Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/179

Rh people spellbound while he discourses to them of the wonderful facts of astronomy. Of late a fearful storm of war has swept over our land. The whole country has been moved to its depths, and the brilliant lecturer is now leading one of our armies to save his loved land.”

A year later, Mr. Carter had to add to this narrative these words: “Of those who fell in that struggle, no nobler spirit winged its flight to the home where there is no war than that of General Mitchell. What a scene must have opened before him when those glorious orbs of light, which he studied so ardently here below, burst in all their majesty before his astonished vision!”

The winter and spring of 1862 Mr. Carter spent in Italy with his wife and daughter, while his sons visited the Holy Land and Egypt. Three months of this time he spent in Rome, where he fairly revelled in the scenes familiar to him from his classical studies. Every spot was to him hallowed ground, from its associations with

He was perfectly indefatigable in his researches into the haunts of antiquity and verse, and was ever ready with an incident or a quotation for each scene.

Mr. Carter writes the following incident, which occurred at this time:—

“One afternoon I was walking up the street that leads to the Pincian Hill, the great promenade of the Romans, a gentleman whom I supposed to be an Englishman was walking alongside of me. I bowed and said, ‘Good day, sir.’ He answered courteously. We entered into conversation. He was a physician who had spent seventeen years in Rome, and he gave me a rather dark picture