The fact is familiar enough, but,
occupied as I was with other thoughts, it had not yet occurred to
me; the most pious pilgrim of an earlier day could not have felt
himself more strongly arrested than I when I caught sight of these
words. Were I to inhabit Reggio, I should never pass the Cathedral
without stopping to read and think; the carving would never lose its
power over my imagination. It unites for me two elements of moving
interest: a vivid fact from the ancient world, recorded in the music
of the ancient tongue. All day the words rang in my head, even as at
Rome I have gone about murmuring to myself: "_Aedificabo ecclesiam
meam_." What a noble solemnity in this Latin speech! And how vast
the historic significance of such monumental words! Moralize who
will; enough for me to hear with delight that deep-toned harmony,
and to thrill with the strangeness of old things made new.
It was Sunday, which at Reggio is a day or market. Crowds of
country-folk had come into the town with the produce of field and
garden; all the open spaces were occupied with temporary stalls; at
hand stood innumerable donkeys, tethered till business should be
over.
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