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T.DALZIELS
TUE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB. See page 42.


V
*)





WORKS
OF
NATHANIEL HAWTHORN
Globe Edition.
THE MARBLE FAUN.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE BOOKS
FOUR VOLUMES IN ONE.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1880.


S
Po izko
À
1989
V. 1-4
Copyright, 1860,
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
Copyright, 1871,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
All rights reserved.
The Biberside Press:
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY,
Cambridge.


THE MARBLE FAUN;
OR,
The Romance of Monte Beni.
VOL. I.





PREFACF.
It is now seven or eight years (so many, at
all events, that I cannot precisely remember the
epoch) since the author of this romance last ap
peared before the Public. It had grown to be a
custom with him to introduce each of his humble
publications with a familiar kind of preface, ad-
dressed nominally to the Public at large, but
really to a character with whom he felt entitled
to use far greater freedom. He meant it for that
one congenial friend, - more comprehensive of his
purposes, more appreciative of his success, more
indulgent of his short-comings, and, in all respects,
closer and kinder than a brother, - that all-sym-
pathizing critic, in short, whom an author never
actually meets, but to whom he implicitly makes
nis appeal whenever he is conscious cf having
done his best.


V1
PREFACE.
The antique fashion of Prefaces recognized this
genial personage as the “ Kind Reader,” the
« Gentle Reader," the “Beloved," the “ Indul-
gent,” or, at coldest, the “Honored Reader,” to
whom the prim old author was wont to make his
preliminary explanations and apologies, with the
certainty that they would be favorably received.
I never personally encountered, nor corresponded
through the post with this representative essence
of all delightful and desirable qualities which a
reader can possess. But, fortunately for myself,
I never therefore concluded him to be merely a
mythic character. I had always a sturdy faith
in his actual existence, and wrote for him year
after year, during which the great eye of the
Public (as well it might) almost utterly over-
looked my small productions.
Unquestionably, this gentle, kind, benevolent,
indulgent, and most beloved and honored Reader
did once exist for me, and (in spite of the infi-
nite chances against a letter's reaching its desti-
nation without a definite address) duly received
the scrolls which I flung upon whatever wind
was blowing, in the faith that they would find
him out. But, is he extant now? In these
many years, since he last heard from me, may


PREFACE.
he not have deemned his earthly task accomplished,
and have withdrawn to the paradise of gentle
readers, wherever it may be, to the enjoyments
of which his kindly charity on my behalf must
surely have entitled him ? I have a sad fore
boding that this may be the truth. The “Gen
tle Reader,” in the case of any individual author
is apt to be extremely short-lived; he seldom
outlasts a literary fashion, and, except in very
rare instances, closes his weary eyes before the
writer has half done with him. If I find him at
all, it will probably be under some mossy grave-
stone, inscribed with a half-obliterated name which
I shall never recognize.
Therefore, I have little heart or confidence
(especially, writing as I do, in a foreign land,
and after a long, long absence from my own) to
presume upon the existence of that friend of
friends, that unseen brother of the soul, whose
apprehensive sympathy has so often encouraged
me to be egotistical in my prefaces, careless though
unkindly eyes should skim over what was never
meant for them. I stand upon ceremony, now;
and, after stating a few particulars about the work
which is here offered to the Public, must make my
most reverential bow, and retire behind the curtain


PREFACE.
а
This Romance was sketched out during a sesi-
dence of considerable length in Italy, and has
been re-written and prepared for the press in
England. The author proposed to himself merely
to write a fanciful story, evolving a thoughtfw
moral, and did not purpose attempting a portrai-
ture of Italian manners and character. He has
lived too long abroad not to be aware that
foreigner seldom acquires that knowledge of a
country at once flexible and profound, which may
justify him in endeavoring to idealize its traits.
Italy, as the site of his Romance, was chiefly
valuable to him as affording a sort of poetic or
fairy precinct, where actualities would not be so
terribly insisted upon as they are, and must needs
be, in America. No author, without a trial, can
conceive of the difficulty of writing a
about a country where there is no shadow, no
antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy
wrong, nor anything but a commonplace pros-
perity, in broad and simple daylight, as is hap-
pily the case with my dear native land. It will
very long, I trust, before romance-writers may
find congenial and easily handled themes, either in
the annals of our stalwart republic, or in any
characteristic and probable events of our individ
romance
be


PREFACE.
qal lives. Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and
wall-flowers need ruin to make them grow.
In re-writing these volumes, the author was
somewhat surprised to see the extent to which he
had introduced descriptions of various Italian ob-
jects, antique, pictorial, and statuesque. Yet these
things fill the mind everywhere in Italy, and
especially in Rome, and cannot easily be kept
from flowing out upon the page when one writes
freely, and with self-enjoyment. And, again, while
reproducing the book, on the broad and dreary
sands of Redcar, with the gray German Ocean
tumbling in upon me, and the northern blast
always howling in my ears, the complete change
of scene made these Italian reminiscences shine
out so vividly that I could not find it in my
heart to cancel them.
An act of justice remains to be performed
towards two men of genius with whose produc
tions the author has allowed himself to use
quite unwarrantable freedom. Having imagined
sculptor in this Romance, it was necessary to
provide him with such works in marble as should
be in keeping with the artistic ability which he
was supposed to possess. With this view, the
author laid felonious hands upon a certain bust
a


PREFACE
of Milton, and a statue of a pearl-diver, which
he found in the studio of Mr. PAUL AKERS, and
secretly conveyed them to the premises of his
imaginary friend, in the Via Frezza. Not con-
tent even with these spoils, he committed a further
robbery upon a magnificent statue of Cleopatra,
the production of Mr. WILLIAM W. STORY, an
artist whom his country and the world will not
long fail to appreciate. He had thoughts of ap-
propriating, likewise, a certain door of bronze by
Mr. RANDOLPH ROGERS, representing the history
of Columbus in a series of admirable bas-reliefs,
but was deterred by an unwillingness to meddle
with public property. Were he capable of steal-
ing from a lady, he would certainly have made
free with Miss HOSMER'S admirable statue of
Zenobia.
He now wishes to restore the above-mentioned
beautiful pieces of sculpture to their proper own-
ers, with many thanks, and the avowal of his
sincere admiration. What he has said of them
in the Romance, does not partake of the fiction
in which they are imbedded, but expresses his
genuine opinion, which he has little doubt, will
be found in accordance with that of the Public.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say, that, while


PREFACE.
stealing their designs, the Author has not taken
a similar liberty with the personal characters of
either of these gifted sculptors; his own man of
marble being entirely imaginary.
LEAHINGTON, December 15 1859





CONTENTS
OF THE FIRST VOLUME
1. MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO
II. THE FAUN
III. SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES
IV. THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB
V. MIRIAM'S STUDIO
VI. THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE
.
VII. BEATRICE
VIII. THE SUBURBAN VILLA
IX. THE FAUN AND NYMPH
X. THE SYLVAN DANCE
.
XI. FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES
XII. A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN
XIII. A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO
XIV. CLEOPATRA
PAO
13
23
39
41
52
69
89
99
100
110
119
128
145
157
167
180
193
203
216
228
233
243
250
263
279
.
.
XV. AN AESTHETIC COMPANY
XVI. A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE
KVII. MIRIAM'S TROUBLE
(VIII. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
XIX. THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION
XX. THE BURIAL CHANT
.
.
.
XXI. THE DEAD CAPUCHIN
XXII. THE MEDICI GARDENS
XXIII. MIRIAM AND HILDA
.
XXIV. THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES
YXV. SUNSHINE





THE ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER I.
MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad
to interest the reader, happened to be standing in one of
the saloons of the sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at
Rome. It was that room (the first, after ascending the
staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble and
most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking
into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antin-
ous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; all
famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining
in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal
life, although the marble that embodies them is yellow
with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp earth in
which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is
seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thou-
sand years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of
Innocence of Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a


16
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a
snake.
From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a
Alight of broad stone steps, descending alongside the an-
tique and massive foundation of the Capitol, towards the
battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right below.
Farther
on,
the
eye skirts along the edge of the desolate
Forum, (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen
to the sun,) passing over a shapeless confusion of modern
edifices, piled rudely up with ancient brick and stone, and
over the domes of Christian churches, built on the old
pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very
pillars that once upheld them. At a distance beyond
yet but a little way, considering how much history is
heaped into the intervening space-rises the great sweep
of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through
its upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut in by
the Alban mountains, looking just the same, amid all this
decay and change, as when Romulus gazed thitherward
over his half-finished wall.
We glance hastily at these things — at this bright sky
and those blue, distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etrus
can, Roman, Christian, venerable with a threefold antiq
uity, and at the company of world-famous statues in the
saloon ---- in the hope of putting the reader into that state
of feeling which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is
a vague sense of ponderous remembrances ; a perception
of such weight and density in a bygone life, of which
this spot was the centre, that the present moment is
pressed down, or crowded out, and our individual affairs


MIRIAM, AILDA, KENYON, DONATELL).
17
and interests are but half as real here as elsewhere
Viewed through this medium, our narrative. - into which
Are woven some airy and unsubstantial threads, inter.
mixed with others, twisted out of the commonest stuff of
human existence
- may seem not widely different from
the texture of all our lives.
Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past,
all matters that we handle or dream of now-a-days look
evanescent and visionary alike.
It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking
to introduce, were conscious of this dreamy character of
de present, as compared with the square blocks of granite
wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps it even
contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now
their mood. When we find ourselves fading into shad-
ows and unrealities, it seems hardly worth while to be
sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we may, and ask little
reason wherefore.
Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or
connected with art; and, at this moment, they had been
simultaneously struck by a resemblance between one of
the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece of Grecian
sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of
their party
“ You must needs confess, Kenyon,” said a dark-eyed
young woman, whom her friends called Miriam, “that
you never chiselled out of marble, nor wrought in clay, a
more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker as
you think yourself. The portraiture
The portraiture is perfect in char.
acter, sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the


18
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
resemblance might be half illusive and imaginary ; but
here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial fact, and
may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our
friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it
not true, Hilda ? "
“Not quite - almost - yes, I really think 80," replied
Hilda, a slender, brown-haired, New England girl, whose
perceptions of form and expression were wonderfully
clear and delicate. “If there is any difference between
the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the
Faun dwelt in woods and fields, and consorted with
his like; whereas, Donatello has known cities a little, and
auch people as ourselves. But the resemblance is very
close, and very strange."
“Not so strange,” whispered Miriam, mischievously
« for no Faun in Arcadia was ever a greater simpleton
than Donatello. He has hardly a man's share of wit,
small as that may be. It is a pity there are no longer
any of this congenial race of rustic creatures for our
friend to consort with !”
Hush, naughty one!” returned Hilda.
“ You are
very ungrateful, for you well know he has wit enough to
worship you, at all events."
“ Then the greater fool he!” said Miriam, so bitterly
that Hilda's quiet eyes were somewhat startled.
“ Donatello, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, in Italian,
* pray gratify us all by taking the exact attitude of this
statue.”
The young man laughed, and threw himself into the
position in which the statue has been standing for two or


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
19
three thousand years. In truth, allowing for the differ-
ence of costume, and if a lion's skin could have been sub-
stituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his
stick, Donatello might have figured perfectly as the mar.
ble Faun, miraculously softened into flesh and blood.
“Yes; the resemblance is wonderful," observed Ken-
yon, after examining the marble and the man with the
accuracy of a sculptor's eye. “ There is one points
however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our
friend Donatello's abundant curls will not permit us
to say whether the likeness is carried into minute de
tail.”
And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to
the ears of the beautiful statue which they were contem-
plating
But we must do more than merely refer to this exqui-
site work of art; it must be described, however inade-
quate may be the effort to express its magic peculiarity
in words.
The Faun is the marble image of a young man, lean-
ing his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree; one
band bangs carelessly by his side; in the other he holds
the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument
of music. His only garment - a lion's skin, with the
claws
upon
his shoulder — falls half way down his back,
leaving the limbs and entire front of the figure nude.
The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but
has a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and
less of heroic muscle than the old sculptors were wont to
assign to their types of masculine beauty. The charac


20
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
UD-
ter of the face corresponds with the figure ; it is most
agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and some
what voluptuously developed, especially about the throat
and chin ; the nose is almost straight, but very slightly
curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm
of geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet
delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright, that it
calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue -
like anything else that ever was wrought in that severe
material of marble - conveys the idea of an amiable and
sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not
incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible
to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a
kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were
warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It
comes very close to some of our pleasantest sympathies.
Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any
high and heroic ingredient in the character of the Faun,
that makes it so delightful an object to the human eye
and to the frailty of the human heart. The being here
represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and
would be incapable of comprehending such ; but he
would be true and honest by dint of his simplicity. We
should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an
abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in
all that softened marble ; but he has a capacity for strong
And warm attachment, and might act devotedly through
its impulse, and even die for it at need. It is possible,
too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium
of his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO
2)
nature might eventually be thrown into the background,
though never utterly expelled.
The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of
the Faun's composition ; for the characteristics of the
brute creation meet and combine with those of humanity
in this strange yet true and natural conception of antique
poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused through
out his work that mute mystery which so hopelessly per-
plexes us whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or
sympathetic knowledge of the lower orders of creation.
The riddle is indicated, however, only by two definite
signs ; these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf-
shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some
species of animals. Though not so seen in the marble,
they are probably to be considered as clothed in fine,
downy fur. In the coarser representations of this clase
of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute
kindred, - a certain caudal appendage; which, if the
Faun of Praxiteles must be supposed to possess it at all,
is hidden by the lion's skin that forms his garment. The
pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole indications
of his wild, forest nature.
Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most del
icate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic
skill — in a word, a sculptor and a poet too -- could have
first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have suc-
ceeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in
marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster,
but a being in whom both races meet on friendly ground)
The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in


22
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
our grasp
But, if the spectator broods long over the
statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasant-
ness of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteris-
tics of creatures that dwell in woods and fields, will seem
to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along with
the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, grass,
flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisti-
cated man! The essence of all these was compressed
long ago, and still exists within that discolored marble
surface of the Faun of Praxiteles.
And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but
rather a poet's reminiscence of a period when man’s affin.
ity with nature was more strict, and his fellowship with
every living thing more intimate and dear


THE FAUN
23
CHAPTER IL
THE FAUN.
.
"DONATELLO," playfully cried Miriam, “ do not leave
as in this perplexity! Shake aside those brown curls,
my friend, and let us see whether this marvellous resem.
blance extends to the very tips of the ears.
If so, we
shall like you all the better!”
“No, no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello, laugh.
ing, but with a certain earnestness. “I entreat you to
take the tips of my ears for granted.” As he spoke, the
young Italian made a skip and jump, light enough for a
veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the
reach of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to set-
tle the matter by actual examination. “I shall be like a
wolf of the Apennines," he continued, taking his stand on
the other side of the Dying Gladiator, “if you touch my
ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it.
It has always been a tender point with my forefathers
and me.”
He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of aa
cent, and an unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that
he must heretofore have been chiefly conversant" with
rural people.


24
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“Well, well,” said Miriam, “your tender point — your
two tender points, if you have them shall be safe, se
far as I am concerned. But how strange this likeness is,
after all! and how delightful, if it really includes the
pointed ears! Oh, it is impossible, of course,” she cola
tinued, in English, “ with a real and commonplace young
man like Donatello ; but you see how this peculiarity de
fines the position of the Faun; and, while putting him
where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, still dis-
poses us kindly towards the kindred creature. He is not
supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet
within it. What is the nameless charm of this idea,
Hilda ? You can feel it more delicately than I.”
" It perplexes me,” said Hilda, thoughtfully, and shrink-
ing a little; “neither do I quite like to think about it.”
“But, surely,” said Kenyon, "you agree with Miriam
and me, that there is something very touching and im.
pressive in this statue of the Faun. In some long-past,
age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and
still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man
and animal, sympathizing with each, comprehending the
speech of either race, and interpreting the whole exist-
ence of one to the other. What a pity that he has for-
ever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,
unless,” added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, “ Dcna-
tello be actually he!”
“ You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of
me," responded Miriam, between jest and earnest.
agine, now, a real being, similar to this mythic Faun,
how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be his life,
6 Im.


'THE FAUN.
25
enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature ; rev-
elling in the merriment of woods and streams ; living as
our four-footed kindred do, as mankind did in its inno
cent childhood ; before sin, sorrow, or morality itself had
ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you
and I — if I, at least, - had pointed ears! For I sup-
pose the Faun had no conscience, no remorse, no burthen
on the heart, no troublesome recollections of any sort ;
no dark future either.”
“What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam !” said the
sculptor ; and, looking into her face, he was startled to
behold it pale and tear-stained. “ How suddenly this
mood has come over you ! ”
“Let it go as it came," said Miriam, “ like a thunder-
shower in this Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you
see!”
Donatello's refractoriness as regarded his ears had evi-
dently cost tim something, and he now came close to
Miriam's side, gazing at her with an appealing air, as if
to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture of en-
treaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well
enough excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see
in the aspect of a hound when he thinks himself in fault
or disgrace. It was difficult to make out the character of
this young man.
So full of animal life as he was, so joy
ous in his deportment, so handsome, so physically well
developed, he made no impression of incompleteness, of
maimed or stinted nature. And yet, in social intercourse,
these familiar friends of his habitually and instinctively
allowed for him, as for a child or some other lawless
VOL. 1
2


26
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
thing, exacting no strict obedience to conventional rules
and hardly noticing his eccentricities enough to pardon
them. There was an indefinable characteristic about
Donatello that set him outside of rules.
He caught Miriam's hand, kissed it, and gazed into her
eyes without saying a word. She smiled, and bestowed
on him a little careless caress, singularly like what one
would give 10 a pet dog when he puts himself in the way
to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either,
but only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and
a tap of the finger; it might be a mark of fondness, or
perhaps a playful pretence of punishment. At all events,
it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure ; inso-
much that he danced quite round the wooden railing that
fences in the Dying Gladiator.
“ It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miri-
am apart to Hilda.
“ What a child, or what a simpleton,
he is! I continually find myself treating Donatello as if
he were the merest unfledged chicken"; and yet he can
claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age,
for he is at least -- how old should you think him,
Hilda ?”
“Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at
Donatello; “but, indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on
second thoughts, or possibly older. He has nothing to
do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in his face."
“ All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam,
scornfully.
“ Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as
Hilda suggests," observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judg.


THE FAUN.
27
ing by tho date of this statue, which, I am more and
more convinced, Praxiveles carved on purpose for him, he
must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still
looks as young as ever.”
* What age have you, Donatello ?." asked Miriam.
"Signorina, I do not know," he answered; "no great
age, however; for I have only lived since I met you."
“Now, what old man of society could have turned a
silly compliment more smartly than that!” exclaimed
Miriam. “Nature and art are just at one sometimes.
But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Dona-
tello! Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to be-
ing immortal on earth. If I could only forget mine!”
“ It is too soon to wish that,” observed the sculptor;
"you are scarcely older than Donatello looks."
“I shall be content, then," rejoined Miriam, "if I could
only forget one day of all my life.” Then she seemed to
repent of this allusion, and hastily added, “A woman's
days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave even one of
them out of the account.”
The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a
mood in which all imaginative people, whether artists or
poets, love to indulge. In this frame of mind, they some
times find their profoundest truths side by side with the
idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without
distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any
considerable value to either. The resemblance between
the marble Faun and their living companion had made a
deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression on these three
friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region.


28
ROMANCE OF MUNTE BENI.
lifting up, as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their
heavy earthly feet from the actual soil of life. The world
had been sct afloat, as it were, for a moment, and relieved
them for just so long of all customary responsibility for
what they thought and said.
It might be under this influence or, perhaps, because
culptors always abuse one another's works — that Ken-
"on threw in a criticism upon the Dying Gladiator.
“I used to admire this statue exceedingly,” he re-
marked, “but, latterly, I find myself getting weary and
annoyed that the man should be such a length of time
leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so
terribly wrt, why does he not sink down and die without
further ado Flitting moments, imminent emergencies,
imperceptible ntervals between two breaths, ought not to
be encrusted with the eternal repose of marble; in any
sculptural subjen, there should be a moral standstill,
since there must o necessity be a physical one. Other-
wise, it is like flingi y a block of marble up into the air,
and by some trick o. enchantment, causing it to stick
there. You feel that i pught to come down, and are
dissatisfied that it does not ubey the natural law.”
“I see," said Miriam, mischievously, “you think that
sculpture should be a sort of fossilizing process. But, in
truth, your frozen art has nothing like the scope and free-
dom of Hilda's and mine. In painting there is no similar
objection to the representation of brief snatches of time;
perhaps, because a story can be so much more fully tola
in picture, and buttressed about with circumstances that
give it as epoch. For instance, a painter never would


THE FAUN.
29
have sent down yonder Faun out of his far antiquitý,
lonely and desolate, with no companion to keep his simple
heart warm."
“Ah, the Faun!” cried Hilda, with a little gesture of
impatience; “I have been looking at him too long; and
now, instead of a beautiful statue, immortally young, I
see only a corroded and discolored stone. This change is
very apt to occur in statues.”
“And a similar one in pictures, surely," retorted the
sculptor, “It is the spectator's mood that transfigures
the Transfiguration itself. I defy any painter to more
and elevate me without my own consent and assistance."
“Then you are deficient of a sense,” said Miriam.
The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that
rich gallery, pausing here and there, to look at the multi-
tude of noble and lovely shapes, which have been dug up
out of the deep grave in which old Rome lies buried. And,
still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the person
of
Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble
ghosts. Why should not each statue grow warm with
life! Antinous might lift his brow, and tell us why he is
forever sad. The Lycian Apollo might strike his lyre;
and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in red marble,
who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth,
leading yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter
their little hoofs upon the floor, and all join hands with
Donatello! Bacchus, too, a rosy flush diffusing itself
over his time-stained surface, could come down from his
pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to Dona.
tello's lips ; because the god recognizes him as the wood


30
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
land elf who so often shared his revels. And here in
this sarcophagus, the exquisitely carved figures might so
sume life, and chase one another round its verge with that
wild merriment which is so strangely represented on those
old burial coffers ; though still with some subtle allusion
to death, carefully veiled, but forever peeping forth amid
emblems of mirth and riot.
As the four friends descended the stairs, however, their
play of fancy subsided into a much more sombre mood; a
result apt to follow upon such exhilaration as that which
had so recently taken possession of them.
“Do you know," said Miriam, confidentially to Hilda,
“I doubt the reality of this likeness of Donatello to the
Faun, which we have been talking so much about? To
say
the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did Ken-
yon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you were
pleased to fancy, for the sake of a moment's mirth and
wonder.”
“I was certainly in earnest, and you seemed equally
80," replied Hilda, glancing back at Donatello, as if to re-
Assure herself of the resemblance. “ But faces change 80
much, from hour to hour, that the same set of features
has often no keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, which
looks at expression more than outline. How sad and
sombre he has grown, all of a sudden !”
Angry too, methinks! nay, it is anger much more
than sadness," said Miriam. “I have seen Donatello in
this mood once or twice before. If you consider him
well, you will observe an odd mixture of the bull-dog, or
some other equally fierce brute, in our friend's composie


THE FAUN.
81
tion; a trait of savageness hardly to be expected in such
a gentle creature as he usually is. Donatello is a very
strange young man. I wish he would not haunt
my
foot-
steps so continually.”
“You have bewitched the poor lad,” said the sculptor
laughing. “You have a faculty of bewitching people,
and it is providing you with a singular train of followery.
I see another of them behind yonder pillar; and it is his
presence that has aroused Donatello's wrath.”
They had now emerged from the gateway of the
palace; and partly concealed by one of the pillars of the
portico, stood a figure such as may often be encountered
in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere else.
He looked as if he might just have stepped out of a pic-
ture, and, in truth, was likely enough to find his way into
a dozen pictures; being no other than one of those living
models, dark, bushy-bearded, wild of aspect and attire,
whom artists convert into saints or assassins, according as
their pictorial purposes demand.
“Miriam,” whispered Hilda, a little startled, “it is your
Qedel."


32
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
CHAPTER III.
SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES.
MIRIAM's model has so important a connection with
our story, that it is essential to describe the singular mode
of his first appearance, and how he subsequently became
a self-appointed follower of the young female artist. In
the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to
certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself.
There was an ambiguity about this young Indy, which,
though it did not necessarily imply anything wrong, would
have operated unfavorably as regarded her reception in
society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, that no-
body knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil
She had made her appearance without introduction had
taken a studio, put her card upon the door, and showed
very considerable talent as a painter in oils. Her fellow-
professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant
criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well
enough for the idle half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking
both the trained skill and the practice that distinguish the
works of a true artist.
Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam',


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES.
33
pictures met with good acceptance among the patrr 29 of
modern art. Whatever technical merit they lacked, its
absence was more than supplied by a warmth and passion-
ateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her
productions, and which all the world could feel. Her
nature had a great deal of color, and, in accordance with
it, so likewise had her pictures.
Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse ;
her manners were so far from evincing shyness, that it
seemed easy to become acquainted with her, and not diffi-
cult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy
Such, at least, was the impression which she made, upon
brief contact, but not such the ultimate conclusion of those
who really sought to know her. So airy, free, and affa-
ble was Miriam's deportment towards all who came within
her sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious
of the fact; but so it was, that they did not get on, and
were seldom any farther advanced into her good graces
to-day than yesterday. By some subtle quality, she kept
people at a distance, without so much as letting them
know that they were excluded from her inner circle.
She resembled one of those images of light, which con-
jurers evoke and cause to shine before us, in apparçat
tangibility, only an arm's length beyond our grasp : we
make a step in advance, expecting to seize the illusion,
but find it still precisely so far out of our reach. Finally,
society began to recognize the impossibility of getting
nearer to Miriam, and gruflly acquiesced.
There were two persons, however, whom she appeared
to acknowledge as friends in the closer and truer sense of
2 *


34
ROMANCE OF MONTE BFNI.
the word ; and both of these more favored individuals did
credit to Miriam's selection. One was a young
American
sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increasing celebrity;
the other, a girl of the same country, a painter like Miriam
herself, but in a widely different sphere of art. Her
heart flowed out towards these two; she requited herself
by their society and friendship (and especially by Hilda's)
for all the loneliness with which, as regarded the rest of
the world, she chose to be surrounded. Her two friends
were conscious of the strong, yearning yrasp which Miriam
laid
upon them, and
gave her their affection in full meas-
ure ; Hilda, indeed, responding with the fervency of a
girl's first friendship, and Kenyon with a manly regard,
in which there was nothing akin to what is distinctively
called love.
A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between these
three friends and a fourth individual ; it was a young
Italian, who, casually visiting Rome, had been attracted
by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a remarkable
degree. He had sought her, followed her, and insisted,
with simple perseverance, upon being admitted at least to
her acquaintance; a boon which had been granted, when
a more artful character, seeking it by a more subtle mode
of pursuit, would probably have failed to obtain it. This
young man, though anything but intellectually brilliant,
had many agreeable characteristics which won him the
kindly and half-contemptuous regard of Miriam and her
Iwo friends. It was he whom they called Donatello, and
whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteler
forms the key-note of our narrative.


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES.
35
Such was the position in which we find Miriam soine
few months after her establishment at Rome. It must
be added, however that the world did not permit her to
hide her antecedents without making her the subject of a
good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, consider-
ing the abundance of her personal charms, and the degree
of notice that she attracted as an artist. There were
many stories about Miriam's origin and previous life,
some of which had a very probable air, while others were
evidently wild and romantic fables. We cite a few, leave
ing the reader to designate them either under the proba-
ble or the romantic head.
It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daughter
and heiress of a great Jewish banker, (an idea perhaps
suggested by a certain rich Oriental character in her
face,) and had fled from her paternal home to escape a
union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden
brotherhood; the object being, to retain their vast accu-
mulation of wealth within the family. Another story
hinted, that she was a German princess, whom, for rea-
sons of state, it was proposed to give in marriage either
to a decrepit sovereign, or a prince still in his cradle.
According to a third statement, she was the offspring of a
Southern American planter, who had given her an elabo-
rate education and endowed her with his wealth ; but the
one burning drop of African blood in her veins so affected
her with a sense of ignominy, that she relinquish 3d all,
and fled her country. By still another account sne was
the lady of an English nobleman; and, out of mere love
and honor of art, had thrown aside the splendor of her


36
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
rank, and come to seek a subsistence by her pencil in a
Roman studio.
In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be instigated
by the large and bounteous impression which Miriam in-
variably made, as if necessity and she could have nothing
to do with one another. Whatever deprivations she un-
derwent must needs be voluntary. But there were other
Burmises, taking such a commonplace view as that Miriam
was the daughter of a merchant or financier, who had
been ruined in a great commercial crisis ; and, possessing
a taste for art, she had attempted to support herself by
the pencil, in preference to the alternative of going out as
governess.
Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she
looked, was plucked up out of a mystery, and had its
roots still clinging to her. She was a beautiful and attrac-
tive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, and all
Burrounded with misty substance ; so that the result was
to render her sprite-like in her most ordinary manifesta-
tions. This was the case even in respect to Kenyon and
Hilda, her especial friends. But such was the effect of
Miriam's natural language, her gene: osity, kindliness, and
native truth of character, that these two received her as a
dear friend into their hearts, taking her good qualities as
evident and genuine, and never imagining that what was
hidden must be therefore evil.
We now proceed with our narrative.
The same party of friends, whom we havu seen &: the
sculpture gallery of the Capitol, chanced to have gono
together, some months before, to the catacomb of St. Ca


SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCUS.
37
lixtus. They went joyously down into that vast tomb,
and wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in
which reminiscences of church-aisles and grimy cellars
and chiefly the latter seemed to be broken into fiage
ments, and hopelessly intermingled. The intricate pas-
sages along which they followed their guide had been
hewn, in some forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly
stone. On either side were lorizontal niches, where, il
they held their torches closely, the shape of a human
body was discernible in white ashes, into which the entire
mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among
all this extinct dust, there might perchance be a thigh.
bone, which crumbled at a touch ; or possibly a skull,
grinning at its own wretched plight, as is the ugly and
empty habit of the thing.
Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so
that, through a crevice, a little daylight glimmered down
upon them, or even a streak of sunshine peeped into 1
burial niche; then again, they went downward by gradu.al
descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and
deeper recesses of the earth. Here and there the narrow
and tortuous passages widened somewhat, developing
themselves into small chapels ; which once, no doubt, had
been adorned with marble-work and lighted with ever
burning lamps and tapers. All such illumination and
ornament, however, had long sin, e been extinguished and
stript away; except, indeed, that the low roofs of a few
of these ancient sites of worship were covered with dingy
stucco, and frescoed with scriptural scenes and subjects, in
she druariest stage of ruin.


38
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
In one such chapel, the guido showed them a low arch,
beneath which the body of St. Cecilia had been buried
after her martyrdom, and where it lay till a sculptor saw
it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble.
In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one con-
raining a skeleton, and the other a shrivelled body, which
still wore the garments of its former lifetime.
“ How dismal all this is i” said Hilda, shuddering. “I
do not know why we came here, nor why we should stay
a momert longer."
“I hate it ail!" aied Donatello, with peculiar energy.
* Dear friends, let us hasten back into the blessed day-
light !”
From th frst, Donatello had shown little fancy for the
expedition ; for, like most Italians, and in especial accord-
ance with the law of his own simple and physically happy
nature, this young man had an infinite repugnance to
graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the
Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death.
He shuddered, and looked fearfully round, drawing nearer
to Miriam, whose attractive influence alone had enticed
him into that gloomy region.
“ What a child you are, poor Donatelló!" she observed,
with the freedom which she always used towards him.
“You are afraid of ghosts !”
“Yes, signorina ; terribly afraid !” said the truthful
Donatello.
“I also believe in ghosts," answered Miriam, “and
could tremble at them, in a suitable place. But these
sepulchres are so old, and these skulls and white ashes so


SUBTERRANEAN RIMINISCENCES.
39
very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be haunted.
The most awful idea connected with the catacombs is
their interminable extent, and the possibility of going
Astray into this labyrinth of darkness, which broods
around the little glimmer of our tapers."
“ Has any one ever been lost here?” asked Kenyon
of the guide.
"Surely, signor ; one, no longer ago than my father's
time," said the guide; and he added, with the air of a
man who believed what he was telling, “but the first that
went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, who hid him-
self in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who
then dwelt and worshipped in these dismal places. You
have heard the story, signor? A miracle was wrought
upon the excursed one ; and, ever since (for fifteen centu-
ries at least), he has been groping in the darkness, seeking
his
way out of the catacomb."
“Has he ever been seen ?” asked Hilda, who had
great and tremulous faith in marvels of this kind.
“ These eyes of mine never beheld him,
-saints forbid !” answered the guide. “ But it is well
known that he watches near parties that come into the
catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to lead
some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for,
ulmost as much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion
s be miserable with him."
“Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates some-
hing amiable in the poor fellow, at all events,” observed
Kenyon.
They had now reached a larger chapel than those here
na; the


40
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
tofore seen ; it was of a circular shape, and though hewa
out of the solid mass of red sandstone, had pillars, and a
carved roof, and other tokens of a regular architectural
design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was ex-
ceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man's stature in
height, and only two or three paces from wall to wall
and while their collected torches illuminated this one,
small, consecrated spot, the great darkness spread all
round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our
little life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by
one.
· Why, where is Miriam ?” cried Hilda.
The party gazed hurriedly from face to face, and be-
came aware that one of their party had vanished in the
great darkness, even while they were shuddering into the
remote possibility of such a misfortune.


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB
CHAPTER IV
THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB.
She was
SUKELY, she cannot be lost !” exclaimed Kenyon
** It is but a moment since she was speaking.”
“No, no !” said Hilda, in great alarm.
behind us all; and it is a long while since we have heard
her voice!”
"Torches ! torches !” cried Donatello, desperately. "I
will seek her, be the darkness ever so dismal !”
But the guide held him back, and assured them all,
that there was no possibility of assisting their lost com-
panion, unless by shouting at the very top of their voices
As the sound would go very far along these close an:
narrow passages, there was a fair probability that Mirian
might hear the call, and be able to retrace her steps.
Accordingly, they all - Kenyon with his bass voice
Donatello with his tenor; the guide with that high and
hard Italian cry, which makes the streets of Rome sc
resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing
farther than the united uproar of the rest - begar to
shriek, halloo, and bellow, with the utmost force of their
lungs. And, not to prolong the reader's suspense, 'fcr we


ROMANCE OF MONTE BENÍ.
do not particularly seek to interest him in this scene, tell
ing it only on account of the trouble and strange entan
glement which followed,) they soon heard a responsive
call, in a female voice.
"It was the signorina !” cried Donatello, joyfully.
“Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam's voice," said
lfilda. “ And here she comes! Thank Heaven! Thank
Ileaven!”
The figure of their friend was now discernible by her
own torchlight, approaching out of one of the cavernous
passages. Miriam came forward, but not with the eager-
ress and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just rescued from
a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate
response to their inquiries and tumultuous congratula-
tions; and, as they afterwards remembered, there was
something absorbed, thoughtful, and self-concentrated in
her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, and
held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of which
was seen in the irregular twinkling of the flame. This
last was the chief perceptible sign of any recent agitation
or alarm.
“Dearest, dearest Miriam,” exclaimed Hilda, throwing
her arms about her friend, “where have you been stray-
ing from us? Blessed be Providence, which has rescued
you out of that miserable darkness !”
“ Hush, dear Hilda !” whispered Mirnam, with a
strange little laugh. “Are you quite sure that it was
Heaven's guidance which brought me back. If so, it
was by an odd messenger, as you will confess. See;
thora he stands."


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACUMB.
43
Startled at Miriam's words and manner, Hilda gazed
into the duskiness whither she pointed, and there beheld
a figure standing just on the doubtful limit of obscurity,
at the threshold of the small, illuminated chapel. Kenyon
discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with
his torch; although the guide attempted to dissuade him,
averring that, once beyond the consecrated precincts of
the chapel, the apparition would have power to tear him
limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, however, when
he afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the
guide manifested no such apprehension on his own ac-
count as he professed on behalf of others; for he kept
pace with Kenyon as the latter approached the figure,
though still endeavoring to restrain him.
In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a
view of the spectre as the smoky light of their torches,
struggling with the massive gloom, could supply.
The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even
melodramatic aspect.
He was clad in a voluminous
cloak, that seemed to be made of a buffalo's hide, and a
pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair outward,
which are still commonly worn by the peasants of the
Roman Campagna. In this garb, they look like antique
Satyrs; and, in truth, the Spectre of the Catacomb might
have represented the last survivor of that vanished race,
hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning over
his lost life of woods and streams.
Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat,
beneath the shadow of which a wild visage was indis-
tinctly seen, Moating away, as it were, into a ilusky wil.


44
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
derness of moustache and beard. His eyes winked, nad
turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom
nidnight would be more congenial than noonday.
On the whole, the spectre might have made a consider-
Able impression on the sculptor's nerves, only that he was
in the habit of observing similar figures, almost every
day, i'eclining on the Spanish steps, and waiting for some
artist to invite them within the magic realm of picture
Nor, even thus familiarized with the stranger's peculiari-
ties of appearance, could Kenyon help wondering to see
such a personage, shaping himself so suddenly out of the
void darkness of the catacomb.
“What are you?” said the sculptor, advancing his
torch nearer. “ And how long have you been wandering
here?
“A thousand and five hundred years !” muttered the
guide, loud enough to be heard by all the party. “It is
the old pagan phantom that I told you of, who sought to
betray the blessed saints !”
“Yes; it is a phantom!” cried Donatello, with a shud-
der. " Ah, dearest signorina, what fearful thing has
beset
you,
in those dark corridors !”
"Nonsense, Donatello," said the sculptor. “The man
is no more a phantom than yourself. The only marvel
is, how he comes to be hiding himself in the catacomb.
Possibly, our guide might solve the riddle.”
The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangi-
bility, at all events, and physical substance, by approach-
ing a step nearer, and laying his hand on Kenyon's arm.
“ Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the


TRE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB.
45
uarkness,” said he, in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great
deal of damp were clustering in his throat. “Henceforth,
I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. She
came to me when I sought her not. She has called me
forth, and must abide the consequences of my reappear.
ance in the world.”
“ Holy Virgin ! I wish the signorina joy of her prize,
said the guide, half to himself. “ And in any case, the
catacomb is well rid of him."
We need follow the scene no farther. So much is
essential to the subsequent narrative, that, during the
short period while astray in those tortuous passages,
Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and led him
forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the
torchlight, thence into the sunshine.
It was the further singularity of this affair, that the
connection, thus briefly and casually formed, did not
terminate with the incident that gave it birth. As if her
service to him, or his service to her, whichever it might
be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam's
regard and protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never
long allowed her to lose sight of him, from that day for-
ward. He haunted her footsteps with more than the
customary persistency of Italian mendicants, when once
they have recognized a benefactor. For days together
it is true, he occasionally vanished, but always reap-
peared, gliding after her through the narrow streets, or
climbing the hundred steps of her staircase and sitting at
ber threshold.
Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features


46
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
or some shadow or reminiscence of them, in many of her
sketches and pictures. The moral atmosphere of these
productions was thereby so influenced, that rival painters
pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which would
destroy all Miriam's prospects of true excellence in art.
The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made
its way beyond the usual gossip of the Forestieri, even
into Italian circles, where, enhanced by a still potent spirit
of superstition, it grew far more wonderful than as above
recounted. Thence, it came back among the Anglo-
Saxons, and was communicated to the German artists,
who so richly supplied it with romantic ornaments and
excrescences, after their fashion, that it became a fantasy
worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For nobody has any con-
science about adding to the improbabilities of a marvellous
tale.
The most reasonable version of the incident, that could
anywise be rendered acceptable to the auditors, was sub-
stantially the one suggested by the guide of the catacomb,
in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. This man, or
demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions
of the early Christians, probably under the Emperor
Diocletian, and penetrated into the catacomb of St. Calix.
tus, with the malignant purpose of tracing out the hiding-
places of the refugees. But, while he stole craftily
through those dark corridors, he chanced to come upon a
Sttle chapel, where tapers were burning before an altar
and a crucifix, and a priest was in the performance of his
sacred office. By divine indulgence, there was a single
moment's grace allowed to Memmius, during which, had


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATAJOMB.
47
ne been capable of Christian faith and love, he might
have knelt before the cross, and received the holy light
into his soul, and so have been blest forever. But he
resisted the sacred impulse. As soon, therefore, as that
one moment had glided by, the light of the consecrated
tapers, which represent all truth, bewildered the wretched
man with everlasting error, and the blessed cross itself
was stamped as a seal upon his heart, so that it should
never open to receive conviction.
Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted tho
wide and dreary precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as
some say, to beguile new victims into his own misery;
but, according to other statements, endeavoring to prevail
on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and guide
him out into the daylight. Should his wiles and entrea-
ties take effect, however, the man-demon would remain
only a little while above ground. He would gratify his
fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal mischief on his
benefactor, and perhaps bringing some old pestilence or
other forgotten and long-buried evil on society; or, pos..
sibly, teaching the modern world some decayed and dusty
kind of crime, which the antique Romans knew; and
then would basten back to the catacomb, which, after 80
long haunting it, has grown his most congenial home.
Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor
and the gentle Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous
fictions that had gone abroad in reference to her ad-
venture. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all
ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of
the niystery, since undeniably a mystery there was and


48
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
one sufficiently perplexing itself, without any help frome
the imaginative faculty. And, sometimes responding to
their inquiries with a melancholy sort of playfulness,
Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder fables than any
which German ingenuity or Italian superstition had con-
trived.
For example, with a strange air of seriousness over all
her face, only belied by a laughing gleam in her dark
eyes, she would aver that the spectre (who had been an
artist in his mortal lifetime) had promised to teach her a
long lost, but invaluable secret of old Roman fresco-paint-
ing. The knowledge of this process would place Miriam
at the head of modern art; the sole condition being
agreed upon, that she should return with him into his
sightless gloom, after enriching a certain extent of stuc-
coed wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs.
And what true votary of art would not purchase un-
rivalled excellence, even at so vast a sacrifice !
Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account,
Miriam replied, that, meeting the old infidel in one of the
dismal passages of the catacomb, she had entered into
controversy with him, hoping to achieve the glory and
satisfaction of converting him to the Christian faith.. For
the sake of so excellent a result, she had even staked her
own salvation against his, binding herself to accompany
him back into his penal gloom, if, within a twelvemonth's
space, she should not have convinced him of the errors
through which he had so long groped and stumbled. But,
alas! up to the present time, the controversy had gone
direfully in favor of the man-demon; and Miriam (as


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB.
43
she whispered in Hilda's ear) had awful forebodings, that,
in a few more months, she must take an eternal farewel
of the sun!
It was somewhat remarkable, that all her romantic
fantasies arrived at this selfsame dreary termination; it
appeared impossible for her even to imagine any other
than a disastrous result from her connection with her ill.
omened attendant.
This singularity might have meant nothing, however,
had it not suggested a despondent state of mind, which
was likewise indicated by many other tokens. Miriam's
friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in one way or
another, her happiness was very seriously compromised.
Her spirits were often depressed into deep melancholy.
If ever she was gay, it was seldom with a healthy cheer-
fulness. She grew moody, moreover, and subject to fits
of passionate ill-temper; which usually wreaked itself on
the heads of those who loved her best. Not that Miriam's
indifferent acquaintances were safe from similar outbreaks
of her displeasure, especially if they ventured upon any
allusion to the model. In such cases, they were left with
little disposition to renew the subject, but inclined, on the
other hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to her
discredit as the least favorable coloring of the facts wculd
allow.
It may occur to the reader, that there was really no
demand for so much rumor and speculation in regard to
in incident, which might well enough have been ex-
plained with but going many steps beyond the limits of
probability. The spectre might have been merely a
n
VOL. I.
3


50
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Roman beggar, whose fraternity often harbor in stranger
shelters than the catacombs; or one of those pilgrims,
who still journey from remote countries to kneel and
worship at the holy sites, among which these haunts of
the early Christians are esteemed especially sacred. Or,
as was perhaps a more plausible theory, he might be a
thief of the city, a robber of the Campagna, a political
offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his hand; whom
the negligence or connivance of the police allowed to take
refuge in those subterranean fastnesses, where such out-
laws have been accustomed to hide themselves from a far
antiquity downward. Or he might have been a lunatic,
fleeing instinctively from man, and making it his dark
pleasure to dwell among the tombs, like him whose awful
cry echoes afar to us from Scripture times.
And, as for the stranger's attaching himself so devot-
edly to Miriam, her personal magnetism might be allowed
a certain weight in the explanation. For what remains,
his pertinacity need not seem so very singular to those
who consider how slight a link serves to connect these
vagabonds of idle Italy with any person that may have
the ill-hap to bestow charity, or be otherwise serviceable
to them, or betray the slightest interest in their fortunes.
Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except
the deportment of Miriam herself; her reserve, her
brooding melancholy, her petulance, and moody passion.
If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms
might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and ex-
hausting influences of an imaginative art, exercised by a
delicate young woman, in the nervous and unwholesom


THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB.
ol
atniosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the view of
the case which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored to im.
press on their own minds, and impart to those whom their
opinions might influence.
One of Miriam's friends took the matter sadly to heart.
This was the young Italian. Donatello, as we have seen,
had been an eye-witness of the stranger's first appear.
ance, and had ever since nourished a singular prejudice
against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition.
It resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as
one of those instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which
the lower animals sometimes display, and which generally
prove more trustworthy than the acutest insight into
character. The shadow of the model, always flung into
the light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no
slight trouble' to Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so
remarkably genial and joyous, so simply happy, that he
might well afford to have something subtracted from his
comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upor what you
mained


19
BOMANCE OF MONTE BENI
CHAPTER V.
MIRIAM'S STUDIO.
The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three
hundred years ago, are a peculiar feature of modern
Rome, and interest the stranger more than many things
of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass
through the grand breadth and height of a squalid en-
trance-way, and perhaps see a range of dusky pillars,
forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in the
intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of
antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts that
have invariably lost - what it might be well if living
men could lay aside in that unfragrant atmosphere — the
Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older palace, are
set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which has
been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial
ruin which earlier barbarism had not already levelled
with the earth. Between two of the pillars, more-
over, stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and with
all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken
off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony
framework of some historic man, although now only a
Dose.


MIRIAM'S STUDIO.
53
receptacle for the rubbish of ihe courtyard, and a half-
worn broom.
In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky,
And with the hundred windows of the vast palace gazing
down upon it, from four sides, appears a fountain. It
brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes
from a Naiad's urn, or spirts its many little jets from
the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely gro-
tesque and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their
unnatural father, first produced them ; but now the
patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden:
hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the
cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature
takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cher-
ishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And,
hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! You
might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny water-
fall in the forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos
from the stately echoes that reverberate their natural lan-
guage. So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all
its three centuries of play!
In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared door-
way gives access to the staircase, with its spacious breadth
of low, marble steps, up which, in former times have gone
the princes and cardinals of the great Roman family who
built this palace. Or they have come down, with still
grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or
the Quirinal, there to put off their scarlet hats in ex.
change for the triple crown. But, in fine, all these illus-
trious personages have gone down their hereditary stair


54
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
case for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of
Ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires,
artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of every
degree; all of whom find such gilded and marble-panelled
saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or such homely
garrets as their necessity can pay for, within this one
multifarious abode. Only, in not a single nook of the
palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of a
vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy fireside or
Any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest or
the haughtiest occupant find comfort.
Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at
the sculpture gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello.
He ascended from story to story, passing lofty doorways,
set within rich frames of sculptured marble, and climbing
unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first piano
and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged
for a sort of Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect.
Steps of rough stone, rude wooden balustrades, a brick
pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on the walls ;
these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused
before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bear-
ing the name of Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here
Donatello knocked, and the door immediately fell some-
what ajar ; its latch having been pulled up by means of a
string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom
he found himself in Miriam's presence.
“ Come in, wild Faun," she said, “and tell me the latest
news from Arcady!”
The artist was not just then at her easel, but was


MIRIAM'S STUDIO.
55
busied with the feminine task of mending a pair of
glores.
There is something extremely pleasant, and even touch-
ing - at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect -
in this peculiarity of needle-work, distinguishing women
from men.
Our own sex is incapable of any such by-play
aside from the main business of life; but women be
they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with
intellect or genius, or endowed with awful beauty — have
always some little handiwork ready to fill the tiny gap of
every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the fingers
of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion;
the woman-poet can use it as adroitly as her pen; the
woman's eye, that has discovered a new star, turns from
its glory to send the polished little instrument gleaming
along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual fray in
her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us
in this respect.
The slender thread of silk or cotton
keeps them united with the small, familiar, gentle inter-
ests of life, the continually operating influences of which
do so much for the health of the character, and
carry
off
what would otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of
morbid sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs
along this electric line, stretching from the throne to the
wicker-chair of the humblest seamstress, and keeping high
and low in a species of communion with their kindred
heings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle
characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accom-
plishments love to sew; especially as they are never more
at home with their own hearts than while so occupied


56
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
And when the work falls in a woman's lap, of its owu
accord, and the needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a
sign of trouble, quite as trustworthy as the throb of the
heart itself. This was what happened to Miriam. Even
while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have
forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her
thoughts, and the torn glove to fall from her idle fingers.
Simple as he was, the young man knew by his sympathies
that something was amiss.
* Dear lady, you are sad," said he, drawing close to
her.
“ It is nothing, Donatello,” she replied, resuming her
work : "yes; a little sad, perhaps; but that is not strange
for us people of the ordinary world, especially for women.
You are of a cheerfuller race, my friend, and know noth-
ing of this disease of sadness. But why do you come
into this shadowy room of mine?”
“Why do you make it so shadowy?” asked he.
“We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a
partial light,” said Miriam, “ because we think it neces-
sary to put ourselves at odds with Nature before trying to
imitate her. That strikes you very strangely, does it
not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes, with
our artfully arranged lights and shadows. Amuse your-
self with some of mine, Donatello, and by and by I shall
be in the mood to begin the portrait we were talking
about."
The room had the customary aspect of a painter's
studio; one of those delightful spots that hardly seem to
belong to the actual world, but rather to be the outward


MIRIAMS STUDIO.
57
type of a poet's haunted imagination, where there are
glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and
objects grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere
find in reality.
The windows were closed with shutters,
or deeply curtained, except one, which was partly open to
a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only from high
upward that partial light which, with its strongly marker
contrast of shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing
objects pictorially. Pencil-drawings were pinned against
the wall or scattered on the tables. Unframed canvases
turned their backs on the spectator, presenting only a
blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever
riches of scenery or human beauty Miriam's skill had de-
picted on the other side.
In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half
startled at perceiving duskily a woman with long dark
hair, who threw up her arms with a wild gesture of tragic
despair, and appeared to beckon him into the darkness
along with her.
“Do not be afraid, Donatello," said Miriam, smiling to
see him peering doubtfully into the mysterious dusk.
" She means you no mischief, nor could perpetrate any if
she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of exceedingly
pliable disposition ; now a heroine of romance, and now
a rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed,
on purpose to wear rich shawls and other garments in a
becoming fashion. This is the true end of her being,
although she pretends to assume the most varied duties
and perform many parts in life, while really the poor pup-
pet has nothing on earth to do. Upon my wond, I am
3*


58
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
satirical unawares, and seem to be describing nine women
out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For most
purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. Would
I were like her!”
“ How it changes her aspect,” exclaimed Donatello
u to know that she is but a jointed figure. When my
eyes first fell upon her, I thought her arms moved, as if
beckoning me to help her in some direful peril.”.
Are
you
often troubled with such sinister freaks of
fancy?” asked Miriam. “I should not have supposed it.”
“ To tell you the truth, dearest signorina," answered
the young Italian, “I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy
houses, and in the dark. I love no dark or dusky corners,
except it be in a grotto, or among the thick green leaves
of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I
know many in the neighborhood of my home. Even
there, if a stray sunbeam steal in, the shadow is all the
better for its cheerful glimmer."
“ Yes; you are a Faun, you know," said the fair artist,
laughing at the remembrance of the scene of the day be-
fore. “But the world is sadly changed now-a-days; griev-
ously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy times
when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods,
playing hide-and-seek with the nymphs in grottoes and
nooks of shrubbery. You have reappeared on earth some
centuries too late."
“I do not understand you now," answered Donatello,
looking perplexed; "only, signorina, I am glad to have
my lifetime while you live; and where you are, be it in
ities or fields, I would fæin be there too."


MIRIAM'S STUDIO
59
* I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in
this way," said Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him.
• Many young women would think it behoved them to be
offended Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare
say. But he is a mere boy,” she added, aside, “ a simple
boy, putting his boyish heart to the proof on the first
woman whom he chances to meet. If yonder lay-figure
had had the luck to meet him first, she would have smit-
ten him as deeply as I.”
“ Are you angry with me?” asked Donatello, dolo-
rously.
“Not in the least," answered Miriam, frankly giving
him her hand. “Pray look over some of these sketches
till I have leisure to chat with you a little. I hardly
think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait to-
day."
Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel ; as
playful, too, in his general disposition, or saddening with
his mistress's variable mood like that or any other kindly
animal which has the faculty of bestowing its sympathies
more completely than men or women can ever do. Ac-
cordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his atten-
tion to a great pile and confusion of pen-and-ink sketches
ard pencil-drawings which lay tossed together on a table.
As it chanced, however, they gave the poor youth little
delight.
The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch,
in which the artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a
picture of Jael driving the nail through the temples of
Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable power, and


60
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
showed a touch or two that were actually life-like anu
death-like, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael
gave the first stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if
she herself were Jael, and felt irresistibly impelled to
make her bloody confession in this guise.
Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently
been that of perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a
high, heroic face of lofty beauty; but, dissatisfied either
with her own work or the terrible story itself, Miriam
had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which
at once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess
It was evident that a Jael like this would be sure to
search Sisera's pockets as soon as the breath was out of
his body.
In another sketch she had attempted the story of
Judith, which we see represented by the old masters sc
often, and in such various styles. Here, too, beginning
with a passionate and fiery conception of the subject in all
earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter scorn,
as it were, of the feelings which at first took such power-
ful possession of her hand. The head of Holofernes
(which by the by had a pair of twisted moustaches, like
those of a certain potentate-of the day) being fairly cut
off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling its features
into a diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung
right in Judith's face. On her part, she had the startled
aspect that night be conceived of a cook if a calf's head
should sneer at her when about to be popped into the
dinner-pot.
(iver and over again, there was the idea of Womens


MIRIAM'S STUDIO
61
acting the part of a revengeful mischief towards man.
It was, indeed, very singular to see how the artist's imag-
ination seemed to run on these stories of bloodshed, in
which woman's hand was crimsoned by the stain ; and
now, too, - in one form or another, grotesque or sternly
sad, — she failed not to bring out the moral, that woman
must strike through her own heart to reach a human life,
whatever were the motive that impelled her.
One of the sketches represented the daughter of Hero-
dias receiving the head of John the Baptist in a charger.
The general conception appeared to be taken from Ber-
nardo Luini's picture, in the Uffizzi gallery at Florence;
but Miriam had imparted to the saint's face a look of
gentle and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes
fixed upward at the maiden ; by the force of which mi-
raculous glance, her whole womanhood was at once awa-
kened to love and endless remorse.
These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Do-
ratello's peculiar temperament. He gave a shudder; his
face assumed a look of trouble, fear, and disgust; he
snatched up one sketch after another, as if about to tear
it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings,
he shrank back from the table and clasped his hands over
his eyes.
66 Ah!
“What is the matter, Donatello ?” asked Miriam, look-
ing up from a letter which she was now writing.
I did not mean you to see those drawings. They are
ngly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things that
I created, but things that haunt me. See' here are some
trifles that perhaps will please you better.”


62
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which is
dicated a happier mood of mind, and one, it is to be
hoped, more truly characteristic of the artist. Supposing
neither of these classes of subject to show anything of her
own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of
fancy, and a singular faculty of putting what looked like
heart into her productions. The latter sketches were
domestic and common scenes, so finely and subtilely ideal-
ized that they seemed such as we may see at any moment,
and everywhere; while still there was the indefinable
something added, or taken away, which makes all the dif-
ference between sordid life and an earthly paradise. The
feeling and sympathy in all of them were deep and true.
There was the scene, that comes once in every life, of the
lover winning the soft and pure avowal of bashful affec-
tion from the maiden, whose slender form half leans
towards his arm, half shrinks from it, we know not which.
There was wedded affection in its successive stages,
represented in a series of delicately conceived designs,
touched with a holy fire, that burned from youth to age
in those two hearts, and gave one identical beauty to the
faces, throughout all the changes of feature.
There was a drawing of an infants shoe, half worn
out, with the airy print of the blessed foot within ; a thing
that would make a mother smile or weep out of the very
depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother would not
have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little
shoe, until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful,
the depth and force with which the above, and other kin-
dred subjects were depicted, and the profound significance


MIRIAM'S STUDIO.
63
which they often acquired. The artist, still in her fresh
youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear
and rich experiences from her own life; unless, per
chance, that first sketch of all, the avowal of maiden affec.
tion, were a remembered incident, and not a prophecy.
But it is more delightful to believe, that, from first to last,
they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, deal-
ing with the warm and pure suggestions of a woman's
heart, and thus idealizing a truer and lovelier picture of
the life that belongs to woman, than an actual acquaint-
ance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have in-
spired. So considered, the sketches intimated such a
force and variety of imaginative sympathies as would
enable Miriam to fill her life richly with the bliss and
suffering of womanhood, however barren it might individ-
ually be.
There was one observable point, indeed, betekening
that the artist relinquished, for her personal self, the hap-
piness which she could so profoundly appreciate for
others. In all those sketches of common life, and the
affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed
apart; now it peeped between the branches of a shrub-
bery, amid which two lovers sat; now it was looking
through a frosted window, from the outside, while a young
wedded pair sat at their new fireside, within; and once it
leaned from a chariot, which six horses were whirling on-
ward in pomp and pride, and gazed at a scene of humble
enjoyment by a cottage-door. Always it was the same
figure, and always depicted with an expression of deep
radness; and in every instance, slightly as they were


ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
brought out, the face and form had the traits of Miriam &
own.
“Do you like these sketches better, Donatello ?” asked
Miriam.
“Yes," said Donatello, rather doubtfiilly.
“Not much, I fear,” responded she, laughing. And
what should a boy like you a Faun, too know about
the joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow,
of human life? I forgot that you were a Faun. You
cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can but half enjoy.
Here, now, is a subject which you can better appreciate.”
The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with
such extravagance of fun as was delightful to behold;
and here there was no drawback, except that strange sigla
and sadness which always come when we are merriest.
“I am going to paint the picture in oils,” said the ar-
tist ; " and I want you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer
of them all. Will you sit for me, some day? - or, rather,
dance for me?”
“Oh! most gladly, signorina !” exclaimed Donatello
“ See; it shall be like this.”
And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the
studio, like an incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last or
the extremity of one toe, as if that were the only portion
of himself, whereby his frisky nature could come in con
tact with the earth. The effect in that shadowy chamber
whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine,
was as enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to
shimmer in and frolic around the walls, and finally rest
just in the centre of the floor.


MIRIAM'S STUDIO
62
* That was admirable :” said Miriam, with an apprcv-
aug smile. "If I can catch you on my canvas, it will be
& glorious picture ; only I am afraid you will dance out
of it, by the very truth of the representation, just when I
shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of
these days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhi-
bition, you shall see what has been shown to no one
else.”
She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture
with its back turned towards the spectator. Reversing
the position, there appeared the portrait of a beautiful
woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even so
many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed
to get into your consciousness and memory, and could
never afterwards be shut out, but haunted your dreams,
for pleasure or for pain ; holding your inner realm as a
conquered territory, though without deigning to make her-
self at home there.
She was very youthful, and had what was usually
thoug'at to be a Jewish aspect; a complexion in which
there was no roseate bloom, yet neither was it pale; dark
eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your glance
would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had
not sounded, though it lay open to the day. She had
black, abundant hair, with none of the vulgar glossiness
of other women's sable locks; if she were really of Jewish
blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory such
as crowns no Christian maiden's head. Gazing at this
portrait, you saw what Rachel might have been, when
Jarob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, and


$6
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
-
seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be whas
Judith was, when she vanquished Holofernes with her
beauty, and slew him for too much adoring it.
Miriam watched Donatello's contemplation of the pict-
ure, and seeing his simple rapture, a smile of pleasure
brightened on her face, mixed with a little scorn ; at least,
her lips curled and her eyes gleamed, as if she disdained
either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it.
“ Then you like the picture, Donatello?” she asked.
"Oh, beyond what I can tell !” he answered. “So
beautiful! so beautiful!”
“ And do you recognize the likeness ?”
"Signora," exclaimed Donatello, turning from the pict-
ure to the artist, in astonishment that she should ask the
question, “ the resemblance is as little to be mistaken as
if you had bent over the smooth surface of a fountain, and
possessed the witchcraft to call forth the image that you
made there! It is yourself !”
Donatello said the truth; and we forbore to speak
descriptively of Miriam's beauty earlier in our narrative,
because we foresaw this occasion to bring it perhaps more
forcibly before the reader.
We know not whether the portrait were a flattered
likeness ; probably not, regarding it merely as the delinea-
tion of a lovely face; although Miriam, like all self-paint-
ers, may have endowed herself with certain graces which
other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of paint-
ing their own portraits ; and, in Florence, there is a
gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustrious,
in all of which there are autobiographical characteristics


MIRIAM'S STUDIO.
67
60 to speak; traits, expressions, loftinesses, and amenities,
which would have been invisible, had they not been
painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are
aone the less. Miriam, in like manner, had doubtless
conveyed some of the intimate results of her heart-knowl-
edge into her own portrait, and perhaps wished to try
whether they would be perceptible to so simple and pat
oral an observer as Donatello.
“Does the expression please you?” she asked.
“Yes," said Donatello, hesitatingly; “if it would only
smile so like the sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is
sadder than I thought at first. Cannot you
make
your
self smile a little, signorina?”
“A forced smile is uglier than a frown,” said Miriam,
a bright, natural smile breaking out over her face, even
As she spoke.
“Oh! catch it now!” cried Donatello, clapping his
bands. “Let it shine upon the picture! There! it has
vanished already! And you are sad again, very sad ;
and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil
had befallen it in the little time since I looked last.”
“How perplexed you seem, my friend !” answered
Miriam. “I really half believe you are a Faun, there is
such a mystery and terror for you in these dark moods,
which are just as natural as daylight to us people of ordi
nary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other
faces with those innocent and happy eyes, and never
more to gaze at mine!”
“ You speak in vain,” replied the young man, with a
Iceper mphasis than she had ever before heard in his


68
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
-
voice; “shroud yourself in what gloom you will, I must
needs follow you.”
“Well, well, well,” said Miriam, impatiently : “but
leave me now; for, to speak plainly, my good friend, you
grow a little wearisome. I walk this afternoon in the
Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your pleas
ure."


THE VIRGIN'S SUPINE.
09
CHAPTER VI.
THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE.
;
AFTER Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself
came forth, and taking her way through some of the intri-
cacies of the city, entered what might be called either a
widening of a street, or a small piazza. The neighbor-
hood comprised a baker's oven, emitting the usual fra-
grance of sour bread; a shoe shop; a linen-draper's shop;
a pipe and cigar shop ; a lottery office; a station for
French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in front; and a
fruit stand, at which a Roman matron was selling the
dried kernels of chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some
bouquets of yesterday. A church, of course, was near at
hand, the façade of which ascended into lofty pinnacles,
whereon were perched two or three winged figures of
stone, either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trum-
pets in close vicinity to the upper windows of an old
and shabby palace. This palace was distinguished by
a feature not very common in the architecture of Ro
man edifices; that is to say, a mediæval tower, square
massive, lofty, and battlemented and machicolated at the
summit.


'70
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine
of the Virgin, such as we see everywhere at the street-
corners of Rome, but seldom or never, except in this soli-
tary instance, at a height above the ordinary level of
men's views and aspirations. Connected with this old
tower and its lofty shrine, there is a legend which we
cannot here pause to tell; but for centuries a lamp has
been burning before the Virgin's image, at noon, at mid-
night, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be kept
burning forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else
the tower itself, the palace, and whatever estate belongs
to it, shall pass from its hereditary possessor, in accord-
ance with an ancient vow, and become the property of the
Church.
As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw
not, indeed, the flame of the never-dying lamp, which
was swallowed up in the broad sunlight that brightened
the shrine — but a flock of white doves, skimming, flut-
tering, and wheeling about the topmost height of the
tower, their silver wings flashing in the pure transparency
of the air. Several of them sat on the ledge of the
upper window, pushing one another off by their eager
struggle for this favorite station, and all tapping their
beaks and flapping their wings tumultuously against the
panes; some had alighted in the street, far below, but
flew hastily upward, at the sound of the window being
thrust ajar, and opening in the middle, on rusty hinges, as
Roman windows do.
A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at
the aperture for a single instant, and threw forth as much


THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE
n]
As her two sinall hands could hold of some kind of food,
for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It seemed greatly
to the taste of the feathered people ; for they tried to
suatch beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air,
and rushed downward after it upon the pavement.
“What a pretty scene this is,” thought Miriam, with #
kindly smile, “ and how like a dove she is herself, the
fair, pure creature ! The other doves know her for a
sister, I am sure.”
Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace,
and turning to the left, began to mount flight after flight
of a staircase, which, for the loftiness of its aspiration,
was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at all events, the
staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which
is heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the
uncomfortable paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reëcho-
ing in the high and narrow streets, grew faint and died
away; as the turmoil of the world will always die, if we
set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher
still; and now, glancing through the successive windowe
that threw in their narrow light upon the stairs, her view
Gretched across the roofs of the city, unimpeded even by
the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of churches ascend
into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses op
a level with her eye; except, that, out of the very
heart
of Rome, the column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward,
with St. Paul upon its summit, the sole human form that
seems to have kept her company.
Finally, the staircase came to an end ; save that, OR
one side of the little entry where it terminated, a flight


72
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
of a dozen steps gave access to the roof of the tower and
the legendary shrine. On the other side was a door, at
which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announce-
ment of her presence than with any doubt of hospitable
welcome; for, awaiting no response, she lifted the latch
and entered.
“What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear
Hilda!” she exclaimed. “ You breathe sweet air, above
all the evil scents of Rome; and even so, in
your
maiden
elevation, you dwell above our vanities and passions, our
moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for
your nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the
Catholics were to make a saint of you, like your name-
sake of old ; especially as you have almost avowed your-
self of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp
alight before the Virgin's shrine.”
“ No, no, Miriam !” said ·Hilda, who had come joyfully
forward to greet her friend. - “ You must not call me a
Catholic. A Christian girl even a daughter of the
Puritans may surely pay honor to the idea of divine
Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her fore-
fathers. But how kind you are to climb into my dove-
cote!”
- It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed," answered
Miriam ; “I should think there were three hundred stairs
at least."
“ But it will do you good,” continued Hilda. “ A
height of some fifty feet above the roofs of Rome gives
me all the advantages that I could get from fifty miles of
distanc. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that some-


THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE.
73
times I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the
top of my tower, in the faith that I should float up-
ward."
"Oh, pray don't try it !” said Miriam, laughing." If
it should turn out that you are less than an angel, you
would find the stones of the Roman pavement very
hard ;
and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never
come down among us again.”
This young American girl was an example of the free-
dom of life, which it is possible for a female artist to enjoy
at Rome. She dwelt in her tower, as free to descend into
the corrupted atmosphere of the city beneath, as one of
her companion doves to fly downward into the street ;
all alone, perfectly independent, under her own sole guar-
dianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose shrine
she tended ; doing what she liked, without a suspicion
or a shadow upon the snowy whiteness of her fame.
The customs of artist life bestow such liberty upon the
6ex, which is elsewhere restricted within so much nar-
rower limits; and it is perhaps an indication that, when
ever we admit women to a wider scope of pursuits and
professions, we must also remove the shackles of our
present conventional rules, which would then become an
insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The system
seems to work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many
other cases, as in Hilda's, purity of heart and life are
allowed to assert themselves, and to be their own proof
and security, to a degree unknown in the society of other
cities.
Hilda, in her native land, had early shows what was
VOL. I.
4


74
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
pronounced by connoisseurs a decided genius for the pro
torial art. Even in her school days —- still not so very
distant- she had produced sketches that were seized
upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest
tresoures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined,
lacking, perhaps, the reality which comes only from a
close acquaintance with life, but so softly touched with
feeling and fancy that you seemed to be looking at
humanity with angels' eyes. With years and experience
she might be expected to attain a darker and more forci.
ble touch, which would impart to her designs the relief
they needed. Had Hilda remained in her own country
it is not improbable that she might have produced original
works worthy to hang in that gallery of native art which,
we hope, is destined to extend its rich length through
many future centuries. An orphan, however, without
near relatives, and possessed of a little property, she had
found it within her possibilities to come to Italy; that
central clime, whither the eyes and the heart of every
artist turn, as if pictures could not be made to glow in
any other atmosphere, as if statues could not assume
grace and expression save in that land of whitest mar.
ble.
Hilda's gentle courage had brought her safely over
land and sea ; her mild, unflagging perseverance had
made a place for her in the famous city, even like a
flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little earth to
grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may
fasten. Here she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a friend
or two in Rome, but no home companion except the flock


THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE.
of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous chainber contiguous
to her own. They soon became as familiar with the fair.
haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their
brood ; and her customary white robe bore such an anal.
ogy to their snowy plumage that the confraternity of
artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized her aërial
apartment as the Dove-cote. And while the other doves
flew far and wide in quest of what was good for them,
Hilda likewise spread her wings, and sought such ethe-
real and imaginative sustenance as God ordains for crea-
tures of her kind.
We know not whether the result of her Italian studies,
so far as it could yet be seen, will be accepted as a good
or desirable one. Certain it is, that, since her arrival in
the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to have entirely lost the
impulse of original design, which brought her thither.
No doubt the girl's early dreams had been of sending
forms and hues of beauty into the visible world out of
her own mind; of compelling scenes of poetry and his-
tory to live before men's eyes, through conceptions and
by methods individual to herself.
But more and more,
as she grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich
so many galleries in Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider
herself as an original artist. No wonder that this change
should have befallen her. She was endowed with a deep
and sensitive faculty of appreciation ; she had the gift of
discerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual
measure. No other person, it is probable, recognized so
adequately, and enjoyed with such deep delight the picto-
cial wonders that were here displayed. She saw -- na


76
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
not saw, but felt through and through a picture ; she
bestowed
upon
it all the warmth and richness of a woman's
sympathy; not by any intellectual effort, but by this
strength of heart, and this guiding light of sympathy, she
went straight to the central point, in which the master
had conceived his work. Thus, she viewed it, as it were,
with his own eyes, and hence her comprehension of any
picture that interested her was perfect.
This power and depth of appreciation depended partly
upon Hilda's physical organization, which was at once
healthful and exquisitely delicate ; and, connected with
this advantage, she had a command of hand, a nicety and
force of touch, which is an endowment separate from pic-
torial genius, though indispensable to its exercise.
It has probably happened in many other instances, as
it did in Hilda's case, that she ceased to aim at original
achievement in consequence of the very gifts which so
exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity with the
works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these
wonderful men so deeply, she was too grateful for all
they bestowed upon her, too loyal, too humble, in their
awful presence, to think of enrolling herself in their
society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they
had achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in
original designs, and nothing more was so desirable as to
diffuse those selfsame beauties more widely among man-
kind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the fanciful
ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures
to be conceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside
And, so far as those most intimate with her could discern,


THE VIRUIN'S SHRINE.
77
relinquished without a sigh. All that she would hence
forth attempt — and that most reverentiy, not to say
religiously was to catch and reflect some of the glory
which had been shed upon canvas from the immortal pen.
cils of old.
So Hilda became a copyist : in the Pinacotheca of the
Vatican, in the galleries of the Pamfili-Doria palace, the
Borghese, the Corsini, the Sciarra, her easel was set up
before many a famous picture of Guido, Domenichino,
Raphael, and the devoui painters of earlier schools than
these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands be-
held the slender, girlish figure in front of some world-
known work, absorbed, unconscious of everything around
her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. They
smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream
of copying those mighty achievements. But, if they
paused to look over her shoulder, and had sensibility
enough to understand what was before their eyes, they
soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old
masters were hovering over Hilda, and guiding her deli-
cate white hand. In truth, from whatever realm of bliss
and many-colored beauty those spirits might descend, it
would have been no unworthy errand to help so gentle
and pure a worshipper of their genius in giving the last
divine touch to her repetitions of their works.
Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was
not the phrase for them; a Chinese copy is accurate
Hilda's had that evanescent and ethereal life that flit-
ting fragrance, as it were, of the originals - which it is
as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor


78
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
to get the very movement and varying color of a living
man into his marble bust. Only by watching the efforts
of the most skilful copyists - men who spend a lifetime.
as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a single pict-
ure - and observing how invariably they leave out just
the indefinable charm that involves the last, inestimable
value, can we understand the difficulties of the task which
they undertake.
It was not Hilda's general practice to attempt repro-
ducing the whole of a great picture, but to select some
high, noble, and delicate portion of it, in which the spirit
and essence of the picture culminated : the Virgin's celes-
tial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued with
immortal light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his
dying face,—and these would be rendered with her whole
coul. If a picture had darkened into an indistinct shadow
through time and neglect, or had been injured by clean-
ing, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to
possess the faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The
copy would come from her hands with what the beholder
felt must be the light which the old master had left upon
the original in bestowing his final and most ethereal touch.
In some instances even (at least, so those believed who
best appreciated Hilda's power and sensibility) she had
been enabled to execute what the great master had
conceived in his imagination, but had not so perfectly
succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely not
mpossible when such depth of sympathy as she possessed
was assisted by the delicate skill and accuracy of he:
Jender hand In such cases the girl was but a finei


THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE.
79
Instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece of mechan-
ism, by the help of which the spirit of some great departed
painter now first achieved his ideal, centuries after his
own earthly hand, that other tool, had turned to dust.
Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however,
Hilda, or the Dore, as her well-wishers half laughingly
delighted to call her, had been pronounced by good judges
incomparably the best copyist in Rome. After minute
examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared
that she had been led to her results by following precisely
the same process step by step through which the original
painter had troaden to the development of his idea.
Other copyists --- if such they are worthy to be called
attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies
Copies of the old
masters in this sense are produced by thousands ; there
are artists, as we have said, who spend their lives in
painting the works, or perhaps one single work of one
illustrious painter over and over again: thus they convert
themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines.
Their performances, it is true, are often wonderfully de-
ceptive to a careless eye; but working entirely from the
outside and seeking only to reproduce the surface, these
men are sure to leave out that indefinable nothing, that
inestimable something, that constitutes the life and soul
through which the picture gets its immortality. Hilda
was no such machine as this; she wrought religiously,
and therefore wrought a miracle.
It strikes us that there is something far higher and
Qobler in all this, in her thus sacrificing herself to the
levout recognition of the highest excellence ir: art, han


80
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
there would have been in cultivating her not incousider
able share of talent for the production of works from her
own ideas.
She might have set up for herself, and won
no ignoble name; she might have helped to fill the
already crowded and cumbered world with pictures, not
destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so little,
of the best that has been done; she might thus have
gratified some tastes that were incapable of appreciating
Raphael. But this could be done only by lowering the
standard of art to the comprehension of the spectator.
She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish part,
laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of
enduring remembrance, at the feet of those great departed
ones, whom she so loved and venerated ; and therefore
the world was the richer for this feeble girl.
Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are con-
fined within itself, she won out that glory by patient faith
and self-devotion, and multiplied it for mankind. From
the dark, chill corner of a gallery - from some curtained
chapel in a church, where the light came seldom and
aslant -- from the prince's carefully guarded cabinet,
where not one eye in thousands was permitted to behold
it- she brought the wondrous picture into daylight, and
gave all its magic splendor for the enjoyment of the
world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one of
the rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to
recompense her in kind by admiring her generous self
surrender, and her brave, humble magnanimity in choos
ing to be the handmaid of those old magicians, instead of
a minor enchantress within a circle of her own.


THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE.
21
The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a vir-
gin's love! Would it have been worth Hilda's while to
relinquish this office for the sake of giving the world a
picture or two which it would call original ; pretty fancies
of snow and mounlight; the counterpart in picture of so
many feminire achievements in literature !


82
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER VII.
BEATRICE.
MIRIAM was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home
for being endowed with an infinite activity, and taking ex-
quisite delight in the sweet labor of which her life was
full, it was Hilda's practice to flee abroad betimes and
haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but
they were very few) whom she ever chose to be the com-
panions of her day; they saw the art-treasures of Rome,
under her guidance, as they had never seen them before
Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly about
pictures; she would probably have been puzzled by the
technical terms of her own art. Not that she had much
to say about what she most profoundly admired; but
even her silent sympathy was so powerful that it drew
your own along with it, endowing you with a second-sight
that enabled you to see excellences with almost the depth
and delicacy of her own perceptions.
All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time,
knew Hilda by sight. Unconsciously, the poor child had
become one of the spectacles of the Eternal City, and
was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her easel


BEATRICE.
83
among the wild-bearded young men, the white-haired old
ones, and the shabbily dressed, painfully plain women,
who make up the throng of copyists. The old custodes
knew her well, and watched over her as their own child.
Sometimes, a young artist, instead of going on with a
copy of the picture before which he had placed his easel,
would enrich his canvas with an original portrait of Hilda
at her work. A lovelier subject could not have been
selected, nor one which required nicer skill and insight in
doing it anything like justice. She was pretty at all
times, in our native New England style, with her light-
brown ringlets, her delicately tinged, but healthful cheek,
her sensitive, intelligent, yet most feminine and kindly
face. But, every few moments, this pretty and girlish
face grew beautiful and striking, as some inward thought
and feeling brightened, rose to the surface, and then,
as it were, passed out of sight again; so that, taking
into view this constantly recurring change, it really
seemed as if Hilda were only visible by the sunshine of
her soul.
In other respects, she was a good subject for a portraits
being distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, which
was perhaps unconsciously bestowed by some minute pe-
culiarity of dress, such as artists seldom fail to assume.
The effect was to make her appear like an inhabitant of
picture land, a partly ideal creature, not to be handled,
oor even approached too closely. In her feminine self,
Hilda was natural, and of pleasant deportment, endowed
with a mild cheerfulness of temper, not overflowing with
animal spirits, but never long despondent There was a


84
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
certain simplicity that made every one her friend, but it
was combined with a subtle attribute of reserve, that in.
sensibly kept those at a distance who were not suited to
her sphere.
Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever
known. Being a year or two the elder, of longer ac-
quaintance with Italy, and better fitted to deal with its
crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda to ar
range her way of life, and had encouraged her through
those first weeks, when Rome is so dreary to every new-
comer.
“ But how lucky that you are at home to-day,” said
Miriam, continuing the conversation which was begun,
many pages back. “I hardly hoped to find you, though
I had a favor to ask a commission to put into your
charge. But what picture is this?”
" See !” said Hilda, taking her friend's hand and lead-
ing her in front of the easel. “ I wanted your opinion
of it.”
“ If
you have really succeeded,” observed .Miriam, rec-
oguizing the picture at the first glance, “it will be the
greatest miracle
you
have
yet achieved.”
The picture represented simply a female head; a very
youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in
white drapery, from beneath which strayed a lock or two
of what seemed a rich, though hidaan luxuriance of au-
burn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met
those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, inef-
tectual effort to escape. There was a little redness about
"he oyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would que#


BEATRice
85
sion whether or no the girl had been werping. The
whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturb
ance of any single feature ; nor was it easy to see why
the expression was not cheerful or why a single touch of
the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness.
But, in fact, it was the very saddest picture ever painted
or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of
jorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by
& sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed this
beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set
her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which – while
yet her face is so close before us - makes us shiver as
at a spectre.
“Yes, Hilda," said her friend, after closely examining
the picture," you have done nothing else so wonderful as
This. But by what unheard-of solicitations or secret in-
terest have you obtained leave to copy Guido's Beatrice
Cenci? It is an unexampled favor ; and the impossibility
of getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture-
shops with Beatrices, gay, grievous, or coquettish, but
never a true one among them.”
“ There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard,”
said Hilda, “by an artist capable of appreciating the
spirit of the picture. It was Thompson, who brought it
away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the rest of us) to
set up his easel before it. As for me, I knew the Prince
Barberini would be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no re-
source but to sit down before the picture, day after day,
and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it is now pho-
tographed there. It is a sad face to keep so close to one's


86
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
heart; only, what is so very beautiful can never be quite
a pain. Well; after studying it in this way, I know not
how many times, I came home, and have done my best
to transfer the image to canvas.”
“Here it is then," said Miriam, contemplating Hilda'
work with great interest and delight, mixed with the pain-
ful sympathy that the picture excited. “Everywhere we
see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, engravings,
lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing
the poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leet of coquetry, a
merry look as if she were dancing, a piteous look as if
she were beaten, and twenty other modes of fantastic
mistake. But here is Guido's very Beatrice; she that
slept in the dungeon, and awoke betimes, to ascend the
scaffold. And now that you have done it, Hilda, can you
interpret what the feeling is, that gives this picture such a
inysterious force ? For my part, though deeply sensible
of its influence, I cannot seize it."
“ Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. " But while
I was painting her, I felt all the time as if she were try-
mg to escape from my gaze. She knows that her sorrow
is so strange and so immense, that she ought to be solitary
forever, both for the world's sake and her own ; and this
is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice
and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infi-
nitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, and to feel that
nothing can be done to help or comfort her; neither does
she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her
case better than we do. She is a fallen angel -- fallen,
and yet sinless ; and it is only this depth of sorrow with


BEATRICE.
87
its weight and darkness, that keeps her down upon earth,
and brings her within our view even while it sets her be-
fond our reach.”
"You deem her sinless ? ” asked Miriam ; " that is not
80 plain to me. If I can pretend to see at all into that
dim region, whence she gazes so strangely and sadly at
us, Beatrice's own conscience does not acquit her of some.
thing evil, and never to be forgiven!”
“Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as
sin would,” said Hilda.
“Then,” inquired Miriam, “ do you think that there
was no sin in the deed for which she suffered ?”
“ Ah !” replied Hilda, shuddering, “I really had quite
forgotten Beatrice's history, and was thinking of her only
as the picture seems to reveal her character. Yes, yes;
it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she feels it
Therefore it is that the forlorn creature so longs
to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into nothing-
ness! Her doom is just !”
“Oh! Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel
sword,” exclaimed her friend. “Your judgments are
often terribly severe, though you seem all made up
of
gentleness and mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been
80 great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue
possible in the circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin,
it
may
have been because her nature was too feeble for
the fate imposed upon her. Ah!” rontinued Miriam,
passionately, “if I could only get within 'her conscious-
ness !-- if I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci's ghost, and
draw it into myself! I would give my life to know
to be so.


88
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
whether she thought herself innocent, or the ore greai
criminal since time began.”
As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked
from the picture into her face, and was startled to observe
that her friend's expression had become almost exactly
that of the portrait; as if her passionate wish and strug.
gle to penetrate poor Beatrice's mystery had been suc-
cessful.
“Oh! for Heaven's sake, Miriam, do not look so !”
she cried. “ What an actress you are! And I never
guessed it before. Ahì now you are yourself again!”
she added, kissing her. “ Leave Beatrice to me in fu-
ture.”
“Cover up your magical picture, then," replied her
friend, “ else I never can look away from it. It is strange,
dear Hilda, how an innocent, delicate, white soul like
yours has been able to seize the subtle mystery of this
portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it 80
perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do
you know, I have come to you this morning on a small
matter of business. Will you undertake it for me?”
“Oh, certainly," said Hilda, laughing; “if you choose
to trust me with business.”
• Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty," answered
Miriam; "merely to take charge of this packet, and
keep it for me awhile.”
"But why not keep it yourself?” asked Hilda.
“Partly because it will be safer in your charge," said
her friend. “I am a careless sort of person in ordinary
things; while you, for all you dwell so high above the


BEATRICE.
89
me,
world, have certain good little housewifely ways of accus
racy and order. The packet is of some slight impor:
tance; and yet, it may be, I shall not ask you for it again
In a week or two, you know, I am leaving Rome. You,
setting at defiance the malaria fever, mean to stay here
and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer
Now, four months hence, unless you
hear more from
I would have you deliver the packet according to ita
address.”
Hilda read the direction: it was to Signore Luca Bar
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci, third piano.
" I will deliver it with my own hand,” said she, “pre-
cisely four months from to-day, unless you bid me to the
contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the ghost of Beatrice in
that grim old palace of her forefathers."
" In that case," rejoined Miriam, do not fail to speak
to her, and try to win her confidence. Poor thing! she
would be all the better for pouring her heart out freely,
and would be glad to do it, if she were sure of sympathy.
It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut up
within herself.” She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had
drawn over the picture, and took another long look at it,
-"Poor sister Beatrice! for she was still a woman,
Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what they might.
How well you have done it, Hilda! I know not whether
Guido will thank you, or be jealous of your rivalship.”
“ Jealous, indeed!” exclaimed Hilda. “If Guido had
not wrought through me, my pains would have been
thrown away."
" After all,” resumed Miriam, “if a woman had painted


90
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
66
the original picture, there might have been something in
it which we miss now. I have a great mind to under-
take a copy myself, and try to give it what it lacks
Well; good by. But, stay! I am going for a little air.
ing to the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon.
You will think it very foolish, but I always feel the safer
in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you are.
Will you come?"
“Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam," she replied, "I havo
set my heart on giving another touch or two to this pict-
ure, and shall not stir abroad till nearly sunset.”
Farewell, then,” said her visitor. “I leave you in
your dove-cote. What a sweet, strange life you lead here;
conversing with the souls of the old masters, feeding and
fondling your sister-doves, and trimming the Virgin's
'amp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you
tend her shrine ? »
"Sometimes I have been moved to do so," replied the
Dove, blushing and lowering her eyes ; “ she was a woman
Do
you
think it would be wrong?”
" Nay, that is for you to judge,” said Miriam ; “but
when you pray next, dear friend, remember me!”
She went down the long descent of the lower staircase,
and just as she reached the street the flock of doves
again took their hurried flight from the pavement to the
topmost window. She threw her eyes upward and beheld
them hovering about Hilda's head; for after her friend's
departure the girl had been more impressed than before
by something very sad and troubled in her manner.
She was, therefore, leaning forth from her airy abode
once.


BEATRICE
and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture
of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon
Miriam's heart and comfort its unknown sorrow a little.
Kenyon the sculptor, who chanced to be passing the head
of the street, took note of that ethereal kiss, and wished
ihat he could have caught it in the air and got Hilla's
leave to keep it.


