This kind of answer, given in a measured, official tone, as of a clergyman reading according to the rubric, did not help to justify the glories of the Eternal City or to give her the hope that if she knew more about them the world would be joyously illuminated for her. There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young, ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.
