Hawthorne passed a couple of winters among them,
and the tone of that society is reflected in his "Marble Faun." He
took Story as a model for his "Kenyon," and was the first to note
the exotic grace of an American girl in that strange setting. They
formed as transcendental and unworldly a group as ever gathered
about a "tea" table. Great things were expected of them and their
influence, but they disappointed the world, and, with the exception
of Hawthorne, are being fast forgotten.
Nothing could be simpler than life in the papal capital in those
pleasant days. Money was rare, but living as delightfully
inexpensive. It was about that time, if I do not mistake, that a
list was published in New York of the citizens worth one hundred
thousand dollars; and it was not a long one! The Roman colony took
"tea" informally with each other, and "received" on stated evenings
in their studios (when mulled claret and cakes were the only
refreshment offered; very bad they were, too), and migrated in the
summer to the mountains near Rome or to Sorrento. In the winter
months their circle was enlarged by a contingent from home. Among
wealthy New Yorkers, it was the fashion in the early fifties to
pass a winter in Rome, when, together with his other dissipations,
paterfamilias would sit to one of the American sculptors for his
bust, which accounts for the horrors one now runs across in dark
corners of country houses, - ghostly heads in "chin whiskers" and
Roman draperies.
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