92
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUBURBAN VILLA.
DONATELLO, while it was still a doubtful question be
twixt afternoon and morning, set forth to keep the appoint-
ment which Miriam had carelessly tendered him in the
grounds of the Villa Borghese.
The entrance to these grounds (as all my readers know,
for everybody now-a-days has been in Rome) is just out-
side of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not
very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architec-
ture, a minute's walk will transport the visitor from the
small, uneasy lava stones of the Roman pavement into
broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence a little farther
stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion.
A seclusion, but seldom a solitude ; for priest, noble, and
populace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman
air, find free admission, and come hither to taste the lan-
guid enjoyment of the daydream that they call life.
But Donatello's enjoyment was of a livelier kind. На
soon began to draw long and delightful breaths among
those shadowy walks. Judging by the pleasure ich
the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it might


THE SUBURBAN VILLA.
93
.
be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kins.
man, not far remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic
creature, to whose marble image he bore so striking a re-
semblance. How mirthful a discovery would it be (and
yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which
sported fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them
suddenly aside, and show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears !
What an honest strain of wildness would it indicate! and
into what regions of rich mystery would it extend Dona-
tello's sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no monstrous
chain) with what we call the inferior tribes of being,
whose simplicity, mingled with his human intelligence,
might partly restore what man has lost of the divine !
The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was
such as arrays, itself in the imagination when we read the
beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer
turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees,
than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the
Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-
honored were they, seemed to have lived for ages undis-
turbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe
any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had
already passed oụt of their dreamy old memories that
only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by
the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if
confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed
attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green
turf in ponderous grace, throwing abroad their greai
branches without danger of interfering with other trees,
though cther majestie trees grew near enough for (lignified


94
ROMANCE OF MONTE EENI.
society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there
a more venerable quietude than that which slept among
their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than
chat now gladdening the gentle gloom which these leafy
patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and subeid.
ing lawns.
In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted
their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of
stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the
air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that
you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there
were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge
funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round
about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open
spots were all a-bloom, even so early in the season, with
anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-colored,
and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fra-
grance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet your own
Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest
little English flower, and therefore of small account.
These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful
than the finest of English park-scenery, more touching,
more impressive, through the neglect that leaves nature
so much to her own ways and methods. Since man sel.
dom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way
and makes herself at home. There is enough of humai
care, it is true, bestowed long ago and still bestowed, to
prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and the
result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems
to have heen projected out of the poet's mind. If the


THE SUBURBAN VILLA.
95
ancient Faun were other than a mere creation of old po.
etry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must have
been in such a scene as this.
In the openings of the wood there are fountains plash-
ing into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy
with water-weeds; or they tumble like natural cascades
from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make
the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here
and there with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing
Roman inscriptions. Statues, gray with the long corro-
sion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half re-
veal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and
broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble
or granite porticoes, arches, are seen in the vistas of the
wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so
exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are
better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows
on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers
root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and
fronts of temples, and clamber at large over their pedi-
ments, as if this were the thousandth summer since their
winged seeds alighted there.
What a strange idea what a needless labor
to con
struct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin!
But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in
emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces,
are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions
have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result
of all is a scene, pensive, lovely, dream-like, enjoyable
and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in these


96
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
princely villa-residences in the neighborhood of Rome; a
scene that must have required generations and ages, dur-
ing which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought
kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold
it now.
The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is
a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of
80 much beauty thrown away, or only enjoyable at its
half-development, in winter and early spring, and never
to be dwelt amongst, as the home-scenery of any human
being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray
through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks
arm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of
the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveli-
ness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it
beyond the scope of man's actual possessions. But Dona-
tello felt nothing of this dream-like melancholy that haunts
the spot. As he passed among the sunny shadows, his
spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker of
the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the dance
of the leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the
green freshness, the old sylvan peace and freedom, were
all intermingled in those long breaths which he drew.
The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead
atmosphere in which he had wasted so many months, the
hard pavements, the smell of ruin and decaying genera-
tions, the chill palaces, the convent-bells, the heavy incense
of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow
streets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women
-- all the sense of these things rose from the young


THE SUBURBAN VILLA.
97
Man's consciousness like a cloud which had darkened over
dim without his knowing how densely.
He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and
pas intoxicated as by an exhilarating wine.
He ran
faces with himself along the gleam and shadow of the
wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough
of an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far on-
ward, as if he had flown thither through the air. In a
sudden raptare he embraced the trunk of a sturdy tree,
and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of affection
and capable of a tender response ; he clasped it closely in
his
arms, as a Fauu might have clasped the warm, femi-
nine grace of the lymph, whom antiquity supposed to
dwell within that rough, encircling rind. Then, in order
to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which his
kindred instincts linkoi him so strongly, he threw himself
at full length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kiss-
ing the violets and daisies, which kissed him back again,
though shyly, in their maiden fashion.
While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the
green and blue lizards, who had been basking on some
rock or on a fallen pillar that absorbed the warmth of the
sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with their small
feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and
sang their lictle roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of
alarm; they recognized him, it may be, as something
akin to themselves, or else they fancied that he was
rooted and grew there ; for these wild pets of nature
dreaded him no more in his buoyant life than if a mound
of soil and grass and flowers had long since covered his
VOL 1.
5


98
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
dead body, converting it back to the sympathics from
which human existence had estranged it.
All of us, after long abode in cities, have felt the blood
gush more joyously through our veins with the first breath
of rural air ; few could feel it so much as Donatello, a
ereature of simple elements, bred in the sweet sylvan life
of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the
mouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature
has been shut out for numberless centuries from those
stony-hearted streets, to which he had latterly grown
accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what
blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less
trodden piazzas, or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves
on the cornices of ruins. Therefore his joy was like
that of a child that had gone astray from home, and finds
him suddenly in his mother's arms again.
At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her
tryst, he climbed to the tiptop of the tallest tree, and
thence looked about him, swaying to and fro in the gentle
breeze, which was like the respiration of that great leafy,
living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole cir-
cuit of the enchanted ground; the statues and columns
pointing upward from among the shrubbery, the fountains
flashing in the sunlight, the paths winding hither and
thither, and continually finding out some nook of new
and ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its
marble front incrusted all over with bas-reliefs, and stat-
ues in its many niches. It was as beautiful as a fairy
palace, and seemed an abode in which the lord and lady
of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each


TICE SUBURBAN VILLA.
99
morning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams
of the past night could have depicted. All this he saw,
but his first glance had taken in too wide a sweep, and it
was not till his eyes fell almost directly beneath him, that
Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the path that
led across the roots of his very tree.
He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to
come close to the trunk, and then suddenly dropped from
an impending bough, and alighted at her side. It was as
if the swaying of the branches had let a ray of sunlight
through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the
gloomy meditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up
the pale, dark beauty of her face, while it responded
pleasantly to Donatello's glance.
"I hardly know,” said she, smiling, “whether you have
sprouted out of the earth, or fallen from the clouds. In
zither case, you are welcome.”
And they walked onward together.


100
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
CHAPTER IX.
THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
MIRIAM'S sadder mood, it might be, had at first an
effect on Donatello's spirits. It checked the joyous ebul-
lition into which they would otherwise have effervesced
when he found himself in her society, not, as heretofore,
in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky
and in those Arcadian woods. He was silent for awhile ;
it being, indeed, seldom Donatello's impulse to express
himself copiously in words. His usual modes of demon-
stration were by the natural language of gesture, the
instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the uncon-
scious play of his features, which, within a limited range
of thought and emotion, would speak volumes in a
moment.
By-and-by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's,
and was reflected back upon himself. He began inevi-
tably, as it were, to dance along the woodpath, flinging
himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. Often, too,
he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then
stood to watch her as she approached along the shadowy
and sun-fleckered path. With every step she took, he


THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
101
expressed his joy at her nearer and nearer presence by
what might be thought an extravagance of gesticulation,
but which doubtless was the language of the natural man,
though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that
words have been feebly substituted in the place of signs
and symbols. He gave Miriam the idea of a being not
precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and beauti
ful sense, an animal a creature in a state of develop
ment less than what mankind has attained, yet the moro
perfect within itself for that very deficiency. This idea
filled her mobile imagination with agreeable fantasies,
which, after smiling at them herself, she tried to convey
to the young man.
“What are you, my friend?” she exclaimed, alwaya
keeping in mind his singular resemblance to the Faun of
the Capitol. “If you are, in good truth, that wild and
pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make ma
known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts,
if anywhere. Knock at the rough rind of this ilex-tree,
and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the water-nymph to
rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist
pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall
shrink, even if one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr,
should come capering on his goat-legs out of the haunts
of far antiquity, and propose to dance with me among
these lawns! And will not Bacchus — with whom you
consorted so familiarly of old, and who loved you so well
-- will he not meet us here, and squeeze rich grapes into
his
сир
for
you
and me?"
Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily: indeed, in sym.


102
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
pathy with the mirth that gleamed out of Miriam's deep,
dark eyes. But he did not seem quite to understand her
mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain what kind of
creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic
kindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared
only to know that Miriam was beautiful, and that she
smiled graciously upon him; that the present moment
was very sweet, and himself most happy with the sun-
shine, the sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm,
which it enclosed within its small circumference. It
was delightful to see the trust which he reposed in
Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity; he asked
nothing, sought nothing, save to be near the beloved
object, and brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple
boon. A creature of the happy tribes below us some-
times shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a man,
seldom or never.
"Donatello," said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully,
but amused, yet not without a shade of sorrow, “you
seem very happy; what makes you so ? "
“ Because I love you!” answered Donatello.
He made this momentous confession as if it were the
most natural thing in the world; and, on her part-- such
was the contagion of his simplicity - Miriam heard it
without anger or disturbance, though with no responding
emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the limits
of Arcadia, and come under a civil polity where young
men might avow their passion with as little restraint as a
bird pipes its notes to a similar purpose.
"Why should you lov? me, foolish boy?” said she


THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
103
reason.
We have no points of sympathy at all. There are not
two creatures more unlike, in this wide world, than you
and I!”
“ You are yourself, and I am Donatello," replied
hc. “ Therefore I love you! There needs no other
reason."
Certainly, there was no better or more explicable
It might have been imagined that Donatello's
unsophisticated heart would be more readily attracted to
a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, than to
one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam's
seemed to be. Perhaps, on the other hand, his character
needed the dark element, which it found in her. The
force and energy of will, that sometimes flashed through
her eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not improb-
ably, the varying lights and shadows of her temper, now
so mirthful, and anon so sad with mysterious gloom, had
bewitched the youth. Analyze the matter as we may,
the reason assigned by Donatello himself was as satisfac-
tory as we are likely to attain.
Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that
aad passed. He held out his love so freely, in his
open
valm, that she felt it could be nothing but a toy, which
she mighi play with for an instant, and give back again.
And yet Donatello's heart was so fresh a fountain, that,
had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she
might have found it exquisite to slake her thirst with the
feelings that welled up and brimmed over from it. She
was far, very far, from the dusty mediæval epoch, when
some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even


104
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
for her, however, there was an inexpressible charm in tad
simplicity that prompted Donatello's words and deeds
though, unless she caught them in precisely the true light,
they seemed but folly, the offspring of a maimed or im-
perfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almost
admired, or wholly scorned him, and knew not which
estimate resulted from the deeper appreciation. But
it could not, she decided for herself, be other than an
innocent pastime, if they two - sure to be separated
by their different paths in life, to-morrow were to
gather up some of the little pleasures that chanced to
grow about their feet, like the violets and wood-anem
ones, to-day.
Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give
him what she still held to be a needless warning agairs
an imaginary peril.
“ If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a
dangerous person,” said she. “If you follow my foot-
steps, they will lead you to no good. You ought to be
afraid of me."
“I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe,'
he replied.
“And well you may, for it is full of malaria,” said
Miriam; she went on, hinting at an intangible confession,
such as persons with overburdened hearts often make to
children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, where
they think their secrets may be at once revealed and
buried. “ Those who come too near me are in danger
of great mischiefs, I do assure you. Take warning there.
fore! It is a sad fatality that has brought you from you


THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
105
lome among the Apennines some rusty old castle, I
suppose, with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian ere
vironment of vineyards, fig-trees, and olive-orchards-a
sad mischance, I say, that has transported you to my side.
You have had a happy life hitherto — have you not,
Donatello ?”
“Ol, yes," answered the young man; and, though not
of a retrospective turn, he made the best effort he could
to send his mind back into the past. “I remember think-
ing it happiness to dance with the contadinas at a village
feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and
the old, ripened wine, which our podere is famous for in
the cold winter evenings; and to devour great, luscious
figs, and apricots, peaches, cherries, and melons. I was
often happy in the woods, too, with hounds and horses,
and very happy in watching all sorts of creatures and
birds that haunt the leafy solitudes. But never half so
happy as now!”
“In these delightful groves ?” she asked.
“Here, and with you," answered Donatello. “Just as
We are now."
“What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and
how delightful!” said Miriam to herself. Then address.
ing him again: “But, Donatello, how long will this
happiness last?”
“How long!” he exclaimed; for it perplexed hin
even more to think of the future than to remember the
past. “Why should it have any end? How long! For
ever! forever! forever!”
“ The child! the simpleton!” said Miriam, with suddar


106
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
laughter, and checking it as suddenly. “But is hc a sim
pleton in leed? Here, in those few natural words, he has
expressed that deep sense, that profound conviction of its
own immortality, which genuine love never fails to bring
He perplexes me, - yes, and bewitches me, - wild, gentle,
beautiful creature that he is! It is like playing with a
young greyhound !”
Her
eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile
shone out of them. Then first she became sensible of a
delight and grief at once in feeling this zephyr of a new
affection, with its untainted freshness, blow over her
weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by
it. The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her
know that it ought to be a forbidden one.
“ Donatello," she hastily exclaimed, “for your own
sake, leave me! It is not such a happy thing as you
imagine it, to wander in these woods with me, a girl from
another land, burdened with a doom that she tells to none.
I might make you dread me, - perhaps hate me, - if I
chose; and I must choose, if I find you loving me too
well!”
“I fear nothing !” said Donatello, looking into her un.
fathomable eyes with perfect trust. “I love always !”
“I speak in vain,” thought Miriam within herself.
so Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he
innagines me. To-morrow will be time enough to come
back to my reality. My reality! what is it? Is the past
so indestructible? the future so immitigable? Is the dark
dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance
that there can be no escape out of its dungeon ? Be it


THE FAUN AND NYMPH
107
o! There is, at least, that ethereal quality in my spirit,
shat it can make me as gay as Donatello himself - for
ihis one hour!”
And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward
fame, heretofore stifled, were now permitted to fill ber
with its bappy lustre, glowing through her cheeks and
dancing in her eye-heams.
Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before,
showed a sensibility to Miriam's gladdened mood by
breaking into still wilder and ever-varying activity. He
frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, which clothed
itself in words that had little individual meaning, and in
snatches of song that seemed as natural as bird-notes.
Then they both laughed together, and heard their own
laughter returning in the echoes, and laughed again at
the response; so that the ancient and solemn grove be-
came full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A
bird happening to sing cheerily, Donatello gave a pecu-
liar call, and the little feathered creature came fluttering
about his head, as if it had known him through many
summers.
“How close he stands to nature!” said Miriam, ob-
serving this pleasant familiarity between her compar 'on
and the bird. “ He shall make me as natural as himself
for this one hour."
As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt
more and more the influence of his elastic temperament
Miriam was an impressible and impulsive creature, as
unlike herself, in different moods, as if a melancholy
maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle


108
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
about her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the
brooch that clasped it. Naturally, it is true, she was the
more inclined to melancholy, yet fully capable of that
high frolic of the spirits which richily compensates for
many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in the
darkness of a cavern, she could sport madly in the sun-
shine before the cavern's mouth. Except the freshest
mirth of animal spirits, like Donatello's, there is no mer.
riment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to that of melan-
choly people escaping from the dark region in which it is
their custom to keep themselves imprisoned.
So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his
own ground. They ran races with each other, side by
side, with shouts and laughter; they pelted one another
with early flowers, and gathering them up again, twined
them with green leaves into garlands for both their heads.
They played together like children, or creatures of im.
mortal youth. So much had they flung aside the sombre
habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born to be
sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness
instead of any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far back-
ward into Arcadian life, or, farther still, into the Golden
Age, before mankind was burdened with sin and sorrow,
and before pleasure had been darkened with those
shadows that bring it into high relief, and make it hap-
piness.
“Hark!” cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was
about to bind Miriam's fair hands with flowers, and lead
her along in triumph,“ there is music somewhere in the
grove!”


THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
109
is your kinsman Pan, most likely," said Miriam,
• playing on his pipe. Let us go seek him, and make
him puff out his rough cheeks and pipe his merriest air !
Come; the strain of music will guide us onward like a
gayly colored thread of silk.”
“Or like a chain of flowers," responded Donatello,
drawing her along by that which he had twined. “This
way!- Come!”


110
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER X.
TEE SYLVAN DANCE.
As he music came fresher on their ears, they danced
to its cadenve, extemporizing new steps and attitudes.
Each varying movement had a grace which might have
been worth putting into marble, for the long delight of
days to come, but vanished with the movement that gave
it birth, and was effaced from memory by another. In
Miriam's motion, freely as she flung herself into the frolic
of the hour, there was still an artful beauty ; in Dona-
tello's, there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness
hand in hand with grace; sweet, bewitching, most provo-
cative of laughter, and yet akin to pathos, so deeply did
it touch the heart. This was the ultimate peculiarity, the
final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan creature
and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart
only this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Dona-
tello did a Faun.
There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played
the sylvan character as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses
of her, then, you would have fancied that an oak had sun.
dered its rough bark to let her dance freely forth, en.


THE SYLVAN DANCE.
111
dowed with the same spirit in her human form as that
which rustles in the leaves; or that she had emergeil
through the pebbly bottom of a fountain, a water-nymph
to play and sparkle in the sunshine, flinging a quivering
light around her, and suddenly disappearing in a shower
of rair bow drops.
As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in
Miriam there were symptoms that the frolic of her spirits
would at last tire itself out.
“Ah! Donatello," cried she, laughing, as she stopped
to take breath ; you have an unfair advantage over me!
I am no true creature of the woods ; while you are a real
Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook just now,
methought I had a peep at the pointed ears."
Donatollo snapped his fingers above his head, as fauny
and satyrs taught us first to do, and seemed to radiate jol-
lity out of his whole nimble person. Nevertheless, there
was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, as if he
dreaded that a moment's pause might break the spell, and
snatch away the sportive companion whom he had waited
for through so many dreary months.
“ Dance! dance !” cried he, joyously. "If we take
breath, we shall be as we were yesterday. There, now,
is the music, just beyond this clump of trees. Dance,
Miriam, dance!”
They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of
which there are many in that artfully constructed wil.
derness,) set round with stone seats, on which the aged
moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of cush
On one of the stone benches sat the musicians
ions.


112
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
whose strains had enticed our wild couple thitherward
They proved to be a vagrant band, such as Rome, and
all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, a flute, and
a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, the
performers had skill enough to provoke and modulate
into tolerable harmony. It chanced to be a feast-day :
and, instead of playing in the sun-scorched piazzas of the
city, or beneath the windows of some unresponsive palace.
they had bethought themselves to try the echoes of these
woods ; for, on the festas of the Church, Rome scatters
its merry-makers all abroad, ripe for the dance or any
other pastime.
As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the
trees the musicians scraped, tinkled, or blew, each accord.
ing to his various kind of instrument, more inspiringly
than ever. A dark-cheeked little girl, with bright black
eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tink-
ling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. With-
out interrupting his brisk, though measured movement-
Donatello snatched away this unmelodious contrivance,
and flourishing it above his head, produced music of inde
scribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and strik
ing the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one
jovial act.
It might be that there was magic in the sound, cr con
tagion, at least, in the spirit which had got possession of
Miriam and himself, for very soon a number of festa!
people were drawn to the spot, and struck into the dance,
singly, or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with jol.
lity. Among them were some of the plebeian dajosely


THE SYLVAN DAITCE.
113
wbom we meet bareheaded in the Roman streets, with
silver stilettos thrust through their glossy bair; the con-
adinas, too, from the Campagna and the villages, with
their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all
bright hues, such as fairer maidens might not venture to
put on. Then came the modern Roman from Trastevere,
perchance, with his old cloak drawn about him like a taga,
which anon, as his active motion heated him, he fung
aside. Three French soldiers capered freely into the
throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their short swords dan-
gling at their sides ; and three German artists in gray
flaccid hats and flaunting beards; and one of the Pope's
Swiss guardsmen in the strange motley garb which
Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two young Eng-
lish tourists (one of them a lord) took contadine partners
and dashed in, as did also a shaggy man in goat-skin
breeches, who looked like rustic Pan in person, and footed
it as merrily as he. Besides the above there was a herds-
man or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in
sky-blue jackets, and small-clothes tied with ribbons at
the knees ; haggard and sallow were these last, poor
serfs, having little to eat and nothing but the malaria to
breathe ; but still they plucked up a momentary spirit
and joined hands in Donatello's dance.
Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back
again within the precincts of this sunny glade, thawing
mankind out of their cold formalities, releasing them from
irksome restraint, mingling them together in such child-
like gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom of
the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsters. The


114
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
sole exception to the geniality of the moment, as we have
understood, was seen in a countryman of our own, who
sneered at the spectacle, and declined to compromise his
dignity by making part of it.
The harper thrummed with rapid fingers ; the violin.
player flashed his bow back and forth across the strings ;
the flautist poured his breath in quick puffs of jollity,
while Donatello shook the tambourine above his head,
and led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As
they followed one another in a wild ring of mirth, it
seemed the realization of one of those bas-reliefs where
a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals is twined around
the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the sculp-
tured scene on the front and sides of.a sarcophagus,
where, as often as any other device, a festive procession
mocks the ashes and white bones that are treasured up
within. You might take it for a marriage-pageant; but
after a while, if you look at these merry-makers, follow-
ing them from end to end of the marble coffin, you doubt
whether their gay movement is leading them to a happy
close. A youth has suddenly fallen in the dance; a char-
iot is overturned and broken, flinging the charioteer head-
long to the ground; a maiden seems to have grown faint
or weary and is drooping on the bosom of a friend.
Always some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust
sidelong into the spectacle ; and when once it has caught
your eye you can look no more at the festal portions of
the scene except with reference to this one slightly sug.
gested doom and sorrow.
As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here


THE SYLVAN DANCE.
115
UIT
Alluded to, toere was an analogy betweer the sculp-
tured scene on the sarcophagus and the wild dance
which we have been describing. In the midst of its
madness and riot Miriam 'found herself suddenly con-
fronted by a strange figure that shook its fantastic gar-
ments in the air, and pranced before her on its tiptoes,
almost vying with the agility of Donatello himself. It
was the model.
A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she
bad retired from the dance. He hastened towards her,
and flung himself on the grass beside the stone bench on
which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance and
unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; and
though he saw her within reach of his arm, yet the light
of her eyes seemed as far off as that of a star, nor was
there any warmth in the melancholy smile with which
she regarded him.
“Come back ! ” cried he. “Why should this happy
hour end so soon?”
“ It must end here, Donatello," said she, in answer to:
his words and outstretched hand; “ and such hours, I
believe, do not often repeat themselves in a lifetime. Let
me go, my friend ; let me vanish from you quietly among
the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our
pastime are vanishing already!”
Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the
violin out of tune, or the flautist out of breath, so it
chanced that the music had ceased, and the dancers come
abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng of rioters
was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together


116
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
In Miriam s remembrance the scene had a character of
fantasy. It was as if a company of satyrs, fauns, ano
nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, had been dis.
porting themselves in these venerable woods only a mo
ment ago; and now in another moment, because some
profane eye had looked at them too closely, or some in-
truder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the silver pageant
had utterly disappeared. If a few of the merry-makers
lingered among the trees, they had hidden their racy
peculiarities under the garb and aspect of ordinary peo-
ple, and sheltered themselves in the weary commonplace
of daily life. Just an instant before it was Arcadia and
the Golden Age. The spell being broken, it was now
only that old tract of pleasure-ground, close by the peo-
ple's gate of Rome, a tract where the crimes and
calamities of ages, the many battles, blood recklessly
poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the
soil, creating an influence that makes the air deadly to
human lungs.
6 You must leave me," said Miriam to Donatello, more
imperatively than before: “have I not said it? Go; and
look not behind you."
"Miriam,” whispered Donatello, grasping her hand for
cibly," who is it that stands in the shadow yonder, beck
oning you to follow him?»
“ Hush ; leave me!” repeated Miriam. “ Your how
is past; his hour has come.”
Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had!
indicated, and the expression of his face was fearfully
* changed, being so disordered, perhaps with terror - at all


THE SYLVAN DANCE,
117
events with anger and invincible repugnance — that Mir-
iam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart so as
to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal
rage, which we seldom see except in persons of the sim-
plest and rudest natures. A shudder seemed to pass
through his very bones.
“I hate him!” muttered he.
"Be satisfied ; I hate him too !” said Miriam.
She had no thought of making this avowal, but was
irresistibly drawn to it by the sympathy of the dark emo-
tion in her own breast with that so strongly expressed by
Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood do not more
naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into
. lis.
“Shall I clutch him by the throat ?” whispered Dona-
tello, with a savage scowl. “ Bid me do so, and we are
rid of him forever.”
“ In Heaven's name, no violence !” exclaimed Miriam,
affrighted out of the scornful control which she had hith-
erto held over her companion, by the fierceness that he
50 suddenly developed. “Oh, have pity on me, Dona-
rello, if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my
vretchedness I let myself be your playmate for this one
wild hour. Follow me no farther. Henceforth, leave
ne to my doom. Dear friend, - kind, simple, loving
friend, — make me not more wretched by the remem-
brance of having thrown fierce hates or loves into the
wellspring of your happy life!”
"Not follow you !” repeated Donatello, soothed from
anger into sorrow, less by the purport of what she said.


118
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
« Nou
than by the melancholy sweetness of her voice.
follow you! What other path have I?”
“ We will talk of it once again," said Miriam, still
soothingly; - to-morrow - when you will; only
leave me now.”
SOON


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES.
119
CHAPTER XI.
FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES.
In the Borghese Grove, so recently aproarious with
merriment and music, there remained only Miriam and
her strange follower.
A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It
perhaps symbolized a peculiar character in the relation of
these two, insulating them, and building up an insuperable
barrier between their life-streams and other currents,
which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is
one of the chief earthly incommodities of some species
of misfortune, or of a great crime, that it makes the
actor in the one, or the sufferer of the other, an alien
in the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic
medium betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to
meet.
Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement, -- this .
chill remoteness of their position, – there have come to
us but a few vague whisperings of what passed in Miri
am's interview that afternoon with the sinister personage
who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the
catacomb. In weaving these mystic utterances into :


120
ROMANCE OF DIONTE BF.NI.
continuous scene, we undertake a task resembling in its
perplexity that of gathering up and piecing together the
fragments of a letter which has been torn and scattered
to the winds. Many words of deep significance, many
entire sentences, and those possibly the most important
ones, have flown too far on the winged breeze to be re-
covered. If we insert our own conjectural amendments,
we perhaps give a purport utterly at variance with the
true one. Yet unless we attempt something in this way,
there must remain an unsightly gap, and a lack of con-
tinuousness and dependence in our narrative ; so that it
would arrive at certain inevitable catastrophes without
due warning of their imminence.
Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a
sadly mysterious fascination in the influence of this ill-
omened person over Miriam ; it was such as beasts and
reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes exercise upon
their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness
with which — being naturally of so courageous a spirit -
she resigned herself to the thraldom in which he held
her. That iron chain, of which some of the massive
links were round her feminine waist, and the others in
his ruthless hand, or which, perhaps, bound the pair
together by a bond equally torturing to each, - must have
been forged in some such unhallowed furnace as is only
kindled by evil passions and fed by evil deeds.
Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in
Miriam, but only one of those fatalities which are among
the most insoluble riddles propounded to mortal compre-
hension ; the fatal decree by which every crime is made


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES.
12,
to be the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of
the single guilty one.
It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of
remonstrance which she had now the energy to oppose
Against his persecution.
"You follow me too closely,” she said, in low, faltering
accents; you allow me too scanty room to draw my
breath. Do you know what will be the end of this ?”
“I know well what must be the end,” he replied.
“ Tell me, then,” said Miriam," that I may compare
your foreboding with my own. Mine is a very dark
one.”
“There can be but one result, and that soon," answered
the model. “ You must throw off your present mask and
assume another. You must vanish out of the scene:
quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow
you. It is in my power, as you well know, to compel
your acquiescence in my bidding. You are aware of the
penalty of a refusal.”
“ Not that penalty with which you would terrify me,"
said Miriam ; “ another there may be, but not so griev-
ous."
“ What is that other?” he inquired.
“ Death! simply, death !” she answered.
Death,"
," said her persecutor, “ is not so simple and
opportune a thing as you imagine. You are strong and
warm with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit is,
these many months of trouble, this latter thraldom in
which I hold you, have scarcely made your cheek paler
chan I saw it in your girlhood. Miriam, - for I forbear
701. 1.
6


122
ROMANCE. Or MONTE BENI.
to speak another name, at which these leaves would shiver
ahore our heads, - Miriam, you cannot die ! ”
Might not a dagger find my heart?” said she, for the
first time meeting his eyes. “Would not poison make an
end of me? Will not the Tiber drown me?”
“ It might,” he answered ; “ for I allow that you are
moital. But, Miriam, believe me, it is not your fate to
die while there remains so much to be sinned and suffered
in the world. We have a destiny which we must neerlo
fulfil together I, too, have struggled to escape it.
was as anxious as yourself to break the tie between us
- to bury the past in a fathomless grave - to make
it impossible that we should ever meet, until you con-
front me at the bar of Judgment ! You little can
imagine what steps I took to render all this secure; and
what was the result ? Our strange interview in the
bowels of the earth convinced me of the futility of my
design.”
“Ah, fatal chance !” cried Miriam, covering her face
with her hands.
Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you rer.
ognized me,” rejoined he; “but you did not guess that
there was an equal horror in my own!”
Why would not the weight of earth above our heads
have crumbled down upon us both, forcing us apart, but
burying us equally ? ” cried Miriam, in a burst of vehe-
ment passion. “Oh, that we could have wandered in
those dismal passages till we both perished, taking oppo
site paths in the darkness, so that when we lay down to
die our last breaths might not mingle !"
66


FRAGUENTARY SENTENCES.
123
It were vain to wish it," said the model.
" In all
that labyrinth of midnight paths, we should have found
one another out to live or die together. Our fates cross
and are entangled. The threads are twisted into a strong
cord, which is dragging us to an eril doom. Could the
knots be st vered, we might escape. But neither cap
your slender fingers untie those knots, nor my masculine
force break them. We must submit!”
“ Pray for rescue, as I have,” exclaimed Miriam.
“ Pray for deliverance from me, since I am your evil
genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has been, I have
known you to pray in times past!”
At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror ap-
peared to seize upon her persecutor, insomuch that he
shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. In this man's
memory, there was something that made it awful for him
to think of prayer ; nor would any torture be more intol-
erable, than to be reminded of such divine comfort and
succor as await pious souls merely for the asking. This
torment was perhaps the token of a native temperament
deeply susceptible of religious impressions, but which
had been wronged, violated, and debased, until, at length,
it was capable only of terror from the sources that were
intended for our purest and loftiest consolation. He
looked so fearfully at her, and with such intense pain
struggling in his eyes, that Miriam felt pity.
And, now, all at once, it struck her that he might be
mad. It was an idea that had never before seriously
occurred to her mind, although, as soon as suggested, it
fitted marvellously into many circumstances that lay


124
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
within her knowledge. But, alas ! such was her evil
fortune, that, whether mad or no, his power over her
remained the same, and was likely to be used only the
more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic.
“I would not give you pain," she said, soothingly;
your faith allows you the consolations of penance and
Absolution. Try what help there may be in these, and
leave me to myself."
“Do not think it, Miriam,” said he ; we are bound
together, and can never part again.”
Why should it seem so impossible ? ” she rejoined.
“ Think how I had escaped from all the past! I had
made for myself a new sphere, and found new friends,
new occupations, new hopes and enjoyments. My heart,
methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had
been no miserable life behind me. The human spirit
does not perish of a single wound, nor exhaust itself in a
single trial of life. Let us but keep asunder, and all may
go well for both.”
“We fancied ourselves forever sundered,” he replied.
* Yet we met once, in the bowels of the earth ; and, were
we to part now, our fates would fling us together again in
a desert, on a mountain-top, or in whatever spot seemed
safest. You speak in vain, therefore.”
“ You mistake your own will for an iron necessity,"
saia Miriam ; “otherwise, you might have suffered me to
glide past you like a ghost, when we met among those
ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid me
pass as freely."
"Never 'said he, with unmitigable will ; "your re


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES.
125
>
»
>
appearance has destroyed the work of years You know
the power that I have over you. Obey my bidding; or
within short time it shall be exercised : nor will I cease
to baunt you till the moment comes.”
“Then," said Miriam, more calmly, “I foresee the
end, and have already warned you of it. It will be
death!”
“ Your own death, Miriam or mine ?” he asked,
looking fixedly at her.
“Do you imagine me a murderess? said she, shud.
dering; "you, at least, have no right to think me so !”
“Yet," rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning
men have said that this white hand had once a crimson
stain.” He took her hand as he spoke, and held it in his
own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing
short of agony, with woich she struggled to regain it.
Holding it up to the fading light, (for there was already
Himness among the trees, he appeared to examine it
closely, as if to discover the imaginary blood-stain with
which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it
go.
“ It
looks very white," said he; “but I have known hands as
white, which all the water in the ocean would not have
washed clean.”
"It had no stain," retorted Miriam, bitterly, “ until
you grasped it in your own."
The wind has blown away whatever else they may
have spoken.
They went together towards the town, and, on their
way, continued to make reference, no doubt, to some
strange and dreadfil history of their former life, belong


126
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
ing equally to this dark man and to the fair and youthful
woman, whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the
breath that uttered them, there seemed to be an odor o.
guilt, and a scent of blood. Yet, how can we imagine
that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach to Mir-
iam ! Or, how, on the other hand, should spotless inno-
cence be subjected to a thraldom like that which she
endured from the spectre, whom she herself had evoked
out of the darkness! Be this as it might, Miriam, we
have reason to believe, still continued to beseech him,
humbly, passionately, wildly, only to go his way, and
leave her free to follow her own sad path.
Thus they strayed onward through the green wilde
ness of the Borghese grounds, and soon came near the
city wall, where, had Miriam raised her eyes, she might
have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet.
But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distin-
guish little beyond its limits. As they came within pub
lic observation, her persecutor fell behind, throwing off
the imperious manner which he had assumed during
their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed
with life. The merry-makers, who had spent the feast-
day outside the walls, were now thronging in ; a party
of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a travelling-
carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and
was passing through the villanous ordeal of the papal
custom-house. In the broad piazza, too, there was a
motley crowd.
But the stream of Miriam's trouble kept its way
through this flood of human life, and neither mingled


FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES.
127
with it nor was turned aside. With a sad kind of
feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before
her tyrant, undetected, though in full sight of all
the people, still beseeching him for freedom, and in
main.


128
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XI.
A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN
HILDA, after giving the last touches to the picture of
Beatrice Cenci, had flown down from her dove-cote, late
in the afternoon, and gone to the Pincian Hill, in the
hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating music.
There, as it happened, she met the sculptor; for, to say
the truth, Kenyon had well noted the fair artist's ordinary
way of life, and was accustomed to shape his own move-
ments so as to bring him often within her sphere. .
The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Ro-
man aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most
other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native in-
habitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great Britain,
and beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usur-
pation over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the
Eternal City. These foreign guests are indeed ungrate-
ful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope Clement, or
whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled
the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with
the parapet of the city wall; who laid out those broad
walks and drives, and overhung them with the deepening


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN.
12y
shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers
of all seasons, and of every clime, abundantly over those
green, central lawns; who scooped out hollows, in fit
places, and setting great basins of marble in them, caused
ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; who
reared
up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had
long hilden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of
the avenues, and crowned them with busts of that multia
tude of worthies - statesmen, heroes, artists, men of let-
ters, and of songe whom the whole world claims as its
chief ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a
word, the Pincian garden is one of the things that recon-
cile the stranger (since he fully appreciates the enjoy-
ment, and feels nothing of the cost) to the rule of an
irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have
aimed at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well
be.
In this pleasant spot the red-trousered French soldiers
are always to be seen ; bearded and grizzled veterans.
perhaps, with medals of Algiers or the Crimea on thei
breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing
that children do not trample on the flower-beds, nor any
youthful lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to
stick in the beloved one's hair. Here sits (drooping upon
some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine) the con.
sumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for cure,
to a climate that instils poison into its very purest breath.
Here, all day, come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy
English babies, or guiding the footsteps of little traveller.
from the far Western world. Here, in the sunny
after


130
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
noons, roll and rumble all kinds of equipages, from tho
cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to
ine gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop
on thoroughbred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory
population of Rome, the world's great watering-place,
rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sun.
sets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are
scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for
their historic interest, as any that the sun ever rose and
set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons of the week,
a French military band flings out rich music over the
poor old city, floating her with strains as loud as those of
her own echoless triumphs.
Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the lat-
ter, who loved best to be alone with his young country-
woman) had wandered beyond the throng of promenaders,
whom they left in a dense cluster around the music.
They strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian
Hill, and leaned over the parapet, looking down upon tho
Muro Torto, a massive fragment of the oldest Roman
wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its
own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece
of work that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue
distance, rose Soracte, and other heights, which have
gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but look scarcely real
to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much,
ihey have taken the aërial tints which belong only to a
dream. These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of
hills that shut in Rome, and its wide surrounding Cam.
pagna ; no land of dreams, but the broadest page of his


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN.
131
pory, crowded so full with memorable events that one
obliterates another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed
Iss own records till they grew illegible.
But, not to meddle with history, - with which our nar.
rative is no otherwise concerned, than that the Very
dust
of Rome is historic, and inevitably settles on our page
and mingles with our ink, we will return to our two
friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath
them lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, cove
ered with trees, amid which appeared the white gleam of
pillars and statues, and the flash of an upspringing foun-
tain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the year,
by the thicker growth of foliage.
The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less
abrupt than the inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed
to observe. Beginning earlier-even in February -
Spring is not compelled to burst into Summer with such
headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each opening
beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green,
the sweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its
maiden charm, before settling into the married Summer.
which, again, does not so soon sober itself into matronly
Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring hastens
to its bridal too abruptly. But, here, after a month or
two of kindly growth, the leaves of the young trees,
which cover that portion of the Borghese grounds near
est the city wall, were still in their tender balf-devel-
opment
In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex.
trees, Hilda and Kenyon heard the faint sound of inusio


132
ROMANCE OF MON TE BENI.
roar
laughter, and mingling voices. It was probably the up
- spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, and
growing faded and melancholy in its passage of that
wild sylvan merriment, which we have already attempted
to describe. By and by, it ceased; although the two
listeners still tried to distinguish it between the bursts of
nearer music from the military band. But there was na
renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards, they saw
a solitary figure, advancing along one of the paths that
lead from the obscurer part of the grounds, towards the
gateway.
“ Look! is it not Donatello ?” said Hilda.
“He it is, beyond a doubt," replied the sculptor. “But
low gravely he walks, and with what long looks behind
him! He seems either very weary, or very sad. I
should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were a
creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In
all these hundred paces, while we have been watching
him, he has not made one of those little caprioles in the
air, which are a characteristic of his natural gait. ]
begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun.”
Then,” said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, “ you have
thought him
and do think him one of that strange,
wild, happy race of creatures, that used to laugh an-i
sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So do I, in-
deed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fawin
existed anywhere but in poetry."
The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea
took further possession of his mind, he laughed outright,
and wished from the bottom of his heart (being in love
-


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN
139
;
with Hilda, though he had never told her so that he
could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty ab-
surdity with a kiss.
“Oh, Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure
imagination you hide under that little straw hat ! ” cried
he, at length. “A Faun! a Faun! Great Pan is not
dead, then, after all ! The whole tribe of mythical crea-
tures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl's
fancy, and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt
not, than their Arcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if
& man of marble, like myself, could stray thither too !”
“Why do you laugh so ? ” asked Hilda, reddening; for
she was a little disturbed at Kenyon's ridicule, however
kindly expressed. “What can I have said, that you think
80 very foolish ? "
"Well, not foolish, then," rejoined the sculptor," but
wiser, it may be, than I can fathom. Really, however,
the idea does strike one as delightfully fresh, when we
consider Donatello's position and external environment.
Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old
noble race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown
tower among the Apennines, where he and his fore-
fathers have dwelt, under their own vines and fig-trees
from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion fos
Miriam has introduced him familiarly to our little circles
and our republican and artistic simplicity of intercourse has
included this young Italian, on the same terms as one of
ourselves. But, if we paid due respect to rank and title
we should bend reverentially to Donatello, and salute him
as his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni."


164
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
" That is a droll idea — much droller than his being a
Faun!” said Hilda, laughing in her turn. “This does
not quite satisfy me, however, especially as you yourself
recognized and acknowledged his wonderful resemblance
to the statue.”
“ Except as regards the pointed ears," said Kenyon :
adding, aside — " and one other little peculiarity, gener-
ally observable in the statues of fauns."
“ As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni's
ears," replied Hilda, smiling again at the dignity with
which this title invested their playful friend, "you know
we could never see their shape, on account of his cluster.
ing curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as
shyly as a wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of
examining them. How do you explain that?”
“Oh, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight
of evidence; the fact of his faunship being otherwise so
probable," answered the sculptor, still hardly retaining his
gravity. “Faun or not, Donatello or the Count di
Monte Beni -- is a singularly wild creature, and as I
have remarked on other occasions, though very gentle,
does not love to be touched. Speaking in no harsh sense,
there is a great deal of animal nature in him, as if he had
been born in the woods, and had run wild all his child.
hood, and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated.
Life, even in our day, is very simple and unsophisticated
in some of the shaggy nooks of the Apennines."
“It annoys me very much," said Hilda, “this inclina
Lion, which most people have, to explain away the won-
der and the mystery out of everything. Wby could not


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN.
135
you
allow me and yourself, too. - the catisfaction of
thinking him a Faun?”
“ Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you
any happier," said the sculptor ; "and I shall do my best
to become a convert. Donatello has asked me to spend
the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where I pur-
pose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts,
his forefathers; and if their shadows beckon me into
dreamland, I shall willingly follow. By the by, speaking
of Donatello, there is a point on which I should like to
be enlightened."
“Can I help you, then ?” said Hilda, in answer to his
look.
“ Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's
Affections ?” suggested Kenyon.
“Miriam ! she, so accomplished and gifted !” exclaimed
Hilda “and he, a rude, uncultivated boy! No, no,
no!”
“It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. “But,
on the other hand, a gifted woman flings away her affec-
tions so unaccountably, sometimes! Miriam, of late, has
been very morbid and miserable, as we both know.
Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have
faded out of her life; and now comes Donatello, with
natural sunshine enough for himself and her, and offers
her the opportunity of making her heart and life all new
and cheery again. People of high intellectual endow-
ments do not require similar ones in those they love.
They are just the persons to appreciate the wholesome
gusb of natural feeling, the honest affection, the simple


136
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
joy, the fulness of contentment with what he loves, which
Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him a
simpleton. It is a necessity of the case ; for a man loses
the capacity for this kind of affection, in proportion as he
cultivates and refines himself.”
“ Dear me !” said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away
from her companion. “Is this the penalty of refinement ?
Pardon me; I do not believe it. It is because you are a
sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely wrought,
except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your
ideas take shape. I am a painter, and know that the
most delicate beauty may be softened and warmed through
out."
“I said a foolish thing, indeed," answered the sculptor
“ It surprises me, for I might have drawn a wiser knowl.
cdge out of my own experience. It is the surest test of
genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to
the worldliest of us."
Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the par
apet which borders the level summit of the Pincian with
its irregular sweep. At intervals they looked through
the lattice-work of their thoughts at the varied prospects
that lay before and beneath them.
From the terrace where they now stood there is an
abrupt descent towards the Piazza del Popolo; and look-
ing down into its broad space they beheld the tall palatial
edifices, the church-domes, and the ornamented gateway
which
grew and were consolidated out of the thought of
Michael Angelo. They saw, too, the red granite obelisk,
oldest of things, even in Rome, which rises in the centre


A SCROLL N THE PINCIAN.
i37
of the piazza, with a fourfold fountain at its base. All
Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far
off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a
transient, visionary, and impalpable character when we
think that this indestructible monument supplied one of
the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore
from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding the
cloudy pillar and the fiery column, they whispered awe
stricken to one another, “In its shape it is like that old
obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on
the borders of the Nile.” And now that very obelisk,
with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the first thing
that the modern traveller sees after entering the Flamin-
ian Gate !
Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed
westward, and saw beyond the invisible Tiber the Castle
of St. Angelo; that immense tomb of a pagan emperor,
with the archangel at its summit.
Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings,
surmounted by the vast dome, which all of us have
shaped and swelled outward, like a huge bubble, to the
utmost scope of our imaginations, long before we see it
floating over the worship of the city. It may be most
worthily seen from precisely the point where our two
friends were now standing. At any nearer view the
grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind the immensity
of its separate parts, so that we see only the front, only
the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the
portico, and not the mighty whole. But at this distance
the entire outline of the world's cathedral, as well as that


138
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
once.
of the palace of the world's chief priest, is taken in al
In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is
not debarred from lending its assistance, even while we
have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weak.
ness of human sense to do justice to so grand an object.
It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what
is nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple
outline of hills, is the grandest edifice ever built by man,
painted against God's loveliest sky.
After contemplating a little while a scene which their
long residence in Rome had made familiar to them, Ken-
yon and Hilda again let their glances fall into the piazza
at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had just
entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the
obelisk and fountain. With a gesture that impressed
Kenyon as at once suppliant and imperious, she seemed
to intimate to a figure which had attended her thus far,
that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertina-
cious model, however, remained immovable.
And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, ac-
cording to the interpretation he might put upon it, was
either too trivial to be mentioned, or else so mysteriously
significant that he found it difficult to believe his eyes.
Miriam knelt down on the steps of the fountain ; so far
there could be no question of the fact. To other observ-
trs, if any there were, she probably appeared to take this
attitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers
into the gush of water from the mouth of one of the
stone lions. But as she clasped her hands together after
thus hathing them, and glanced upward at the model, ap


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN.
139
idea took strong possession of Kenyon's mind that Miriam
was kneeling to this dark follower there in the world's
face!
“Do you see it ?" he said to Hilda.
“See what?" asked she, surprised at the emotion of
his tone. “I see Miriam, who has just bathed her hands
in that delightfully cool water. I often dip my fingers
into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that used
to be one of my playmates in my New England village."
“I fancied I saw something else,” said Kenyon; “ but
it was doubtless a mistake."
But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into
the hidden significance of Miriam's gesture, what a terri-
ble thraldom did it suggest! Free as she seemed to be
— beggar as he looked — the nameless vagrant must then
be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets of
Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any cap-
tive queen of yore following in an emperor's triumph.
And was it conceivable that she would have been thus
enthralled unless some great error - how great Kenyon
dared not think - or some fatal weakness had given this
dark adversary a vantage-ground ?
Hilda,” said he, abruptly, “who and what is Miriam ?
Pardon me; but are you sure of her?”
“Sure of her!” repeated Hilda, with an angry blush,
for her friend's sake. “I am sure that she is kind, good,
and generous ; a true and faithful friend, whom I love
dearly, and who loves me as well! What more than this
need I be sure of ?”
“ And
your delicate instincts say all this in her favor ?


140
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENZ
- nothing against her?” continued the sculptor, withorn
heeding the irritation of Hilda's tone.
6 These are my
own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery! We do
not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or
an Englishwoman, or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon
blood in her veins, one would say, and a right Englisb
accent on her tongue, but much that is not English breed-
ing, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as ar
artist, could she hold a place in society without giving
some clue to her past life.”
"I love her dearly,” said Hilda, still with displeasure in
her tone, “and trust her most entirely.”
“My heart trusts her at least,
whatever my
head
may
do,” replied Kenyon ; " and Rome is not like one of our
New England villages, where we need the permission of
each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every
word that we utter, and every friend that we make or
keep. In these particulars the papal despotism allows us
freer breath than our native air; and if we like to take
generous views of our associates, we can do so, to å rea-
sonable extent, without ruining ourselves.”
“The music has ceased,” said Hilda ; “I am going now.'
There are three streets that, beginning close beside
each other, diverge from the Piazza del Popolo towards
the heart of Rome: on the left, the Via del Babuiño
on the right, the Via della Ripetta ; and between these
two that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared
that Miriam and her strange companion were passing up
the first-mentioned of these three, and were soon hidden
from Hilda and the sculptor.


A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN.
141
The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately
walk that skirts along its brow. Beneath them, from the
base of the abrupt descent, the city spread wide away in
& close contiguity of red-earthen roofs, above which rose
eminent the domes of a hundred churches, besides here
and there a tower, and the upper windows of some taller
or higher situated palace, looking down on a multitude of
palatial abodes. At a distance, ascending out of the cen-
tral mass of edifices, they could see the top of the An.
tonine column, and near it the circular roof of the Pan-
theon, looking heavenward with its ever-open eye.
Except these two objects, almost everything that they
beheld was mediæval, though built, indeed, of the massive
old stones and indestructible bricks of imperial Rome;
for the ruin of the Coliseum, the Golden House, and in-
numerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of
Cæsars and senators, had supplied the material for all
those gigantic hovels, and their walls were cemented with
mortar of inestimable cost, being made of precious an-
tique statues, burnt long ago for this petty purpose.
Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes,
and seems like nothing but a heap of broken rubbish,
thrown into the great chasm between our own days and
the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the better part
of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, and
wars, and continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but
broken rubbish, as compared with its classic history.
If we consider the present city as at all connected with
the famous one of old, it is only because we find it built
over its grave.
A depth of thirty feet of soil has cor


142
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
ered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it lies like the
dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no
survivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of
all those years has gathered slowly over its recumbent
form and made a casual sepulchre.
We know not how to characterize, in any accordant
and compatible terms, the Rome that lies before us; its
sunless alleys, and streets of palaces; its churches, lined
with the gorgeous marbles that were originally polished
for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of evil
smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused
from as many censers; its little life, deriving feeble nutri-
ment from what has long been dead. Everywhere, some
fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of a former
epoch ; everywhere, moreover, a Cross -- and nastiness
at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollec-
tions that kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that
depress it beyond any depth of melancholic sentiment
that can be elsewhere known.
Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential
word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the
world! The spot for which man’s great life and deeds
have done so much, and for which decay has done what-
ever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment,
the evening sunshine is flinging its golden mantle over it,
making all that we thought mean magnificent; the bells
of all the churches suddenly ring out, as if it were a peal
of triumph because Rome is still imperial.
"I sometimes fancy," said Hilda, on whose susceptibil-
ity the scene always made a strong irapression, “ that


ASTROLI. ON THE PINCIAN.
143
-
Rome
mere Rome
will crowd everything else out
of my heart.”
“ Heaven forbid !” ejaculated the sculptor.
They had now reached the grand stairs that ascend
from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of the
Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged
fraternity - it is a wonder that no artist paints him as
the cripple whom St. Peter heals at the Beautiful Gato
of the Temple — was just mounting his donkey to de
part, laden with the rich spoil of the day's beggary.
Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face,
came the model, at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous
of an encroacher on his rightful domain.
The figure
passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In the piazza
below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Mir.
iam, with her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were
counting those little, square, uncomfortable paving-stones,
that make it a penitential pilgrimage to walk in Rome.
She kept this attitude for several minutes, and when, at
last, the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it,
she seemed bewildered, and pressed her hand upon her
brow.
“She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!"
said Kenyon, sympathizingly; "and even now, she is im
prisoned there in a kind of cage, the iron bars of which
are made of her own thoughts.”
“I fear she is not well,” said Hilda. “I am going
down the stairs, and will join Miriam.”
"Farewell, then," said the sculptor. "Dear Hilda
this is a perplexed and troubled world! It soothes mo


144
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
inexpressibly to think of you in your tower, with white
doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high
above us all, and with the Virgin for your household
friend. You know not how far it throws its light, that
lamp, which you keep burning at her shrine! I passed
beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me
because you lighted it."
" It has for me a religious significance," replied Hilda,
juietly, “and yet I am no Catholic.”
They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via
Sistina, in the hope of overtaking the model, whose
haunts and character he was anxious to investigate, for
Miriam's sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way
in advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the
Triton, the dusky figure had vanished.


a SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
145
CHAPTER XIII.
A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
ABOUT this period, Miriam seems to have been goaded
by a weary restlessness, that drove her abroad on any
errand or none. She went one morning to visit Kenyon
in his studio, whither he had invited her to see a new
statue, on which he had staked many hopes, and which
was now almost completed in the clay. Next to Hilda,
the
person
for whom Miriam felt most affection and con-
fidence was Kenyon; and in all the difficulties that beset
her life, it was her impulse to draw near Hilda for femi-
nine sympathy, and the sculptor for brotherly counsel.
Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the
edge of the voiceless gulf between herself and them.
Standing on the utmost verge of that dark chasm, she
might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand of
theirs; she might strive to call out, “Help, friends!
help!” but, as with dreamers when they shout, her voice
would perish inaudibly in the remoteness that seemed
such a little way. This perception of an infinite, shiver.
ing solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to
tuman beings to be warmed by them, and where they
VOL. I.
7


ROMANCE OF MONTE BONI
turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, is one of the most
forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, or
peculiarity of character, that puts an individual ajar with
the world. Very often, as in Miriam's case, there is an
insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, and in.
timate communion, but is forced to pine in empty forms;
a hunger of the heart, which finds only shadows to feed
upon.
Kenyon's studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an
ugly and dirty little lane, between the Corso and the Via
della Ripetta ; and though chill, narrow, gloomy, and
bordered with tall and shabby structures, the lane was
not a whit more disagreeable then nine tenths of the
Roman streets. Over the door of one of the houses was
a marble tablet, bearing an inscription, to the purport
that the sculpture-rooms within had formerly been oc-
cupied by 'the illustrious artist Canova. In these pre-
cincts (which Canova’s genius was not quite of a char-
acter to render sacred, though it certainly made them
interesting) the young American sculptor had now estab-
lished himself.
The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and
dreary-looking place, with a good deal the aspect, indeed,
of a stone-mason s workshop. Bare floors of brick or
plank, and plastered walls; an old chair or two, or per
haps only a block of marble containing, however, the
possibility of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon;
some hastily scrawled sketches of nude figures on the
whitewash of the wall. These last are probably the
sculptor's earliest glimpses of ideas that may hereaftes


A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
147
bo solidified into imperishable stone, or perhaps may
remain as impalpable as a dream. Next there are a few
very roughly modelled little figures in clay or plaster,
exhibiting the second stage of the idea as it advances
towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the ex.
quisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than
even the final marble, as being the intimate production of
the sculptor himself, moulded throughout with his loving
hands, and nearest to his imagination and heart. In the
plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of the statue
strangely disappears, to shine forth again with pure, white
radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. Works
in all these stages of advancement, and some with the
final touch upon them, might be found in Kenyon's
studio.
Here might be witnessed the process of actually chisel
ling the marble, with which (as it is not quite satisfactory
to think) a sculptor, in these days, has very little to do
In Italy, there is a class of men whose merely mechanical
skill is perhaps more exquisite than was possessed by the
ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of Prax.
iteles; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. What-
ever of illusive representation can be effected in marble,
they are capable of achieving, if the object be before
their eyes. The sculptor has but to present these men
with a plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient block of
marble, and tell them that the figure is imbedded in the
stone, and must be freed from its encumbering superflui-
ties; and, in due time, without the necessity of his touch-
ing the work with his own finger, be will see before him


148
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
.
the statue that is to make him renowned. His creative
power has wrought it with a word.
In no other art, surely, does genius find suck effective
instruments, and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery
of actual performance; doing wonderfully nice things by
the hands of other people, when it may be suspected they
could not always be done by the sculptor's own. And
how much of the admiration which our artists get for
their buttons and buttonholes, their shoeties, their neck-
cloths, - and these, at our present epoch of taste, make a
large share of the renown,
would be abated, if we were
generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit for
such pretty performances, as immortalized in marble !
They are not his work, but that of some nameless ma-
chine in human shape.
Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look
at a half-finished bust, the features of which seemed to be
struggling out of the stone; and, as it were, scattering
and dissolving its hard substance by the glow of feeling
and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke
after stroke of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but
sure effect, it was impossible not to think that the outer
marble was merely an extraneous environment; the hu-
man countenance within its embrace must have existed
there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first
made. Another bust was nearly completed, though still
one of Kenyon's most trustworthy assistants was at work,
giving delicate touches, shaving off an impalpable some.
thing, and leaving little heaps of marble-dust to attest it.
"As these busts in the block of marble,” thought Miri


A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
149
Am, 80 does our individual fate exist in the limestone of
time. We fancy that we carve it out; but its ultimate
shape is prior to all our action.”
Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in
the antechamber, he threw a veil over what he was at
work
upon,
and came out to receive his visitor. He was
dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top of
his hend; a costume which became him better than the
formal garments which he wore, whenever he passed out
of his own domains. The sculptor had a face which,
when time had done a little more for it, would offer a
worthy subject for as good an artist as himself; features
finely cut, as if already marble; an ideal forehead, deeply
set eyes, and a mouth much hidden in a light-brown
beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate.
“I will not offer you my hand,” said he; “it is grimy
with Cleopatra's clay.”
“No; I will not touch clay; it is earthy and human,”
answered Miriam. “I have come to try whether there is
any calm and coolness among your marbles. My own
art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of agitation, for
me to work at it whole days together, without intervals of
repose. So, what have you to show me?"
"Pray look at everything here," said Kenyon. "I
love to have painters see my work. Their judgment is
unprejadiced, and more valuable than that of the world
generally, from the light which their own art throws on
mine. More valuable, too, than that of my brother
sculptors, who never judge me fairly nor I them, pom.
haps.”


150
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens
in marble or plaster, of which there were several in the
room, comprising originals or casts of most of the designs
that Kenyon had thus far produced. He was still tou
young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things
What he had to show were chiefly the attempts and ex
periments, in various directions, of a beginner in art,
acting as a stern tutor to himself, and profiting more by
his failures than by any successes of which he was yet
capable. Some of them, however, had great merit; and,
in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, they
dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher praise
than they deserved. Miriam admired the statue of a
beautiful youth, a pearl-fisher, who had got entangled in
the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead among
the pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the sea-weeds, all of
like value to him now.
“ The poor young man has perished among the prizes
that he sought," remarked she. 6 But what a strange
efficacy there is in death! If we cannot all win pearls,
it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as well. I like
this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral
lesson; and, physically, the form has not settled itself into
sufficient repose."
In another style, there was a grand, calm head of Mil-
ton, not copied from any 'one bust or picture, yet more
authentic than any of them, because all known repre-
sentations of the poet had been profoundly studied, and
solved in the artist's mind. The bust over the tomb in
Grey Friars Church, the original miniatures and pictures


A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
151
wherever to be found, had mingled cach its special truth
in this one work; wherein, likewise, by long perusal and
deep love of the Paradise Lost, the Comus, the Lycidas,
and L’Allegro, the sculptor had succeeded even better
than he knew, in spiritualizing his marble with the poet's
mighty genius. And this was a great thing to have
achieved, such a length of time after the dry bones and
dust of Milton were like those of any other dead man.
There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those
of two or three of the illustrious men of our own
country, whom Kenyon, before he left America, had
Asked permission to model. He had done so, because he
sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in
marble or bronze, the one would corrode and the other
crumble, in the long lapse of time, beneath these great
men's immortality. Possibly, however, the young artist
may have under-estimated the durability of his material.
Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity
of their remembrance, after death, can be argued from
their little value in life) should have been represented in
snow rather than marble. Posterity will be puzzled what
to do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifac-
tions of a vain self-estimate; but will find, no doubt, that
they serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quick.
lime, as well as if the marble had never been blocked
into the guise of human heads.
But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance,
this almost indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether
in our own case, or that of other men, it bids us sadly
measure the little, little time, during which our lineaments


152
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
are likely to be of interest to any human being. It is
especially singular that Americans should care about per
petuating themselves in this mode. The brief duration
of our families, as a hereditary household, renders it nexi
to a certainty that the great-grandchildren will not know
their father's grandfather, and that half a century hence,
at farthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will thump it.
knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much
for the pound of stone! And it ought to make us shiver,
the idea of leaving our features to be a dusty-white ghost
among strangers of another generation, who will take our
nose between their thumb and fingers (as we have seen
men do by Cæsar's), and infallibly break it off, if they can
do so without detection !
“ Yes," said Miriam, who had been revolving some
such thoughts as the above," it is a good state of mind
for mortal man, when he is content to leave no more de-
finite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly
and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot
barren with marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher
and better world, when it flings off this great burden of
stony memories, which the ages have deemed it a piety to
heap upon its back.”
“What you say,” remarked Kenyon, "goes against my
whole art. Sculpture, and the delight which men natu-
ially take in it, appear to me a proof that it is good to
work with all time before our view.”
“Well, well,” answered Miriam, “I must not quarrej
with you for flinging your heavy stones at poor Posterity;
and, to say the truth, I think you are as likely to hit iba


A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
153
mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I seem to
scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.
You turn feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What
a blessed change for them! Would you could do as
much for me!”
“Oh, gladly!” cried Kenyon, who had long wished to
model that beautiful and most expressive face. « When
will you begin to sit ? ”
“Poh! that was not what I meant," said Miriam
“Come, show me sumething else."
“Do you recognize this ?” asked the sculptor.
He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory
coffer, yellow with age; it was richly carved with antique
figures and foliage; and had Kenyon thought fit to say
that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious box, the
skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means
have discredited his word, nor the old artist's fame. At
least, it was evidently a production of Benvenuto's school
and century, and might once have been the jewel-case of
some grand lady at the court of the De' Medici.
Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was dis-
closed, but only, lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beautifully-
shaped hand, most delicately sculptured in marble. Such
loving care and nicest art had been lavished here, that
the palm really seemed to have a tenderness in its very
substance. Touching those lovely fingers - had the jeal-
ous sculptor allowed you to touch - you could hardly
believe that a virgin warmth would not steal from them
into
your
heart.
"Ah, this is very beautiful!” exclaimed Miriam, with


154
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
* gonial smile. "It is as good in its way as Loulie's
hand with its baby-dimples, which Powers showed me at
Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he had
wrought it out of a piece of his great heart. As good as
Harriet Hosmer's clasped hands of Browning and his
wife, symbolizing the individuality and heroic union of
two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not question that it is
better than either of those, because you must have
wrought it passionately, in spite of its maiden palm and
dainty finger-tips.”
“Then you do recognize it?" asked Kenyon.
“There is but one right hand on earth that could have
supplied the model,” answered Miriam ; so small and
slender, so perfectly symmetrical, and yet with a char-
acter of delicate energy. I have watched it a hundred
times at its work; but I did not dream that you had won
Hilda so far! How have you persuaded that shy maiden
to let you take her hand in marble ? "
“Never! She never knew it!” hastily replied Ken-
yon, anxious to vindicate bis mistress's maidenly reserve.
“I stole it from her. The hand is a reminiscence. After
gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for an in-
stant when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should be
a bungler indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to some-
thing like the life.”
“ May you win the original one day!" said Miriam,
kindly.
“I have little ground to hope it," answered the sculptor
despondingly; “Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atı
nosphere ; and gentle and soft as she appears, it will be


A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.
153
as difficult to win her heart as to entice down a white
bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is strange,
with all her delicacy and fragility, the inipression she
makes of being utterly sufficient to herself. No; I shall
never win her. She is abundantly capable of sympathy,
and delights to receive it, but she has no need of love."
"I partly agree with you," said Miriam. “It is a mis
taken idea, which men generally entertain, that naturo
has made women especially prone to throw their whole
being into what is technically called love. We have, to
say the least, no more necessity for it than yourselves ;
only we have nothing else to do with our hearts. When
women have other objects in life, they are not apt to fall
in love. I can think of many women distinguished in art,
literature, and science, and multitudes whose hearts and
minds find good employment in less ostentatious ways,
- who lead high, lonely lives, and are conscious of no
sacrifice so far as your sex is concerned.”
“ And Hilda will be one of these!” said Kenyon,
sadly; "the thought makes me shiver for myself, and -
and for her,
too."
“Well,” said Miriam, smiling, “perhaps she may sprain
the delicate wrist which you have sculptured to such per-
fection. In that case you may hope. These old masters
to whom she has vowed herself, and whom her slender
hand and woman's heart serve so faithfully, are your only
rivals.”
The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of
Hilda's marble hand into the rvory coffer, and thought
low slight was the possibility that he should ever feel


156
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
responsive to his own the tender clasp of the original
He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had
made; it had assumed its share of Hilda's remote and
shy divinity.
“ And now," said Miriam, "show me the new status
whicb you asked me hither to see.”


CLEOPATRA.
157
CHAPTER XIV.
CLEOPATRA.
“My new statue !” said Kenyon, who had positively
forgotten it in the thought of Hilda; "here it is under
this veil.”
“Not a nude figure, I hope," observed Miriam.
“Every young sculptor seems to think that he must give
the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and
call it Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apol-
ogize for a lack of decent clothing. I am weary, even
more than I am ashamed, of seeing such things. Now-a-
days people are as good as born in their clothes, and there
is practically not a nude human being in existence. An
artist, therefore, as you must candidly confess, cannot
sculpture nudity with a pure heart, if only because he is
compelled to steal guilty glimpses at hired models. The
marble inevitably loses its chastity under such circum-
stances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his
models in the open sunshine, and among pure and prince.
ly maidens, and thus the nude statues of antiquity are
AS modest as violets, and sufficiently draped in their
own brauty. But as for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses


158
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
(stained, I believe, with tobacco-juice,) and all other na-
dities of to-day, I really dc not understand what they have
to say to this generation, and would be glad to see as
many heaps of quicklime in their stead.”
“You are severe upon the professors of my art,” said
Kenyon, half smiling, half seriously; "not that you are
wholly wrong, either. We are bound to accept drapery
of some kind, and make the best of it. But what are we
to do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve,
for example, a Venus in a hoop-petticoat ?”
“That would be a boulder, indeed !” rejoined Miriam,
laughing. But the difficulty goes to confirm me in my
belief that, except for portrait-busts, sculpture has no
longer a right to claim any place among living arts. Jt
has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There
is never a new group now-a-days; never even so much
as a new attitude. Greenough (I take my examples
among men of merit) imagined nothing new; nor Craw-
ford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not,
as you will own, more than half a dozen positively origi-
nal statues or groups in the world, and these few are of
immemorial antiquity. A person familiar with the Vati-
can, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery, and the
Louvre, will at once refer any modern production to its
antique prototype ; which, moreover, had begun to get
out of fashion, even in old Roman days.”
“ Pray stop, Miriam,” cried Kenyon," or I shall Aling
away the chisel forever!”
“ Fairly own to me, then, my friend,” rejoined Miriam,
whose disturbed mind found a certain relief in this decla-


CLEOPATRA.
159
mation, that you sculptors are, of necessity, the greatest
plagiarists in the world.”
"I do not own it,” said Kenyon, “yet cannot utterly
cortradict you, as regards the actual state of the art.
But as long as the Carrara quarries still yield pure
blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains,
probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that
future sculptors will revive this noblest of the beautiful
arts, and people the world with new shapes of delicate
grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps,” he added, smil.
ing, “ mankind will consent to wear a more manageable
costume; or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to
make broadcloth transparent, and render a majestic human
character visible through the coats and trousers of tho
present day.”
“ Be it so !” said Miriam ; “ you are past my counsel.
Show me the veiled figure, which, I am afraid, I have
criticized beforehand. To make amends, I am in the
mood to praise it now."
But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the clay
model, she laid her hand on his arm.
“Tell me first what is the subject," said she, “ for I
have sometimes incurred great displeasure from members
ot your
brotherhood by being too obtuse to puzzle out the
purport of their productions. It is so difficult, you know,
to compress and define a character or story, and make it
patent at a glance, within the narrow scope attainable by
sculpture! Indeed, I fancy it is still the ordinary habit
with sculptors, first to finish their group of statuary - in
such development as the particular lilcek of marble will


160
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Have you
allow -- and then to choose the subject; as John of Bo
logna did with his · Rape of the Sabines.
followed that good example ?"
“ No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra,” replied
Kenyon, a little disturbed by Miriam's raillery. “ The
special epoch of her history you must make out for your-
self."
He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the
moisture of the clay model from being exhaled. The
sitting figure of a woman was seen. She was draped
from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously
studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the
strange sculpture of that country, its coins, drawings,
painted mummy-cases, and whatever other tokens have
been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs.
Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but
had been softened into a rich feminine adornment, without
losing a particle of its truth. Difficulties that might well
have seemed insurmountable, had been courageously en-
countered and made flexible to purposes of grace and
dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to
her historic and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptole-
mies, and yet such as the beautiful woman would have
put on as best adapted to heighten the magnificence of
her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold eyes
of
Octavius.
A marvellous repose
that rare merit in statuary.
except it be the lumpish repose native to the block of
stone was diffused throughout the figure. The spec-
tator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the fevej


CLEOPATRA.
161
was the
and turmoil of her life, and for one instant as it were,
between two pulse-throbs — had relinquished all activity,
and was resting throughout every vein and muscle. It
repose of despair, indeed; for Octavius had seen
her, and remained insensible to her enchantments. But
still there was a great smouldering furnace deep down in
the woman's heart. The repose, no doubt, was as com-
plete as if she were never to stir hand or foot again ; and
yet, such was the creature's latent energy and fierceness,
she might spring upon you like a tigress, and stop the
very breath that you were now drawing midway in your
throat.
The face was a miracylous success. The sculptor had
not shunned to give the full, Nubian lips, and other char.
acteristics of the Egyptian physiognomy.
His couras
and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; for Cle ja
patra's beauty shone out richer, warmer, more trium-
phantly beyond comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from
the truth, he had chosen the tame Grecian type. The
expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily revolving
thought; a glance into her past life and present emergen
cies, while her spirit gathered itself up for some new
struggle, or was getting sternly reconciled to impending
doom. In one view, there was a certain softness and len-
derness — how breathed into the statue, among so many
strong and passionate elements, it is impossible to say.
Catching another glimpse, you beheld her as implacablo
As a stone and cruel as fire.
In a word, all Cleopatra - fierce, voluptuous, passion-
ate, tender, wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and


162
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
rapturous enchantment. was kneaded into what, only &
week or two before, had been a lump of wet clay from
the Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible mate-
rial, she would be one of the images that men keep for-
ever, finding a heat in them which does not cool down,
throughout the centuries.
“What a woman is this !” exclaimed Miriam, after a
long pause.
“ Tell me, did she ever try, even while you
were creating her, to overcome you with her fury or her
love? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew
more and more towards hot life beneath your hand ? My
dear friend, it is a great work! How have you learned
to do it?"
“ It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emo-
tion, and toil of brain and hand,” said Kenyon, not with-
out a perception that his work was good ; “but I know
not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire
within my mind, and threw in the material, -as Aaron
threw the gold of the Israelites into the furnace,
and in the midmost heat uprose Cleopatra, as you see
her."
“What I most marvel at,” said Miriam,“ is the wom-
anhood that you have so thoroughly mixed up with all
those seemingly discordant elements. Where did you get
that secret ? You never found it in your' gentle Hilda
yet I recognize its truth.”
“No, surely, it was not in Hilda,” said Kenyon. “Her
womanhood is of the ethereal type, and incompatible with
ay shadow of darkness or evil.”
"Vou are right,” rejoined Miriam 6 there are women


CLEOPATRA.
163
;
of that ethereal type as you term it, and Hilda is one of
them. She would die of her first wrong-doing- suppos.
ing for a moment that she could be capable of doing
wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might
bear a great burden; of sin, not a feather's weight.
Methinks now, were it my doom, I could bear either, or
both at once; but my conscience is still as white as Hilda’s.
Do you question it?"
“ Heaven forbid, Miriam !” exclaimed the sculptor.
He was startled at the strange turn which she had so
suddenly given to the conversation. Her voice, too -
80 much emotion was stifled rather than expressed in it.
sounded unnatural.
“Oh, my friend,” cried she, with sudden passion,“ will
you be my friend indeed ? I am lonely, lonely, lonely!
There is a secret in my heart that burns me-
that tor-
tures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; sometimes
I hope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah,
if I could but whisper it to only one human soul! And
you — you see far into womanhood ; you receive it widely
into your large view! Perhaps - perhaps, but Heaven
only knows, you might understand me! Oh, let me
speak!”
“ Miriam, dear friend,” replied the sculptor, “ if I can
help you, speak freely, as to a brother.”
“Help me? No!” said Miriam.
Kenyon's responso had been perfectly frank and kind;
and yet the subtlety of Miriam's emotion detected a cer.
tain reserve and alarm in his warmly expressed readiness
I hear her story. In his secret sou), to say the truth


164
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this poor
suffering girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for
him to listen. If there were any active duty of friend.
ship to be performed, then, indeed, he would joyfully have
come forward to do his best. But if it were only a pent-
up heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was by no
means so certain that a confession would do good. The
more her secret struggled and fought to be told, the more
certain would it be to change all former relations that had
subsisted between herself and the friend to whom she
might reveal it.
Unless he could give her all the sympa-
thy, and just the kind of sympathy that the occasion
required, Miriam would hate him by and by, and herself
still more, if he let her speak.
This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluc.
tance, after all, and whether he were conscious of it or
no, resulted from a suspicion that had crept into his heart
and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it was, when
Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once.
“Ah, I shall hate you !” cried she, echoing the thought
which he had not spoken ; she was half choked with the
gush of passion that was thus turned back upon her.
“ You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble.”
“No; but full of sympathy, God knows !" replied he.
In truth his suspicions, however warranted by the
mystery in which Miriam was enveloped, had vanished in
the earnestness of his kindly and sorrowful emotion. He
was now ready to receive her trust.
“Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of
such solace," said she, making a strong effort to compose


LEOPATRA.
i 75
herself. -- As for my griefs, I know how to manage them.
It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for me, unless
you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleo-
patra there; and I am not of her sisterhood, I do assure
you. Forget this foolish scene, my friend, and never let
me see a reference to it in your eyes when they meet
mine hereafter."
“Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten,” answered
the sculptor, pressing her hand as she departed; " or, if
ever I can serve you, let my readiness to do so be remem-
bered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in the same
clear, friendly light as heretofore.”
“ You are less sincere than I thought you," said Mir-
iam, “if you try to make me think that there will be no
change."
As he attended her through the antechamber, she
pointed to the statue of the pearl-diver.
“My secret is not a pearl,” said she; “yet a man might
drown himself in plunging after it.”
After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily
down the staircase, but paused midway, as if debating
with herself whether to return.
“ The mischief was done,” thought she; " and I might
as well have had the solace that ought to come with it. I
have lost — by staggering a little way beyond the mark,
in the blindness of my distress - I have lost, as we shall
hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded,
honorable, truehearted young man, and all for nothing.
What if I should go back this moment and compel him to
listen?"


166
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
-
She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again
paused, murmured to herself, and shook her head.
“No, no, no,” she thought ; " and I wonder how I ever
came to dream of it. Unless I had his heart for my own,
- and that is Hilda's, nor would I steal it from her, - it
should never be the treasure-place of my secret. It is no
piecious pearl, as I just now told him ; but my dark-red
carbuncle - red as blood -- is too rich a gem to put into
a stranger's casket."
She went down the stairs and found her Shadow wait
ing for her in the street.


AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
167
CHAPTER XV.
AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
On the evening after Miriam's visit to Kenyon’s studio,
there was an assemblage composed almost entirely of
Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of American artists, with a
sprinkling of their English brethren ; and some few of
the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy
Week was past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor, were all
three present, and, with them, Donatello, whose life was
so far turned from its natural bent, that, like a pet spaniel,
he followed his beloved mistress wherever he could gain
admittance.
The place of meeting was in the palatial, but some-
what faded and gloomy apartment of an eminent member
of the æsthetic body. It was no more formal an occasion
than one of those weekly receptions, common among the
foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people -
or disagreeable ones, as the case may
be encounter one
another with little ceremony.
If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to
please who cannot find fit companionship among a crowd
of persons, whose ideas and pursuits all tend towards the
reneral purpose of larging the world's stock of beauti-
fal productions.


loisi
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite
residence of artists their ideal home which they sigh for
in advance, and are so loth to migrate from, after once
breathing its enchanted air -- is, doubtless, that they there
find themselves in force, and are numerous enough to
create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime
they are isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are
free citizens.
Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to
be any large stock of mutual affection among the brethren
of the chisel and the pencil. On the contrary, it will
impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies and petty
animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside,
still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class
of imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons
why this should be the fact. The public, in whose good
graces lie the sculptor's or the painter's prospects of suc-
cess, is infinitely smaller than the public to which literary
men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited
body of wealthy patrons ; and these, as the artist well
knows, are but blind judges in matters that require the
utmost delicacy of perception. Thus, success in art is apt
to become partly an affair of intrigue; and it is almost in-
evitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at his
gifted brother's fame, and be chary of the good word that
might help him to sell still another statue or picture.
You seldom hear a painter heap generous praise on any-
thing in his special line of art; a sculptor never has a
favorable eye for any marble but his own.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges,


AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
169
wrtists are conscious of a social warmth from each other's
presence and contiguity. They sbiver at the remem-
brance of their lonely studios in the unsympathizing cities
of their native land. For the sake of such brotherhood
as they can find, more than for any good that they get
from galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while
their originality dies out of them, or is polished away as
a barbarism.
The company this evening included several men and
women whom the world has heard of, and many others,
beyond all question, whom it ought to know. · It would
be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages,
name by name, and — had we confidence enough in our
own taste - to crown each well-deserving brow according
to its deserts. The opportunity is tempting, but not easily
manageable, and far too perilous, both in respect to those
individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far
greater number that must needs be left in the shade.
Ink, moreover, is apt to have a corrosive quality, and
might chance to raise a blister, instead of any more agree-
able titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists.
We must therefore forego the delight of illuminating this
chapter with personal allusions to men whose renown
glows richly on canvas, or gleams in the white moonlight
of marble.
Otherwise we might point to an artist who has studied
nature with such tender love that she takes him to her
intimacy, enabling him to reproduce her in landscapes that
seem the reality of a better earth, and yet are but the
truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the
VOL 1
8


170
ROMANCE OF MOSTE BEN,
painter's insight and interpreted for us by his skill. By
his magic, the moon throws her light far out of the pict-
ure, and the crimson of the summer night absolutely
glimmers on the beholder's face. Or we might indicate
a poet-painter, whose song has the vividness of picture
and whose canvas is peopled with angels, fairies, and
water-sprites, done to the ethereal life, because he saw
them face to face in his poetic mood. Or we might bow
before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too relig.
iously, with too earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch,
for the world at once to recognize how much toil and
thought are compressed into the stately brow of Prospero,
and Miranda's maiden loveliness; or from what a depth
within this painter's heart the Angel is leading forth St.
Peter.
Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score
of little epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly
meant, but none of them quite hitting the mark, and often
striking where they were not aimed. It may be allowa-
ble to say, however, that American art is much better
represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculptu-
resque department. Yet the men of marble appear to
wave more weight with the public than the men of can-
vas; perhaps on account of the greater density and solid
substance of the material in which they work, and the
sort of physical advantage which their labors thus acquire
over the illusive unreality of color. To be a sculptor
seems a distinction in itself; whereas, a painter is noth.
ing, unless individually eminent.
One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with


AN ASTHETIC COMPANY.
171
a beautiful fancy, and possessing at his fingers' ends the
capability of doing beautiful things. He was a quiet,
simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and bright,
under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile,
such as he might have cut with his own chisel. He had
spent his life, for forty years, in making Venuses, Cupids,
Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other marble progeny of
dream-work, or rather frost-work: it was all a vapory
exhalation out of the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on
the dull window-panes of to-day. Gifted with a more
delicate power than any other man alive, he had foregone
to be a Christian reality, and perverted himself into a
Pagan idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our present
world, it would be exceedingly difficult to define. And,
loving and reverencing the pure material in which he
wrought, as surely this admirable sculptor did, he had
nevertheless robbed the marble of its chastity, by giving
it an artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin and
shame to look at his nude goddesses. They had revealed
themselves to his imagination, no doubt, with all their
deity about them ; but, bedaubed with buff-color, they
stood forth to the eyes of the profane in the guise of
naked women.
But, whatever criticism may be ven.
tured on his style, it was good to meet a man so modest
and yet imbued with such thorough and simple conviction
of his own right principles and practice, and so quietly
satisfied that his kind of antique achievement was all that
sculpture could effect for modern life.
This eminent person's weight and authority among his
artistic brethren wore very evident; for heginning uneh


172
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
rusively to utter himself on a topic of art, he was soon
she centre of a little crowd of younger sculptors. They
Irank in his wisilom, as if it would serve all the purposes
of original inspiration; he, meanwhile, discoursing with
gentle calmness, as if there could possibly be no other
side, and often ratifying, as it were, his own conclusions
by a mildly emphatic- “ Yes.”
The veteran sculptor's unsought audience was composed
mostly of our own countrymen. It is fair to say, that
they were a body of very dexterous and capable artists,
each of whom had probably given the delighted public a
nude statue, or had won credit for even higher skill by
the nice carving of buttonholes, shoeties, coat-seams,
shirt-bosoms, and other such graceful peculiarities of
nodern costume. Smart, practical men they doubtless
were, and some of them far more than this, but, still, not
precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculp-
tor. A sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands which our
preconceptions make upon him, should be even more in-
dispensably a poet than those who deal in measured verse
and rhyme. His material, or instrument, which serves
him in the stead of shifting and transitory language, is a
pure, white, undecaying substance. It insures immortal-
ity to whatever is wrought in it, and therefore makes it a
religious obligation to commit no idea to its mighty guar-
dianship, save such as may repay the marble for its faith-
ful care, its incorruptible fidelity, by warming it with an
ethereal life. Under this aspect, marble assumes a sacred
character; and no man should dare to touch it unless he
feels within hiniself a certain consecration and a priest


AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
173
---
hood, the only evidence of which, for the public eye, will
be the high treatment of heroic subjects, or the delicate
evolution of spiritual, through material beauty.
No ideas such as the foregoing -- no misgivings sug-
gested by them - probably troubled the self-complacency
of most of these clever sculptors. Marble, in their view,
had no such sanctity as we impute to it. It was merely
a sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into conven-
ient blocks, and worth, in that state, about two or three
dollars per pound; and it was susceptible of being wrought
into certain shapes (by their own mechanical ingenuity,
or that of artisans in their employment) which would
enable them to sell it again at a much higher figure.
Such men, on the strength of some small knack in band-
ling clay, which might have been fitly employed in mak
ing waxwork, are bold to call themselves sculptors. How
terrible should be the thought, that the nude woman whom
the modern artist patches together, bit by bit, from a dozen
heterogeneous models, meaning nothing by her, shall last
as long as the Venus of the Capitol !- that his group of
no matter what, since it has no moral or intellectual
existence — will not physically crumble any sooner than
the immortal agony of the Laocoön!
Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these,
whose merits we are not quite able to appreciate. Sculp
tors, painters, crayon sketchers, or whatever branch of
æsthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter people,
As we saw them that evening, than the average whom we
ineet in ordinary society. They were not wholly confined
within the sordid compass of practical life they had a


174
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI,
pursuit which, if followed faithfully out, would lead them
to the beautiful, and always had a terdency thịtherwards
even if they lingered to gather up golden dross by the
wayside. Their actual business (though they talked
about very much as other men talk of cotton, politics,
flour barrels, and sugar) necessarily illuminated their con-
versation with something akin to the ideal. So, wten
the guests collected themselves in little groups, here and
there, in the wide saloon, a cheerful and airy gossip began
to be heard. The atmosphere ceased to be precisely that
of common life; a faint, mellow tinge, such as we see in
pictures, mingled itself with the lamplight.
This good effect was assisted by many curious little
treasures of art, which the host had taken care to strew
upon his tables. They were principally such bits of an-
tiquity as the soil of Rome and its neighborhood are still
rich in ; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, mediæva]
carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at lit-
dle cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in
the museum of a virtuoso.
As interesting as any of these relics was a large port-
folio of old drawings, some of which, in the opinion of
their possessor, bore evidence on their faces of the touch
of master-hands. Very ragged and ill-conditioned they
mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with rough
usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been
scratched rudely with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if
drawn with charcoal or a pencil, were now half rubbed
out. You would not anywhere see rougher and homelier
things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the


AN ÆSTHETIU UMPANY.
175
skatches only the more valuable ; because the artist
seemed to have bestirred himself at the pinch of the mo-
ment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, so as
to seize the first glimpse of an idea that might vanish in
the twinkling of an eye. Thus, by the spell of a creased,
soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, you were enabled to
steal close to an old master, and watch him in the very
effervescence of his genius.
According to the judgment of several connoisseurs,
Raphael's own hand had communicated its magnetism to
one of these sketches; and, if genuine, it was evidently
his first conception of a favorite Madonna, now hanging
in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence.
Another drawing was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci,
and appeared to be a somewhat varied design for his pic-
ture of Modesty and Vanity, in the Sciarra Palace.
There were at least half a dozen others, to which the
owner assigned as high an origin. It was delightful to
believe in their authenticity, at all events ; for these things
make the spectator more vividly sensible of a great
painter's power, than the final glow and perfected art of
the most consummate picture that may have been elabo
rated from them. There is an effluence of divinity in the
first sketch ; and there, if anywhere, you find the pure
light of inspiration, which the subsequent toil of the artist
serves to bring out in stronger lustre, indeed, but likewise
adulterates it with what belongs to an in 'erior mood. The
aroma and fragrance of new thought were perceptible in
these designs, after three centuries of wear and tear.
The charm lay partly in their very imperfertion : for this
;


176
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
is suggestive, and sets the imagination at work; whereas,
the finished picture, if a good one, leaves the spectator
nothing to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, disenchants,
and disheartens him.
Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. She
lingered so long over one particular sketch, that Miriam
asked her what discovery she had made.
“ Look at it carefully,” replied Hilda, putting the sketch
into her hands. “ If you take pains to disentangle the
design from those pencil-marks, that seem to have been
scrawled over it, I think you will see something very
curious.”
“ It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid,” said Miriam.
“I have neither your faith, dear Hilda, nor your percep-
tive faculty. Fie! what a blurred scrawl it is indeed!”
The drawing had originally been very slight, and had
suffered more from time and hard usage than almost any
other in the collection; it appeared, too, that there had
peen an attempt (perhaps by the very hand that drew it)
to obliterate the design. By Hilda's help, however,
Miriam pretty distinctly made out a winged figure with a
drawn sword, and a dragon, or a demon, prostrate at his
feet.
“I am convinced," said Hilda, in a low, reverential
tone, “ that Guido's own touches are on that ancient scrap
of paper! If so, it must be his original sketch for the
picture of the Archangel Michael, setting his foot upon
the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The com-
position and general arrangement of the sketch are the
same with those of the picture; the only difference being,


AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
174
---
that the demon has a more upturned face, and scowls vin.
dictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes in
painful disgust.”
“ No wonder !” responded Miriam. “ The expression
suits the daintiness of Michael's character, as Guido rep-
resents him. He never could have looked the demon in
the face ! ”
“Miriam !” exclaimed her friend, reproachfully," you
grieve me, and you know it, by pretending to speak con-
temptuously of the most beautiful and the divinest figure
that mortal painter ever drew.”
• Forgive me, Hilda !” said Miriam. “ You take
these matters more religiously than I can, for my life.
Guido's Archangel is a fine picture, of course, but it never
impressed me as it does you.”
“ Well; we will not talk of that," answered Hilda.
“What I wanted you to notice, in this sketch, is the face
of the demon. It is entirely unlike the demon of the fin-
ished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that the
resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or im-
aginary. Now, here is the face as he first conceived it.”
“ And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of
:he finished picture," said Kenyon, taking the sketch into
his hand. “What a spirit is conveyed into the ugliness
of this strong, writhing, squirming dragon, under the
Archangel's foot! Neither is the face an impossible one
Upon my word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the
houlders
a living man!”
" And so have 1,” said Hilda. “ It was what struck
me from the first.”
8 *


178
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ Donatello, look at this face!" cried Kenyon,
The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little intoa.
ost in matters of art, and seldom or never ventured an
opinion respecting them. After holding the sketch a sin-
gle instant in his hand, he flung it from him with a shud-
der of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that had all
the bitterness of hatred.
“ I know the face well !” whispered he.
“ It is
Miriam's model ! ”
It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that
they had detected, or fancied, the resemblance which
Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it added not a little
to the grotesque aud weird character which, half play:
fully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam's attendant,
to think of him as personating the demon's part in a pic-
ture of more than two centuries ago. Had Guido, in his
effort to imagine the utmost of sin and misery, which his
pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just this face ?
Or was it an actual portrait of somebody that haunted
the old master, as Miriam was haunted now? Did the
ominous shadow follow him through all the sunshine of
his earlier career, and into the gloom that gathered about
its closc? And when Guido died, did the spectre betake
himself to those ancient sepulchres, there awaiting a new
victim, till it was Miriam’s ill-hap to encounter him ?
"I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all,” said
Miriam, looking narrowly at the sketch ; " and, as I have
drawr the face twenty times, I think you will own that I
om the best judge."
A. discussion here arose, in reference to Guido's Arch


AN ÆSTHETIC COMPANY.
179
angel, and it was agreed that these four friends should
visit the Church of the Cappuccini the next morning, and
critically examine the picture in question; the similarity
between it and the sketch being, at all events, a very
curious circumstance.
It was now a little past ten o'clock, when some of the
company, who had been standing in a balcony, declared
che moonlight to be resplendent. They proposed a ram.
ble through the streets, taking in their way some of those
scenes of ruin, which produced their best effects under
the splendor of the Italian moon


180
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
CHAPTER XVI.
À MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
The proposal for a moonlight ramble was recsived
with acclamation by all the younger portion of the com-
pany. They immcdiately set forth and descended from
story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen tapers,
which are a necessary equipment to those whose thorough-
fare, in the night-time, lies up and down a Roman stair-
case. Emerging from the courtyard of the edifice, they
looked upward and saw the sky full of light, which seemed
to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at least,
some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine of other
skies. It gleamed over the front of the opposite palace,
showing the architectural ornaments of its cornice and
pillared portal, as well as the iron-barred basement win-
(lows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to the structure,
and the shabbiness and squalor that lay along its base
A cobbler was just shutting up his little shop, in the base-
ment of the palace; a cigar vendor's lantern flared in the
blast that came through the archway; a French sentinel
paced to and fro before the portal ; a homeless dog, that
haunted thereabouts, barked as obstreperously at the


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
181
party as if he were the domestic guardian of the pre
cincts.
The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water
the cause of which was nowhere visible, though appar-
ently near at hand. This pleasant, natural sound, not
unlike that of a distant cascade in the forest, may be
heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, wher
the tumult at the city is hushed; for consuls, emperors
and popes, the great men of every age, have found no
better way of immortalizing their memories, than by the
shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, up-gush
and downfall of water. They have written their names
in that unstable element, and proved it a more durable
record than brass or marble.
“ Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boy-
ish artists for your companion,” said Miriam, when she
found the Italian youth at her side. “ I am not now in a
merry mood, as when we set all the world a-dancing the
other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds."
“I never wish to dance any more," answered Dona-
tello.
“ What a melancholy was in that tone!” exclaimed
Miriam. 6 You are getting spoilt, in this dreary Rome.
and will be as wise and as wretched as all the rest of
mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vine-
yards. Well; give me your arm then! But take care
that no friskiness comes over you. We must walk evenly
and heavily to-night !”
The party arranged itself according to its natural affin-
ities or casual likings; a sculptor generally choosing a


182
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
its uproar
painter, and a painter a sculptor, for his a mpanion, in
preference to brethren of their own art. Kenyon would
gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have drawn her
a little aside from the throng of merry wayfarers. But
she kept near Miriam, and seemed, in her gentle and
quiet way, to decline a separate alliance either with him
or any other of her acquaintances.
So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when
the narrow street emerged into a piazza, on one side of
which, glistening, and dimpling in the moonlight, was the
most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur - not to say
had been in the ears of the company, ever
since they came into the open air. It was the Fountain
of Trevi, which draws its precious water from a source
far beyond the walls, whence it flows hitherward through
old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as pure as
the virgin who first led Agrippa to its wellspring, by her
father's door.
“ I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my
hand will hold,” said Miriam. “I am leaving Rome in a
few days; and the tradition goes, that a parting draught
at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller's return,
shatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset
him. Will you drink, Donatello ? "
"Signorina, what you drink, I drink," said the youth.
They and the rest of the party, descended some steps
to the water's brim, and, after a sip or two, stood gazing
at the absurd design of the fountain, where some sculptor
of Bernini's school had gone absolutely mad, in marble.
It was a great palace-front, with niches and many bas
;


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE
183
reliefs, out of which looked Agrippa's legendary virgin,
And several of the allegoric sisterhood ; while, at the
base, appeared Neptune, with his floundering steeds and
Tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty other
artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into
better taste than was native to them.
And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as
ere: human skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial
façade, was strown, with careful art and ordered irregu-
larity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking
as if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a
central precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade;
and from a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets
gushed up, and streams spouted out of the mouths and
nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in glistening drops;
while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping from
one rude step to another, over stones that were mossy,
alimy, and green with sedge, because, in a century of
their wild play, Nature had adopted the Fountain of
Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her own. Final-
ly, the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with joy-
ous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a
great marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quiv.
ering tide ; on which was seen, continually, a snowy sem-
icircle of momentary foam from the principal cascade, as
well as a multitude of snow-points from smaller jets.
The basin occupied the whole breadth of the piazza,
whence flights of steps descended to its border. A boat
might float, and make voyages from one shore to another
in this mimic lake


184
RI MANCE OF MONTE BENI.
In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in
Rome than the neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi;
for the piazza is then filled with the stalls of vegetable
and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, cigar vendors, and
other people, whose petty and wandering traffic is trans-
acted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers,
lounging over the iron railing, and with Forestieri, who,
came hither to see the famous fountain. Here, also, are
seen men with buckets, urchins with cans, and maidens (a
picture as old as the patriarchal times) bearing their pitch-
ers upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in request,
far and wide, as the most refreshing draught for feverish
lips, the pleasantest to mingle with wine, and the whole-
somest to drink, in its native purity, that can anywhere
be found. But, now, at nearly midnight, the piazza was
a solitude ; and it was a delight to behold this untamable
water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and compel-
ling all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a natural
aspect, in accordance with its own powerful simplicity.
“ What would be done with this water-power,” sug-
gested an artist, “if we had it in one of our American
cities ? would they employ it to turn the machinery of a
cotton-mill, I wonder ?”
“ The good people would pull down those rampant
marble deities,” said Kenyon, “and possibly they would
gire me a commission to carve the one-and-thirty (is that
the number ?) sister States, each pouring a silver stream
from a separate can into one vast basin, which should
represent the grand reservoir of national prosperity."
“ Or, if they wanted a bit of satire,” remarked an Eng


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
185
lish artist, "you could set those. same one-and-thirty
States to cleansing the national flag of any stains that it
may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at the
lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would
serve admirably as models."
“I have often intended to visit this fountain by moon.
light,” said Miriam, “because it was here that the inter-
view took place between Corinne and Lord Neville, after
their separation and temporary estrangement. Pray
come behind me, one of you, and let me try whether the
race can be recognized in the water.”
Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard
footsteps stealing behind her, and knew that somebody
was looking over her shoulder. The moonshine fell
directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace-front and
the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the basin,
as it were, with tremulous and palpable light. Corinne,
it will be remembered, knew Lord Neville by the reflec-
tion of his face in the water. In Miriam's case, however,
(owing to the agitation of the water, its transparency,
and the angle at which she was compelled to lean over,)
no reflected image appeared ; nor, from the same causes,
would it have been possible for the recognition between
Corinne and her lover to take place. The moon, indeed,
Aung Miriam's shadow at the bottom of the basin, as well
as two more shadows of persons who had followed her, on
either side.
“Three shadows !” exclaimed Miriam.
arate shadows, all so black and heavy that they sink in
the water! There they lie on the bottom, as if all three
66 Three sep


186
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
;
were drowned together. This shadow on my right is
Donatello; I know him by his curls, and the turn of his
head. My left-hand companion puzzles me; a shapeless
mass, as indistinct as the premonition of calamity! Which
of you can it be? Ah!”
She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside
her the strange creature, whose attendance on her was
already familiar, as a marvel and a jest, to the whole
company of artists. A general burst of laughter fol.
lowed the recognition ; while the model leaned towards
Miriam, as she shrank from him, and muttered something
that was inaudible to those who witnessed the scen. By
his gestures, however, they concluded that he was izvit-
ing her to bathe her hands.
“He cannot be an Italian ; at least, not a Roman," ob-
served an artist. “I never knew one of them to care
about ablution. See him now! It is as if he were try-
ing to wash off the time-stains and earthly soil of a thou-
sand years !"
Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before
him, the model rubbed them together with the utmost
vehemence. Ever and anon, too he peeped into the
water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of Trevi
turbid with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked at
him, some little time, with an aspect of real terror, and
even imitated him by leaning over to peep into the basin.
Recovering herself, she took up some of the water in the
hollow of her hand, and practised an old form of exor-
cism by flinging it in her persecutor's face.
“In the name of all the Saints," cried she,
van


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
187
lsh, Demon, and let me be free of you, now and for.
erer i "
“ It will not suffice,” said some of the mirthful party,
“ unless the Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water.”
In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon
the
pertinacious demon, or whatever the apparition might be.
Still he washed his brown, bony talons; still he peered
into the vast basin, as if all the water of that great drink-
ing-cup of Rome must needs be stained black or san-
guine; and still he gesticulated to Miriam to follow his
example. The spectators laughed loudly, but yet with a
kind of constraint; for the creature's aspect was strangely
repulsive and hideous.
Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello.
She looked at him, and beheld a tiger-like fury gleaming
from his wild eyes.
“ Bid me drown him!” whispered he, shuddering be-
tween rage and horrible disgust. “You shall hear his
death-gurgle in another instant !”
“Peace, peace, Donatello !” said Miriam, soothingly;
for this naturally gentle and sportive being seemed all
aflame with animal rage. “ Do him no mischief! He is
mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves to
be disquieted by his anties. Let us leave him to bathe
his hands till the fountain run dry, if he find solace and
pastime in it. What is it to you or me, Donatello ?
There, there! Be quiet, foolish boy!”
Her tone and gesture were such as she might havo
used in taming down the wrath of a faithful hound, that
'ad taken upon himself to avenge some supposed affront


188
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
to his inistress. She smoothed the young man's curls
(for his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among
his hair), and touched his cheek with her soft palm, till
his
angry
mood was a little assuaged.
“ Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me?"
asked he, with a heavy, tremulous sigh, as they went
onward, somewhat apart from their companions. “Me-
thinks there has been a change upon me, these many
months; and more and more, these last few days. The
joj is gone out of my life; all gone! all gone! Feel
my hand ! Is it not very hot ? Ah; and my heart
burns hotter still !”
“My poor Donatello, you are ill!” said Miriam, with
deep sympathy and pity. “This melancholy and sickly
Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous life that belongs
to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home
among
the hills, where (as I gather from what you have told
me) your days were filled with simple and blameless
delights. Have you found aught in the world that is
worth what you there enjoyed ? Tell me truly, Dona-
Jello!”
“ Yes !” replied the young man.
“ And what, in Heaven's name?” asked she.
“This burning pain in my heart,” said Donatello;
" for you are in the midst of it.”
By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi col-
siderably behind them. Little further allusion was made
to the scene at its margin ; for the party regarded Miri
am's persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were hardly
w be surprise l by any eccentricity in his deportinent.


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
189
Threading several narrow streets, they passed through
the Piazza of the Holy Apostles, and soon caine to Tra-
jan's forum.
All over the surface of what once was
Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the
ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton ; so
that, in eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has
grown very deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and the
accumulation of more modern decay upon older ruin.
This was the fate, also, of Trajan's forum, until some
papal antiquary, a few hundred years ago, began to hol-
low it out again, and disclosed the full height of the
gigantic column, wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the
old Emperor's warlike deeds. In the area before it,
stands a grove of stone, consisting of the broken and
unequal shafts of a vanished temple, still keeping a ma-
jestic order, and apparently incapable of further demo-
lition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built,
no doubt, out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look
down into the hollow space whence these pillars rise.
One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the
piazza, on the verge of the area. It was a great, solid
fact of the Past, making old Rome actually sensible to
the touch and eye ; and no study of history, nor force of
thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us
that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what
its rulers and people wrought.
“And, see !” said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it,
" there is still a polish remaining on the hard substance
of the pillar ; and even now, late as it is, I can feel very
sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which did its


190
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever
The polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half
rubbed off, and the heat of to-day's sunshine, lingering
into the night, seem almost equally ephemeral in relation
to it.”
“ There is comfort to be found in the pillar,” remarked
Miriam, “ hard and heavy as it is. Lying here forever,
as it will, it makes all human trouble appear but a mo
mentary annoyance.”
“ And human happiness as evanescent too,” observed
Hilda, sighing ; " and beautiful art hardly less so! I do
not love to think that this dull stone, merely by its mas-
siveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, in
spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it immor-
tality!”
“My poor little Hilda," said Miriam, kissing her com-
passionately, “would you sacrifice this greatest mortal
consolation, which we derive from the transitoriness of all
things — from the right of saying, in every conjuncture,
*This, too, will pass away'- would you give up this
unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eter-
nal?"
Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demon.
stration from the rest of the party, who, after talking and
laughing together, suddenly joined their voices, and
shouted at full pitch,-
“Trajan! Trajan!”
“Why do you deafen us with such an uproar ?
quired Miriam.
In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with theù
"
m.


A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
194
idle vociferation ; the echoes from the surrounding houses
reverberating the cry of “ Trajan, on all sides ; as if
there was a great search for that imperial personage, and
not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found.
“Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in
this resounding piazza,” replied one of the artists. “Be-
sides, we had really some hopes of summoning Trajan to
look at his column, which, you know, he never saw in his
lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived and
sinned before Trajan's death) still wandering about Rome;
And why not the Emperor Trajan?
“Dead
emperors
have
very little delight in their col-
umns, I am afraid," observed Kenyon. “All that rich
sculpture of Trajan's bloody warfare, twining from the
base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly spec-
tacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge,
storied shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as a
piece of the evidence of what he did in the flesh. If
ever I am employed to sculpture a hero's monument, I
shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the pedes
tal ! "
“ There are sermons in stones,” said Hilda, thought-
fully, smiling at Kenyon's morality; " and especially in
the stones of Rome.”
The party moved on, but deviated a little from the
straight way, in order to glance at the ponderous remains
of the Temple of Mars Ultor, within which a convent of
nuns is now established, -a dove-cote, in the war-god's
mansion. At only a little distance, they passed the por.
tico of a Temple of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in


192
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
architecture, but wofully gnawed by time and shattered
by violence, besides being buried midway in the accumu-
lation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood-tide.
Within this edifice of antique sanctity, a baker's shop
was now established, with an entrance on one side ; for,
everywhere, the remnants of old grandeur and divinity
have been made available for the meanest necessities of
to-day.
“ The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven,"
remarked Kenyon. “Do you smell how sour they are ?
I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge for the desecra-
tion of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the
batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer
their bread in the acetous fermentation."
They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained
the rear of the Temple of Peace, and passing beneath its
great arches, pursued their way along a hedge-bordered
lane. In all probability, a stately Roman street lay bur-
ied beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now
emerged from the close and narrow avenues of the mod-
ern city, and were treading on a soil where the seeds of
antique grandeur had not yet produced the squalid crop
that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as the lane
was, it skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin, and the bare
site of the vast temple that Hadrian planned and built.
It terminated on the edge of a somewhat abrupt descent,
at the foot of which, with a muddy ditch between, rose,
in the bright moonlight, the great curving wall and multi-
tudinous arches of the Coliseum.


UKIAM'S TROUBLE.
193
***
CHAPTER XVII.
MIRIAM'S TROUBLE.
As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages
stood at the entrance of this famous ruin, and the pre-
cincts and interior were anything but a solitude. The
French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway
eyed our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their
admission. Within, the moonlight filled and flooded the
great empty space; it glowed upon tier above tier of
ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too dis-
tinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away
that iſestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which
the imaginacion might be assisted to build a grander
structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter it with a more
picturesque decay. Byron's celebrated description is bet-
ter than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind's
eye, through the witchery of many intervening years,
and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of
this broad glow of moonshine.
The party of our friends sat down, three or four of
them on a prostrate column, another on a shapeless lumy
of marble, orice a Roman altar; others on the steps are
VOL 1.
9


194
ROMANCE OF VONT BENI.
Elder groups
one of the Christian shrines. Goths and barbarians
though they were, they chatted as gayly together as if
they belonged to the gentle and pleasant race of people
who now inhabit Italy. There was much pastime and
gayety just then in the area of the Coliseum, where so
many gladiators and wild beasts had fought and died, and
where so much blood of Christian martyrs had been lap
ped up by that fiercest of wild beasts, the Roman populace
of yore. Some youths and maidens were running merry
races across the open space, and playing at hide-and-seek
a little way within the duskiness of the ground-tier of
arches, whence now and then you could hear the half-
shriek, half-laugh of a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow
had betrayed into a young man's arms.
were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks of mar-
ble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking in the
quick, short ripples of the Italian tongue. On the steps
of the great black cross in the centre of the Coliseum,
sat a party singing scraps of songs, with much laughter
and merriment between the stanzas.
It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black
cross marks one of the special blood-spots of the earth,
where thousands of times over the dying gladiator fell,
and more of human agony has been endured for the mere
pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many
battle-fields. From all this crime and suffering, however,
the spot has derived a more than common sanctity. An
inscription promises seven years' indulgence, seven years
of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier
enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss im.


MIRIAM'S TROUBLE.
195
printed on the black cross. What better use could
be made of life, after middle-age, when the accumulated
fins are many and the remaining temptations few
than to spend it all in kissing the black cross of the
Coliseum !
Besides its central consecration, the whole area bas
been made sacred by a range of shrines, which are
erected round the circle, each commemorating some scene
or circumstance of the Saviour's passion and suffering.
In accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim wag
making his progress from shrine to shrine upon his knees,
and saying a penitential prayer at each. Light-footed
girls ran across the path along which he crept, or sported
with their friends close by the shrines where he was
kneeling. The pilgrim took no heed, and the girls meant
no irreverence; for in Italy religion jostles along side by
side with business and sport, after a fashion of its own,
and people are accustomed to kneel down and pray, or see
others praying between two fits of merriment, or between
two sins.
To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of
light was visible amid the breadth of shadow that fell
across the upper part of the Coliseum. Now it glim-
mered through a line of arches, or threw a broader gleam
as it rose out of some profound abyss of ruin ; now it was
muffled by a heap of shrubbery which had adventurously
clambered to that dizzy height ; and so the red light kept
ascending to loftier and loftier ranges of the structure
antil it stood like a star where the blue sky rested against
the Coliseum's topmost wall. It indicated a party of Eng.


196
ROMANCE OF MOITE BENI.
a little
lish or Americans paying the inevitable visit by moon
light, and exalting themselves with raptures that were
Byron's, not their own
Our
company of artists sat on the fallen column, the
pagan altar, and the steps of the Christian shrine, enjoy-
ing the moonlight and shadow, the present gayety and the
gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost equal share.
Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their pursuits
way off the earth, and are therefore able to catch
the evanescent fragrance that flonts in the atmosphere of
life above the heads of the or'linary crowd. Even if
they seem endowed with little imagination individually,
yet there is a property, a gift, a talisman, common to their
class, entitling them to parske somewhat more bounti-
fully than other people in pots thin delights of moonshine
and romance.
“ How delightful chis is !” said Hilda ; and she sighed
for very pleasure.
“Yes,” said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her
side. 6 The Coliseum is far more delightful, as we enjoy
it now, than when eighty thousand persons sat squeezed
nogether, row above row, to see their fellow-creatures torn
hy lions and tigers limb from limb.
What a strange
thought that the Coliseum was really built for us, and has
not come to its best uses till almost two thousand years
after it was finished !”
“The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his mind,"
said Hilda, smiling; “but I thank him none the less for
building it
“He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people whose


MRI AM'S TROUBLE.
197
bloody instincts he pampered," rejoined Kenyon. “Fancy
a nightly assemblage of eighty thousand melancholy and
remorseful ghosts, looking down from those tiers of
broken ar ches, striving to repent of the savage pleasures
which they once enjoyed, but still longing to enjoy them
over agnin."
* You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moon-
light scene," said Hilda.
“ Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum
with phantoms,” replied the sculptor. “Do you remen.
ber that veritable scene in Benvenuto Cellini's autobi-
ography, in which a necromancer of his acquaintance
draws a magic circle - just where the black cross stands
now, I suppose -- and raises myriads of demons?
venuto saw them with his own eyes - giants, pigmies,
and other creatures of frightful aspect — capering and
dancing on yonder walls. Those spectres must have been
Romans, in their lifetime, and frequenters of this bloody
amphitheatre."
“I see a spectre now !” said Hilda, with a little thrill
of uneasiness. “ Have you watched that pilgrim, who is
going round the whole circle of shrines, on his knees, and
praying with such fervency at every one? Now that he
has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the moonshine op
his face as he turns towards us, methinks I recognize
him !"
“ And so do 1” said Kenyon. “Poor Miriam! Do
you think she sees him?"
They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had
risen from th: steps of the shrine and disappeared. She


198
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep obscurity of an
arck that opened just behind them.
Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be
eluded than that of a hound, had stolen after her, and
became the innocent witness of a spectacle that had its
own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, and fancy.
ing herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to
gesticulate extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her
arms wildly abroad, stamping with foot. It was as if she
had stepped aside for an instant, solely to snatch the relief
of a brief fit of madness. Persons in acute trouble, or
laboring under strong excitement, with a necessity for
concealing it, are prone to relieve their nerves in this wild
way; although, when practicable, they find a more effect-
ual solace in shrieking aloud.
Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under
the dusky arches of the Coliseum, we may consider
Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating the elements of
a long insanity into that instant.
"Signorina ! signorina! have pity on me!” cried Do-
natello, approaching her “this is too terrible !"
“ How dare you look at me?” exclaimed Miriam, witb
& start; then, whispering below her breath,"men hava
been struck dead for a less offence ! ”
“ If you desire it, or need it,” said Donatello, humbly
“ I shall not be loth to die.”
“ Donatello," said Miriam, coming close to the young
man, and speaking low, but still the almost insanity of the
moment vibrating in her voice, "if you love yourself, if
you desire those earthly blessings, such as you, of all


MIRIAM'S TROUBLE.
199
men, were made for; if you would come to a good old
age among your olive-orchards and your Tuscan vines, as
your forefathers did ; if you would leave children to enjoy
the same peaceful, happy, innocent life, then flee from
me. Look not behind you! Get you gone without an-
other word.” He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir
“I tell you,” Miriam went on, “ there is a great evil
banging over me! I know it ; I see it in the sky; I feel
it in the air! It will overwhelm me as utterly as if this
arch should crumble down upon our heads! It will crush
you, too, if you stand at my side! Depart, then; and
make the sign of the cross, as your faith bids you, when an
evil spirit is nigh. Cast me off, or you are lost forever.”
A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello's face,
than had hitherto seemed to belong to its simple expres-
sion and sensuous beauty.
“ I will never quit you," he said ; "you cannot drive
me from you.”
“ Poor Donatello !” said Miriam, in a changed tone,
and rather to herself than him. “ Is there no other that
seeks me out — follows me. - is obstinate to share my
affliction and my doom — but only you! They call me
beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could
bring the whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my
utmost need; and my beauty and my gifts have brought
me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, they call
him ; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I
accept his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him
all! Ah! what a sin to stain his joyous nature with the
Larkness of a woe like mine!"


200
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as
Donatello pressed it to his lips. They were now about
to emerge from the depth of the arch ; but, just then, the
kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of the
shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam
had been sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he
prayed, or seemed to pray. It struck Kenyon, however
who sat close by, and saw his face distinctly, - that the
suppliant was merely performing an enjoined penance,
and without the penitence that ought to have given it
effectual life. Even as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and
Miriam soon felt that he had detected her, half hidden as
she was within the obscurity of the arch.
" He is evidently a good Catholic, however," whispered
one of the party. “ After all, I fear we cannot identify
him with the ancient pagan who haunts the catacombs.”
“ The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted
him,” said another ; "they have had fifteen hundred years
to perform the task.”
The company now deemed it time to continue their
ramble. Emerging from a side entrance of the Coliseum,
they had on their left the Arch of Constantine, and, above
it, the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars; por.
tions of which have taken shape anew, in mediæval con-
vents and modern villas. They turned their faces city.
ward, and, treading over the broad flagstones of the old
Roman pavement, passed through the Arch of Titus.
The moon shone brightly enough within it, to show the
seven-branched Jewish candlestick, cut in the marble of
the interior. The original of that awful trophy liet


MIRIAM'S TROUBLE.
201
buried, at this moment, in the yellow mud of the Tiber;
and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought to light, it
would be the most precious relic of past ages, in the
estimation of both Jew and Gentile.
Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to
spare the reader the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on
which hundreds of tourists have already insisted. Over
this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch of Titus,
the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to
fight battles, a world's width away. Returning victorious,
with royal captives and inestimable spoil, a Roman tri-
umph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly pride, had
streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over
these same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart arch-
way. It is politic, however, to make few allusions to such
a past; nor, if we would create an interest in the charac-
t.ers of our story, is it wise to suggest how Cicero's foot
may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was
wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with
the measure of the ode that was ringing in his mind. The
very ghosts of that massive and stately epoch have so
much density that the actual people of to-day seem the
thinner of the two, and stand more ghostlike by the arches
and columns, letting the rich sculpture be discerned
through their ill-compacted substance.
The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups
of midnight strollers like themselves. On such a moon-
light night as this, Rome keeps itself awake and stirring,
and is full of song and pastime, the noise of which min.
gles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed


202
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
But it is better to be abroad, and take our own share of
the enjoyable time; for the languor that weighs so heavily
in the Roman atmosphere by day, is lightened beneath
the moon and stars.
They had now reached the precincts of the Forum.


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
203
CHAPTER XVIII.
ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
"Let us settle it," said Kenyon, stamping his foot
firmly down," that this is precisely the spot where the
chasm opened, into which Curtius precipitated his good
steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, impen-
etrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and hideous
faces looming upward out of it, to the vast affright of the
good citizens who peeped over the brim! There, now,
is
a subject, hitherto unthought of, for a grim and ghastly
story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep as the gulf
itself. Within it, beyond a question, there were prophetic
visions — intimations of all the future calamities of Romo
- shades of Goths and Gauls, and even of the French
soldiers of to-day. It was a pity to close it up so soon!
I would give much for a peep into such a chasm.”
“I fancy,” remarked Miriam, “ that every person takes
a perp into it in moments of gloom and despondency ; tbat
.
is to say, in his moments of deepest insight.”
“Where is it, then?” asked Hilda. “I never peeped
into it.”
Wait, and it will open for you," replied her friend


204
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
« The chasm was merely one of the orifices of tnat pit of
blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere. The firmest
substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread
over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive
stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earth-
quake to open the chasm. A footstep, a little heavier
than ordinary, will serve; and we must step very daintily,
not to break through the crusi at any moment. By-and-
by, we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism
in Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for
all Rome, you see, has been swallowed up in that gulf, in
spite of him.
The Palace of the Cæsars has gone down
thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its fragments!
All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of
statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the
triumphs have marched into the great chasm, with their
martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. All
the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled upon
poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! I am
loth to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horseman,
but cannot well avoid it.”
“ It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam,” said
Hilda, whose natural and cheerful piety was shocked by
her friend's gloomy view of human destinies. “ It seems
to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous emptin ass
under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If
there be such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good
thoughts and deeds, and we shall tread safely to the other
side. It was the guilt of Rome, no doubt, that caused
this oulf to open; and Curtius filled it up with his heroio


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
205
self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue
that the old Roinans knew. Every wrong thing makes
ile gulf deeper; every right one helps to fill it up. As
the evil of Rome was far more than its good, the whole
commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no orig.
inal necessity."
“Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last," an-
swered Miriam, despondingly.
“Doubtless, too," resumed the sculptor (for his imagi.
nation was greatly excited by the idea of this wondrous
chasm), “ all the blood that the Romans shed, whether on
battle-fields, or in the Coliseum, or on the cross, - in
whatever public or private murder, ran into this fatal
gulf, and formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, right
beneath our feet. The blood from the thirty wounds in
Cæsar's breast flowed hitherward, and that pure little riv-
ulet from Virginia's bosom, too! Virginia, beyond all
question, was stabbed by her father, precisely where we
are standing."
“ Then the spot is hallowed forever !” said Hilda.
“Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed ?” asked
Miriam. “Nay, Hilda, do not protest! I take your mean
ing rightly."
They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum
and he Via Sacra, from beneath the arches of the Temple
of Peace on one side, and the acclivity of the Palace of
the Cæsars on the other, there arose singing voices of
parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus,
the air was full of kindred melodies that encountered
one another, and twined themselves into a broad, vagur


206
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
music, oui of which no single strain could be disentangled
These good examples, as well as the harmonious influ.
ences of the hour, incited our artist-friends to make proof
of their own vocal powers. With what skill and breath
they had, they set up a choral strain, “Hail, Columbia."
we believe, — which those old Roman echoes must have
found it exceeding difficult to repeat aright. Even Hilda
poured the slender sweetness of her note into her country's
song Miriam was at first silent, being perhaps unfa-
miliar with the air and burden. But, suddenly, she threw
out such a swell and gush of sound, that it seemed to
pervade the whole choir of other voices, and then to rise
above them all, and become audible in what would else
have been the silence of an upper region. That volume
of melodious voice was one of the tokens of a great
trouble. There had long been an impulse upon her-
amounting, at last, to a necessity - to shriek aloud; but
she had struggled against it, till the thunderous anthem
gave her an opportunity to relieve her heart by a great
cry
They passed the solitary column of Phocas, and looked
down into the excavated space, where a confusion of pil-
lars, arches, pavements, and shattered blocks and shafta
the crumbs of various ruin dropped from the devouring
maw of Time-stand, or lie, at the base of the Capito-
line Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is little more)
now rose abruptly above them. The ponderous masonry,
with which the hill-side is built up, is as old as Rome
itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains
any substance or permanence. It once sustained the l'ap


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
207
itol, and now bears up the great pile which the mediæval
builders raised on the antique foundation, and that still
loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a larger page, of
deeper historic interest, than any other scene can show.
On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, other struct-
ures will doubtless rise, and vanish like ephemeral
things.
To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the
events of Roman history, and Roman life itself, appear
not so distant as the Gothic ages which succeeded them.
We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the Capitol,
and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We
forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in
which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, around
the birth-time of Christianity, as well as the age of chiv-
alıy and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a
better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remem
ber these mediæval times, they look farther off than the
Augustan age.
The reason may be, that the old Roman
literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy with
the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with
the subsequent ones.
The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its rever.
ence, and makes it look newer than it is. Not the Coli-
seum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest
pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as
dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of vener-
able antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from
the gray walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet
every brick or stone, which we pick up among the former


208
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
had fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was
begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Na-
ture takes an English ruin to her heart, covering it with
ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered the dead
babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a part
of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man,
and supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing ver-
dure, till she has won the whole structure back. But, in
Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature forth-
with relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger
on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the
barren sunshine, and leaves it so. Besides this natural
disadvantage, too, each succeeding century, in Rome, ha3
done its best to ruin the very ruins, so far as their pictur-
esque effect is concerned, by stealing away the marble and
hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which never
can look venerable.
The party ascended the winding way that leads from
the Forum to the Piazza of the Campidoglio on the sum-
mit of the Capitoline Hill. They stood awhile to con-
template the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aure-
lius. The moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding
which had once covered both rider and steed; these were
almost gone, but the aspect of dignity was still perfect,
clothing the figure as it were with an imperial robe of
light. It is the most majestic representation of the
kingly character that ever the world has seen.
of the old heathen Emperor is enough to create an eva-
nescent sentiment of loyalty even in a democratic bosom,
B0 august does he look, so fit to rule, so worthy of man's
A sight


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
209
profoundust homage and obedience, so inevitably attractive
of his love. He stretches forth his hand with an air of
grand beneficence and unlimited authority, as if uttering a
decree from which no appeal was permissible, but in
which the obedient subject would find his highest inter-
ests consulted ; a command that was in itself a benedio
tion.
“The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should
be," observed Kenyon, “and knew, likewise, the heart of
mankind, and how it craves a true ruler, under whatever
title, as a child its father.”
“Oh, if there were but one such man
as this !” ex.
claimed Miriam. “One such man in an age, and one in
all the world ; then how speedily wonld the strife, wick-
edness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We
would come to him with our griefs, whatever they miglit
be, even a poor, frail woman burdened with her heavy
heart, - and lay them at his feet and never need to take
them up again. The rightful king would see to all.”
“What an idea of the regal office and duty !” said
Kenyon, with a smile. “ It is a woman's idea of the
whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda's too, no doubt ?”
“ No," answered the quiet Hilda; “I should never look
for such assistance from an earthly king."
** Hilda, my religious Hilda," whispered Miriam, sud-
lenly drawing the girl close to her, “ do you know how
it is with me? I would give all I have or hope --- my
life, oh how freely – for one instant of your trust in
God! You little guess my need of it. You really think,
then, that He sees and cares for us ? "


210
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI,
“ Miriam, you frighten me.”
Hush, hush! do not let them hear you !" whispered
Miriam. “I frighten you, you say; for Heaven's sake,
how? Am I strange ? is there anything wild in my be
havior ?”
"Only for that moment,” replied Hilda," because yon
seemed to doubt God's providence."
“We will talk of that another time,” said her friend.
“ Just now it is very dark to me.”
On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you
face cityward, and at the head of the long and stately
flight of steps descending from the Capitoline Hill to the
level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane or passage.
Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path
ascended a little and ran along under the walls of a pal-
ace, but soon passed through a gateway, and terminated
in a small paved courtyard. It was bordered by a low
parapet.
The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them as
exceedingly lonely. On one side was the great height of
the palace, with the moonshine falling over it, and show-
ing all the windows barred and shuttered. Not a human
eye could look down into the little courtyard, even if the
seemingly deserted palace had a tenant. On all other
sides of its narrow compass there was nothing but the
parapet, which as it now appeared was built right on the
edge of a steep precipice. Gazing from its imminent
brow, the party beheld a crowded confusion of roofs
spreading over the whole space between them and the
line of hills that lay beyond the Tiber. A long, misty


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
211
wreath, just dense enough to catch a little of the moon-
shine, floated above the houses, midway towards the hilly
line, and showed the course of the unseen river. Far
away on the right, the moon gleamed on the dome of St.
Peter's as well as on many lesser and nearer domes.
“What a beautiful view of the city !” exclaimed
Hilda ; " and I never saw Rome from this point before."
It ought to afford a good prospect," said the sculptor ;
“ for it was from this point - at least we are at liberty to
think so, if we choose - that many a famous Roman
caught his last glimpse of his native city, and of all other
earthly things. This is one of the sides of the Tarpeian
Rock. Look over the parapet and see what a sheer tum-
ble there might still be for a traitor, in spite of the thirty
feet of soil that have accumulated at the foot of the preci-
pice.”
They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpen-
dicularly downward to about the depth, or rather more, at
which the tall palace rose in height above their heads.
Not that it was still the natural, shaggy front of the origi-
nal precipice ; for it appeared to be cased in ancient stone-
work, through which the primeval rock showed its face
here and there grimly and doubtfully. Mosses grew on
the slight projections, and little shrubs sprouted out of the
crevises, but could not much soften the stern aspect of the
eliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight fell a-down the
height, it scarcely showed what portion of it was man's
work, and what was Nature's, but left it all in very much
the same kind of ambiguity and half-knowledge in which
antiquarians generally leave the identity of Roman remains


212
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
The roofs of some poor-looking houses which had been
built against the base and sides of the cliff, rose nearly
midway to the top; but from an angle of the parapet
there was a precipitous plunge straight downward into *
stone-paved court.
“I prefer this to any other site as having been verita
bly the Traitor's Leap," said Kenyon, “ because it was so
convenient to the Capitol. It was an admirable idea of
those stern old fellows to Aling their political criminals
down from the very summit on which stood the Senato
House and Jove's Temple, emblems of the institutions
which they sought to violate. It symbolizes how sudden
was the fall in those days from the utmost height of ambi.
tion to its profoundest ruin."
“ Come, come'; it is midnight,” cried another artist,
“ too late to be moralizing here. We are literally dream-
ing on the edge of a precipice. Let us go home.”
“ It is time, indeed,” said Hilda.
The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be
favored with the sweet charge of escorting Hilda to the
foot of her tower. Accordingly, when the party prepared
to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at first ac
cepted it; but when they had partly threaded the passage
between the little courtyard and the Piazza del Campi-
iloglio, she discovered that Miriam had remained behind.
“I must go back," said she, withdrawing her arm from
Kenyon's; “but pray do not come with me. Several
times this evening I have had a fancy that Miriam had
something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, which,
perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. No, no ;


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
213
do not turn back ! Donatello will be a sufficient guardian
for Miriam and me."
The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps a
little angry; but he knew Hilda's mood of gentle decision
and independence too well not to obey her. He therefore
suffered the fearless maiden to return alone.
Meanwhile, Miriam had not noticed the departure of
the rest of the company; she remained on the edge of
the precipice, and Donatello along with her.
" It would be a fatal fall, still," she said to herself,
looking over the parapet, and shuddering as her eye
measured the depth. “ Yes; surely yes! Even without
the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body
would fall heavily enough upon those stones to shake all
its joints asunder. How soon it would be over!”
Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not
aware, now pressed closer to her side ; and he, too, like
Miriam, bent over the low parapet and trembled violently.
Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination which
haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one
to fling himself over for the very horror of the thing, for,
after drawing hastily back, he again looked down, thrust.
ing himself out farther than before. He then stood silent
a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make himself con-
scious of the historic associations of the scene.
“What are you thinking of, Donatello ?” asked Miri.
im.
“Who were they," said he, looking earnestly in he-
face, “who have been flung over here in days gone by?
“Men that cumbered the world,' she replied. “Mer


214
ROMANCE OF DONTE BENI.
;
“ innocent per
t
whose lives were the bane of their fellow-creatures
Men who poisoned the air, which is the common kreathe
of all, for their own selfish purposes. There was short
work with such men in old Roman times. Just in the
moment of their triumph a hand, as of an avenging
giant, clutched them, and dashed the wretches down this
precipice."
6 Was it well done?” asked the
young man.
“ It was well done,” answered Miriam
sons were saved by the destruction of a guilty one, who
deserved his doom.”
While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had
once or twice glanced aside with a watchful air, just as a
hound may often be seen to take sidelong note of some
suspicious object, while he gives his more direct attention
to something nearer at hand. Miriam seemed now first
to become aware of the silence that had followed upon
the cheerful talk and laughter of a few moments before.
Looking round, she perceived that all her company of
merry friends had retired, and Hilda, too, in whose soft
and quiet presence she had always an indescribable feel-
ing of security. All gone; and only herself and Dona-
tello left hanging over the brow of the ominous precipice.
Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the basement
wall of the palace, shaded from the moon, there was a
deep, empty niche, that had probably once contained a
statue ; not empty, either; for a figure now came forth
from it and approached Miriam. She must have had
cause to dread some unspeakable evil from this strange
persecutor, and to know that this was the very crisis of


ON THE EDGE OF A PRECL ICE.
215
her calamity ; for, as he drew near, such a cold, sick
despair crept over her, that it impeded her breath, and
benumbed her natural promptitude of thought. Miriam
seemed dreamily to remember falling on her knees; bul,
in her whole recollection of that wild moment, she beheld
herself as in a dim show, and could not well distinguish
what was done and suffered ; no, not even whether she
were really an actor and sufferer in the scene.
Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the sculp-
tor, and turned back to rejoin her friend. At a distance,
she still heard the mirth of her late companions, who
were going down the cityward descent of the Capito-
line Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in
which her own soft voice, as well as the powerful sweet-
ness of Miriam's, was sadly missed.
The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its
hinges, and partly closed itself. Hilda (whose native
gentleness pervaded all her movements) was quietly
opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the noise
of a struggle within, beginning and ending all in one
breathless instant. Along with it, or closely succeed-
ing it, was a loud, fearful cry, which quivered upward
through the air, and sank quivering downward to the
earth. Then, a silence! Poor Hilda had looked into the
courtyard, and saw the whole quick passage of a deed,
which took but that little time to grave itself in the eter
Dal a lamant.


216
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION.
The door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed
itself of its own accord. Miriam and Donatello were
now alone there. She clasped her hands, and looked
wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to have
dilated, and whose eyes blazed with the fierce energy
that had suddenly inspired him. It had kindled him into
a man ; it had developed within him an intelligence which
was no native characteristic of the Donatello whom we
have heretofore known. But that simple and joyous
creature was gone forever.
“ What have you done?” said Miriam, in a horror-
stricken whisper.
The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello's face
and now flashed out again from his eyes.
“I did what ought to be done to a traitor !” he replied
I did what your eyes bade me do, when I asked them
with mine, as I held the wretch over the precipice !"
These last words struck Miriam like a bullet Could
it be so ? Had her eyes provoked or assented to this
deed ? She had not known it. But, alas ! looking back


THE FALN'S TRANSFORMATION.
21'
into the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, sho
could not deny she was not sure whether it might be
90, or 10 — that a wild joy had flamed up in her heart,
when she beheld her persecutor in his mortal peril. Was
It horror ?
or ecstasy? -- or both in one? Be the
emotion what it might, it had blazed up more madly,
when Donatello Alung his victim off the cliff, and more
and more, while his shriek went quivering downward.
With the dead thump upon the stones below, bad come
an unutterable horror.
“And my eyes bade you do it !” repeated she.
They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed down-
ward as earnestly as if some inestimable treasure had
fallen over, and were yet recoverable. On the pavement,
below, was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with little or
nothing human in its appearance, except that the hands
were stretched out, as if they might have clutched, for a
moment, at the small square stones. But there was no
motion in them, now. Miriam watched the heap of mor-
tality while she could count a hundred, which she took
pains to do. No scir ; not a finger moved !
“ You have killed him, Donatello! He is quite dead !"
said she. “ Stone dead! Would I were so, too ! ”
“ Did you not mean that he should die?” sternly asked
Donatello, still in the glow of that intelligence which pas-
sion had developed in him. 6. There was short time to
weigh the matter ; but he had his trial in that breath or
two while I held him over the cliff, and his sentence in
that one glance, when your eyes responded to mine !
Say that I have slain him against your will say that
VOL. I.
10


218
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
woman
he died without your whole consent — and, in another
breath, you shall see me lying beside him.”
“Oh, never !” cried Miriam. “My one, own friend.
Never, never, never!”
She turned to him — the guilty, blood-stained, lonely
she turned to her fellow-criminal, the youth, so
lately innocent, whom she had drawn into her doom. She
pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a clinging em-
brace that brought their two hearts together, till the horror
and
agony of each was combined into one emotion, and
that, a kind of rapture.
“ Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth !” said she;
my heart consented to what you did. We two slew
yonder wretch. The deed knots us together for time and
eternity, like the coil of a serpent!”
They threw one other glance at the heap of death be-
low, to assure themselves that it was there ; so like a
tream was the whole thing. Then they turned from that
atal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, arm in
arm, heart in heart. Instinctively, they were heedful not
to sever themselves so much as a pace or two from one
another, for fear of the terror and deadly chill that would
thenceforth wait for them in solitude. Their deed the
crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam accepted on
the instant -- had wreathed itself, as she said, like a ser-
pent, in inextricable links about both their souls, and
drew them into one, by its terrible contractile power.
It
was closer than a marriage-bond. So intimate, in those
first moments, was the union, that it seemed as if their
new sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that they


THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION
21%
OWN.
were released from the chain of humanity; a new sphere,
a special law, had been created for them alone. The
world could not come near them; they were safe !
When they reached the flight of steps, leading down
ward from the Capitol, there was a far-off noise of sing
ing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had been the rush of
the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the
merriment of the party that had so recently been their
companions ; they recognized the voices which, a little
while
ago, had accorded and sung in cadence with their
But they were familiar voices no more ; they
sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of
space; so remote was all that pertained to the past life
of these guilty ones, in the moral seclusion that had sud-
denly extended itself around them. But how close, and
ever closer, did the breadth of the immeasurable waste,
that lay between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood,
now press them ope within the other!
“Oh, friend,” cried Miriam, so putting her soul into
hat word that it took a heavy richness of meaning, and
seemed never to have been spoken before. “Oh, friend,
are you conscious, as I am, of this companionship that
knits our heart-strings together ? "
“I feel it, Miriam,” said Donatello. “ We draw one
breath; we live one life!”
“Only yesterday," continued Miriam; “nay, only a
short half-hour ago, I shivered in an icy solitude. No
friendship, no sisterhood, could come near enough to
keep the warmth within my heart. In an irstant, all is
changed! There can be no more loneliness!”


220
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ None, Miriam !” said Donatello.
“None, my beautiful one!” responded Mirium, gazing
in his face, which had taken a higher, almost an heroic
aspect from the strength of passion. “None, my inne-
cent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have committed.
One wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed, to
cement two other lives forevermore.”
“Forevermore, Miriam !” said Donatello ; “ cemented
with his blood !”
The young man started at the word which he had him
self spoken; it may be that it brought home, to the sim-
plicity of his imagination, what he had not before dreamed
of — the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a union that
consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, which would
corrupt and grow more noisome forever and forever, but
bind them none the less strictly for that!
“ Forget it! Cast it all behind you!” said Miriam,
detecting, by her sympathy, the pang that was in his
heart. “ The deed has done its office, and has no exist-
ence any more.”
They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, cr
else distilled from it a fiery intoxication, which sufficed to
carry them triumphantly through those first moments of
their doom. For, guilt has its moment of rapture too.
The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic
sense of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out
of their dark sympathy, at the base of which lay a
human corpse) a bliss, or an insanity, which the unhappy
pair imagined to be well worth the sleepy innocence that
was forever lost to them.


THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION.
221
As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the oo
casion, they went onward - not stealthily, not fearfully-
but with a stately gait and aspect. Passion lent them (as
it does to meaner shapes) its brief nobility of carriage.
They trod through the streets of Rome, as if they, too,
were among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, frond
ages long gone by, have haunted the blood-stained city,
And, at Miriam's suggestion, they turned aside, for the
sake of treading loftily past the old site of Pompey's
forum.
“For there was a great deed done here !” she said
" a deed of blood, like ours! Who knows, but we may
meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of Cæsar's murder-
ers, and exchange a salutation ?”
“ Are they our brethren, now ? ” asked Donatello.
“ Yes; all of them," said Miriam ; " and many an
other, whom the world little dreams of, has been made
our brother or our sister, by what we have done within
this hour!”
And, at the thought, she shivered. Where, then, was
the seclusion, the remoteness, the strange, lonesome Para-
dise, into which she and her one companion had been
transported by their crime? Was there, indeed, no such
refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling
throng of criminals? And was it true, that whatever
hand had a blood-stain on it — or had poured out poison
or strangled a babe at its birth or clutched à granu.
cire's throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few last
breaths had now the right to offer itself in fellowship
with their two hands? Too certainly, that right existed


222
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
It is a terrible thought, that an individual wrong-doing
melts into the great mass of human crime, and makes us
- who dreamed only of our own little separate sin
makes us guilty of the whole. And thus Miriam and
her lover were not an insulated pair, but members of an
innumerable confraternity of guilty ones, all shuddering
at each other.
“But not now; not yet,” she murmured to herself.
"To-night, at least, there shall be no remorse !"
Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they
turned into a street, at one extremity of which stood Hil-
da's tower. There was a light in her high chamber; a
light, too, at the Virgin's shrine ; and the glimmer of
these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. Miriam
drew Donatello's arm to make him stop, and while they
stood at some distance looking at Hilda's window, they
beheld her approach and throw it open. She leaned far
forth, and extended her clasped hands towards the sky.
“ The good, pure child! She is praying, Donatello,”
said Miriam, with a kind of simple joy at witnessing the
devoutness of her friend. Then her own sin rushed upon
her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her voice,
“ Pray for us, Hilda ; we need it!”
Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we
cannot tell. The window was immediately closed, and
her form disappeared from behind the snowy curtain
Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her con-
demned spirit was shut out of heaven.


THE BURIAL CHANT.
223
CHAPTER XX.
THE BURIAL CHANT.
The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader
may remember, some of our acquaintances had made an
engagement to meet) stands a little aside from the Piazza
Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon on the
morning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Do-
natello directed their steps. At no time are people so
sedulously careful to keep their trifling appointments,
attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put a com-
monplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret
that if suspected would make them look monstrous in the
general eye.
Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all
ordinary things in the contrast with such a fact ! How
sick and tremulous, the next morning, is the spirit that
has dared so much, only the night before! How icy cold
is the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion
has faded away, and sunk down among the dead ashes of
the fire that blazed so fiercely, and was fed by the very
substance of its life! How faintly does the criminal stage
ger onward, lacking the impulse of that strong madness


ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
that hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him
in the midst of it!
When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church,
they found only Kenyon awaiting them on the steps.
Hilda had likewise promised to be of the party, but had
not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a
force upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial
flow of spirits, which to any but the nicest observation
was quite as effective as a natural one.
She spoke sym-
pathizingly to the sculptor on the subject of Hilda's ab-
sence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in Dona-
tello's hearing to an attachment which had never been
openly avowed, though perhaps plainly enough betrayed.
He fancied that Miriam did not quite recognize the limits
of the strictest delicacy; he even went so far as to gen-
eralize, and conclade within himself that this deficiency is
a more general failing in woman than in man, the highest
refinement being a masculine attribute.
But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and es-
pecially so to this poor Miriam, who was hardly respon-
sible for her frantic efforts to be gay. Possibly, more-
over, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any
violent shock as of great misfortune or great crime, so
that the finer perceptions may be blurred thenceforth,
and the effect be traceable in all the minutest conduct
of life.
“ Did you see anything of the dear child after you left
us?” asked Miriam, still keeping Hilda as her topic of
conversation. “I missed her sadly on my way home
ward ; for nothing insures me such delightful and in


THE BURIAL CHANT.
225
22
nocent dress (I have experienced it twenty times) as a
talk late in the evening with Hilda."
“So I should imagine," said the sculptor, gravely;
"but it is an advantage that I have little or no oppor.
tunity of enjoying. I know not what became of Hilda
after my parting from you. She was not especially my
companion in any part of our walk. The last I saw of
her she was hastening back to rejoin you in the courtyard
of the Palazzo Caffarelli.”
"Impossible!” cried Miriam, starting.
“ Then did you not see her again?” inquired Kenyon,
in some alarm.
“ Not there," answered Miriam, quietly; " indeed, I
followed pretty closely on the heels of the rest of the
party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda's account; the
Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake
of the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her
shrine. And, besides, I have always felt that Hilda is
just as safe in these evil streets of Rome as her white
doves when they fly downwards from the tower-top, and
run to and fro among the horses' feet. There is certainly
a providence or purpose for Hilda, if on no other human
creature.”
“I religiously believe it," rejoined the sculptor ; " and
yet my mind would be the easier, if I knew that she had
returned safely to her tower.”
“Then make yourself quite easy," answered Miriam
" I saw her (and it is the last sweet sight that I remem.
ber) leaning from her window midway between earth
and sky!”


226
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Kenyon now looked at Donatello.
“ You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he ob-
served. “This languid Roman atmosphere is not the
airy wine that you were accustomed to breathe at home
I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to meet
you, this summer at your castle among the Apenniles,
It is my fixed purpose to come, I assure you. We shal
both be the better for some deep draughts of the moun
tain-breezes.”
" It may be,” said Donatello, with unwonted sombre
aess; “ the old house seemed joyous when I was a child.
But as I remember it now it was a grim place, too."
The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man,
and was surprised and alarmed to observe how entirely
the fine, fresh glow of animal spirits had departed out of
his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he was standing
perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gam-
bol indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now.
AU
his youthful gayety, and with it his simplicity of manner,
was eclipsed, if not utterly extinct.
“ You are surely ill, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Ken-
yon.
“Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello, indifferently ;
"I never have been ill, and know not what it may be."
5 Do not make the poor lad fancy-sick,” whispered
Miriam, pulling the sculptor's sleeve. « He is of a na.
ture to lie down and die at once, if he finds himself draw
ing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are
enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get
um away from this old, dreamy, and dreary Rome, where


THE BURIAL CHANT.
227
aubody but himself ever thought of being gay. Its in-
Auences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a crea-
ture.”
The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps
of the Cappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam
lifted the leathern curtain that hangs before all church
doors in Italy.
“ Hilda bas forgotten her appointment,” she observed.
or else her maiden slumbers are very sound this morn-
ing. We will wait for her no longer.”
They entered the nave. The interior of the church
was of moderate compass, but of good architecture, with
a vaulted roof over the nave, and a row of dusky chapels
on either side of it instead of the customary side-aisles.
Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offer-
ings; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled,
if by any painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers,
burning continually, to set alight the devotion of the wor-
shippers. The pavement of the nave was chiefly of
marble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily
patched here and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid,
moreover, with tombstones of the mediæval taste, on
which were quaintly sculptured borders, figures, and por-
traits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegi-
ble by the tread of footsteps over them. The church
appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as
usually happens when a reverend brotherhood have such
un edifice in charge, the floor seemed never to have been
scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of sang
ity as a kennel ; whereas, in all churches of nunneries:


228
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
the maiden sisterhood invariably show the purity of their
own hearts by the virgin cleanliness and visible consecrar
tion of the walls and pavement.
As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested al
once on a remarkable object in the centre of the nave
It was either the actual body, or, as might rather have
been supposed at first glance, the cunningly wrought
waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk.
This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it
might be, lay on a slightly elevated bier, with three tall
candles burning on each side, another tall candle at the
head, and another at the foot. There was music, too, in
harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath the
pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain
of a De Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of
the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble through the
burial-vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones and
sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist.
“I must look more closely at that dead monk before
we leave the church,” remarked the sculptor. “In the
study of my art, I have gained many a hint from the
dead, which the living could never have given me.”
“I can well imagine it,” answered Mirian. “One clay
image is readily copied from another. But let us first
see Guido's picture. The light is favorable now.”
Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the
right hand, as you enter the nave; and there they beheld
not the picture, indeed - but a closely drawn curtain.
The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing,
the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has beco


THE BURIAL CHANT.
229
created ; that of opening the way for religious sentiment
through the quick medium of sight, by bringing angels,
saints, and martyrs, down visibly upon earth ; of sacrifi.
cing this high purpose, and, for vught they know, the wel-
fare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry
fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden
behind a veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protes-
tants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value
it only for its artistic merit.
The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no
nime in disclosing the youthful Archangel, setting his
divine foot on the head of his fallen adversary. It was
an image of that greatest of future events, which we hope
for so ardently, - at least, while we are young, - but
find so very long in coming, - the triumph of goodness
over the evil principle.
" Where can Hilda be?” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is
not her custom ever to fail in an engagement; and the
present one was made entirely on her account. Except
herself, you know, we were all agreed in our recollection
of the picture.”
“ But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you percei re,”
said Miriam, directing his attention to the point on which
their dispute of the night before had arisen. “ It is not
easy to detect her astray, as regards any picture on which
those clear, suft eyes of hers have ever rested.”
“And she has studied and admired few pictures so
much as this," observed the sculptor “No wonder; for
there is hardly acother so beautiful in the world. What
in expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel's


230
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
face! Taere is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust ar
being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose
of quelling and punishing it; and yet a celestial tran.
quillity pervades his whole being.”
“I have never been able,” said Miriam, “ to admire
this picture nearly so much as Hilda does, in its moral
and intellectual aspect. If it cost her more trouble to be
good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would be
a more competent critic of this picture, and would esti-
mate it not half so high. I see its defects to-lay more
clearly than ever before.”
“What are some of them ? ” asked Kenyon.
“That Archangel, now,” Miriam continued; "how fair
he looks, with his unruffled wings, with his unhacked
sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely
fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode!
What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With
what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled
foot on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that
virtue looks, the moment after its death-struggle with
evil ? No, no; I could have told Guido better. A full
third of the Archangel's feathers should have been torn
from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like
Satan's own! His sword should be streaming with blood,
and perhaps broken half way to the hilt; his armor
crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a bleeding gash
on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of bat-
tle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old
serpent, as if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him
squirn mightily, and loubting whether the fight were


THE BURIAL CHANT.
23)
half over yet, and how the victory might turn! Anda
with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable
horror, there should still be something high, tender, and
holy, in Michael's eyes, and around his mouth. But the
battle never was such child's play us Guido's dapper
Archangel seems to have found it.”
“For Heaven's sake, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, astonished
at the wild energy of her talk; “paint the picture of
man's struggle against sin according to your own idea !
I think it will be a masterpiece."
“The picture would have its share of truth, I assure
you," she answered ; " but I am sadly afraid the victory
would fall on the wrong side. Just fancy a smoke-black-
ened, fiery-eyed demon, bestriding that nice young angel,
clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws;
and giving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a
poisonous dart at the end of it! That is what they risk,
poor souls, who do battle with Michael's enemy."
It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental dis.
quietude was impelling her to an undue vivacity; for she
paused, and turned away from the picture, without saying
a word more about it. All this while, moreover, Dona-
tello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and
inquiring glances at the dead monk; as if he could look
nowhere but at that ghastly object, merely because it
shocked him. Death has probably a peculiar horror and
ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a person
50 naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with complete-
ness in the present moment, and was able to form but
Fagnie images of the future.


232
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“What is the matter, Donatello ? ” whisperea Miriam,
soothingly. “You are quite in a tremble, my poor friend!
What is it?"
“This awful chant from beneath the church," answered
Donatello ; " it oppresses me; the air is so heavy with it
that I can scarcely draw my breath. And yonder dead
monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my heart."
“Take courage !” whispered she again, “come; we
will approach close to the dead monk. The only way, in
such cases, is to stare the ugly horror right in the face ;
never a side-long glance, nor a half-look, for those are
what show a frightful thing in its frightfullest aspect.
Lean on me, dearest friend! My heart is very strong
for both of us. Be brave; and all is well.”
Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed
close to Miriam's side, and suffered her to lead him up to
the bier. The sculptor followed. A number of persons,
chiefly women, with several children among them, were
standing about the corpse ; and as our three friends drew
nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little boy to
kneel, both kissing the beads and crucifix that Lung from
the monk's girdle. Possibly he had died in the vdor of
sanctity; or, at all events, death and his brown frock and
cowl made a sacred image of this reverend father


(HE DEAD CAPUCHIN.
233
--
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEAD CAPUCHIN.
The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the bromo
woollen frock of the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over
his head, but so as to leave the features and a portion of
the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung at his.
side; his hands were folded over his breast ; his feet (he
was of a bare-footed order in his lifetime, and continued so
in death) protruded from beneath his habit, stiff and stark,
with a more waxen look than even his face. They were
ied together at the ankles with a black ribbon.
The countenance, as we have already said, was fully
displayed. It had a purplish hue upon it, unlike the pale-
ness of an ordinary corpse, but as little resembling the
flush of natural life. The eyelids were but partially
drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath ; as if tho
deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders,
to watch whether they were duly impressed with the
solemnity of his obsequies. The shaggy eyebrows gave
aternness to the look.
Miriam passed between two of the lighted candles, and
stood close beside the bier.
“My God!” murmured she. “ What is this?”


234
ROMANCE OF NONTE BENI.
She grasped Donatello's hand, and, at the same instali
felt him give a convulsive shudder, which she knew to
have been caused by a sudden and terrible throb of the
Leart. His hand, by an instantaneous change, became
like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy, that their
insensible fingers might have rattled, one against the
other. No wonder that their blood curdled; no wonder
that their hearts leaped and paused! The dead face of
the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed eyelids,
was the same visage that had glared upon their naked
souls, the past midnight, as Donatello flung him over the
precipice.
The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and
had not yet seen the monk's features.
“ Those naked feet !” said he. “I know not why, but
they affect me strangely. They have walked to and fro
over the hard pavements of Rome, and through a hun-
sred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went
begging for his brotherhood ; along the cloisters and
dreary corridors of his convent, too, from his youth up-
ward! It is a suggestive idea, to track those worn feet
backward through all the paths they have trodden, ever
since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a baby,
and (cold as they now are) were kept warm in his moth-
er's hand.”
As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be
close by him, made no response to his fanciful musing, he
looked up, and saw them at the head of the bier. He
advanced thither himself.
“ Ha!" exclaimed he.


THE DEAD C. IPUCHIN.
235
He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at
Miriam, but withdrew it immediately. Not that he had
any definite suspicion, or, it may be, even a remote idea,
that she could be held responsible, in the least degree, for
this man's sudden death. In truth, it seemed too wild a
thought, to connect, in reality, Miriam's persecutor of
many past months and the vagabond of the preceding
night, with the dead Capuchin of to-day. It resembled
one of those unaccountable changes and interminglings
of identity, which so often occur among the personages
of a dream. But Kenyon, as befitted the professor of an
imaginative art, was endowed with an exceedingly quick
sensibility, which was apt to give him intimations of tho
true state of matters that lay beyond his actual vision.
There was
a whisper in his ear ; it said, “ Hush !”
Without asking himself wherefore, he resolved to be
silent as regarded the mysterious discovery which he had
made, and to leave any remark or exclamation to be voi-
untarily offered by Miriam. If she never spoke, then let
the riddle be unsolved.
And now occurred a circumstance that would seem too
fantastic to be told, if it had not actually happened, pre-
cisely as we set it down. As the three friends stood by
the bier, they saw that a little stream of blood had begun
to ooze from thu dead monk's nostrils, it crept slowly
towards the thicket of his beard, where, in the course of
& moment or two, it hid itself.
“ How strange !” ejaculeted Kenyon. he monk
lied of apoplexy, I suppose, Ou by sorr e sudden accident,
and the blocd has not yet congcaled.”
CG


236
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
22
“ Do you consider that a sufficient explanation ?" asked
Miriam, with a smile from which the sculptor involun-
tarily turned away his eyes. “ Does it satisfy you ?”
“And why not?” he inquired.
• Of course, you know the old superstition about this
phenomenon of blood flowing from a dead body," she
rejoined. 6. How can we tell but that the murderer of
this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged
murderer, his physician) may have just entered the
church?”
“I cannot jest about it," said Kenyon. “It is an ugly
sight!”
“ True, true; horrible to see, or dream of!" she re-
plied, with one of those long, tremulous sighs, which so
often betray a sick heart by escaping unexpectedly.
“ We will not look at it any more. Come away, Do-
natello. Let us escape from this dismal church. The
sunshine will do you good.”
When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as
this! By no possible supposition could Miriam explain
the identity of the dead Capuchin, quietly and decorously
laid out in the nave of his convent church, with that of
her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the foot of
the precipice. The effect upon her imagination was, as
if a strange and unknown corpse had miraculously, while
she was gazing at it, assumed the likeness of that face, so
terrible henceforth in her remembrance. It was a sym-
bol, perhaps, of the deadly iteration with which she was
doomed to behold the image of her crime reflected back
upon her in a thousand ways, and converting the great


THE DEAD CAFUCHIN.
237
ions
alm face of Nature, in the whole, and in its innumerable
details, into a manifold reminiscence of that one dead
visage.
No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, and
gone a few steps, than she fancied the likeness altogether
an illusion, which would vanish at a closer and colder
sien. She must look at it again, therefore, and at once ;
or else the grave would close over the face, and leave the
awful fantasy that had connected itself therewith, fixed
ineffaceably in her brain.
“ Wait for me, one moment !” she said to her compan-
“Only a moment!”
So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse
Yes; these were the features that Miriam had known so
well; this was the visage that she remembered from a far
longer date than the most intimate of her friends sus-
pected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit which
blasted her sweet youth, and compelled her, as it were, to
stain her womanhood with crime. But, whether it were
the majesty of death, or something originally noble and
lofty in the character of the dead, which the soul had
stamped upon the features, as it left them ; so it was that
Miriam now quailed and shook, not for the vulgar horror
of the spectacle, but for the severe, reproachful glance
that seemed to come from between those half-closed lids,
True, there had been nothing, in his lifetime, viler than
She knew it; there was no other fact within
her consciousness that she felt to be so certain ; and yet,
because her persecutor found himself safe and irrefutable
in death, he frowned upon his victim, and threw back the
blame or her!
This man.


238
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ Is it thou, indeed ? ” she murmured, under her breath
" Then thou hast no right to scowl upon me so ! But art
thou real, or a vision ? "
She bent down over the dead monk, till one of her rich
curls brushed against his forehead. She touched one of
his folded hands with her finger.
“ It is he!” said Miriam. “ There is the scar, that I
know so well, on his brow. And it is no vision; he is
palpable to my touch! I will question the fact no longer,
but deal with it as I best can.”
It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in
Miriam its own proper strength, and the faculty of sus-
taining the demands which it made upon her fortitude. She
ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed sternly at
her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look
of accusation that he threw from between his half-closed
eyelids.
“ No; thou shalt not scowl me down !” said she
“ Neither now, nor when we stand together at the judg
ment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. Farewell, til
that next encounter!”
Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her
friends, who were awaiting her at the door of the church
As they went out, the sacristan stopped them, and pro
posed to show the cemetery of the convent, where the
deceased members of the fraternity are laid to rest ir
sacred earth, brought long ago from Jerusalem.
“And will yonder monk be buried there?" she asked.
“ Brother Antonio ?” exclaimed the sacristan.
ly, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grav.
« Sure


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN.
239
18 already dug, and the last occupant has made room for
him. Will you look at it, signorina ? ”
"I will!” said Miriam.
“ Then excuse me," observed Kenyon ; “ for I shall
leave you.
One dead monk has more than sufficed me;
and I am not bold enough to face the whole mortality of
the convent."
It was easy to see, by Donatello's looks, that he, as well
as the sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit to the
famous cemetery of the Cappuccini. But Miriam's nerves
were strained to such a pitch, that she anticipated a cer.
tain solace and absolute relief in passing from one ghastly
spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and
there was, besides, a singular sense of duty which im-
pelled her to look at the final resting-place of the being
whose fate had been so disastrously involved with her
own. She therefore followed the sacristan's guidance, and
drew her companion along with her, whispering encour-
agement as they went,
The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above
ground, and lighted by a row of iron-grated windows with-
out glass. A corridor runs along beside these windows,
and gives access to three or four vaulted recesses, or
chapels, of consider ble breadth and height, the floor of
which consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. I
is smoothed decorously over the deceased brethren of the
convent, and is kept quite free from grass or weeds, such
as woull grow even in these gloomy recesses, if pains were
not bestowed to root them up. But, as the cemetery is
smal, and i: is a procious privi);ge to sleep in holy ground


240
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
rna-
the brotherhood are immemorially accustomed, when one
of their number dies, to take the longest-buried skeleton
out of the oldest grave, and lay the new slumberer there
instead. Thus, each of the good friars, in his turn, en
joys the luxury of a consecrated bed, attended with the
slight drawback of being forced to get up long before day
break, as it were, and make room for another lodger.
The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what
makes the special interest of the cemetery. The arched
and vaulted walls of the burial recesses are supported by
massive pillars and pilasters made of thigh-bones and
skulls; the whole material of the structure appears to be
of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed
ments of this strange architecture are represented by the
joints of the spine, and the more delicate tracery by the
smaller bones of the human frame. The summits of the
arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they
were wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no
possibility of describing how ugly and grotesque is the
effect, combined with a certain artistic merit, nor how
much perverted ingenuity has been shown in this queer
multitude of dead monks, through how
many hundred years, must have contributed their bony
framework to build up these great arches of mortality.
On some of the skulls there are inscriptions, purporting
that such a monk, who formerly made use of that particu-
lar headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly
the greater number are piled up indistinguishably into the
architectural design like the many deaths that make up
the one glory of a victory.
way, nor what


THE DEAD CAPUCHIN.
241
In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skele
ton monks sit or stand, clad in the brown habits that they
wore in life, and labelled with their names and the dates of
their decease. Their skulls (some quite bare, and others
still covered with yellow skin, and hair that has known
he earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grin-
ring hideously repulsive. One reverend father has his
mouth wide open, as if he had died in the midst of a howl
of terror and remorse, which perhaps is even now screech-
ing through eternity. As a general thing, however, these
frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheer-
ful view of their position, and try with ghastly smiles to
turn it into a jest. But the cemetery of the Capuchins is
no place to nourish celestial hopes: the soul sinks forlorn
and wretched under all this burden of dusty death ; the
holy earth from Jerusalem, so.imbued is it with mortality,
has grown as barren of the flowers of Paradise as it is
of earthly weeds and grass. Thank Heaven for its blue
sky; it needs a long, upward gaze to give us back our
faith. Not here can we feel ourselves immortal, where
the
very altars in these chapels of horrible consecration
are heaps of human bones.
Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves.
There is no disagreeable scent, such as might have been
expected from the decay of so many holy persons, in
whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken their de
parture. The same number of living monks would not
rmell half so unexceptionably.
Miriam went gloomily along the corridor from one
11
VOL. I.


242
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
your own.
vaulted Golgotha to another, until in the farthest recess
she beheld an open grave.
“Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave?" she
asked.
“Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of brother
Antonio, who came to his death last night," answered the
sacristan; "and in yonder niche, you see, sits a brother
who was buried thirty years ago, and has risen to give
him place.”
"It is not a satisfactory idea,” observed Miriam," that
you poor friars cannot call even your graves permanently
You must lie down in them, methinks, with a
nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like weary men
who know that they shall be summoned out of bed at mid-
night. Is it not possible (if money were to be paid for
the privilege) to leave brother Antonio if that be his
name -- in the occupancy of that narrow grave till the
last trumpet sounds ?”
“By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or de-
sirable," answered the sacristan. “A quarter of a cen.
tury's sleep in the sweet earth of Jerusalem is better than
a thousand years in any other soil. Our brethren find
good rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal out
of this blessed cemetery."
“ That is well,” responded Miriam ; “may he whom
you now lay to sleep prove no exception to the rule!”
As they left the cemetery she put money into the
sacristan's hand to an amount that made his eyes open
wide and glisten, and requested that it might be expended
in masses for the repose of Father Antonio's soul.


TX MEDICI GARDENS.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MEDICI GARDENS.
CG
* DONATELLO," said Miriam, anxiously, as they came
through the Piazza Barberini, “what can I do for you,
my beloved friend? You are shaking as with the cold fit
of the Roman fever.”
“Yes,” said Donatello ; "my heart shivers."
As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led
the young man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping
that the quiet shade and sunshine of that delightful retreat
would a little revive his spirits. The grounds are there
laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders
of box, which form hedges of great height and density,
and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of
stone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with
long vistas, overshadowed by ilex-trees; and at each
intersection of the paths, the visitor finds seats cf lichen-
covered stone to repose upon, and marble statues that look
forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In the
more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured
front of the villa, you see fountains and flower-beds, and,
in their season, à profusion of roses, from which tbe


ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance, to be scattered
abroad by the no less genial breeze.
But Donatello drew no delight from these things. Ho
walked onward in silent apathy, and looked at Miriam
with strangely half-awakened and bewildered eyes, when
she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with hers, and
so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly
upon it.
She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two
embowered alleys crossed each other ; so that they could
liscern the approach of any casual intruder, a long way
down the path.
“My sweet friend,” she said, taking one of his passive
bands in both of hers, “ what can I say to comfort you ?”
"Nothing !” replied Donatello, with sombre reserve.
“Nothing will ever comfort me.”
“I accept my own misery," continued Miriam, "my
own guilt, if guilt it be — and, whether guilt or misery, I
shall know how to deal with it. But
you,
dearest friend,
that were the rarest creature in all this world, and seemed
a being to whom sorrow could not cling - you, whom I
half fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever
you only surviving, to show mankind how genial and how
joyous life used to be, in some long-gone age -
what had
you to do with grief or crime ? ”
“They came to me as to other men,” said Donatello,
broodingly. “Doubtless I was born to them.”
"No, no ; they came with me," replied Miriam. “Mine
is the responsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born? Why
did we ever meet? Why did I not drive you from me


'1 HE MEDICI GARDENS.
243
knowing for my heart foreboded it - that the cloud in
which I walked would likewise envelop you!"
Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience
that is often combined with a wood of leaden despond-
ency. A brown lizard with two tails
a monster often
engendered by the Roman sunshine ran across his foot,
and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so
did Miriam, trying to dissolve her whole heart into sym-
pathy, and lavish it all upon him, were it only for a
moment's cordial.
The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, in-
tentionally, as Miriam's band was within his, he lifted that
along with it.
“I have a great weight here !” said he.
The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it resolutely
down) that Donatello almost imperceptivly shuddered,
while, in pressing his own hand against his heart, he
pressed hers there too.
Rest
your heart on me, dearest one!” she resumed.
" Let me bear all its weight; I am well able to bear it ;
for I am a woman, and I love you! I love you, Dona-
tello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal ? Look
at me! Heretofore, you have found me pleasant to your
sight. Gaze into my eyes! Gaze into my soul! Search
a3 deeply as you may, you can never sce half the tender.
ness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. AB
that I ask, is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice
(but it shall be no sacrifice, to my great love) with which
I seek to remedy the evil you have incurred for my
sake!"


246
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
66
All this fervor on Miriam's part; on Donatello's, a
heavy silence.
“Oh, speak to me!” she exclaimed. “ Only promise
me to be, by-and-by, a little happy!”
Happy ?” murmured Donatello. “ Ah, never again!
never again!”
“ Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!"
answered Miriam. 6 A terrible word to let fall upon a
woman's heart, when she loves you, and is conscious of
having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello,
speak it not again. And surely you did love me?"
“I did,” replied Donatello, gloomily and absently.
Miriam released the young man's hand, but suffered
one of her own to lie close to his, and waited a moment
to see whether he would make any effort to retain it.
There was much depending upon that simple experiment.
With a deep sigh — as when, sometimes, a slumberer
turns over in a troubled dream — Donatello changed his
position, and clasped both his hands over his forehead.
The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling into May
was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam
saw that involuntary movement and heard that sigh of
relief (for so she interpreted it), a shiver ran through
her frame, as if the iciest wind of the Apennines were
blowing over her.
“ He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed
of," thought she, with unutterable compassion. “ Alas
it was a sad mistake! He might have had a kind of
bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been im.
pelled to it hy a love vital enough to survive the frecay


THE MELICI GARDENS.
247
of that irrible moment - mighty enough to make its
own law, and justify itself against the natural remorse.
But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder (and such was
his crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions,
made it otherwise) on no better warrant than a boy's
idle fantasy! I pity him from the very depths of
my soul! As for myself, I am past my own or other's
pity.”
She arose from the young man's side, and stood before
him with a sad, commiserating aspect; it was the look of
a ruined soul, bewailing, in him, a grief less than what
her profounder sympathies imposed upon herself.
“ Donatello, we must part,” she said, with melancholy
firmness. “ Yes; leave me! Go back to your old
tower, which overlooks the green valley you have told
me of, among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed
will be recognized as but an ugly dream. For, in dreams,
che conscience sleeps, and we often stain ourselves with
guilt of which we should be incapable in our waking mo-
ments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was no
more than such a dream ; there was as little substance
m what you fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it
all ! »
Ah, that terrible face !” said Donatello, pressing his
bands over his eyes. you
call that unreal ?"
“Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied
Miriam. “ It was unreal; and, that you may feel it so,
it is requisite that you see this face of mine no more.
Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it has lost
its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency
66 Do


248
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
to bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the
remorse and anguish that would darken all your life
Leave me, therefore, and forget me."
“ Forget you, Miriam!” said Donatello, roused some
what from his apathy of despair. “ If I could remember
you, and behold
you, apart from that frightful visage which
stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation,
at least, if not a joy.”
“ But since that visage haunts you along with mine,”
rejoined Miriam, glancing behind her, “we needs must
part. Farewell, then! But if ever--in distress, peril,
shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant,
whatever burden heaviest — you should require a life to
be given wholly, only to make your own a little easier,
then summon me! As the case now stands between us,
you have bought me dear, and find me of little worth.
Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me
more! But, if otherwise, a wish - almost an unuttered
wish - will bring me to you!”
She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Dona-
tello's eyes had again fallen on the ground, and he had
not, in his bewildered mind and over-burdened heart, a
word to respond.
“That hour I speak of may never come,” said Miriam
“ So farewell - farewell forever.”
“ Farewell,” said Donatello.
His voice hardly made its way through the environ
ment of unaccustomed thoughts and emotions which had
settled over him like a dense and dark cloud. Not im-
probably, he heheld Miriam through so dim a median


THE MEDICI GARDENS.
249
that she wooked visionary; heard her speak only in a
thin, faint echo.
She turned from the young man, and, much as her
heart yearned towards him, she would not profane that
heavy parting by an embrace, or even a pressure of the
hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love
and after it had been the impulse to so terrible a deede
they parted, in all outward show, as coldly. as people par
whose whole mutual intercourse has been encircled
within a single hour.
And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched
himself at full length on the stone bench, and drew his
hat over his eyes, as the idle and light-hearted youths of
dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they lie down
in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slum-
ber. A stupor was upon him, which he mistook for
such drowsiness as he had known in his innocent past
life. But, by-and-by, he raised himself slowly and left
the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if he
heard a shriek; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face,
fearful to behold, were thrust close to his own. In this
dismal mood, bewildered with the novelty of sin and
grief, he had little left of that singular resemblance, on
account of which, and for their sport, his three friends
had fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun of
Praxiteles
11 +


950
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
CHAPTER XXIII.
MIRIAM AND HILDA.
On leaving the Medici Gardens, Miriam felt herself
Astray in the world ; and having no special reason to seek
one place more than another, she suffered chance to direct
her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, involving
herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw Hilda's
tower rising before her, and was put in mind to climb up
to the young girl's eyrie, and ask why she had broken her
engagement at the church of the Capuchins. People
often do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their heaviest
and most anxious moments ; so that it would have been
no wonder had Miriam been impelled only by so slight a
motive of curiosity as we have indicated. But she re-
membered, too, and with a quaking heart, what the sculp-
tor had mentioned of Hilda's retracing her steps towards
the courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli in quest of Mir.
iam herself. Had she been compelled to choose between
infamy in the
eyes
of the whole world, or in Hilda's eyes
alone, she would unhesitatingly have accepted the former,
on condition of remaining spotless in the estimation of
her white-souled friend. This possibility, therefore, that


MIRIAM AND HILDA.
251
Hilda had witnessed the scene of the past night, was un.
questionably the cause that drew Miriam to the tower,
and made her linger and falter as she approached it.
As she drew near, there were tokens to which her dis.
turbed mind gave a sinister interpretation. Some of her
friend's airy family, the doves, with their heads imbedded
disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled in a corner
of the piazza ; others had alighted on the heads, wings,
shoulders, and trumpets of the marble angels which
adorned the facade of the neighboring church; two or
three had betaken themselves to the Virgin's shrine; and
as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda's win-
dow-sill. But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look
of weary expectation and disappointment - no flights, no
flutterings, no cooing murmur; something that ought to
have made their day glad and bright, was evidently left
out of this day's history. And, furthermore, Hilda's
white window-curtain was closely drawn, with only that
one little aperture at the side, which Miriam remembered
noticing the night before.
“ Be quiet,” said Miriam to her own heart, pressing
her hand hard upon it. “Why shouldst thou throb
now? -- Hast thou not endured more terrible things than
this?”
Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn
back. It might be — and the solace would be worth a
world - that Hilda, knowing nothing of the past night's
calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, and
60 restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which
her soul was frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as sbæ


252
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
66
was, permit Hilda to kiss her cheek, to clasp her hana,
and thus be no longer so unspotted from the world as
beretofore.
“I will never permit her sweet touch again," said
Miriam, toiling up the staircase, “ if I can find strength
of heart to forbid it. But, oh! it would be so soothing
in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be no
barm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall
be all !”
But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam
paused, and stirred not again till she had brought her-
self to an immovable resolve.
“My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda's more,"
said she.
Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room.
Had you looked into the little adjoining chamber, you
might have seen the slight imprint of her figure on the
bed, but would also have detected at once that the white
counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was
more disturbed; she had turned her face upon it, the poor
child, and bedewed it with some of those tears (among
the most chill and forlorn that gush from human sorrow)
which the innocent heart pours forth at its first actual
discovery that sin is in the world. The young and pure
are not apt to find out that miserable truth until it is
brought home to them by the guiltiness of some trusted
friend. They may have heard much of the evil of the
world, and seem to know it, but only as an impalpable
theory. In due time, some mortal, whom they reverence
too kighly is commissioned by Providence to teach them


MIRIAM AND HILDA.
255
this lireful lesson; he perpetrates a sin ; and Adam falls
anew, and Paradise, heretofore in unfaded bloom, is lost
Again, and closed forever, with the fiery swords gleaming
at its gates.
The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of
Beatrice Cenci, which had not yet been taken from the
zazel. It is a peculiarity of this picture, that its pro-
foundest expression eludes a straightforward glance, and
can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye
falls casually upon it; éven as if the painted face had a
life and consciousness of its own, and, resolving not to
betray its secret of grief or guilt, permitted the true
tokens to come forth only when it imagined itself unseen.
No other such magical effect has ever been wrought by
pencil.
Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which
Beatrice's face and Hilda's were both reflected. In one
of her weary, nerveless changes of position, Hilda hap-
pened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in both
these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied
nor was it without horror
that Beatrice's expression,
seen aside and vanishing in a moment, had been depicted
in her own face likewise, and fitted from it as tima
rously.
“Am I, too, stained with guilt ? ” thought the pocr girl,
hiding her face in her hands.
Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice's
picture, the incident suggests a theory which may account
for its unutterable grief and mysterious shadow of guilt
,
without letracting from the purity which we love to at
-


254
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
tribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at
that mouth with its lips half apart, as innocent as a
baby's that has been crying — and not pronounce Bea.
trice sinless ! It was the intimate consciousness of her
father's sin that threw its shadow over her, and frightened
her into a remote and inaccessible region, where no sym-
pathy could come. It was the knowledge of Miriam'a
guilt, that lent the same expression to Hilda's face.
But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the im.
ages in the glass should be no longer visible. She now
watched a speck of sunshine that came through a shut-
tered window, and crept from object to object, indicating
each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting
them all vanish successively. In like manner, her mind,
so like sunlight in its natural cheerfulness, went from
thought to thought, but found nothing that it could dwell
upon for comfort. Never before had this young, ener-
getic, active spirit known what it is to be despondent. I
was the unreality of the world that made her so. Her
dearest friend, whose heart seemed the most solid and
richest of Hilda's possessions, had no existence for her
any more; and in that dreary void, out of which Miriam
bad disappeared, the substance, the truth, the integrity of
life, the motives of effort, the joy of success, had departed
along with her.
It was long past noon, when a step came up the stair-
It had passed beyond the limits where there was
communication with the lower regions of the palace, and
was mounting the successive flights which led only to
Hilda's precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and
Wase.


MIRIAM AND HILDA.
255
$
recognized it. It startled her into sudden life. Her first
impulse was to spring to the door of the studio, and
fasten it with lock and bolt. But a second thought made
her feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on
her own part, and also that Miriam — only yesterday her
closest friend had a right to be told, face to face, that
thenceforth they must be forever strangers.
She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We
have already seen what was the latter's resolve with
respect to any kiss or pressure of the hand between
Hilda and herself. We know not what became of the
resolution. As Miriam was of a highly impulsive char-
acter, it may have vanished at the first sight of Hilda ;
but, at all events, she appeared to have dressed herself
up in a garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as the door
swung open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty
The truth was, her heart leaped convulsively towards the
only refuge that it had, or hoped. She forgot, just one
instant, all cause for holding herself aloof. Ordinarily
there was a certain reserve in Miriam's demonstrations of
affection, in consonance with the delicacy of her friend.
To-day, she opened her arms to take Hilda in.
“ Dearest, darling Hilda !” she exclaimed. “It gives
me new life to see you!"
Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When
her friend made a step or two from the door, she put
forth her hands with an involuntary repellent gesture, su
expressive, that Miriam at once felt a great chasm open-
ing itself between them two. They might gaze at one
another from the opposite side, hut without tha possibility


256
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
of ever meeting more; or, at least, since the chasm coulu
never be bridged over, they must tread the whole round
of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even
a terror in the thought of their meeting again. It was
as if Hilda or Miriam were dead, and could no longer
Lold intercourse without violating a spiritual law.
Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made
one more step towards the friend whom she had lost.
“Do not come nearer, Miriam !” said Hilda.
Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty,
and yet they expressed a kind of confidepre, as if the girl
were conscious of a safeguard that could not be violated.
“ What has happened between us, Hilda p" asked
Miriam. “ Are we not friends ? ”
“No, no !” said Hilda, shuddering,
“ At least we have been friends," continued Miriam.
“ I loved you dearly! I love you still! You were to
me as a younger sister ; yes, dearer than sisters of the
same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that
the whole world pressed us together by its solitude and
strangeness. Then, will you not touch my hand ? Am
I not the same as yesterday?"
“ Alas! no, Miriam !” said Hilda.
“Yes, the same the same for you, Hilda,” rejoined
her lost friend. “ Were you to touch my hand, you
would find it as warm to your grasp as ever. If you
were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for
you. It is in such
ple offices that true affection shows
itself; and so I speak of them. Yet now, Hilda, you
very look seems to put me beyond the limits of human
kind I"


MIRIAM AND HILDA
257
" It is not I, Miriam," said Hilda ; " not I that have
done this.”
“You, and you only, Hilda," replied Miriam, stirred up
to make her own cause good by the repellent force which
her friend opposed to her. “I am a woman, as I was
yesterday; endowed with the same truth of nature, the
same warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love,
which
you have always known in me. In any regard
that concerns yourself, I am not changed. And believo
me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend out
of all the world, it is only some faithlessness between
themselves, rendering true intercourse impossible, that
can justify either friend in severing the bond. Have I
deceived you? Then cast me off! Have I wronged
you personally? Then forgive me, if you can. But,
have I sinned against God and man, and deeply sinned ?
Then be more my friend than ever, for I need you
more.”
“ Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam !” exclaimed Hilda,
who had not forborne to express, by look and gesture, the
anguish which this interview inflicted on her. “If I were
one of God's angels, with a nature incapable of stain, and
garments that never could be spotted, I would keep ever
at your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a
poor, lonely girl, whom God has set here is an evil world,
and given her only a white robe, and bid her wear it back
to Him, as white as when she put it on. Your powerful
magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white
atmosphere, in which I try to discern what things are
good and true, would be discolored. And, therefore,


258
KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Miriaio, before it is too late, I mean to put faith in this
awful heart-quake, which warns me henceforth to avoid
you.”
Ah, this is hard! Ah, this is terrible!” murmured
Miriam, dropping her forehead in her hands.
In a mo-
ment or two she looked up again, as pale as death, but
with a composed countenance: “I always said, Hilda,
that you were merciless; for I had a perception of it,
oven while
you
loved me best. You have no sin, nor any
conception of what it is; and therefore you are so terribly
severel As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human
creature, and a woman among earthly men and women,
you need a sin to soften you."
“God forgive me," said Hilda, “ if I have said a need-
lessly cruel word !”
“Let it pass," answered Miriam ; “I, whose heart it
has smitten upon, forgive you. And tell me, before we
part forever, what 'lave you seen or known of me, since
we last met?”
"A terrible thing, Miriam," said Hilda, growing paler
than before.
“ Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my
eyes?" inquired Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a
half-frenzied raillery. “I would fain know how it is that
Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to watch us,
when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy.
Did all Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry com.
pany of artists? Or is it some blood-stain on me, or
death.scent in my garments? They say that monstrous
leformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely


MIKIAM AND HILDA.
259
angels. Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me,
by our past friendship, Hilda, all you know.”
Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which
Miriam could not suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she
bad witnessed.
“ After the rest of the party bad passed on, I went back
to speak to you,” she said ; " for there seemed to be a
trouble on your mind, and I wished to share it with you,
if you could permit me. The door of the little courtyard
was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you
within, and Donatello, and a third person, whom I had
before noticed in the shadow of a niche. He approached
you, Miriam. You knelt to him!—I saw Donatello
spring upon him! I would have shrieked, but my throat
was dry. I would have rushed forward; but my limbs
seemed rooted to the earth. It was all like a flash cf
lightning. A look, passed from your eyes to Donatello's
a look"
“ Yes, Hilda, yes !” exclaimed Miriam, with intense
eagerness. “ Do not pause now! That look ?"
“ It revealed all your heart, Miriam," continued Hilda,
covering her eyes as if to shut out the recollection ; a
look of hatred, triumph, vengeance, and, as it were, joy at
some unhoped for relief."
" Ah! Donatello was right, then,” murmured Miriam,
who shook throughout all her frame. “My eyes bade
him do it! GO
on,
Hilda."
" It all passed so quickly - all like a glare of light
ning," said Hilda, “and yet it seemed to me that Do
watello had paused, while one might draw a breath


260
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
But that look !— Ah, Miriam, spare me.
Need I tell
more?”
“No more; there needs no more, Hilda,” replied Miri.
am, bowing her head, as if listening to a sentence of con-
demnation from a supreme tribunal. “It is enough!
You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was
greatly disturbed. Henceforward, I shall be quiet.
Thank
you,
Hilda.”
She was on the point of departing, but turned back
again from the threshold.
“This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl's
bosom,” she observed ; " what will you do with it, my
poor child ?”
“Heaven help and guide me," answered Hilda, burst-
ing into tears ; “ for the burden of it crushes me to the
earth! It seems a crime to know of such a thing, and to
keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart contin-
ually, threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! Oh,
my mother! - my mother! Were she yet living, I would
travel over land and sea to tell her this dark secret, as
I told all the little troubles of my infancy. But I am
alone alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, only
friend. Advise me what to do.”
This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless
maiden to the guilty woman, whom she had just banished
from her heart forever. But it bore striking testimony to
the impression which Miriam's natural uprightness and
impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew
her best ; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, hy
proving to her that the bond between Hilda and her self
was vital yet.


