What makes things worse is that the great nobles are mostly "land poor," and even the richer ones burned their fingers in the craze for speculation that turned all Rome upside down in the years following 1870 and Italian unity, when they naively imagined their new capital was to become again after seventeen centuries the metropolis of the world.Whole quarters of new houses were run up for a population that failed to appear; these houses now stand empty and are fast going to ruin.So that little in the way of entertaining is to be expected from the bankrupts.They are a genial race, these Italian nobles, and welcome rich strangers and marry them with much enthusiasm - just a shade too much, perhaps -the girl counting for so little and her DOT for so much in the matrimonial scale.It is only necessary to keep open house to have the pick of the younger ones as your guests.They will come to entertainments at American houses and bring all their relations, and dance, and dine, and flirt with great good humor and persistency; but if there is not a good solid fortune in the background, in the best of securities, the prettiest American smiles never tempt them beyond flirtation; the season over, they disappear up into their mountain villas to wait for a new importation from the States.
In Rome, as well as in the other Italian cities, there are, of course, still to be found Americans in some numbers (where on the Continent will you not find them?), living quietly for study or economy.But they are not numerous or united enough to form a society; and are apt to be involved in bitter strife among themselves.
Why, you ask, should Americans quarrel among themselves?
Some years ago I was passing the summer months on the Rhine at a tiny German watering-place, principally frequented by English, who were all living together in great peace and harmony, until one fatal day, when an Earl appeared.He was a poor Irish Earl, very simple and unoffending, but he brought war into that town, heart-burnings, envy, and backbiting.The English colony at once divided itself into two camps, those who knew the Earl and those who did not.And peace fled from our little society.You will find in every foreign capital among the resident Americans, just such a state of affairs as convulsed that German spa.The native "swells"have come to be the apple of discord that divides our good people among themselves.Those who have been successful in knowing the foreigners avoid their compatriots and live with their new friends, while the other group who, from laziness, disinclination, or principle (?) have remained true to their American circle, cannot resist calling the others snobs, and laughing (a bit enviously, perhaps) at their upward struggles.