At Naples we stopped three days:  most of my friends are, as you know, in prison, but I met some of nice memory.

We came to Rome on Holy Thursday.  H—–­ left on Saturday for Gland—­and yesterday, to the terror of Grissell {5} and all the Papal Court, I appeared in the front rank of the pilgrims in the Vatican, and got the blessing of the Holy Father—­a blessing they would have denied me.

He was wonderful as he was carried past me on his throne—­not of flesh and blood, but a white soul robed in white and an artist as well as a saint—­the only instance in history, if the newspapers are to be believed.  I have seen nothing like the extraordinary grace of his gestures as he rose, from moment to moment, to bless—­possibly the pilgrims, but certainly me.

Tree should see him.  It is his only chance.

I was deeply impressed, and my walking-stick showed signs of budding, would have budded, indeed, only at the door of the Chapel it was taken from me by the Knave of Spades.  This strange prohibition is, of course, in honour of Tannhauser.

How did I get the ticket?  By a miracle, of course.  I thought it was hopeless and made no effort of any kind.  On Saturday afternoon at five o’clock H—–­ and I went to have tea at the Hotel de l’Europe.  Suddenly, as I was eating buttered toast, a man—­or what seemed to be one—­dressed like a hotel porter entered and asked me would I like to see the Pope on Easter Day.  I bowed my head humbly and said “Non sum dignus,” or words to that effect.  He at once produced a ticket!

When I tell you that his countenance was of supernatural ugliness, and that the price of the ticket was thirty pieces of silver, I need say no more.

An equally curious thing is that whenever I pass the hotel, which I do constantly, I see the same man.  Scientists call that phenomenon an obsession of the visual nerve.  You and I know better.

On the afternoon of Easter Day I heard Vespers at the Lateran:  music quite lovely.  At the close, a Bishop in red, and with red gloves—­such as Pater talks of in Gaston de Latour—­came out on the balcony and showed us the Relics.  He was swarthy, and wore a yellow mitre.  A sinister mediaeval man, but superbly Gothic, just like the bishops carved on stalls or on portals:  and when one thinks that once people mocked at stained-glass attitudes! they are the only attitudes for the clothes.  The sight of the Bishop, whom I watched with fascination, filled me with the great sense of the realism of Gothic art.  Neither in Greek art nor in Gothic art is there any pose.  Posing was invented by bad portrait-painters; and the first person who posed was a stock-broker, and he has gone on posing ever since.

I send you a photograph I took on Palm Sunday at Palermo.  Do send me some of yours, and love me always, and try to read this letter.

Kindest regards to your dear mother.