MIRIAM AND HILDA.
261
As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to
he girl's cry for help.
“ If I deemed it good for your peace of mind,” she said,
"to bear testimony against me for this deed, in the face
of all the world, no consideration of myself should weigh
with me an instant. But I believe that you would find
no relief in such a course. What men call justice lies
chiefly in outward formalities, and has never the close
application and fitness that would be satisfactory to a soul
like
yours. I cannot be fairly tried and judged before an
earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, you would perhaps
become fatally conscious, when it was too late. Roman
justice, above all things, is a byword. What bave you to
do with it? Leave all such thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda,
I would not have you keep my secret imprisoned in your
heart, it it tries to leap out, and stings you, like a wild,
venomous thing, when you thrust it back again. Have
you no other friend, now that you have been forced to
give me up?"
"No other," answered Hilda, sadly.
“ Yes ; Kenyon !” rejoined Miriam.
“He cannot be my friend,” said Hilda, “ because — be-
- I have fancied that he sought to be something
more."
“ Fear nothing !” replied Miriam, shaking her head,
with a strange smile. “ This story will frighten his new-
born love out of its little life, if that be what you wish.
Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and honora-
ble counsel as to what should next be done. I know not
what else to say."
cause


262
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
1
“I never dreamed,” said Hilda,
“ how could you
think it?- of betraying you to justice. But I see how
it is, Miriam. I must keep your secret, and die of it, un.
less God sends me some relief by methods which are now
beyond my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. Ah!
now I understand how the sins of generations past have
created an atmosphere of sin for those that follow. While
there is a single guilty person in the universe, each inno-
cent one must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt.
Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!”
Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sink-
ing on her knees in a corner of the chamber, could not be
prevailed upon to utter another word. And Miriam, with
a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell to this
doves' nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and inno
cent enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble
Every crime destroys more Edens than our own!


TUE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES.
It was in June, that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on
horseback at the gate of an ancient country-house (which,
from some of its features, might almost be called a castle)
situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat remote from the
ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must now accom-
pany him, and endeavor to make our story flow onward,
like a streamlet, past a gray tower that rises on the hill-
side, overlooking a spacious valley, which is set in the
grand framework of the Apennines.
The sculptor had left Rome with the retreating tide of
foreign residents. For, as summer approaches, the Niobe
of Nations is made to bewail anew, and doubtless with
sincerity, the loss of that large part of her population
which she derives from other lands, and on whom dependo
much of whatever remnant of prosperity she still enjoys
Rome, at this season, is pervaded and overhung with
atmospheric terrors, and insulated within a charmed and
deadly circle. The crowd of wandering tourists betake
themselves to Switzerland, to the Rhine, or, from this
central home of the world, to their native homes in Eng.


264
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
land or America, which they are apt thenceforward to
look upon as provincial, after once having yielded to the
spell of the Eternal City. The artist, who contemplates
an indefinite succession of winters in this home of art
(though his first thought was merely to improve himself
by a brief visit), goes forth, in the summer time, to sketch
scenery and costume among the Tuscan hills, and pour,
if he can, the purple air of Italy over his canvas. He
studies the old schools of art in the mountain-towns where
they were born, and where they are still to be seen in the
faded frescoes of Giotto and Cimabue, on the walls of
many a church, or in the dark chapels, in which the sac-
ristan draws aside the veil from a treasured picture of
Perugino. Thence, the happy painter goes to walk the
long, bright galleries of Florence, or to steal glowing col
ors from the miraculous works, which he finds in a score
of Venetian palaces. Such summers as these, spent amid
whatever is exquisite in art, or wild and picturesque in na-
ture, may not inadequately repay him for the chill neglect
and disappointment through which he has probably lan-
guished, in his Roman winter. This sunny, shadowy,
breedy, wandering life, in which he seeks for beauty as
his treasure, and gathers for his winter's honey what is
but a passing fragrance to all other men, is worth living
for, come afterwards what may. Even if he die unrecog-
nized, the artist has had his share of enjoyment and suc-
cess.
Kenyon had seen, at a distance of many miles, the old
villa or castle, towards which his journey lay, looking
from its height over a broad expanse of valley. As he


THE TOWER AMÚNG THE APENNINES.
263
drew nearer; however, it had been hidden among the ine-
qualities of the hill-side, until the winding road brought
him almost to the iron gateway. The sculptor found this
substantial barrier fastened with lock and bolt. There
was no bell, nor other instrument of sound ; and, after
summoning the invisible garrison with his voice, instead
of a trumpet, he liad leisure to take a glance at the exte
rior of the fortress.
About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square
tower, lofty enough to be a very prominent object in the
landscape, and more than sufficiently massive in propor-
tion to its height. Its antiquity was evidently such, that,
in a climate of more abundant moisture, the ivy would
have mantled it from head to foot in a garment that
might, by this time, have been centuries old, though ever
new. In the dry Italian air, however, Nature had only
so far adopted this old pile of stonework as to cover
almost every hand's-breadth of it with close-clinging
Lichens and yellow moss; and the immemorial growth
of these kindly productions rendered the general hue of
the tower soft and venerable, and took away the aspect
cf nakedness which would have made its age drearier
than now.
Up and down the height of the tower were scattered
three or four windows, the lower ones grated with iron
bars, the upper ones vacant both of window-frames and
glass. Besides these larger openings, there were sev
eral loopholes and little square apertures, which might be
supposed to light the staircase, that doubtless climbed the
interior towards the battlemented and machicolated sum.
VOL. I.
12


266
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
mit. With this last-mentioned warlike garniture upon its
stern old head and brow, the tower seemed evidently a
stronghold of times long past. Many a crossbowman had
shot his shafts from those windows and loopholes, and
from the vantage height of those gray battlements ; many
a flight of arrows, too, had hit all round about the embras.
ures above, or the apertures below, where the helmet of
a defender had momentarily glimmered. On festal nights,
moreover, a hundred lamps had often gleamed afar over
the valley, suspended from the iron hooks that were
ranged for the purpose beneath the battlements and every
window.
Connected with the tower, and extending behind it,
there seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of
more modern date. It perhaps owed much of its fresher
appearance, however, to a coat of stucco and yellow
wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue
with the Italians. Kenyon noticed over a door-way, in
the portion of the edifice immediately adjacent to the
tower, a cross, which, with a bell suspended above the
roof, indicated that this was a consecrated precinct, and
the chapel of the mansion.
Meanwhile, the hot sun so incommoded the urshel-
tered traveller, that he shouted forth another impatient
summons. Happening, at the same moment, to look up-
ward, he saw a figure leaning from an embrasure of the
battlements, and gazing down at him.
"Ho, Signor Count!” cried the sculptor waving his
straw hat, for he recognized the face, after a moment's
loubt. “This is a warm reception, truly! Pray bid


TAE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES.
267
« old
your porter let me in, before the sun shrivels me quite
into a cinder.”
“I will come myself,” responded Donatello, flinging
down his voice out of the clouds, as it were ;
Tomaso and old Stella are both asleep no doubt, and the
rest of the people are in the vineyard. But I have ex-
pected you, and you are welcome!”
The young count, - as perhaps we had better desig-
nate him in his ancestral tower, vanished from the
battlements; and Kenyon saw his figure appear succes.
sively at each of the windows, as he descended. On
every reappearance, he turned his face towards the sculp-
tor and gave a nod and smile; for a kindly impulse
prompted him thus to assure his visitor of a welcome,
after keeping him so long at an inhospitable threshold.
Kenyon, however, (naturally and professionally expert
at reading the expression of the human countenance)
had a vague sense that this was not the young friend
whom he had known so familiarly in Rome ; not the syl.
van and untutored youth, whom Miriam, Hilda, and him-
self, had liked, laughed at, and sported with ; not the
Donatello whose identity they had so playfully mixed up
with that of the Faun of Praxiteles,
Finally, when his host had emerged from a side-portal
of the mansion, and approached the gateway, the trave
eller still felt that there was something lost, or something
gained (he hardly knew which), that set the Donatello uf
to-day irreconcilably at odds with him of yesterday
His very gait showed it, in a certain gravity, a weight
and measure of step, that had nothing in common with


268
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
the irregular buoyancy which used to distinguish him
His face was paler and thinner, and the lips less full, and
less apart.
“ I have looked for you a long while,” said Donatello;
anıl, though his voice sounded differently, and cut out its
words more sharply than had been its wont, still there
was a smile shining on his face, that, for the moment,
quite brought back the Faun. “I shall be more cheerful,
perhaps, now that you have come. It is very solitary
here.”
“ I have come slowly along, often lingering, often turn-
ing aside,” replied Kenyon ; "for I found a great deal to
interest me in the mediaval sculpture hidden away in
the churches hereabouts. An artist, whether painter or
sculptor, may be pardoned for loitering through such a
region. But what a fine old tower! Its tall front is like
a page of black-letter, taken from the history of the
Italian republics."
“ I know little or nothing of its history,” said the count,
glancing upward at the battlements, where he had just
been standing. “But I thank my forefathers for building
it so high. I like the windy summit better than the
world below, and spend much of my time there, now-4-
days."
“ It is a pity you are not a star-gazer," observed Ken
yon, also looking up." It is higher than Galileo's tower
which I saw, a week or two ago, outside of the walls of
Florence."
“A star-gazer? I am one,” replied Donatello. “I
sleep in the tower, and often watch very late on the bat:


TAE POWER AMONG THE APENNINES.
269
flements. There is a dismal old staircase to climb, how.
ever, before reaching the top, and a succession of dismal
chainbers, from story to story.
Some of them were
prison chambers in times past, as old Tomaso will tell
you."
The repugnance intimated in his tone at the idea of this
gloomy staircase and these ghostly, dimly lighted rooms,
reminded Kenyon of the original Donatello, much more
than his present custom of midnight vigils on the battle
ments.
“ I shall be glad to share your watch,” said the guest;
especially by moonlight. The prospect of this broad
valley must be very fine. But I was not aware, my
friend, that these were your country habits. I have fan-
cied you in a sort of Arcadian life, tasting rich figs, and
squeezing the juice out of the sunniest grapes, and sleep-
ing soundly, all night, after a day of simple pleasures.”
6 I may have known such a life, when I was younger,"
answered the count, gravely. “I am not a boy now.
l'ime flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”
The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the
remark, which, nevertheless, had a kind of originality as
coming from Donatello. He had thought it out from his
own experience, and perhaps considered himself as com-
municating a new truth to mankind.
They were now advancing up the courtyard; and the
long extent of the villa, with its iron-ba-red lower win.
dows and balconied upper ones, became visible, stretching
back towards a grove of trees.
" At some period of your family history,“ obserrest


270
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Kenyon, “the Counts of Monte Beni must have led a
patriarchal life in this vast house. A great-grandsire and
all liis descendants might find ample verge here, and with
-space, too, for each separate brood of little ones to play
within its own precincts. Is your present househola a
large one?”
"Only myself," answered Donatello, "and Tomaso,
who has been butler since my grandfather's time, and old
Stella, who goes sweeping and dusting about the cham-
bers, and Girolamo, the cook, who has but an idle life of
it. He shall send you up a chicken forthwith. But, first
of all, I must summon one of the contadini from the farm-
house yonder, to take your hors, to the stable.”
Accordingly, the young count shouted amain, and with
such effect, that, after several repetitions of the outcry, an
old gray woman protruded 'her head and a broom-handle
from a chamber window; the venerable butler emerged
from a recess in the sid of the house, where was a well,
or reservoir, in which he had been cleansing a small
wine-cask; and a sup umt contadino, in his shirt-sleeves,
showed himself on 1 e outskirts of the vineyard, with
some kind of a farmi g tool in his hand. Donatello found
employment for all hese retainers in providing accom-
modation for his (uest and steed, and then ushered the
sculptor into the : estibule of the house.
It was a square and lofty entrance room, which, by the
solidity of its construction, might have been an Etruscan
tomb, being paved and walled with heavy blocks of stone,
and vaul' d almost as massively overhead. On two sides,
there were doors, opening into long suites of anterooms


THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES.
271
and saloons ; on the third side, a stone staircase, of spa.
cious breadth, ascending, by dignified degrees and with
wide resting-places, to another floor of similar extent.
Through one of the doors, which was ajar, Kenyon be
held an almost interminable vista of apartments, opening
one beyond the other, and reininding him of the hundred
rooms in Blue Beard's castle, or the countless halls in
some palace of the Arabian Nights.
It must have been a numerous family, indeed, that could
ever have sufficed to people with human life so large an
abode as this, and impart social warmth to such a wide
world within doors. The sculptor confessed to himself,
that Donatello could allege reason enough for growing
melancholy, having only his own personality to vivify it
all.
“How a woman's face would brighten it up!” he ejacu-
lated, not intending to be overheard.
But, glancing at Donatello, he saw a stern and sorrow-
ful look in his eyes, which altered his youthful face as
if it had seen thirty years of trouble ; and, at the same
moment, old Stella showed herself through one of the
door-ways, as the cnly representative of her sok at
Monte Beni.


272
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL.
CHAPTER XXV.
SUNSHINE.
" Come," said the Count, "I see you already find the
old house dismal. So do I, indeed! And yet it was a
cheerful place in my boyhood. But, you see, in my
father's days (and the same was true of all my endless
line of grandfathers, as I have heard), there used to be
uncles, aunts, and all manner of kindred, dwelling to-
gether as one family. They were a merry and kindly
race of people, for the most part, and kept one another's
hearts warm."
“Two hearts might be enough for warmth," observed
the sculptor, “even in so large a house as this. One soli-
tary heart, it is true, may be apt to shiver a little. But,
I trust, my friend, that the genial blood of your race still
flows in many veins besides
your own
?”
“I am the last,” said Donatello, gloomily. “They
have all vanished from me, since my childhood. Old
Tomaso will tell you that the air of Monte Beni is not so
favorable to length of days as it used to be. But that is
not the secret of the quick extinction of my kindred.”
“ Then you are aware of a more satisfactary reason ?'
suggested Kenyon.


SUNSHINE.
273
1 thought of one, the other night, while I was gazing
at the stars," answered Donatello ; " but, pardon me, I do
not mean to tell it. One cause, however, of the longer
and healthier life of my forefathers, was, that they had
many pleasant customs, and means of making themselves
glad, and their guests and friends along with them. Now.
3days we have but one ! ”
.“ And what is that ?” asked the sculptor.
“ You shall see!” said his
young
host.
By this time, he had ushered the sculptor into one of
the numberless saloons; and, calling for refreshment, old
Stella placed a cold fowl upon the table, and quickly fol-
lowed it with a savory omelet, which Girolamo had lost
no time in preparing. She also brought some cherries,
plums, and apricots, and a plate full of particularly deli-
cate fiys, of last year's growth. The butler showing his
white head at the door, his master beckoned to him.
“ Tomaso, bring some Sunshine!” said he.
The readiest method of obeying this order, one might
suppose, would have been, to fling wide the
green
window-
blinds, and let the glow of the summer noon into the care-
fully shaded room. But, at Monte Beni, with provident
caution against the wintry days, when there is little sun-
shine, and the rainy ones, when there is none, it was the
hereditary custom to keep their Sunshine stored away in
the cellar. Old Tomaso quickly produced some of it in a
small, straw-covered flask, out of which he extracted the
cork, and inserted a little cotton wool, to absorb the olivo
oil that kept the precious liquid from the air.
“ This is a wine,” observed the Count, “ the secret of
12 *


274
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
1
1
making which has been kept in our family for centuries
upon centuries ; nor would it avail any man to steal the
secret, unless he could also steal the vineyard, in which
alone the Monte Beni grape can be produced. There is
little else left me, save that patch of vines. Taste some
of their juice, and tell me whether it is worthy to be
called Sunshine! for that is its name."
“A glorious name, too!” cried the sculptoi.
“Taste it,” said Donatello, filling his friend's glass and
pouring likewise a little into his own. “ But first smell
its fragrance; for the wine is very lavish of it, and will
scatter it all abroad."
“Ah, how exquisite !" said Kenyon. “ No other wine
has a bouquet like this. The flavor must be rare indeed,
if it fulfil the promise of this fragrance, which is like the
airy sweetness of youthful hopes, that no realities will
ever satisfy !”
This invaluable liquor was of a pale golden hue, like
other of the rarest Italian wines, and, if carelessly and
irreligiously quaffed, might have been mistaken for a very
fine sort of Champagne. It was not, however, an effer-
vescing wine, although its delicate piquancy produced a
nomewhat similar effect upon the palate. Sipping, the
guest longed to sip again; but the wine demanded 80
deliberato a pause, in order to detect the hidden peculiari-
tics and subtle exquisiteness of its flavor, that to drink it
was really more a moral than a physical enjoyment.
There was a deliciousness in it that eluded analysis, and
-- like whatever else is superlatively good -- was perhaps
better appreciated in the memory than by present con-


SUNSHINE.
275
sciousness. One of its most ethereal charms lay in the
transitory life of the wine's richest qualities ; for, while it
required a certain leisure and delay, yet, if you lingered
too long upon the draught, it became disenchanted both
of its fragrance and its flavor.
The lustre should not be forgotten, among the other
admirable endowments of the Monte Beni wine; for, as
it stood in Kenyon's glass, a little circle of light glowed
on the table round about it, as if it were really so much
golden sunshine.
“I feel myself a better man for that ethereal potation,”
observed the sculptor, “ The finest Orvieto, or that
famous wine, the Est Est Est of Montefiascone, is vulgar
in comparison. This is surely the wine of the Golden
Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught mankind to
press from the choicest of his grapes. My dear Count,
why is it not illustrious? The pale, liquid gold, in every
such flask as that, might be solidified into golden scudi,
and would quickly make you a millionaire !”
Tomaso, the old butler, who was standing by the table,
and enjoying the praises of the wine quite as much as if
bestowed upon himself, made answer,
“We have a tradition, signore,” said he, that this raro
wine of our vineyard would lose all its wonderful quali-
ties, if any of it were sent to market. The Counts of
Monte Beni have never parted with a single flask of it
for gold. At their banquets, in the olden time, they have
entertained princes, cardinals, and once an emperor, and
once a pope, with this delicious wine, and always, even to
this day it has been their custom tr let it flow freely,


276
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
-
66
when those whom they love and honor sit ai the board
But the grand duke himself could not drink that wine,
except it were under this very roof!”
“ What you tell me, my good friend,” replied Kenyon,
"makes me venerate the Sunshine of Monte Beni even
more abundantly than before. As I understand you, it is
A sort of consecrated juice, and symbolizes the holy vir.
tnes of hospitality and social kindness ?”
Why; partly so, signore," said the old butler, with a
shrewd twinkle in his eye; “but, to speak out all the
truth, there is another excellent reason why neither a
cask nor a flask of our precious vintage should ever be
sent to market. The wine, signore, is so fond of its
native home, that a transportation of even a few miles,
Turns it quite sour. And yet it is a wine that keeps well
in the cellar, underneath this floor, and gathers fragrance,
Havor, and brightness in its dark dungeon. That very
tlask of Sunshine, now, has kept itself for you, sir guests
(as a maid reserves her sweetness till her lover comes
for it,) ever since a merry vintage-time, when the Signore
Count here was a boy!”
“ You must not wait for Tomaso to end his discourse
about the wine, before drinking off your glass,” observed
Donatello. “ When once the flask is uncorked, its finest
qualities lose little time in making their escape. I doubt
whether your last sip will be quite so delicious as you
lound the first."
And, in truth, the sculptor fancied that the Sunshine
became almost imperceptibly clouded, as he approached
the bottom of the flask. The effect of the wine, however


SUNSHINE.
277
was a gentle exhilaration, which did not so speelily pass
away.
Being thus refreshed, Kenyon looked around him at
the antique saloon in which they sat. It was constructed
in a most ponderous style, with a stone floor, on which
heavy pilasters were planted against the wall, support.
ing arches that crossed one another in the vaulted
Chiling. The upright walls, as well as the compart-
ments of the roof, were completely covered with fres-
coes, which doubtless had been brilliant when first
executed, and perhaps for generations afterwards. The
designs were of a festive and joyous character, represent-
ing Arcadian scenes, where nymphs, fauns, and satyrs,
disported themselves among mortal youths and maidens ;
and Pan, and the god of wine, and he of sunshine and
music, disdained not to brighten some sylvan merry-mak.
ing with the scarcely veiled glory of their presence. A
wreath of dancing figures, in admirable variety of shape
and motion, was festooned quite round the cornice of the
room.
In its first splendor, the saloon must have presented an
Aspect both gorgeous and enlivening; for it invested some
of the cheerfullest ideas and emotions of which the human
mind is susceptible with the external reality of beautiful
form, and rich, harmonious glow and variety of color.
But the frescoes were now very ancient. They had been
rubbed and scrubbed by old Stella and many a predeces.
sor, and had been defaeed in one spot, and retouched in
another, and had peeled from the wall in patches, and had
hidden some of their brightest portions under dreary dust


278
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
---
till the joyousness had quite vanished out of theia all.
It was often difficult to puzzle out the design ; and even
where it was more readily intelligible, the figures showed
like the ghosts of dead and buried' joys - the closer their
resemblance to the happy past, the gloomier now. For it
is thus, that with only an inconsiderable change, the glad-
dest objects and existences become the saddest ; hope fad-
ing into disappointment; joy darkening into grief, and
festal splendor into funereal duskiness; and all evolving
as their moral, a grim identity between gay things and
sorrowful ones. Only give them a little time, and they
tury out to be just alike!
“ There has been much festivity in this saloon, if I
may judge by the character of its frescoes,” remarked
Kenyon, whose spirits were still upheld by the mild
potency of the Monte Beni wine. “ Your forefathers,
my dear Count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping
up the vintage merriment throughout the year. It does
me good to think of them gladdening the hearts of men
and women, with their wine of Sunshine, even in the Iron
age, as Pan and Bacchus, whom we see yonder, did in the
Golden one!”
“Yes, there have been merry times in the banquet-
hall of Monte Beni, even within my own remembrance,"
replied Donatello, looking gravely at the painted walls.
" It was meant for mirth, as you see ; and when I
brought my own cheerfulness into the saloon, these fres-
coes looked cheerful too. But methinks they have al
faded, since I saw them last.'
" It would be a good idea,' said the sculptor, falling


SUNSHINE.
279
into liis companion's vein, and helping him out with an
illustration which Donatello himself could not have put
into shape, “to convert this saloon into a chapel; and
when the priest tells his hearers of the instability of
earthly joys, and would shew how drearily they vanish,
he may point to these pictures, that were so joyous, and
arc so dismal. He could not illustrate his theme so aptly
in
any
other way.”
“ True, indeed,” answered the Count, his former sim.
plicity strangely mixing itself up with an experience that
had changed him; “ and yorder, where the minstrels
used to stand, the altar shall be placed. A sinful man
might do all the more effective penance in this old ban-
quet-hall."
“But I should regret to have suggested so ungenial a
transformation in your hospitable saloon,” continued Ken-
yon, duly noting the change in Donatello's characteristics.
“ You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a design! It
would hardly have entered your head, when we first met.
Pray do not - if I may take the freedom of a somewhat
elder man to advise you,” added he, smiling “pray do
not, under a notion of improvement, take upon yourself
to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, like all the rest
of us."
Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing
to follow with his eyes one of the figures, which was re-
peated many times over in the groups upon the walls, and
ceiling. It formed the principal link of an allegory, by
which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs) the
whole series of frescoes were bound together, but which it


280
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
.
would be impossible, or, at least, very wearisome, to un
ravel. The sculptor's eyes took a similar direction, and
soon began to trace through the virissitudes -
once gay,
now sombre - in which the old artist had involved it, the
same individual figure. He fancied a resemblance it to
Donatello himself; and it put him in mind of one of the
purposes with which he had come to Monte Beni.
“My dear Count,” said he, “I have a proposal to
make. You must let me employ a little of my leisure in
modelling your bust. You remember what a striking ré-
semblance we all of us Hilda, Miriam, and I found
between
your
features and those of the Faun of Praxite-
les. Then, it seemed an identity; but now that I know
your face better, the likeness is far less apparent. Your
head in marble would be a treasure to me.
Shall I have
it?”
“I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome,
replied the Count, turning away his face, “It troubles
me to be looked at steadfastly.”
“I have observed it since we have been sitting here,
though never before," rejoined the sculptor. “It is a
kind of nervousness, I apprehend, which you caught in
the Roman air, and which grows upon you, in your soli-
tary life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your
bust; for I will catch the likeness and expression by side
glimpses, which (if portrait painters and bust makers did
but know it) always bring home richer results than a
öroad stare."
“ You may take me if you have the power,” said Do
uatello; but, even as he spoke, he turned away his face
;
3


SUNSHINE.
281
* and if you can see what makes me shrink from you,
you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will,
hu, my necessitý, to avoid men's eyes. Only,” he added,
with a smile which made Kenyon doubt whether he might
not as well copy the Faun as model a new bust,“ only,
you know, you must not insist on my uncovering theso
ears of mine!”
“Nay; I never should dream of such a thing," alto
swered the sculptor, laughing as the young count shook
his clustering curls. “I could not hope to persuade you,
remembering how Miriam once failed!”
Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that
often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be pres-
ent to the mind, so distinctly that no utterance could
make it more so; and two minds may be conscious of the
same thought, in which one or both take the profoundest
interest; but as long as it remains unspoken, their famil-
iar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea, as a rivulet
may sparkle and dimple over something sunken in its
bed. But, speak the word ; and it is like bringing up a
drowned body out of the deepest pool of the rivulet,
which has been aware of the horrible secret all along, in
epite of its smiling surface.
And even so, when Kenyon chanced to make a distinct
reference to Donatello's relations with Miriam (though
the subject was already in both their minds), a ghastly
emotion rose up out of the depths of the young count's
heart. He trembled either with anger or terror, and
slared at the sculptor with wild eyes, like a wolf that


282
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
meets you in the forest, and hesitates whether to flee or
turn to bay. But, as Kenyon still looked calmly at him,
his aspect gradually became less disturbed, though far
from resuming its former quietude.
“ You have spoken her name,” said he, at last, in an
altered and tremulous tone; “ tell me, now, all that you
know of her.”
“I scarcely think that I have any later intelligence
than yourself," answered Kenyon; “ Miriam left Rome
at about the time of your own departure. Within a day
or two after our last meeting at the Church of the Cap-
uchins, I called at her studio and found it vacant
Whither she has gone, I cannot tell."
Donatello asked no further questions.
They rose from table, and strolled together about tho
premises, whiling away the afternoon with brief intervals
of unsatisfactory conversation, and many shadowy si-
lences. The sculptor had a perception of change in his
companion, — possibly of growth and development, but
certainly of change, -- which saddened him, because it
took away much of the simple grace that was the best
of Donatello's peculiarities.
Kenyon betook himself to repose that night in a grim,
old, vaulted apartment, which, in the lapse of five or six
centuries, had probably been the birth, bridal, and death
chamber of a great many generations of the Monte Beni
family. He was aroused, soon after daylight, by the
clamor of a tribe of beggars who had taken their stand
in a little rustic lane that crept beside that portion of the


SUNSHINE.
283
villa, and were addressing their petitions to the open
windows. By-and-by, they appeared to have received
alms, and took their departure.
“ Some charitable Christian has sent those vagabonds
away,” thought the sculptor, as he resumed his inter-
rupted nap;
5 who could it be? Donatello has his own
rooms in the tower; Stella, Tomaso, and the cook are a
world's width off; and I fancied myself the only inhabi-
tant in this part of the house."
In the breadth and space which so delightfully charac-
terize an Italian villa, a dozen guests might have had
each his suite of apartments without infringing upon one
another's ample precincts. But, so far as Kenyon knew,
he was the only visitor beneath Donatello's widely es
tapded roof.
UD OF VOL L





--



many
HILDA AND THE Doves. See page 175.


THE MARBLE FAUN;
"OR,
The Romance of Monte Beni.
VOL. II.





CONTENTS
OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
CM.
PAQ
I. THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI
P
II. MYTHS
.
III. THE OWL TOWER
IV. ON THE BATTLEMENTS
V. DONATELLO'S BUST
7
21
33
43
56
64
77
.
VL THE MARBLE SALOON
VII. SCENES BY THE WAY
VIII. PICTURED WINDOWS
91
.
.
IX. MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA
X. THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION
XI. HILDA'S TOWER
XII. THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES
.
.
.
XIII. ALTARS AND INCENSE
IV. THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL
XV. HILDA AND A FRIEND
XVI. SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS
XVII. REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM
· 102
110
. 120
129
142
153
164
177
. 188
198
209
221
231
240
252
262
275
XVIII. THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP
XIX. THE DESERTED SHRINE
.
XX. THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES
XXI. A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA
XXII. THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA
XXIII. A SCENE IN THE CORSO
(XIV. A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL
XXV MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO





THE
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
i
CHAPTER I.
THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.
а
FROM the old butler, whom he found to be a very
gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned
many curious particulars about the family history and
hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni.
There was a pedigree, the later portion of which that
is to say, for a little more than a thousand years
genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link
by link, and authenticating by records and documentary
evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to
follow up the stream of Donatello's ancestry to its dim
source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious
fountains of the Nile. And, far beyond the region of
definite and demonstrable fact, a romancer might have
strayed into a region of old poetry, where the rich soil,
80 long uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into
nearly its primeval state of wilderness. Among those


8
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous
vegetation, the wanderer must needs follow his own guid-
ance, and arrive nowhither at last.
The race of Monte Beni, beyond a doubt, was one of
the oldest in Italy, where families appear to survive at
least, if not to flourish, on their half-decayed roots, of
tener than in England or France. It came down in a
broad track from the Middle Ages; but, at epochs an
terior to those, it was distinctly visible in the gloom of
the period before chivalry put forth its flower; and far-
ther still, we are almost afraid to say, it was seen, though
with a fainter and wavering course, in the early morn of
Christendom, when the Roman Empire had hardly begun
to show symptoms of decline. At that venerable distance,
the heralds gave up the lineage in despair.
But where written record left the genealogy of Monte
Beni, tradition took it up, and carried it without dread or
shame beyond the Imperial ages into the times of the
Roman republic; beyond those, again, into the epoch of
kingly rule. Nor even so remotely among the mossy
centuries did it pause, but strayed onward into that gray
antiquity of which there is no token left, save its cavern-
ous tombs, and a few bronzes, and some quaintly wrought
ornaments of gold, and gems with mystic figures and in
scriptions. There, or thereabouts, the line was supposed
to have had its origin in the sylvan life of Etruria, while
Italy was yet guiltless of Rome,
Of course, as we regret to say, the earlier and very
much the larger portion of this respectable descent -
and the same is true of many briefer pedigrees must


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.
pe looked upon as altogether mythical. Still, it threw a
romantic interest around the unquestionable antiquity of
the Monte Beni family, and over that tract of their own
vines and fig-trecs, beneath the shade of which they had
unquestionably dwelt for immemorial ages. And there
they had laid the foundations of their tower, so long ago
that one half of its height was said to be sunken under
the surface and to hide subterranean chambers which once
were cheerful with the olden sunshine.
One story, or myth, that had mixed itself up with their
mouldy genealogy, interested the sculptor by its wild, and
perhaps grotesque, yet not unfascinating peculiarity. He
caught at it the more eagerly, as it afforded a shadowy
and whimsical semblance of explanation for the likeness
which he, with Miriam and Hilda, had seen or fancied,
between Donatello and the Faun of Praxiteles.
The Monte Beni family, as this legend averred, drew
their origin from the Pelasgic race, who peopled Italy in
times that may be called pre-historic. It was the same
aoble breed of men, of Asiatic birth, that settled in
Greece; the same happy and poetic kindred who dwelt in
Arcadia, and whether they ever lived such life or not
enriched the world with dreams, at least, and fables,
lovely, if unsubstantial, of a Golden Age. In those de-
licious times, when deities and demigods appeared famil-
iarly on earth, mingling with its inhabitants as friend with
friend, — when nymphs, satyrs, and the whole train of classic
faith or fable, hardly took pains to hide themselves in the
primeval woods, - at that auspicious period the lineage
of Monte Beni had its rise. Its progenitor was a being
-


10
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
not altogether human, yet partaking so largely of the
gentlest human qualities, as to be neither awful nor
shocking to the imagination. A sylvan creature, native
Among the woods, had loved a mortal maiden, and
per.
haps by kindness, and the subtle courtesies which love
might teach to his simplicity, or possibly by a ruder
wooing - had won her to his haunts. In due time, he
gained her womanly affection ; and, making their bridal
bower, for aught we know, in the hollow of a great tree,
the pair spent a happy wedded life in that ancient neigh-
borhood where now stood Donatello's tower.
From this union sprang a vigorous progeny hat took
its place unquestioned among human families. In that
age, however, and long afterwards, it showed the inefface-
able lineaments of its wild paternity : it was a pleasant
and kindly race of men, but capable of savage fierceness,
and never quite restrainable within the trammels of so-
cial law. They were strong, active, genial, cheerful as
the sunshine, passionate as the tornado. Their lives
were rendered blissful by an unsought harmony with
nature.
But, as centuries passed away, the Faun's wild blood
had necessarily been attempered with constant intermix-
tures from the more ordinary streams of human life. It
lost many of its original qualities, and served, for the
most part, only to bestow an unconquerable vigor which
kept the family from extinction, and enabled them to
make their own part good throughout the perils and rude
emergencies of their interminable descent. In the con
stant wars with which Italy was plagued, by the dissen-


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.
11
-
sions of Ler petty states and republics, there was a de
mand for native hardihood.
The successive members of the Monte Beni family
showed valor and policy enough, at all events, to keep
their hereditary possessions out of the clutch of grasping
neighbors, and probably differed very little from the other
feudal barons with whom they fought and feasted. Such
a degree of conformity with the manners of the genera
tions, through which it survived, must have been essential
to the prolonged continuance of the race.
It is well known, however, that any hereditary pecu-
liarity -
-as a supernumerary finger, or an anomalous
shape of feature, like the Austrian lip is wont to show
itself in a family after a very wayward fashion. It skips
at its own pleasure along the line, and, latent for half a
century or so, crops out again in a great-grandsoņ. And
thus, it was said, from a period beyond memory or record,
there had ever and anon been a descendant of the Monte
Benis bearing nearly all the characteristics that were at-
tributed to the original founder of the race. Some traditions
even went so far as to enumerate the ears, covered with a
delicate fur, and shaped like a pointed leaf, among the
proofs of authentic descent which were seen in these
favored individuals. We appreciate the beauty of such
tokens of a nearer kindred to the great family of nature
than other mortals bear; but it would be idle to ask
credit for a statement which might be deemed to partake
60 largely of the grotesque.
But it was indisputable that, once in a century, or
oftener, a son of Monte Beni gathered into himself the


12
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
scattered qualities of his race, and reproduced the charac
ter that had been assigned to it from immemorial times
Beautiful, strong, brave, kindly, sincere, of honest im
pulses, and endowed with simple tastes and the love of
bomely pleasures, he was believed to possess gifts by
which he could associate himself with the wild things of
the forests, and with the fowls of the air, and could feel
a sympathy even with the trees, among which it was his
joy to dwelt. On the other hand, there were deficiencies
both of interiect and heart, and especially, as it seemed, in
the development of the higher portion of man's nature.
These defects were less perceptible in early youth, but
showed themselves more strongly with advancing age,
when, as the animal spirits settled down upon a lower
level, the representative of the Monte Benis was apt to
become sensuai, addicted to gross pleasures, heavy, un-
sympathizing, and insulated within the narrow limits of a
surly selfishness.
A similar charge, indeed, is no more than what we
constantly observe to take place in persons who are not
careful to substitute other graces for those which they in-
evitably lose along with the quick sensibility and joyous
vivacity of youth. At worst, the reigning Count of
Monte Beni, as his hair grew white, was still a jolly old
fellow over his flask of wine -- the wine that Bacchus
himself was fabled to have taught his sylvan ancestor how
to express, and from what choicest grapes, which would
ripen only in a certain divinely favored portion of the
Monte Beni vineyard.
The family, be it observed, wire both proud and


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.
13
Ashamed of these legends but whatever part of them
they might consent to incorporate into their ancestral his-
tory, they steadily repudiated all that referred to their
one distinctive feature, the pointed and furry ears. In a
great many years past, no sober credence had been
yielded to the mythical portion of the pedigree. It
might, however, be considered as typifying some such
assemblage of qualities — in this case, chiefly remarka-
ble for their simplicity and naturalness -- as, when they
reappear in successive generations, constitute what we
call family character. The sculptor found, moreover, on
the evidence of some old portraits, that the physical fea-
tures of the race had long been similar to what he now
saw them in Donatello. With accumulating years, it is
true, the Monte Beni face had a tendency to look grim
and savage ; and, in two or three instances, the family
pictures glared at the spectator in the eyes like some
surly animal, that had lost its good-humor when it out-
lived its playfulness.
The young count accorded his guest full liberty to w-
vestigate the personal annals of these pictured worthics,
as well as all the rest of his progenitors; and ample man
terials were at hand in
many
chests of worm-eaten papers
and yellow parchments, that had been gathering into
larger and dustier piles ever since the dark ages. But,
to confess the truth, the information afforded by these
musty documents was so much more prosaic than what
Kenyon acquired from Tomaso's legends, that even the
superior authenticity of the former could not reconcile
nim o its dulness.


14
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
He was
What especially delighted the sculptor, was the analogy
between Donatello's character, as he himself knew it, and
those peculiar traits which the old butler's narrative as.
sumed to have been long hereditary in the race.
amused at finding, too, that not only Tomaso but the peas
antry of the estate and neighboring village recognized
his friend as a genuine Monte Beni, of the original type.
They seemed to cherish a great affection for the young
count, and were full of stories about his sportive child-
hood; how he had played among the little rustics, and
been at once the wildest and the sweetest of them all;
and how, in his very infancy, he had plunged into the
deep pools of the streamlets and never been drowned,
and had clambered to the topmost branches of tall trees
without ever breaking his neck. No such mischance
could happen to the sylvan child, becaụse, handling all
the elements of nature so fearlessly and freely, nothing
had either the power or the will to do him harm.
He grew up, said these humble friends, the playmate
not only of all mortal kind, but of creatures of the woods ;
although, when Kenyon pressed them for some particulars
of this latter mode of companionship, they could remember
little more than a few anecdotes of a pet fox, which used
to growl and snap at everybody save Donatello himself.
But they enlarged -- and never were weary of the
theme upon the blithesome effects of Donatello's pres-
ence in his rosy childhood and budding youth. Their
hovels had always glowed like sunshine when he entered
them; so that, as the peasants expressed it, their young
master had never darkencd a door-way in his life. He


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI
15
was the soul of vintage festivals. While he was a mere
infant, scarcely able to run alone, it had been the custom
to make him tread the wine-press with his tender little
feet, if it were only to crush one cluster of the grapes.
And the grape-juice that gushed beneath his childish
tiead, be it ever so small in quantity, sufficed to impart a
pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The race of
Monte Beni So these rustic chroniclers assured the
sculptor — had possessed the gift from the oldest of old
times of expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and
a ravishing liquor from the choice growth of their vine-
yard.
In a word, as he listened to such tales as these, Kenyon
could have imagined that the valleys and hill-sides about
him were a veritable Arcadia, and that Donatello was not
merely a sylvan faun, but the genial wine-god in his very
person. Making many allowances for the poetic fancies
of Italian peasants, he set it down for fact, that his friend,
in a simple way, and among rustic folks, had been an ex
ceedingly delightful fellow in his younger days.
But the contadini sometimes added, shaking their heads
and sighing, that the young count was sadly changed since
he went to Rome. The village girls now missed the
merry smile with which he used to greet them.
The sculptor inquired of his good friend Tomasa,
whether he, too, had noticed the shadow which was said
to have recently fallen over Donatello's life.
* Ah, yes, signor !” answered the old butler, “it is
even so, since he came back from that wicked and mis-
erable city. The world has grown either too evil, or else


16
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
too wise and sad, for such men as the old Counts of
Monte Beni used to be. His
very
first taste of it, as you
see, has changed and spoilt my poor young lord. There
had not been a single count in the family these hun.
dred years and more, who was so true a Monte Beni, of
the antique stamp, as this poor signorino ; and now it
brings the tears into my eyes to hear him sighing over a
cup of Sunshine! Ah, it is a sad world now !”
“ Then you think there was a merrier world once ?"
asked Kenyon.
“Surely, signor," said Tomaso ; "a merrier world,
and merrier Counts of Monte Beni to live in it! Such
tales of them as I have heard, when I was a child on my
grandfather's knee! The good old man remembered a
lord of Monte Beni — at least, he had heard of such a
one, though I will not make oath upon the holy crucifix
that my grandsire lived in his time — who used to go
into the woods and call pretty damsels out of the foun-
tains, and out of the trunks of the old trees.
lord was known to dance with them a whole long sum-
mer afternoon! When shall we see such frolics in our
That merry
days ?”
“Not soon, I am afraid," acquiesced the sculptor
“You are right, excellent Tomaso; the world is sadder
;
DOW!”
And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild
fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the
once genial earth produces, in every successive genera-
tion, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding
Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of
oner,


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.
17
human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened
era, on the contrary, they never before were nearly so
abundant, but that mankind are getting so far beyond
the childhood of their race that they scorn to be bappy
any longer. A simple and joyous character can fird no
place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that
would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame.
The entire system of man's affairs, as at present estab
lished, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and
happy soul. The very children would upbraid the wretch-
ed individual who should endeavor to take life and the
world as
what we might naturally suppose them meant
for — a place and opportunity for enjoyment.
It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and
a purpose. in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated
scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival
at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. It
insists upon everybody's adding somewhat - a mite, per-
haps, but earned by incessant effort -- to an accumulated
pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, to bur
den our posterity with even heavier thoughts and more
inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders
like an unfettered stream; there is a mill-wheel for the
aniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenu-
ous a resolution to go all right.
Therefore it was — So, at least, the sculptor thought,
although partly suspicious of Donatello's darker misfor.
tune that the young count found it impossible now-a-
lays to be what his forefathers had been. He could not
live their healthy life of animal spirits, in then sympathy


18
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
with nature, and brotherhood with all that breatnet
around them. Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, and earth,
flood, and sky, is what it was of old; but sin, care, and
self-consciousness have set the human portion of the
world askew; and thus the simplest character is ever the
wonest to go astray.
“At any rate, Tomaso," said Kenyon, doing his best
to comfort the old man, “let us hope that your young lord
will still enjoy himself at vintage-time. By the aspect
of the vineyard, I judge that this will be a famous year
for the golden wine of Monte Beni. As long as you
grapes produce that admirable liquor, sad as you think
the world, neither the count nor his guests will quite for-
get to smile.”
“Ah, signor,” rejoined the butler with a sigh, but he
scarcely wets his lips with the sunny juice.”
“ There is yet another hope," observed Kenyon ; " the
young count may fall in love, and bring home a fair and
laughing wife to chase the gloom out of yonder old, fres-
coed saloon. Do you think he could do a better thing.
my good Tomaso ? "
“Maybe not, signor," said the sage butler, looking ear.
nestly at him ; " and, maybe, not a worse!”
The sculptor fancied that the good old man had it
partly in his mind to make some remark, or communicate
some fact, which, on second thoughts, he resolved to keep
concealed in his own breast. He now took his departure
cellarward, shaking his white head and muttering to him.
self, and did not reappear till dinner-time, when he fa-
vored Kenyon, whom he had taken far into his good


THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI,
19
graces, with a choicer flask of Sunshine than had yet
blessed his palate.
To
say
the truth, this golden wine was no unnucessary
ingredient towards making the life of Monte Beni palata.
ble. It seemed a pity that Donatello did not drink a
little more of it, and go jollily to bed at least, even if he
should awake with an accession of darker melancholy the
next morning.
Nevertheless, there was no lack of outward means for
leading an agreeable life in the old villa. Wandering
musicians haunted the precincts of Monte Beni, where
they seemed to claim a prescriptive right; they made the
lawn and shrubbery tuneful with the sound of fiddle, harp,
and flute, and now and then with the tangled squeaking
of a bagpipe. Improvvisatori likewise came and told
tales or recited verses to the contadini
Kenyon often was an auditor - after their day's work in
the vineyard. Jugglers, too, obtained permission to do
feats of magic in the hall, where they set even the sago
Tomaso, and Stella, Girolamo, and the peasant girls from
the farmhouse, all of a broad grin, between merriment
and wonder. These good people got food and lodging
for their pleasant pains, and some of the small wine of
Tuscany, and a reasonable handful of the Grand Duke's
copper coin, to keep up the hospitable renown of Monte
Beni. But very seldom had they the young count as a
listener, or a spectator.
There were sometimes dances by moonlight on the lawn,
but never since he came from Rome did Donatello's pres-
ence deepen the blushes of the pretty contadinas, or hix
among whom


20
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
footstep weary out the most agile partner or competitor a
once it was sure to do.
Paupers for this kind of vermin infested whe house
of Monte Beni worse than any other spot in beggar.
baunted Italy -- stood beneath all the windows, making
loud supplication, or even establishing themselves on the
marble steps of the grand entrance. They ate and drank,
and filled their bags, and pocketed the little money that
was given them, and went forth on their devious ways,
showering blessings innumerable on the mansion and its
lord, and on the souls of his deceased forefathers, who
had always been just such simpletons as to be compas-
sionate to beggary. But, in spite of their favorable pray.
- by which Italian philanthropists set great store –
A cloud seemed to hang over these once Arcadian pre-
cincts, and to be darkest around the summit of the tower
where Donatello was wont to sit and broad
ers


NYTHS
2)
CHAPTER I.
MYTHS.
**
AFTER the sculptor's arrival, however, the young count
sometimes came down from his forlorn elevation, and
rambled with him among the neighboring woods and hills.
He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, with which
he himself had been familiar in his childhood. But of
late, as he remarked to Kenyon, a sort of strangeness had
overgrown them, like clusters of dark shrubbery, so that
he hardly recognized the places which he had known and
loved so well.
To the sculptor's eye, nevertheless, they were still rich
with beauty. They were picturesque in that sweetly im-
pressive way, where wildness, in a long lapse of years,
has crept over scenes that have been once adorned with
the careful art and toil of man; and when man could do
no more for them, time and nature came, and wrought
hand in hand to bring them to a soft and venerable perfec-
tion. There grew the fig-tree that had run wild and taken
to wife-the vine, which likewise had gone rampant out of
all human control; so that the two wild things had tangled
und knotted themselves into a wild marriage-lund, and


22
ROMANCE OF MUNTE BENI.
hung their vanous progeny the luscious figs, the grapes,
oozy with the southern juice, and both endowed with a
wild flavor that added tne nal charm on the same
bough together.
In Kenyon's opinion, never was any other nook so
lovely as a certain little dell which he and Donatello
visited. It was hollowed in among the hills, and open to
A glimpse of the broad, fertile valley A fountain had its
birth here, and fell into a marble lasin, which was all
covered with moss and shaggy with water-weeds. Over
the gush of the small stream, with an urn in her arms,
stood a marble nymph, whose nakedness the moss had
kindly clothed as with a garment; and the long trails and
tresses of the maidenhair had done what they could in
the poor thing's behalf, by hanging themselves about her
waist. In former days - it might be a remote antiquity
- this lady of the fountain had first received the infant
tide into her urn and poured it thence into the marble
basin. But now the sculptured urn had a great crack
from top to bottom; and the discontented nymph was
compelled to see the basin fill itself through a channel
which she could not control, although with water long
2go consecrated to her.
For this reason, or some other, she looked terribly for-
lorn; and you might have fancied that the whole foun-
tain was but the overflow of her lonely tears.
“ This was a place that I used greatly to delight in,"
remarked Donatello, sighing. “As a child, and as a boy
I have been very happy here."
“ And, as a man, I should ask no fitter place to be


MYTAS.
23
nappy in," answered Kenyon. “But you, my friend, are
of such a social nature, that I should hardly have thought
these lonely haunts would take your fancy. It is a place
for a poet to dream in, and people it with the beings of
sis imagination."
“I am no poet, that I know of,” said Donatello, “but
ret, do I tell you, I have been very happy here, in the
yompany
of this fountain and this nymph. It is said that
1 Faun, hay oldet forefather, brought home hither to this
rery spot a human maiden, whom he loved and wedded.
Chis spring oi dericivus water was their household well.”
"It is a most enchauting fable !” exclaimed Kenyon;
* that is, if it be not a fact."
“And why not a fact ? said the simple Donatello
is There is likewise another sweet old story connected with
this spot. But, now that I reniember it, it seems to me
more sad than sweet, though forinerly the sorrow, in
which it closes, did not so much in press me. If I had
the gift of tale-telling, this one would be sure to interest
you mightily."
“ Pray tell it,” said Kenyon ; “no matter whether well
or ill. These wild legends have often the most powerful
charm when least artfully told.”
So the young count narrated a myth of one of his pro-
genitors, - he might have lived a century ago, or a thou-
sand years, or before the Christian epoch, for anything
ibat Donatello knew to the contrary, - who had made ac-
quaintance with a fair creature belonging to this fountain.
Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, as was all else
about her, except that her life and soul were somehow


24
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
interfused throughout the gushing water.
She was *
fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of please
ant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with the whim
of the moment, but yet as constant as her native stream,
which kept the same gush and flow forever, while marble
crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman loved
the youth, - a knight, as Donatello called him, — for,
according to the legend, his race was akin to hers. At
least, whether kin or no, there had been friendship and
Aympathy of old betwixt an ancestor of his, with furry
ears, and the long-lived lady of the fountain. And, after
all those ages, she was still as young as a May morning,
and as frolicsome as a bird upon a tree, or a breeze that
makes merry
with the leaves.
She taught him how to call her from her pebbly source,
and they spent many a happy hour together, more espe-
cially in the fervor of the summer days. For often as he
sat waiting for her by the margin of the spring, she would
suddenly fall down around him in a shower of sunny
rain-
drops, with a rainbow glancing through them, and forth-
with gather herself up into the likeness of a beautiful girl,
laughing — or was it the warble of the rill over the peb-
bles ? — to see the youth's amazement.
Thus, kind maiden that she was, the hot atmosphere
became deliciously cool and fragrant for this favored
knight; and, furthermore, when he knelt down to drink
out of the spring, nothing was more common than for a
pair of rosy lips to come up out of its little depths, and
touch his mouth with the thrill of a sweet, cool, dewy
kiss!


MYTHS.
25
66 But
" It is a delightful story for the hot noon of your Tus .
can summer," observed the sculptor, at this point.
the deportment of the watery lady must have had a most
chilling influence in midwinter. Her lover would find it,
very literally, a cold reception ! ”
“I suppose," said Donatello, rather sulkily, “ you are
making fun of the story. But I see nothing laughable in
the thing itself, nor in what you say about it.”
He went on to relate, that for a long while, the knight
found infinite pleasure and comfort in the friendship of the
fountain nymph. In his merriest hours, she gladdened
him with her sportive humor. If ever he was annoyed
with earthly trouble, she laid her moist hand upon his
brow, and charmed the fret and fever quite away.
But one day — one fatal noontide the young knight
came rushing with hasty and irregular steps to the accus-
tomed fountain. He called the nymph; but-
no doubt
because there was something unusual and frightful in his
tone she did not appear, nor answer him. He flung
himself down, and washed his hands and bathed his fever-
ish brow in the cool, pure water. And then, there was a
sound of woe ;
might have been a woman's voice; it
might have been only the sighing of the brook over the
pebbles. The water shrank away from the youth's hands,
and left his brow as dry and feverish as before.
Donatello here came to a dead pause.
“Why did the water shrink from this unhappy knight?"
inquired the sculptor.
“ Because he had tried to wash off a blood-stain !” said
the young count, in a horror-stricken whispor. “The
VOL. u.
2


26
ROMANCE OF MOJTE BENI.
guiity nian had polluted the pure water. The nymph
might have comforted him in sorrow, but could not cleanse
his conscience of a crime.”
“ And did he never behold her more?” asked Kenyon.
“ Never but once," replied his friend. “ He never be
held her blessed face but once again, and then there was a
blood-stain on the poor nymph's brow; it was the stain
his guilt had left in the fountain where he tried to wash it
off. He mourned for her his whole life long, and employed
the best sculptor of the time to carve this statue of the
nymph from his description of her aspect. But, though
my ancestor would fain have had the image wear her hap-
piest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was so impressed with
the mournfulness of the story, that, in spite of his best
efforts, he made her forlorn, and forever weeping, as you
see !"
Kenyon found a certain charm in this simple legend.
Whether so intended or not, he understood it as an apo
logue, typifying the soothing and genial effects of an
habitual intercourse with nature, in all ordinary cares and
griefs; while, on the other hand, her mild influences fall
short in their effect upon the ruder passions, and are alto
gether powerless in the dread fever-fit or deadly chill of
guilt.
“Do you say,” he asked, “that the nymph's face has
never since been shown to any mortal? Methinks, you,
by your native qualities, are as well entitled to her favor
As ever your progenitor could have been. Why have you
aot summoned her ? ”
♡ I called her often when I was a silly child," answered


MYTHS. ·
27
6 No, my
Donatello; and he added, in an inward voice, 66 Thank
Heaven, she did not come!”
" Then you never saw her? ” said the sculptor.
• Never in my life!” rejoined the count.
dear friend, I have not seen the nymph; although hert,
by her fountain, I used to make many strange acquaint-
ances; for, from my earliest childhood, I was familiar
with whatever creatures baunt the woods. You would
have laughed to see the friends I had among them; yes,
among the wild, nimble things, that reckon man their
deadliest
enemy y! How it was first taught me, I cannct
tell; but there was a charm a voice, a murmur, a kind
of chant — by which I called the woodland inhabitants,
thu furry people, and the feathered people, in a language
that they seemed to understand.”
“I have heard of such a gift," responded the sculptor
yravely, “but never before met with a person endowed
with it. Pray, try the charm; and lest I should frighten
you friends away, I will withdraw into this thicket, and
merely petp at them.”
“I doubt,” said Donatello,“ whether they will remem.
ber my voice now. It changes, you know, as the boy
grows towards, manhood.”
Nevertheless, as the young count's good-nature and
easy persuadability were among his best characteristics,
he set about complying with Kenyon's request. The lat-
ter, in his concealment among the shrubberies, heard him
send forth a sort of modulated breath, wild, rude, yet har-
monious. It struck the auditor as at once the strangest
and the most natural utterance that had ever reached his


28
RODIANCE OF MONTE BENI.
ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing to himsey
and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite
tune than the play of his own pulses, might produce a
sound almost identical with this ; and yet, it was as indi.
vidual as a murmur of the breeze. Donatello tried its
over and over again, with many breaks, at first, and
pauses of uncertainty ; then with more confidence, and a
fuller swell, like a wayfarer groping out of obscurity into
the light, and moving with freer footsteps as it brightens
around him.
Anon, his voice appeared to fill the air, yet not with an
obtrusive clangor. The sound was of a murmurous char-
acter, soft, attractive, persuasive, friendly. The sculptor
fancied that such might have been the original voice and
utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of
the human intellect formed what we now call language.
In this broad dialect — broad as the sympathies of nature
the human brother might have spoken to his inarticu
late brotherhood that prowl the woods, or soar upon the
wing, and have been intelligible, to such extent as to win
their confidence.
The sound had its pathos too. At some of its simple
cadences, the tears came quietly into Kenyon's eyes.
They welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrill.
ing with an emotion more delightful than he had often
felt before, but whih he forebore to analyze, lest, if he
seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp.
Donatello paused two or three times, and seemed to
listen ; then, recommencing, he poured his spirit and life
more earnestly into the strain. And, finally
or else


MYTHS.
29
the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived him, -soft
treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a
rustling among the shrubbery; a whirr of wings, more-
over, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an
illusion ; but Kenyon fancied that he would distinguish
the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citi-
zen, and that he could even see its doubtful shadow, if not
really its substance. But, all at once, wuatever might be
the reason, there ensued a hurried t ash and scamper of
little feet; and then the sculptor lucard a wild, sorrowful
cry, and through the crevices of the thicket beheld Dona-
tello fling himself on the ground.
Emerging from his hiding-place, he saw no living thing,
save a brown Rzard (it was of the tarantula species)
rustling away through the sunshine. To all present ap-
pearance, this venomous reptile was the only creature that
had responded to the young count's efforts to renew his
intercourse with the lower orders of nature.
“What has happened to you?” exclaimed Kenyon,
stooping down over his friend, and wondering at the an-
guish which he betrayed.
“Death, death!” sobbed Donatello. “They know
it ! ”
He grovelled beside the fountain, in a fit of such pas-
sionate sobbing and weeping, that it seemed as if his heart
had broken, and spilt its wild sorrows upon the ground.
His unrestrained grief and childish tears made Kenyon
sensible in how small a degree the customs and restrainas
of society had really acted upon this young man, in spite
o the quietude of his ordinary deportment. In response


30
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
curse.
to his friend's efforts to console him, he murmured words
hardly more articulate than the strange chant, which he
had so recently been breathing into the air.
“They know it!” was all that Kenyon could yet dis-
tinguish. “ They know it!”
“Who know it ? ” asked the sculptor. “ And what is
it they know ?”
4 They know it !” repeated Donatello, trembling.
“They shun me!' All nature shrinks from me, and shud-
ders at me! I live in the midst of a curse, that hems me
round with a circle of fire! No innocent thing can come
Qear me.”
“ Be comforted, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, kneeling
beside him. “ You labor under some illusion, but no
As for this strange, natural spell, which you have
been exercising, and of which I have heard before, though
I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am sat-
isfied that you still possess it. It was my own half-con-
cealed presence, no doubt, and some involuntary little
movement of mine, that scared away your forest friends."
“They are friends of mine no longer," answered Dee
natello.
“We all of us, as we grow older," rejoined Kenyon,
“ lose somewhat of our proximity to nature. It is the
price we pay for experience.”
“A heavy price, then !” said Donatello, rising from
the ground. “But we will speak no more of it. Forget
this scene, my dear friend. In your eyes, it caust look
very absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find
the pleasant privileges and properties of early life depart


MYTHS.
31
ing from them. That grief has now befallen me. Well;
I shall waste no more tears for such a cause ! ”
Nothing else made Kenyon so sensible of a change in
Donatello, as his newly acquired power of dealing with
his own emotions, and, after a struggle more or less fierce,
thrusting them down into the prison-cells where he usual-
ly kept them confined. The restraint which he now put
upon himself, and the mask of dull composure which he
succeeded in clasping over his still beautiful, and once
faun-like face, affected the sensitive sculptor more sadly
than even the unrestrained passion of the preceding scene.
It is a very miserable epoch, when the evil necessities of
life, in our tortuous world, first get the better of us so far,
as to compel us to attempt throwing a cloud over our
transparency. Simplicity increases in value the longer
we can keep it, and the farther we carry it onward into
life; the loss of a child's simplicity, in the inevitable
lapse of years, causes but a natural sigh or two, because
even his mother feared that he could not keep it always.
But after a young man has brought it through his child-
hood, and has still worn it in his bosom, not as an early
dew-drop, but as a diamond of pure, white lustre, -- it is
a pity to lose it, then. And thus, when Kenyon saw how
much his friend had now to hide, and how well he hid it,
he would have wept, although his tears would have been
even idler than those which Donatello had just shed.
They parted on the lawn before the house, the count to
climb his tower, and the sculptor to read an antique
edition of Dante, which he had found among some old
volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldom-visited mom


82
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Tomaso met him in the entrance hall, and showed a desire
to speak.
“Our poor signorino looks very sad to-day !” he said.
“Even so, good Tomaso," replied the sculptor. “Would
that we could raise his spirits a little ! ”
“There might be means, signor,” answered the old but-
ler, “ if one might but be sure that they were the right
We men are but rough nurses for a sick body
or a sick spirit."
“ Women, you would say, my good friend, are better,"
said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in the butler's
face." That is possible! But it depends."
“Ah; we will wait a little longer,” said Tomaso, with
the customary shake of his head.
ones.


CHE OWL TOWER.
38
CHAPTER JL.
THE OWL TOWER.
“ Will you not show me your tower?” said the sculp
or one day to his friend.
" It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks," answered
the count, with a kind of sulkiness that often appeared in
him, as one of the little symptoms of inward trouble.
“ Yes; its exterior is visible far and wide," said Ken
yon. “ But such a gray, moss-grown tower as this, how.
ever valuable as an object of scenery, will certainly be
quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot be less than
vix hundred years old ; the foundations and lower story
are much older than that, I should judge; and traditions
probably cling to the walls within quite as plentifully as
the gray and yellow lichens cluster on its face without.”
“ No doubt,” replied Donatello ; " but I know little of
such things, and never could comprehend the interest
which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or
two ago an English signor with a venerable white beard
- they say he was a magician, too - came hither from
us før off as Florence, just to see my tower.”
Ah, I have seen him at Florence,” observed Kenyon
65
2 *


84
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ He is a necromancer, as you say, and dwells in an old
mansion of the Knights Templars, close by the Ponte
Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books, pictures, and
antiquities, to make the house gloomy, and one bright-
eyed little girl to keep it cheerful !”
“ I know him only by his white beard,” said Donatello;
“but he could have told you a great deal about the tower,
and the sieges which it has stood, and the prisoners who
have been confined in it. And he gathered up all the
traditions of the Monte Beni family, and, among the rest,
the sad one which I told you at the fountain the other
day. He had known mighty poets, he said, in his earlier
life; and the most illustrious of them would have rejoiced
to preserve such a legend in immortal rhyme — especially
if he could have had some of our wine of Sunshine to
help out his inspiration !”
Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with
such wine and such a theme,” rejoined the sculptor.
6 But, shall we climb your tower ? The thunderstorm
gathering yonder among the hills will be a spectacle
worth witnessing."
“ Come, then,” said the Count, adding, with a sigh, “ it
has a weary staircase, and dismal chambers, and it is very
lonesome at the summit!"
“ Like a man's life, when he has climbed to eminence,"
remarked the sculptor ; “or, let us rather say, with its
difficult steps, and the dark prison-cells you speak of,
your tower resembles the spiritual experience of many
a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward
into the pure air and light of Heaven at last!”
CG


THE OWL TOWER.
35
Donatello sighed' again, and led the way up into the
power.
Mounting the broad staircase that ascended from the
entrance hall, they traversed the great wilderness of a
house, through some obscure passages, and came to a low,
ancient door-way. It admitted them to a narrow turret-
stair which zigzagged upward, lighted in its progress by
loopholes and iron-barred windows. Reaching the top
of the first flight, the Count threw open a door of worm-
eaten oak, and disclosed a chamber that occupied the
whole area of the tower. It was most pitiably forlorn
of aspect, with a brick-paved floor, bare holes through
the massive walls, grated with iron, instead of windows,
and for furniture an old stool, which increased the dreari-
ness of the place tenfold, by suggesting an idea of its
having once been tenanted.
“ This was a prisoner's cell in the old days,” said Do-
natello; “the white-bearded necromancer, of whom I
told
you,
found out that a certain famous monk was con-
fined here, about five hundred years ago. He was a very
holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the
Grand-ducal Square at Firenze. There have always
been stories, Tomaso says, of a hooded monk creeping up
and down these stairs, or standing in the door-way of this
chamber. It must needs be the ghost of the ancient prise
oner. Do
you
believe in ghosts?”
"I can hardly tell," replied Kenyon; "on the whole, ,
I think not."
“Neither do I,” responded the Count; "for, if spirits
erer come back, I should surely have met ne vithin


86
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
these two months past. Ghosts never' rise! So much 1
know, and am glad to know it!”
Following the narrow staircase still higher, they came
to another room of similar size and equally forlorn, but
inhabited by two personages of a race which from tiine
immemorial have held proprietorship and occupancy in
cuined towers. These were a pair of owls, who, being
doubtless acquainted with Donatello, showed little sign
of alarm at the entrance of visitors. They gave a dismal
croak or two, and hopped aside into the darkest corner;
since it was not yet their hour to flap duskily abroad.
They do not desert me, like my other feathered ac-
quaintances," observed the young count, with a sad smile,
alluding to the scene which Kenyon had witnessed at the
fountain side. “ When I was a wild, playful boy, the
owls did not love me half so well.”
He made no further pause here, but led his friend up
another flight of steps; while, at every stage, the windows
and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive
eyeshots over hill and valley, and allowed him to taste
the cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length they
reached the topmost chamber directly beneath the roof
of the tower.
“ This is my own abode,” said Donatello; “ my own
owl's nest.”
In fact, the room was fitted up as a bedchamber
though in a style of the utmost simplicity. It likewise
served as an oratory; there being a crucifix in one corner
and a multitude of holy emblems, such as Catholics judge
it necessary to help their devotion withal
Several ugly


THE OWL TOWER.
37
little prints, representing the sufferings of the Saviour,
and the martyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall; and, be-
hind the crucifix, there was a good copy of Titian's Mag-
dalen of the Pitti Palace, clad only in the flow of her
golden ringlets. She had a confident look, (but it was
Titian's fault, not the penitent woman's,) as if expecting
to win heaven by the free display of her earthly charms.
Inside of a glass case, appeared an image of the sacred
Bambino, in the guise of a little waxen boy, very prettily
made, reclining among flowers, like a Cupid, and holding
up a heart that resembled a bit of red sealing-wax. A
small vase of precious marble was full of holy water.
Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull,
which looked as if it might have been dug up out of some
old grave. But, examining it more closely, Kenyon saw
that it was carved in gray alabaster, most skilfully done
to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth, the
sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile little bones
of the nose.
This hideous emblem rested on a cushion
of white marble, so nicely wrought that you seemed to
see the impression of the heavy skull in a silken and
downy substance.
Donatello dipped his fingers into the holy-water vase,
and crossed himself. After doing so, he trembled.
“ I have no right to make the sacred symbol on a sinful
breast !” he said,
“ On what mortal breast can it be made then ?" asked
che sculptor. “ Is there one that hides no sin ?”
“ But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear,”
resumed the Count looking askance at his friend' “ You


38
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
heretics, I know, attempt to pray without even a crucifis
to kneel at."
“I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence that
holy symbol,” answered Kenyon.
" What I am most in
clined to murmur at, is this death's head. I could laugh,
moreover, in its ugly face! It is absurdly monstrous, nay
dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight of our mortality
upon our immortal hopes. While we live on earth, 'tis
true, we must needs carry rur skeletons about with us;
but, for heaven's sake, do not let us burden our spirits with
them, in our feeble efforts to soar upward! Believe me,
it will change the whole aspect of death, if you can once
disconnect it, in your ideain with that corruption from
which it disengages our higher part."
“I.do not well understand you,” said Donatello; and
he took up the alabaster skull, shuddering, and evidently
feeling it a kind of penance to touch it. “I only know
that this skull has been in my family for centuries. Old
Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famous sculp-
tor from the skull of that same unhappy knight who loved
the fountain-lady, and lost her by a blood-stain. He
lived and died with a deep sense of sin upon him, and, on
his death-bed, he ordained that this token of him should
go down to his posterity. And my forefathers, being a
cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, found it
needful to have the skull often before their eyes, because
they dearly loved life and its enjoyments, and hated the
very thought of death."
"I am afraid," said Kenyon," they liked it none the
better, for seeing its face under this abominable mask."


CHE OWL TOWER
39
Without further discussion, the Count led the way up
one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they
emerged upon the summit of the tower. The sculptor
felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a hundred
fold; so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly
opened before him, set in its grand framework of nearer
and more distant hills. It seemed as if all Italy lay
under his eyes in that one picture. For there was the
broad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread
over that favored land more abundantly than on other
regions, and, beneath it, glowed a most rich and varied
fertility. The trim vineyards were there, and the fig-
trees, and the mulberries, and the smoky-hued tracts of
the olive-orchards; there, too, were fields of every
kind
of grain, among which waved the Indian corn, putting
Kenyon in mind of the fondly-remembered acres of his
father's homestead. White villas, gray convents, church-
spires, villages, towns, each with its battlemented walls
and towered gateway, were scattered upon this spacious
map; a river gleamed across it; and lakes opened their
blue eyes in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals should
forget that better land, when they beheld the earth so
beautiful.
What made the valley look still wider, was the two or
three varieties of weather that were visible on its surface,
all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sun-
vhine ; there fell the great black patches of ominous
shadow from the clouds; and behind them, like a giant
of league-long strides, came hurrying the thunderstorm,
which had already swept midway across the plain In


40
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
the rear of the approaching tempest, brightened forth
again the sunny splendor, which its pr ugress had dark-
ened with so terrible a frown.
All round this majestic landscape, the bald-peaked or
forest-crowned mountains descended boldly upon the
pluin. On many of their spurs and midway declivities,
and even on their summits, stood cities, some of them
famous of old; for these had been the seats and nurseries
of early art, where the flower of beauty sprang out of a
rocky soil, and in a high, keen atmosphere, when the
richest and most sheltered gardens failed to nourish it.
“Thank God for letting me again behold this scene !"
said the sculptor, a devout man in his way, reverently
taking off his hat. “I have viewed it from many points,
and never without as full a sensation of gratitude as my
heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the
poor human spirit in its reliance on His providence, to
ascend but this little way above the common level, and so
attain a somewhat wider glimpse of His dealings with
mankind! He doeth all things right! His will be done!”
“ You discern something that is hidden from me,” ob-
served Donatello, gloomily, yet striving with unwonted
grasp to catch the analogies which so cheered his friend.
“I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud in another, and no
reason for it in either case. The sun on you ; the cloud
on me! What comfort can I draw from this ? "
“Nay; I cannot preach," said Kenyon," with a page
of heaven and a page of earth spread wide open before
us! Only begin to read it and you will find it interpret-
ing itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake


THE OWY TOWER.
41
to try to put our best thoughts into hun, in language
When we ascend into the higher regions of emotion and
spiritual enjoyment, they are only expressible by such
grand hieroglyphics as these around us."
They stood awhile, contemplating the scene ; but, as
inevitably happens after a spiritual flight, it was not long
before the sculptor felt his wings flagging in the rarity of
the
upper atmosphere. He was glad to let himself quietly
downward out of the mid-sky, as it were, and alig at on
the solid platform of the battlemented tower. He looked
about him, and beheld growing out of the stone pavement,
which formed the roof, a little shrub, with green and glossy
leaves. It was the only green thing there; and heaven
knows how its seeds had ever been planted, at that airy
height, or how it had found nourishment for its small life,
in the chinks of the stones; for it had no earth, and noth-
ing more like soil than the crumbling mortar, which had
been crammed into the crevices in a long-past age.
Yet the plant seemed fond of its native site; and
Donatello said it had always grown there, from his ear-
liest remembrance, and never, he believed, any smaller or
any larger than they saw it now.
“I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson,”
said he, observing the interest with which Kenyon exam-
ined it. “If the wide valley has a great meaning, the
plant ought to have at least a little one; and it has been
growing on our tower long enough to have learned how
to speak it."
“Oh, certainly!” answered the sculptor; “the shrub has
its moral, or it would have perished long ago. And the


42
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you bave
had it before your eyes all your lifetime, and now are
moved to ask what may be its lesson.”
"It teaches me nothing," said the simple Donatello,
stooping over the plant, and perplexing himself with a
minute scrutiny.
But here was a worm that would
have killed it; an ugly creature, which I will fling over
the battlements."


ON THE BATTLEMENTS
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
The sculptor now looked through an embrasure, and
threw down a bit of lime, watching its fall, till it struck
upon a stone bench at the rocky foundation of the tower,
and flew into many fragments.
“ Pray pardon me for helping Time to crumble away
your ancestral walls,” said he. “ But I am one of those
persons who have a natural tendency to climb heights,
and to stand on the verge of them, measuring the depth
below. If I were to do just as I like, at this moment, I
should fling myself down after that bit of lime. It is a
very singular temptation, and all but irresistible; partly,
I believe, because it might be so easily done, and partly
because such momentous consequences would ensue, with-
out my being compelled to wait a moment for them.
Have you never felt this strange impulse of an evil spirit
at your back, shoving you towards a precipice ?"
“Ah, no!” cried Donatello, shrinking from the battle-
mented wall with a face of horror. "I cling to life in a
way which you cannot conceive; it has been so rich, so
warin, so sunny!- and beyond its verge, nothing but the


ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
chilly dark! And then a fall from a precipice is such an
awful death!”
"Nay; if it be a great height,” said Kenyon, “a man
would leave his life in the air, and never feel the hard
shock at the bottom."
“ That is not the way with this kind of death !” ex
claimed Donatello, in a low, horror-stricken voice, which
grew higher and more full of emotion as he proceeded
“ Imagine a fellow-creature.— breathing, now, and looking
you in the face, and now tumbling down, down, down
with a long shriek wavering after him, all the way! He
does not leave his life in the air ! No; but it keeps in
him till he thumps against the stones, a horribly long
while; then, he lies there frightfully quiet, a dead heap
of bruised flesh and broken bones! A quiver runs
through the crushed mass; and no more movement after
that! No; not if
you would give your soul to make him
stir a finger! Ah, terrible! Yes, yes; I would fain
fling myself down for the very dread of it, that I might
endure it once for all, and dream of it no more !”
“ How forcibly - how frightfully you conceive this !'
said the sculptor, aghast at the passionate horror whích
was betrayed in the count's words, and still more in his
wild gestures and ghastly look. “Nay, if the height of
your tower affects your imagination thus, you do wrong
to trust yourself here in solitude, and in the night-time,
and at all unguarded hours. You are not safe in your
chamber. It is but a step or two; and what if a vivid
dream should lead you up hither, at midnight, and act
itself out as a reality !”


ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
45
Donatello kad hidden his face in his hands, and was
leaning against the parapet.
“ No fear of that !” said he. “ Whatever the dream
may be, I am too genuine a coward to act out my own
death in it."
The paroxysm passed away, and the two friends con-
tinued their desultory talk, very much as if no such in.
terruption had occurred. Nevertheless, it affected the
sculptor with infinite pity to see this young man, who had
been born to gladness as an assured heritage, now involved
in a misty bewilderment of grievous thoughts, amid which
he seemed to go staggering blindfold. Kenyon, not with
out an unshaped suspicion of the definite fact, knew that
his condition must have resulted from the weight and
gloom of life, now first, through the agency of a secret
trouble, making themselves felt on a character that had
heretofore breathed only an atmosphere of joy. The
effect of this hard lesson, upon Donatello's intellect and
disposition, was very striking. It was perceptible that
he had already had glimpses of strange and subtle mat-
ters in those dark caverns, into which all men must de-
scend, if they would know anything beneath the surface
and illusive pleasures of existence. And when they
emerge, though dazzled and blinded by the first glare of
daylight, they take truer and sadder views of life forever
afterwards.
From some mysterious source, as the sculptor felt as-
sured, a soul had been inspired into the young count's
simplicity, since their intercourse in Rome.
showed a far deeper sense, and an inte lligence that began
He now


46
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
to deal with high subjects, though in a feeble and childish
way. He evinced, too, a more definite and nobler in.
dividuality, but developed out of grief and pain, and fear-
fully conscious of the pangs that had given it birth.
Every human life, if it ascends to truth or delves down
to reality, must undergo a similar change ; but sometimes,
perhaps, the instruction comes without the sorrow; and
oftener the sorrow teaches no lesson that abides with us.
In Donatello's case, it was pitiful, and almost ludicrous,
to observe the confused struggle that he made; how com.
pletely he was taken by surprise; how ill-prepared he
stood, on this old battle-field of the world, to fight with
such an inevitable foe as mortal calamity, and sin for its
stronger ally.
"And yet,” thought Kenyon, “ the poor fellow bears
himself like a hero, too! If he would only tell me his
trouble, or give me an opening to speak frankly about it,
I might help him ; but he finds it too horrible to be
uttered, and fancies himself the only mortal that ever
felt the anguish of remorse. Yes; he believes that no-
body ever endured his agony before ; so that sharp
enough in itself it has all the additional zest of a tor-
ture just invented to plague him individually."
The sculptor endeavored to dismiss the painful sub-
ject from his mind; and, leaning against the battlements,
he turned his face southward and westward, and gazed
aciuss the breadth of the valley. His thoughts flew far
beyond even those wide boundaries, taking an air-line
from Donatello's tower to another turret that ascended
into the sky of the summer afternoon, invisibly to him.


ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
47
above the roofs of distant Rome. Then rose tumultu.
ously into his consciousness that strong love for Hilda,
which it was his habit to confine ir, one of the heart's
inner chambers, because he had found no encouragement
to bring it forward. But now, he felt a strange pull at
his heartstrings. It could not have been more percepti-
ble, if all the way between these battlements and Hilda's
dove-cote, had stretched an exquisitely sensitive cord,
which, at the hither end, was knotted with his aforesaid
heartstrings, and, at the remoter one, was grasped by a
gentle hand. His breath grew tremulous. He put his
hand to his breast; so distinctly did he seem to feel that
cord drawn once - and again, and again, as if- though
still it was bashfully intimated there were an impor-
tunate demand for his presence. Oh! for the white wings
of Hilda's doves, that he might have flown thither, and
alighted at the virgin's shrine !
But lovers, and Kenyon knew it well, project so life-
like a copy of their mistresses out of their own imagina-
tions, that it can pull at the heartstrings almost as per-
ceptibly as the genuine original. No airy intimations are
to be trusted; no evidences of responsive affection less
positive than whispered and broken words, or tender pres-
sures of the hand, allowed and half-returned; or glances,
that distil many passionate avowals into one gleam of
richly-colored light. Even these should be weighed
rigorously, at the instant; for, in another instant, the
imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps
them with its own arbitrary value. But Hilda's maidenly
reserve had given her. lover no such tokens, to be inter-
. prouted either by his hopes or fears.


48
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome," said
the sculptor ; " shall you return thither in the au-
tumn ?”
“ Never! I hate Rome," answered Donatello; " and
have good cause."
“ And yet it was a pleasant winter that we spent there,"
observed Kenyon, “and with pleasant friends about us.
You would meet them again there - all of them.”
6 All?" asked Donatello.
“ All, to the best of my belief,” said the sculptor ; " but
you need not go to Rome to seek them. If there were
one of those friends whose lifetime was twisted with your
own, I am enough of a fatalist to feel assured that you
will meet that one again, wander whither you may.
Neither can we escape the companions whom Provi-
dence assigns for us, by climbing an old tower like
this.”
“ Yet the stairs are steep and dark,” rejoined the Count;
none but yourself would seek me here, or find me,
if
they sought.”
As Donatello did not take advantage of this opening
which his friend had kindly afforded him, to pour out his
hidden troubles, the latter again threw aside the subject,
and returned to the enjoyment of the scene before him.
The thunderstorm, which he had beheld striding across
the valley, had passed to the left of Monte Beni, and was
continuing its march towards the hills that formed the
boundary on the eastward. Above the whole valley, in-
deed, the sky was heavy with tumbling vapors inter-
spersed with which were tracts of blue, vividly brightened
by the sun ; but, in the east, where the tempest was yet.
66


ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
49
trailing its ragged skirts, lay a dusky region of cloud and
sullen mist, in which some of the hills appeared of a dark.
purple hue. Others became so indistinct, that the spec-
tator could not tell rocky height from impalpable cloud.
Far into this misty cloud-region, however, — within the
domain of chaos, as it were, -hill-tops were seen bright-
ening in the sunshine ; they looked like fragments of the
world, broken adrift and based on nothingness, or like
portions of a sphere destined to exist, but not yet finally
compacted.
The sculptor, habitually drawing many of the images
and illustrations of his thoughts from the plastic art, fan-
cied that the scene represented the process of the Creator,
when He held the new, imperfect earth in His hand, and
modelled it.
“ What a magic is in mist and vapor among the
mountains !” he exclaimed. “ With their help, one
single scene becomes a thousand. The cloud-scenery
gives such variety to a hilly landscape that it would be
worth while to journalize its aspect from hour to hour.
A cloud, however, as I have myself experienced, is
apt to grow solid and as heavy as a stone the instant that
you take in hand to describe it. But, in my own heart, I
have found great use in clouds. Such silvery ones as
those to the northward, for example, have often suggested
sculpturesque groups, figures, and attitudes ; they are espe.
cially rich in attitudes of living repose, which a sculptor
only hits upon by the rarest good fortune. When I go
back to my dear native land, the clouds along the horizon
will be my only gallery of art!"
VOL. D.


50
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
“I can see cloud-shapes too,” said Donatello ; " yonder
is one that shifts strangely ; it has been like people whom
I knew. And now, if I watch it a little longer, it will
take the figure of a monk reclining, with his cowl about
his head and drawn partly over his face, and well! did
I not tell you so ?”
“ I think,” remarked Kenyon, “we can hardly be
gazing at the same cloud. What I behold is a reclining
figure, to be sure, but feminine, and with a despondent
air, wonderfully well expressed in the wavering outline
from head to foot. It moves my very heart by something
indefinable that it suggests."
“I see the figure, and almost the face,” said the Count,
adding, in a lower voice, “ It is Miriam's !”
“No, not Miriam's," answered the sculptor.
While the two gazers thus found their own reminis-
cences and presentiments floating among the clouds, the
day drew to its close, and now showed them the fair spec-
tacle of an Italian sunset. The sky was soft and bright,
but not so gorgeous as Kenyon had seen it, a thousand
times, in America; for there the western sky is wont to
be set aflame with breadths and depths of color, with which
poets seek in vain to dye their verses, and which painters
never dare to copy. As beheld from the tower of Monte.
Beni, the scene was tenderly magnificent, with mild gra-
dations of hue, and a lavish outpouring of gold, but rather
such gold as we see on the leaf of a bright flower than the
burnished glow of metal from the mine. Or, if metallic,
it looked airy and unsubstantial, like the glorified dreams
of an alchemist. And speedily -- more speedily than id


ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
31
our own clime — came the twilight and, brightening
through its gray transparency, the stars.
A swarm of minute insects that had been horering all
day round the battlements were now swept away by the
freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the cham-
ber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft, melancholy
cry, which, with national avoidance of harsh sounds,
Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their kindred in
other countries, - and flew darkling forth among the
shrubbery. A convent-bell rang out, near at hand, and
was not only echoed among the hills, but answered by
another bell, and still another, which doubtless had far
ther and farther responses, at various distances along the
valley; for, like the English drum-beat around the globe,
there is a chain of convent-bells from end to end, and
cross-wise, and in all possible directions over priest-rid-
den Italy.
“Come," said the sculptor," the evening air grows cool.
It is time to descend."
“ Time for you, my friend,” replied the Count, and he
hesitated a little before adding, “I must keep a vigil here
for some hours longer. It is my frequent custom to keep
vigils; and sometimes the thought occurs to me whether it
were not better to keep them in yonder convent, the bell of
which just now seemed to summon me. Would I do wisely
do you think, to exchange this old tower for a cell ? "
“ What! Turn monk 2" exclaimed his friend. “A
horrible idea!”
" True," said Donatello sighing. “Therefore, if at all,
purpose doing it.”


82
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
" Then think of it no more, for Heaven's saße!” cried
the sculptor. “ There are a thousand better and more
poignant methods of being miserable than that, if to be
miserable is what you wish. Nay; I question whether
A monk keeps himself up to the intellectual and spiritual
height which misery implies. A monk
A monk - I judge from
their sensual physiognomies, which meet me at every
turn – is inevitably a beast ! Their souls, if they have
any to begin with, perish out of them, before their slug-
gish, swinish existence is half done. Better, a million
times, to stand star-gazing on these airy battlements, than
to smother your new germ of a higher life in a monkish
cell ! ”
“ You make me tremble," said Donatello," by your
bold aspersion of men who have devoted themselves to
God's service ! ”
“ They serve neither God nor man, and themselves
least of all, though their motives be utterly selfish,” re-
plied Kenyon. “ Avoid the convent, my dear friend, as
you would shun the death of the soul! But, for my own
part, if I had an insupportable burden, — if, for any
cause, I were bent upon sacrificing every earthly hope
as a peace-offering towards heaven, - I would make the
wide world my cell, and good deeds to mankind my
prayer. Many penitent men have done this, and found
peace in it.”
“ Ah! but you are a heretic !” said the Count.
Yet his face brightened beneath the stars ; and, look.
ing at it through the twilight, the sculptor's remembrance
went back to that scene in the Capitol, where, both in


ON THE BATTLEMENTS
53
features and expression, Donatello had seemed identical
with the Faun. And still there was a resemblance; for
now, when first the idea was suggested of living for the
welfare of his fellow-creatures, the original beauty, which
sorrow had partly effaced, came back elevated and spir.
. itualized. In the black depths, the Faun had found
a soul, and was struggling with it towards the light of
heaven.
The illumination, it is true, soon faded out of Donatel.
bo's face. The idea of life-long and unselfish effort was
too high to be received by him with more than a momen-
tary comprehension. An Italian, indeed, seldom dreams
of being philanthropic, except in bestowing alms among
the
paupers,
who appeal to his beneficence at every step ;
nor does it occur to him that there are fitter modes of
propitiating Heaven than by penances, pilgrimages, and
offerings at shrines. Perhaps, too, their system has its
share of moral advantages; they, at all events, cannot
well pride themselves, as our own more energetic benevo-
lence is apt to do, upon sharing in the counsels of Provi.
dence and kindly helping out its otherwise impracticablo
designs.
And now the broad valley twinkled with lights, that
glimmered through its duskiness, like the fire-flies in the
garden of a Florentine palace. A gleam of lightning
from the rear of the tempest showed the circumference
of hills, and the great space between, as the last cannon-
flash of a retreating army reddens across the field where
it has fought. The sculptor was on the point of descende
ing the turret-stair, when, somewhere in the darkness that


54
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
lay beneath them, a woman's voice was heard, singing
low, sad strain.
“ Hark!” said he, laying his hand on Donatello's arm
And Donatello had said “Hark!” at the same instant.
The song, if song it could be called, that had only a wild
rhythm, and flowed forth in the fitful measure of a wind-
harp, did not clothe itself in the sharp brilliancy of the
Italian tongue. The words, so far as they could be dis
tinguished, were German, and therefore unintelligible to
the count, and hardly less so to the sculptor; being soft-
ened and molten, as it were, into the melancholy richness
of the voice that sung them. It was as the murmur of a
soul bewildered amid the sinful gloom of earth, and re-
taining only enough memory of a better state to make
sad music of the wail, which would else have been a de-
spairing shriek. Never was there profounder pathos than
breathed through that mysterious voice; it brought the
tears into the sculptor's eyes, with remembrances and
forebodings of whatever sorrow he had felt or appre-
hended; it made Donatello sob, as chiming in with the
anguish that he found unutterable, and giving it the ex-
pression which he vaguely sought.
But, when the emotion was at its profoundest depth,
the voice rose out of it, yet so gradually that a gloom
seemed to pervade it, far upward from the abyss, and not
entirely to fall away as it ascended into a higher and
purer region. At last, the auditors would have fancied
that the melody, with its rich sweetness all there, and
much of its sorrow gone, was floating around the very
summit of the tower.


ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
05
your ear
r?”
“Donatello,” said the sculptor, when there was silence
again ;
« had that voice no message
for
“I dare not receive it,” said Donatello;
“ the anguish
of which it spoke abides with me: the hope dies away
with the breath that brought it hither. It is not good for
me to hear that voice.”
The sculptor sighed, and left the poor penitent keeping
his vigil on the tower.


56
ROMANCE OF MONIE BENI
CHAPTER V
DONATELLO'S BUST.
KENYON, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello's
permission to model his bust. The work had now made
considerable progress, and necessarily kept the sculptor's
thoughts brooding much and often upon his host's per.
sonal characteristics. These it was his difficult office
to bring out from their depths, and interpret them to all
men, showing them what they could not discern for
themselves, yet must be compelled to recognize at a
glance, on the surface of a block of marble.
He had never undertaken a portrait-bust which gave
him so much trouble as Donatello's; not that there was
any special difficulty in hitting the likeness, though even
in this respect the grace and harmony of the features
seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of indi-
viduality; but he was chiefly perplexed how to make
this genial and kind type of countenance the index of
the mind within. His acuteness and 'nis sympathies, in-
deed, were both somewhat at fault in their efforts to en-
lighten him as to the moral phase through which the
count was now passing. If at one sitting he caught a
glimpse of what appeared to be a genuine and perma-


DONATELLO'S BUST.
57
nent trali, it would probably be less perceptible on a
second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at
a third. So evanescent a show of character threw the
sculptor into despair ; not marble or clay, but cloud and
vapor was the material in which it ought to be repre-
sented. Even the ponderous depression which con-
stantly weighed upon Donatello's heart could not compes
him into the kind of repose which the plastic art requires.
Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all pre
conceptions about the character of his subject, and let
his hands work uncontrolled with the clay, somewhat as a
spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it to an un.
seen guidance other than that of her own will. Now and .
then he fancied that his plan was destined to be the suo
cessful one.
A skill and insight beyond his conscious
ness seemed occasionally to take up the task. The mys
tery, the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate substance
with thought, feeling, and all the intangible attributes of
the soul, appeared on the verge of being wrought. And
now, as he flattered himself, the true image of his friend
was about to emerge from the facile material, bringing
with it more of Donatello's character than the keenest
observer could detect at any one moment in the face of
the original. Vain expectation ! some touch, whereby
the artist thought to improve or hasten the result, inter
fered with the design of his unseen spiritual assistant,
and spoilt the whole. There was still the moist, brown
clay, indeed, and the features of Donatello, but without
any scmblance of intelligent and sympathetic life.
“The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe!"
8*


58
ROMANCE OF MONIE BENI.
tried the sculptor, nervously.
“ Look at the wretched
piece of work yourself, my dear friend, and tell me
whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your
inner man ?”
“ None,” replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth.
“ It is like looking a stranger in the face.”
This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with
the sensitive artist, that he fell into a passion with the
stubborn image, and cared not what might happen to it
thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which
sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory
it may show itself in certain respects, he compressed,
elongated, widened, and otherwise altered the features
of the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change
inquired of the Count whether the expression became
anywise more satisfactory.
Stop!” cried Donatello, at last, catching the sculp-
tor's hand. “ Let it remain so !”
By some accidental handling of the clay, entirely in-
dependent of his own will, Kenyon had given the coun.
tenance a distorted and violent look combining animal
fierceness with intelligent hatred. Had Hilda, or had
Miriam seen the bust, with the expression which it had
now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello's face
as they beheld it at that terrible moment when he held his
victim over the edge of the precipice.
" What have I done?” said the sculptor, shocked at his
own casual production. “ It were a sin to let the clay
which bears your features harden into a look like that
Cain never wore an uglier one."


DONATELLO'S BUST
59
* For that very reason, let it remain !” answered the
Count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of hiu
crime, thus strangely presented to him in another of the
many guises under which guilt stares the criminal in the
face. “ Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eterna)
marble! I will set it up in my oratory and keep it con.
tinually before my eyes. Sadder and more horrible is a
face like this, alive with my own crime, than the dead
skull which my forefathers handed down to me!”
But, without in the least heeding Donatello's remon
strances, the sculptor again applied his artful fingers to
the clay, and compelled the bust to dismiss the expression
that had so startled them both.
“ Believe me," said he, turning his eyes upon his friend,
full of grave and tender sympathy, "you know not what
is requisite for your spiritual growth, seeking, as you do,
to keep your soul perpetually in the unwholesome region
of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through that
dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous to linger there
too long; there is poison in the atmosphere, when we sit
down and brood in it, instead of girding up our loins to
press onward. Not despondency, not slothful anguish, is
what you now require -- but effort! Has there been an ·
unutterable evil in your young life? Then crowd it out
with good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and
cause your capacity for better things to partake itx noi.
some corruption !”
“ You stir up many thoughts,” said Donatello, pressing
his hand upon his brow, '“ but the multitude and the
whirl of them make me dizzy.”


50
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
worn.
They now left the sculptor's temporary studio, without
observing that his last accidental touches, with which he
húrriedly effaced the look of deadly rage, had given the
bust a higher and sweeter expression than it had hitherto
It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen it;
for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksomeness,
the irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that re-
sulted from his failure to satisfy himself, after so much
toil and thought as he had bestowed on Donatello's bust.
In case of success, indeed, all this thoughtful toil would
have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed, but as
among the happiest hours of his life; whereas, deeming
himself to have failed, it was just so much of life that
had better never have been lived; for thus does the good
or ill. result of his labor throw back sunshine or gloom
upon the artist's mind. The sculptor, therefore, would
have done well to glance again at his work; for here
were still the features of the antique Faun, but now
illuminated with a higher meaning, such as the old mar-
ble never bore.
Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest
of the day strolling about the pleasant precincts of Monte
Beni, where the summer was now so far advanced that
it began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth of autumn.
Apricots had long been abundant, and had passed away,
and plums and cherries along with them. But now came
great, juicy pears, melting and delicious, and peaches of
goodly size and tempting aspect, though cold and watery
to the palate, compared with the sculptor's rich rernin-
iscences of that fruit in America. The purple figs had


DONATELLI'S BUST.
61
were
Autady enjoyed their day, and the white ones
luscious now. The contadini (who, by this time, knew
Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe grapes for
him, in every little globe of which was included a fra
grant draught of the sunny Monte Beni wine.
Unexpectedly, in a nook, close by the farm-house, he
happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually
commenced. A great heap of early-ripened grapes had
been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the
middle of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood,
merely, but stamped with all his might, and danced amain ;
while the red jui bathed his feet, and threw its foam
midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here, then, was
the very process that shows so picturesquely in Scripture
and in poetry, of treading out the wine-press and dyeing
the feet and garments with the crimson effusion as with
the blood of a battle-field. The memory of the process
does not make the Tuscan wine taste more deliciously.
The contadini hospitably offered Kenyon a sample of the
new liquor, that had already stood fermenting for a day
or two. He had tried a similar draught, however, in
years past, and was little inclined to make proof of it
again ; for he knew that it would be a sour and bittir
juice, a wine of woe and tribulation, and that, the more a
man drinks of such liquor, the sorrier he is likely to be.
The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England
vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples
lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sun-
shije; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a cir-
cumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice


62
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
To speak frankly, the cider-making is the more pictur
esque sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider an
infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe Tuscan
wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands
upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still growing
thinner and sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine
and becomes apotheosized as a more praiseworthy vinegar.
Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes con-
nected with the culture of the grape, had a flavor
of poetry about them. The toil that produces those
kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life,
but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to
fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen
the overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in
sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread. Certainly,
the sunburnt young men and dark-cheeked laughing girls,
who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, might well
enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated
Arcadia. Later in the season, when the true vintage-time
should come, and the wine of Sunshine gush into the vats,
it was hardly too wild a dream that Bacchus himself
might revisit the haunts which he loved of old. But,
alas, where now would he find the Faun with whom we
see him consorting in so many an antique group?
Donatello's remorseful anguish saddened this primitive
and delightful life. Kenyon had a pain of his own,
moreover, although not all a pain, in the never quiet,
never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda. He
was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy
maiden, even in his visions; so that he almost reproached


DONATELLO'S BUST.
63
- ܕ
himself when sometimes his imagination pictured in de
tail, the sweet years that they might spend together, in a
retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of re-
moteness from the actual and ordinary world a remote
Ress through which all delights might visit them freely,
Bifted from all troubles — which lovers so reasonably insist
upon, in their ideal arrangements for a happy union. It
18 possible, indeed, that even Donatello's grief and Ken-
yon's pale, sunless affection, lent a charm to Monte Beni,
which it would not have retained amid a more redundant
joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and
orchards, its dells and tangled shrubberies, with somewhat
the sensations of an adventurer who should find his
way
to the sight of ancient Eden, and behold its loveliness
through the transparency of that gloom which has been
brooding over those haunts of innocence ever since the
fall. Adam saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never
knew the shade of pensive beauty which Eden won from
his expulsion.
It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon re-
turned from his long, musing ramble. Old Tomaso
between whom and himself for some time past there had
been a mysterious understanding - met him in the en-
trance hall, and drew him a little aside.
“The signorina would speak with you," he whispered.
" In the chapel ?” asked the sculptor.
* No; in the saloon beyond it," answered the butler
“ the entrance you once saw the signorina appear
through it - is near the altar, hidden behind the tapestry."
Kenyon lost no time in obeying the summons.
..


64
ROMANCE JF MONTE BENI
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARBLE SALOON.
In an old Tuscan villa, a chapel ordinarily my one
among the numerous apartments ; though it often Dappens
that the door is permanently closed, the key lost, and the
place left to itself, in dusty sanctity, like that chamber in
man's heart where he hides his religious awe. This was
very much the case with the chapel of Monte Beni. One
rainy day, however, in his wanderings through the great,
intricate house, Kenyon had unexpectedly found his way
into it, and been impressed by its solemn aspect. The
arched windows, high upward in the wall, and darkened
with dust and cobweb, threw down a dim light that showed
the altar, with a picture of a martyrdom above, and some
tall tapers ranged before it. They had apparently been
lighted, and burned an hour or two, and been extinguished
perhaps half a century before. The marble vase at the
entrance held some hardened mud at the bottom, accruing
from the dust that had settled in it during the gradual
evaporation of the holy water; and a spider (being an
insect that delights in pointing the moral of desolation
a: 1 neglect) had taken paing to weave a prodigiously


THE MARBLE SALOON.
65
-
thick tissue across the circular brim. An old family
banner, tattered by the moths, drooped from the vaulted
roof. In niches, there were some mediæval busts of
Donatello's forgotten ancestry; and among them, it might
be, the forlorn visage of that hapless knight between
whom and the fountain-nymph had occurred such tender
love passages.
Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni, this
one spot within the domestic walls had kept itself silent,
stern and sad. When the individual or the family retired
from song and mirth, they here sought those realities
which men do not invite their festive associates to share.
And here, on the occasion above referred to, the sculptor
had discovered - accidentally, so far as he was concerned,
though with a purpose on her part
that there was a
guest under Donatello's roof, whose presence the Count
did not suspect. An interview had since taken place, and
le was now summoned to another.
He crossed the chapel, in compliance with Tomaso's
instructions, and passing through the side entrance, found
himself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnificent
than he had supposed the villa to contain. As it was
vacant, Kenyon had leisure to pace it once or twice, and
examine it with a careless sort of scrutiny, before any
person appeared.
This beautiful hall was floored with rich marbles, in
artistically arranged figures and compartments. The
walls, likewise, were almost entirely cased in marble of
various kinds, the prevalent variety being giallo antico
intermixed with verd-antique, and others equally pro


66
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
The splendor of the giallo antico, however, was
what gave character to the saloon; and the large and
deep niches, apparently intended for full-length statues,
along the walls, were lined with the same costly materiale
Without visiting Italy, one can have no idea of the beauty
and magnificence that are produced by these fittings-up
of polished marble. Without such experience, indeed,
we do not even know what marble means, in any sense,
save as the white limestone of which we carve our man-
tel-pieces. This rich hall of Monte Beni, moreover, was
adorned, at its upper end, with two pillars that seemed to
consist of oriental alabaster; and wherever there was a
space vacant of precious and variegated marble, it was
frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. Above, there was
a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with pictured scenes,
which affected Kenyon with a vague sense of splendor,
without his twisting his neck to gaze at them.
It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon of
polished and richly-colored marble, that decay can never
garnish it. Until the house crumbles down upon it, it
shines indestructibly, and with a little dusting looks just
as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day after
the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the wall. To
the sculptor; at this first view of it, it seemed a hall where
the sun was magically imprisoned, and must always shine.
He anticipated Miriam's entrance, arrayed in queenly
robes, and beaming with even more than the singular
beauty that had heretofore distinguished her.
While this thought was passing through his mind, the
pillared door, at the upper end of the saloon, was parily


THE MARBLE SALOON.
67
spened, and Miriam appeared. She was very pale, and
dressed in deep mourning. As she advanced towards the
sculptor, the feebleness of her step was so apparent that
he made haste to meet her, apprehending that she might
sink down on the marble floor, without the instant support
of his arm.
But, with a gleam of her natural self-reliance, she de-
clined hir aid, and, after touching her cold hand to his,
ment and sat down on one of the cushioned divans that
were ranged against the wall.
“ You are very ill, Miriam !” said Kenyon, much
shocked at her appearance. “I had not thought of this."
“ No; not so ill as I seem to you,” she answered,
adding despondently, “yet I am ill enough, I believe, to
die, unless some change speedily occurs."
“ What, then, is your disorder ? ” asked the sculptor ;
“and what the remedy?”
“ The disorder !” repeated Miriam.
« There is none
that I know of, save too much life and strength, without a
purpose for one or the other. It is my too redundant
energy that is slowly — or perhaps rapidly — wearing
me away, because I can apply it to no use.
The object,
which I am bound to consider my only one on earth, fails
me utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make of
myself, my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside.
Nothing is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all day,
All night in unprofitable longings and repinings."
“This is very sad, Miriam," said Kenyon.
“ Ay, indeed ; I fancy so, she replied, with a short,
unnatural laugh.


68
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
"With all your activity of mind," resumed he, “80
fertile in plans as I have known you can you imag
ine no msthod of bringing your resources into play?”
“My mind is not active any longer,” answered Miriam,
in a cold, indifferent tone. “It deals with one thought
and no more. One recollection paralyzes it. It is not
remorse; do not think it! I put myself out of the ques.
tion, and feel nither regret nor penitence on my own
behalf. But what benumbs me what robs me of all
power
- it is nc secret for a woman to tell a man, yet I
care not though you know it -- is the certainty that I am,
and must ever 16, an object of horror in Donatello's
sight.”
The sculptor – a young man, and cherishing a love
which insulated him from the wild experiences which
some men gather --- was startled to perceive how Mir-
iam's rich, ill-regulaced nature impelled her to Aling her.
self, conscience and all, on one passion, the object of which
intellectually seemed fir beneath her.
“How have you obtained the certainty of which you
speak ?” asked he, after pause.
Oh, by a sure tok :n,” said Miriam ; a gesture
merely; a shudder, a cold shiver that ran through him
one sunny morning whe: bis hand happened to touch
mine! But it was enough
“I firmly believe, Miriar said the sculptor, " that he
loves
you
still.”
She started, and a flush of color came tremulously
over the paleness of her cheek.
“Yes," repeated Kenyon," if my interest in Donatello


THE MARBLE SALOON.
69
- and in yourself, Miriam -- endows me with any true
insight, he not only loves you still, but with a force and
depth proportioned to the stronger grasp of his faculties,
in their new development.”
“ Do not deceive me,” said Miriam, growing pale again.
“ Not for the world !” replied Kenyon. “ Here is what
I take to be the truth. There was an interval, no doubt,
when the horror of some calamity, which I need not shape
out in my conjectures, threw Donatello into a stupor of
mystery. Connected with the first shock there was an
intolerable pain and shuddering repugnance attaching
themselves to all the circumstances and surroundings of
the event that so terribly affected him. Was his dearest
friend involved within the horror of that moment? He
would shrink from her as he shrank most of all from him-
self. But as his mind roused itself, -as it rose to a higher
life than he had hitherto experienced, - whatever had
been true and permanent within him revived by the self-
shume impulse. So has it been with his love."
“ But, surely,” said Miriam," he knows that I am here!
Why, then, except that I•am odious to him, does he not
bid me welcome ?"
“He is, I believe, aware of your presence here," an.
swered the sculptor. “ Your song, a night or two ago,
must have revealed it to him, and, in truth, I had fancied
that there was already a consciousness of it in his mind.
But, the more passionately he longs for your society, the
more religiously he deems himself bound to avoid it. The
dea of a life-long penance has taken strong possession of
Donatello. He gropes blindly about him for some method


TO
ROMANJE OF MONTE PENI.
of sharp self-torture, and finds, of course, no other so effie
cacious as this.”
• But, he loves me," repeated Miriam, in a low roico,
to herself. “Yes; he loves me!”
It was strange to observe the womanly softness that
caine over her, as she admitted that comfort into her
bosom. The cold, unnatural indifference of her manner,
a kind of frozen passionateness, which had shocked and
chilled the sculptor, disappeared. She blushed, and
turned
away her eyes, knowing that there was more sur
prise and joy in their dewy glances, than any man save
one ought to detect there.
“In other respects," she inquired at length, “is he
much changed?”
“A wonderful process is going forward in Donatello's
mind." answered the sculptor. “The germs of faculties
that have heretofore slept are fast springing into activity.
The world of thought is disclosing itself to his inward
sight. He startles me, at times, with his perception of
deep truths; and, quite as often, it must be owned he
compels me to smile by the intermixture of his former
simplicity with a new intelligence. But, he is bewildered
with the revelations that each day brings. Out of his
bitter agony, a soul and intellect, I could almost say, have
been inspired into him."
Ah, I could help him here !” cried Miriam, clásping
her hands. “ And how sweet a toil to bend and adapt
my whole nature to do him good! To instruct, to ele.
vate, to enrich his mind with the wealth that would flow
in upon me, had I such a motive for acquiring it! wha


TUE MARBLE SALOON.
71
else can perform the task ? Who else has the tender
sympathy which he requires ? Who else, save only
me, - a woman, a sharer in the same dread secret, a
partaker in one identical guilt, could meet him on
such terms of intimate equality as the case demands ?
With this object before me, I might feel a right to live!
Without it, it is a shame for me to have lived so long."
“I fully agree with you," said Kenyon," that your true
place is by his side.”
"Surely it is,” replied Miriam. “If Donatello is enti-
dled to aught on earth, it is to my complete self-sacrifice
for his sake. It does not weaken his claim, methinks,
that my only prospect of happiness - a fearful word,
however lies in the good that may accrue to him from
our intercourse. But he rejects me! He will not listen
to the whisper of his heart, telling him that she, 'most
wretched, who beguiled him into evil, might guide him to
a higher innocence than that from which he fell. How is
this first, great difficulty to be obviated ?”
" It lies at your own option, Miriam, to do away the
obstacle, at any moment,” remarked the sculptor." It is
but to ascend Donatello's tower, and you will meet him
there, under the eye of God.”
“I dare not," answered Miriam. “No; I dare not !."
"Do you fear,” asked the sculptor, " the dread eye
witness whom I have named ?”
“No; for, as far as I can see into that cloudy and in-
scrutable thing, my heart, it has none but pure motives,"
replied Miriam. "But, my friend, you little know what
a weak or what a strong creature, a woman is ! I fear not


72
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Heaven, in this case, at least, but — shall I confess it? I
am greatly in dread of Donatello. Once, he shuddered at
my touch. If he shudder once again, or frown, I die!"
Kenyon could not but marvel at the subjection into
which this proud and self-dependent woman had wilfully
Aung herself, hanging her life upon the chance of an an-
gry or favorable regard from a person who, a little while
before, had seemed the plaything of a moment. But, in
Miriam's eyes, Donatello was always, thenceforth, invested
with the tragic dignity of their hour of crime; and, fur-
thermore, the keen and deep insight, with which her love
endowed her, enabled her to know him far better than he
could be known by ordinary observation. Beyond all
question, since she loved him so, there was a force in
Donatello worthy of her respect and love.
“You see my weakness," said Miriam, flinging out her
hands, as a person does when a defect is acknowledged,
and beyond remedy. “What I need, now, is an opportu-
nity to show my strength.”
“It has occurred to me,” Kenyon remarked, “that the
time is come, when it may be desirable to remove Dona
tello from the complete seclusion in which he buries him
self. He has struggled long enough with one idea. He
now needs a variety of thought, which cannot be other.
wise so readily supplied to him, as through the medium
of a variety of scenes. His mind is awakened, now; his
heart, though full of pain, is no longer benumbed. They
should have food and solace. If he linger here much
longer, I fear that he may sink back into a lethargy
The extreme excitability, which circumstances have im


THE MARBLE SALOU.
73
parted to his moral system, has its dangers and its advan-
tages; it being one of the dangers, that an obdurate scar
may supervene upon its very tenderness. Solitude has
done what it could for him ; now, for a while, let him be
enticed into the outer world.”
“ What is your plan, then?” asked Miriam.
“Simply," replied Kenyon, “to persuade Donatello to
he my companion in a ramble among these hills and val.
leys. The little adventures and vicissitudes of travel will
do him infinite good. After his recent profound experi-
ence, he will re-create the world by the new eyes with
which he will regard it. He will escape, I hope, out of a
morbid life, and find his way into a healthy one."
" And what is to be my part in this process ? ” inquired
Miriam sadly, and not without jealousy. “You are tak-
ing him from me, and putting yourself, and all man-
ner of living interests, into the place which I ought to
fill!”
“ It would rejoice me, Miriam, to yield the entire
responsibility of this office to yourself,” answered the
sculptor. “I do not pretend to be the guide and coun-
sellor whom Donatello needs ; for, to mention no other
obstacle, I am a man, and between man and man there is
always an insuperable gulf. They can never quite grasp
each other's hands; and therefore man never derives any
intimate help, any heart, sustenance, from his brother man,
but from woman,
his mother, his sister, or his wife,
Be Donatello's friend at need, therefore, and most gladly
will I resign him!”
“ It is not kind to taunt me thus," said Miriam. “1
»
VOL. II
4


74
ROMANCE OF MONI E BENI.
have told you that I cannot do what you suggest, because
I dare not."
“Well, then," rejoined the sculptor,“ see if there is
any possibility of adapting yourself to my scheme. The
incidents of a journey often fling people together in the
oddest, and therefore the most natural way. Supposing
you were to find yourself on the same route, a reunion
with Donatello might ensue, and Providence have a
larger hand in it than either of us."
“ It is not a hopeful plan,” said Miriam, shaking her
head, after a moments thought ; " yet I will not reject it
without a trial. Only, in case it fail, here is a resolution
to which I bind myself, come what come may! You know
the bronze statue of Pope Julius in the great square of Pe-
rugia? I remember standing in the shadow of that statue
one sunny noontime and being impressed' by its paternal
uspect, and fancying that a blessing fell upon me from its
outstretched hand. Ever since, I have had a supersti-
tion, you will call it foolish, but sad and ill-fated per-
sons always dream such things, - that, if I waited long
enough in that same spot, some good event would come
to pass. Well, my friend, precisely a fortnight after you
begin your tour, unless we sooner meet, — bring Dona
tello, at noon, to the base of the statue. You will find
me there!”
Kenyon assented to the proposed arrangement, and,
after some conversation respecting his contemplated line
of travel, prepared to take his leave. As he met Miri
ani's eyes, in bidding farewell, he was surprised at the
new, tender gladness that beamed out of them, and at the


THE MARPLE SALOON.
appearance of health and bloom, which, in this üttle
while, had overspread her face.
May I tell you, Miriam,” said he, smiling, “ that you
are still as beautiful as ever?"
“ You have a right to notice it,” she replied, “ for, it it
bus so, my faded bloom has been revived by the liopes you
give me. Do you, then, thirk me beautiful? I rejoice,
most truly. Beauty - if I possess it -- shall be one of
the instruments by which I will try to educate and elevate
him, to whose good I solely dedicate myself.”
The sculptor had nearly reached the door, when, hear-
ing her call him, he turned back, and beheld Miriam still
standing where he had left her, in the magnificent hall
which seemed only a fit setting for her beauty. She
beckoned him to return.
6 You are a man of refined taste," said she;
than that, - a man of delicate sensibility. Now tell me
frankly, and on your honor! Have I not shocked you
many times during this interview by my betrayal of
woman's cause, my lack of feminine modesty, my reckless
passionats, most indecorous avowal, that I live only in the
life of ore who perhaps scorns and shudders at me?"
Thus adjured, however difficult the point to which she
brought him, the sculptor was not a man to swerve asido
from the simple truth.
“Miriam," replied he, "you exaggerate the impression
made upon my mind; but it has been painful, and some-
what of the character which you suppose.”
“I knew it," said Miriam, mournfully, and with no
resentmeut. “ What remains of my firer nature would
66
more


76
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
say so
have told me so, even if it had not been perceptible in all
your manner. Well, my dear friend, when you go back
to Rome, tell Hilda what her severity has done! She
was all womanhood to me; and when she cast iné off, I
had no longer any terms to keep with the reserves and
decorums of my sex. Hilda has set me free! Pray tell
her so, from Miriam, and thank her!”
“I shall tell Hilda nothing that will give her pain,"
answered Kenyon. “But, Miriam, - though I know not
what passed between her and yourself, - I feel -- and let
the noble frankness of your disposition forgive me, if I
I feel that she was right. You have a thousand
admirable qualities. Whatever mass of evil may have
fallen into your life, — pardon me, but your own words
suggest it, you are still as capable as ever of many
high and heroic virtues. But the white shining purity of
Hilda's nature is a thing apart; and she is bound by the
undefiled material of which God moulded her, to keep
that severity which I, as well as you, have recognized.'
“Oh, you are right !” said Miriam ;
“I never ques-
tioned it; though, as I told you, when she cast me off, it
severed some few remaining bonds between me and dec-
orous womanhood. But were there anything to forgive, I
do forgive her. May you win her virgin heart; for me
thinks there can be few ren in this evil world who are
not more unworthy of her than yours.lf."


SCENES BY THE WAY.
77
CHAPTER VII.
CENES BY THE WAY.
Woen it came to the point of quitting the reposeful
life of Monte Beni, tue sculptor was not without regrets,
And would willingly have dreamed a little longer of the
sweet paradise on earth that Hilda's presence there might
make. Nevertheless, an id all its repose, he had begun
to be sensible of a restless melancholy, to which the culti-
vators of the ideal arts are more liable than sturdier men.
On his own part, therefore, and leaving Donatello out of
the case, he would have judged it well to go. He made
parting visits to the legendary dell, and to other de-
lightful spots with which he had grown familiar ; he
climbed the tower again, and saw a sunset and a moonrise
over the great valley; he drank, on the eve of his depart-
ure, one flask, and then another, of the Monte Beni
Sunshine, and stored up its flavor in his memory, as the
standard of what is exquisite in wine. These things ac-
complished, Kenyon was ready for the journey.
Donatello had not very easily been stirred out of the
peculiar sluggishness, which inthralls and bewitches mel.
ancholy people. He had offered merely a passive resist:
ance, however, not an artive one, to his friend's schemes


78
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
and when the appointed hour came, he yielded to the im
pulse which Kenyon failed not to apply; and was started
upon the journey before he had made up his mind to
undertake it. They wandered forth at large, like two
knights-errant among the valleys, and the mountains, and
the old mountain-towns of that picturesque and lovely
region. Save to keep the appointment with Miriam, a
fortnight thereafter, in the great square of Perugia, there
was nothing more definite in the sculptor's plan, than that
they should let themselves be blown hither and thither
like winged seeds, that mount upon each wandering
breeze. Yet there was an idea of fatality implied in the
simile of the winged seeds which did not altogether suit
Kenyon's fancy; for, if you look closely into the matter it
will be seen that whatever appears most vagrant, and
utterly purposeless, turns out, in the end, to have been
impelled the most surely on a preordained and unswerv-
ing track. Chance and change love to deal with men's
settled plans, not with their idle vagaries. If we desire
unexpected and unimaginable events, we should contrive
an iron framework, such as we fancy may compel the
future to take one inevitable shape; then comes in the
unexpected, and shatters our design in fragments.
The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to
perform much of their aimless journeyings, under the
moon, and in the cool of the morning or evening twilight;
the mid-day, sun, while summer had hardly begun to trail
its departing skirts over Tuscany, being still too fervid to
allow of noontide exposure.
For a while, they wandered in that same broad valley


SCENES BY THE WAY.
79
;
which Kenyon had viewed with such delight from the
Monte Beni tower. The sculptor soon began to enjoy
the idle activity of their new life, which the lapse of a
day or two sufficed to establish as a kind of system; it is
so natural for mankind to be nomadic, that a very little
taste of that primitive mode of existence subverts the
settled habits of many preceding years. Kenyon's cares,
and whatever gloomy ideas before possessed him, seemed
to be left at Monte Beni, and were scarcely remembered
by the time that its gray tower grew undistinguishable on
che brown hill-side. His perceptive faculties, which had
found little exercise of late, amid so thoughtful a way of
life, became keen, and kept his eyes busy with a hundred
agreeable scenes.
He delighted in the picturesque bits of rustic character
and manners, so little of which ever comes upon the sur-
face of our life at home. There for example, were the
old women, tending pigs or sheep by the wayside. As
they followed the vagrant steps of their charge, these
venerable ladies kept spinning yarn with that elsewhere
forgotten contrivance, the distaff; and so wrinkled and
stain-looking were they, that you might have taken them
for the Parcæ, spinning the threads of human destiny.
In contrast with their great grandmothers were the chil.
dren, leading goats of shaggy beard, tied by the horns,
and letting them browse on branch and shrub. It is the
fashion of Italy to add the petty industry of age and
childhood to the hum of human toil. To the eyes of an
observer from the western world, it was a strange spec-
acle to see sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in petticoats, but


80
ROMANCE OF MONTF BENI.
otherwise manlike, toiling side by side with male laborers
in the rudest work of the fields. These sturdy womer.
(if as such we must recognize them) wore the high
crowned, broad-brimmed hat of Tuscan straw, the cus-
tomary female head-apparel; and, as every breeze blew
back its breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly added
depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. The elder
sisterhood, however, set off their witch-like ugliness to the
worst advantage with black felt hats, bequeathed them,
one would fancy, by their long-buried husbands.
Another ordinary sight, as sylvan as the above, and
more agreeable, was a girl, bearing on her back a huge
bundle of green twigs and shrubs, or grass, intermixed
with scarlet poppies and blue flowers; the verdant burden
being sometimes of cuch size as to hide the bearer's
figure, and seem a self-moving mass of fragrant bloom
and verdure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only
half-way down the back of the rustic nymph, leaving in
sight her well-developed lower limbs, and the crooked
knife, hanging behind her, with which she had been reap-
ing this strange harvest sheaf. A pre-Raphaelite artist
(he, for instance, who painted so marvellously a wind-
swept heap of autumnal leaves) might find an admirable
subject in one of these Tuscan girls stepping with a free,
erect, and graceful carriage. The miscellaneous herbage
and tangled twigs and blossoms of her bundle, crowning
her head (while her ruddy, comely face looks out between
the hanging side festoons like a larger flo ver), would give
the painter boundless scope for the minute delineation
which he loves.


SVENES BY THE WAY.
81
-
Tlough mixed up with what was rude and earthlike,
there was still a remote, dreamlike, Arcadian charm,
which is scarcely to be found in the daily toil of other
lands. Among the pleasant features of the wayside were
alway, the vines, clambering on fig-trees, or other sturdy
trunks; they wreathed themselves, in huge and rich
festoons, from one tree to another, suspending clusters of
ripening grapes in the interval between. Under such
careless mode of culture, the luxuriant vine is a lovelier
spectacle than where it produces a more precious liquor,
and is therefore more artificially restrained and trimmed.
Nothing can be more picturesque than an old grape-vine,
with almost a trunk of its own, clinging fast around its
supporting tree. Nor does the picture lack its moral. You
might twist it to more than one grave purpose, as you
saw how the knotted, serpentine growth imprisoned within
its strong embrace the friend that had supported its ten-
der infancy; and how (as seemingly flexible natures are
prone to do) it converted the sturdier tree entirely to its
own selfish ends, extending its innumerable arms on every
bough, and permitting hardly a leaf to sprout except its
It occurred to Kenyon, that the enemies of the
vine, in his native land, might here have seen an emblem
of the remorseless gripe, which the habit of vinous enjoy-
ment lays upon its victim, possessing him wholly, and
letting him live no life but such as it bestows.
The scene was not less characteristic when their path
led the two wanderers through some small, ancient town,
There, besides the peculiarities of present life, they saw
tokens of the life that had long ago been livad and flung
own.


82
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
nside. The little town, such as we see in our mind's eye,
would have its gate and its surrounding walls, so ancient
and raassive that ages had not sufficed to crumble them
away; but in the lofty upper portion of the gateway, still
standing over the empty arch, where there was no longer
1 gate to shut, there would be a dove-cote, and peaceful
loves for the only warders. Pumpkins lay ripening in
the open chambers of the structure. Then, as for the
sown-wall, on the outside an orchard extends peacefully
along its base, full, not of apple-trees, but of those old
humorists with gnarled trunks and twisted boughs, the
olives. Houses have been built upon the ramparts, or
burrowed out of their ponderous foundation. Ever the
gray, martial towers crowned with ruined turrets, have
been converted into rustic habitations, from the windows
uf which hang ears of Indian corn. At a door, that has
Seen broken through the massive stonework, where it
was meant to be strongest, some contadini are winnowing
rain. Small windows, too, are pierced through the
whole line of ancient wall, so that it seems a row of dwell-
ings with one continuous front, built in a strange style
of needless strength ; but remnants of the old battlements
and machicolations are interspersed with the homely
chambers and earthen-tiled house-tops; and all along its
extent both grape-vines and ranning flower-shrubs are
encouraged to clamber and sport over the roughnesses of
its decay.
Finally the long grass intermixed with weeds and wild
Howers, waves on the uppermost height of the shattered
rampart; and it is exceedingly pleasant in the golden


SCENES BY THE WAY
83
sunshine of the afternoon to behold he warlike precinct
so friendly in its old days, and so overgrown with rural
peace. In its guard-rooms, its prison-chambers, and
· scooped out of its ponderous breadth, there are dwellings
now-a-days where happy human lives are spent. Human
parents and broods of children nestle in them, even as
:he swallows nestle in the little crevices along the broker
summit of the wall.
Passing through the gateway of this same little town,
challenged only by those watchful sentinels, the pigeons,
we find ourselves in a long, narrow street, paved from side
to side with flagstones, in the old Roman fashion. Noth-
ing can exceed the grim ugliness of the houses, most of
which are three or four stories high, stone built, gray, di-
lapidated, or half-covered with plaster in patches, and
contiguous all along from end to end of the town. Na-
ture, in the shape of tree, shrub, or grassy side-walk, is as
much shut out from the one street of the rustic village as
from the heart of any swarming city. The dark and half-
ruinous habitations, with their small windows, many of
which are drearily closed with wooden shutters, are but
magnified hovels, piled story upon story, and squalid with
the grime that successive ages have left behind them. It
would be a hideous scene to contemplate in a rainy day,
or when no human life pervaded it. In the summer-noon,
however, it possesses vivacity enough to keep itself cheer-
tul; for all the within-doors of the village then bubbles
over upon the flagstones, or looks out from the small win-
dows, and from here and there a balcony. Some of the
populace are at the butcher's shop; others are at the foun


84
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
tain, which gushes into a marble basin that resembles al
antique sarcophagus. A tailor is sewing before his door
with a young priest seated sociably beside him ; a burly
friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his head;
children are at play ; women at their own doorsteps mend
clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan straw, or twirl
the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile, strolling from one
group to another, let the warm day slide by in the sweety
interminable task of doing nothing.
From all these people there comes a babblement that
seems quite disproportioned to the number of tongues that
make it. So many words are not uttered in a New Eng.
land village throughout the year -- except it be at a
political canvass or town-meeting - as are spoken here,
with no especial purpose, in a single day. Neither so
many words, nor so much laughter; for people talk about
nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and make
merry at nothing, as if it were the best of all possible
jokes. In so long a time as they have existed, and within
such narrow precincts, these little walled towns are brought
into a closeness of society that makes them but a larger
household. All the inhabitants are akin to each, and
each to all; they assemble in the street as their common
saloon, and thus live and die in a familiarity of intercourse,
such as never can be known where a village is open at
either end, and all roundabout, and has ample room within
itself.
Stuck up beside the door of one house, in this village
street, is a withered bough; and on a stone seat, just un.
der the shadow of the bough, sits a party of jolly drinkers


SCENES BY THE WAY.
85
sauking proof of ihe new wine, or quaffing the old, as their
often-tried and comfortable friend. Kenyon draws bridle
here (for the bough, or bush, is a symbol of the wine-shop
at this day in Italy, as it was three hundred years ago in
England), and calls for a goblet of the deep, mild purple
juice, well diluted with water from the fountain. The
Sunshine of Monte Beni would be welcome now. Mean-
while, Donatello has ridden onward, but alights where a
shrine, with a burning lamp before it, is built into the
wall of an inn-stable. He kneels, and crosses himself,
and mutters a brief prayer, without attracting notice from
the passers-by, many of whom are parenthetically devout,
in a similar fashion. By this time the sculptor has drunk
off his wine-and-water, and our two travellers resume
their way, emerging from the opposite gate of the village.
Before them, again, lies the broad valley, with a mist
so thinly scattered over it as to be perceptible only in the
distance, and most so in the nooks of the hills. Now that
we have called it mist, it seems a mistake not rather to
have called it sunshine; the glory of so much light being
mingled with so little .gloom, in the airy material of that
vapor. Be it mist or sunshine, it adds a touch of idea)
beauty to the scene, almost persuading the spectator that
this valley and those hills are visionary, because their visi
ble atmosphere is so like the substance of a dream.
Immediately about them, however, there were abun
dant tokens that the country was not really the paradiso
it looked to be, at a casual glance. Neither the wretched
cottages nor the dreary farm-houses seemed to par:ake of
the prosperity, with which so kindly a climate and so fer


86
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
tile a poi tion of Mother Earth’s bosom, should have filled
them, one and all. But, possibly, the peasant inhabitants
do not exist in so grimy a poverty; and in homes so com-
fortless, as a stranger, with his native ideas of those mat-
ters, would be likely to imagine. The Italians appear to
possess none of that emulative pride which we see in our
New England villages, where every householder, accord-
ing to his taste and means, endeavors to make his home.
stead an ornament to the grassy and elm-shadowed
wayside. In Italy there are no neat doorsteps and
thresholds; no pleasant, vine-sheltered porches ; none
of those grass-plots or smoothly-shorn lawns, which hos-
pitably invite the imagination into the sweet domestic
interiors of English life. Everything, however sunny
and luxuriant may be the scene around, is especially
disheartening in the immediate neighborhood of an Ital.
ian home.
An artist, it is true, might often thank is stars for:
those old houses, so picturesquely time-stained, and with
the plaster falling in blotches from the ancient brickwork.
The prison-like, iron-barred windows, and the wide-
arched, dismal entrance, admitting on one hand to the
stable, on the other to the kitchen, might impress him
as far better worth his pencil than the newly-painted
pine boxes, in which — if he be an American - his
countrymen live and thrive.
But there is reason to
suspect that a people are waning to decay and ruin the
moment that their life becomes fascinating either in the
poet's imagination or the painter's eye.
As usual, on Italian waysides, the wandertrs passed


SCENES BY THE WAY.
87
great, black crosses, hung with all the instruments of the
sacred agony and passion ; there were the crown of
thorns, the hammer and nails, the pinchers, the spear,
the sponge ; and perched over the whole, the cock that
crowed to Saint Peter's remorseful conscience. Thus,
while the fertile scene showed the never-failing benefi.
rence of the Creator towards man in his transitory state,
these symbols reminded each wayfarer of the Saviour's
infinitely greater love for him as an immortal spirit. Be
"holding these consecrated stations, the idea seemed to
strike Donatello of converting the otherwise aimless
journey into a penitential pilgrimage. At each of them
he alighted to kneel and kiss the cross, and humbly
press his forehead against its foot; and this so invaria-
bly, that the sculptor soon learned to draw bridle of his
own accord.
It may be, too, heretic as he was, that
Kenyon likewise put up a prayer, rendered more fervent
by the symbols before his eyes, for the peace of his
friend's conscience, and the pardon of the sin that so
oppressed him.
Not only at the crosses did Donatello kneel, but at each
of the many shrines, where the blessed Virgin in fres-
- faded with sunshine and half washed out with show-
ers — looked benignly at her worshipper; or where she
vas represented in a wooden image, or a bas-relief of plas-
er or marble, as accorded with the means of the devout
person who built, or restored from a mediæval antiquity,
these places of wayside worship. They were every-
where ; under arched niches, or in little penthonses with
4 brick tiled roof just large enough to shelter them ; or
со


88
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
perhaps in some bit of old Roman masonry, the founders
of which had died before the Advent; or in the wall of
a country inn or farm-house, or at the midway point of a
bridge, or in the shallow cavity of a natural rock, or high
upward in the deep cuts of the road. It appeared to the
sculptor that Donatello prayed the more earnestly and the
more hopefully at these shrines, because the mild face of
the Madonna promised him to intercede as a tender
mother betwixt the poor culprit and the awfulness of
judgment.
It was beautiful to observe, indeed, how tender was the
soul of man and woman towards the Virgin mother, in
recognition of the tenderness which, as their faith taught
.them, she immortally cherishes towards all human souls.
In the wire-work screen, before each shrine, hung offer
ings of roses, or whatever flower was sweetest and
most seasonable; some already wilted and withered, some
fresh with that very morning's dew-drops. Flowers there
were, too, that, being artificial, never bloomed on earth,
nor would ever fade. The thought occurred to Kenyon,
that flower-pots with living plants, might be set within the
niches, or even that rose-trees, and all kinds of flowering
shrubs, might be reared under the shrines and taught to
twine and wreath themselves around ; so that the Virgin
should dwell within a bower of verdure, bloom, and fra-
grant freshness, symbolizing a homage perpetually new.
There are many things in the religious customs of these
people that seem good ; many things, at least, that might
be both good and beautiful, if the soul of goodness and
the sense of beauty were as much alive in the Italians


SCENES BY THE WAY
89
cense.
DOW HS they must have been when th Jse customs were
first imagined and adopted. But, instead of blossoms on
the shrub, or freshly gathered, with the dew-drops on
their leaves, their worship, now-a-days, is best symbolized
by the artificial flower.
The sculptor fancied, moreover, (but perhaps it was his
heresy that suggested the idea,) that it would be of happy
influence to place a comfortable and shady seat beneath
every wayside shrine. Then, the weary and sun-scorched
traveller, while resting himself under her protecting shad-
ow,-might thank the Virgin for her hospitality. Nor
perchance, were he to regale himself, even in such a con-
secrated spot, with the fragrance of a pipe, would it rise
to heaven more offensively than the smoke of priestly in-
We” do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate
the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or
enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to do religiously.
Whatever may be the iniquities of the papal system, it
was a wise and lovely sentiment, that set up the frequent
shrine and cross along the roadside. No wayfarer, bent
on whatever worldly errand, can fail to be reminded, at
every mile or two, that this is not the business which
most concerns him. The pleasure-seeker is silently ad-
monished to look heavenward for a joy infinitely greater
than he now possesses. The wretch in temptation beholds
the cross, and is warned, that if he yield, the Saviour's
Agony
for his sake will have been endured in vain. The
stubborn criminal, whose heart has long been like a stone,
feels it throb anew with dread and hope, and our poor
Donatello, as he went kneeling from shrine to cross, and


90
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
from cross to shrine, doubtless found an efficacy in these
gymbols that helped him towards a higher penitence.
Whether the young Count of Monte Beni noticed the
fact, or no, there was more than one incident of their
journey that led Kenyon to believe, that they were at-
tended, or closely followed, or preceded, near at hand, by
some one who took an interest in their motions. As it
were, the step, the sweeping garment, the faintly-heard
breath, of an invisible companion, was beside them, &s
they went on their way. It was like a dream that had
strayed out of their slumber and was haunting them in
the daytime, when its shadowy substance could have
neither density nor outline, in the too obtrusive light.
After sunset, it grew a little more distinct.
“On the left of that last shrine," asked the sculptor,
as they rode, under the moon, “ did you observe tho
figure of a woman kneeling, with her face hidden in her
hands ?”
“I never looked that way,” replied Donatello. “I
saying my own prayer. It was some penitent, perchance.
May the Blessed Virgin be the more gracious to the poor
soul, because she is a woman."
was


PICTURED WINDOWS.
91
CHAPTER VIII.
PICTURED WINDOWS.
AFTER wide wanderings through the valley, the two
travellers directed their course towards its boundary of
hills. Here, the natural scenery and men's modifications
of it immediately took a different aspect from that of the
fertile and smiling plain. Not unfrequently there was a
convent on the hill-side ; or, on some insulated promon-
tory, a ruined castle, once the den of a robber chieftain,
who was accustomed to dash down from his commanding
height upon the road that wound below. For ages back,
the old fortress had been flinging down its crumbling ram-
parts, stone by stone, towards the grimy village at its foot.
Their road wound onward among the hills, which rose
steep and lofty from the scanty level space that lay be-
tween them. They continually thrust their great bulks
before the wayfarers, as if grimly resolute to forbid their
passage, or closed abruptly behind them, when they still
dared to proceed. A gigantic bill would set its foot right
down before them, and only at the last moment, would
grudgingly withdraw it, just far enough to let them creep
towards another obstacle. Adown these rough heights


92
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
were visible the dry tracks of many a mountain-torrent
that had lived a life too fierce and passionate to be a long
one. Or, perhaps a stream was yet hurrying shyly along
the edge of a far wider bed of pebbles and shelving rock
than it seemed to need, though not too wide for the
swollen rage of which this shy rivulet was capable. A
stone bridge bestrode it, the ponderous arches of which
were upheld and rendered indestructible by the weight
of the very stones that threatened to crush them down.
Old Roman toil was perceptible in the foundations of that
massive bridge; the first weight that it ever bore was
that of an army of the Republic.
Threading these defiles, they would arrive at some im-
memorial city, crowning the high summit of a hill with
its cathedral, its many churches, and public edifices, all
of Gothic architecture. With no more level ground
ihan a single piazza, in the midst, the ancient town tum-
bled its crooked and narrow streets down the mountain-
side, through arched passages and by steps of stone. The
aspect of everything was awfully old; older, indeed, in
its effect on the imagination, than Rome itself, because
history does not lay its finger on these forgotten edifices
and tell us all about their origin. Etruscan princes may
have dwelt in them. A thousand years, at all events,
would seem but a middle age for these structures. They
are built of such huge, square stones, that their appear-
ance of ponderous durability distresses the beholder with
the idea that they can never fall, never crumble away
never be less fit than now for human babitation.
Many of them may once have been palaces, and still


PICTURED WINDOWS.
99
retain a squalid grandeur. But, gazing at them, we reo
ognize how undesirable it is to build the tabernacle o
our brief lifetime out of permanent materials, and with
a view to their being occupied by future generations.
All towns should be made capable of purification by
fire, or of decay within each half-century. Otherwise,
chey become the hereditary haunts of vermin and noi
someness, besides standing apart from the possibility of
such improvements as are constantly introduced into the
rest of man's contrivances and accommodations. It is
beautiful, no doubt, and exceedingly satisfactory to some
of our natural instincts, to imagine our far posterity
dwelling under the same roof-tree as ourselves. Still,
when people insist on building indestructible houses, they
incur, or their children do, a misfortune analogous to that
of the Sibyl, when she obtained the grievous boon of im.
mortality. So, we may build almost immortal habitations,
it is true; but we cannot keep them from growing old,
musty, unwholesome, dreary, full of death-scents, ghosts,
and murder-stains; in short, such habitations as one sees
everywhere in Italy, be they hovels or palaces.
“ You should go with me to my native country,” ob-
served the sculptor, to Donatello. “In that fortunate
land, each generation has only its own sins and sorrows
to bear. Here, it seems as if all the weary and dreary
Past were piled upon the back of the Present. If I were
to lose my spirits in this country, - if I were to suffer
any heavy misfortune here, — methinks it would be im
possible to stand up agai: st it, under "uch adverse
influences."


94
ROMANCE OF MONTS BENI.
“ The sky itself is an old roof, now," ansa ered the
Count; "and, no doubt, the sins of mankind have made
it gloomier than it used to be.”
"Oh, my poor Faun," thought Kenyon to himself,
"how art thou changed !”
A city, like this of which we speak, seems a sort of
stony growth out of the hill-side, or a fossilized town ; 80
ancient and strange it looks, without enough of life and
juiciness in it to be any longer susceptible of decay.
An earthquake would afford it the only chance of being
ained, beyond its present ruin.
Yet, though dead to all the purposes for which we live
-day, the place has its glorious recollections, and not
merely rude and warlike ones, but those of brighter and
milder triumphs, the fruits of which we still enjoy. Italy
can couut several of these lifeless towns which, four or
five hundred years ago, were each the birthplace of its
own school of art; nor have they yet forgotten to be
proud of the dark, old pictures, and the faded frescoes,
the pristine beauty of which was a light and gladness to
the world. Bit now, unless one happens to be a painter
these famous works make us miserably desperate. They
are poor, dim ghosts of what, when Giotto or Cimabue
first created them, threw a splendor along the stately
uisles; so far gone towards nothingness, in our day, that
scarcely a hint of design or expression can glimmer
through the dusk. Those early artists did well to paint
their frescoes. Glowing on the church walls, they might
be looked upon as symbols of the living spirit that made
Cathelic ism a true religion, and that glorifind it as long as


PICTURED WINDOWS.
95
6
it retained a genuine life; they filled the transepts with a
radiant throng of saints and angels, and threw around the
high altar a faint reflection as much as mortals could
see, or bear — of a Diviner Presence. But now that the
colors are so wretchedly bedimmed now that blotches
of plastered wall dot the frescoes all over, like a mean
reality thrusting itself through life's brightest illusions,
the next best artist to Cimabue or Giotto or Ghirlandaio
or Pinturicchio, will be he that shall reverently cover
their ruined masterpieces with whitewash!
Kenyon, however, being an earnest student and critic
of Art, lingered long before these pathetic relics; and
Donatello, in his present phase of penitence, thought no
time spent amiss while he could be kneeling before an
altar. Whenever they found a cathedral, therefore, or a
Gothic church, the two travellers were of one mind to
enter it. In some of these holy edifices they saw pictures
that time had not dimmed nor injured in the least, though
they perhaps belonged to as old a school of Art as any
that were perishing around them. These were the painted
windows; and as often as he gazed at them the sculptor
blessed the mediæval time, and its gorgeous contrivances
of splendor; for surely the skill of man has never accom-
plished, nor his mind imagined, any other beauty or glory
worthy to be compared with these.
It is the special excellence of pictured glass, that the
light, which falls merely on the outside of other pictures,
is here interfused throughout the work; it illuminates the
design, and invests it with a living radiance; and in re
quital the un ading colors transmute the common daylighi


96
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
into a miracle of richness and glory in its passage through
the heavenly substance of the blessed and angelic shapes
which throng the high-arched window.
“It is a woful thing," cried Kenyon, while one of
these frail, yet enduring and fadeless pictures threw its
hues on his face, and on the pavement of the church
Around him,-“ a sad necessity that any Christian soul
should pass from earth without once seeing an antique
painted window, with the bright Italian sunshine glowing
through it! There is no other such true symbol of the
glories of the better world, where a celestial radiance will
be inherent in all things and persons, and render each
continually transparent to the sight of all.”
“ But what a horror it would be,” said Donatello, sadly,
“ if there were a soul among them through which the light
could not be transfused."
“Yes; and perhaps this is to be the punishment of sin,"
replied the sculptor ; “not that it shall be made evident
to the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowl-
edge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all sweet
society by rendering him impermeable to light, and, there.
fore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly simplicity
and truth. Then, what remains for him, but the dreari.
ness of infinite and eternal solitude."
“That would be a horrible destiny, indeed !” said Do.
natello.
His voice as he spoke the words had a hollow and
dreary cadence, as if he anticipated some such frozen
solitude for himself. A figure in a dark robe was lurking
u the obscurity of a side-chapel close by, and made in


PICTURED WINDOWS.
97
22
impulsive movement forward, but hesitated as Donatello
spoke again.
“ But there might be a more mise rable torture than to
be solitary forever," said he. “Think of having a sin-
gle companion in eternity, and instead of finding any
consolation, or at all events variety of torture, to see
your own weary, weary sin repeated in that inseparable
soul.”
“I think, my dear Count, you have never read Dante,"
observed Kenyon. “ That idea is somewhat in his style,
but I cảnnot help regretting that it came into your
mind
just then."
The dark-robed figure had shrunk back, and was quite
lost to sight among the shadows of the chapel.
“There was an English poet," resumed Kenyon, turn-
ing again towards the window; "who speaks of the
dim, religious light,' transmitted through painted glass.
I always admired this richly descriptive phrase ; but,
though he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton
ever saw any but the dingy pictures in the dusty windows
of English cathedrals, imperfectly shown by the gray
English daylight. He would else have illuminated that
word, dim,' with some epithet that should not chase
away the dimness, yet should make it glow like a million
of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes. Is it not so
with yonder window? The pictures are most brilliant in
themselves, yet dim with tenderness and reverence, be-
cause God himself is shining through them."
“ The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as
you seem to experience,” said Donatello. “I tremble at
VOL II.
5


98
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
those awful saints; and, most of all, at the figure above
ihem. He glows with Divine wrath !”
“My dear friend," exclaimed Kenyon," how strangely
your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure :
It is divine love, not wrath.”
“To my eyes," said Donatello, stubbornly, “it is wrath,
not love! Each must interpret for himself”
The friends left the church, and, looking up from the
exterior, at the window which they had just - been con-
templating within, nothing was visible but the merest out-
line of dusky shapes. Neither the individual likeness of
saint, angel, nor Saviour, and far less the combined
scheme and purport of the picture, could anywise be
made out. That miracle of radiant art, thus viewed, was
nothing better than an incomprehensible obscurity, with-
out a gleam of beauty to induce the beholder to attempt
unravelling it.
“ All this,” thought the sculptor, “is a most forcible
emblem of the different aspect of religious truth and
sacred story, as viewed from the warm interior of belife,
or from its cold and dreary outside. Christian faith is a
grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Stand-
ing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine
any ; standing within, every ray of light reveals a har-
mony of unspeakable splendors."
After Kenyon and Donatello emerged from the hurch,
however, they had better opportunity for acts of varity
and mercy than for religious contemplation; being imme.
diately surrounded by a swarm of beggars, who ure the
present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of them


PICTURED WINDOWS.
99
stranger with the fleas and mosquitos, their foi midable
allies.
These pests -
the human ones -- had hunted the
two travellers at every stage of their journey. From
village tó village, ragged boys and girls kept almost un-
der the horses' feet; hoary grandsires and grandames
caught glimpses of their approach, and hobbled to inter-
cept them at some point of vantage; blind men stared
them out of countenance with their sightless orbs; women
held up their unwashed babies; cripples displayed their
wooden legs, their grievous scars, their dangling, boneless
arms, their broken backs, their burden of a hump, or
whatever infirmity or deformity Providence had assigned
them for an inheritance. On the highest mountain sum-
mit - in the most shadowy ravine there was a beggar
waiting for them. In one small village, Kenyon had the
curiosity to count merely how many children were crying,
whining, and bellowing all at once for almss They proved
to be more than forty of as ragged and dirty little impy
as any in the world; besides whom, all the wrinkled ma-
trons, and most of the village maids, and not a few stal-
wart men, held out their hands grimly, piteously, or
smilingly, in the forlorn hope of whatever trifle of coin
might remain in pockets already so fearfully taxed. Had
they been permitted, they would gladly have knelt down
and worshipped the travellers, and have cursed them,
without rising from their knees, if the expected boon
failed to be awarded.
Yet they were not so miserably poor but that the
grown people kept houses over their heads.
of fooil, they had, at least, vegetables in their fatto gar
In the way


100
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
dens, pigs and chickens to kill, eggs to fry into omeleti
with oil, wine to drink, and many other things to make
life comfortable. As for the children, when no more
small coin appeared to be forthcoming, they began to
laugh and play, and turn heels over head, showing them
selves jolly and vivacious brats, and evidently as well fed
as needs be. The truth is, the Italian peasantry look
upon strangers as the almoners of Providence, and there
fore feel no more shame in asking and receiving alms,
than in availing themselves of providential bounties in
whatever other form.
In accordance with his nature, Donatello was always
xceedingly. charitable to these ragged battalions, and
appeared to derive a certain consolation from the pray-
ers which many of them put up in his behalf. In Italy a
copper coin of minute value will often make all the differ-
ence between a vindictive curse--death by apoplexy being
the favorite one - mumbled in an old witch's toothless
jaws, and a prayer from the same lips, so earnest that
it would seem to reward the charitable soul with at least
e-puff of grateful breath to help him heavenward. Good
wishes being so cheap, though possibly not very effica-
cious, and anathemas so exceedingly bitter, -- even if
the greater portion of their poison remain in the mouth
that utters them, it
may
be wise to expend some rea-
sonable amount in the purchase of the former.
Do-
patello invariably did so; and as he distributed his
alms under the pictured window, of which we have been
speaking, no less than seven ancient women lifted their
aands and besought blessings on his head.


PICTURED WINDOWS.
101
“Come," said the sculptor, rejoicing at the happier
expression which he saw in his friend's face, “I think
your steed will not stumble with you to-day. Each of
these old dames looks as much like Horace's Atra Cura
as can well be conceived; but, though there are seven
of them, they will make your burden on horseback
lighter instead of heavier."
" Are we to ride far?” asked the Count.
“ A tolerable journey betwixt now and to-morrow noon,"
Kenyon replied, "for, at that hour, I purpose to be stand-
ing by the Pope's statue in the great square of Peragin."
*


102
ROMANCE. OF MONTE BENL
CHAPTER IX.
MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA
PERUVIA, on its lofty hill-top, was reached by the two
travellers before the sun had quite kissed
away
the early
freshness of the morning. Since midnight, there had
been a heavy rain, bringing infinite refreshment to the
scene of verdure and fertility amid which this ancient
civilization stands; insomuch that Kenyon loitered, when
they came to the gray city-wall, and was loth to give up
the prospect of the sunny wilderness that lay below. It
was as green as England, and bright as Italy alone.
There was the wide valley, sweeping down and spread-
ing away on all sides from the weed-grown ramparts,
and bounded afar by mountains, which lay asleep in the
s'ın, with thin mists and silvery clouds floating about
their heads by way of morning dreams.
“ It lacks still two hours of noon,” said the sculptor to
his friend, as they stood under the arch of the gateway,
waiting for their passports to be examined ;
come with me to see some admirable frescoes by Peru-
gino ? There is a hall in the Exchange, of no great
magnitude, but covered with what must have been - !
66 will you


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA.
103
the time it was painted - such magnificence and beauty
as the world had not elsewhere to show."
“It depresses me to look at old frescoes,” res nded
the Count; “it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to
answer as a penance.”
“Will you look at some pictures by Fra Angelico in
the Church of San Domenico ?” asked Kenyon ; " they
are full of religious sincerity. When one studies them
faithfully, it is like holding a conversation about heavenly
things with a tender and devout-minded man.”
“ You have shown me some of Fra Angelico's pictures,
I remember," answered Donatello; "his angels look as if
they had never taken a flight out of heaven; and his
saints seem to have been born saints, and always to have
lived so. Young maidens, and all innocent persons, I
doubt not, may find great delight and profit in looking at
such holy pictures. But they are not for me."
“Your criticism, I fancy, has great moral depth,” re-
plied Kenyon ; "and I see in it the reason why Hilda so
highly appreciates Fra Angelico's pictures. Well; we
will let all such matters pass for to-day, and stroll about
this fine old city till noon.”
They wandered to and fro, accordingly, and lost them-
selves among the strange, precipitate passages, which, ir
Perugia, are called streets. Some of them are like cav.
erns, being arched all over, and plunging down abruptly
towards an unknown darkness; which, when you have
fathomed its depths, admits you to a daylight that you
scarcely hoped to behold again. Here they met shabby
wen, and the careworn wives and mothers of the people


104
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
some of whom guided children in leading-strings through
those dim and antique thoroughfares, where a hundrell
generations had passed before the little feet of to-day
began to tread them. Thence they climbed upward
again, and came to the level plateau, on the summit of
the hill, where are situated the grand piazza and the prin
cipal public edifices.
It happened to be market-day in Perugia. The great
square, therefore, presented a far more vivacious specta-
cle than would have been witnessed in it at any other
time of the week, though not so lively as to overcome the
gray solemnity of the architectural portion of the scene.
In the shadow of the cathedral and other old Gothic
structures seeking shelter from the sunshine that fell
across the rest of the piazza was a crowd of people,
engaged as buyers or sellers in the petty traffic of a
country-fair. Dealers had erected booths and stalls on
the pavement, and overspread them with scanty awnings,
beneath which they stood, vociferously crying their mer-
chandise ; such as shoes, hats and caps, yarn stockings,
cheap jewelry and cutlery, books, chiefly little volumes
of a religious character, and a few French novels; toys,
tin-ware, old iron, cloth, rosaries of beads, crucifixes, cakes,
biscuits, sugar-plums, and innumerable little odds and
ends, which we see no object in advertising. Baskets of
grapes, figs, and pears, stood on the ground. Donkeys
bearing panniers stuffed out with kitchen vegetables, and
equiring an ample road-way, roughly shouldered aside
the throng.
Crowded as the square was, a juggler found room to


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA
105
spread out a white cloth upon the pavement, and cover it
with cups, plates, balls, cards, --- the whole material of his
magic, in short, - wherewith he proceeded to work mira-
cles under the noonday sun. An organ-grinder at onc
point, and a clarion and a flute at another, accomplished
what they could towards filling the wide space with tuna
ful noise. Their small uproar, however, was nearly
drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people, bar-
gaining, quarrelling, laughing, and babbling copiously at
random; for the briskness of the mountain atmosphere, or
some other cause, made everybody so loquacious that more
words were wasted in Perugia on this one market-day,
than the noisiest piazza of Rome would utter in a month.
Through all this petty tumult, which kept beguiling
one's eyes and upper strata of thought, it was delightful
to catch glimpses of the grand old architecture that stood
around the square. The life of the flitting moment, ex
isting in the antique shell of an age gone by, has a fasci-
nation which we do not find in either the past or present
taken by themselves. It might seem irreverent to make
the gray cathedral and the tall, time-worn palaces echo
back the exuberant vociferation of the market; but they
did so, and caused the sound to assume a kind of poetic
rhythm, and themselves looked only the more majestc
for their condescension.
On one side, there was an immense edifice devoted
to public purposes, with an antique gallery, and a range
of arched and stone-mullioned windows, running along ita
front; and by way of entrance it had a central Gothic
arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured remot
5#


106
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
circles, within which the spectator was aware of a statuly
and impressive gloom. Though merely the niunicipal
council house and exchange of a decayed country town,
this structure was worthy to have held in one portion
of it the parliament-hall of a nation, and in the other,
the state apartments of its ruler. On another side of the
square rose the mediæval front of the cathedral, where
the imagination of a Gothic architect had long ago flow-
ered out indestructibly, achieving, in the first place, a
grand design, and then covering it with such abundant
detail of ornament, that the magnitude of the work
seemed less a miracle than its minuteness. You would
suppose that he must have softened the stone into wax,
until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pli-
ant material, and then had hardened it into stone again.
The whole was a vast, black-letter page of the richest and
quaintest poetry. In fit keeping with all this old magniti-
cence, was a great marble fountain, where again the
Gothic imagination showed its overflow and gratuity of
device in the manifold sculptures which it lavished as
freely as the water did its shifting shapes.
Besides the two venerable structures which we have
described there were lofty palaces, perhaps of as old 1
date, rising story above story, and adorned with balconies,
whence, þundreds of years ago, the princely occupants
had been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, business
and popular assemblages of the piazza. And, beyond all
question, they thus witnessed the erection of a bronze
statue, which, three centuries since, was placed on the
pedestal that it still occupies


MARKET-DAY IN IERUGIA.
107
"I never come to Perugia,” said Kenyon,
“ without
spending as much time as I can spare in studying yonder
statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those sculptors of the
middle age have fitter lessons for the professors of my
art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. They
belong to our Christian civilization; and, being earnest
works, they always expregg something which we do not
get from the antique. Will you look at it?
“ Willingly,” replied the Count, " for I see, even so far
off, that the statue is bestowing a benediction, and there is
a feeling in my heart that I may be permitted to share
it.”
Remembering the similar idea which Miriam a short
time before had expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully
at the coincidence. They made their way through the
throng of the market-place, and approached close to the
iron railing that protected the pedestal of the statue.
It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifica]
robes, and crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze
chair, elevated high above the pavement, and seemed to
take kindly yet authoritative cognizance of the busy scene
which was at that moment passing before his eyes.
Hir
right hand was raised and spread abroad, as if in the act
of shedding forth a benediction, which every man
broad, so wise, and so serenely affectionate was the bronza
pope's regard — might hope to feel quietly descending
upon the need, or the distress, that he had closest at his
heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well
AS patriarchal majesty. An imaginative spectator could
not but be impressed with the idea that this benignly
so


108
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
awfu! representative of divine and human authority migli
:
rise from his brazen chair, should any great public ex-
igency demand his interposition, and encourage or restrain
the people by his gesture, or even by prophetic utterales
worthy of so grand a presence.
And, in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse
of ages, the pontiff watched the daily turmoil around his
seat, listening with majestic patience to the market cries,
and all the petty uproar that awoke the echoes of the
stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend of these
men, and of their forefathers and children, the familiar
face of generations.
“The pope's blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you,'
observed the sculptor, looking at his friend.
In truth, Donatello's countenance indicated a healthier
spirit than while he was brooding in his melancholy tower
The change of scene, the breaking up of custom, the fresh
flow of incidents, the sense of being homeless, and there
fore free, had done something for our poor Faun ; these
circumstances had at least promoted a reaction, which
might else have been slower in its progress. Then, ng
doubt, the bright day, the gay spectacle of the market-
place, and the sympathetic exhilaration of so many people's
cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a temper nat-
arally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magneti-
cally conscious of a presence that formerly sufficed to
make him happy. Be the cause what it might, Dona-
tello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful expression
while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely
diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this good
influence.


MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA.
109
“Yes, my dear friend,” said he, in reply to the sculp-
wr's remark, “ I feel the blessing upon my spirit.”
“It is wonderful,” said Kenyon, with a smile, “won-
derful and delightful to think how long a good man's
beneficence may be potent, even after his death. How
great, then, must have been the efficacy of this excellent
pontiff's blessing while he was alive!”
“ I have heard," remarked the Count, “that there was
a brazen image set up in the Wilderness, the sight of
which healed the Israelites of their poisonous and rank
ling wounds. If it be the blessed Virgin's pleasure, why
should not this holy image before us do me equal good!
A wound has long been rankling in my soul, and filling it
with poison."
"I did wrong to smile," answered Kenyon. “It is
not for me to limit Providence in its operations on man's
spirit.”
While they stood talking, the clock of the neighboring
cathedral told the hour, with twelve reverberating strokes,
which it flung down upon the crowded market-place, as if
warning one and all to take advantage of the bronze pon-
tiff's benediction, or of Heaven's blessing, however prof.
fered, before the opportunity were lost.
“High noon," said the sculptor. “It is Miriam's
hour 1"


110
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
CHAPTER X.
THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION
WAEN the last of the twelve strokes had fallen from
the cathedral clock, Kenyon threw his eyes over the
busy scene of the market-place, expecting to discern
Miriam somewhere in the crowd. He looked next tow-
ards the cathedral itself, where it was reasonable to im.
agine that she might have taken shelter, while awaiting
her appointed time. Seeing no trace of her in either
direction, his eyes came back from their quest somewhat
disappointed, and rested on a figure which was leaning,
like Donatello and himself, on the iron balustrade that
surrounded the statue. Only a moment before, they two
had been alone.
It was the figure of a woman, with her head bowed or
her hands, as if she deeply felt what we have been
endeavoring to convey into our feeble description - the
benign and awe-inspiring influence which the pontiff's
statue exercises upon a sensitive spectator. No matter
though it were modelled for a Catholic chief priest, the
desolate beart, whatever be its religion, recognizes in that
image the likeness of a father


THE BRUNZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION.
111
“Miriam," said the sculptor, with a tremor in his voice,
is it yourself?"
“ It is I,” she replied; “I am faithful to my engage
ment, though with many fears.”
She lifted her head, and revealed to Kenyon - revealed
to Donatello likewise -- the well-remembered features of
Miriam. They were pale and worn, but distinguished
even now, though less gorgeously, by a beauty that might
be imagined bright enough to glimmer with its own light
in a dim cathedral aisle, and had no need to shrink from
the severer test of the mid-day sun. But she seemed
tremulous, and hardly able to go through with a scene
which at a distance she had found courage to undertake.
“ You are most welcome, Miriam !” said the sculptor,
seeking to afford her the encouragement which he saw
she so greatly required. “I have a hopeful trust that the
result of this interview will be propitious. Come; let
me lead you to Donatello.”
No, Kenyon, no!” whispered Miriam, shrinking back;
“ unless of his own accord he speaks my name unless
he bids me stay
no word shall ever pass between him
and me. It is not that I take upon me to be proud at this
late hour. Among other feminine qualities, I threw away
my pride when Hilda cast me off.”
“ If not pride, what else restrains you?” Kenyon ask-
ed, a little angry at her unseasvuable scruples, and also
at this half-complaining reference to Hilda's just severity.
“ After daring
much, it is no time for fear! If we let
him part from you without a word, your opportunity of
doing him inestimable good is lost forever.”
66


112
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ True; it will be lost forever!” repeated Miriam
sadly. “But, dear friend, will it be my fault? I will-
ingly fling my woman's pride at his feet.
But do you
not see? - his heart must be left freely to its own decis.
ion whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary
choice depends the whole question whether my devotion
will do him good or harm. Except he feel an infinito
need of me, I am a burden and fatal obstruction to him!”
“Take your own course, then, Miriam,” said Kenyon ;
" and doubtless, the crisis being what it is, your spirit is
better instructed for its emergencies than mine."
While the foregoing words passed between them they
had withdrawn a little from the immediate vicinity of the
statue, so as to be out of Donatello's hearing. Still, how-
ever, they were beneath the pontiff's outstretched hand;
and Miriam, with her beauty and her sorrow, looked up
into his benignant face, as if she had come thither for
his pardon and paternal affection, and despaired of so vast
a boon.
Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public
square of Perugia, without attracting the observation of
many eyes. With their quick sense of beauty, these Ital-
ians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not to take
their fill of gazing at it; though their native gentleness
and courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive than
that of Germany, French, or Anglo-Saxons might have
been. It is not improbable that Miriam had planned this
momentous interview, on so public a spot and at high
noon, with an eye to the sort of protection that would be
Ahrown over it by a multitule of eye-witnesses. In cir.


105 BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION.
113
cumstances of profound feeling and passion, there is often
a sense that too great a seclusion cannot be endured ;
there is an indefinite dread of being quite alone with the
object of our deepest interest. The species of solitude
that a crowd harbors within itself, is felt to be preferable,
in certain conditions of the heart, to the remoteness of a
desert or the depths of an untrodden wood. Hatred, love,
or whatever kind of too intense emotion, or even indiffer.
ence, where emotion has once been, instinctively seeks to
interpose some barrier between itself and the correspond-
ing passion in another breast. This, we suspect, was what
Miriam had thought of, in coming to the thronged piazza;
partly this, and partly, as she said, her superstition that
the benign statue held good influences in store.
But Donatello remained leaning against the balustrade.
She dared not glance towards him, to see whether he were
pale and agitated, or calm as ice. Only, she knew that
the moments were fleetly lapsing away, and that his heart
must call her soon, or the voice would never reach her.
She turned quite away from him and spoke again to the
sculptor.
“I have wished to meet you," said she, "for more than
News have come to me respecting a dear
friend of ours. Nay, not of mine! I dare not call her a
friend of mine, though once the dearest.”
“Do you speak of Hilda ?” exclaimed Kenyon, with
quick alarm. “ Has anything befallen her? When I
last heard of her, she was still in Rome, and well."
Hilda remains in Rome," replied Miriam, “nor is
she ill as regards physical health, though much depressed
one reason.


114
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
in spirits. She lives quite alone in her dove-cote; not a
friend par her, not one in Rome, which, you know, is
deserted by all but its native inhabitants. I fear for her
health, if she continue long in such solitude, with de-
spondency preying on her mind. I tell you this, knowing
the interest which the rare beauty of her character has
awakened in you."
“I will go to Rome!” said the sculptor, in great emo.
tion. “ Hilda has never allowed me to manifest more
than a friendly regard; but, at least, she cannot prevent
my watching over her at a humble distance. I will set
out this
very
hour.”
“ Do not leave us now!” whispered Miriam, implor-
ingly, and laying her hand on his arm. 6 One moment
more! Ah; he has no word for me!”
“ Miriam !” said Donatello.
Though but a single word, and the first that he had
spoken, its tone was a warrant of the sad and tender depth
from which it came. It told Miriam things of infinite im-
portance, and, first of all, that he still loved her. The
sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed
the vitality of his affection ; it was therefore indestructi-
ble. That tone, too, bespoke an altered and deepened
character ; it told of a vivified intellect, and of spiritual
instruction that had come through sorrow and remorse; so
that instead of the wild boy, the thing of sportive, anima
nature, the sylvan Faun - here was now the man of feel.
ing and intelligence.
She turned towards him, while his voice still reverter
ated in the depths of her soul.


CHE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION.
115
You have called me !” said she.
“ Because my deepest heart has need of you!” he re
plied. "Forgive, Miriam, the coldness, the hardness
with which I parted from you! I was bewildered with
strange horror and gloom.”
“Alas! and it was I that brought it on you," said she.
" What repentance, what self-sacrifice, can atone for that
infinite wrong? There was something so sacred in the
innocent and joyous life which you were leading! A
happy person is such an unaccustomed and holy creature,
in this sad world! And, encountering so rare a being,
and gifted with the power of sympathy with his sunny
life, it was my doom, mine, to bring him within the limits
of sinful, sorrowful mortality! Bid me depart, Dona-
tello! Fling me off! No good, through my agency, can
follow upon such a mighty evil!"
”.
“ Miriam,” said he, “our lot lies together. Is it not
so? Tell me, in Heaven's name, if it be otherwise ?”
Donatello's conscience was evidently perplexed with
doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they
two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the
instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one
towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorse-
fully questioned with herself, whether the misery, already
accruing from her influence, should not warn her to with-
draw from his path. In this momentous interview there-
fore, two souls were groping for each other in the darkness
of guilt and sorrow, and hardly were bold enough to grasp
the cold hands that they found.
The sculptor stood watching the scene with earnest
sympathy.


116
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
66
;
“ It seems irreverent,” said he, at length; "intrusive
if not irreverent, for a third person to thrust himself
between the two solely concerned in a crisis like the
present. Yet, possibly as a bystander, though a deeply
interested one,
I
may
discern somewhat of truth that is
hidden from you both; nay, at least interpret or suggest
some ideas which you might not so readily convey to
each other."
Speak!” said Miriam “ we confide in you."
“ Speak !” said Donatello. “ You are true and up-
right.”
“I well know,” rejoined Kenyon, “ that I shall not suc-
ceed in uttering the few, deep words which, in this matter,
as in all others, include the absolute truth. But, here,
Miriam, is one whom a terrible misfortune has begun to
educate; it has taken him, and through your agency, out
of a wild and happy state, which, within circumscribed
limits, gave him joys that he cannot elsewhere find on
earth. On his behalf, you have incurred a responsibility
which you cannot fling aside. And here, Donatello, is one
whom Providence marks out as intimately connected with
your destiny. The mysterious process, by which our
earthly life instructs us for another state of being, was
begun for you by her. She has rich gifts of heart and
mind, a suggestive power, a magnetic influence, a sympa-
detic knowledge, which, wisely and religiously exercised,
are what your condition needs. She possesses what you
require, and, with utter self-devotion, will use it for your
good. The bond betwixt you, therefore, is a true one,
and never
except by Heaven's own act - should be
rent asunder.”


THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BESEDICTION.
117
;
" Al; he has spoken the truth!” cried Donatello,
grasping Miriam's hand.
“ The very truth, dear friend," cried Miriam
“ But take heed,” resumed the sculptor, anxious not to
violate the integrity of his own conscience. « Take heed;
for you love one another, and yet your bond is twined
with such black threads, that you must never look upon it
as identical with the ties that unite other loving souls. It
is for mutual support; it is for one another's final good;
it is for effort, for sacrifice, but not for earthly happiness.
If such be your motive, believe me, friends, it were better
to relinquish each other's hands at this sad moment.
There would be no holy sanction on your wedded life.”
“None,” said Donatello, shuddering. “We know it
well.”
“None,” repeated Miriam, also shuddering. “United
- miserably entangled with me, rather - by a bond of
guilt, our union might be for eternity, indeed, and most
intimate ; but, through all that endless duration, I should
be conscious of his horror.”
“ Not for earthly bliss, therefore,” said Kenyon," but
for mutual elevation, and encouragement towards a severe
and painful life, you take each other's hands. And if,
out of toil, sacrifice, prayer, penitence, and earnest effort
towards right things, there comes, at length, a sombre and
thoughtful happiness, taste it, and thank Heaven! So
thát you
live not for it so that it be a wayside flower,
springing along a path that leads to higher ends - it will
be Hearen's gracious gift, and a token that it recognizer
your union here below.”


118
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN.
“ Have you no more to say ?” asked Miriam, earnestly
“ There is matter of sorrow and lofty consolation strangely
mingled in your words.”
“ Only this, dear Miriam," said the sculptor ; "If ever
in your lives, the highest duty should require from either
of you the sacrifice of the other, meet the occasion with.
out shrinking. This is all."
While Kenyon spoke, Donatello had evidently taken in
the ideas which he propounded, and had ennobled ther)
by the sincerity of his reception. His aspect uncon-
sciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his former
beauty, accorded with the change that had long been
taking place in his interior self. He was a man, revolv-
ing grave
and deep thoughts in his breast. He still held
Miriam's hand; and there they stood, the beautiful man,
the beautiful woman, united forever, as they felt, in th 2
presence of these thousand eye-witnesses, who gazed so
curiously at the unintelligible scene. Doubtless, the
crowd recognized them as lovers, and fancied this a be-
trothal that was destined to result in life-long happiness.
And, possibly, it might be so. Who can tell where hap-
piness may come; or where, though an expected grest,
it may never show its face ? Perhaps — shy, subtle
thing - it had crept into this sad marriage-bond, when the
partners would have trembled at its presence as a crime.
“ Farewell !” said Kenyon, “I go to Rome.”
“ Farewell, true friend !” said Miriam.
“ Farewell !” said Donatello too. “ May you be
happy. You have no guilt to make you shrink from
bappiness.”


THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION
US
lius;
At this moment it so chanced that all the three friends
by one impulse glanced upward at the statue of Pope Ju-
and there was the majestic figure stretching out the
hand of benediction over them, and bending down upon
this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand benign
nity. There is a singular effect oftentimes when, out of the
midst of engrossing thought and deep absorption, we sud
denly look up, and catch a glimpse of external objects.
We seem at such moments to look farther and deeper
into them, than by any premeditated observation; it is as
if they met our eyes alive, and with all their hidden
meaning on the surface, but grew again inanimate and
inscrutable the instant that they became aware of our
glances. So now that unexpected glimpse, Miriam,
Donatello, and the sculptor, all three imagined that they
beheld the bronze pontiff endowed with spiritual life. A
blessing was felt descending upon them from his out.
stretched hand; he approved by look and gesture the
pledge of a deep union that had passed under his auspices.


120
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL.
CHAPTER XI.
HILDA'S TOWER.
WHEN we have once known Rome, and left hei where
she lies, like a long decaying corpse, retaining a trace of
the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a
fungous growth overspreading all its more admirable feat-
ures — left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of lier narrow
crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with lit-
tle squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential
pilgrimage, so indescribably ugly, moreover, so cold, so
alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and where a
chill wind forces its deadly breath into our lungs — left
her, tired of the sight of those immense seven-storied,
yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that
is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and multiplied,
And weary of climbing those staircases, which ascend
trom a ground-floor of cook-shops, cobblers' stalls, stables,
And regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes,
cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists,
just beneath the unattainable sky - left her, worn out
with shivering at the cheerless and smoky fireside by day
and feasting with our own substance the ravenous little


AILDA'S TOWER.
121
populace of a Roman bed at night — left her, sick at
heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever
faith in man's integrity had endured till now, and sick at
etomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad
cookery, needlessly bestowed on evil meats -- left her,
disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of
nastiness, each equally omnipresent — left her, half life-
less from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of
which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriada
of slaughters — left her, crushed down in spirit with the
desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her future
- left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and
adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which
her old crimes have unmistakably brought down, - when
we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are aston-
ished by the discovery, by-and-by, that our heartstrings
jave mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal
City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were
inore familiar, more intimately our home, than even the
spot where we were born.
It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the
course of our story back through the Flaminian Gate,
and, treading our way to the Via Portoghese, climb the
staircase to the upper chamber of the tower, where we
last saw Hilda.
Hilda all along intended to pass the summer in Rome ;
for she had laid out many high and delightful tasks, which
she could the better complete while her favorite haunts
were deserted by the multitude that thronged them,
throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did she
VOL. II.
6


122
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
dread the summer atmosphere, although generally hela
to be so pestilential. She had already made trial of it,
two years before, and found no worse effect than a kind
of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the first cool
bree:es that came with autumn. The thickly populated
centre of the city, indeed, is never affected by the feverish
influence that lies in wait in the Campagna, like a besieg.
ing foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful lawns and
woodlands, around the suburban villas, just at the season
when they most resemble Paradise. What the flaming
sword was to the first Eden, such is the malaria to these
sweet gardens and groves. We may wander through
them, of an afternoon, it is true, but they cannot be made
a home and a reality, and to sleep among them is death.
They are but illusions, therefore, like the show of gleam-
ing waters and shadowy foliage in a desert.
But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, en-
joys its festal days, and makes itself merry with char-
acteristic and hereditary pastimes, for which its broad
piazzas afford abundant room. It leads its own life with
a freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign visitors are
scattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would be visible in
& cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the summer,
by more invigorating winds than any within fifty miles of
the city; no bloom, but yet, if the mind kept its healthy
energy, a subdued and colorless well-being. There was
consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose to pass the
summer days in the galleries of Roman palaces, and her
nights in that aërial chamber, whither the heavy breath of
the city and its suburbs could not aspire. It would prob.


HILDA'S TOWER.
123
ably hum hör no more than it did the white duves, who
sought the same high atmosphere at sunset, and, when
morning came, flew down into the narrow streets, about
their daily business, as Hilda likewise did.
With the Virgin’s aid and blessing, which might be
hoped for even by a heretic, who so religiously lit the
lamp before her shrine, the New England girl would
sleep securely in her old Roman tower, and go forth on
her pictorial pilgrimages without dread or peril. In view
of such a summer, Hilda had anticipated many months of
lonely, but unalloyed enjoyment. Not that she had a
churlish disinclination to society, or needed to be told that
we taste one intellectual pleasure twice, and with double
the result, when we taste it with a friend. But, keeping
a maiden heart within her bosom, she rejoiced in the
freedom that enabled her still to choose her own sphere,
and dwell in it, if she pleased, without another inmate.
Her expectation, however, of a delightful summer was
wofully disappointed. Even had she formed no previous
plan of remaining there, it is improbable that Hilda
would have gathered energy to stir from Rome. A tor-
por, heretofore unknown to her vivacious though quiet
temperament, had possessed itself of the poor girl, like a
half-dead serpent knotting its cold, inextricable wreaths
about her limbs. It was that peculiar despair, that chill
and heavy misery, which only the innocent can experi-
ence, although it possesses many of the gloomy charac-
teristics that mark a sense of guilt. It was that heart-
sickness, which, it is to be hoped, we may all of us have
been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but the


124
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
capacity for which is usually exhausted early, and per
haps with a single agony. It was that dismal certainty
of the existence of evil in the world, which, though we
may fancy ourselves fully assured of the sad mystery
long before, never becomes a portion of our practical
belief until it takes substance and reality from the sin of
some guide, whom we have deeply trusted and revered,
or some friend whom we have dearly loved.
When that knowledge comes, it is as if a cloud had
suddenly gathered over the morning light ; so dark a
cloud, that there seems to be no longer any sunshine be-
hind it or above it. The character of our individual
beloved one having invested itself with all the attributes
of right, – that one friend being to us the symbol and
representative of whatever is good and true, when he
falls, the effect is almost as if the sky fell with him,
bringing down in chaotic ruin the columns that upheld
our faith. We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised and
bewildered. We stare wildly about us, and discover
or,
it may be, we never make the discovery — that it was
not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely
a frail structure of our own rearing, which never rose
higher than the house-tops, and has fallen because we
founded it on nothing. But the crash, and the affright
and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the
catastrophe involved the whole moral world. Remem.
bering these things, let them suggest one generous motive
for walking heedfully amid the defilement of earthly
ways! Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed
out by the pure Ideal of those who look ap to us, and


HILDA'S TOWER.
125
who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high
again.
Hilda's situation was made infinitely more wretched by
the necessity of confining all her trouble within her cwn
consciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the knowl-
cdge of Miriam's crime within her tender and delicate
soul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had
participated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking the human
nature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, she felt
her own spotlessness impugned.
Had there been but a single friend or, not a friend,
since friends were no longer to be confided in, after
Miriam had betrayed her trust - but, had there been any
calm, wise mind, any sympathizing intelligence; or, if
not these, any dull, half-listening ear into which she might
have flung the dreadful secret, as into an echoless cavern
what a relief would have ensued ! But this awful
loneliness! It enveloped her whithersoever she went.
It was a shadow in the sunshine of festal days; a mist
between her eyes and the pictures at which she strove to
look; a chill dungeon, which kept her in its gray twilight
and fed her with its unwholesome air, fit only for a crim-
inal to breathe and pine in! She could not escape from
it. In the effort to do so, straying farther into the in-
tricate passages of our nature, she stumbled, ever and
Again, over this deadly idea of mortal guilt.
Poor sufferer for another's sin! Poor wellspring of a
virgin's heart, into which a murdered corpse had casually
fallen, nnd whence it could not be drawn forth again,
but lay ther, day after day, night after night, tainting


126
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
its strect atmosphere with the scent of crime and ugly
death!
The strange sorrow that had befallen Hilda did not
fail to impress its mysterious seal upon her face, and to
make itself perceptible to sensitive observers in her man
ner and carriage. A young Italian artist, who frequented
the same galleries which Hilda haunted, grew deeply in-
terested in her expression, One day, while she stood
before Leonardo da Vinci's picture of Joanna of Arragon,
but evidently without seeing it, - for, though it had at-
tracted her eyes, a fancied resemblance to Miriam had
immediately drawn away her thoughts, – this artist drew
a hasty sketch which he afterwards elaborated into a
finished portrait. It represented Hilda as gazing with
sad and earnest horror at a blood-spot which she seemed
just then to have discovered on her white robe. The
picture attracted considerable notice. Copies of an en-
graving from it may still be found in the print-shops
along the Corso.. By many connoisseurs, the idea of the
face was supposed to have been suggested by the portrait
of Beatrice Cenci; and, in fact, there was a look some-
what similar to poor Beatrice's forlorn gaze out of the
dreary isolation and remateness, in which a terrible doom
had involved a tender soul. But the modern artist
strenuously upheld the originality of his own picture, as
well as the stainless purity of its subject, and chose to
call it - and was laughed at for his pains — " Innocence,
dying of a blood-stain !”
* Your picture, Signor Panini, does you credit,” re-
marked the picture-dealer, who bad bought it of the


HILDA'S TOWER.
127
young man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for ten
times the sum; “but it would be worth a better price if
you had given it a more intelligible title. Looking at
the face and expression of this fair signorina, we seem to
comprehend readily enough, that she is undergoing one
or another of those troubles of the heart to which young
ladies are but too liable. But what is this blood-stain ?
And what has innocence to do with it? Has she stabbed
her perfidious lover with a bodkin?”
“She! she commit a crime ! ” cried the
young
artist.
Can
you look at the innocent anguish in her face, and
ask that question ? No; but, as I read the mystery, a
man has been slain in her presence, and the blood, spirt-
ing accidentally on her white robe, has made a stain
which eats into her life.”
“ Then, in the name of her patron saint,” exclaimed
the picture-dealer, “why don't she get the robe made
white again at the expense of a few baiocchi to her
washer-woman? No, no, my dear Panini. The picture
being now my property, I shall call it "The Signorina's
Vengeance.' She has stabbed her lover overnight, and
is repenting it betimes the next morning. So interpreted,
the picture becomes an intelligible and very natural rep
resentation of a not uncommon fact.”
Thus coarsely does the world translate all finer griefs
that meet its eyė. It is more a coarse world than an un-
kind one.
But Hilda sought nothing either from the world's deli-
cacy or its pity, and never dreamed of its misinterpreta.
tions. Her dovezs often flew in through the windows of


128
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
as
the tower, winged messengers, bringing her what sym.
pathy they could, and uttering soft, tender, and complain.
ing sounds, deep in their bosoms, which soothed the girl
more than a distincter utterance might. And sometimes
Hilda moaned quietly among the doves, teaching her
voice to accord with theirs, and thus finding a temporary
relief from the burden of her incommunicable sorrow,
if a little portion of it, at least, had been told to these
innocent friends, and been understood and pitied.
When she trimmed the lamp before the Virgin's shrine,
Hilda gazed at the sacred image, and, rude as was the
workmanship, beheld, or fancied, expressed with the
quaint, powerful simplicity which sculptors sometimes
had five hundred years ago, a woman's tenderness ra-
sponding to her gaze. If she knelt, if she prayed, if her
oppressed heart besought the sympathy of divine woman-
hood afar in bliss, but not remote, because forever hu-
manized by the memory of mortal griefs, was Hilda to
be blamed ? It was not a Catholic kneeling at an idola-
trous shrine, but a child lifting its tear-stained face to
seek comfort from a mother.


