Italy : 35. Caius Cestius

When I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up
and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. The
Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of the little
monuments are erected to the young ; young men of
promise, cut off when on their travels, full of enthusiasm
full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty,
on their first journey ; or children borne from home in
search of heath. This stone was placed by his fellow-
travellers, young as himself, who will return to the
house of his parents without him ! that, by a husband
or a father, now in his native country. His heart is
buried in that grave.
It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter
with violets; and the Pyramid, that overshadows it,
gives it a classical and singularly solemn air. You feel
an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared
for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are
for the most part your countrymen. They call upon
you in your mother-tongue --- in English --- in words
unknown to a native, known only to yourselves: and
the tomb of Cestius, that old majestic pile, has this
also in common with them. It is itself a stranger,
among strangers. It has stood there till the language
spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd,
born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer.