So⁠—we went to Italy and saw Rome and Florence in true Baedecker style. When we arrived in Rome we opened our Baedecker and read that there was almost no foundation for Rome’s awful reputation as an unhealthy place. “Rome is a very healthy place,” said Baedecker, “at all times of the year except the first two weeks in August, when a visit there is attended with risk.” We had arrived for the first two weeks in August!

When we came home from our wedding trip we found that our house was not yet completed, so we went to stay with Judge and Mrs. Taft for a month at the old house in Mt. Auburn. It was a nice old place, with about three acres of ground, but the air around it was just about as sooty as if it had been located down under the factory chimneys. Mt. Auburn is on a sort of promontory which juts out into the city; it is on a level with the tops of the smoke stacks and it catches all the soot that the air can carry that far.