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES
129
CHAPTER XII.
THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
cases.
Hilda descended, day by day, from her dove-cote, and
went to one or another of the great, old palaces, - the
Pamfili Doria, the Corsini, the Sciarra, the Borghese,
the Colonna, - where the door-keepers knew her well,
and offered her a kindly greeting. But they shook their
heads and sighed, on observing the languid step with
which the poor girl toiled up the grand marble stair-
There was no more of that cheery alacrity with
which she used to flit upward, as if her doves had lent
her their wings, nor of that glow of happy spirits which
had been wont to set the tarnished gilding of the picture-
frames and the shabby splendor of the furniture all
a-glimmer, as she hastened to her congenial and delight-
ful toil.
An old German artist, whom she often met in the
galleries, once laid a paternal hand on Hilda's head, and
bade her go back to her own country.
“Go back soon,” he said, with kindly freedom and di-
rectness,
will go never more. And, if you go
not, why, at least, do you spend the whole summer-time
or you
6+


130
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
sume you
in Rome! The air has been breathed too often, in so
many thousand years, and is not wholesome for a little
foreign flower like you, my child, a delicate wood-anemono
from the western forest-land."
“I have no task nor duty anywhere but here," replied
Hilda. « The old masters will not set me free!”
“Ah, those old masters !” cried the veteran artist, shak-
ing his head.
They are a tyrannous race ! You will
find them of too mighty a spirit to be dealt with, for long
together, by the slender hand, the fragile mind, and the
delicate heart, of a young girl. Remember that Raphael's
genius wore out that divinest painter before half his life
was lived. Since you feel his influence powerfully enough
to reproduce his miracles so well, it will assuredly con-
like
a flame.”
“ That might have been my peril once," answered
Hilda. “ It is not so now.”
Yes, fair maiden, you stand in that peril now !” in-
sisted the kind old man; and he added, smiling, yet in
a melancholy vein, and with a German grotesqueness of
idea, “Some fine morning, I shall come to the Pinacotheca
of the Vatican, with my palette and my brushes, and shall
look for my little American artist that sees into the very
heart of the grand pictures ! And what shall I behold?
A heap of white ashes on the marble floor, just in front
of the divine Raphael's picture of the Madonna da Fo.
ligno! Nothing more, upon my word! The fire, which
the poor child feels so fervently, will have gone into her
innermost, and burnt her quite up!"
" It would be a happy martyrdom !” said Hilda, faintly


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
131
smiling. 6 But I am far from being worthy of it. What
troubles me much, among other troubles, is quite the re-
verse of what you think. The old masters hold me here,
it is true, but they no longer warm me with their influence.
It is not flame consuming, but torpor chilling me, that
helps to make me wretched.”
“ Perchance, then,” said the German, looking keenly
at her, “Raphael has a rival in your heart? He was
your
first-love; but
young maidens are not always con-
stant, and one flame is sometimes extinguished by an-
other!
Hilda shook her head, and turned away.
She had spoken the truth, however, in alleging that
torpor, rather than fire, was what she had now to dread.
In those gloomy days that had befallen her, it was a great
additional calamity that she felt conscious of the present
dimness of an insight, which she once possessed in more
than ordinary measure. She had lost and she trem-
bled lest it should have departed forever - the faculty of
appreciating those great works of art, which heretofore
had made so large a portion of her happiness. It was
no wonder.
A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and
wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a surrender
of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has
been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you must
look with the eye of faith, or its highest excellence es-
capes you. There is always the necessity of helping out
the painter's art with your own resources of sensibility
21.d imagination. Not that these qualities shall really


132
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
add anything to what the master has effected, but they
must be put so entirely under his control, and work along
with him to such an extent, that, in a different mood,
when you are cold and critical, instead of sympathetic,
you will be apt to fancy that the loftier merits of the
picture were of your own dreaming, not of his creating.
Like all revelations of the better life, the adequate per-
ception of a great work of art demands a gifted simplicity
of vision. In this, and in her self-surrender, and the
depth and tenderness of her sympathy, had lain Hilda's
remarkable power as a copyist of the old masters. And
now that her capacity of emotion was choked up with a
horrible experience, it inevitably followed that she should
seek in vain, among those friends so venerated and be-
loved, for the marvels which they had heretofore shown
her. In spite of a reverence that lingered longer than
her recoynition, their poor worshipper became almost an
infidel, and sometimes doubted whether the pictorial art
be not altogether a delusion.
For the first time in her life, Hilda now grew acquaint
ed with that icy demon of weariness, who haunts great
picture galleries. He is a plausible Mephistopheles, and
possesses the magic that is the destruction of all other
magic. He annihilates color, warmth, and, more espe-
cially, sentiment and passion, at a touch. If he spare any.
thing, it will be some such matter as an earthen pipkin,
or a bunch of herrings by Teniers; a brass kettle, in
which you can see your face, by Gerard Douw; a furred
robe, or the silken texture of a mantle, or a straw hat, by
Van Mieris; or a long-stalked wine glass, transparent and
-


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
133
full of shifting reflection, or a bit of bread and cheese, or
an over-ripe peach, with a fly upon it, truer than reality
itself, by the school of Dutch conjurers. These men, and
a few Flemings, whispers the wicked demon, were the
op'y painters. The mighty Italian masters, as you deem
them, were not human, nor addressed their work to hu-
man sympathies, but to a false intellectual taste, which
they themselves were the first to create. Well might
they call their doings “art," for they substituted art in-
stead of nature. Their fashion is past, and ought, indeed,
to have died and been buried along with them.
Then there is such a terrible lack of variety in their
subjects. The churchmen, their great patrons, suggested
most of their themes, and a dead mythology the rest. А
quarter-part, probably, of any large collection of pictures,
consists of Virgins and infant Christs, repeated over and
over again in pretty much an identical spirit, and gener-
ally with no more mixture of the Divine than just enough
to spoil them as representations of maternity and child-
hood, with which everybody's heart might have some-
thing to do. Half of the other pictures are Magdalens,
Flights into Egypt, Crucifixions, Depositions from the
Cross, Pietas, Noli-me-tangeres, or the Sacrifice of Abra-
ham, or martyrdoms of saints, originally painted as altar-
pieces, or for the shrines of chapels, and wofully lacking
the accompaniments which the artist had in view.'
The remainder of the gallery comprises mythological
subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in
short, a general apotheosis of nudity, once fresh and rosy
perhaps, but yellow and dingy in our day, and retaining


134
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
only a traditionary charm. These impure pictures are
from the same illustrious and impious hands that ad.
ventured to call before us the august forms of Apostles
and Saints, the Blessed Mother of the Redeemer, and
her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even the
awfulness of Him io whom the martyrs, dead a thousand
years ago, have not yet dared to raise their eyes. They
seem to take up one task or the other — the disrobed
woman whom they call Venus, or the type of highest and
tenderest womanhood in the mother of their Saviour
with equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far
more satisfactory succeea If an artist sometimes pra
duced a picture of the Virgin, possessing warmth enough
to excite devotional feelings, it was probably the object
of his earthly love to whom he thus paid the stupendous
and fearful homage of setting up her portrait to be wor-
shipped, not figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls
in their earnest aspirations towards Divinity. And who
can trust the religious sentiment of Raphael, or receive
any of his Virgins as heaven-descended likenesses, after
seeing, for example, the Fornarina of the Barberini pal-
ace, and feeling how sensual the artist must have been to
paint such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and love
ingly? Would the Blessed Mary reveal herself to his
spiritual vision, and favor him with sittings alternately
with that type of glowing earthliness, the Forna, ina?
But no sooner have we given expression to this irrev.
trent criticism, than a throng of spiritual faces look re.
proachfully upon us. We see cherubs by Raphael,
whose baby-innocence could only have been nursed is


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
135
paradise ; angels by Raphael as innocent as they, but
whose serene intelligence embraces both earthly and
celestial things; madonnas by Raphael, on whose lips
be has impressed a holy and delicate reserve, implying
sanctity on earth, and into whose soft eyes he has thrown
a light which he never could have imagined except by
raising his own eyes with a pure aspiration heavenward.
We remember, too, that divinest countenance in the
Transfiguration, and withdraw all that we have said.
Poor Hilda, however, in her gloomiest moments, was
never guilty of the high treason suggested in the above
remarks against her beloved and honored Raphael. She
had a facuky (which, fortunately for themselves, pure
women ofton have) of ignoring all moral blotches in a
character that won her admiration. She purified the ob-
jects of her regard by the mere act of turning such spot-
less eyes upon them.
Hilda's despondency, nevertheless, while it dulled her
perceptions in one respect, had deepened them in an-
other; she saw beauty less vividly, but felt truth, or
the lack of it, more profoundly. She began to suspect
that some, at least, of her venerated painters, had left an
inevitable hollowness in their works, because, in the most
renowned of them, they essayed to express to the world
what they had not in their own souls. They deified their
light and wandering affections, and were continually play-
ing off the tremendous jest, alluded to above, of offering
the features of some venal beauty to be enshrined in the
poliest places. A deficiency of earnestness and absolute
truth is generally discoverable in Italian pictures, after


136
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
the art had become consummate. When you demand
what is deepest, these painters have not wherewithal to
respond. They substituted a keen intellectual percep-
tion, and a marvellous knack of external arrangement
instead of the live sympathy and sentiment which shouk
have been their inspiration. And hence it happens, that
shallow and worldly men are among the best critics of
their works; a taste for pictorial art is often no more
than a polish upon the hard enamel of an artificial char
acter. Hilda had lavished her whole heart upon it, and
found (just as if she had lavished it upon a human idol)
that the greater part was thrown away.
For some of the earlier painters, however, she still
retained much of her former reverence. Fra Angelico,
she felt, must have breathed a humble aspiration be-
tween every two touches of his brush, in order to have
made the finished picture such a visible prayer as we
behold it, in the guise of a prim angel, or a saint without
the human nature. Through all these dusky centuries
his works may still help a struggling heart to pray
Perugino was evidently a devout man; and the Virgin
therefore revealed herself to him in loftier and sweeter
faces of celestial womanhood, and yet with a kind of
homeliness in their human mould, than even the genius
of Raphael could imagine. Sodoma, beyond a question,
both prayed and wept, while painting his fresco, at Siena,
of Christ bound to a pillar.
In her present need and hunger for a spiritual reve
lation, Hilda felt a vast and weary longing to see this
last-mentioned picture once again. It is inexpressibly


IHE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
137
waching. So weary is the Saviour, and utterly worn
out with agony, that his lips have fallen apart from
mere exhaustion; his eyes seem to be set; he tries to
lean his head against the pillar, but is kept from sinking
down upon the ground only by the cords that bind him.
One of the most striking effects produced, is the sense of
loneliness. You behold Christ deserted both in heaven
and earth ; that despair is in him which wrung forth the
saddest utterance man ever made, “ Why hast Thou for
saken me?” Even in this extremity, however, he is
still divine. The great and reverent painter has not
suffered the Son of God to be merely an object of pity,
though depicting him in a state so profoundly pitiful.
He is rescued from it, we know not how, — by nothing
less than miracle, — by a celestial majesty and beauty,
and some quality of which these are the outward garni-
ture. He is as much, and as visibly, our Redeemer, there
bound, there fainting, and bleeding from the scourge, with
the cross in view, as if he sat on his throne of glory in
the heavens! Sodoma, in this matchless picture, has
done more towards reconciling the incongruity of Divine
Omnipotence and outraged, suffering Humanity, com-
bined in one person, than the theologians ever did.
This hallowed work of genius shows what pictorial
art, devoutly exercised, might effect in behalf of relig.
ious truth; involving, as it does, deeper mysteries of reve
elation, and bringing them closer to man's heart, and
making him tenderer to be impressed by them, than
the most eloquent words of preacher or prophet.
It is not of pictures like the above, that galleries, ir


138
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Rome or elsewhere, are made up, but of productions
immeasurably below them, and requiring to be appre-
ciated by a very different frame of mind. Few ama-
teurs are endowed with a tender susceptibility to the
sentiment of a picture ; they are not won from an evil
life, nor anywise morally improved by it. The love of
art, therefore, differs widely in its influence from the
love of nature ; whereas, if art had not strayed away
from its legitimate paths and aims, it ought to soften and
sweeten the lives of its worshippers, in even a more ex
quisite degree than the contemplation of natural objects.
But, of its own potency it has no such effect ; and it fails,
likewise, in that other test of its moral value which poor
Hilda was now involuntarily trying upon it. It cannot
comfort the heart in affliction ; it grows dim when the
shadow is upon us.
So the melancholy girl wandered through those long
galleries, and over the mosaic pavements of vast, solitary
saloons, wondering what had become of the splendor that
used to beam upon her from the walls. She grew -sadly
critical, and condemned almost everything that she was
wont to admire. Heretofore, her sympathy went deeply
into a picture, yet seemed to leave a depth which it was
inadequate to sound; now, on the contrary, her perceptive
faculty penetrated the canvas like a steel probe, and
found but a crust of paint over an emptiness. Not that
she gave up all art as worthless; only it had lost its con-
secration. One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to
live in the applause of mankind, from generation to gen-
eration, until the colors fade and blacken out of sight, or


SHE EMPTINESS ON PICTURE-GALLERIES
13y
the canvas rot entirely away. . For the rest, let them be
piled in garrets, just as the tolerable poets are shelved,
when their little day is over. Is a painter more sacred
Than a poet ?
And as for these galleries of Roman palaces, they were
to Hilda — though she still trod them with the forlorn
hope of getting back her sympathies — they were drear-
ier than the whitewashed walls of a prison corridor. If
a magnificent palace were founded, as was generally the
case, on hardened guilt and a stony conscience if the
prince or cardinal who stole the marble of his vast man-
sion from the Coliseum, or some Roman temple, had per
petrated still deadlier crimes, as probably he did - there
could be no fitter punishment for his ghost than to wander
perpetually through these long suites of rooms, over the
cold marble or mosaic of the floors, growing chiller at
every eternal footstep. Fancy the progenitor of the
Dorias thus haunting those heavy halls where his pos-
terity reside! Nor would it assuage his monotonous
misery, but increase it manifold, to be compelled to scru-
tinize those masterpieces of art, which he collected with
so much cost and care, and gazing at them unintelligently,
still leave a further portion of his vital warmth at every
one.
Such, or of a similar kind, is the torment of those who
seek to enjoy pictures in an uncongenial mood. Every
baunter of picture-galleries, we should imagine, must have
experienced it, in greater or less degree ; Hilda never till
now but now most bitterly.
And now, for the first time in her lengthened absence.


140
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
comprising so many years of her young life, she began to
be acquainted with the exile's pain. Her pictorial imag
ination brought up vivid scenes of her native village,
with its great, old elm-trees; and the neat, comfortable
houses, scattered along the wide, grassy margin of its
street, and the white meeting-house, and her mother's
very door, and the stream of gold-brown water, which her
taste for color had kept flowing, all this while, through her
remembrance. Oh, dreary streets, palaces, churches, and
imperial sepulchres of hot and dusty Rome, with the
muddy Tiber eddying through the midst, instead of the
gold-brown rivulet! How she pined under this crumbly
magnificence, as if it were piled all upon her humanı
heart! How she yearned for that native homeliness,
those familiar sights, those faces which she had known
always, those days that never brought any strange event ;
that life of sober week-days, and a solemn sabbath at the
close! The peculiar fragrance of a flower-bed, which
Hilda used to cultivate, came freshly to her memory,
across the windy sea, and through the long years since
the flowers had withered. Her heart grew faint at the
hundred reminiscences that were awakened by that re-
membered smell of dead blossoms ; it was like opening ,
drawer, where many things were laid away, and every
one of them scented with lavender and dried rose-leaves
We ought not to betray Hilda's secret ; but it is the
truth, that being so sad, and so utterly alone, and in such
great need of sympathy, her thoughts sometimes recurred
the sculptor. Had she met him now, her heart, indeed
might not have been won, but ber confidence would have


THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
141
down to him like a bird to its nest. One summer after.
noon, especially, Hilda leaned upon the battlements of
her tower, and looked over Rome towards the distant
mountains, whither Kenyon had told her that he was
going.
"Oh, that he were here," she sighed; “I perish under
this terrible secret ; and he might help me to endure it.
Oh, that he were here!”
That very afternoon, as the reader may remember,
Kenyon felt Hilda's hand pulling at the silken cord that
was connected with his heartstrings as he stood looking
towards Rome from the battlements of Monte Beni
3


142
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XIII.
ALTARS AND INCENSE.
ROME has a certain species of consolation readier at
aand, for all the necessitous, than any other spot under
the sky; and Hilda's despondent state made her pecu-
liarly liable to the peril, if peril it can justly be termed,
of seeking, or consenting, to be thus consoled.
Had the Jesuits known the situation of this troubled
heart, her inheritance of New England Puritanism would
hardly have protected the poor girl from the pious strat-
egy of those good fathers. Knowing, as they do, how to
work each proper engine, it would have been ultimately
impossible for Hilda to resist the attractions of a faith,
which so marvellously adapts itself to every human need.
Not, indeed, that it can satisfy the soul's cravings, but, at
least, it can sometimes help the soul towards a higher
satisfaction than the faith contains within itself. It sup-
plies a multitude of external forms, in which the spiritual
may be clothed and manifested; it has many painted win-
dows, as it were, through which the celestial sunshine, else
disregardel, may make itself gloriously perceptible in
visions of beauty and splendor. There is no one want or


ALTARS AND INCENSE.
143
weakness of human nature, for which Catholicism will
own itself without a remedy; cordials, certainly, it pos-
sesses in abundance, and sedatives in inexhaustible vari
ety, and what may once have been genuine medicaments,
though a little the worse for long keeping.
To do it justice, Catholicism is such a miracle of fitness
for its own ends, many of which might seem to be admi.
rable ones, that it is difficult to imagine it a contrivance
of mere man. Its mighty machinery was forged and put
together, not on middle earth, but either above or below.
If there were but angels to work it, instead of the very
different class of engineers who now manage its cranks
and safety-valves, the system would soon vindicate the
dignity and holiness of its origin.
Hilda had heretofore made many pilgrimages among
the churches of Rome, for the sake of wondering at their
gorgeousness. Without a glimpse at these palaces of
worship, it is impossible to imagine the magnificence of
the religion that reared them. Many of them shine with
burnished gold. They glow with pictures. Their walls,
columns, and arches, seem a quarry of precious stones,
so beautiful and costly are the marbles with which they
Their pavements are often a mosaic, of rare
workmanship. Around their lofty cornices, hover flights
of sculptured angels; and within the vault of the ceiling
and the swelling interior of the dome, there are frescoes
of such brilliancy, and wrought with so artful a perspec.
tire, that the sky, peopled with sainted forms, appears to
be opened, only a little way above the spectator. Theo
there are chapels, opening from the side-aisles and tran
are inlaid.


144
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
septs, decorated by princes for their own burial-places,
and as shrices for their especial saints. In these, the
splendor of the entire edifice is intensified and gathered to
a focus. Unless words were gems, that would flame with
many-colored light upon the page, and throw thence a
tremulous glimmer into the reader's eyes, it were vain ti
attempt a description of a princely chapel.
Restless with her trouble, Hilda now entered upon an-
other pilgrimage among these altars and shrives. She
climbed the hundred steps of the Ara Cæli; she trod the
broad, silent nave of St. John Lateran ; she stood in the
Pantheon, under the round opening in the dome, through
which the blue, sunny sky still gazes down, as it used
to gaze when there were Roman deities in the antique
niches. She went into every church that rose before her.
but not now to wonder at its magnificence, which she
hardly noticed more than if it had been the pine-built
interior of a New England meeting-house.
She wen
and it was
a dangerous errand
to
observe how closely and comfortingly the Popish faith
applied itself to all human occasions. It was impossible
to doubt that multitudes of people found their spiritual
advantage in it, who would find none at all in our own
formless mode of worship; which, besides, so far as the
sympathy of prayerful souls is concerned, can be enjoyed
only at stated and too unfrequent periods. But here,
whenever the hunger for divine nutriment came upon
the
boul, it could on the instant be appeased. At one or an-
other altar, the incense was forever ascending; the mass
always being performed, and carrying upward with it the


ALTARS AND INCENSE.
143
levotion of such as had not words for their own prayer.
And yet, if the worshipper had his individual petition to
offer, his own heart-secret to whisper below his breath,
there were divine auditors ever ready to receive it from
his lips; and what encouraged him still more, these audi-
tors had not always been divine, but kept, within their
'heavenly memories, the tender humility of a human ex-
perience. Now a saint in heaven, but once a man on
arth.
Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women
with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the churches
individually, kneeling for moments, or for hours, and di-
recting their inaudible devotions to the shrine of some
saint of their own choice. In his hallowed person, they
felt themselves possessed of an own friend in heaven.
They were too humble to approach the Deity directly.
Conscious of their unworthiness, they asked the mediation
of their sympathizing patron, who, on the score of his
ancient martyrdom, and after many ages of celestial life,
might venture to talk with the Divine Presence, almost
as friend with friend. Though dumb before its Judge,
even despair could speak, and pour out the misery of its
soul like water, to an advocate so wise to comprehend the
case, and eloquent to plead it, and powerful to win pai-
don, whatever were the guilt. Hilda witnessed what she
deemed to be an example of this species of confidence
between a young man and his saint. He stood before a
shrine, writhing, wringing his hands, contorting his whole
frame in an agony of remorseful recollection, but finally
knelt down to weep and pray. If this youth had been a
VOL. I.


146
KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Protestant, he would have kept all that torture pent up to
his heart, and let it burn there till it seared him bute
indifference.
Often, and long, Hilda lingered before the shrines and
chapels of the Virgin, and departed from them with reluc
tant steps. Here, perhaps, strange as it may seem, hes
delicate appreciation of art stood her in good stead, and
lost Catholicism a convert. If the painter had represent-
ed Mary with a heavenly face, poor Hilda was now in
the very mood to worship her, and adopt the faith in
which she held so elevated a position. But she saw that
it was merely the flattered portrait of an earthly beauty ;
the wife, at best, of the artist; or, it might be, a peasant
girl of the Campagna, or some Roman princess, to whom
he desired to pay his court. For love, or some even less
justifiable motive, the old painter had apotheosized these
women; he thus gained for them, as far as his skill would
go, not only the meed of immortality, but the privilege of
presiding over Christian altars, and of being worshipped
with far holier fervors than while they dwelt on earth.
Hilda's fine sense of the fit and decorous could not be
betrayed into kneeling at such a shrine.
She never found just the virgin mother whom sha
needed. Here, it was an earthly mother, worshipping the
earthly baby in her lap, as any and every mother does,
from Eve's time downward. In another picture, there
was a dim sense, shown in the mother's face, of some
divine quality in the child. In a third, the artist seemed
to have had a higher perception, and had striven hard to
shadow out the Virgin's joy at bringing the Saviour into


ALTARS AND INCENSE.
147
he world, and her awe and love, inextricably niugled, of
the little form which she pressed against her bosom. So
far was good. But still, Hilda looked for something
more; a face of celestial beauty, but human as well as
heavenly, and with the shadow of past grief upon it;
bright with immortal youth, yet matronly and motherly;
and endowed with a queenly dignity, but infinitely tender,
is the highest and deepest attribute of her divinity.
“Ah,” thought Hilda to herself, “why should not there
ve a woman to listen to the prayers of women ? a mother
in heaven for all motherless girls like me? In all God's
thought and care for us, can He have withheld this boon,
which our weakness so much needs?"
Oftener than to the other churches, she wandered into
Saint Peter's. Within its vast limits, she thought, and be-
neath the sweep of its great dome, there should be space
for all forms of Christian truth; room both for the faithful
and the heretic to kneel; due help for every creature's
spiritual want.
Hilda had not always been adequately impressed by the
grandeur of this mighty cathedral. When she first lifted
the heavy leathern curtain, at one of the doors, a shadowy
cdifice in her imagination had been dazzled out of sight
by the reality. Her preconception of Saint Peter's was
a structure of no definite outline, misty in its architecture,
dim and gray and huge, stretching into an interminable
perspective, and overarched by a dome like the cloudy
firmament. Beneath that vast breadth and height, as she
had fancied them, the personal man might feel his little
Sle'ss, and the soul triumph in its immensity. So, in her


1 18
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN..
earlier visits, wher the compassed splendor of the actual
interior glowed before her eyes, she had profanely called
it a great prettiness; a gay piece of cabinet-work, on a
l'itanic scale ; a jewel casket, marvellously magnified.
This latter image best pleased her fancy; a casket, all
alaid, in the inside, with precious stones of various hue,
mo that there should not be a hair's-breadth of the small
interior unadorned with its resplendent gem. Then, con-
ceive this minute wonder of a mosaic box, increased to
the magnitude of a cathedral, without losing the intense
lustre of its littleness, but all its petty glory striving to be
sublime. The magic transformation from the minute to
the vast nas not been so cunningly effected but that the
rich adornient still counteracts the impression of space
and loftiness. The spectator is more sensible of its limits
than of its extent.
Until after many visits, Hilda continued to mourn for
that dini, illimitable interior, which with her eyes shut she
had seen from childhood, but which vanished at her first
glimpse through the actual door. Her childish vision
seemed preferable to the cathedral, which Michael Angelo,
and all the great architects, had built ; because, of the
dream edifice, she had said, “How vast it is !” while of
the real Sai..t Peter's she could only say, “ After all, it
is not so immi ose!” Besides, such as the church is, it
can nowhere bu maue visible at one glance. It stands in
its own way. You see an aisle or a transept; you see
the nave, or the twibune; but, on account of its ponderous
piers and other obsų uctions, it is only by this fragmentary
process that you get an idea of the cathedral.


ALTARS AND INCENSE.
149
l'here is no answering such objections. The great
church siniles calmly upon its critics, and, for all response,
says, “ Look at me!” and if you still murmur for the
loss of your shadowy perspective, there comes no reply,
Bave, Look at me!” in endless repetition, as the one
thing to be said. And, after looking many times, with
long intervals between, you discover that the cathedral
has gradually extended itself over the whole compass of
your idea; it covers all the site of your visionary temple
and has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath the dome.
One afternoon, as Hilda entered Saint Peter's in som-
bre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect
of a new creation. It seemed an embodiment of what-
ever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire,
as a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of relig-
ious faith. All splendor was included within its verge,
and there was space for all. She gazed with delight even
at the multiplicity of ornament. She was glad at the
cherubim that fluttered upon the pilasters, and of the
marble doves, hovering, unexpectedly, with green olive-
branches of precious stones. She could spare nothing,
now, of the manifold magnificence that had been lavished,
in a hundred places, richly enough to have made world-
famous shrines in any other church, but which here melted
away into the vast, sunny breadth, and were of no sera-
rate account. Yet 'each contributed its little all towards
the grandeur of the whole.
She would not have banished one of those grim popes,
who sit each over his own tomb, scattering cold benedice
tions out of their marble hands; nor a single frozen sister


150
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
of the Allegoric family, to whom as, like hired mourn
ers at an English funeral, it costs them no wear and tear
of heart – is assigned the office of weeping for the dead
If you choose to see these things, they present them-
selves ; if you deem them unsuitable and out of place,
they vanish, individually, but leave their life upon the
walls.
The pavement! it stretched out illimitably, a plain of
many-colored marble, where thousands of worshippers
might kneel together, and shadowless angels tread among
them without brushing their heavenly garments against
those earthly ones. The roof! the dome!
Rich, gor-
geous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fade-
less after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate
the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help the spirit
upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the
faith, that built this matchless edifice, and warmed, illu-
minated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can
satisfy human aspirations at the loftiest, or minister te
human necessity at the sorest? If Religion had a mate
rial home, was it not here?
As the scene which we but faintly suggest shone
calmly before the New England maiden at her entrance,
she moved, as if by very instinct, to one of the vases of
holy water, upborne against a column by two mighty
cherubs. Hilda dipped her fingers, and had almost signed
the cross upon her breast, but forbcre, and trembled,
while shaking the water from her finger-tips. She felt
as if her mother's spirit, somewhere within the dome.
were looking down upon her child, the daughter of Puri-


ALTARS AND INCENSE.
151
ban forefathers, and weeping to behold her ensnared ly
these gaudy superstitions. So she strayed sadly onward,
up the nave, and towards the hundred golden lights that
swarm before the high altar. Seeing a woman, a priest,
and a soldier, kncel to kiss the toe of the brazen St.
Peter, who protrudes it beyond his pedestal, for the pur-
pose, polished bright with former salutations, while a child
stood on tiptoe to do the same, the glory of the church
was darkened before Hilda's eyes. But again she went
onward into remoter regions. She turned into the right
transept, and thence found her way to a shrine, in the
extreme corner of the edifice, which is adorned with a
mosaic copy of Guido's beautiful Archangel, treeling on
the prostrate fiend.
This was one of the few pictures, which, in these
dreary days, had not faded nor deteriorated in Hilda's
estimation ; not that it was better than many in which
she no longer took an interest; but the subtile delicacy of
the painter's genius was peculiarly adapted to her charac-
ter. She felt, while gazing at it, that the artist had done
a great thing, not merely for the Church of Rome, but
for the cause of Good. The moral of the picture, the
immortal youth and loveliness of Virtue, and its irresist-
ible might against ugly Evil, appealed as much to Puri-
fans as Catholics.
Suddenly, and as if it were done in a dream, Hilda
found herself kneeling before the shrine, under the ever-
barning lamp that throws its ray upon the Archangel's
face. She laid her forehead on the marble steps before
the altar, anil snbbed out a prayer; she hardly knew to


152
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
whom, whether Michael, the Virgin, or the Father she
hardly knew for what, save only a vague longing, that
thus the burden of her spirit might be lightened a little.
In an instant she snatched herself up, as it were, from
her knees, all a-throb with the emotions which were strug-
gling to force their way out of her heart by the avenue
that had so nearly been opened for them. Yet there was
a strange sense of relief won by that momentary, pas-
sionate prayer; a strange joy, moreover, whether from
what she had done, or for what she had escaped doing,
Hilda could not tell. But she felt as one half stifled,
who has stolen a breath of air.
Next to the shrine where she had knelt, there is an-
other, adorned with a picture by Guercino, representing a
maiden's body in the jaws of the sepulchre, and her lover
weeping over it; while her beatified spirit looks down
upon the scene, in the society of the Saviour and a throng
of saints. Hilda wondered if it were not possible, by some
miracle of faith, so to rise above her present despondency
that she might look down upon what she was, just as
Petronilla in the picture looked at her own corpse. A
hope, born of hysteric trouble, fluttered in her heart. A
presentiment, or what she fancied such, whispered her,
that, before she had finished the circuit of the cathedral,
relief would come.
The unhappy are continually tantalized by similar de-
lusions of succor near at hand; at least, the despair is
very dark that has no such will-o'-the-wisp to glimmer
in it.


real' WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
153
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
Still gliding onward, Hilda now looked up into the
dome, where the sunshine came through the western
windows, and threw across long shafts of light. They
rested upon the mosaic figures of two evangelists above
the cornice. These 7eat beams of radiance, traversing
what seemed the empty space, were made visible in misty
glory, by the holy cloud of incense, else unseen, which
had risen into the middle dome. It was to Hilda as if
she beheld the worship of tłu, priest and people ascending:
heavenward, purified from im alloy of earth, and acquir.
ing celestial substance in the gulden atmosphere to which
it aspired. She wondered if angels did not sometimet
hover within the dome, and show themselves, in brief
glimpses, floating amid the sunshine and the glorified
vapor, to those who devoutly worshipped on the pave-
ment.
She had now come into the southern transept. Around
this portion of the church are ranged a number of confes-
sionals. They are small tabernacles of carved wood,
with a closet for the priest in the centre; and, on either


lbs
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
side, a space for a penitent to kneel, and breathe his con
fession through a perforated auricle into the good father's
ear. Observing this arrangement, though already familiar
to her, our poor Hilda was anew impressed with the in-
finite convenience — if we may use so poor a phrase
of the Catholic religion to its devout believers.
Who, in truth, that considers the matter, can resist a
similar impression! In the hottest fever-fit of life, they
can always find, ready for their need, a cool, quiet, beau-
tiful place of worship. They may enter its sacred pre-
cincts at any hour, leaving the fret and trouble of the
world behind them, and purifying themselves with a touch
of holy water at the threshold. In the calm interior,
fra-
grant of rich and soothing incense, they may hold con-
verse with some saint, their awful, kindly friend. And
most precious privilege of all, whatever perplexity, sor-
row, guilt, may weigh upon their souls, they can fling
down the dark burden at the foot of the cross, and go
forth to sin no more, nor be any longer disquieted;
but to live again in the freshness and elasticity of inno.
cence.
“Do not these inestimable advantages," thought Hildn,
"or some of them, at least, belong to Christianity itself?
Are they not a part of the blessings which the system
was meant to bestow upon mankind ? Can the faith in
which I was born and bred be perfect, if it leave a weak
girl like me to wander, desolate, with this great troublo
crushing me down ?”
A poignant anguish thrilled within her breast; it was
like a thing that bad life, and was struggling to get out.
1


THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
155
“Olu, help! Oh, help!” cried Hilda ; “I cannot, can
2ot bear it!”
Only by the reverberations that followed -- arch echo-
ing the sound to arch, and a pope of bronze repeating it
to a pope of marble, as each sat enthroned over his tomb
- did Hilda become aware that she had really spoken
above her breath. But, in that great space, there is no
need to hush up the heart within one's own bosom, so
carefully as elsewhere ; and, if the cry reached any dis-
tant auditor, it came broken into many fragments, and
fiom various quarters of the church.
Approaching one of the confessionals, she saw a woman
kneeling within. Just as Hilda drew near, the penitent
rose, came forth, and kissed the hand of the priest, who
regarded her with a look of paternal benignity, and ap-
peared to be giving her some spiritual counsel, in a low
voice. She then knelt to receive his blessing, which was
fervently bestowed. Hilda was so struck with the peace
and joy in the woman's face, that, as the latter retired,
she could not help speaking to her.
“ You look very happy !” said she. Is it so sweet,
then, to go to the confessional ? ”
"Oh, very sweet, my dear signorina!" answered the
woman, with moistened eyes and an affectionate smile ;
for she was so thoroughly softened with what she had
been doing, that she felt as if Hilda were her younger
sister. “My heart is at rest now. Thanks be to the
Saviour, and the blessed Virgin and the saints, and this
good father, there is no more trouble for poor
Teresa !”
"I am glad for your sake,” said Hilla, sighing for her


156
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
Own.
“I ain a poor heretic, but a human sister; and I
rejoice for you!”
She went from one to another of the confessionals,
and, looking at each, perceived that they were inscribed
with gilt letters : on one, PRO ITALICA LINGUA ; on
another, Pro FLANDRICA LINGUA; on a third, PRO
POLONICA LINGUA; on a fourth, Pro ILLYRICA LIN.
GUA; on a fifth, Pro HISPANICA LINGUA. In this vast
and hospitable cathedral, worthy to be the religious heart
of the whole world, there was room for all nations ; there
was access to the Divine Grace for every Christian soul ;
there was an ear for what the overburdened heart might
have to murmur, speak in what native tongue it would.
When Hilda had almost completed the circuit of the
transept, she came to a confessional
the central part
was closed, but a mystic rod protruded from it, indicating
the
presence of a priest within on which was inscribed,
PRO ANGLICA LINGUA.
It was the word in season! If she had heard her
mother's voice from within the tabernacle, calling her, in
her own mother-tongue, to come and lay her poor head in
her lap, and sob out all her troubles, Hilda could not have
responded with a more inevitable obedience. She did not
think; she only felt. Within her heart was a great need
Closc at hand, within the veil of the confessional, was the
relief. She flung herself down in the penitent's place ;
and, tremulously, passionately, with sobs, tears, and the
turbulent overflow of emotion too long repressed, she
poured out the dark story which had infused its poi 300
into her innocent life.


THE WORLDS CATHEDRAL.
157
Ililda had not seen, nor could she now see, the visage
of the priest. But, at intervals, in the pauses of that
strange confession, half choked by the struggle of her
feelings towards an outlet, she heard a mild, calm voice,
somewhat mellowed by age. It spoke soothingly; it en-
ouraged her; it led her on by apposite questions that
seemed to be suggested by a great and tender interest,
and acted like magnetism in attracting the girl's confi-
dence to this unseen friend. The priest's share in the
interview, indeed, resembled that of one who removes the
stones, clustered branches, or whatever entanglements
impede the current of a swollen stream. Hilda could
have imagined so much to the purpose were his in-
quiries that he was already acquainted with some out-
line of what she strove to tell him.
Thus assisted, she revealed the whole of her terrible se-
cret! The whole, except that no name escaped her lips.
And, ah, what a relief! When the hysteric gasp, the
strife between words and sobs, had subsided, what a tor-
ture had passed away from her soul! It was all gone;
her bosom was as pure now as in her childhood. She
was a girl again ; she was Hilda of the dove-rote; not
that doubtful creature whom her own doves had hardly
recognized as their mistress and playmate, by reason of
the death-scent that clung to her garments !
After she had ceased to speak, Hilda heard the priest
bestir himself with an old man's reluctant movement.
He stepped out of the confessional; and as the girl was
still kneeling in the penitential corner, he summoned her
Corth.


158
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
• Stund up, my daughter," said the mild voice of the
confessor; «s what we have further to say must be spoken
face to face."
Hilda did his bidding, and stood before him with a
downcast visage, which flushed and grew pale again. But
it had the wonderful beauty which we may often observe
in those who have recently gone through a great struggle,
and won the peace that lies just on the other side. We
see it in a new mother's face; we see it in the faces of the
dead; and in Hilda's countenance which had always a
rare natural charm for her friends
- this glory of peace
made her as lovely as an angel.
On her part, Hilda beheld a venerable figure with hair
as white as snow, and a face strikingly characterized by
benevolence. It bore marks of thought, however, and
penetrative insight; although the keen glances of the eyes
were now somewhat bedimmed with tears, which the
aged shed, or almost shed, on lighter stress of emotion
than would elicit them from younger men.
“ It has not escaped my observation, daughter,” said
the priest, “ that this is your first acquaintance with the
confessional. How is this ? "
“Father," replied Hilda, raising her eyes, and again
letting them fall, “I am of New England birth, and was
bred as what you call a heretic.”
“ From New England !” exclaimed the priest.
was my own birthplace, likewise ; nor have fifty years
of absence made me cease to love it. But, a heretio
And are you reconciled to the Church ? "
Never, father,” said Hildi.
36 It


THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
159
And, that being the case," demanded the old man,
on what ground, my daughter, have you sought to avail
yourself of these blessed privileges, confined exclusively
to members of the one true Church, of confession and
absolution ?"
“ Absolution, father?” exclaimed Hilda, shrinking back.
"Oh, no, no! I never dreamed of that! Only our Heav-
enly Father can forgive my sins; and it is only by sin-
cere repentance of whatever wrong I may have done,
and by my own best efforts towards a higher life, that I
can hope for His forgiveness! God forbid that I should
ask absolution from mortal man!”
“ Then, wherefore,” rejoined the priest, with somewhat
„ess mildness in his tone, “ wherefore, I ask again, have
you taken possession, as I may term it, of this holy or-
dinance; being a heretic, and neither seeking to share,
nor having faith in, the unspeakable advantages which
the Church offers to its penitents ?
Father," answered Hilda, trying to tell the old man
the simple truth, “ I am a motherless girl, and a stranger
here in Italy. I had only God to take care of me, and
be my closest friend; and the terrible, terrible crime,
which I have revealed to you, thrust itself between Him
and me; so that I groped for Him in the darkness, as it
were, and found Him not -- found nothing but a dreadful
solitude, and this crime in the midst of it! I could not
bear it. It seemed as if I made the awful guilt my own,
by keeping it hidden in my heart. I grew a fearful thing
to myself. I was going mad!”
" It was a grievous trial, my poor child !” observed tbo


160
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
confessor. “Your relief, I trust, will prove to be greater
than you get know !”
“I feel already how immense it is !” said Hilda, look-
ing gratefully in his face. “Surely, father, it was the
hand of Providence that led me hither, and made ma
feel that this vast temple of Christianity, this great home
of religion, must needs contain some cure, some ease, at
least, for my unutterable anguish. And it has proved so.
I have told the hideous secret ; told it under the sacred
seal of the confessional; and now it will burden my poor
heart no more! ”
“But, daughter," answered the venerable priest, not
unmoved by what Hilda said, “you forget! you mis-
take ! - you claim a privilege to which you have not
entitled yourself! The seal of the confessional, do you
say? God forbid that it should ever be broken, where it
has been fairly impressed; but it applies only to matters
that have been confided to its keeping in a certain pre-
scribed method, and by persons, moreover, who have faith
in the sanctity of the ordinance. I hold myself, and any
learned casuist of the Church would hold me, as free to
disclose all the particulars of what you term your confes-
sion, as if they had come to my knowledge in a secular
way.”
“This is not right, father !” said Hilda, fixing her
eyes on the old man's.
“ Do not you see, child,” he rejoined, with some little
beat “ with all your nicety of conscience, cannot you
recogrize it as my duty to make the story known to the
proper authorities; a great crime against public justica


THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
161
being in volved, and further evil consequences likely to
ensue?”
“ No, father, no !” answered Hilda, courageously, her
cheeks flushing and her eyes brightening as she spoke.
" Trust a girl's simple heart sooner than any casuist of
your Church, however learned he may be. Trust your
cwn heart, too! I came to your confessional, father, as I
devoutly believe, by the direct impulse of Heaven, which
also brought you hither to-day, in its mercy and love, to
relieve me of a torture that I could no longer bear. I
trusted in the pledge which your Church has always held
sacred between the priest and the human soul, which,
through his medium, is struggling towards its Father
above. What I have confided to you lies sacredly be-
tween God and yourself. Let it rest there, father ; for
this is right, and if you do otherwise, you will perpetrate
a great wrong, both as a priest and a man! And, be-
lieve me, no question, no torture, shall ever force my lips
to utter what would be necessary, in order to make my
confession available towards the punishment of the guilty
Leave Providence to deal with them!”
“ My quiet little countrywoman,” said the priest, with
half a smile on his kindly old face, "you can pluck up a
spirit, I perceive, when you fancy an occasion for one.”
"I have spirit only to do what I think right,” replied
Hilda, simply. “In other respects, I am timorous.”
"But you confuse yourself between right feelings and
very foolish inferences," continued the priest, as is the
wont of women
much I have learnt by long experi.
ence in the confessional — be they yourg or old. How
ones.


162
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
his lips.
ever, to set your heart at rest, there is no probable need
for me to reveal the matter. What you Łave told, if I
mistake rot, and perhaps more, is already known in the
quarter which it most concerns."
“ Known!” exclaimed Hilda “ Known to the authori.
ti zs of Rome! And what will be the consequence ?”
“ Hush," answered the confessor, laying his finger on
“I tell you my supposition - mind, it is no as
sertion of the fact — in order that you may go the more
cheerfully on your way, not deeming yourself burdened
with any responsibility as concerns this dark deed. And
now, daughter, what have you to give in return for an
old man's kindness and sympathy?”
“My grateful remembrance," said Hilda, fervently,
as long as I live!”
“ And nothing more?” the priest inquired, with a per-
suasive smile. “ Will you not reward him with a great
joy; one of the last joys that he may know on earth,
and a fit one to take with him into the better world ? In
a word, will you not allow him to bring you, as a stray
lamb, into the true fold? You have experienced some
little taste of the relief and comfort which the Church
kecps abundantly in store for all its faithful children.
Coine home, dear child, — poor wanderer, who hast
caught a glimpse of the heavenly light, - come home,
and be at rest."
“ Father said Hilda, much moved by his kindly
earnestness; in which, however, genuine as it was, there
might still be a leaven of professional craft. "I dare
not come a step farther than Providence shall guide me.


THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.
103
Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return to
the confessional; never dip my fingers in holy water ;
never sign my bosom with the cross. I am a daughter
of the Puritans. But, in spite of my heresy," she added,
with a sweet, tearful smile, “you may one day see the
poor girl, to whom you have done this great Christian
kindness, coming to remind you of it, and thank you for
it, in the Better Land.”
The old priest shook his head. But, as he stretched
out his hands at the same moment, in the act of benelic-
tion, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as
devout a simplicity as any Catholic of them all.


164
RODIANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XV.
HILDA AND A FRIEND.
When Hilda knelt to receive the priests benediction
the act was witnessed by a person who stood leaning
against the marble balustrade that surrounds the hundred
golden lights, before the high altar. He had stood there,
indeed, from the moment of the girl's entrance into the
confessional. His start of surprise, at first beholding her,
and the anxious gloom that afterwards settled on his face,
sufficiently betokened that he felt a deep and sad interest
in what was going forward.
After Hilda had bidden the priest farewell, she came
slowly towards the high altar. The individual, to whom
we have alluded, seemed irresolute whether to advance or
retire. His hesitation lasted so long, that the maiden
straying through a happy reverie, had crossed the wido
extent of the pavement between the confessional and the
altar, before he had decided whether to meet her. Al
last, when within a pace or two, she raised her eyes and
recognized Kenyon.
“ It is you !” she exclaimed, with joyful surprise. “]
•20 so happy."


HILDA AND A FRIEND.
165
In truth, the sculptor had never before seen, nor hardly
imagined, such a figure of peaceful beatitude as Hilda
now presented. While coming towards him in the solemn
radiance which, at that period of the day, is diffused
through the transept, and showered down beneath the
dome, she seemed of the same sukstance as the atmos-
phere that enveloped her. He could scarcely tell
whether she was imbued with sunskine, or whether it
was a glow of happiness that sbone out of her.
At all events, it was a marvellous change from the sad
girl, who had entered the confessional bewildered with
anguish, to this bright, yet softened image of religious
consolation that emerged from it. I was as if one of the
throng of angelic people, who might be hovering in the
sunny depths of the dome, had alighted on the pavement.
Indeed, this capability of transfiguration, which we often
see wrought by inward delight on persons far less capable
of it than Hilda, suggests how angels come by their
beauty. It grows out of their happiness, and lasts forever
only because that is immortal.
She held out her hand, and Kenyon was glad to take
it in his own, if only to assure himself that she was made
of earthly material.
“Yes, Hilda, I see that you are very happy," he re-
plied, gloomily, and withdrawing his hand after a single
pressure. “For me, I never was less so than at this
moment.'
“ Has any misfortune befallen you ?” asked Hilda, with
earnestness “ Pray tell me, and you shall have my
sympathy, though I must still be very happy. Now, I
9


166
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
know non it is, that the saints above are touched by the
sorrows of distressed people on earth, and yet are never
made wretched by them. Not that I profess to be a
saint, you know,” she added, smiling radiantly. “But the
heart grows so large, and so rich, and so variously en-
dowed, when it has a great sense of bliss, that it can give
smiles to some, and tears to others, with equal sincerity
and enjoy its own peace throughout all.”
“Do not say you are no saint !” answered Kenyon,
with a smile, though he felt that the tears stood in his
eyes. “ You will still be Saint Hilda, whatever Church
may canonize you."
“Ah! you would not have said so, had you seen me
but an hour ago !” murmured she. “ I was so wretched,
that there seemed a grievous sin in it.”
“ And what has made you so suddenly happy?” in.
quired the sculptor. “But first, Hilda, will you not tell
me why you were so wretched ?”
"Hail I met you yesterday, I might have told you
shat,” she replied. “To-day, there is no need.”
“ Your happiness, then ?” said the sculptor, as sadly
as before.
“ Whence comes it?”,
“A great burden has been lifted from my heart,
from my conscience, I had almost said," answered Hilda,
without shunning the glance that he fixed upon her. “I
um a new creature, since this morning, Heaven be praised
for it! It was a blessed hour a blessed impulse - that
brought me to this beautiful and glorious cathedral.
shall hold it in loving remembrance while I live, as the
spot where I foun:t infinite peace after infinite trouble.”
I


HILDA AND A FRIEND.
167
Her heart seemed so full, that it spilt its new g. ish of
happiness, as it were, like rich and sunny wine out of an
over-brimming goblet. Kenyon saw that she was in one
of those moods of elevated feeling, when the soul is up.
held by a strange tranquillity, which is really more pas-
cionate, and less controllable, than emotions far exceeding
it in violence. He felt that there would be indelicacy,
if he ought not rather to call it impiety, in his stealing
upon Hilda, while she was thus beyond her own guardian-
ship, and surprising her out of secrets which she might
afterwards bitterly regret betraying to him. Therefore,
though yearning to know what had happened, he resolved
to forbear further question.
Simple and earnest people, however, being accustomed
to speak from their genuine impulses, cannot easily, as
craftier men do, avoid the subject which they have at
heart. As often as the sculptor unclosed his lips, such
words as these were ready to burst out:
“ Hilda, have you flung your angelic purity into that
mass of unspeakable corruption, the Roman Church?”
“What were you saying?” she asked, as Kenyon
forced back an almost uttered exclamation of this
kind.
“I was thinking of what you have just remarked about
the cathedral,” said he, looking up into the mighty hollow
of the dome. “ It is indeed a magnificent structure, and
an adequate expression of the Faith which built it.
When I behold it in a proper mood,
that is to say,
when I bring my mind into a fair relation with the
minds and purposes of its spiritual and material archi
-


168
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
tects, - I see but one or two criticisms to make. One
is, that it needs painted windows."
“Oh, no!” said Hilda. . “ They would be quite in
consistent with so much richness of color in the interior
of the church. Besides, it is a Gothic ornament, and
only suited to that style of architecture, which requires
& gorgeous dimness.”
“ Nevertheless," continued the sculptor, “yonder square
apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are quite
out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of every-
thing about them. They remind me of that portion
of Aladdin's palace which he left unfinished, in order
that his royal father-in-law might put the finishing touch.
Daylight, in its natural state, ought not to be admitted
here. It should stream through a brilliant illusion of
saints and hierarchies, and old scriptural images, and
symbolized dogmas, purple, blue, golden, and a broad
flame of scarlet. Then, it would be just such an illu-
mination as the Catholic faith allows to its believers.
But, give me - to live and die in — the pure, white
light of heaven!”
“Why do you look so sorrowfully at me?” asked
Hilda, quietly meeting his disturbed gaze. “ What would
you say to me? I love the white light too!”
“I fancied so," answered Kenyon. “Forgive me,
Hilda ; but I must needs speak. You seemed to me a
rare mixture of impressibility, sympathy, sensitiveness
to many influences, with a certain quality of common
Bense ; - no, not that, but a higher and finer attribute,
for which I find no better word. However tremulously


HILDA AND A FRIEND.
169
you mighit vivrate, this quality, I supposed, would always
bring you back to the equipoise. You were a creature
of imagination, and yet as truly a New England girl as
any with whom you grew up in your native village. If
there were one person in the world, whose native recti-
tude of thought, and something deeper, more reliable,
than thought, I would have trusted against all the arts of
a priesthood, -- whose taste alone, so exquisite and sincere
that it rose to be a moral virtue, I would have rested
upon as a sufficient safeguard — it was yourself !”
“I am conscious of no such high and delicate qualities
as you allow me," answered Hilda. “ But what bave I
done that a girl of New England birth and culture, with
the right sense that her mother taught her, and the con-
science that she developed in her, should not do ?”
“ Hilda, I saw you at the confessional !” said Kenyon.
"Ah, well, my dear friend,” replied Hilda, casting
down her eyes, and looking somewhat confused, yet not
ashamed, “ you must try to forgive me for that, — if you
deem it wrong,
because it has saved my reason, and
made me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, I
would have confessed to you.”
“ Would to Heaven I had !” ejaculated Kenyon.
“I think,” Hilda resumed, “I shall never go to the
confessional again ; for there can scarcely come such a
sore trial twice in my life. If I had been a wiser girl, a
stronger, and a more sensible, very likely I might not
have
gone
to the confessional at all. It was the sin of
others that drove me thither; not my own, though it
almost seemed so. Being what I am, I must either beve
VOL. U.


170
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
done what you saw me doing, or have gone mad. Would
that have been better ?”
“Then you are not a Catholic ?” asked the sculptor
earnestly.
“Really, I do not quite know what I am," replied
Hilda, encountering his eyes with a frank and simple
gaze. “I have a great deal of faith, and Catholicism
seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not I
be a Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what I
cannot find elsewhere? The more I see of this worship,
the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it
adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. If
its ministers were but a little more than human, above all
error, pure from all iniquity, what a religion would it
be!”
“I need not fear your perversion to the Catholic faith,”
remarked Kenyon, “ if you are at all aware of the bitter
sarcasm implied in your last observation. It is very just
Only, the exceeding ingenuity of the system stamps it
As the contrivance of man, or some worse author; not
an emanation of the broad and simple wisdom from on
high.”
“It may be so," said Hilda ; " but I meant no sarcasm."
Thus conversing, the two friends went together down
the grand extent of the nave. Before leaving the church,
they turned to admire again its mighty breadth, the re-
moteness of the glory behind the altar, and the effect of
visionary splendor and magnificence imparted by the long
bars of smoky sunshine, which travelled so far before ar
riving at a place of rest.


HILDA AND A FRIEND
171
- Thank Heaven for having brought me hither!" said
Hilda, fervently.
Kenyon's mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of her
Catholic propensities; and now what he deemed her dis.
proportionate and misapplied veneration for the sublime
edifice, stung him into irreverence.
“The best thing I know of St. Peter's," observed he,
" is its equable temperature. We are now enjoying the
coulness of last winter, which, a few months hence, will
be the warmth of the present summer.
It has no cure, I
suspect, in all its length and breadth, for a sick soul, but
it would make an admirable atmospheric hospital for sick
bodies. What a delightful shelter would it be for the in-
valids who throng to Rome, where the sirocco steals away
their strength, and the tramontana stabs them through
and through, like cold steel with a poisoned point! But,
within these walls, the thermometer never varies. Winter
and summer are married at the high altar, and dwell to.
gether in perfect harmony."
“Yes," said Hilda ; " and I have always felt this soft,
unchanging climate of Saint Peter's to be another mani-
festation of its sanctity."
“That is not precisely my idea," replied Kenyon.
“ But what a delicious life it would be, if a colony of
people with delicate lungs - or merely with delicate
fancies - could take up their abode in this ever-mild
and tranquil air. These architectural tombs of the
popes
might serve for dwellings, and each brazen sepulchral
doorway would become a domestic threshold. Then the
lorer, if he dared, might say to his mistress, “Will you


172
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN!.
share my tomb with me?' and, winning her soft consent,
he would lead her to the altar, and thence to yonder
sepulchre of Pope Gregory, which shculd be their nup-
tial home. What a life would be theirs, Hilda, in their
marble Eden!”
“ It is not kind, nor like yourself,” said Hilda, gently,
to throw ridicule on emotions which are genuine. I
revere this glorious church for itself and its purposes ;
and love it, moreover, because here I have found sweet
peace, after a great anguish."
" Forgive me," answered the sculptor, " and I will
do so no more. My heart is not so irreverent as my
words.”
They went through the piazza of Saint Peter's and the
adjacent streets, silently at first ; but, before reaching
the bridge of St. Angelo, Hilda's flow of spirits began
to bubble forth, like the gush of a streamlet that has
been shut up by frost, or by a heavy stone over its source.
Kenyon had never found her so delightful as now; so
softened out of the chillness of her virgin pride ; so full
of fresh thoughts, at which he was often moved to smile,
although, on turning them over a little more, he soms.
times discovered that they looked fanciful only because
so absolutely true.
But, indeed, she was not quite in a normal state.
Emerging from gloom into sudden cheerfulness, the effect
upon Hilda was as if she were just now created. After
long torpor, receiving back her intellectual activity, she
derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of her facul.
ties, which were set in motion by causes that seemed in.


HILDA AND A FRIEND.
173.
adequate. She continually brought to Kenyon's mind
the image of a child, making its plaything of every ob-
ject, but sporting in good faith, and with a kind of seri-
nusness. Looking up, for example, at the statue of St.
Michael, on the top of Hadrian's castellated tomb, Hilda
fancied an interview between the Archangel and the old
emperor's ghost, who was naturally displeased at finding
his mausoleum, which he had ordained for the stately
and solemn repose of his ashes, converted to its present
purposes.
“ But St. Michael, no doubt,” she thoughtfully re-
marked, " would finally convince the Emperor Hadrian,
that where a warlike despot is sown as the seed, a for-
tress and a prison are the only possible crop.”
They stopped on the bridge to look into the swift eddy-
ing flow of the yellow Tiber, a mud-puddle in strenuous
motion; and Hilda wondered whether the seven-branched
golaen candlestick, the holy candlestick of the Jews
which was lost at the Ponte Molle, in Constantine's
time — had yet been swept as far down the river as
this.
“ It probably stuck where it fell,” said the sculptor ;
“ and, by this time, is imbedded thirty feet deep in the
mud of the Tiber. Nothing will ever bring it to light
again.”
"I fancy you are mistaken," replied Hilda, smiling.
“ There was a meaning and purpose in each of its seven
branches, and such a candlestick cannot be lost forever.
When it is found again, and seven lights are kindled and
burning in it, the whole world will gain the illumination


174
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
;
which it needs. Would not this be an admirable idea
for a mystic story or parable, or seven-branched alle.
gory, full of poetry, art, philosophy, and religion? 11
shall be called The Recovery of the Sacred Candle-
stick. As each branch is lighted, it shall have a differ-
ently colored lustre from the other six ; and when all
the seven are kindled, their radiance shall combine into
the intense white light of truth.”
“Positively, Hilda, this is a magnificent conception,"
cried Kenyon. “ The more I look at it, the brighter it
burns.”
“I think so too,” said Hilda, enjoying a childlike pleas-
ure in her own idea. “ The theme is better suited for
verse than prose; and when I go home to America, I
will suggest it to one of our poets. Or, seven poets might
write the poem together, each lighting a separate branch
of. the Sacred Candlestick.”
you think of going home?” Kenyon asked.
“ Only yesterday," she replied, “I longed to flee away.
Now, all is changed, and, being happy again, I should feel
deep regret at leaving the Pictorial Land. But, I cannot
tell. In Rome, there is something dreary and awful,
which we can never quite escape. At least, I thought so
yesterday.”
When they reached the Via Portoghese, and ap-
proached Hilda's tower, the doves, who were waiting
aloft, flung themselves upon the air, and came floating
down about her head. The girl caressed them, and re-
sponded to their cooings with similar sounds from her
own lips, and with words of endearment ; and thais
“ Then


HILIA AND A FRIEND.
175
joyful flutterings and airy little flights, evidently im-
pelled by pure exuberance of spirits, seemed to show that
the doves had a real sympathy with their mistress's
state of mind. For peace had descended upon her like
a dove.
Bidding the sculptor farewell, Hilda climbed her tower,
and came forth upon its summit to trim the Virgin's lamp.
The doves, well knowing her custom, had flown up thither
to meet her, and again hovered about her head ; and very
lovely was her aspect, in the evening sunlight, which had
little further to do with the world, just then, save to fling
a golden glory on Hilda's hair, and vanish.
Turning her eyes down into the dusky street which she
had just quitted, Hilda saw the sculptor still there, and
waved her hand to him.
“ How sad and dim he looks, down there in that dreary
street !” she said to herself. “ Something weighs upon
his spirits. Would I could comfort him.”
“ How like a spirit she looks, aloft there, with the even-
ing glory round her head, and those winged creatures
claiming her as akin to them !” thought Kenyon, on his
part.
“How far above me! how unattainable! Ah, if I
could lift myself to her region! Or- if it be not a sin
to wish it would that I might draw her down to an
earthly fireside !”
What a sweet reverence is that, when a young man
deems his mistress a little more than mortal, and almost
hides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart !
A trifling circumstance, but such as lovers make much of,
gave him hope. One of the doves, which had been rest.


176
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
ing on Hilda's shoulder, suddenly few downward, as if
recognizing him as its mistress's dear friend ; and perhaps
commissioned with an errand of regard, brushed his up-
turned face with its wings, and again soared aloft.
The sculptor watched the bird's return, and saw Hilda
greet it with a smile.


SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
177
CHAPTER XVI.
SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
Ir being still considerably earlier than the period at
which artists and tourists are accustomed to assemble in
Rome, the sculptor and Hilda found themselves compara-
tively alone there. The dense mass of native Roman
life, in the midst of which they were, served to press them
nearer to one another. It was as if they had been thrown
together on a desert island. Or, they seemed to have
wandered, by some strange chance, out of the common
world, and encountered each other in a depopulated city,
where there were streets of lonely palaces, and unreckon.
able treasures of beautiful and admirable things, of which
they two became the sole inheritors.
In such circumstances, Hilda's gentle reserve must havo
been stronger than her kindly disposition permitted, if the
friendship between Kenyon and herself had not grown as
warm as a maiden's friendship can ever be, without abso
lutely and avowedly blooming into love. On the sculp-
tor's side, the amaranthine flower was already in full blow.
But it is very beautiful, though the lover's heart may grow
chill at the perception, to see how the snow will sometimes
8


178
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
linger in a virgin's breast, even after the spring is well
advanced. In such alpine soils, the summer will not be
anticipated; we seek vainly for passionate flowers, and
blossoms of fervid hue and spicy fragrance, finding only
snowdrops and sunless violets, when it is almost the full
season for the crimson rose.
With so much tenderness as Hilda had in her nature,
it was strange that she so reluctantly admitted the idea of
love; especially as, in the sculptor, she found both con.
geniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and differ-
ences of character; these being as essential as those to
any poignancy of mutual emotion.
So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not
love him, though she admitted him within the quiet circle
of her affections as a dear friend and trusty counsellor.
If we knew what is best for us, or could be content with
what is reasonably good, the sculptor might well have
boen satisfied, for a season, with this calm intimacy, which
80 sweetly kept him a stranger in her heart, and a cere.
monious guest; and yet allowed him the free enjoyment
of all but its deeper recesses.
The flowers that grow
outside of those mner sanctities have a wild, hasty charm,
which it is well to prove; there may be sweeter ones
within the sacred precinct, but none that will die while
you are handling them, and bequeathe you a delicious
legacy, as these do, in the perception of their evanescence
and unreality.
And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like
80 many other maidens, lingered on the hither side of
passion; her finer instinct and keeper sensibility mada


SNOWDROTS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
179
her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men
are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness,
as possessing already such measure of as her heart
could hold, and of a quality most agreeable to her virgin
tastes.
Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon's gen-
ius, unconsciously wrought upon by Hilda's influence, took
A more delicate character than heretofore. He modelled,
among other things, a beautiful little statue of maiden-
hood gathering a snowdrop. It was never put into mar-
ble, however, because the sculptor soon recognized it as
onc of those fragile creations which are true only to the
moment that produces them, and are wronged if we try
to imprison their airy excellence in a permanent material.
On her part, Hilda returned to her customary occupa-
tions with a fresh love for them, and yet with a deeper
look into the heart of things; such as those necessarily
acquire, who have passed from pictart galleries into dun.
geon gloom, and thence come back to the picture-gallery
again. It is questionable whether she was ever so perfect
a copyist thenceforth. She could not yield herself up to
the painter so unreservedly as in times past; her charac-
ter had developed a sturdier quality, which made her less
pliable to the influence of other minds. She saw into the
picture as profoundly as ever, and perhaps more so, but
not with the devout sympathy that had formerly given her
entire possession of the old master's idea. She had known
such a reality, that it taught her to distinguish inevitably
the large portion that is unreal, in every work of art
Instructed by sorrow, she felt that there is something be


180
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
yond almost all which pictorial genius has prod..ced; and
she never forgot those sad wanderings from gallery to
gallery, and from church to church, where she had vainly
sought a type of the virgin mother, or the Saviour, or
saint, or martyr, which a soul in extreme need might
recognize as the adequate one.
How, indeed, should she have found such? How could
holiness be revealed to the artist of an age when the
greatest of them put genius and imagination in the place
of spiritual insight, and when, from the pope downward,
all Christendom was corrupt?
Meanwhile, months wore away, and Rome received
back that large portion of its lifeblood which runs in the
veins of its foreign and temporary population. English
visitors established themselves in the hotels, and in all the
sunny suites of apartments, in the streets convenient to
the Piazza di Spagna; the English tongue was heard
familiarly along the Corso, and English children sported.
in the Pincian Gardens.
The native Romans, on the other hand, like the butter
flies and grasshoppers, resigned themselves to the short,
sharp miserý which winter brings to a people whose ar-
rangernents are made almost exclusively with a view to
summer. Keeping no fire within-doors, except possibly a
spark or two in the kitchen, they crept out of their cheer-
less houses into the narrow, sunless, sepulchral streets,
bringing their firesides along with them, in the shape of
little earthén pots, vases, or pipkins, full of lighted char-
coal and warm ashes, over which they held their tingling
finger-ends. Even in this half-torpid wretchedness, they


SNCWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS
181
still soemed to dr;ad a pestilence in the sunshine, and
kept on the shady side of the piazzas, as scrupulously as
'n summer Through the open door-ways -- no need to
shut them when the weather within was bleaker than
without a glimpse into the interior of their dwellings
słowed the uncarpeted brick-floors, as dismal as the
pavement of a tomb.
They drew their old cloaks about them, nevertheless,
and threw the corners over their shoulders, with the
dignity of attitude and action that have come down to
these modern citizens, as their sole inheritance from the
togaed nation. Somehow or other, they managed to keep
up
their
poor, frostbitten hearts against the pitiless atmos-
phere with a quiet and uncomplaining endurance that
really seems the most respectable point in the present
Roman character. For, in New England, or in Russia,
or scarcely in a hut of the Esquimaux, there is no such
discomfort to be borne as by Romans in wintry weather,
when the orange-trees bear icy fruit in the gardens; and
when the rims of all the fountains are shaggy with icicles,
and the fountain of Trevi skimmed almost across with a
glassy surface; and when there is a slide in the piazza
of St. Peter's, and a fringe of brown, frozen foam along
the eastern shore of the Tiber, and sometimes a fall of
great snow-flakes into the dreary lanes and alleys of the
miserable city. Cold blasts, that bring death with them,
now blow upon the shivering invalids, who came hither
in the hope of breathing balmy airs.
Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclem:
ent months, from November to April, hencefcrth bo


182
ROMANCE OF MONTE DEN.
spent in serne country that recognizes winter as an into
gral portion of its year!
Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately
picture galleries, where nobody, indeed, — not the princely
or priestly founders, nor any who have inherited their
cheerless magnificence, - ever dreamed of such an impos-
sibility as fireside warmth, since those great palaces were
built. Hilda, therefore, finding her fingers so much be-
numbed that the spiritual influence could not be trans-
mitted to them, was persuaded to leave her easel before a
picture, on one of these wintry days, and pay a visit to
Kenyon's studio. But neither was the studio anything
better than a dismal den, with its marble shapes shivering
around the walls, cold as the snow-images which the
sculptor used to model, in his boyhood, and sadly behold
them weep themselves away at the first thaw.
Kenyon's Roman artisans, all this while, had been at
work on the Cleopatra. The fierce Egyptian queen had
now struggled almost out of the imprisoning stone; or,
rather, the workmen had found her within the mass of
marble, imprisoned there by magic, but still fervid to the
touch with fiery life, the fossil woman of an age that pro-
duced statelier, stronger, and more passionate creatures
than our own. You already felt her compressed heat,
and were aware of a tiger-like character even in her
repose. If Octavius should make his appearance, though
the marble still held her within its embrace, it was evident
that she would tear herself forth in a twinkling, either to
spring enraged at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to
vake one more proof of her rich blandishments, or fall


SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
183
“Ah, your
ing lowig at his feet, to try the efficacy of a woman's
tears.
"I am aslıamed to tell you how much I admire this
statue,” said Hilda. “ No other sculptor could have done
it.”
« This is very sweet for me to hear,” replied Kenyon ;
" and since your reserve keeps you from saying more, I
shall imagine you expressing everything that an artist
would wish to hear said about his work."
“ You will not easily go beyond my genuine opinion,
answered Hilda, with a smile.
kind word makes me very happy,” said the
sculptor, "and I need it, just now, on behalf of my Cleo-
patra. That inevitable period has come for I have
found it inevitable, in regard to all my works — when I
look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath
to make it live, and find it a mere lump of senseless stone,
into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the
spiritual part of my idea. I should like, now — only it
would be such shameful treatment for a discrowned queen,
and my own offspring, too
I should like to hit poor
Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with this
mallet.”
6 That is a blow which all statues seem doomed to
receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand that
sculptured them,” said Hilda, laughing. “ But you must
not let yourself be too much disheartened by the decay of
your faith in what you produce. I have heard a poet ex-
press similar distaste for his own most exquisite poemin
and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense of short


184
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN...
coming, must always be the reward and punishment of
those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful idea.
It only proves that you have been able to imagine things
too high for mortal faculties to execute. The idea leaves
you an imperfect image of itself, which you at first mis-
take for the ethereal reality, but soon find that the latter
has escaped out of your closest embrace.”
“ And the only consolation is,” remarked Kenyon,
" that the blurred and imperfect image may still make
a very respectable appearance in the eyes of those who
have not seen the original.”
“ More than that,” rejoined Hilda ; " for there is a class
of spectators whose sympathy will help them to see the
perfect through a mist of imperfection. Nobody, I think,
ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who
cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or
artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is
suggestiveness."
“ You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I
have much faith," said Kenyon. “Had you condemned
Cleopatra, nothing should have saved her."
“ You invest me with such an awful responsibility," she
replied, “ that I shall not dare to say a single word about
your other works."
“At least,” said the sculptor, " tell me whether you
recognize this bust.”
He pointed to a bust of Donatello. It was not the one
which Kenyon had begun to model at Monte Beni, but a
reminiscence of the Count's face, wrought under the influ
ence of all the sculptor's knowledge of his history, and of


SNOWDROPS AND MAIDEN..Y DELIGHTS.
185
-
his personal and hereditary character. It stood on a
wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with fine, white
dust and small chips of marble scattered about it, and it-
self incrusted all round with the white, shapeless sub-
stance of the block. In the midst appeared the features
lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a fossil
countenance but we have already used this simile, in
reference to Cleopatra — with the accumulations of longo
past ages clinging to it.
And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression,
and a more recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded
in putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The
reader is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen's three-
fold analogy, — the clay model, the Life; the plaster cast,
the Death ; and the sculptured marble, the Resurrection,
- and it seemed to be made good by the spirit that was
kindling up these imperfect features, like a lambent
flame.
“I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the
face,” observed Hilda ; “ the likeness surely is not a strik-
ing one. There is a good deal of external resemblance,
still, to the features of the Faun of Praxiteles, between
whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted thai
there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the expression
is now so very different !”
“What do you take it to be?” asked the sculptor.
“I bardly know how to define it,” she answered.
it has an effect as if I could see this countenance gradually
brightening while I look at it. It gives the impression of
a growing intellectual power and moral sense Donatello's
66 But


136
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI,
lace used to evince little more than a genial, pleasurable
sort of vivacity, and capability of enjoyment. But, nere
a soul is being breathed into him; it is the Faun, but ad
vancing towards a state of higher development."
“ Hilda, do you see all this?” exclaimed Kenyon, in
considerable surprise. “I may have had such an idea in
my mind, but was quite unaware that I had succeeded in
conveying it into the marble.”
“Forgive me," said Hilda, “but I question whether
this striking effect has been brought about by any skill or
purpose on the sculptor's part. Is it not, perhaps, the
chance result of the bust being just so far shaped out, in
the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced
in the original ? A few more strokes of the chisel might
change the whole expression, and so spoil it for what it is
now worth.”
“I believe you are right," answered Kenyon, thought-
fully examining his work; "and, strangely enough, it was
the very expression that I tried unsuccessfully to produce
in the clay model. Well; not another chip shall be struck
from the marble.”
And, accordingly, Donatello's bust (like that rude, rough
mass of the head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, at Flor-
ence) has ever since remained in an unfinished state.
Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful attempt to-
wards copying the features of the Faun of Praxiteles.
One observer in a thousand is conscious of something
more, and lingers long over this mysterious face, depart-
ing from it reluctantly, and with many a glance throwyn
lvackward. What perplexes him is the riddle that he sees


SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
187
propounded there; the riddle of the soul's growth, taking
its first impulse amid remorse and pain, and struggling
through the incrustations of the senses. It was the con-
templation of this imperfect portrait of Donatello thai
originally interested us in his history, and impelled us to
elicit from Kenyon what he knew of his friend's ad-
vonturer.


188
ROMANCE OF MONT'E BENI.
CHAPTER XVII.
REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM,
NAEN Hilda and himself turned away from the un
fivushed bust, the sculptor's mind still dwelt upon the
renginiscences which it suggested.
“ You have not seen Donatello recently,” he remarked,
“and therefore cannot be aware how sadly he is changed.”
“ No wonder !” exclaimed Hilda, growing pale.
The terrible scene which she had witnessed, when
Donatello's face gleamed out in so fierce a light, came
back upon her memory, almost for the first time since
she knelt at the confessional. Hilda, as is sometimes the
case with persons whose delicate organization requires a
peculiar safeguard, had an elastic faculty of throwing off
such recollections as would be too painful for endurance.
The first shock of Donatello's and Miriam's crime hadh,
indeed, broken through the frail defence of this voluntary
forgetfulness; but, once enabled to relieve herself of the
ponderous anguish over which she had so long brooded,
she had practised a subtile watchfulness in preventing its
return.
“No wonder, do you say?” repeated the sculptor,
looking at her with interest, but not exactly with sur


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.
189
prise ; for he had long suspected that Hilda had a painful
knowledge of events which he himself little more than
surmised. “ Then you know! -you have heard! But
what can you possibly have heard, and through what
channel ?”
“Nothing!” replied Hilda, faintly. “Not one word
has reached my ears from the lips of any human being
Let us never speak of it again! No, no! never again !"
“ And Miriam !” said Kenyon, with irrepressible inter-
est. “Is it also forbidden to speak of her ?”
“ Hush! do not even utter her name! Try not to
think of it!” Hilda whispered. “It may bring terrible
consequences !”
“My dear Hilda !” exclaimed Kenyon, regarding her
with wonder and deep sympathy. “My sweet friend,
have you had this secret hidden in your delicate, maidenly
heart, through all these many months! No wonder that
your life was withering out of you."
“It was so, indeed !” said Hilda, shuddering.
« Even
now, I sicken at the recollection.”
“ And how could it have come to your knowledge ? "
continued the sculptor. “But, no matter! Do not tor
ture yourself with referring to the subject. Only, if at
any time it should be a relief to you, remember that we
can speak freely together, for Miriam has herself sug
gested a confidence between us.”
“ Miriam has suggested this !” exclaimed Hilda
"Yes, I remember, now, her advising that the secret
should be shared with you. But I have survived the
death-struggle that it cost me and need make no further


190
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
revelations. And Miriam has spoken to you! What
manner of woman can she be, who, after sharing in such
a deed, can make it a topic of conversation with her
friends ?”
“Ah, Hilda,” replied Kenyon, “ you do not know, for
you
could never learn it from your own heart, which is
all purity and rectitude, what a mixture of good thero
may be in things evil; and how the greatest criminal, if
you look at his conduct from his own point of view, oi
from any side-point, may seem not so unquestionably
guilty, after all. So with Miriam ; so with Donatello.
They are, perhaps, partners in what we must call awful
guilt; and yet, I will own to you, - when I think of the
original cause, the motives, the feelings, the sudden con-
currence of circumstances thrusting them onward, the
urgency of the moment, and the sublime unselfishness on
I know not well how to distinguish it from
much that the world calls heroism. Might we not render
some such verdict as this ? — Worthy of Death, but not
unworthy of Love !'”
“Never!” answered Hilda, looking at the matter
through the clear crystal medium of her own integrity.
“ This thing, as regards its causes, is all a mystery to me,
and must remain so. But there is, I believe, only ono
right and one wrong; and I do not understand, and may
God keep me from ever understanding, how two things
so totally unlike can be mistaken for one another; nor
how two mortal foes, as Right and Wrong surely are, can
work together in the same deed. This is
my
faith; and
I should be led astray, if you could persuade me to give
it up."
either part


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.
191
pure evi)
* Alas for poor human nature, then !” said Kenyon,
sadly, and yet half smiling at Hilda's unworldly and im-
practicable theory. “I always felt you, my dear friend,
a terribly severe judge, and have been perplexed to
conceive how such tender syropathy could coexist with
the remorselessness of a steel blade. You need no
mercy, and therefore know not how to show any."
“That sounds like a bitter gibe,” said Hilda, with the
tears springing into her eyes. “ But I cannot help it. It
does not alter my perception of the truth. If there be
any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as you affirm,
and which appears to me almost more shocking than
- then the good is turned to poison, not the evil
to wholesomeness."
The sculptor seemed disposed to say something more,
but yielded to the gentle steadfastness with which Hilda
declined to listen. She grew very sad; for a reference to
this one dismal topic had set, as it were, a prison-door
ajar, and allowed a throng of torturing recollections to
escape from their dungeons into the pure air and white
radiance of her soul She bade Kenyon a briefer fare-
well than ordinary, and went homeward to her tower.
In spite of her efforts to withdraw them to other sub-
jects, her thoughts dwelt upon Miriam ; and, as had not
heretofore happened, they brought with them a painful
doubt whether a wrong had not been committed, on Hil.
da's part, towards the friend ance so beloved. Something
that Miriam had said, in their final conversation, recurred
to her memory, and seemed now to deserve more weight
than Hilda had assigned to it, in her horror at the crime
;


192
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
just perpetrated. It was not that the deed looked lese
wicked and terrible in the retrospect; but she asked hur-
self whether there were not other questions to be con.
sidered, aside from that single one of Miriam's guilt or
innocence; as, for example, whether a close bond of
friendship, in which we once voluntarily engage, ought
to be severed on account of any unworthiness, which we
subsequently detect in our friend. For, in these unions
of hearts, -- call them marriage, or whatever else, - we
take each other for better for worse. Availing ourselves
of our friend's intimate affection, we pledge our own, as
to be relied upon in every emergency. And what sadder,
more desperate emergency could there be, than had be-
fallen Miriam ? Who more need the tender succor of the
innocent, than wretches stained with guilt? And must a
selfish care for the spotlessness of our own garments keep
us from pressing the guilty ones close to our hearts,
wherein, for the very reason that we are innocent, lies
their securest refuge from further ill ?
It was a sad thing for Hilda to find this moral enigma
propounded to her conscience; and to feel that, whichever
way she might settle it, there would be a cry of
wrong on
the other side. Still the idea stubbornly came back, that
the tie between Miriam and herself had been real, the
affection true, and that therefore the implied compact war
not to be shaken off.
“ Miriam loved me well,” thought Hilda, remorsefully,
* and I failed her at her sorest need.”
Miriam loved her well; and not less ardent had been
the affection which Miriam's warm, tender, and generous


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.
193
characteristics had excited in Hilda's more reserved and
quiet nature. It had never been extinguished ; for, in
part, the wretchedness which Hilda had since endured
was but the struggle and writhing of her sensibility, still
yearning towards her friend. And now, at the earliest
encouragement, it awoke again, and cried out piteously,
complaining of the violence that had been done it.
Recurring to the delinquencies of which she fancied
(we say “fancied,” because we do not unhesitatingly adopt
Hilda's present view, but rather suppose her misled by
her feelings) - of which she fancied herself guilty towards
her friend, she suddenly remembered a sealed packet that
Miriam had confided to her. It had been put into her
hands with earnest injunctions of secrecy and care, and if
unclaimed after a certain period, was to be delivered ac.
cording to its address. Hilda had forgotten it; or, rather
she had kept the thought of this commission in the back
ground of her consciousness, with all other thoughts re-
ferring to Miriam.
But
now, the recollection of this packet, and the evident
stress which Miriam laid upon its delivery at the specified
time, impelled Hilda to hurry up the staircase of her
tower, dreading lest the period should already have
elapsed.
No; the hour had not gone by, but was on the very
point of passing. Hilda read the brief note of instruction,
on a corner of the envelope, and discovered, that, in case
of Miriam's absence from Rome, the packet was to be
taken to its destination that very day.
“How nearly I had violated my promise!” said Hilda
TOL.


194
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“And, since we are separated forever, it has the sacred
ness of an injunction from a dead friend. There is no
time to be lost."
So Hilda set forth in the decline of the afternoon, and
pursued her way towards the quarter of the city in which
stands the Palazzo Cenci. Her habit of self-reliance was
60 simply strong, so natural, and now so well established
by long use, that the idea of peril seldom or never oc.
curred to Hilda, in her lonely life.
She differed, in this particular, from the generality of
her sex ; although the customs and character of her native
land often produce women who meet the world with gen-
tle fearlessness, and discover that its terrors have been
absurdly exaggerated by the tradition of mankind. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the apprehensiveness
of women is quite gratuitous. Even as matters now
stand, they are really safer in perilous situations and
emergencies, than men; and might be still more so, if
they trusted themselves more confidingly to the chivalry
of manhood. In all her wanderings about Rome, Hilda
had gone and returned as securely as she had been ac-
customed to tread the familiar street of her New England
village, where every face wore a look of recognition.
With respect to whatever was evil, foul, and ugly, in this
populous and corrupt city, she trod as if invisible, and
not only so, but blind. She was altogether unconscious
of anything wicked that went along the same pathway,
but without jostling or impeding her, any more than gross
substance hinders the wanderings of a spirit. Thus it is
that, bad as the world is said to have
grown,
innocence
;


REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.
195
continues to make a paradise around itself, and keep it
still unfallen.
Hilda's present expedition led her into what was
physically, at least - the foulest and ugliest part of
Rome. In that vicinity lies the Ghetto, where thousands
of Jews are crowded within a narrow compass, and lead
a close, unclean, and multitudinous life, resembling that
of maggots when they over-populate a decaying cheese.
Hilda passed on the borders of this region, but had no
occasion to step within it. Its neighborhood, however,
naturally partook of characteristics like its own. There
was a confusion of black and hideous houses, piled mas-
sively out of the ruins of former ages ; rude and desti-
tute of plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, and yet
displaying here and there an arched gateway, a cornice, a
pillar, or a broken arcade, that might have adorned a
palace. Many of the houses, indeed, as they stood, might
once have been palaces, and possessed still a squalid kind
of grandeur. Dirt was everywhere, strewing the narrow
streets, and incrusting the tall shabbiness of the edifices,
from the foundations to the roofs; it lay upon the thresh-
olds, and looked out of the windows, and assumed the
guise of human life in the children, that seemed to be
engendered out of it. Their father was the sun, and
their mother-
a heap of Roman mud.
It is a question of speculative interest, whether the an-
cient Romans were as unclean a people as we everywhere
find those who have succeeded them. There appears to
be a kind of malignant spell in the spots that have been
inhabited by these masters of the world, or made famous


196
RODAJCE OF MONTE BENI
in their history; an inhcrited and inalienable curse, ira
pelling their successors to fling dirt and defilement upon
whatever temple, column, ruined palace, or triumphal
arch, may be nearest at hand; and on every monument
that the old Romans built. It is most probably a classic
trait, regularly transmitted downward, and perhaps a little
modified by the better civilization of Christianity ; 50
that Cæsar may have trod narrower and filthier ways
in
his path to the Capitol, than even those of modern
Rome.
As the paternal abode of Beatrice, the gloomy old
palace of the Cencis had an interest for Hilda, although
not sufficiently strong, hitherto, to overcome the disheart-
ening effect of the exterior, and draw her over its thresh-
old.
The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect, contained
only an old woman selling roasted chestnuts and baked
squash-seeds; she looked sharply at Hilda, and inquired
whether she had lost her way.
“ No," said Hilda ; “I seek the Palazzo Cenci."
“ Yonder it is, fair signorina,” replied the Roman ma-
tron. "If you wish that packet delivered, which I see
in your hand, my grandson Pietro shall run with it for a
baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill-omen for
young maidens.”
Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity
of doing her errand in person. She approached the front
of the palace, which, with all its immensity, had but a
mean appearance, and seemed an abode which the lovely
shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, unless her
doom made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood about the


BEMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM,
197
portal, and gazed at the brown-haired, fair-cheeked Anglo-
Saxon girl, with approving glances, but not indecorously.
Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty flights of
which were to be surmounted, before reaching the door
whither she was bound.


