Then she talked about Margaret Fuller, whom she called the most brilliant woman she had ever known. She had never loved another woman so much; but it was a dangerous love. If she wrote a rather gushing letter to Margaret, she would receive in reply, "How could you have written so beautifully! You must have been inspired." This, she said, had all the effect of flattery without being intended for it, and was so much the more mischievous. "Emerson and Margaret Fuller," said Mrs. X----, "put inspiration in the place of religion. They believed that some people had direct communication with the Almighty." P---- and I thought this might be true of Miss Fuller, but doubted it in Emerson's case.
Miss X---- told me that she had lately ascended to the rotunda of the Capitol, from which the pope's flag flies all day, and that she had asked the Swiss guard what he would do if she hoisted the tricolor there. He replied: "I should shoot you." Nothing could be more kind or truly courteous than the manner in which these ladies treated us.
Another distinguished convert here is Mrs. Margaret Eveleth, a rare, spirituelle woman, who was born within a mile of my father's house. She was formerly a Unitarian, but soon became a Catholic on coming to Rome. While she was in process of transition from one church to the other she wrote a number of letters to her former pastor in New York, requesting information on points of faith. Not one of these letters was ever answered, and it is incredible to suppose that they would not have been if he had received them. It is highly probable that they never left Rome. I have myself been warned to attach my stamps to letters firmly, so that they may not be stolen in passing through the Post-office. Postage here is also double what it is in Florence.
_Feb_. 12.--I have been looking for some time to find a good picture of Marcus Aurelius, and have generally become known among Roman photographers as the man who wants the _Marc Aureli_. This morning I had just left my room when I discovered Rev. Samuel Longfellow in a photograph shop in the Via Frattina. "I was just coming to see you," he said; "and I stopped here to look for a photograph of Marcus Aurelius." He laughed when I told him that I had been on the same quest, and suggested that we should walk to the Capitol together and look at the statue and bust of our favorite emperor. "I think he was the greatest of the Romans," said Mr. Longfellow, "if not the noblest of all the ancients."