"Now that may be all very well," said the Senator, "but don't ask me to admire that chap, or the Roman army, or the system. It was all hollow. Why, don't you see the man was a blockhead? He hadn't sense enough to see that when the whole place was going to the dogs, it was no good stopping to guard it. He'd much better have cleared out and saved his precious life for the good of his country. Do you suppose a Yankee would act that way?"
"That man, Sir, was a machine, and nothing more. A soldier must know something else than merely obeying orders."
By this time they had passed through the gate and stood inside. The street opened before them for a considerable distance with houses on each side. Including the sidewalks it might have been almost twelve feet wide. As only the lower part of the walls of the houses was standing, the show that they made was not imposing. There was no splendor in the architecture or the material, for the style of the buildings was extremely simple, and they were made with brick covered with stucco.
After wandering silently through the streets the Senator at length burst forth:
"Why, the whole system of Cyclopedias, Panoramas, Books of Travel, Woodbridge's Geography, Sunday-school Books--"
"I mean the descriptions they give of this place. The fellows who write about it get into the heroics, and what with their descriptions, and pictures, and moralizing, you believe it is a second Babylon. It don't seem possible for any of them to tell the truth. Why, there isn't a single decent-sized house in the place. Oh, it's small! it's small!"
"I know," continued the Senator, with a majestic wave of his hand--"I know that I'm expected to find this here scene very impressive; but I'll be hanged if I'm satisfied. Why, in the name of Heaven, when they give us pictures of the place, can't they make things of the right size? Why, I've seen a hundred pictures of that gate. They make it look like a triumphant arch; and now that I'm here, durn me if I can't touch the top of it when I stand on tiptoe."
In all his walk the Senator found only one thing that pleased him. This was the celebrated Pompeian institution of a shop under the dwelling-house.
"Whenever I see any signs of any thing like trade among these ancients," said he, "I respect them. And what is more satisfactory than to see a bake-shop or an eating-saloon in the lower story of a palace?"