98
ROMANCE OF BONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP.
BETWEEN Hilda and the sculptor there had been a
kind of half-expressed understanding, that both were to
visit the galleries of the Vatican the day subsequent to
their meeting at the studio. Kenyon, accordingly, failed
not to be there, and wandered through the vast ranges
of apartments, but saw nothing of his expected friend.
The marble faces, which stand innumerable along the
walls, and have kept themselves so calm through the
vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no sympathy for his
disappointment; and he, on the other hand, strode past
these treasures and marvels of antique art, with the indif-
ference which any pre-occupation of the feelings is apt
to produce, in reference to objects of sculpture. Being
of so cold and pure a substance, and mostly deriving their
vitality more from thought than passion, they require to
be seen through a perfectly transparent medium.
And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon
Hilda's delicate perceptions in enabling him to look at
iwo or three of the statues, about which they had talked
together, that the entire purpose of his visit was defeated


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP.
199
by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid, when
the united power of two sympathetic, yet dissimilar intel-
ligences, is brought to bear upon a poem by reading it
aloud, or upon a picture or statue, by viewing it in each
other's company.
Even if not a word of criticism be
uttered, the insight of either party is wonderfully deep-
ened, and the comprehension broadened; so that the inner
mystery of a work of genius, hidden from one, will often
reveal itself to two. Missing such help, Kenyon saw
nothing at the Vatican which he had not seen a thousand
times before, and more perfectly than now.
In the chill of his disappointment, he suspected that it
was a very cold art to which he had devoted himself.
He questioned, at that moment, whether sculpture really
ever softens and warms the material which it handles ;
whether carved marble is anything but limestone, aftet
all ; and whether the Apollo Belvidere itself possesses
any merit above its physical beauty, or is beyond criti-
cism even in that generally acknowledged excellence.
In fitting glances, heretofore, he had seemed to behold
this statue as something ethereal and godlike, but not
DOW.
Nothing pleased him, unless it were the group of the
Laocoon, which, in its immortal agony, impressed Kenyon
as a type of the long, fierce struggle of man, involved in
the knotted entanglements of Error and Evil, those two
snakes, which, if no divine help intervene, will be sure
to strangle him and his children in the end. What he
most admired was the strange calmness diffused through
this bitter strife ; so that it resembled the rage of the sea,


200
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
inade calm by its immensity, or the tumult of Niagara
which ceases to be tumult because it lasts forever. Thus,
in the Laocoön, the horror of a moment grew to be the
fate of interminable ages. Kenyon looked upon the
group as the one triumph of sculpture, creating the re-
pose, which is essential to it, in the very acme of turbu-
lent effort ; but, in truth, it was his mood of unwonted
despondency that made him so sensitive to the terrible
magnificence, as well as to the sad moral of this work.
Hilda herself could not have helped him to see it with
nearly such intelligence.
A good deal more depressed than the nature of tho
disappointment warranted, Kenyon went to his studio,
and took in hand a great lump of clay. He soon found,
however, that his plastic cunning had departed from him
for the time. So he wandered forth again into the un-
easy streets of Rome, and walked up and down the Corso,
where, at that period of the day, a throng of passers-by
and loiterers choked up the narrow sidewalk. A penitent
was thus brought in contact with the sculptor.
It was a figure in a white robe, with a kind of feature-
less mask over the face, through the apertures of which
the eyes threw an unintelligible light. Such odd, ques.
tionable shapes are often seen gliding through the streets
of Italian cities, and are understood to be usually persons
of rank, who quit their palaces, their gayeties, their pomp
and pride, and assume the penitential garb for a season,
with a view of this expiating some crime, or atoning for
the aggregate of petty sins that make up a worldly life.
It is their custom to ask alms, and perhaps to measure the


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP.
201
turntiou of their penance by the time requisite to accu-
mulate a sum of money out of the little droprings of in-
dividual charity. The avails are devoted to some benefi.
cent or religious purpose; so that the benefit accruing to
their own souls is, in a manner, linked with a good done,
or intended, to their fellow-men. These figures Lave a
ghastly and sta tling effect, not so much from any very
impressive peculiarity in the garb, as from the mystery
which they bear about with them, and the sense that there
is an acknowledged sinfulness as the nucleus of it.
In the present instance, however, the penitent asked no
alms of Kenyon ; although, for the space of a minute or
two, they stood face to face, the hollow eyes of the mask
encountering the sculptor's gaze. But, just as the crowd
was about to separate them, the former spoke, in a voir
not unfamiliar to Kenyon, though rendered remote anci
strange by the guilty veil through which it penetratéd.
“Is all well with you, signor ?" inquired the penitent,
out of the cloud in which he walked.
“All is well,” answered Kenyon. “And with you?”
But the masked penitent returned no answer, being
borne away by the pressure of the throng.
The sculptor stood watching the figure, and was almost
of a mind tɔ hurry after him and follow up the conversa
tion that had been begun; but it occurred to him that
there is a sanctity (or as we might rather term it, an in.
violable etiquette) which prohibits the recognition of
persons who choose to walk under the veil of peni
tence.
“How strange!” thought Kenyon to himself. "It was
9#


202
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
surely Donatello! What can bring him to Rome, where
his recollections must be so painful, and his presence net
without peril? And Miriam! Can she have accompa-
nied him?"
He walked on, thinking of the vast change in Dona-
ello, since those days of gayety and innocence, when the
young Italian was rew in Rome, and was just beginning
to be sensible of a more poignant felicity than he had yet
experienced, in the sunny warmth of Miriam's smile.
The growth of a soul, which the sculptor half imagined
that he had witnessed in his friend, seemed hardly worth
the heavy price that it had cost, in the sacrifice of those
simple enjoyments that were gone forever. A creature
of antique healthfulness had vanished from the earth ;
and, in his stead, there was only one other morbid and
remorseful man, among millions that were cast in the same
indistinguishable mould.
The accident of thus meeting Donatello
Faun of his imagination and memory, now transformed
into a gloomy penitent — contributed to deepen the cloud
that had fallen over Kenyon's spirits. It caused him to
fancy, as we generally do, in the petty troubles which
extend not a hand's breadth beyond our own sphere, that
the whole world was saddening around him. It took the
sinister aspect of an omen, although he could not distinctly
see what trouble it might forebode.
If it had not been for a peculiar sort of pique, with
which lovers are much conversant, a preposterous kind of
resentment which endeavors to wreak itself on the be-
loved object, and on one's own heart in requital of mis-
- the glad


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP.
203
baps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at once
Save betaken himself to Hilda's studio, and asked why
the appointment was not kept. But the interview of to-
day was to have been so rich in present joy, and its re-
sults so important to his future life, that the bleak failure
was too much for his equanimity. He was angry with
poor Hilda, and censured her without a bearing ; angry
with himself, too, and therefore inflicted on this latter
criminal the severest penalty in his power; angry with
the day that was passing over him, and would not permit
its latter hours to redeem the disappointment of the
morning
To confess the truth, it had been the sculptor's purpose
to stake all his hopes on that interview in the galleries of
the Vatican. Straying with Hilda through those long
vistas of ideal beauty, he meant, at last, to utter himself
upon that theme which lovers are fain to discuss in vil-
lage-lanes, in wood-paths, on seaside sands, in crowded
streets ; it little matters where, indeed, since roses are
sure to blush along the way, and daisies and violets to
spring beneath the feet, if the spoken word be graciously
received. He was resolved to make proof whether the
kindness, that Hilda evinced for him, was the precious
token of an individual preference, or merely the sweet fra-
grance of her disposition, which other friends might sharr
as largely as himself. He would try if it were possible to
take this shy, yet frank, and innocently fearless creature,
captive, and imprison her in his heart, and make her sen.
sible of a wider freedon there, than in all the world
besides.


204
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
It was hard, we must allow, to see the shadow of a
wintry sunset falling upon a day that was to have been so
bright, and to find himself just where yesterday had left
him, only with a sense of being drearily balked, and de-
feated without an opportunity for struggle. So much had
been anticipated from these now vanished hours, that it
seemed as if no other day could bring back the same
golden hopes.
In a case like this, it is doubtful whether Kenyon could
have done a much better thing than he actually did, by
going to dine at the Café Nuovo, and drinking a flask of
Montefiascone; longing, the while, for a beaker or two of
Donatello's Sunshine. It would have been just the wine
to cure a lover's melancholy, by illuminating his heart
with tender light and warmth, and suggestions of unde-
fined hopes, too ethereal for his morbid humor to examine
and reject them.
No decided improvement resulting from the draught of
Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentino, and sat
yloomily to see an Italian comedy, which ought to have
cheered him somewhat, being full of glancing merriment,
and effective over everybody's risibilities except his own.
The sculptor came out, however, before the close of the
performance, as disconsolate as he went in.
As he made his way through the complication of nar.
row streets, which perplex that portion of the city, a car
riage passed him. It was driven rapidly, but not too fast
for the light of a gas-lamp to flare upon a face within ;
especially as it was bent forward, appearing to recognize
him, while a beckoning hand was protruded from the


THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP.
205
6 And your
windw. On his part, Kenyon at once knew the face,
and hastened to the carriage, which had now stopped.
6 Miriam !
you in Rome?” he exclaimed.
friends know nothing of it?”
“Is all well with you ?” she asked.
This inquiry, in the identical words which Donatello
had so recently addressed to him, from beneath the peni-
tent's mask, startled the sculptor. Either the previous
disquietude of his mind, or some tone in Miriam's voice,
or the unaccountableness of beholding her there at all,
made it seem ominous.
“ All is well, I believe,” answered he, doubtfully. “I
am aware of no misfortune. Have you any to an-
nounce?
He looked still more earnestly at Miriam, and felt a
dreamy uncertainty whether it was really herself to whom
he spoke. True ; there were those beautiful features, the
contour of which he had studied too often, and with a
sculptor's accuracy of perception, to be in any doubt that
it was Miriam's identical face. But he was conscious of
a change, the nature of which he could not satisfactorily
define ; it might be merely her dress, which, imperfect as
the light was, he saw to be richer than the simple garb
that she bad usually worn. The effect, he fancied, was
partly owing to a gem which she had on her bosom ; not
& diamond, but something that glimmered with a clear,
red lustre, like the stars in a southern sky. Somehow or
other, this colored light seemed an emanation of herself,
as if all that was passionate and glowing, in her native
disposition, had crystallized upon her breast, and were


206
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
just now scintillating more brilliantly than ever, in sym
pathy with some emotion of her heart.
Of course there could be no real doubt that it was
Miriam, his artist friend, with whom and Hilda he had
spent so many pleasant and familiar hours, and whom he
bad last seen at Perugia, bending with Donatello beneath
the bronze pope's benediction. It must be that selfsame
Miriam ; but the sensitive sculptor felt a difference of man
ner, which impressed him more than he conceived it possi-
ble to be affected by so external a thing. He remembered
the gossip so prevalent in Rome on Miriam's first ap-
pearance; how that she was no real artist, but the daugh-
ter of an illustrious or golden lineage, who was merely
playing at necessity; mingling with human struggle for.
her pastime; stepping out of her native sphere only for
an interlude, just as a princess might alight from her
gilded equipage to go on foot through a rustic lane.
And now, after a mask in which love and death had
performed their several parts, she had resumed her proper
character.
“Have you anything to tell me?” cried he, impatiently;
for nothing causes a more disagreeable vibration of the
nerves than this perception of ambiguousness in fami!
iar persons or affairs. “Speak; for my spirits and pa-
tience have been much tried to-day;"
Miriam put her finger on her lips, and seemed desirous
that Kenyon should know of the presence of a third per-
He now saw, indeed, that there was some one be-
side her in the carriage, hitherto concealed by her atti-
tude; a wan, it appeared, with a sallow Italiap face.
son.


CHE EXTINCIION OF A LAMP.
207
which the sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and
did not recognize.
"I can tell you nothing," she replied, and leaning to-
wards him, she whispered — appearing then more like the
Miriam whom he knew, than in what had before passed
“ Only, when the lamp goes out do not despair."
The carriage drove on, leaving Kenyon to muse over
this unsatisfactory interview, which seemed to have served
00 better purpose than to fill his mind with more omin-
ous forebodings than before. Why were Donatello and
Miriam in Rome, where both, in all likelihood, might
have much to dread? And why had one and the other
addressed him with a question that seemed prompted by
a knowledge of some calamity, either already fallen on
bis unconscious head, or impending closely over him?
"I am sluggish," muttered Kenyon, to himself ; "a
weak, nerveless fool, devoid of energy and promptitude ;
or neither Donatello nor Miriam could have escaped me
thus! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns
me deeply. How soon am I to know it too ?”
There seemed but a single calamity possible to happen
within so narrow a sphere as that witi: which the sculp-
tor was connected; and even to that one mode of evil he
could assign no definite shape, but only felt that it must
bave some reference to Hilda.
Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dallyings
with his own wishes, which he had permitted to influence
his mind throughout the day, he now hastened to the Via
Portoghese. Soon the old palace stood before him, with
its massive tower rising into the clouded night ; obscured


08
ROMANCE OF MONTE - BENI.
from view at its midmost elevation, but revealed again
higher upward, by the Virgin's lamp that twinkled on the
summit. Feeble as it was, in the broad, surrounding
gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable illumination
among Kenyon's sombre thoughts ; for, remembering Mir-
iam's last words, a fantasy had seized him that he should
find the sacred lamp extinguished.
And, even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the
star in which he puts his trust, the light quivered, sank,
gleamed up again, and finally went out, leaving the bat-
tlements of Hilda's tower in utter darkness. For the
first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary
flame, before the loftiest shrine ir Rome, had rased to
burn


THE DESERTED SHRINE.
209
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DESERTED SARINE.
KENYON knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful Pro
jestant, and daughter of the Puritans, as the girl was)
imputed to this shrine. He was aware of the profound
feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as religious, with
which her conscience had been impressed, when she be-
came the occupant of her aërial chamber, and undertook
the task of keeping the consecrated lamp alight. There
was an accuracy and a certainty about Hilda's movements,
as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their
roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe
to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp
(if she were in life, and able to creep up the steps), as
upon the rising of tomorrow's sun, with lustre undimin.
ished from to-day.
The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore,
when he saw the flame flicker and expire. His sight had
surely deceived him. And now, since the light did not
reappear, there must be some smoke-wreath or inpene-
trable mist brooding about the tower’s gray old head, and
obscuring it from the lower world. But no! For right


210
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENT.
over the dim battlements, as the wind chased away a mass
of clouds, he beheld a star, and, moreover, by an earnest
concentration of his sight, was soon able to discern even
the darkened shrine itself.
There was
no obscurity
around the tower ; no infirmity of his own vision The
flame had exhausted its supply of oil, and become extinct.
But where was Hilda ?
A man in a cloak happened to be passing; and Ken-
yon - anxious to distrust the testimony of his senses, if
he could get more acceptable evidence on the other side
-appealed to him.
“Do me the favor, signor,” said he, “ to look at the top
of yonder tower, and tell me whether you see the lamp
burning at the Virgin's shrine."
“ The lamp, signor ? ” answered the man, without at
first troubling himself to look up. “The lamp that has
burned these four hundred years ! how is it possible,
signor, that it should not be burning now ?”
“But look !” said the sculptor, impatiently.
With good-natured indulgence for what he seemed to
consider as the whim of an eccentric Forestiero, the
Italian carelessly threw his eyes upwards ; but, as soon
as he perceived that there was really no light, he lifted his
hands with a vivid expression of wonder and alarm.
“ The lamp is extinguished !” cried he. “The lamp
that has been burning these four hundred years ! This
surely must portend some great misfortune; and, by my
Advice, signor, you will hasten hence, lest the tower tumble
on our heads. A priest once told me, that, if the Virgin
withdrew her blessing, and the light went out, the old


THE DESERTED SHRINE.
211
Palazzo del Torre would sink into the earth, with all that
dwell in it. There will be a terrible crash before morn-
ing!”
The stranger made the best of his way from the
Joomed premises; while Kenyon, — who would willingly
have seen the tower crumble down before his eyes, on
condition of Hilda's safety, — determined, late as it was,
to attempt ascertaining if she were in her dove-cote.
Passing through the arched entrance, which, as is
often the case with Roman entrances, was as accessible at
midnight as at noon, — he groped his way to the broad
staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went glimmering up
the multitude of steps that led to Hilda's door. The hour
being so unseasonable, he intended merely to knock, and,
as soon as her voice from within should reassure him, to
retire, keeping his explanations and apologies for a fitter
time. Accordingly, reaching the lofty height where the
maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep, with angels watching
over her, though the Virgin seemed to have suspended
her care, he tapped lightly at the door-panels — then
knocked more forcibly - then thundered an impatient sum ·
No answer came ; Hilda evidently was not there.
After assuring himself that this must be the fact, Ken-
yun descended the stairs, but made a pause at every suc-
cessive stage, and knocked at the door of its apartinent,
regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in his anxiety
to learn where the girl had last been seen. But, at each
closed entrance, there came those hollow echoes, wl.ich a
chamber, or any dwelling, great or small, never sends out,
is
response to human knuckles or iron hammer, as long
muns.


212
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
AS there is life within to keep its heart from getting
dreary.
Once, indeed, on the lower landing-place, the sculptor
fancied that here was a momentary stir, inside the door,
as if somebody were listening at the threshold. Ho
hored, at least, that the small, iron-barred aperture would
be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers are wont
to take careful cognizance of applicants for admission,
from a traditionary dread, perhaps, of letting in a robber
or assassin. But it remained shut; neither was the sound
repeated ; and Kenyon concluded that his excited nurves
had played a
trick
upon
his
senses, as they are apt to do
when we most wish for the clear evidence of the latter.
There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily
away, and await whatever good or ill to-morrow's day.
light might disclose.
Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went back
to the Via Portoghese, before the slant rays of the sun
had descended half-way down the gray front of Hilda's
tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the doves
perched in full session, on the sunny height of the battle-
ments, and a pair of them — who were probably their
mistress's especial pets, and the confidarts of her bosom-
secrets, if Hilda had any - came shooting down, and
made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. But, though
they evidently recognized him, their shyness would not
yet allow so decided a demonstration. Kenyon's eyes
follo ved them as they flew upward, hoping that they
might have come as joyful messengers of the girl's
safety, and that he should discern her slender form half


THE DESERIED SHRINE.
213
hidden by the parapet, trimming the extinguishud lamp
at the Virgin's shrine, just as other maidens set about the
little duties of a household. Or, perhaps, he might see
her gentle and sweet face smiling down upon him, mid-
way towards heaven, as if she had flown hither for a day
or two, just to visit her kindred, but had been drawn
earthward again by the spell of unacknowledged love.
But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or
reality; nor, in truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings
of the doves indicative of any joyful intelligence, whicb
they longed to share with Hilda's friend, but of anxious
inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could
not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion
had withdrawn herself, but were in the same void de-
spondency with him, feeling their sunny and airy lives
darkened and grown imperfect, now that her sweet society
was taken out of it.
In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier
to pursue his researches than at the preceding midnight,
when, if any slumberers heard the clamor that he made,
they had responded only with sullen and drowsy maledic-
tions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very dear
and intimate reality for which people will be content to
give up a dream. When the sun was fairly up, however,
it was quite another thing. The heterogeneous popula-
lion, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower, and the
other extensive regions of the palace, were now willing
to tell all they knew, and imagine a great deal more.
The amiability of these Italians, assisted by their sharp
and nimble wits, caused them to overflow with plansible


214
ROMANCE OF MONTE PENI.
suggestions, and to be very bounteous in their ayowale
of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative
people, such expressions would have implied an eager
ness to search land and sea, and never rest till she were
found. In the mouths that uttered them, they meant
good wishes, and were, so far, better than indifference.
There was little doubt that many of them felt a genuine
kindness for the shy, brown-haired, delicate young foreign
maiden, who had flown from some distant land to alight
upon their tower, where she consorted only with the
doves. But their energy expended itself in exclamation,
and they were content to leave all more active measures
to Kenyon, and to the Virgin, whose affair it was, to see
that the faithful votary of her lamp received no harm.
In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhab-
itants might be, the concierge under the archway would
be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth
But, except in rare cases, the general entrance and main
staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street,
of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor,
therefore, could hope to find information about Hilda's
movements only from casual observers.
On probing the knowledge of these people to the bot-
tou, there was various testimony as to the period when
the girl had last been seen. Some said that it was four
days since there had been a trace of her; but an Eng.
lish lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather
of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with
a drawing-book in her hand. Having no acquaintance
with the young person, she had taken little notice, an..


THE DESERTED SHRINE.
215
inight have been mistakon. A Count, on the piar o next
above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to
Hilda, under the archway, two afternoons ago. An old
woman, who had formerly tended the shrine, threw some
light upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp required
to be replenished once, at least, in three days, though its
reservoir of oil was exceedingly capacious.
On the whole, though there was other evidence enough
to create some perplexity, Kenyon could not satisfy him-
self that she had been visible since the afternoon of the
third preceding day, when a fruit-seller remembered her
coming out of the arched passage, with a sealed packet
in her hand. As nearly as he could ascertain, this was
within an hour after Hilda had taken leave of the sculp-
tor, at his own studio, with the understanding that they
were to meet at the Vatican the next day. Two nights,
therefore, had intervened, during which the lost maiden
was unaccounted for.
The door of Hilda's apartments was still locked, as on
the preceding night; but Kenyon sought out the wife of
the person who sublet them, and prevailed on her to
give him admittance by means of the duplicate key, which
the good woman had in her possession. On entering, the
maidenly neatness and simple grace, recognizable in all the
arrangements, made him visibly sensible that this was the
laily haunt of a pure soul, in whom religion and the love
of beauty were at one.
Thence, the sturdy Roman matron led the sculptor
across a narrow passage, and threw open the door of a
small chamber, on the threshold of which he severently


216
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
she was.
paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white
drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains, like a tent, and of
barely width enough for a slender figure to repose upon it.
The sight of this cool, airy, and secluded bower, caused
the lover's heart to stir, as if enough of Hilda's gentle
(Ireams were lingering there to make him happy for a
single instant. But then came the closer consciousness of
her loss, bringing along with it a sharp sting of anguislı.
“Behold, sigor,” said the matron; "here is the little
staircase by which the signorina used to ascend and trim
the blessed Virgin's lamp. She was worthy to be a
Catholic, such pains the good child bestowed to keep it
burning; and doubtless the blessed Mary will intercede
for her, in consideration of her pious offices, heretic though
What will become of the old palazzo, now that
the lamp is extinguished, the saints above us only know!
Will you mount, signor, to the battlements, and see if she
have left any trace of herself there?”
The sculptor stepped across the chamber and ascended
the little staircase, which gave him access to the breezy
summit of the tower. It affected him inexpressibly to see
A bouquet of beautiful flowers beneath the shrine, and to
recognize in them an offering of his own to Hilda, who
had put them in a vase of water and dedicated them to
the Virgin, in a spirit partly fanciful, perhaps, but still
partaking of the religious sentiment which so profoundly
influenced her character. One rose-bud, indeed, she had
belected for herself from the rich mass of flowers; for
Kenyon well remembered recognizing it in her bosom,
when he last saw her at his studio.


THE DESERTED SHRINE.
217
" That little part of my great love she took,” said ho
to himself. “ The remainder she would have devoted to
heaven ; but has left it withering in the sun and wind.
Ah! Hilda, Hilda, had you given me a right to watch
over you, this evil had not come !”
"Be not downcast, signorino mio," said the Roman
matron, in response to the deep sigh which struggled out
of Kenyon's breast. "The dear little maiden, as we see,
has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as I myself,
or any other good Catholic woman, could have done. It
is a religious act, and has more than the efficacy of a
prayer. The signorina will as surely come back as the
sun will fall through the window to-morrow no less than
to-day. Her own doves have often been missing for a day
or two, but they were sure to come Auttering about her
head again, when she least expected them. So will it be
with this dovelike child."
" It might be so," thought Kenyon, with yearning anx-
iety, “ if a pure maiden were as safe as a dove, in this
evil world of ours.”
As they returned through the studio, with the furnituro
and arrangements of which the sculptor was familiar, he
missed a small, ebony writing-desk that he remembered
as having always been placed on a table there. He knew
that it was Hilda's custom to deposit her letters in this
desk, as well as other little objects of which she wished to
be specially careful.
“ What has become of it ?” he suddenly inquired, lay-
ing his hand on the table.
“ Become of what, pray ? ” exclaimed the woman, a
10
VOL. II.


218
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
little disturbed. “Does the signor suspect a robbery,
then?”
“ The signorina's writing-desk is gone,” replied Ken-
yon. “it always stood on this table, and I myself saw it
there only a few days ago."
“ Ah, well!” said the woman, recovering her com-
posure, which she seemed partly to have lost.
“ The
signorina has doubtless taken it away with her. The fact
is of good omen ; for it proves that she did not go unex.
pectedly, and is likely to return when it may best suit her
convenience.”
“ This is very singular,” observed Kenyon. “Have
the rooms been entered by yourself, or any other
person,
since the signorina's disappearance ? ”
“ Not by me, signor, so help me Heaven and the
saints !” said the matron. “And I question whether
there are more than two keys in Rome, that will suit
this strange, old lock. Here is one ; and as for the other,
the signorina carries it in her pocket."
The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of
this respectable dame. She appeared to be well-mean-
ing and kind-hearted, as Roman matrons generally are ;
except when a fit of passion incites them to shower hor-
rible curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to
stab him with the steel stiletto that serves them for a
lair-pin. But Italian asseverations of any questionable
fact, however true they may chance to be, have no wit-
ness of their truth in the faces of those who utter them.
Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and yet
do not vouch for themselves as coming from any depthy
!


THE DESERTED SHRINE.
219
like routs drawn out of the substance of the soul, with
some of the soil clinging to them. There is always a
something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their eyes.
In short, they lie so much like truth, and speak truth so
much as if they were telling a lie, that their auditor sus-
pects himself in the wrong, whether he believes or dis
believes them; it being the one thing certain, that false.
bood is seldom an intolerable burden to the tenderest of
Italian consciences.
“It is very strange what can have become of the
desk !” repeated Kenyon, looking the woman in the
face.
“ Very strange, indeed, signor," she replied, meekly,
without turning away her eyes in the least, but check-
ing his insight of them at about half-an-inch below the
surface. “I think the signorina must have taken it with
her.”
It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon
therefore departed, after making an arrangement with the
woman, by the terms of which she was to allow the apart-
ments to remain in their present state, on his assuming
the responsibility for the rent.
He spent the day in making such further search and
investigation as he found practicable; and, though at first
trammelled by an unwillingness to draw public attention
to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the circumstances soon
compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the course
of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of fathoming
the mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those
of his brother-artists and friends, but through the police


220
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
who readily undertook the task, and expressed strong
confidence of success. But the Roman police has very
little efficacy, except in the interest of the despotism of
which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, shoulder-belts
and swords, they wear a sufficiently imposing aspect, and
doubtless keep their eyes open wide enough to track a
political offender, but are too often blind to private out-
rage, be it murder or any lesser crime. Kenyon counted
little upon their assistance, and profited by it not at all.
Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had ad-
dressed to him, he was anxious to meet her, but knew
not whither she had gone, nor how to obtain an interview
either with herself or Donatello. The days wore away,
and still there were no tidings of the lost one; no lamp
rekindled before the Virgin's shrine; no light shining
into the lover's heart; no star of Hop: -- he was ready
to say, as he turned his eyes almost reproachfully up-
ward -- in heaven itself!


'HE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
221
CHAPTER XX.
THE SLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
A.LONG with the lamp on Hilda's tower, the sculpior
now felt that a nigni had gone out, or, at least, was omi-
nously obscured, to which he owed whatever cheerfulness
had heretofore illuminated his cold, artistic life. The
idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin wax,
burning with a pure and steady flame, and chasing away
the evil spirits out of the magic circle of its beams. It
had darted its rays afar, and modified the whole sphere in
which Kenyon had his being. Beholding it no more, he
at once found himself in darkness and astray.
This was the time, perhaps, when Kenyon first became
sensible what a dreary city is Rome, and what a terrible
weight is there imposed on human life, when any gloom
within the heart corresponds to the spell of ruin, that has
been thrown over the site of ancient empire. He wan-
dered, as it were, and stumbled over the fallen columns,
and among the tombs, and groped his way irto the sepul-
chral darkness of the catacombs, and found no path
emerging from them. The happy may well enough
continue to be such, beneath the brilliant sky of Rome.


222
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
But, if you go thither in melancholy mood - if you go
with a ruin in your heart, or with a vacant site there,
where once stood the airy fabric of happiness, now van-
ished — all the ponderous gloom of the Roman Past will
pile itself upon that spot, and crush you down as with the
heaped-up marble and granite, the earth-mounds, and mul-
titudinous bricks, of its material decay.
It might be supposed that a melancholy man would
here make acquaintance with a grim philosophy. He
should learn to bear patiently his individual griefs, that
endure only for one little lifetime, when here are the
tokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale,
and when so many far landmarks of time, all around him,
are bringing the remoteness of a thousand years ago into
the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vain that you seek
this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that root
themselves on the roughness of massive walls, or trail
downward from the capitals of pillars, or spring out of
the
green turf in the palace of the Cæsars. It does not
grow in Rome; not even among the five hundred various
weeds which deck the grassy arches of the Coliseum
You look through a vista of century beyond century -
through much shadow, and a little sunshine - through
barbarism and civilization, alternating with one another,
like actors that have pre-arranged their parts — through
a broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by
palaces and temples, and bestridden by old, triumphal
arches, until, in the distance, you behold the obelisk
with their un intelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past
infinitely more remote than history can define. Your


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
223
own life is as nothing, when compared with that immeas-
wable distance; but still you demand, none the less ear-
nestly, a gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow,
on the step or two that will bring you to your quiet
rest.
How exceedingly absurd! All men, from the date of
the earliest obelisk — and of the whole world, moreover,
since that far epoch, and before -- have made a similar
demand, and seldom had their wish. If they had it, what
are they the better, now? But, even while you taunt
yourself with this sad lesson, your heart cries out ob-
streperously for its small share of earthly happiness, and
will not be appeased by the myriads of dead hopes that
lie crushed into the soil of Rome. How wonderful that
this our narrow foothold of the Present should hold its
own so constantly, and, while every moment changing,
should still be like a rock betwixt the encountering ticies
of the long Past, and the infinite To-come!
Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved for
the Irrevocable. Looking back upon Hilda's way of life,
Qe marvelled at his own blind stupidity, which had kept
gim from remonstrating — as a friend, if with no stronger
-ight -against the risks that she continually encountered.
Being so innocent, she had no means of estimating those
risks, nor even a possibility of suspecting their existence.
But he who had spent years in Rome, with a man's far
wider scope of observation and experience - knew things
that made him shudder. It seemed to Kenyon, looking
tinough the darkly-colored medium of his foars, that all
modes of crime were crowded into the close intricacy of


224
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
With ap-
Roman streets, and that there was no redeeming element,
such as exists in other dissolute and wicked cities.
For here was a priesthood, pampered, sensual, with
red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes.
parently a grosser development of animal life than most
men, they were placed in an unnatural relation with
woman, and thereby lost the healthy, human conscience
that pertains to other human beings, who own the sweet
household ties connecting them with wife and daughter.
And here was an indolent nobility, with no high aims or
opportunities, but cultivating a vicious way of life, as if it
were an art, and the only one which they cared to learn.
Here was a population, high and low, that had no genu-
ine belief in virtue; and if they recognized any act as
criminal, they might throw off all care, remorse, and
memory of it, by kneeling a little while at the confes-
sional, and rising unburdened, active, elastic, and incited
by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin. Here was a
soldiery, who felt Rome to be their conquered city, and
doubtless considered themselves the legal inheritors of the
foul license which Gaul, Goth, and Vandal have here
exercised in days gone by.
And what localities for new crime existed in those
guilty sites, where the crime of departed ages used to be
at home, and had its long, hereditary haunt! what street
in Rome, what ancient ruin, what one place where man
had standing-room, what fallen stone was there, unstained
with one or another kind of guilt! In some of the vicrs-
situdes of the city's pride, or its calamity, the dark tide
of human evil had swelled over it, far higher than the


THE FLIGAT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
225
Iber ever rose against the acclivities of the seven hills.
To Kenyon's morbid view, there appeared to be a con-
tagious element, rising fog-like from the ancient depravity
of Rome, and brooding over the dead and half-rotten
sity, as nowhere else on earth. It prolonged the tendency
to crime, and developed an instantaneous growth of it,
whenever an opportunity was found. And where could
it be found so readily as here! In those vast palaces,
there were a hundred remote nooks where Innocence
might shriek in vain. Beneath meaner houses there
were unsuspected dungeons that had once been princely
chambers, and open to the daylight; but, on account of
some wickedness there perpetrated, each passing age had
thrown its handful of dust upon the spot, and buried it
from sight. Only ruffians knew of its existence, and kept
t for murder, and worse crime.
Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years
past, had been wandering without a protector or a guide.
She had trodden lightly over the crumble of old crimes ;
she had taken her way amid the grime and corruption
which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christi-
anity had mare more noisome; walking saint-like through
it all, with white, innocent feet; until, in some dark pit-
fall that lay right across her path, she had vanished out
of sight. It was terrible to imagine what hideous outrage
might have thrust her into that abyss !
Then the lover tried to comfort himself with the idea
that Hilda's sanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes ;
she was so pure! The angels, that were of the samo
sisterhood, would never let Hilda come to harm. Á
10 *


226
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI
miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as
a father would stretch out his hand to save a best-beloved
child. Providence would keep a little area and atmos.
phere about her, as safe and wholesome as heaven itself,
although the flood of perilous iniquity might hem her
round, and its black waves hang curling above her head !
But these reflections were of slight avail. No doubt they
were the religious truth. Yet the ways of Providence
are utterly inscrutable; and many a murder has been
done, and many an innocent virgin has lifted her white
arms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain;
so that, though Providence is infinitely good and wise,
and perhaps for that very reason,
- it
may
be half an
eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring
us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows !
But what the lover asked was such prompt consolation
as might consist with the brief span of mortal life; the
assurance of Hilda's present safety, and her restoration
within that very hour.
An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his en
dowment in the hundred-fold variety of gloomily tinted
scenes that it presented to him, in which Hilda was always
a central figure. The sculptor forgot his marble. Rome
ceased 10 be anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal
streets, in one or another of which the lost girl had disap-
peared. He was haunted with the idea, that some circum.
stance, most important to be known, and, perhaps, easily
discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked, and that, it
he could lay hold of this one clue, it would guide him
directly in the traek of Hilda's footsteps. With this


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
227
purpose in view, he went, every morning, to the Via
Portoghese, and made it the starting point of fresh inves-
tigations. After nightfall, too, he invariably returned
thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart, that the
lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower,
And would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle con-
secrated by its rays. There being no point of which he
could take firm hold, his mind was filled with unsubstan-
tial hopes and fears. Once, Kenyon had seemed to cut
his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and
found it vapor.
In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling cir-
cumstance affected him with an idle pang. The doves
had at first been faithful to their lost mistress. They
failed not to sit in a row upon her window-sill, or to alight
on the shrine, or the church-angels, and on the roofs and
portals of the neighboring houses, in evident expectation
of her reappearance. After the second week, however,
they began to take flight, and dropping off by pairs, be-
took themselves to other dove-cotes. Only a single dove
remained, and brooded drearily beneath the shrine. The
dock, that had departed, were like the many hopes that
bad vanished from Kenyon's heart; the one that still lin-
gered, and looked so wretched was it a Hope, or
already a Despair ?
In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild
and venerable aspect; and as his mind dwelt continually
upon Hilda, and was especially active in bringing up all
incidents that had ever been connected with her, it imme-
diately struck him that this was the very father with
-


228
ROMANCE OF LIONTE BENJ
whom he had seen her at the confessional. Such trust
did Hilda inspire in him, that Kenyon had never asked
what was the subject of the communication between her
self and this old priest. He had no reason for imagining
that it could have any relation with her disappearance, so
long suhsequently ; but, being thus brought face to face
with a personage, mysteriously associated, as he now
remembered, with her whom he had lost, an impulse
ran before his thoughts and led the sculptor to address
hin.:
It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old
man's expression took Kenyon's heart by surprise ; at all
events, he spoke as if there were a recognized acquaint-
anceship, and an object of mutual interest between them.
“She has gone from me, father,” said he.
“Of whom do you speak, my son ?” inquired the
priest.
“Of that sweet girl,” answered Kenyon, “ who knelt
to you at the confessional. Surely, you remember her,
among all the mortals to whose confessions you have
listened ! For she alone could have had no sins to
reveal.”
“ Yes; I remen:ber," said the priest, with a gleam of
recollection in his eyes. “ She was made to bear a
miraculous testimony to the efficacy of the divine ordi-
nances of the Church, by seizing forcibly upon one of
Chem, and finding immediate relief from it, heretic though
she was. It is my purpose, to publish a brief narrative
of this miracle, for the edification of mankind, in Latin,
Italian, and English, from the printing-press of the Prop


THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES.
229
be — yes,
Aganda. Poor child! Setting apart her heresy she was
spotless, as you say. And is she dead?”
“ Heaven forbid, father !” exclaimed Kenyon, shrink.
ing back.
“ But she has gone from me, I know not
whither. It
may
the idea seizes upon my mind
that what she revealed to you will suggest some clue
to the mystery of her disappearance."
“ None, my son, none,” answered the priest, shaking his
head; “nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. That
young maiden is not doomed to die a heretic. Who knows
what the blessed Virgin may at this moment be doing for
her soul ! Perhaps, when you next behold her, she will
be clad in the shining white robe of the true faith.”
This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort
which the old priest possibly intended by it; but he im-
parted it to the sculptor, along with his blessing, as the
two best things that he could bestow, and said nothing
further, except to bid him farewell.
When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda s
conversion to Catholicism recurred to her lover's mind,
bringing with it certain reflections, that gave a new turn
to his surmises about the mystery into which she had
vanished. Not that he seriously apprehended - although
the superabundance of her religious sentiment might mis-
lead her for a moment. that the New England girl
would permanently succumb to the scarlet superstitions
which surrounded her in Italy. But the incident of the
confessional — if known, as probably it was, to the eager
propagandists who prowl about for souls, as cats to catch
would surely inspire the most confident ex
a mouse


230
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
pectations of bringing her over to the faith. With so
pious an end in view, would Jesuitical morality be shocked
at the thought of kidnapping the mortal body, for the sake
of the immortal spirit that might otherwise be lost for-
ever? Would not the kind old priest, himself, deem this
to be infinitely the kindest service that he could perform
for the stray lamb, who had so strangely sought his aid?
If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was
most likely a prisoner in one of the religious establish-
ments that are so numerous in Rome. The idea, accord-
ing to the aspect in which it was viewed, brought now a
degree of confort, and now an additional perplexity. On
the one hand, Hilda was safe from any but spiritual ansa
saults; on the other, where was the possibility of break-
ing through all those barred portals, and searching a
thousand convent-cells, to set her free.
Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from
endeavoring to follow out this surmise, which only the
state of hopeless uncertainty, that almost bewildered his
reason, could have led him for a moment to entertain. A
communication reached him by an unknown hand, in con-
sequence of which, and within an hour after receiving it,
be took his way through one of the gates of Rome.


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
281
CHAPTER XXI.
A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
It was a bright forenoon of February; a month it.
which the brief severity of a Roman, winter is already
past, and when violets and daisies begin to show them-
selves in spots favored by the sun. The sculptor came
out of the city by the gate of San Sebastiano, and walked
briskly along the Appian Way.
For the space of a mile or two beyond the gate, this
ancient and famous road is as desolate and disagreeable as
most of the other Roman avenues. It extends over small,
uncomfortable paving-stones, between brick and plastered
walls, which are very solidly constructed, and so high as
almost to exclude a view of the surrounding country. The
houses are of most uninviting aspect, neither picturesque,
nor homelike and social; they have seldom or never a
door opening on the wayside, but are accessible only
from the rear, and frown inhospitably upon the traveler
through iron-grated windows. Here and there appears a
dreary inn, or a wine-shop, designated by the withered
bush beside the entrance, within which you discern a stone
built and sepulchral interior, where guests refresh them


232
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
selves with sour bread and goats' milk cheese, washed
down with wine of dolorous acerbity.
At frequent intervals along the roadside, uprises the
ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these struc-
tures are immensely high and broken mounds of con-
glomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten by
time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each
tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite.
When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt,
with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought bas-reliefs,
and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered ma-
jestically beautiful by grand architectural designs. This
antique splendor has long since been stolen from the dead,
to decorate the palaces and churches of the living. Noth-
ing remains to the dishonored sepulchres, except their
massiveness.
Even the pyramids form hardly a stranger spectacle, or
are more alien from human sympathies, than the tombs of
the Appian Way, with their gigantic height, breadth, and
solidity, defying time and the elements, and far too mighty
to be demolished by an ordinary earthquake. Here you
may see a modern dwelling, and a garden with its vines
and olive-trees, perched on the lofty dilapidation of a
tomb, which forms a precipice of fifty feet in depth on
each of the four sides. There is a home on that funereal
mound, where generations of children have been born,
and successive lives been spent, undisturbed by the ghost
of the stern Roman whose ashes were so preposterously
burdened. Other sepulchres wear a crown of grass,
shrubbery, and forest-trees, which throw out a broad


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
233
one
sweep of branches, having had time, twice over, to be a
thousand
years
of
age.
On
of them stands a tower,
which, though immemorially more modern than the tomb,
was itself built by immemorial hands, and is now rifted
quite from top to bottom by a vast fissure of decay ; the
tomb-hillock, its foundation, being still as firm as ever, and
likely to endure until the last trump shall rend it wido
Asunder, and summon forth its unknown dead.
Yes ; its unknown dead! For, except in one or two
doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edifices
have not availed to keep so much as the bare name of
an individual or a family from oblivion. Ambitious of
everlasting remembrance, as they were, the slumberers
might just as well have gone quietly to rest, each in his
pigeon-hole of a columbaria, or under his little green
hillock, in a graveyard, without a headstone to mark the
spot. It is rather satisfactory than otherwise,. to think
that all these idle pains have turned out so utterly abor.
tive.
About two miles, or more, from the city-gate, and right
upon the roadside, Kenyon passed an immense round pile,
sepulchral in its original purposes, like those already men.
tioned. It was built of great blocks of hewn stone, on a
vast, square foundation of rough, agglomerated material,
such as composes the mass of all the other ruinovs tombs.
But whatever might be the cause, it was in a far better
state of preservation than they. On its broad summit
rose the battlements of a mediæval fortress, ovt of the
midst of which (so long since had time begun to crumble
the supplemental structure, and cover it with rail, by


234
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
means of wayside dust) grew trees, bushes, and thick
festoons of ivy. This tomb of a woman had become the
citadel and donjon-keep of a castle ; and all the care that
Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless
peace for her beloved relics, had only sufficed to make
that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long
ages after her death.
A little beyond this point, the sculptor turned aside
from the Appian Way, and directed his course across the
Campagna, guided by tokens that were obvious only to
himself. On one side of him, but at a distance, the Clau-
dian aqueduct was striding over fields and watercourses.
Before him, mang miles away, with a blue atmosphere
between, rose the Alban hills, brilliantly silvered with
snow and sunshine.
He was not without a companion. A buffalo-calf, that
seemed shy and sociable by the selfsame impulse, had
begun to make acquaintance with him, from the moment
when he left the road. This frolicsome creature gam-
bolled along, now before, now behind ; standing a moment
to gaze at him, with wild, curious eyes, he leaped aside
and shook his shaggy head, as Kenyon advanced too nigh;
then, after loitering in the rear, he came galloping up, like
a charge of cavalry, but halted, all of a sudden, when the
sculptor turned to look, and bolted across the Campagna,
at the slightest signal of nearer approach. The young,
sportive thing, Kenyon half fancied, was serving him as a
guide, like the heifer that led Cadmus to the site of his
destined city; for, in spite of a hundred vagaries, his
general course was in the right direction, and along by


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
233
several objects which the sculptor had noted as landma, ks
of his way.
In this natural intercourse with a rude and healthy
form of animal life, there was something that wonderfully
revived Kenyon's spirits. The warm rays of the sun,
too, were wholesome for him in body and soul ; and so
was a breeze that bestirred itself occasionally, as if for the
sole purpose of breathing upon his cheek, and dying softly
away, when he would fain have felt a little more decided
kiss. This shy, but loving breeze reminded him strangely
of what Hilda's deportment had sometimes been towards
himself.
The weather had very much to do, no doubt, with these
genial and delightful sensations, that made the sculptor 80
happy with mere life, in spite of a head and heart full of
doleful thoughts, anxieties, and fears, which ought in all
reason to have depressed him. It was like no weather
that exists anywhere, save in Paradise and in Italy; cer-
tainly not in America, where it is always too strenuous on
the side either of heat or cold. Young the season was,
and wintry as it would have been under a more rigid sky,
it resembled summer rather than what we New England-
ers recognize in our idea of spring. But there was an in-
describable something, sweet, fresh, and remotely affection-
ate, which the matronly summer loscs, and which thrilled,
and, as it were, tickled Kenyon's heart with a feeling
partly of the senses, yet far more a spiritual delight. In
a word, it was as if Hilda's delicate breath were on his
cheek.
Ester walking at a brisk pace for about half an hour,


236
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
he reached a spot where an excavation appeared to have
been begun, at some not very distant period. There wa.
a hollow space in the earth, looking exceedingly like
a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old subterranean
walls, constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made acces
sible by a narrow flight of stone steps. A suburban villa
had probably stood over this site, in the imperial days of
Rome, and these might have been the ruins of a bath-
room, or some other apartment that was required to be
wholly or partly under ground. A spade can scarcely
be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgotten things,
without hitting upon some discovery which would attract
all eyes,
in
any
other land. If you dig but a little
way,
you gather bits of precious marble, coins, rings, and en-
graved gems; if you go deeper, you break into colum-
baria, or into sculptured and richly frescoed apartments
that look like festive halls, but were only sepulchres.
The sculptor descended into the cellar-like 'cavity, and
sat down on a block of stone. His eagerness had brought
him thither sooner than the appointed hour.
The sun-
shine fell slantwise into the hollow, and happened to be
l'esting on what Kenyon at first took to be a shapelese
fragment of stone, possibly marble, which was partly con-
cealed by the crumbling down of earth.
But his practised eye was soon aware of something
artistic in this rude object. To relieve the anxious tedium
of his situation, he cleared away some of the soil, whick
Beemed to have fallen very recently, and discovered a
headless figure of marble. It was earth-stained, as well
it might be, and had a slightly corroded surface, but al


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
237
once impressed the sculptor as a Greek production, and
wonderfully delicate and beautiful. The head was gone;
both arms were broken off at the elbows. Protruding
from the loose earth, however, Kenyon beheld the fingers
of a marble hand; it was still appended to its arm, and a
little farther search enabled him to find the other. Plao
ing these limbs in what the nice adjustment of the frac-
tures proved to be their true position, the poor, fragmen
tary woman forthwith showed that she retained her modest
instincts to the last. She had perished with them, and
snatched them back at the moment of revival. For these
long-buried hands immediately disposed themselves in the
manner that nature prompts, as the antique artist knew,
and as all the world has seen, in the Venus de' Medici.
“What a discovery is here!” thought Kenyon to him-
self. “I seek for Hilda, and find a marble woman! I3
the omen good or ill?”
In a corner of the excavation, lay a small round block
of stone, much incrusted with earth that had dried and
hardened upon it. So, at least, you would have described
this object, until the sculptor lifted it, turned it hither and
thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, and
finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly discov.
ered statue. The effect was magical. It immediately
lighted up and vivified the whole figure, endowing it with
personality, soul, and intelligence. The beautiful Idea at
once asserted its immortality, and converted that heap of
forlorn fragments into a whole, as perfect to the mind, if
not to the eye, as when the new marble gleamed with
spowy lustre ; nor was the impression marred by the earth


238
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
that still hung upon the exquisitely graceful limbs, ai 1
oven filled the lovely crevice of the lips. Kenyon cleared
it away from between them, and almost deemed himself
rewarded with a living smile.
It was either the prototype or a better repetition of the
Venus of the Tribune. But those who have been dissat-
isfied with the small head, the narrow, soulless face, the
buttonhole eyelids, of that famous statue, and its mouth
such as nature never moulded, should see the genial
breadth of this far nobler and sweeter countenance. It is
one of the few works of antique sculpture in which we
recognize womanhood, and that, moreover, without preju-
dice to its divinity.
Here, then, was a treasure for the sculptor to have
found! How happened it to be lying there, beside its
grave of twenty centuries? Why were not the tidings of
its discovery already noised abroad? The world was
richer than yesterday, by something far more precious
than gold. Forgotten beauty had come back, as beauti-
ful as ever; a goddess had risen from her long slumber,
and was a goddess still. Another cabinet in the Vaticap
was destined to shine as lustrously as that of the Apollo
Belvedere ; or, if the aged pope should resign his claim,
an emperor would woo this tender marble, and win her as
proudly as an imperial bride!
Such were the thoughts, with which Kenyon exagger
ated to himself the importance of the newly-discovered
statue, and strove to feel at least a portion of the interest
which this event would have inspired in him, a little while
before. But, in reality, he found it difficult to fix his


A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
239
mind upon the subject. He could hardly, we fear, be
* reckoned a consummate artist, because there was some-
thing dearer to him than his art ; and, by the greater
strength of a human affection, the divine statue seemed
to fall asunder again, and become only a heap of worth-
less fragments.
While the sculptor sat listlessly gazing at it, there was
a sound of small hoofs, clumsily galloping on the Cam-
pagna; and, soon, his frisky acquaintance, the buffalo-
calf, came and peeped over the edge of the excavation.
Almost at the same moment, he heard voices, which ap-
proached nearer and nearer; a man's voice, and a fem-
inine one, talking the musical tongue of Italy. Besides
the hairy visage of his four-footed friend, Kenyon now
saw the figures of a peasant and a contadina, making ges-
Lures of salutation to him, on the opposite verge of the
hollow space.


240
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
THEY descended into the excavation; a young peasant,
d the short blue jacket, the smallclothes buttoned at the
knee, and buckled shoes, that compose one of the ugliest
brusses ever worn by man, except the wearer's form have
A grace which any garb, or the nudity of an antique
statue, would equally set off; and, hand in hand with
him, a village girl, in one of those brilliant costumes
largely kindled up with scarlet, and decorated with gold
embroidery, in which the contadinas array themselves on
feast-days. But Kenyon was not deceived; he had rec-
ognized thu voices of his friends, indeed, even before
their disguised figures came between him and the sun-
light. Donatello was the peasant; the contadina, with
the airy smile, half mirthful, though it shone out of mel
ancholy eyes, -
was Miriam.
They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kindness
which reminded him of the days when Hilda and they
and he had lived so happily together, before the mys-
terious adventure of the catacomb. What a successiou
of sinister events had followed one spectral figure out of
that gloomy labyrinth.


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
241
66 Do you
1
" It is carnival time, you know," said Miriam, as if in ex.
planation of Donatello's and her own costume.
remember how merrily we spent the carnival, last year?”
" It seems many years ago," replied Kenyon. “Wo
are all so changed!”
When individuals approach one another with deep pure
poses on both sides, they seldom come at once to the
matter which they have most at heart. They dread the
efectric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural
impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding
themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer
topic, until they stand face to face with the true point of
interest. Miriam was conscious of this impulse, and par-
tially obeyed it.
“So, your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into
the
presence of our newly discovered statue," she observed.
“ Is it not beautiful! A rår truer image of immortal
womanhood than the poor little damsel at Florence.
world-famous though she be."
“ Most beautiful,” said Kenyon, casting an indifferent
glance at the Venus. “ The time has been when the
sight of this statue would have been enough to make the
day memorable.”
“ And will it not do so, now?” Miriam asked “I
fancied so, indeed, when we discovered it two days ago.
It is Donatello's prize. We were sitting here together,
planning an interview with you, when his keen eyes de
tected the fallen goddess, almost entirely buried under
that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavators showered
down upon her, I suppose. We congratulated ourselves
11
VOL. II.


242
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
chiefly for
your
sake. The
eyes of us three are the only
ones to which she has yet revealed herself. Does it not
frighten you a little, like the apparition of a lovely woman
that lived of old, and has long lain in the grave ?”
“Ah, Miriam ! I cannot respond to you," said the
sculptor, with irrepressible impatience. · Imagination
and the love of art have both died out of me.”
“Miriam," interposed Donatello, with gentle gravity,
“ why should we keep our friend in suspense
? We
know what anxiety he feels. Let us give him what in:
telligence we can."
“ You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend !”
answered Miriam with an unquiet smile.
6 There are
several reasons why I should like to play round this
matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts,
as we strew a grave with flowers.”
“A grave !” exclaimed the sculptor.
“ No grave in which your heart need be buried," she
replied ; " you have no such calamity to dread. But I
linger and hesitate, because every word I speak brings
me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Dona-
tello ! let us live a little longer the life of these last few
days! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without
either past or future! Here, on the wild Campagna, you
seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life
that belonged to you in early youth; the sweet, irre-
sponsible life which you inherited from your mythic an
cestry, the Faune of Monte Beni. Our stern and black
reality will come upon us speedily enough. But, first, a
brief time sore of this strange happiness."


TAE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
243
“ I Jare not linger upon it," answered Donatello, with
o expression that reminded the sculptor of the gloomiest
lays of his remorse at Monte Beni. “I dare to be so
happy as you have seen me, only because I have felt the
time to be so brief.”
“One day, then !” pleaded Miriam. “One more day in
the wild freedom of this sweet-scented air.”
“ Well, one more day,” said Donatello, smiling; and
his smile touched Kenyon with a pathos beyond words,
there being gayety and sadness both melted into it; but
here is Hilda's friend, and our own. Comfort him, at
least, and set his heart at rest, since you have it partly in
your power.”
"Ah, surely he might endure his pangs a little longer!”
cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful kind
of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity, too sad
and serious to be looked at in its naked aspect.
love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer for our
sakes, one other day. Do I ask too much ? "
“Tell me of Hilda,” replied the sculptor ;“ tell me only
that she is safe, and keep back what else you will."
“Hilda is safe," said Miriam. “There is a Providence
purposely for Hilda, as I remember to have told you long
ago. But a great trouble an evil deed, let us acknowl-
edge it — has spread out its dark branches so widely, that
the shadow falls on innocence as well as guilt. There
was one slight link that connected your sweet Hilda with
a crime which it was her unhappy fortune to witness, but
of which I need not say she was as guiltless as the angels
that looked out of heaven, and saw it too. No matter, now,
6 You
4


244
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL
what the consequence has been. You shall have your lool
Hilda back, and — who knows? - perhaps tenderer than
she was."
" But when will she return?" persisted the sculptor
tell me the when, and where, and how ! ”
“A little patience. Do not press me so," said Miriam;
and again Kenyon was struck by the spritelike, fitful char-
acteristic of her manner, and a sort of hysteric gayety,
which seemed to be a will-o'-the-wisp from a sorrow,
stagnant at her heart.
6 You have more time to spare
than 1. First, listen to something that I have to tell.
We will talk of Hilda by-and-by."
Then Miriam spoke of her own life, and told facts that
threw a gleam of light over many things which had per-
plexed the sculptor in all his previous krowledge of her.
She described herself as springing from English parent-
age, on the mother's side, but with a vein, likewise, of
Jewish blood; yet connected, through her father, with
one of those few princely families of southern Italy,
which still retain a great wealth and influence. And she
revealed a name, at which her auditor started, and grew
pale; for it was one that, only a few years before, had
been familiar to the world, in connection with a mysteri-
ous and terrible event. The reader - if he think it
worth while to recall some of the strange incidents which
have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long time
past will remember Miriam's name.
“You shudder at me, I perceive," said Miriam, sud.
nenly interrupting her narrative.
"No; you were innocent," replied the sculptor


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
245
yes; the
)
shudder at the fatality that seems to haunt your footsteps,
and throws a shadow of crime about your path, you being
guiltless."
“ There was such a fatality,” said Miriam ;
shadow fell upon me, innocent, but I went astray in it,
and wandered as Hilda could tell you -
into crime.”
She went on to say, that, while yet a child, she had lost
her English mother. From a very early period of her
life, there had been a contract of betrothal between her.
self and a certain marchese, the representative of another
branch of her paternal house, - a family arrangement
between two persons of disproportioned ages, and in which
feeling went for nothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank
would have yielded themselves to such a marriage, as an
affair of course. But there was something in Miriam's
blood, in her mixed race, in her recollections of her
mother, --some characteristic, finally, in her own nature,
- which had given her freedom of thought, and force of
will, and made this pre-arranged connection odious to her.
Moreover, the character of her destined husband would
have been a sufficient and insuperable objection; for it
betrayed traits so evil, so treacherous, so wild, and yet so
strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the
insanity which often develops itself in old, close-kept
races of men, when long unmixed with newer blood.
Reaching the age when the marriage contract should
bave been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it.
Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event
o which Miriam had alluded, when she revealed her
name; an event, the frightful and mysterious circum


246
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
stance, of which will recur to many minds, but of which
few or non, can have found for themselves a satisfactory
explanation. It only concerns the present narrative, inas-
much as the suspicion of being at least an accomplice io
the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriam herself.
“ But you know that I am innocent !” she cried, inter-
rupting herself again, and looking Kenyon in the face.
“I know it by my deepest consciousness,” he answered ;
" and I know it by Hilda's trust and entire affection,
which you never could have won had you been capable
of guilt.”
“ That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me inno
cent," said Miriam, with the tears gushing into her eyes.
" Yet I have since become a horror to your saintlike
Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help to per-
Jetrate !”
She proceeded with her story. The great influence of
her family connections had shielded her from some of the
consequences of her imputed guilt. But, in her despair,
she had fled from home, and had surrounded her flight
with such circumstances as rendered it the most probable
conclusion that she had committed suicide. Miriam, how-
ever, was not of the feeble nature which takes advantage
of that obvious and poor resource in earthly difficulties.
She flung herself upon the world, and speedily created a
new sphere, in which Hilda's gentle purity, the sculp-
tor's sensibility, clear thought, and genius, and Donatello's
genial simplicity, had given her almost her first experi.
ance of happiness. Then came that ill-omened adventure
of th: catacomb. The spectral figure which sbe encouz-


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
247
>
Bered there was the evil fáte that had haunted her through
life.
Looking back upon what had happened, Miriam ob-
kerved, she now considered him a madman. Insanity
must have been mixed up with his original composition,
and developed by those very acts of depravity which it
suggested, and still more intensified by the remorse that
ultimately followed them. Nothing was stranger in his
dark career, than the penitence which often seemed to go
hand in hand with crime. Since his death, she had as-
certained that it finally led him to a convent, where his
severe and self-inflicted penance had even acquired him
the reputation of unusual sanctity, and had been the
cause of his enjoying greater'freedom than is commonly
allowed to monks.
“ Need I tell you more ?” asked Miriam, after proceed.
ing thus far. “It is still a dim and dreary mystery, a
gloomy twilight into which I guide you ; but possibly you
may catch a glimpse of much that I myself can explain
only by conjecture. At all events, you can comprehend
what
my situation must have been, after that fatal inter-
view in the catacomb. My persecutor had gone thither
for penance, but followed me forth with fresh impulses to
crime. He had me in his power. Mad as he was, and
wicked as he was, with one word he could have blasted
me in the belief of all the world. In your
and Hilda's! Even Donatello would have shrunk from
me with horror!”
“Never,” said Donatello “my instirct would have
known
your innocent."
belief too,


248
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ Hilda and Donatello and myself - we three would
have acquitted you,” said Kenyon, “ let the world say
what it might. Ah, Miriam, you should have told us this
sad story sooner!”
“I thought often of revealing it to you," answered
Miriam; “on one occasion, especially, - it was after you
had shown me your Cleopatra ; it seemed to leap out of
my heart, and got as far as my very lips. But finding
you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it back again.
Had I obeyed my first impulse, all would have turned out
differently."
“ And Hilda !” resumed the sculptor.
“ What can
have been her connection with these dark incidents ?”
“She will, doubtless, tell you with her own lips," re-
plied Miriam. “ Through sources of information which I
possess in Rome, I can assure you of her safety. In two
days more -- by the help of the special Providence that,
as I love to tell you, watches over Hilda — she shall rem
join you.”
“ Still two days more !” murmured the sculptor.
“ Ah, you are cruel now !
More cruel than you
know !” exclaimed Miriam, with another gleam of that
fantastic, fitful gayety, which had more than once marked
her manner, during this interview.
"Spare your poor
friends !"
“ I know not what you mean, Miriam,” said Kenyon.
“No matter," she replied; “ you will understand here.
after. But could you think it ? Here is Donatello
haunted with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve
to obtain what he deems justice upon himself. He fan-


THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
49
Let us
cies, with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly
tried to combat, that, when a wrong has been done, the
doer is bound to submit himself to whatsoever tribunal
takes cognizance of such things, and abide its judgment.
I have assured him that there is no such thing as earthly
justice, and especially none here, under the head of
Christendom.”
“We will not argue the point again,” said Donatello,
smiling. “I have no head for argument, but only a sense,
an impulse, an instinct, I believe, which sometimes leads
me right But why do we talk now of what may make
us sorrowful ? There are still two days more.
be happy !”
It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Donatello,
some of the sweet and delightful characteristics of the
antique Faun had returned to him. There were slight,
careless graces, pleasant and simple peculiarities, that had
been obliterated by the heavy grief through which he
was passing, at Monte Beni, and out of which he had
hardly emerged, when the sculptor parted with Miriam
and him beneath the bronze pontiff's outstretched hand.
These happy blossoms had now reappeared. A playful-
ness came out of his heart and glimmered like fire-light in
his actions, alternating, or even closely intermingled, with
profound sympathy and serious thought.
“ Is he not beautiful ?” said Miriam, watching the
sculptor's eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. 6 So
changed, yet still, in a deeper sense, so much the same!
He has travelled in a circle, as all things heavenly and
varthly do, and now comes back to his original self, with
11 *


250
ROMANCE OF MONIE BENI.
an inestimable treasure of improvement won from an
experience of pain. How wonderful is this! I tremble
at my own thoughts, yet must needs prebe them to their
depths.' Was the crime - in which he and I were wed.
ded -- was it a blessing, in that strange disguise ? Was
it a means of education, bringing a simple and imperfect
nature to a point of feeling and intelligence which it could
nave reached under no other discipline?”
“ You stir up deep and perilous matter, Miriam,” re
plied Kenyon. “I dare not follow you into the unfath-
omable abysses whither you are tending."
“ Yet there is a pleasure in them! I delight to brood
on the verge of this great mystery,” returned she. “The
story of the fall of man! Is it not repeated in our ro-
mance of Monte Beni? And may we follow the analogy
yet farther ? Was that very sin into which Adam
precipitated himself and all his race was it the destined
means by which, over a long pathway of toil and sorrow,
we are to attain a higher, brighter, and profounder happi.
ness, than our last birthright gave? Will not this idea
account for the permitted existence of sin, as no other
theory can?”
“ It is too dangerous, Miriam! I cannot follow you !"
repeated the sculptor. “Mortal man has no right to
tread on the ground where you now set your feet.”
“ Ask Hilda what she thinks of it," said Miriam, wit,
a thoughtful smile. "At least, she might conclude thai
sin — which · man chose instead of good — has been ser
beneficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence,
that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it,


CHE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
it has really become an instrument most effective in the
education of intellect and soul.”
Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations,
which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous; she then
pressed his hand, in token of farewell.
“ The day after to-morrow,” said she,“ an hour before
sunset, go to the Corso, and stand in front of the fifth
house on your left, beyond the Antonine column. You
will learn tidings of a friend.”
Kenyon would have besought her for more definite in-
telligence, but she shook her head, put her finger on her
lips, and turned away with an illusive smile. The fancy
impressed him, that she, too, like Donatello, had reached
a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life-journey, where
they both threw down the burden of the before and after,
and, except for this interview with himself, were happy
in the flitting moment. To-day, Donatello was the sylvan
Faun; to-day, Miriam was his fit companion, a Nymph
of grove or fountain; to-morrow, a remorseful man
and woman, linked by a marriage-bond of crime, - they
would set forth towards an inevitable goal.


252
ROMANCE OF MONTE BEN
CHAPTER XXIII.
A SCENE IN THE CORSO.
On the appointed afternoon, Kenyon failed not to make
his appearance in the Corso, and at an hour much earlier
than Miriam had named.
It was carnival time. The merriment of this famous
festival was in full progress; and the stately avenue of
the Corso was peopled with hundreds of fantastic shapes,
some of which probably represented the mirth of ancient
times, surviving through all manner of calamity, ever
since the days of the Roman empire. For a few after-
noons of early spring, this mouldy gayety strays into the
sunshine; all the remainder of the year, it seems to be
shut
up in the catacombs or some other sepulchral store
house of the past.
Besides these hereditary forms, at which a hundrea
generations have laughed, there were others of modern
date, the humorous effluence of the day that was now
passing. It is a day, however, and an age, that appears
to be remarkably barren, when compared with the pro-
lific originality of former times, in productions of a scenic
and erewonial character, whether grave or gay. To


A SCENE IN THE CORSO.
253
own the truth, the carnival is alive, this preseat year, only
becanse it has existed through centuries gone by. It is
traditionary, not actual. If decrepit and melancholy
Rome smiles, and laughs broadly, indeed, at carnival time,
it is not in the old simplicity of real mirth, but with a
Lalf-conscious effort, like our self-deceptive pretence of
jollity at a threadbare joke. Whatever it may once have
'been, it is now but a narrow stream of merriment, noisy
of set purpose, running along the middle of the Corso,
through the solemn heart of the decayed city, without ex.
tending its shallow influence on either side. Nor, even
within its own limits, does it affect the mass of spectators,
but only a comparatively few, in street and balcony, who
carry on the warfare of
nosegays
and counterfeit sugar-
plums. The populace look on with staid composure; the
nobility and priesthood take little or no part in the mat-
ter; and, but for the hordes of Anglo-Saxons who annu
ally take up the flagging mirth, the carnival might long
ago have been swept away, with the snow-drifts of con-
fetti that whiten all the pavement.
No doubt, however, the worn-out festival is still new to
the youthful and light-hearted, who make the worn-out
world itself as fresh as Adam found it on his first fore-
noon in Paradise. It may be only age and care that chill
the life out of its grotesque and airy riot, with the im-
pertinence of their cold criticism.
Kenyon, though young, had care enough within his
breast to render the carnival the emptiest of mockeries.
Contrasting the stert anxiety of his present mood with
the frolic spirit of the preceding year, he fancied that so


254
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
much trouble had, at all events, brought wisdom in its
train. But there is a wisdom that looks grave, and sneers
at merriment; and again a deeper wisdom, that stoops to
be gay as often as occasion serves, and oftenest avails
itself of shallow and trifling grounds of mirth; because,
if we wait for more substantial ones, we seldom can be
gay at all. Therefore, had it been possible, Kenyon would
have done well to mask himself in some wild, hairy visage
and plunge into the throng of other maskers, as at the
carnival before. Then, Donatello had danced along the
Corso in all the equipment of a Faun, doing the part
with wonderful felicity of execution, and revealing furry
ears which looked absolutely real; and Miriam had been
alternately, a lady of the antique régime, in powder and
brocade, and the prettiest peasant-girl of the Campagna,
in the gayest of costumes; while Hilda, sitting demurely
in a balcony, had hit the sculptor with a single rosebud, -
so sweet and fresh a bud that he knew at once whose
hand had flung ito
These were all gone; all those dear friends whose
sympathetic mirth had made him gay. Kenyon felt as
if an interval of many years had passed since the last
carnival. He had grown old, the nimble jollity was
tame, and the maskers dull and heavy; the Corso was
but a narrow and shabby street of decaying palaces
and even the long, blue streamer of Italian sky, above
it, not half so brightly blue as formerly.
Yet, if he could have beheld the scene with his clear
natural eyesight, he might still have found both merri-
ment and splendor in it. Everywhere, and all day long


A SCENE IN THE CORSO.
255
thore had been tokens of the festival, in the baskets brima
ming over with bouquets, for sale at the street-corners,
or borne about or people's heads; while bushels upon
bushels of variously colored confetti were displayed, look
ing just like veritable sugar-plums; so that a stranger
would have imagined that the whole commerce and busi-
ness of stern old Rome lay in flowers and sweets. And,
now, in the sunny afternoon, there could hardly be 'a
spectacle more picturesque than the vista of that noble
street, stretching into the interminable distance between
two rows of lofty edificés, from every window of which,
and many a balcony, flaunted gay and gorgeous carpets,
bright silks, scarlet cloths with rich golden fringes, and
Gobelin tapestry, still lustrous with varied hues, though
the product of antique looms. Each separate palace had
put on a gala-dress, and looked festive for the occasion,
whatever sad or guilty secret it might hide within. Every
window, moreover, was alive with the faces of women,
rosy girls, and children, all kindled into brisk and mirth-
ful expression by the incidents in the street below. In
the balconies that projected along the palace fronts, stood
groups of ladies, some beautiful, all richly dressed, scat-
tering forth their laughter, shrill, yet sweet, and the mu-
sical babble of their voices, to thicken into an airy tumult
over the heads of common mortals.
All these innumerable eyes looked dowa into the street,
the whole capacity of which was thronged with festal
figures, in such fantastic variety that it had taken cen-
turies to contrive them; and through the midst of the
mad, merry stream of human life, rolled slowly onward a


256
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
never-ending procession of all the vehicles in Rome,
from the ducal carriage, with the powdered coachman
high in front, and the three golden lackeys clinging in
the rear, down to the rustic cart drawn by its single
donkey. Among this various crowd, at windows and
in balconies, in cart, cab, barouche, or gorgeous equi-
page, or bustling to and fro afoot, there was a sympathy
of nonsense ; a true and genial brotherhood and sister-
hood, based on the honest purpose
and a wise one
too - of being foolish, all together. The sport of man.
kind, like its deepest earnest, is a battle; so these festiva
people fought one another with an ammunition of -agar
plums and flowers.
Not that they were veritable sugar-plums, however.
but something that resembled them only as the apples
of Sodom look like better fruit. They were concocted
mostly of lime, with a grain of oat or some other worth.
less kernel in the midst. Besides the hail-storm of con-
fetti, the combatants threw handfuls of flour or lime into
the air, where it hung like smoke over a battle-field, or,
descending, whitened a black coat or priestly robe, and
made the curly locks of youth irreverently hoary.
At the same time with this acrid contest of quicklime,
which caused much effusion of tears from suffering eyes,
A gentler warfare of flowers was carried on, principally
between knights and ladies. Originally, no doubt, when
this pretty custom was first instituted, it may have had a
sincere and modest import. Each youth and damsel,
gathering bouquets of field flowers, or the sweetest and
fairest that grew in their own gardens, all fresh and virgin


A SCENE IN THE CORSO)
257
blossoms, -flung them, with true aim, at the one, or few,
whom they regarded with a sentiment of shy partiality at
least, if not with love. Often, the lover in the Corso may
thus have received from his bright mistress, in her father's
princely balcony, the first sweet intimation that his pag-
sionate glances had not struck against a heart of marble.
What more appropriate mode of suggesting her tender
becret could a maiden find, than by the soft hit of a rose,
bud against a young man's cheek.
This was the pastime and the earnest of a more inno-
cent and homelier age. Now-a-days, the nosegays are
gathered and tied up by sordid hands, chiefly of the most
ordinary flowers, and are sold along the Corso, at mean
price, yet more than such venal things are worth. Buy-
ing a basketful, you find them miserably wilted, as if they
had flown hither and thither through two or three carnival
days already; muddy, too, having been fished up from
the pavement, where a hundred feet have trampled on
them. You may see throngs of men and boys who thrust
themselves beneath the horses' hoofs to gather up bou-
quets that were aimed amiss from balcony and carriage ;
these they sell again, and yet once more, and ten times
over, defiled as they all are with the wicked filth of
Rome.
Such are the flowery favors -- the fragrant bunches
of sentiment -- that fly between cavalier and dame and
back again, from one end of the Corso to the other. Per
haps they may symbolizc, more aptly than was intended,
the poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who fling them,
hearts which -- crumpled and crushed by former posac"


258
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
sors, and stained with various mishap -- have been passed
from hand to hand, along the muddy street-way of life
instead of being treasured in one faithful bosom.
These veñal and polluted flowers, therefore, and those
deceptive bonbons, are types of the small reality that
still subsists in the observance of the carnival. Yet the
government seemed to imagine that there might be ex-
citement enough - wild mirth, perchance, following its
antics beyond law, and frisking from frolic into earnest
to render it expedient to guard the Corso with an impos-
ing show of military power. Besides the ordinary force
of gendarmes, a strong patrol of Papal dragoons, in steel
helmets and white cloaks, were stationed at all the street-
corners. Detachments of French infantry stood by their
stacked muskets in the Piazza del Popolo, at one ex-
tremity of the course, and before the palace of the
Austrian embassy, at the other, and by the column of
Antoninus, midway between. Had that chained tiger-cat,
the Roman populace, shown only so much as the tips of
his claws, the sabres would have been flashing and the
bullets whistling, in right earnest, among the combatants
who now pelted one another with mock sugar-plums and
wilted flowers.
But, to do the Roman people justice, they were re-
strained by a better safeguard than the sabre or the bayo-
net: it was their own gentle courtesy, which imparted a
sort' of sacredness to the hereditary festival. At first
sight of a spectacle so fantastic and extravagant, a cool
änserver might have imagined the whole town gone mad;
but, in the end, he would see that all this apparently uv


A SCENE IN THE CORSO.
259
vounded license is kept strictly within a limit of its own ;
he would admire a people who can so freely let loose
their mirthful propensities, while muzzling those fiercer
ones that tend to mischief. Everybody seemed law-
less ; nobody was rude. If any reveller overstepped the
mark, it wasure to be no Roman, but an Englishman or
an American and even the rougher play of this Gothic
race was still softened by the insensible influence of a
moral atmosphere more delicate, in some respects, than
we breathe at home. Not that, after all, we like the fina
Italian spirit better than our own; popular rudeness is
sometimes the symptom of rude moral health. But, where
a carnival is in question, it would probably pass off more
decorously, as well as more airily, and delightfully, in
Rome, than in any Anglo-Saxon city.
When Kenyon emerged from a side-lane into the
Corso, the mirth was at its height. Out of the seclusion
of his own feelings, he looked forth at the tapestried and
damask-curtained palaces, the slow-moving, double line of
carriages, and the motley maskers that swarmed on foot,
as if he were gazing through the iron lattice of a prison-
window. So remote from the scene were his sympathies,
that it affected him like a thin dream, through the dim,
extravagant material of which he .could discern more
substantial objects, while too much under its control to
start forth broad awake. Just at that moment, too, there
came another spectacle, making its way right through the
masquerading throng.
It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial musica
reverberating, in that narrow and confnod, though stately


260
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
avenue, between the walls of the lofty palaces, and roar
ing upward to the sky, with melody so powerful that it
almost grew, to discord. Next came a body of cavalry
and mounted gendarmes, with great display of military
pomp. They were escorting a long train of equipages
each and all of which shone as gorgeously as Cinderella's
coach, with paint and gilding. Like that, too, they were
provided with coachmen, of mighty breadth, and enor-
mously tall footmen, in immense, powdered wigs, and all
the splendor of gold-laced, three-cornered hats, and em-
broidered silk coats and breeches. By the old-fashioned
magnificence of this procession, it might worthily have
included his Holiness in person, with a suite of attendant
Cardinals, if those sacred dignitaries would kindly have
lent their aid to heighten the frolic of the carnival. But,
for all its show of a martial escort, and its antique splen-
dor of costume, it was but a train of the municipal au-
thorities of Rome, - illusive shadows, every one, and
among them a phantom, styled the Roman Senator,
proceeding to the Capitol.
The riotous interchange of nosegays and confetti was
partially suspended, while the procession passed. One well-
directed shot, however, -- it was a double handful of pow-
dered lime, flung by an impious New Englander, - hit
the coachman of the Roman Senator full in the face, aud
hurt his dignity amazingly. It appeared to be his opin-
ion, that the Republic was again crumbling into ruin, and
that the dust of it now filled his nostrils ; hough, in fact
it would hardly be distinguished from the official powder
with which he was already plentifully bestrewn.


A BOBIL IN THE CORSO.
261
While the sculptor, with his dreamy eyes, was taking
die note of this trifling circumstance, two figures passed
before him, hand in hand. The countenance of each was
covered with an impenetrable black mask ; but one
seemed a peasant of the Campagna; the other, & con-
tadina in her holiday costume.


262
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI,
CHAPTER XXIV.
A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
The crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hin-
dered the sculptor from pursuing these figures, - the
peasant and contadina, who, indeed, were but two of a
numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar cos-
tume. As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Kenyon
tried to follow in their footsteps, but quickly lost sight of
them, and was thrown off the track by stopping to ex:
amine various groups of masqueraders, in which he
fancied the objects of his search to be included. He
found many a sallow peasant or herdsman of the Cam-
pagna, in such a dress as Donatello wore; many a con-
tadina, too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery of
scarlet, and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair of
heavy ear-rings, a curiously wrought cameo or mosaic
brooch, and a silver comb or long stiletto among her
glossy hair.
But those shapes of grace and beauty,
which he sought, had vanished.
As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed,
the merry-makers resumed their antics with fresh spirit,
and the artillery of bouquets and sugar-plums, suspended


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
263
foi a moment, began anew. The sculptor himself being
probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there,
was especially a mark for missiles from all quarters, and
for the practical jokes which the license of the carnival
permits In fact, his sad and contracted brow so ill ac-
corded with the scene, that the revellers might be par.
doned for thus using him as the butt of their idle mirth,
since he evidently could not otherwise contribute to it.
Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumference
of a bushel, grinned enormously in his face. Harlequins
struck him with their wooden swords, and appeared to ex-
pect his immediate transformation into some jollier shape.
A little, long-tailed, horned fiend sidled up to him, and
suddenly blew at him through a tube, enveloping our
poor friend in a whole harvest of winged seeds. A biped,
with an ass's snout, brayed close to his ear, ending his
discordant uproar with a peal of human laughter. Five
strapping damsels - so, at least, their petticoats bespoke
them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their
legs — joined hands, and danced around him, inviting him
by their gestures, to perform a hornpipe in the midst.
Released from these gay persecutors, a clown in motley
rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a
handful of dried peas rattled horribly.
Unquestionably, a care-stricken mortal has no business
Abroad, when the rest of mankind are at high carnival ;
they must either pelt him and absolutely martyr him with
jests, and finally bury him beneath the aggregate heap;
or else the potency of his darker mood, because the tissue
of human life takes a sad dye more readily than a gay


264
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
over.
one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a
death's-head at a banquet. Only that we know Kenyon's
errand, we could hardly forgive him for venturing into the
Corso with that troubled face.
Even yet, his merry martyrdom was not half
There came along a gigantic fernale figure, seven feet
high, at least, and taking up a third of the street's breadth
with the preposterously swelling sphere of her crinoline
skirts. Singling out the sculptor, she began to make
a ponderous assault upon his heart, throwing amorous
glances at him out of her great goggle-eyes, offering him
a vast bouquet of sunflowers and nettles, and soliciting
his pity by all sorts of pathetic and passionate dumb.
show. Her suit meeting no favor, the rejected Titaness
made a gesture of despair and rage ; then suddenly draw-
ing a huge pistol, she took aim right at the obdurate
sculptor's breast, and pulled the trigger. The shot took
effect, for the abominable plaything went off by a spring,
like a boy's popgun, covering Kenyon with a cloud of
lime-dust, under shelter of which the revengeful damsel
strode away.
Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded
him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns and
parti-colored harlequins; orang-outangs; bear-headed,
bull-headed, and dog-headed individuals ; faces that would
have been human, but for their enormous noses; one terrific
creature, with a visage right in the centre of his breast
and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exag
geration. These apparitions appeared to be investigating
the case, after the fashion of a coroner's jury, poking


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
265
their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with
an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effict
to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then,
a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an
inkhorn at his buttonhole, and a pen behind his ear; he
announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the
kust will and testament of the assassinated man. This
solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who
brandished a lancet, three feet long, and proposed to him
to let him take blood.
The affair was so like a feverish dream, that Kenyon
resigned himself to let it take its course. Fortunately,
the humors of the carnival pass from one absurdity to
another, without lingering long enough on any, to wear
out even the slightest of them. The passiveness of his
demeanor afforded too little scope for such broad merri-
ment as the masqueraders sought. In a few moments
they vanished from him, as dreams and spectres do, leav
ing him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no impediment
except the crowd that blocked up the footway.
He had not gone far when the peasant and the conta-
dina met him. They were still hand in hand, and ap-
peared to be straying through the grotesque and animated
scene, taking as little part in it as himself. It might be
because he recognized them, and knew their solemn
secret, that the sculptor fancied a melancholy emotion to
de expresscd by the very movement and attitudes of theso
iwo figures; and even the grasp of their hands, uniting
'hem so closely, seemed to set them in a sad remotenese
rom the world at which they gazed.
VOL. II.
12


266
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“I rejoice to meet you,” said Kenyon.
But they looked at him through the eye-holes of them
black masks, without answering a word.
“ Pray give me a little light on the matter which I
have so much at heart,” said he ; “if you know anything
of Hilda, for Heaven's sake, speak !”
Still, they were silent; and the sculptor began to im-
agine that he must have mistaken the identity of these
figures, there being such a multitude in similar costume
Yet there was no other Donatello ; no other Miriam. He
felt, too, that spiritual certainty which impresses us with
the presence of our friends, apart from any testimony of
the senses
“ You are unkind,” resumed he, “knowing the anx-
iety which oppresses me, - not to relieve it, if in your
power."
The reproach evidently had its effect; for the conta.
dina now spoke, and it was Miriam's voice.
“ We gave you all the light we could,” said she.
are yourself unkind, though you little think how much so,
to come between us at this hour. There may be a sacred
hour, even in carnival time.”
In another state of mind, Kenyon could have been
amused by the impulsiveness of this response, and a sort
of vivacity that he had often noted in Miriam's conversa-
tion. But he was conscious of a profound sadness in hier
tone, overpowering its momentary irritation, and assuring
him that a pale, tear-stained face was hidden behind her
nask.
"Forgive me!" said he.
6 You


Ą FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
267
Donatello here extended his hand, - not that which was
clasping Miriam's, — and she, too, put her free one into
the sculptor's left; so that they were a linked circle of
three, with many reminiscences and forebodings flashing
through their hearts. Kenyon knew intuitively that these
once familiar friends were parting with him, now.
“ Farewell!” they all three said, in the same breath.
No sooner was the word spoken, than they loosed their
hands; and the uproar of the carnival swept like a tem-
pestrious sea over the spot, which they had included
within their small circle of isolated feeling.
By this interview, the sculptor had learned nothing in
reference to Hilda ; but he understood that he was to
adhere to the instructions already received, and await a
solution of the mystery in some mode that he could not
yet anticipate. Passing his hands over his eyes, and
looking about him, — for the event just described had
made the scene even more dreamlike than before, - he
now found himself approaching that broad piazza border-
ing on the Corso, which has for its central object the
sculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far from
this vicinity that Miriam had bid him wait. 'Struggling
onward, as fast as the tide of merry-makers, setting strong
against him, would permit, he was now beyond the Palazzo
Colonna, and began to count the houses. The fifth was
palace, with a long front upon the Corso, and of stately
height, but somewhat grim with age.
Over its arched and pillared entrance, there was a bal.
copy, richly hung with tapestry ar d damask, and tenanted,
for the time, by a gentleman of venerable aspect, and ,


268
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
1
group of ladies. The white hair and whiskers of the
former, and the winter-roses in his cheeks, had an English
look; the ladies, too, showed a fair-haired, Saxon bloom,
and seemed to taste the mirth of the carnival with the
freshness of spectators to whom the scene was new. All
the party, the old gentleman with grave earnestness, as if
ae were defending a rampart, and his young companions
with exuberance of frolic, showered confetti inexhaustibly
upon the passers-by.
In the rear of the balcony, a broad-brimmed, ecclesi.
astical beaver was visible. An abbate, probably an ac.
quaintance and cicerone of the English family, was sitting
there, and enjoying the scene, though partially withdrawn
from view, as the decorum of his order dictated.
There seemed no better nor other course for Kenyon,
than to keep watch at this appointed spot, waiting for
whatever should happen next. Clasping his arm round a
lamp-post, to prevent being carried away by the turbulent
stream of wayfarers, he scrutinized every face, with the
idea that some one of them might meet his eyes
glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask, -har-
lequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was
absurdest, --- not knowing but that the messenger might
come, even in such fantastic guise. Or, perhaps, one of
those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic
and trunk-hose, of three centuries ago, might bring him
tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times, his
disquietude took a hopeful aspect; and he fancied that
Hilda might come by, her own sweet self, in some shy
disguise which the instinct of his love would be sure to
with a


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
269
penetrate. Or, she might be borne past on a triumphal
car, like the one just now approaching, its slow-moving
wheels encircled and spoked with foliage, and drawn by
horses that were harnessed and wreathed with flowers
Being, at best, so far beyond the bounds of reasonable
conjecture, he might anticipate the wildest event, or find
either his hopes or fears disappointed in what appeared
most probable.
The old Englishman and his daughters, in the opposite
balcony, must have seen something unutterably absurd in
the sculptor's deportment, poring into this whirlpool of
nonsense so earnestly, in quest of what was to make his
life dark or bright. Earnest people, who try to get a
reality out of human existence, are necessarily absurd
in the view of the revellers and masqueraders. At all
events, after a good deal of mirth at the expense of his
melancholy visage, the fair occupants of the balcony
favored Kenyon with a salvo of confetti, which came
rattling about him like a hail-storm. Looking up, in-
stinctively, he was surprised to see the abbate in the
background lean forward and give a courteous sign of
recognition.
It was the same old priest with whom he had seen
Hilda, at the confessional; the same with whom he had
talked of her disappearance, on meeting him in the street.
Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not
now associate this ecclesiastical personage with the idea
of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the old man, just for an
instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of the
Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for


270
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
aught he knew, the sole chance of ever finding any traco
of her. There was, about this moment, a bustle on the
other side of the street, the cause of which Kenyon did
not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of
soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in it;
they were perhaps arresting some disorderly character,
who, under the influence of an extra flask of wine, might
have reeled across the mystic limitation of carnival pro-
prieties.
The sculptor heard some people near him, talking of
the incident.
“ That contadina, in a black mask, was a fine figure of
a woman.”
“She was not amiss,” replied a female voice ; " but
her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two.
Could they be really a peasant and a contadina, do you
imagine ?”
“ No, no," said the other. “It is some frolic of the
arnival, carried a little too far.”
This conversation might have excited Kenyon’s inter-
est; only that, just as the last words were spoken, he
was hit by two missiles, both of a kind that were flying
abundantly on that gay battle-field. One, we are ashamed
to say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man
from a passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump
against his shoulder; the other was a single rosebud, so
fresh that it seemed that moment gathered. It flew from
the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips, and fell
into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the face
of his lost Hilda !


A ''ROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
271
She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale
und bewildered, and yet full of tender joy. Moreover,
there was a gleam of delicate mirthfulness in her eyes,
which the sculptor had seen there only two or three times
in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the
most bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda's expressions.
That soft, mirthful smile caused her to melt, as it were,
into the wild frolic of the carnival, and become not so
strange and alien to the scene, as her unexpected appa-
rition must otherwise have made her.
Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daugh-
ters were staring at poor Hilda in a way that proved them
altogether astonished, as well as inexpressibly shocked, by
her sudden intrusion into their private balcony. They
looked - as, indeed, English people of respectability
would, if an angel were to alight in their circle, without
due introduction from somebody whom they knew, in the
court above — they looked as if an unpardonable liberty
had been taken, and a suitable apology must be made;
after which, the intruder would be expected to withdraw.
The abbate, however, drew the old gentleman aside,
and whispered a few words that served to mollify him ;
he bestowed on Hilda a sufficiently benignant, though still
a perplexed and questioning regard, and invited her, in
dumb show, to put herself at her ease.
But, whoever was in fault, our shy and gentle Hilda
had dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, oj
where she had been hidden, during this mysterious inter
val, we can but imperfectly surmise, and do not mean, a
present, to make it a matter of formal explanation with


272
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
the reader. It is better, perhaps, to fancy that she had
been snatched away to a land of picture; that she had
been straying with Claude in the golden light which he
used to shed over his landscapes, but which he could
never have beheld with his waking eyes, till he awoke in
the better clime. We will imagine that, for the sake of
the true siinplicity with which she loved them, Hilda had
been permitted, for a season, to converse with the great,
departed masters of the pencil, and behold the diviner
works which they have painted in heavenly colors. Guido
had shown her another portrait of Beatrice Cenci, done
from the celestial life, in which that forlorn mystery of
the earthly countenance was exchanged for a radiant joy.
Perugino had allowed her a glimpse at his easel, on
which she discerned what seemed a woman's face, but so
divine, by the very depth and softness of its womanhood,
that a gush of happy tears blinded the maiden's eyes,
before she had time to look. Raphael had taken Hilda
by the hand, - that fine, forcible hand which Kenyon
sculptured, -- and drawn aside the curtain of gold-fringed
cloud that hung before his latest masterpiece. On earth,
Raphael painted the Transfiguration. What higher scene
may he have since depicted, not from imagination, but ae
revealed to his actual sight !
Neither will we retrace the steps by which she returned
to the actual world. For the present be it enough to say
that Hilda had been summoned forth from a secret place,
and led we know not through what mysterious passages,
to a point where the tumult of life burst suddenly upon
her ears.
She heard the tramp of footsteps, the rattle of


A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.
273
scene.
wheels, and the mingled hum of a multitude of voices,
with strains of music and loud laughter breaking through.
Emerging into a great, gloomy hall, a curtain was drawn
aside ; she found herself gently propelled into an open
balcony, whence she looked out upon the festal street,
with gay tapestries flaunting over all the palace fronts,
the windows thronged with merry faces, and a crowd of
maskers rioting upon the pavement below.
Immediately, she seemed to become a portion of thu
Her pale, large-eyed, fragile beauty, her wonder-
ing aspect, and bewildered grace, attracted the gaze of
many; and there fell around her a shower of bouquets
and bonbons freshest blossoms and sweetest sugar-
plums, sweets to the sweet such as the revellers of the
carnival reserve as tributes to especial loveliness. Hilda
pressed her hand across her brow; she let her eyelids
fall, and, lifting them again, looked through the grotesque
and gorgeous show, the chaos of mad jollity, in quest of
some object by which she might assure herself that the
whole spectacle was not an illusion.
Beneath the balcony, she recognized a familiar and
fondly remembered face. The spirit of the hour and the
scene exercised its influence over her quick and sensitive
nature; she caught up one of the rose-buds that had been
showered upon her, and aimed it at the sculptor.
It hit
the mark; he turned his sad eyes upward, and there was
Hilda, in whose gentle presence his own secret sorrow and
the obtrusive uproar of the carnival alike died away om
bis perception.
That nigbt, the lamp beneath the Virgin's shrine burned
12 *


274
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
as brightly as if it had never been extinguished ; and
though the one faithful dove had gone to her melancholy
perch, she greeted Hilda rapturously the next morning
and summoned her less constant companions, whitherso
aver they had flown, to renew their homage.


