by Mr. Agrippa, 27 B.C. It is a dretful big buildin’; I guess about the biggest ancient buildin’ in the world. It has had its ups and downs, shown out in brilliant beauty, been stole from and blackened by the hand of Time, but it is still beautiful.

It wuz dedicated to Jupiter at first, and afterwards to the Virgin and the Christian martyrs, afterwards it was dedicated to all the saints.

In speakin’ on this subject, Josiah said: “What a lot of saints they do have in these furren countries,” and says he to me, soto vosy, “I’d kinder like, Samantha, to get that name; Saint Josiah would sound well and uneek in Jonesville.”

But I scorfed at the idee, though knowin’ that he wuz jest as worthy to be called saint as a good many who wuz called by that name.

But Josiah is dretful ambitious. When we wuz lookin’ at the different pictures of the popes in their high hats, sez he:

“How becomin’ such a hat would be to me. I believe 365 I shall be took in one when I get home; I could take Father Allen’s and Father Smith’s old stove-pipe hats and set my best one on top, and then cut out a wooden cross on top; how uneek it would be.”

But I spoze he will forgit it before he gits home––I hope so ’tennyrate.