dust-discoloured

Updated: July 3, 2026

A crippled beggar crouching at the door, a few common people kneeling before the candle-lighted shrines, a priest or two mumbling at a side-altar, half-a-dozen indifferent pictures and a great deal of gilt and marble everywhere, an odour of stale incense and mouldy cloth, and, over all, a dim dust-discoloured light. Fancy all this, and you will have before you a Roman church.

Edward Dicey - Rome in 1860