ROMAN EMPIRE ROOSEVELT
good faith, all of which qualities differentiate them
sharply from ordinary collections of the kind. There is
in them just a little of the light that never was on land or
sea, and in such light the objects described often have
nebulous outlines; buts it is not always necessary in
order to enjoy a poem that one should be able to
translate it into terms of mathematical accuracy. Indeed,
those who admire the coloring of Turner, those who
like to read how—and to wonder why—Childe Roland
to the Dark Tower came, do not wish always to have
the ideas presented to them with cold, hard, definite
outlines; and to a man with the poetic temperament it is
inevitable that life should often appear clothed with a
certain sad mysticism. In the present volume I am not
sure that I understand "Luke Havergal"; but I am
entirely sure that I like it. (Outlook, August 12, 1905.)
Mem. Ed. XIV, 360-361; Nat. Ed. XII, 296-297.
ROMAN EMPIRE—FALL OF. Much of the fall of
the Roman Republic we can account for. For one thing,
I do not think historians have ever laid sufficient
emphasis on the fact that the widening of the franchise
in Italy and the provinces meant so little from the
governmental standpoint because citizens could only
vote in one city, Rome; I should hate at this day to see
the United States governed by votes cast in the city of
New York, even though Texas, Oregon, and Maine
could in theory send their people thither to vote if they
chose. But the reasons for the change in military and
governmental ability under the empire between, say, the
days of Hadrian and of Valens are hardly even to be
guessed at. (To A. J. Balfour, March 5, 1908.) Mem.
Ed. XXIV, 124; Bishop II, 107.
____________. There is nothing mysterious about
Rome's dissolution at the time of the barbarian
invasions; apart from the impoverishment and
depopulation of the empire, its fall would be quite
sufficiently explained by the mere fact that the average
citizen had lost the fighting edge—an essential even
under a despotism, and therefore far more essential in
free, self-governing communities, such as those of the
English-speaking peoples of to-day. (At Oxford
University, June 7, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XIV, 87; Nat. Ed.
ROME. To you who know your Rome so well, . . . I
need hardly say that the Eternal City offers the very
sharpest contrasts between the extremes of radical
modern progress, social, political, and religious, and the
extremes of opposition to all such progress. At the time
of my visit the Vatican represented the last; the free-
thinking Jew mayor, a good fellow, and his Socialist
backers in the Town Council, represented the first; and
between them came the king and statesmen like his
Jewish Prime Minister, and writers like that high and
fine character Foggazaro, and ecclesiastics like some of
the cardinals, as for instance Janssens, the head of the
Benedictines. (To Sir George Otto Trevelyan, October
1, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XXIV, 227; Bishop II, 194.
ROME—ROOSEVELT'S VISIT TO. At Rome I had
an elegant row, the details of which you have doubtless
seen in the papers. The Pope imposed conditions upon
my reception, requiring a pledge—secret or open—that
I would not visit and speak to the Methodist Mission.
Of course I declined absolutely to assent to any
conditions whatever, and the reception did not take
place. Then with a folly as incredible as that of the
Vatican itself, the Methodist missionaries, whose game
was perfectly simple because the Pope had played it for
them, and who had nothing to do but sit quiet, promptly
issued an address of exultation which can only be called
scurrilous, and with equal promptness I cancelled the
arrangements I had made for seeing them. Our clerical
brother is capable of showing extraordinarily little
sense when he gets into public affairs. The only
satisfaction I had out of the affair, and it was a very
great satisfaction, was that on the one hand I
administered a needed lesson to the Vatican, and on the
other hand I made it understood that I feared the most
powerful Protestant Church just as little as I feared the
Roman Catholics. If I were in politics, or intended to
run for any public office, I should regard the incident as
gravely compromising my usefulness as a candidate,
but inasmuch as I have no idea that I shall ever again be
a candidate for anything, I can take unalloyed
satisfaction in having rendered what I regard as a small
service to the cause of right-thinking in America. (To
H. C. Lodge, April 6, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 364.
ROOSEVELT — PRONUNCIATION OF. As for
my name, it is pronounced as if it was spelled
"Rosavelt." That is in three syllables. The first syllable
as if it was "Rose." (To Rev.
XII, 43.
ROMAN EMPIRE. See also LATIN LITERATURE .
ROMANOFFS. See RUSSIA.
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