MIRIAM, AILLA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
278
CHAPTER XXV.
MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
TAE gentle reader, we trust, would not thank us for
one of those minute elucidations, which are so tedious,
and, after all, so unsatisfactory, in clearing up the roman
tic mysteries of a story. He is too wise to insist upon
looking closely at the wrong side of the tapestry, after the
right one has been sufficiently displayed to him, woven
with the best of the artist's skill, and cunningly arranged
with a view to the harmonious exhibition of its coors.
If any brilliant, or beautiful, or even tolerable effect have
been produced, this pattern of kindly readers will accept
it at its worth, without tearing its web apart, with the idle
purpose of discovering how the threads have been knit
together; for the sagacity by which he is distinguished,
will long ago have taught him that any narrative of
human action and adventure whether we call it history
- is certain to be a fragile handiwork, more
casily rent than mended. The actual experience of even
the most ordinary life is full of events that never explain
themselves, either as regards their origin or their ter-
dency
or romance


276
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
son.
It would be easy, from conversations which we have
held with the sculptor, to suggest a clue to the mystery
of Ililda's disappearance; although as long as she re-
mained in Italy there was a remarkable reserve in her
communications upon this subject, even to her most inti-
mate friends. Either a pledge of secrecy had been ex-
acted, or a prudential motive warned her not to reveal
the stratagems of a religious body, or the secret acts of a
despotic government — whichever might be responsible
in the present instance — while still within the
scope
of
their jurisdiction. Possibly, she might not herself be
fully aware what power had laid its grasp upon her per-
What has chiefly perplexed us, however, among
Hilda's adventures, is the mode of her release, in which
some inscrutable tyranny or other seemed to take part in
the frolic of the carnival. We can only account for it,
by supposing that the fitful and fantastic imagination of a
sportive, because she must otherwise be des-
perate - had arranged this incident, and made it the con-
dition of a step which her conscience, or the conscience
of another, required her to take.
A few days after Hilda's reappearance, she and the
sculptor were straying together through the streets of
Rome. Being deep in talk, it so happened that they
found themselves near the majestic, pillared portico,
and huge, black rotundity of the Pantheon. It stands
almost at the central point of the labyrinthine intricacies
of the modern city, and often presents itself before the
bewildered stranger when he is in search of other objects
Hilda, looking up, proposed that they should enter
woman


MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO
277
"I never pass it without going in," she said, “ to pay
iny homage at the tomb of Raphael.”
“Nor I," said Kenyon," without stopping to admire
the roblest edifice which the barbarism of the early ages,
and the more barbarous pontiffs and princes of later ones,
bave spared to us."
They went in, accordingly, and stood in the free space
of that great circle, around which are ranged the arched
recesses and stately altars, formerly dedicated to heathen
gods, but Christianized through twelve centuries gone by.
The world has nothing else like the Pantheon. So grand
it is, that the pasteboard statues over the lofty cornice do
not disturb the effect, any more than the tin crowns and
hearts, the dusty artificial flowers, and all manner of
trumpery gewgaws, hanging at the saintly shrines. The
rust and dinginess that have dimmed the precious marble
on the walls; the pavement, with its great squares and
rounds of porphyry and granite, cracked crosswise and in
a hundred directions, showing how roughly the trouble-
some ages have trampled here; the gray dome above,
with its opening to the sky, as if heaven were looking
down into the interior of this place of worship, left unim.
peded for prayers to ascend the more freely: all these
things make an impression of solemnity, which Saint
Peter's itself fails to produce.
" I think,” said the sculptor, “it is to the aperture in
the dome that great Eye, gazing heavenward - that
the Pantheon owes the peculiarity of its effect. It is
so heathenish, as it were
so unlike all the snugness
of our modern civilization! Look, too, at the pavement


278
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
directly beneath the open space! So much rain has
fallen there, in the last two thousand years, that it is
green with small, fine moss, such as grows over tomb
stones in a damp English churchyard."
“ I like better,” replied Hilda, “ to look at the bright,
blue sky, roofing the edifice where the builders left it
open. It is very delightful, in a breezy day, to see the
masses of white cloud float over the opening, and then
the sunshine fall through it again, fitfully, as it does now.
Would it be any wonder if we were to see angels hover,
ing there, partly in and partly out, with genial, heavenly
faces, not intercepting the light, but only transmuting it
into beautiful colors ? Look at that broad, golden beam
a sloping cataract of sunlight -- which comes down
from the aperture and rests upon the shrine, at the right
hand of the entrance !"
“ There is a dusky picture over that altar," observed
the sculptor. “ Let us go and see if this strong iHumina
tion brings out any merit in it.”
Approaching the shrine, they found the picture little
worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see
that a very plump and comfortable tabby-cat - · whom
we ourselves have often observed haunting the Pantheon
- had established herself on the altar, in the genial
sunbeam, and was fast asleep among the holy tapers.
Their footsteps disturbing her, she awoke, raised herself
and sat blinking in the sun, yet with a certain dignity
And self-possession, as if conscious of representing a
saint.
“ I presume,” remarked Kenyon, “ that this is the firs


MIRIAM, AILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
279
of the feline race that has ever set herself up as an ob-
ject of worship, in the Pantheon or elsewhere, since the
days of ancient Egypt. See; there is a peasant from
the neighboring market, actually knceling to her! She
seems a gracious and benignant saint enough.”
"Do not make me laugh," said Hilda, reproachfully,
is but help me to drive the creature away. It distresses
me to see that poor man, or any human being, directing
his prayers so much amiss.”
“ Then, Hilda,” answered the sculptor, more seriously
" the only place in the Pantheon for you and me to kneel,
is on the pavement beneath the central aperture. If we
pray at a saint's shrine, we shall give utterance to earthly
wishes ; but if we pray face to face with the Deity, we
shall feel it impious to petition for aught that is narrow
and selfish. Methinks, it is this that makes the Catho-
lics so delight in the worship of saints; they can bring
up all their little worldly wants and whims, their in-
dividualities, and human weaknesses, not as things to
be repented of, but to be humored by the canonized
humanity to which they pray. Indeed, it is very tempt-
ing!”
What Hilda might have answered, must be left to con-
jecture ; for as she turned from the shrine, her eyes were
attracted to the figure of a female penitent, kneeling on
he pavement just beneath the great central eye, in the
very spot which Kenyon had designated as the only one
whence prayers should ascend. The upturned face was
invisible, behind a veil or mask, which formed a part of
the garb.


280
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“ It cannot be !” whispered Hilda, with emction. “No
it cannot be ! ”
“ What disturbs you ?” askerl Kenyon. “Why do
you tremble so ?”
"If it were possible,” she replid "I should fancy that
kneeling figure to be Miriam!”
“ As you say, it is impossible," 1e joined the sculptor.
" We know too well what has befaller both her and Doo
Datello."
“Yes; it is impossible!” repeated Hilda.
Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seemed
unable to withdraw her attention from the kneeling figure.
Suddenly, and as if the idea of Miriam had opened the
whole volume of Hilda's reminiscences, slic, put this ques
tion to the sculptor:
“ Was Donatello really a Faun ?”
If
you had ever studied the pedigree of the far-de-
scended heir of Monte Beni, as I did,” answered Kenyon,
with an irrepressible smile, “ you would have retaired few
doubts on that point. Faun or not, he had a genial
nature, which, had the rest of mankind been in accord-
ance with it, would have made earth a paradise to our
poor friend. It seems the moral of his story, that human
beings of Donatello's character, compounded especially for
happiness, have no longer any business on earth, or else
where. Life has grown so sadly serious, that such mer
must change their nature, or else perish, like the an
tediluvian creatures, that required, as the condition of
their existence, a more summer-like atmosphere than
Durs."
66


MIRIAM HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
281
« But
“I will not accept your moral!” replied the hopeful
and happy-natured Hilda.
“ Then here is another; take your choice !” said the
sculptor, remembering what Miriam had recently sug.
gested, in reference to the same point. “He perpetrated
a great crime; and his remorse, gnawing into his soul,
has awakened it; developing a thousand high capabilities,
moral and intellectual, which we never should have
dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of the
Donatello whom we knew."
“I know 'not whether this is so," said Hilda.
what then?”
“ Here comes my perplexity," continued Kenyon.
“Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him. Is sin,
then -- which we deem such a dreadful blackness in the
universe -- is it, like sorrow, merely an element of human
education, through which we struggle to a higher and
purer state than we could otherwise have attained ? Did
Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier
paradise than his ? "
“ Oh, hush !” cried Hilda, shrinking from him with an
expression of horror which wounded the poor, speculative
sculptor to the soul. “This is terrible ; and I could weep
for you, if you indeed believe it. Do not you perceive
what a mockery your creed makes, not only of all relig.
ious sentiments, but of moral law ? and how it annula
and obliterates whatever precepts of Heaven are written
deepest within us ? You have shocked me beyond
words!"


282
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
“Forgive me, Hilda !” exclaimed the sculptor, startled
by her agitation ; “I never did believe it! But the mind
wanders wild and wide; and, so lonely as I live and work,
I have neither polestar above, nor light of cottage-win-
dows here below, to bring me home. Were you my
guide, my counsellor, my inmost friend, with that white
wisdom which clothes you as a celestial garment, all
would go well. Oh, Hilda, guide me home!”
“We are both lonely; both far from home !” said
Hilda, her eyes filling with tears. “I am a poor, weak
girl, and have no such wisdom as you fancy in me.”
What further may have passed between these lovers,
while standing before the pillared shrine, and the marble
Madonna that marks Raphael's tomb, whither they had
now wandered, we are unable to record. But when the
kneeling figure, beneath the open eye of the Pantheon
arose, she looked towards the pair, and extended her
hands with a gesture of benediction. Then they knew
that it was Miriam. They suffered her to glide out of
the portal, however, without a greeting; for those ex-
tended hands, even while they blessed, seemed to repel,
as if Miriam stood on the other side of a fathomless
abyss, and warned them from its verge.
So Kenyon won the gentle Hilda's shy affection, and
ber consent to be his bride. Another hand must hence-
forth trim the lamp before the Virgin's shrine ; for Hilda
was coming down from her old tower, to be herself en-
shrined and worshipped as a household saint, in the light
of her husband's fireside. And, now that life had sc mucb


MRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO.
283
human promise in it, they resolved to go back to their own
land; because the years, after all, have a kind of emptiness,
when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. We
defer the reality of life, in such cases, until a future mo-
ment, when we shall again breathe our native air ; but,
by-and-by, there are no future moments ; or, if we do re-
turn, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating
quality, and that life has shifted its reality to the spot
where we have deemed ourselves only temporary resi.
dents. Thus, between two countries, we have none at all,
or only that little space of either, in which we finally ſay
down our discontented bones. It is wise, therefore, to
come back betimes, or never.
Before they quitted Rome, a bridal gift was laid on
Hilda's table. It was a bracelet, evidently of great cost,
being composed of seven ancient Etruscan gems, dug out
of seven sepulchres, and each one of them the signet of
some princely personage, who had lived an immemorial
time ago. Hilda remembered this precious ornament.
It had been Miriam's; and once, with the exuberance
of fancy that distinguished her, she had amused herself
with telling a mythical and magic legend for each gem,
comprising the imaginary adventures and catastrophe of
its former wearer. Thus, the Etruscan bracelet became
the connecting bond of a series of seven wondrous tales,
all of which, as they were dug out of seven sepulchres,
were characterized by a sevenfold sepulchral gloom ; such
as Miriam' imagination, shadowed by her own misfortu.ca
was wont w fimg over its most sportive fligł ts.


284
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI,
And now, happy as Hilda was, the bracelt brought the
tears into her eyes, as being, in its entire circle, the sym
bol of as sad a mystery as any that Miriam had attached
to the separate gems. For, what was Miriain's life to be!
And where was Donatello? But Hilda had a hopefu
soul, and saw sunlight on the mountain-tops.
CONCLUSION.
THERE comes to the author from many readers of the
foregoing pages, a demand for further elucidations re-
specting the mysteries of the story.
He reluctantly avails himself of the opportunity af
forded by a new edition, to explain such incidents and
passages as may have been left too much in the dark ;
reluctantly, he repeats, because the necessity makes him
sensible that he can have succeeded but imperfectly, at
best, in throwing about this Romance the kind of atmos.
phere essential to the effect at which he aimed.
He designed the story and the characters to bear, of
course, a certain relation to human nature and humay
life, but still to be so artfully and airily removed from our
mundane sphere, that some laws and proprieties of their
own should be implicitly and insensibly acknowledged.
The idea of the modern Faun, for example, loses al
the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, and
becomes nothing better than a grotesque absurdity, if we
bring it into the actual light of day. He had hoped to
mystify this anomalous creature between the Real and the
Fantastic, in such a manner that the reader's sympathies
might be excited to a certain pleasurable degree, without
impelling him to ask how Cuvier would have classified
poor Donatello, or to insist upon being told, in so many


CCNOLUSION.
285
words, whether he had furiy ears or no. As respects all
who ask such questions, the book is, to that extent, a
failure.
Nevertheless, the Author fortunately has it in his
power to throw light upon several matters in which some
of his readers appear to feel an interest. To confess the
truth, he was himself troubled with a curiosity similar to
that which he has just deprecated on the part of his read-
ers, and once took occasion to cross-examine his friends,
Hilda and the sculptor, and to pry into several dark re
cesses of the story, with which they had heretofore imper-
fectly acquainted him.
We three had climbed to the top of Saint Peter s,
and were looking down upon the Rome we were soon
to leave, but which (having already sinned sufficiently
in that way) it is not my purpose further to describe.
It occurred to me, that, being su remote in the upper
air, my friends might safely utter, kore, the secrets which
it would be perilous even to whispei, on lower earth.
Hilda,"
,” I began, “ can you tell me the contents of
that mysterious packet which Miriam intrusted to your
charge, and which was addressed to Signore Luca Bar-
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci ? "
“ I never had any further knowledge of it,” replied
Hilda, nor felt it right to let myself be curious upon
the subject.”
“ As to its precise contents,” interposed Kenyon, “ at
is impossible to speak. But Miriam, isolated as she
seemed, had family connections in Rome, one of whom,
there is reason to believe, occupied a position in the
Papal government.
“ This Signore Luca Barboni was either the assumed
name of the personage in question, or the medium of
communication between that individual and Miriam


286
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.
66 On
Now under such a government as that of Rome, it is
obvious that Miriam's privacy and isolated life could
only be maintained through the connivance and support
of some influential person connected with the admin-
istration of affairs. Free and self-controlled as she
appeared, her every movement was watched and inves-
tigated far more thoroughly by the priestly rulers than
by her dearest friends.
Miriam, if I mistake not, had a purpose to withdraw
herself from this irksome scrutiny, and to seek real ob-
scurity in another land ; and the packet, to be delivered
long after her departure, contained a reference to this
design, besides certain family documents, which were to
be imparted to her relative as from one dead and gone.”
“Yes, it is clear as a London fog," I remarked.
this head no further elucidation can be desired. But
when Hilda went quietly to deliver the packet, why did
she so mysteriously vanish ?”
“ You must recollect,” replied Kenyon, with a glance
of friendly commiseration at my obtuseness, "that Mir-
iam had utterly disappeared, leaving no trace by which
her whereabouts could be known. In the mean time, the
municipal authorities had become aware of the murder of
the Capuchin ; and from many preceding circumstances,
such as his persecution of Miriam, they must have seen
an obvious connection between herself and that tragical
event. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that Mir-
iam was suspected of connection with some plot, or polit-
ical intrigue, of which there may have been tokens in the
packet. And when Hilda appeared, as the bearer of this
missive, it was really quite a matter of course. under a
despotic government, that she should be detained.”
“Ah, quite a matter of course, as you say,” answered
1. “ How excessively stupid in me not to have seen it


CONCLUSION.
287
sooner! But, there are other riddles. On the night of
the extinction of the lamp, you met Donatello in a peni.
tents garb, and afterwards saw and spoke to Miriam, in a
coach, with a gem glowing on her bosom. What was the
business of these two guilty ones in Rome, and who was
Miriam's companion ? "
“Who!” repeated Kenyon, “why her official relative,
to be sure; and as to their business, Donatello's still
gnawing remorse had brought him hitherward, in spite
of Miriam's entreaties, and kept him lingering in the
neighborhood of Rome, with the ultimate purpose of
delivering himself up to justice. Hilda's disappearance,
which took place the day before, was known to them
through a secret channel, and had brought them into the
city, where Miriam, as I surmise, began to make arrange-
ments, even then, for that sad frolic of the Carnival.”
“And where was Hilda all that dreary time between ? "
inquired I.
“Where were you, Hilda ?” asked Kenyon, smiling.
Hilda threw her eyes on all sides, and seeing that
there was not even a bird of the air to fly away with the
secret, nor any human being nearer than the loiterers
by the obelisk, in the piazza below, she told us about her
mysterious abode.
“ I was a prisoner in the Convent of the Sacré Coeur,
in the Trinità de' Monte,” said she, “but in such kindly
custody of pious maidens, and watched over by such a
dear old priest, that — had it not been for one or two dis-
turbing recollections, and also because I am a daughter of
the Puritans — I could willingly have dwelt there forever.
"My entanglement with Miriam's misfortunes, and the
good Abbate's mistaken hope of a proselyte, seem to me
a sufficient clue to the whole mystery."
" The atmosphere is getting delightfully lucid,” oh


288
ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL.
.
served I, “but there are one or two things that still
puzzle me. Could you tell me - and it shall be kept a
profound secret, I assure you — what were Miriam's real
name and rank, and precisely the nature of the troubles
that led to all those direful consequences ? ”
“ Is it possible that you need an answer to those ques-
tions ?” exclaimed Kenyon, with an aspect of vast sur-
prise. “ Have you not even surmised Miriam's name
Think awhile, and you will assuredly remember it. If
not, I congratulate you most sincerely; for it indicates
that your feelings have never been harrowed by one of
the most dreadful and mysterious events that have og
curred within the present century !”
“Well,” resumed I, after an interval of deep considera-
tion, “ I have but few things more to ask. Where, at
this moment, is Donatello ? "
“ The Castle of Saint Angelo," said Kenyon sadly,
turning his face towards that sepulchral fortress, “is no
longer a prison ; but there are others which have dun-
geons as deep, and in one of them, I fear, lies our poor
Faun."
“ And why, then, is Miriam at large ?” I asked.
“Call it cruelty if you like, not mercy,” answered
Kenyon. “But, after all, her crime lay merely in a
glance. She did no murder !”
“ Only one question more,” said I, with intense earnest-
“ Did Donatello's ears resemble those of the Faun
of Praxiteles ? "
“I know, but may not tell,” replied Kenyon, smiling
mysteriously. “On that point, at all events, there shall
be not one word of explanation.”
LEAMINGTON, March 14, 186C.
ness.
THE END.






A
-
Ful
ALIHULALA
See page 158.


PASSAGES
FROM
THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN
NOTE-BOOKS.
VOL. I.





PASSAGES
FROM
HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS IN FRANCE
AND ITALY.
FRANCE.
HOTEL DE LOUVRE, January 6, 1858. - On Tuesday
morning, our dozen trunks and half-dozen carpet-
bags being all ready packed and labelled, we began to
prepare for our journey two or three hours before
light. Two cabs were at the door by half past six,
and at seven we set out for the London Bridge station,
while it was still dark and bitterly cold. There were
already many people in the streets, growing more nu-
merous as we drove city-ward; and, in Newgate Street,
there was such a number of market-carts, that we al-
most came to a dead lock with some of them. At the
station we found several persons who were apparently
going in the same train with us, sitting round the fire
of the waiting-room. Since I came to England there
has hardly been a morning when I should have less
willingly bestirred myself before daylight; so sharp
and inclement was the atmosphere. We started at
half past eight, having taken through tickets to Paris
by way of Folkestone and Boulogne. A foot-warmer
VOL. I.
1


2
(1858
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
(a long, flat tin utensil, full of hot water) was put int
the carriage just before we started; but it did no
make us more than half comfortable, and the fros?
soon began to cloud the windows, and shut out the
prospect, so that we could only glance at the green
fields -immortally green, whatever winter can do
against them — and, at here and there, a stream or
pool with the ice forming on its borders. It was the
first cold weather of a very mild season.
The snow
began to fall in scattered and almost invisible flakes ;
and it seemed as if we had stayed our English welcome
out, and were to find nothing genial and hospitable
there any more.
At Folkestone, we were deposited at a railway sta-
tion close upon a shingly beach, on which the sea
broke in foam, and which J - reported as strewn
with shells and star-fish; behind was the town, with
an old church in the midst; and, close at hånd, the
pier, where lay the steamer in which we were to em-
bark. But the air was so wintry, that I had no heart
to explore the town, or pick up shells with J.
the beach ; so we kept within doors during the two
hours of our stay, now and then looking out of the
windows at a fishing-boat or two, as they pitched and
rolled with an ugly and irregular motion, such as the
British Channel generally communicates to the craft
that navigate it.
At about one o'clock we went on board, and were
soon under steam, at a rate that quickly showed a
long line of the white cliffs of Albion behind us. It
is a very dusky white, by the by, and the cliffs them-
on


1858.]
3
FRANCE.
ness.
Our pas-
selves do not seem, at a distance, to be of imposing
height, and have too even an outline to be picturesque.
As we increased our distance from England, the
French coast came more and more distinctly in sight,
with a low, wavy outline, not very well worth looking
at, except because it was the coast of France. In-
deed, I looked at it but little ; for the wind was bleak
and boisterous, and I went down into the cabin, where
I found the fire very comfortable, and several people
were stretched on sofas in a state of placid wretched-
I have never suffered from sea-sickness,
but had been somewhat apprehensive of this rough
strait between England and France, which seems to
have more potency over people's stomachs than ten
times the extent of sea in other quarters.
bage was of two hours, at the end of which we landed
on French soil, and found ourselves immediately in
the clutches of the custom-house officers, who, how-
ever, merely made a momentary examination of my
passport, and allowed us to pass without opening even
one of our carpet-bags. The great bulk of our luggage
had been registered through to Paris, for examination
after our arrival there.
We left Boulogne in about an hour after our arri-
val, when it was already a darkening twilight. The
weather had grown colder than ever, since our arrival
in sunny France, and the night was now setting in,
wickedly black and dreary. The frost hardened upon
the carriage windows in such thickness that I could
scarcely scratch a peep-hole through it; but, from
such glimpses as I could catch, the aspect of the


FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
(1858.
country seemed pretty much to resemble the Decem-
ber aspect of my dear native land, - broad, bare,
brown fields, with streaks of snow at the foot of ridges,
and along fences, or in the furrows of ploughed soil.
There was ice wherever there happened to be water to
form it.
We had feet-warmers in the carriage, but the cold
crept in nevertheless; and I do not remember hardly
in my life a more disagreeable short journey than
this, my first advance into French territory. My im-
pression of France will always be that it is an Arctic
region. At any season of the year, the tract over
which we passed yesterday must be an uninteresting
one as regards its natural features; and the only
adornment, as far as I could observe, which art has
given it, consists in straight rows of very stiff-looking
and slender-stemmed trees. In the dusk they re-
sembled poplar-trees.
Weary and frost-bitten, -- morally, if not physically,
we reached Amiens in three or four hours, and
here I underwent much annoyance from the French
railway officials and attendants, who, I believe, did
not mean to incommode me, but rather to forward
my purposes as far as they well could. If they would
speak slowly and distinctly I might understand them
well enough, being perfectly familiar with the written
language, and knowing the principles of its pronun-
ciation; but, in their customary rapid utterance, it
sounds like a string of mere gabble. When left to
myself, therefore, I got into great difficulties. . . . . It
gives a taciturn personage like myself a new concep-


1858.]
5
FRANCE.
tion as to the value of speech, even to him, when he
finds himself unable either to speak or understand..
Finally, being advised on all hands to go to the
Hôtel de Rhin, we were carried thither in an omni-
bus, rattling over a rough pavement, through an in-
visible and frozen town; and, on our arrival, were
ushered into a handsome salon, as chill as a tornb.
They made a little bit of a wood fire for us in a
low and deep chimney-hole, which let a hundred
times more heat escape up the flue than it sent into
the room.
In the morning we sallied forth to see the Cathe-
dral.
The aspect of the old French town was very differ-
ent from anything English ; whiter, infinitely cleaner;
higher and narrower houses, the entrance to most
of which seeming to be through a great gateway,
Affording admission into a central court-yard ; a pub-
lic square, with a statue in the middle, and another
statue in a neighboring street. We met priests in
three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and knee-
breeches ; also soldiers and gendarmes, and peasants
and children, clattering over the pavements in wooden
shoes.
It makes a great impression of outlandishness to
see the signs over the shop doors in a foreign tongue.
If the cold had not been such as to dull my sense
of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, I
should have taken in set of new impressions, and
enjoyed them very much. As it was, I cared little
for what I saw, but yet had life enough left to enjoy


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the Cathedral of Amiens, which has many features
unlike those of English cathedrals.
It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and
has a high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed
to the minsters of England, which cover a great space
of ground in proportion to their height. The impres-
sion the latter gives is of magnitude and mass; this
French cathedral strikes one as lofty. The exterior is
venerable, though but little time-worn by the action
of the atmosphere ; and statues still keep their places
in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first
placed there in the thirteenth century. The principal
doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches;
and the interior seemed to us, at the moment, as
grand as any that we had seen, and to afford as vast
an idea of included space; it being of such an airy
height, and with no screen between the chancel and
nave, as in all the English cathedrals. We saw the
differences, too, betwixt a church in which the same
form of worship for which it was originally built is
still kept up, and those of England, where it has been
superseded for centuries; for here, in the recess of
every arch of the side-aisles, beneath each lofty win-
dow, there was a chapel dedicated to some saint, and
adorned with great marble sculptures of the cruci-
fixion, and with pictures, execrably bad, in all cases,
and various kinds of gilding and ornamentation. Im-
mensely tall wax candles stand upon the altars of
these chapels, and before one sat a woman, with a great
supply of tapers, one of which was burning. I sup-
pose these were to be lighted as offerings to the


1858.]
7
FRANCE.
-
saints, by the true believers. Artificial flowers were
hung at some of the shrines, or placed under glass.
In every chapel, moreover, there was a confessional,
a little oaken structure, about as big as a sentry-box,
with a closed part for the priest to sit in, and an
open one for the penitent to kneel at, and speak,
through the open-work of the priest's closet. Monu-
ments, mural and others, to long-departed worthies,
and images of the Saviour, the Virgin, and saints,
were numerous everywhere about the church ; and
in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and
curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies, where
the High Altar stands. There is not much painted
glass; one or two very rich and beautiful rose-win-
dows, however, that looked antique ; and the great
eastern window which, I think, is modern. The pave-
ment has, probably, never been renewed, as one piece
of work, since the structure was erected, and is foot-
worn by the successive generations, though still in
excellent repair. I saw one of the small, square stones
in it, bearing the date of 1597, and no doubt there
are a thousand older ones. It was gratifying to find
the Cathedral in such good condition, without any
traces of recent repair; and it is perhaps a mark of
difference between French and English character, that
the Revolution in the former country, though all
religious worship disappears before it, does not seem
to have caused such violence to ecclesiastical monu-
ments, as the Reformation and the reign of Puritan-
ism in the latter. I did not see a mutilated shrine,
or even a broken-ņosed image, in the whole Cathedral.


8
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FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
But, probably, the very rage of the English fanatics
against idolatrous tokens, and their smashing blows at
them, were symptoms of sincerer religious faith than
the French were capable of.
These last did not care
enough about their Saviour to beat down his crucified
image; and they preserved the works of sacred art,
for the sake only of what beauty there was in them.
While we were in the Cathedral, we saw several
persons kneeling at their devotions on the steps of the
chancel and elsewhere. One dipped his fingers in the
holy water at the entrance : by the by, I looked into
the stone basin that held it, and saw it full of ice.
Could not all that sanctity at least keep it thawed ?
Priests — jolly, fat, mean-looking fellows, in white
robes went hither and thither, but did not inter-
rupt or accost us.
There were other peculiarities, which I suppose I
shall see more of in my visits to other churches, but
now we were all glad to make our stay as brief as
possible, the atmosphere of the Cathedral being so
bleak, and its stone pavement so icy cold beneath our
feet. We returned to the hotel, and the chamber-
maid brought me a book, in which she asked me to
inscribe my name, age, profession, country, destination,
and the authorization under which I travelled. After
the freedom of an English hotel, so much greater than
even that of an American one, where they make you
disclose your name, this is not so pleasant.
We left Amiens at half past one; and I can tell as
little of the country between that place and Paris, as
between Boulogne and Amiens. The windows of our


1858.]
9
FRANCE.
railway carriage were already frosted with French
breath when we got into it, and the ice grew thicker
and thicker continually. I tried, at various times, to
rub a peep-hole through, as before ; but the ice im.
mediately shot its crystallized tracery over it again;
and, indeed, there was little or nothing to make it
worth while to look out, so bleak was the scene, Now
and then a château, too far off for its characteristics
to be discerned ; now and then a church, with a tall
gray tower, and a little peak atop; here and there a
village or a town, which we could not well see. At
sunset there was just that clear, cold, wintry sky
which I remember so well in America, but have never
seen in England.
At five we reached Paris, and were suffered to take
a carriage to the Hôtel de Louvre, without any ex-
amination of the little luggage we had with us. Arriv-
ing, we took a suite of apartments, and the waiter im-
mediately lighted a wax candle in each separate room.
We might have dined at the table d'hôte, but pre-
ferred the restaurant connected with and within the
hotel. All the dishes were very delicate, and a vast
change from the simple English system, with its
joints, shoulders, beefsteaks, and chops ; but I doubt
whether English cookery, for the very reason that it
is so simple, is not better for men's moral and spirit-
ual nature than French. In the former case, you
know that you are gratifying your animal needs and
propensities, and are duly ashamed of it; but, in deal-
ing with these French delicacies, you delude yourself
into the idea that you are cultivating your taste
1*


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while satisfying your appetite. This last, however, it
requires a good deal of perseverance to accomplish.
In the Cathedral at Amiens there were printed lists
of acts of devotion posted on the columns, such as
prayers at the shrines of certain saints, whereby plen-
ary indulgences might be gained. It is to be observed,
however, that all these external forms were necessarily
accompanied with true penitence and religious devo
tion.
Hôtel de Louvre, January 8th. - It was so fear-
fully cold this morning that I really felt little or no
curiosity to see the city. .. .. Until after one o'clock,
therefore, I knew nothing of Paris except the lights
which I had seen beneath our window the evening
before, far, far downward, in the narrow Rue St.
Honoré, and the rumble of the wheels, which con-
tinued later than I was awake to hear it, and began
again before dawn. I could see, too, tall houses, that
seemed to be occupied in every story, and that had
windows on the steep roofs. One of these houses is
six stories high. This Rue St. Honoré is one of the old
streets in Paris, and is that in which Henry IV. was
assassinated ; but it has not, in this part of it, the
aspect of antiquity.
After one o'clock we all went out and walked
along the Rue de Rivoli. ... We are here, right in
the midst of Paris, and close to whatever is best
known to those who hear or read about it, — the
Louvre being across the street, the Palais Royal but
little way off, the Tuileries joining to the Louvre,


1858.]
11
FRANCE.
the Place de la Concorde just beyond, verging on
which is the Champs Elysées. We looked about us
for a suitable place to dine, and soon found the Re-
staurant des Echelles, where we entered at a venture,
and were courteously received. It has a handsomely
furnished saloon, much set off with gilding and mir-
rors; and appears to be frequented by English and
Americans; its carte, a bound volume, being printed
in English as well as French.
It was now nearly four o'clock, and too late to visit
the galleries of the Louvre, or to do anything else
but walk a little way along the street. The splendor
of Paris, so far as I have seen, takes me altogether
by surprise : such stately edifices, prolonging them-
selves in unwearying magnificence and beauty, and,
ever and anon, a long vista of a street, with a column
rising at the end of it, or a triumphal arch, wrought
in
memory of some grand event. The light stone or
stucco, wholly untarnished by smoke and soot, puts
London to the blush, if a blush could be seen on its
dingy face; but, indeed, London is not to be men-
tioned with, nor compared even with Paris. I never
knew what a palace was till I had a glimpse of the
Louvre and the Tuileries ; never had my idea of a
city been gratified till I trod those stately streets.
The life of the scene, too, is infinitely more pictu-
resque than that of London, with its monstrous throng
of grave faces and black coats; whereas, there, you
see soldiers and priests, policemen in cocked hats,
Zouaves with turbans, long mantles, and bronzed,
half Moorish faces; and a great many people whom


12
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you perceive to be outside of your experience, and
know them ugly to look at, and fancy them villa-
nous. Truly, I have no sympathies towards the French
people; their eyes do not win me, nor do their glances
melt and mingle with mine. But they do grand and
beautiful things in the architectural way; and I am
grateful for it. The Place de la Concorde is a most
splendid square, large enough for a nation to erect
trophies in of all its triumphs; and on one side of it is
the Tuileries, on the opposite side the Champs Elysées,
and, on a third, the Seine, adown which we saw large
cakes of ice floating, beneath the arches of a bridge.
The Champs Elysées, so far as I saw it, had not a
grassy soil beneath its trees, but the bare earth, white
and dusty. The very dust, if I saw nothing else,
would assure me that I was out of England.
We had time only to take this little walk, when
it began to grow dusk; and, being so pitilessly cold,
we hurried back to our hotel. Thus far, I think, what
I have seen of Paris is wholly unlike what I expected;
but very like an imaginary picture which I had con-
ceived of St. Petersburg, - new, bright, magnificent,
and desperately cold.
A great part of this architectural splendor is due
to the present Emperor, who has wrought a great
change in the aspect of the city within a very few
years. A traveller, if he looks at the thing selfishly,
ought to wish him a long reign and arbitrary power,
since he makes it his policy to illustrate his capital
with palatial edifices, which are, however, better for a
stranger to look at, than for his own people to pay for.


1858.)
13
FRANCE.
We have spent to-day chiefly in seeing some of
the galleries of the Louvre. I must confess that the
vast and beautiful edifice struck me far more than the
pictures, sculpture, and curiosities which it contains,
the shell' more than the kernel inside ; such noble
suites of rooms and halls were those through which
we first passed, containing Egyptian, and, farther
onward, Greek and Roman antiquities; the walls
cased in variegated marbles; the ceilings glowing with
beautiful frescos; the whole extended into infinite
vistas by mirrors that seemed like vacancy, and multi-
plied everything forever. The picture-rooms are not so
brilliant, and the pictures themselves did not greatly
win upon me in this one day. Many artists were em-
ployed in copying them, especially in the rooms hung
with the productions of French painters. Not a few
of these copyists were females; most of them were
young men, picturesquely mustached and bearded ;
but some were elderly, who, it was pitiful to think,
had passed through life without so much success as
now to paint pictures of their own.
From the pictures we went into a suite of rooms
where are preserved many relics of the ancient and
later kings of France; more relics of the elder ones,
indeed, than I supposed had remained extant through
the Revolution. The French seem to like to keep
memorials of whatever they do, and of whatever their
forefathers have done, even if it be ever so little to
their credit; and perhaps they do not take matters
sufficiently to heart to detest anything that has ever
happened. What surprised me most were the golden


14
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FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
sceptre and the magnificent sword and other gorgeous
relics of Charlemagne, a person whom I had always
associated with a sheepskin cloak. There were suits
of armor and weapons that had been worn and
handled by a great many of the French kings; and a
religious book that had belonged to St. Louis; a
dressing-glass, most richly set with precious stones,
which formerly stood on the toilet-table of Catherine
di Medici, and in which I saw my own face where hers
had been. And there were a thousand other treasures,
just as well worth mentioning as these. If each
monarch could have been summoned from Hades to
claim his own relics, we should have had the halls full
of the old Childerics, Charleses, Bourbons and Capets,
Henrys and Louises, snatching with ghostly hands at
sceptres, swords, armor, and mantles ; and Napoleon
would have seen, apparently, almost everything that
personally belonged to him, — his coat, his cocked
hats, his camp-desk, his field-bed, his knives, forks,
and plates, and even a lock of his hair. I must let it
all go. These things cannot be reproduced by pen
and ink.
Hôtel de Louvre, January 9th.
Last
evening Mr. Fezandie called. He spoke very freely
respecting the Emperor and the hatred entertained
against him in France; but said that he is more
powerful, that is, more firmly fixed as a ruler, than
ever the first Napoleon was. We, who look back upon
the first Napoleon as one of the eternal facts of the
past, a great boulder in history, cannot well estimate


1858.]
15
FRANCE.
was.
how momentary and unsubstantial the great Captain
may have appeared to those who beheld his rise out
of obscurity. They never, perhaps, took the reality
of his career fairly into their minds, before it was over.
The present Emperor, I believe, has already been as
long in possession of the supreme power as his uncle
I should like to see him, and may, perhaps, do
so, as he is our neighbor, across the way.
This morning Miss the celebrated astronom-
ical lady, called. She had brought a letter of intro-
duction to me, while consul; and her purpose now
was to see if we could take her as one of our party to
Rome, whither she likewise is bound. We readily
consented, for she seems to be a simple, strong,
healthy-humored woman, who will not fling herself as
a burden on our shoulders; and my only wonder is
that a person evidently so able to take care of herself
should wish to have an escort.
We issued forth at about eleven, and went down
the Rue St. Honoré, which is narrow, and has houses
of five or six stories on either side, between which
run the streets like a gully in a rock. One face of
our hotel borders and looks on this street. After go-
ing a good way, we came to an intersection with an-
other street, the name of which I forget; but, at this
point, Ravaillac sprang at the carriage of Henry IV.
and plunged his dagger into him. As we went down
the Rue St. Honoré, it grew more and more thronged,
and with meaner class of people. The houses still
were high, and without the shabbiness of exterior that
distinguishes the old part of London, being of light-


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[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
colored stone; but I never saw anything that so much
came up to my idea of a swarming city as this narrow,
crowded, and rambling street.
Thence we turned into the Rue St. Denis, which
is one of the oldest streets in Paris, and is said to
have been first marked out by the track of the saint's
footsteps, where, after his martyrdom, he walked along
it, with his head under his arm, in quest of a burial-
place. This legend may account for any crookedness
of the street; for it could not reasonably be asked of
a headless man that he should walk straight.
Through some other indirections we at last found
the Rue Bergère, down which I went with J— in
quest of Hottinguer & Co., the bankers, while the rest
of us went along the Boulevards, towards the Church
of the Madeleine. This business accomplished,
and I threaded our way back, and overtook
the rest of the party, still a good distance from the
Madeleine. I know not why the Boulevards are called
They are a succession of broad walks through
broad streets, and were much thronged with people,
most of whom appeared to be bent more on pleasure
than business. The sun, long before this, had come
out brightly, and gave us the first genial and com-
fortable sensations which we have had in Paris.
Approaching the Madeleine, we found it a most
beautiful church, that might have been adapted from
Heathenism to Catholicism; for on each side there is
a range of magnificent pillars, unequalled, except by
those of the Parthenon. A mourning coach, arrayed
in black and silver, was drawn up at the steps, and
So.


1858.]
17
FRANCE.
the front of the church was hung with black cloth,
which covered the whole entrance. However, seeing
the people going in, we entered along with them.
Glorious and gorgeous is the Madeleine. The entrance
to the nave is beneath a most stately arch; and three
arches of equal height open from the nave to the side
aisles; and at the end of the nave is another great
arch, rising, with a vaulted half-dome, over the high
altar. The pillars supporting these arches are Corin.
thian, with richly sculptured capitals; and wherever
gilding might adorn the church, it is lavished like sun-
shine; and within the sweeps of the arches there are
fresco paintings of sacred subjects, and a beautiful
picture covers the hollow of the vault over the altar;
all this, besides much sculpture; and especially a
group above and around the high altar, representing
the Magdalen smiling down upon angels and arch-
angels, some of whom are kneeling, and shadowing
themselves with their heavy marble wings. There is
no such thing as making my page glow with the most
distant idea of the magnificence of this church, in its
details and in its whole. It was founded a hundred
or two hundred years ago ; then Bonaparte contem-
plated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or
building it anew as one. The restored Bourbon re-
made it into a church ; but it still has a heathenish
look, and will never lose it.
When we entered we saw a crowd of people, all
pressing forward towards the high altar, before which
burned a hundred wax lights, some of which were six
or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a
B


18
[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
galaxy of stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover,
there was another galaxy of wax candles burning
around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered
with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin,
but a sarcophagus, or something still more huge.
The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass,
accompanied with heavy chanting of priests, out of
which sometimes rose the clear, young voices of chor-
isters, like light flashing out of the gloom. The
church, between the arches, along the nave, and
round the altar, was hung with broad expanses of
black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred vest-
ments covered with black. They looked exceedingly
well; I never saw anything half so well got up on the
stage. Some of these ecclesiastical figures were very
stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore
aloft the cross, and swung the censers in a way that
I liked to see. The ceremonies of the Catholic
Church were a superb work of art, or perhaps a true
growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men
felt their original meaning, they must have been full
of awe and glory. Being of another parish, I looked
on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad to see
the funeral service so well performed, and very glad
when it was over. What struck me as singular, the
person who performed the part usually performed
by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore
a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe,
a sword, and had the air of a military man.
Before the close of the service a contribution-box -
or, rather, a black velvet bag — was handed about by


1858.]
19
FRANCE.
this military verger; and I gave J- a franc to put
in, though I did not in the least know for what.
Issuing from the church, we inquired of two or
three persons who was the distinguished defunct at
whose obsequies we had been assisting, for we had
some hope that it might be Rachel, who died last
week, and is still above ground. But it proved to
be only a Madame Mentel, or some such name, whom
nobody had ever before heard of. I forgot to say that
her coffin was taken from beneath the illuminated
hall, and carried out of the church before us.
When we left the Madeleine we took our way to
the Place de la Concorde, and thence through the
Elysian Fields (which, I suppose, are the French
idea of heaven) to Bonaparte's triumphal arch. The
Champs Elysées may look pretty in summer ; though
I suspect they must be somewhat dry and artificial
at whatever season,
the trees being slender and
scraggy, and requiring to be renewed every few years.
The soil is not genial to them. The strangest pecu.
liarity of this place, however, to eyes fresh from moist
and verdant England, is, that there is not one blade
grass in all the Elysian Fields, nothing but hard
clay, now covered with white dust.
It gives the
whole scene the air of being a contrivance of man,
in which Nature has either not been invited to take
any part, or has declined to do so.
There were
merry-go-rounds, wooden horses, and other provis-
ion for children's amusements among the trees; and
booths, and tables of cakes, and candy-women; and
restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very
of


20
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FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
few people there; and doubtless we can form no
idea of what the scene might become when alive with
French gayety and vivacity.
As we walked onward the Triumphal Arch began to
loom up in the distance, looking huge and massive,
though still a long way off. It was not, however, till
we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the
grandeur of this great arch, including so large a space
of the blue sky in its airy sweep. At a distance it
impresses the spectator with its solidity; nearer, with
the lofty vacancy beneath it. There is a spiral stair-
case within one of its immense limbs; and, climbing
steadily upward, lighted by a lantern which the door-
keeper's wife gave us, we had a bird's-eye view of
Paris, much obscured by smoke or mist. Several
interminable avenues shoot with painful directness
right towards it.
On our way homeward we visited the Place Ven-
dôme, in the centre of which is a tall column, sculp-
tured from top to bottom, all over the pedestal, and
all over the shaft, and with Napoleon himself on the
summit. The shaft is wreathed round and roundabout
with representations of what, as far as I could distin-
guish, seemed to be the Emperor's victories. It has
a very
rich effect. At the foot of the column we saw
wreaths of artificial flowers, suspended there, no
doubt, by some admirer of Napoleon, still ardent
enough to expend a franc or two in this way.
Hôtel de Louvre, January 10th. - We had pur-
posed going to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to-day,


1858.]
21
FRANCE.
but the weather and walking were too unfavorable
fir a distant expedition; so we merely went across
the street to the Louvre.
Our principal object this morning was to see the
pencil drawings by eminent artists. Of these the
Louvre has a very rich collection, occupying many
apartments, and comprising sketches by Annibal
Caracci, Claude, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel
Angelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, and almost all the other
great masters, whether French, Italian, Dutch, or
whatever else; the earliest drawings of their great
pictures, when they had the glory of their pristine idea
directly before their minds' eye, that idea which
inevitably became overlaid with their own handling of
it in the finished painting. No doubt the painters
themselves had often a happiness in these rude, off-
hand sketches, which they never felt again in the
same work, and which resulted in disappointment,
after they had done their best. To an artist, the
collection must be most deeply interesting : to my-
self, it was merely curious, and soon grew wearisome.
In the same suite of apartments, there is a collec-
tion of miniatures, some of them very exquisite, and
absolutely lifelike, on their small scale. I observed
two of Franklin, both good and picturesque, one of
them especially so, with its cloud-like white hair. I
do not think we have produced a man so interesting
to contemplate, in many points of view, as he. Most
of our great men are of a character that I find it
impossible to warm into life by thought, or by lavish-
ing any amount of sympathy upon them.
Not so


22
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
Franklin, who had a great deal of common and un-
common human nature in him.
Much of the time, while my wife was looking at
the drawings, I sat observing the crowd of Sunday
visitors. They were generally of a lower class than
those of week-days; private soldiers in a variety of
uniforms, and, for the most part, ugly little men, but
decorous and well behaved. I saw medals on many
of their breasts, denoting Crimean service ; some were
the English medal, with Queen Victoria's head upon
it. A blue coat, with red, baggy trousers, was the
most usual uniform. Some had short-breasted coats,
made in the same style as those of the first Napoleon,
which we had seen in the preceding rooms. The
policemen, distributed pretty abundantly about the
rooms, themselves looked military, wearing cocked
hats and swords. There were many women of the
middling classes ; some, evidently, of the lowest, but
clean and decent, in colored gowns and caps ; and
laboring men, citizens, Sunday gentlemen, young
artists, too, no doubt - looking, with educated eyes, at
these art-treasures, and I think, as a general thing,
each man was mated with a woman. The soldiers,
however, came in pairs or little squads, accompanied
by women. I did not much like any of the French
faces, and yet I am not sure that there is not more
resemblance between them and the American physi-
ognomy, than between the latter and the English.
The women are not pretty, but in all ranks above the
lowest they have a trained expression that supplies
the place of beauty.


1858.]
23
FRANCE.
I was wearied to death with the drawings, and
began to have that dreary and desperate feeling
which has often come upon me when the sights last
longer than my capacity for receiving them. As our
time in Paris, however, is brief and precious, we next
inquired our way to the galleries of sculpture, and
these alone are of astounding extent, reaching, I
should think, all round one quadrangle of the Louvre,
on the basement floor. Hall after hall opened inter-
minably before us, and on either side of us, paved
and incrusted with variegated and beautifully polished
marble, relieved against which stand the antique
statues and groups, interspersed with great urns and
vases, sarcophagi, altars, tablets, busts of historio
personages, and all manner of shapes of marble which
consummate art has transmuted into. precious stones.
Not that I really did feel much impressed by any of
this sculpture then, nor saw more than two or three
things which I thought very beautiful; but whether
it be good or no, I suppose the world has nothing
better, unless it be a few world-renowned statues in
Italy. I was even more struck by the skill and in-
genuity of the French in arranging these sculptural
remains, than by the value of the sculptures them-
selves. The galleries, I should judge, have been
recently prepared, and on a magnificent system,
the adornments being yet by no means completed,
for besides the floor and wall-casings of rich, polished
marble, the vaulted ceilings of some of the apartments
are painted in fresco, causing them to glow as if the
sky were opened. It must be owned, however, that


24
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
When we
the statuary, often time-worn and darkened from its
original brilliancy by weather-stains, does not suit
well as furniture for such splendid rooms.
see a perfection of modern finish around them, we
recognize that most of these statues had been thrown
down from their pedestals, hundreds of years ago, and
have been battered and externally degraded ; and
though whatever spiritual beauty they ever had may
still remain, yet this is not made more apparent by
the contrast betwixt the new gloss of modern uphol-
stery, and their tarnished, even if immortal grace. I
rather think the English have given really the more
hospitable reception to the maimed Theseus, and his
broken-nosed, broken-legged, headless companions, be-
cause flouting them with no gorgeous fittings up.
By this time poor J (who, with his taste for art
yet undeveloped, is the companion of all our visits to
sculpture and picture galleries) was wofully hungry,
and for bread we had given him a stone, not one
stone, but a thousand. We returned to the hotel,
and it being too damp and raw to go to our Restaurant
des Echelles, we dined at the hotel. In my opinion
it would require less time to cultivate our gastronomic
taste than taste of any other kind; and, on the whole,
I am not sure that a man would not be wise to afford
himself a little discipline in this line. It is certainly
throwing away the bounties of Providence, to treat
them as the English do, producing from better mate-
rials than the French have to work upon nothing but
sirloins, joints, joints, steaks, steaks, steaks, chops,
chops, chops, chops! We had a soup to-day, in which


1858.]
25
FRANCE.
twenty kinds of vegetables were represented, and
manifested each its own aroma; a fillet of stewed beef,
and a fowl, in some sort of delicate fricassee. We had
a bottle of Chablis, and renewed ourselves, at the
close of the banquet, with a plate of Chateaubriand
ice. It was all very good, and we respected ourselves
far more than if we had eaten a quantity of red roast
beef; but I am not quite sure that we were right. ....
Among the relics of kings and princes, I do not
know that there was anything more interesting than a
little brass cannon, two or three inches long, which had
been a toy of the unfortunate Dauphin, son of Louis
XVI. There was a map, -a hemisphere of the world,
- which his father had drawn for this poor boy; very
neatly done, too. The sword of Louis XVI., a mag-
nificent rapier, with a beautifully damasked blade ;
and a jewelled scabbard, but without a hilt, is like-
wise preserved, as is the hilt of Henry IV.'s sword.
But it is useless to begin a catalogue of these things.
What a collection it is, including Charlemagne's sword
and sceptre, and the last Dauphin's little toy cannon,
and so much between the two!
Hôtel de Louvre, January 11th. — This was another
chill, raw day, characterized by a spitefulness of
atmosphere which I do not remember ever to have
experienced in my own dear country. We meant to
have visited the Hôtel des Invalides, but J and I
walked to the Rivolie, the Place de la Concorde, the
Champs Elysées, and to the Place de Beaujon, and to
the residence of the American minister, where I wished
VOL. I.
2


26
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
to arrange about my passport. After speaking with
the Secretary of Legation, we were ushered into the
minister's private room, where he received me with
great kindness. Mr. is an old gentleman with &
white head, and a large, florid face, which has an ex-
pression of amiability, not unmingled with a certain
dignity. He did not rise from his arm-chair to greet
me, -- a lack of ceremony which I imputed to the
gout, feeling it impossible that he should have will-
ingly failed in courtesy to one of his twenty-five mil-
lion sovereigns. In response to some remark of mine
about the shabby way in which our government treats
its officials pecuniarily, he gave a detailed account of
his own troubles on that score; then expressed a hope
that I had made a good thing out of my consulate,
and inquired whether I had received a hint to resign ;
to which I replied that, for various reasons, I had re-
signed of my own accord, and before Mr. Buchanan's
inauguration. We agreed, however, in disapproving
the system of periodical change in our foreign officials;
and I remarked that a consul or an ambassador ought
to be a citizen both of his native country and of the
one in which he resided ; and that his possibility of
beneficent influence depended largely on his being so.
Apropos to which Mr. — said that he had once
asked a diplomatic friend of long experience, what was
the first duty of a minister. - To love his own coun-
try, and to watch over its interests,” answered the
diplomatist. "And his second duty ?" asked Mr. —
* To love and to promote the interests of the country
to which he is accredited,” said his friend. This is a


1858.]
27
FRANCE.
very Christian and sensible view of the matter; but
it can scarcely have happened once in our whole diplo-
matic history, that a minister can have had time to
overcome his first rude and ignorant prejudice against
the country of his mission; and if there were any
suspicion of his having done so, it would be held
abundantly sufficient ground for his recall. I like
Mr. a good-hearted, sensible old man.
and I returned along the Champs Elysées,
and, crossing the Seine, kept on our way by the river's
brink, looking at the titles of books on the long lines
of stalls that extend between the bridges. Novels,
fairy-tales, dream books, treatises of behavior and eti-
quette, collections of bon-mots and of songs, were in-
terspersed with volumes in the old style of calf and
gilt binding, the works of the classics of French liter-
ature. A good many persons, of the poor classes, and
of those apparently well to do, stopped transitorily to
look at these books. On the other side of the street
was a range of tall edifices with shops beneath, and
the quick stir of French life hurrying, and babbling,
and swarming along the sidewalk. We passed two or
three bridges, occurring at short intervals, and at last
we recrossed the Seine by a bridge which oversteps
the river, from a point near the National Institute, and
reaches the other side, not far from the Louvre.
Though the day was so disagreeable, we thought it
best not to lose the remainder of it, and therefore set
out to visit the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We took
a fiacre in the Place de Carousel, and drove to the
door. On entering, we found the interior miserably
.


28
[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
shut off from view by the stagings erected for the pur-
pose of repairs. Penetrating from the nave towards
the chancel, an official personage signified to us that
we must first purchase a ticket for each grown person,
at the price of half a franc each. This expenditure
admitted us into the sacristy, where we were taken
in charge by a guide, who came down upon us with
an avalanche or cataract of French, descriptive of a
great many treasures reposited in this chapel. I
understood hardly more than one word in ten, but
gathered doubtfully that a bullet which was shown us
was the one that killed the late Archbishop of Paris,
on the floor of the Cathedral. [But this was a mis-
take. It was the archbishop who was killed in the
insurrection of 1848. Two joints of his backbone
were also shown.] Also, that some gorgeously em-
broidered vestments, which he drew forth, had been
used at the coronation of Napoleon I. There were two
large, full-length portraits hanging aloft in the sacristy,
and a gold or silver gilt, or, at all events, gilt image
of the Virgin, as large as life, standing on a pedestal.
The guide had much to say about these, but, under-
standing him so imperfectly, I have nothing to record.
The guide's supervision of us seemed not to extend
beyond this sacristy, on quitting which he gave us per-
mission to go where we pleased, only intimating a
hope that we would not forget him ; so I gave him
half a franc, though thereby violating an inhibition on
the printed ticket of entrance.
We had been much disappointed at first by the
apparently narrow limits of the interior of this famous


1858.]
29
FRANCE.
church; but now, as we made our way round the
choir, gazing into chapel after chapel, each with its
painted window, its crucifix, its pictures, its confes-
sional, and afterwards came back into the nave, where
arch rises above arch to the lofty roof, we came to
thy conclusion that it was very sumptuous. It is the
greatest of pities that its grandeur and solemnity
should just now be so infinitely marred by the work-
men's boards, timber, and ladders occupying the
whole centre of the edifice, and screening all its best
effects. It seems to have been already most richly
ornamented, its roof being painted, and the capitals
of the pillars gilded, and their shafts illuminated in
fresco; and no doubt it will shine out gorgeously
when all the repairs and adornments shall be com-
pleted. Even now it gave to my actual sight what I
have often tried to imagine in my visits to the Eng-
lish cathedrals, the pristine glory of those edifices,
when they stood glowing with gold and picture, fresh
from the architects' and adorners' hands.
The interior loftiness of Notre Dame, moreover,
gives it a sublimity which would swallow up anything
that might look gewgawy in its ornamentation, were
we to consider it window by window, or pillar by
pillar. It is an advantage of these vast edifices, rising
over us and spreading about us in such a firmamental
way, that we cannot spoil them by any pettiness of
our own, but that they receive (or absorb) our pet-
tiness into their own immensity. Every little fan-
tasy finds its place and propriety in them, like a flower
on the earth's broad bosom.


30
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When we emerged from the Cathedral, we found it
beginning to rain or snow, or both; and, as we had
dismissed our fiacre at the door, and could find no
other, we were at a loss what to do. We stood a
few moments on the steps of the Hôtel Dieu, looking
up at the front of Notre Dame, with its twin towers,
and its three deep-pointed arches, piercing through a
great thickness of stone, and throwing a cavern-like
gloom around these entrances.
The front is very
rich. Though so huge, and all of gray stone, it is
carved and fretted with statues and innumerable
devices, as cunningly as any ivory casket in which
relics are kept ; but its size did not so much impress
me.
Hôtel de Louvre, January 12th. -- This has been
a bright day as regards weather; but I have done
little or nothing worth recording. After breakfast, I
set out in quest of the consul, and found him up a
court, at 51 Rue Cammartin, in an office rather
smaller, I think, than mine at Liverpool ; but, to say
the truth, a little better furnished. I was received
in the outer apartment by an elderly, brisk-looking
man, in whose air, respectful and subservient, and
yet with a kind of authority in it, I recognized the
vice-consul. He introduced me to Mr. who sat
writing in an inner room ; a very gentlemanly, cour-
teous, cool man of the world, whom I should take to
be an excellent person for consul at Paris. He tells
me that he has resided here some years, although his
occupancy of the consulate dates only from November


1858]
31
FRANCE.
last. Consulting him respecting my passport, he gave
me what appear good reasons why I should get all
the necessary visés here; for example, that the rise of
a minister carries more weight than that of a consul;
and especially that an Austrian consul will never visé
a passport unless he sees his minister's name upon
it. Mr. has travelled much in Italy, and ought
to be able to give me sound advice.
His opinion was,
that at this season of the year I had better go by
steamer to Cività Vecchia, instead of landing at Lego
horn, and thence journeying to Rome. On this point
I shall decide when the time comes. As I left the
office the vice-consul informed me that there was a
charge of five francs and some sous for the consul's
visé, a tax which surprised me, - the whole business
of passports having been taken from consuls before 1
quitted office, and the consular fee having been an-
nulled even earlier. However, no doubt Mr.
had a fair claim to my five francs; but, really, it is
not half so pleasant to pay a consular fee as it used
to be to receive it.
Afterwards I walked to Notre Dame, the rich front
of which I viewed with more attention than yesterday.
There are whole histories, carved in stone figures,
within the vaulted arches of the three entrances in
this west front, and twelve apostles in a row above,
and as much other sculpture as would take a month
to see.
We then walked quite round it, but I had no
sense of immensity from it, not even that of great
height, as from many of the cathedrals in England.
It stands very near the Seine ; indeed, if I mistake


32
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FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
not, it is on an island formed by two branches of the
river. Behind it, is what seems to be a small public
ground (or garden, if a space entirely denuded of
grass or other green thing, except a few trees can be
called so), with benches, and a monument in the
midst. This quarter of the city looks old, and ap-
pears to be inhabited by poor people, and to be
busied about small and petty affairs; the most pic-
turesque business that I saw being that of the old
woman who sells crucifixes of pearl and of wood at the
cathedral door. We bought two of these yesterday.
I must again speak of the horrible muddiness, not
only of this part of the city, but of all Paris, so far
as I have traversed it to-day. My ways, since I came
to Europe, have often lain through nastiness, but I
never before saw a pavement so universally over-
spread with mud-padding as that of Paris. It is diffi-
cult to imagine where so much filth can come from.
After dinner I walked through the gardens of the
Tuileries; but as dusk was coming on, and as I was
afraid of being shut up within the iron railing, I did
not have time to examine them particularly. There
are wide, intersecting walks, fountains, broad basins,
and many statues; but almost the whole surface of
the gardens is barren earth, instead of the verdure
that would beautify an English pleasure-ground of
this sort. In the summer it has doubtless an agree-
able shade ; but at this season the naked branches
gre, and sprout from slender trunks. Like
the trees in the Champs Elysées, those, I presume, in
the gardens of the Tuileries need renewing every few
;
look me


1858. ]
33
FRANCE.
years.
The same is true of the human race, families
becoming extinct after a generation or two of residence
in Paris. Nothing really thrives here; man and
vegetables have but an artificial life, like flowers stuck
in a little mould, but never taking root. I am quite
tired of Paris, and long for a home more than ever.
MARSEILLES.
Hôtel d'Angleterre, January 15th. - On Tuesday
morning (12th) we took our departure from the Hôtel
de Louvre. It is a most excellent and perfectly or-
dered hotel, and I have not seen a more magnificent
hall, in any palace, than the dining-saloon, with its
profuse gilding, and its ceiling, painted in compart-
ments; so that when the chandeliers are all alight, it
looks a fit place for princes to banquet in, and not
very fit for the few Americans whom I saw scattered
at its long tables.
By the by, as we drove to the railway, we passed
through the public square, where the Bastille formerly
stood; and in the centre of it now stands a column,
surmounted by a golden figure of Mercury (I think),
which seems to be just on the point of casting itself
from a gilt ball into the air. This statue is so buoy-
ant, that the spectator feels quite willing to trust it
to the viewless element, being as sure that it would
be bore up as that a bird would fly.
Our first day's journey was wholly without interest,
through a country entirely flat, and looking wretchedly
brown and Barren. There were rows of trees, very slen-
2 *


34
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
der, very prim and formal; there was ice wherever
there happened to be any water to form it; there were
occasional villages, compact little streets, or masses of
stone or plastered cottages, very dirty and with gable
ends and earthen roofs; and a succession of this same
landscape was all that we saw, whenever we rubbed
away the congelation of our breath from the carriage.
windows. Thus we rode on, all day long, from eleven
o'clock, with hardly a five minutes' stop, till long after
dark, when we came to Dijon, where there was a half
of twenty-five minutes for dinner. Then we set forth
again, and rumbled forward, through cold and dark-
ness without, until we reached Lyons at about ten
o'clock. We left our luggage at the railway-station,
and took an omnibus for the Hôtel de Provence, which
we chose at a venture, among a score of other hotels.
As this hotel was a little off the direct route of the
omnibus, the driver set us down at the corner of a
street, and pointed to some lights, which he said
designated the Hôtel de Provence; and thither we
proceeded, all seven of us, taking along a few carpet-
bags and shawls, our equipage for the night. The
porter of the hotel met us near its doorway, and ush-
ered us through an arch, into the inner quadrangle, and
then up some old and worn steps, very broad, and ap-
pearing to be the principal staircase. At the first land-
ing-place, an old woman and a waiter or two received
us; and we went up two or three more flights of the
same broad and worn stone staircases. What we could
see of the house looked very old, and had the musty
odor with which I first became acquainted at Chester.


1858.]
35
FRANCE.
After ascending to the proper level, we were con-
ducted along a corridor, paved with octagonal earthen
tiles; on one side were windows, looking into the
court-yard, on the other doors opening into the sleep-
ing-chambers. The corridor was of immense length,
and seemed still to lengthen itself before us, as the
glimmer of our conductor's candle went farther and
farther into the obscurity. Our own chamber was at
a vast distance along this passage ; those of the rest
of the party were on the hither side; but all this im-
mense suite of rooms appeared to communicate by
doors from one to another, like the chambers through
which the reader wanders at midnight, in Mrs. Rad-
cliffe's romances. And they were really splendid
rooms, though of an old fashion, lofty, spacious, with
floors of oak or other wood, inlaid in squares and
crosses, and waxed till they were slippery, but with-
out carpets. Our own sleeping-room had a deep fire-
place, in which we ordered a fire, and asked if there
were not some saloon already warmed, where we could
get a cup of tea.
Hereupon the waiter led us back along the endless
corridor, and down the old stone staircases, and out
into the quadrangle, and journeyed with us along an
exterior arcade, and finally threw open the door of
the salle à manger, which proved to be a room of lofty
height, with a vaulted roof, a stone floor, and interior
spaciousness sufficient for a baronial hall, the whole
bearing the same aspect of times gone by, that char-
acterized the rest of the house. There were two or
three tables covered with white cloth, and we sat


36
[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
down at one of them and had our tea. Finally we
wended back to our sleeping-rooms, a considerable
journey, so endless seemed the ancient hotel. I
should like to know its history.
The fire made our great chamber look comfortable,
and the fireplace threw out the heat better than the
little square hole over which we cowered in one
saloon at the Hôtel de Louvre.
In the morning we began our preparations for start-
ing at ten. Issuing into the corridor, I found a sol-
dier of the line, pacing to and fro there as sentinel.
Another was posted in another corridor, into which I
wandered by mistake; another stood in the inner
court-yard, and another at the porte-cochère. They
were not there the night before, and I know not
whence nor why they came, unless that some officer
of rank may have taken up his quarters at the hotel.
Miss M says she heard at Paris, that a consid-
erable number of troops had recently been drawn
together at Lyons, in consequence of symptoms of dis-
affection that have recently shown themselves here.
Before breakfast I went out to catch a momentary
glimpse of the city. The street in which our hotel
stands is near a large public square; in the centre
is a bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV.; and the
square itself is called the Place de Louis le Grand.
I wonder where this statue hid itself while the Revo-
lution was raging in Lyons, and when the guillotine,
perhaps, stood on that ve spot.
The square was surrounded by stately buildings,
but had what seemed to be barracks for soldiers, –


1858.1
37
FRANCE.
at any rate, mean little huts, deforming its ample
space; and a soldier was on guard before the statue
of Louis le Grand. It was a cold, misty morning,
and a fog lay throughout the area, so that I could
scarcely see from one side of it to the other.
Returning towards our hotel, I saw that it had an
immense front, along which ran in gigantic letters,
its title,
HÔTEL DE PROVENCE ET DES AMBASSADEURS.
The excellence of the hotel lay rather in the faded
pomp of its sleeping-rooms, and the vastness of its
salle à manger, than in anything very good to eat or
drink.
We left it, after a poor breakfast, and went to the
railway-station. Looking at the mountainous heap
of our luggage the night before, we had missed a
great carpet - bag; and we now found that Miss
M-'s trunk had been substituted for it, and,
there being the proper number of packages as regis-
tered, it was impossible to convince the officials that
anything was wrong. We, of course, began to gener-
alize forthwith, and pronounce the incident to be
characteristic of French morality. They love a cer-
tain system and external correctness, but do not
trouble themselves to be deeply in the right; and
Miss M-suggested that there used to be parallel
cases in the French Revolution, when,
long as the
assigned number were sent out of prison to be guillo-
tined, the jailer did not much care whether they were


38
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
the persons designated by the tribunal or not. At all
events, we could get no satisfaction about the carpet-
bag, and shall very probably be compelled to leave
Marseilles without it.
This day's ride was through a far more picturesque
country than that we saw yesterday. Heights began
to rise imminent above our way, with sometimes a
ruined castle wall upon them ; on our left, the rail-
track kept close to the hills; on the other side there
was the level bottom of a valley, with heights de-
scending upon it a mile or a few miles
away.
Far-
ther off we could see blue hills, shouldering high
above the intermediate ones, and themselves worthy
to be called mountains. These hills arranged them-
selves in beautiful groups, affording openings between
them, and vistas of what lay beyond, and gorges
which I
suppose
held a great deal of romantic scenery.
By and by a river made its appearance, flowing swiftly
in the same direction that we were travelling,
beautiful and cleanly river, with white pebbly shores,
and itself of a peculiar blue. It rushed along very
fast, sometimes whitening over shallow descents, and
even in its calmer intervals its surface was all cov-
ered with whirls and eddies, indicating that it dashed
onward in haste. I do not now know the name of this
river, but have set it down as the “ Arrowy Rhone.”
It kept us company a long while, and I think we did
not part with it as long as daylight remained.
have seldom seen hill-scenery that struck me more
than some that we saw to-day, and the old feudal
towers and old villages at their feet; and the old
a


1858.]
39
FRANCE.
churches, with spires shaped just like extinguishers,
gave it an interest accumulating from many centuries
past.
Still going southward, the vineyards began to bor-
der our track, together with what I at first took to be
orchards, but soon found were plantations of olive-
trees, which grow to a much larger size than I sup-
posed, and look almost exactly like very crabbed and
eccentric apple-trees. Neither they nor the vineyards
add anything to the picturesqueness of the landscape.
On the whole, I should have been delighted with all
this scenery if it had not looked so bleak, barren, brown,
and bare; so like the wintry New England before the
snow has fallen. It was very cold, too; ice along the
borders of streams, even among the vineyards and
olives. The houses are of rather a different shape
here than farther northward, their roofs being not
nearly so sloping. They are almost invariably covered
with white plaster; the farm-houses have their out-
buildings in connection with the dwelling, — the whole
surrounding three sides of a quadrangle.
We travelled far into the night, swallowed a cold
and hasty dinner at Avignon, and reached Marseilles
sorely wearied, at about eleven o'clock.
We took a
cab to the Hôtel d'Angleterre (two cabs, to be quite
accurate), and find it a very poor place.
To go back a little, as the sun went down, we
looked out of the window of our railway-carriage, and
saw a sky that reminded us of what we used to see
day after day in America, and what we have not seen
since; and, after sunset, the horizon burned and


40
[1868.
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glowed with rich crimson and orange lustre, looking
at once warm and cold. After it grew dark, the stars
brightened, and Miss M—from her window pointed
out some of the planets to the children, she being as
familiar with them as a gardener with his flowers.
They were as bright as diamonds.
We had a wretched breakfast, and J- and I
then went to the railway-station to see about our lug-
gage. On our walk back we went astray, passing by
a triumphal arch, erected by the Marsellaise, in honor
of Louis Napoleon; but we inquired our way of old
women and soldiers, who were very kind and cour-
teous, - especially the latter, - and were directed
aright. We came to a large, oblong, public place,
set with trees, but devoid of grass, like all public
places in France. In the middle of it was a bronze
statue of an ecclesiastical personage, stretching forth
his hands in the attitude of addressing the people or
of throwing a benediction over them. It was some
archbishop, who had distinguished himself by his
humanity and devotedness during the plague of 1720.
At the moment of our arrival the piazza was quite
thronged with people, who seemed to be talking
amongst themselves with considerable earnestness,
although without any actual excitement. They were
smoking cigars ; and we judged that they were only
loitering here for the sake of the sunshine, having no
fires at home, and nothing to do. Some looked like
gentlemen, others like peasants; most of them I
should have taken for the lazzaroni of this Southern
city, men with cloth caps, like the classic liberty-


1858.]
41
FRANCE,
cap, or with wide-awake hats. There were one or two
women of the lower classes, without bonnets, the elder
ones with white caps, the younger bareheaded. I
have hardly seen a lady in Marseilles ; and I suspect,
it being a commercial city, and dirty to the last de-
gree, ill-built, narrow-streeted, and sometimes pestilen-
tial, there are few or no families of gentility resident
here.
Returning to the hotel, we found the rest of the
party ready to go out; so we all issued forth in a
body, and inquired our way to the telegraph-office, in
order to send my message about the carpet-bag. In
a street through which we had to pass (and which
seemed to be the Exchange, or its precincts), there was
a crowd even denser, yes, much denser, than that
which we
saw in the square of the archbishop's
statue ; and each man was talking to his neighbor in
a vivid, animated way, as if business were very brisk
to-day.
At the telegraph-office, we discovered the cause that
had brought out these many people. There had been
attempts on the Emperor's life, -- unsuccessful, as
they seem fated to be, though some mischief was done
to those near him. I rather think the good people of
Marseilles were glad of the attempt, as an item of news
and gossip, and did not very greatly care whether it
were successful or no. It seemed to have roused their
vivacity rather than their interest. The only account
I have seen of it was in the brief public despatch from
the Syndic (or whatever he be) of Paris to the chief
authority of Marseilles, which was printed and posted


42
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in various conspicuous places. The only chance of
knowing the truth with any fulness of detail would be
to come across an English paper. We have had a
banner hoisted half-mast in front of our hotel to-day
as a token, the head-waiter tells me, of sympathy
and sorrow for the General and other persons who
were slain by this treasonable attempt.
J and I now wandered by ourselves along a
circular line of quays, having, on one side of us, a
thick forest of masts, while, on the other, was a sweep
of shops, book-stalls, sailors' restaurants and drinking-
houses, fruit-sellers, candy-women, and all manner of
open-air dealers and pedlers ; little children playing,
and jumping the rope, and such a babble and bustle
as I never saw or heard before ; the sun lying along
the whole sweep, very hot, and evidently very grate-
ful to those who basked in it. Whenever I passed
into the shade, immediately from too warm I became
too cold. The sunshine was like hot air ; the shade,
like the touch of cold steel, -- sharp, hard, yet exhil-
arating. From the broad street of the quays, narrow,
thread-like lanes pierced up between the edifices, call-
ing themselves streets, yet so narrow, that a person in
the middle could almost touch the houses on either
hand. They ascended steeply, bordered on each side
by long, contiguous walls of high houses, and from the
time of their first being built, could never have had
a gleam of sunshine in them, - always in shadow,
always unutterably nasty, and often pestiferous. The
nastiness which I saw in Marseilles exceeds my here-
tofore experience. There is dirt in the hotel, and


1858.]
43
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
no
everywhere else; and it evidently troubles nobody,
more than if all the people were pigs in a
pigsty...
Passing by all this sweep of quays, J and I
ascended to an elevated walk, overlooking the harbor,
and far beyond it; for here we had our first view of
the Mediterranean, blue as heaven, and bright with
sunshine. It was a bay, widening forth into the open
deep, and bordered with height, and bold, picturesque
headlands, some of which had either fortresses or
convents on them, Several boats and one brig were
under sail, making their way towards the port. I
have never seen a finer sea-view. Behind the town,
there seemed to be a mountainous landscape, imper-
fectly visible, in consequence of the intervening edi-
fices.
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
Steamer “Calabrese," January 17th. — If I had
remained at Marseilles, I might have found many
peculiarities and characteristics of tiat Southern city
to notice; but I fear that these will not be recorded
if I leave them till I touch the soil of Italy. Indeed,
I doubt whether there be anything really worth
recording in the little distinctions between one nation
and another; at any rate, after the first novelty is
over, new things seem equally commonplace with the
old. There is but one little interval when the mind
is in such a state that it can catch the fleeting aroma
of a new scene. And it is always so much pleasanter
to enjoy this delicious newness than to attempt arrest-


44
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
ing it, that it requires great force of will to insist with
one's self upon sitting down to write. I can do nothing
with Marseilles, especially here on the Mediterranean,
long after nightfall, and when the steamer is pitch-
ing in a pretty lively way.
(Later.) — I walked out with J- yesterday
morning, and reached the outskirts of the city,
whence we could see the bold and picturesque heights
that surround Marseilles as with a semicircular wall.
They rise into peaks, and the town, being on their
lower slope, descends from them towards the sea with
a gradual sweep. Adown the streets that descend
these declivities come little rivulets, running along
over the pavement, close to the sidewalks, as over a
pebbly bed ; and though they look vastly like kennels,
I saw women washing linen in these streams, and oth-
ers dipping up the water for household purposes,
The women appear very much in public at Marseilles,
In the squares and places you see half a dozen of them
together, sitting in a social circle on the bottoms of
upturned baskets, knitting, talking, and enjoying the
public sunshine, as if it were their own household fire.
Not one in a thousand of them, probably, ever, has a
household fire for the purpose of keeping themselves
warm, but only to do their little cookery; and when
there is sunshine they take advantage of it, and in the
short season of rain and frost they shrug their shoul-
ders, put on what warm garments they have, and get
through the winter somewhat as grasshoppers and
butterflies do being summer insects like them.
This certainly is a very keen and cutting air, sharp


1858.]
45
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
as a razor, and I saw ice along the borders of the
little rivulets almost at noonday. To be sure, it is
mid-winter, and yet in the sunshine I found myself
uncomfortably warm, but in the shade the air was
like the touch of death itself. I do not like the cli-
mate.
There are a great number of public places in Mar-
seilles, several of which are adorned with statues or
fountains, or triumphal arches or columns, and set
out with trees, and otherwise furnished as a kind of
drawing-rooms, where the populace may meet together
and gossip. I never before heard from human lips
anything like this bustle and babble, this thousand-
fold talk which you hear all round about you in the
crowd of a public square; so entirely different is it
from the dulness of a crowd in England, where, as a
rule, everybody is silent, and hardly half a dozen mon-
osyllables will come from the lips of a thousand people.
In Marseilles, on the contrary, a stream of unbroken
talk seems to bubble from the lips of every
individual.
A great many interesting scenes take place in these
squares. From the window of our hotel (which looked
into the Place Royal) I saw a juggler displaying his
art to a crowd, who stood in a regular square about
him, none pretending to press nearer than the pre-
scribed limit. While the juggler wrought his miracles
his wife supplied him with his magic materials out of
a box; and when the exhibition was over she packed
up the white cloth with which his table was covered,
together with cups, cards, balls, and whatever else,
and they took their departure.


46
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I have been struck with the idle curiosity, and, at
the same time, the courtesy and kindness of the
populace of Marseilles, and I meant to exemplify it by
recording how Miss S and I attracted their notice,
and became the centre of a crowd of at least fifty of
them while doing no more remarkable thing than
settling with a cab-driver. But really this pitch and
swell is getting too bad, and I shall go to bed, as the
best chance of keeping myself in an equable state.
ROME.
37 Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciana, Janu-
ary 24th. - We left Marseilles in the Neapolitan
steamer“ Calabrese,” as noticed above, week
ago
this
morning. There was no fault to be found with the
steamer, which was very clean and comfortable, con-
trary to what we had understood beforehand; except
for the coolness of the air (and I know not that this
was greater than that of the Atlantic in July), our
voyage would have been very pleasant; but for myself,
I enjoyed nothing, having a cold upon me, or a low
fever, or something else that took the light and warmth
out of everything
I went to bed immediately after my last record, and
was rocked to sleep pleasantly enough by the billows
of the Mediterranean ; and, coming on deck about
sunrise next morning, found the steamer approaching
Genoa. We saw the city, lying at the foot of a range
of hills, and stretching a little way up their slopes,
the hills sweeping round it in the segment of a circle,


1858.]
47
ITALY.
and looking like an island rising abruptıy out of the
sea ; for no connection with the mainland was visible
on either side. There was snow scattered on their
summits and streaking their sides a good way down.
They looked bold, and barren, and brown, except where
the snow whitened them. The city did not impress
me with much expectation of size or splendor. Short-
ly after coming into the port our whole party landed,
and we found ourselves at once in the midst of a crowd
of cab-drivers, hotel-runners, and commissionaires, who
assaulted us with a volley of French, Italian, and
broken English, which beat pitilessly about our ears ;
for really it seemed as if all the dictionaries in the
world had been torn to pieces, and blown around us
by a hurricane. Such a pother! We took a commis-
sionaire, a respectable-looking man, in a cloak, who
said his name was Salvator Rosa ; and he engaged to
show us whatever was interesting in Genoa.
In the first place, he took us through narrow streets
to an old church, the name of which I have forgotten,
and, indeed, its peculiar features; but I know that I
found it pre-eminently magnificent, — its whole interi-
or being incased in polished marble, of various kinds
and colors, its ceiling painted, and its chapels adorned
with pictures. However, this church was dazzled out
of sight by the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, to which we
were afterwards conducted, whose exterior front is
covered with alternate slabs of black and white mar-
ble, which were brought, either in whole or in part,
from Jerusalem. Within, there was a prodigious rich-
ness of precious marbles, and a pillar, if I mistake not,


48
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from Solomon's Temple; and a picture of the Virgin
by St. Luke ; and others (rather more intrinsically
valuable, I imagine), by old masters, set in superb
marble frames, within the arches of the chapels. I
used to try to imagine how the English cathedrals
must have looked in their primeval glory, before the
Reformation, and before the whitewash of Cromwell's
time had overlaid their marble pillars; but I never
imagined anything at all approaching what my eyes
now beheld : this sheen of polished and variegated
marble covering every inch of its walls; this glow of
brilliant frescos all over the roof, and up within the
domes ; these beautiful pictures by great masters,
painted for the places which they now occupied, and
making an actual portion of the edifice; this wealth
of silver, gold, and gems, that adorned the shrines of
the saints, before which wax candles burned, and were
kept burning, I suppose, from year's end to year's
end ; in short, there is no imagining nor remembering
a hundredth part of the rich details. And even the
Cathedral (though I give it up as indescribable) was
nothing at all in comparison with a church to which
the commissionaire afterwards led us; a church that
had been built four or five hundred years ago, by a
pirate, in expiation of his sins, and out of the profit of
his rapine. This last edifice, in its interior, absolutely
shone with burnished gold, and glowed with pictures;
its walls were a quarry of precious stones, so valuable
were the marbles out of which they were wrought; its
columns and pillars were of inconceivable costliness ;
its pavement was a mosaic of wonderful beauty, and


1858.)
49
ITALY.
there were four twisted pillars made out of stalactites.
Perhaps the best way to form some dim conception of
it is to fancy a little casket, inlaid inside with precious
stones, so that there shall not a hair's-breadth be left
unprecious stoned, and then to conceive this little bit
of a casket increased to the magnitude of a great
church, without losing anything of the excessive glory
that was compassed into its original small compass,
but all its pretty lustre made sublime by the conse-
quent immensity. At any rate, nobody who has not
seen a church like this can imagine what a gorgeous
religion it was that reared it.
In the Cathedral, and in all the churches, we saw
priests and many persons kneeling at their devotions ;
and our Salvator Rosa, whenever we passed a chapel
or shrine, failed not to touch the pavement with one
knee, crossing himself the while ; and once, when a
priest was going through some form of devotion, he
stopped a few moments to share in it.
He conducted us, too, to the Balby Palace, the
stateliest and most sumptuous residence, but not more
so than another which he afterwards showed us,
perhaps than many others which exist in Genoa, THE
SUPERB. The painted ceilings in these palaces are
a glorious adornment; the walls of the saloons, in
crusted with various-colored marbles, give an idea of
splendor which I never gained from anything else.
The floors, laid in mosaic, seem too precious to tread
upon. In the royal palace, many of the floors were
of various woods, inlaid by an English artist, and they
looked like a magnification of some exquisite piece of
nor
VOL. I.
D


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(1858.
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Tunbridge ware;. but, in all respects, this palace was
inferior to others which we saw. I say nothing of the
immense pictorial treasures which hung upon the
walls of all the rooms through which we passed ; for
I soon grew so weary of admirable things, that I
could neither enjoy nor understand them. My recep-
tive faculty is very limited, and when the utmost of
its small capacity is full, I become perfectly miserable,
and the more so the better worth seeing are the
things I am forced to reject. I do not know a greater
misery; to see sights, after such repletion, is to the mind
what it would be to the body to have dainties forced
down the throat long after the appetite was satiated.
All this while, whenever we emerged into the vault-
like streets, we were wretchedly cold. The commis-
sionaire took us to a sort of pleasure-garden, occupying
the ascent of a hill, and presenting seven different
views of the city, from as many stations. One of the
objects pointed out to us was a large yellow house, on
a hillside, in the outskirts of Genoa, which was
formerly inhabited for six months by Charles Dickens.
Looking down from the elevated part of the pleasure-
gardens, we saw orange-trees beneath us, with the
golden fruit hanging upon them, though their trunks
were muffled in straw; and, still lower down, there
was ice and snow.
Gladly (so far as I myself was concerned) we dis-
missed the commissionaire, after he had brought us
to the hotel of the Cross of Malta, where we dined ;
needlessly, as it proved, for another dinner awaited us,
after our return on board the boat.


1858.]
51
ITALY.
We set sail for Leghorn before dark, and I retired
early, feeling still more ill from my cold than the
night before.
The next morning we were in the
crowded port of Leghorn. We all went ashore, with
some idea of taking the rail for Pisa, which is within
an hour's distance, and might have been seen in
time for our departure with the steamer. But a
necessary visit to a banker's, and afterwards some
unnecessary formalities about our passports, kept us
wandering through the streets nearly all day; and we
saw nothing in the slightest degree interesting, except
the tomb of Smollett, in the burial-place attached to
the English Chapel. It is surrounded by an iron
railing, and marked by a slender obelisk of white
marble, the pattern of which is many times repeated
over surrounding graves.
We went into a Jewish synagogue,
the interior
cased in marbles, and surrounded with galleries,
resting upon
arches above arches. There were lights
burning at the altar, and it looked
very
Christian church ; but it was dirty, and had an odor
not of sanctity.
In Leghorn, as everywhere else, we were chilled to
the heart, except when the sunshine fell directly upon
us; and we returned to the steamer with a feeling as
if we were getting back to our home ; for this life of
wandering makes a three days' residence in one place
seem like home.
We found several new passengers on board, and
among others a monk, in a long brown frock of
woollen cloth, with an immense cape, and a littlo
like a


52
[1858
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
names.
black covering over his tonsure, He was a tall figure
with a gray beard, and might have walked, just as he
stood, out of a picture by one of the old masters.
This holy person addressed me very affably in Italian;
but we found it impossible to hold much conversation.
The evening was beautiful, with a bright young
moonlight, not yet sufficiently powerful to overwhelm
the stars, and as we walked the deck, Miss M-
showed the children the constellations, and told their
J- made a slight mistake as to one of
them, pointing it out to me as “ O'Brien's belt ! ”
Elba was presently in view, and we might have
seen many other interesting points, had it not been
for our steamer's practice of resting by day, and
only pursuing its voyage by night. The next morning
we found ourselves in the harbor of Civita Vecchia,
and, going ashore with our luggage, went through a
blind turmoil with custom-house officers, inspectors of
passports, soldiers, and vetturino people. My wife
and I strayed a little through Civita Vecchia, and
found its streets narrow, like clefts in a rock (which
seems to be the fashion of Italian towns), and smelling
nastily. I had made a bargain with a vetturino to
send us to Rome in a carriage, with four horses, in
eight hours; and as soon as the custom-house and
passport people would let us, we started, lumbering
slowly along with our mountain of luggage. We had
heard rumors of robberies lately committed on this
route; especially of a Nova Scotia bishop, who was
detained on the road an hour and a half, and utterly
pillaged ; and certainly there was not a single mile of


1858.]
53
ITALY.
the dreary and desolate country over which we passed,
where we might not have been robbed and murdered
with impunity. Now and then, at long distances, we
came to a structure that was either a prison, -a tavern,
or a barn, but did not look very much like either,
being strongly built of stone, with iron-grated windows,
and of ancient and rusty aspect. We kept along by
the sea-shore a great part of the way, and stopped to
feed our horses at a village, the wretched street of
which stands close along the shore of the Mediterranean,
its loose, dark sand being made nasty by the vicinity.
The vetturino cheated us, one of the horses giving out,
as he must have known it would do, half-way on our
journey; and we staggered on through cold and dark-
ness, and peril, too, if the banditti were not a myth,
reaching Rome not much before midnight. I perpe-
trated unheard-of briberies on the custom-house officers
at the gates, and was permitted to pass through and es-
tablish myself at Spillman's Hotel, the only one where
we could gain admittance, and where we have been
half frozen, and have continued so ever since.
And this is sunny Italy, and genial Rome !
;
Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciani, February
3d. - We have been in Rome a fortnight to-day, or
rather at eleven o'clock to-night; and I have seldom
or never spent so wretched a time anywhere. Our
impressions were very unfortunate, arriving at mid-
night, half frozen in the wintry rain, and being re-
ceived into a cold and cheerless hotel, where we
shivered during two or three days; meanwhile seeking


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[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
lodgings among the sunless, dreary alleys which are
called streets in Rome. One cold, bright day after
another has pierced me to the heart, and cut me in
twain as with a sword, keen and sharp, and poisoned
at point and edge. I did not think that cold weather
could have made me so very miserable. Having
caught a feverish influenza, I was really glad of being
muffled up comfortably in the fever heat. The atmos-
phere certainly has a peculiar quality of malignity.
After a day or two we settled ourselves in a suite of
ten rooms, comprehending one flat, or what is called
the second piano of this house. The rooms, thus far,
have been very uncomfortable, it being impossible to
warm them by means of the deep, old-fashioned, in-
artificial fireplaces, unless we had the great logs of a
New England forest to burn in them ; so I have sat
in my corner by the fireside with more clothes on
than I ever wore before, and my thickest great-coat
over all.
In the middle of the day I generally ven-
ture out for an hour or two, but have only once been
warm enough even in the sunshine, and out of the
sun never at any time.
I understand now the force
of that story of Diogenes when he asked the Con-
queror, as the only favor he could do him, to stand
out of his sunshine, there being such a difference
in these Southern climes of Europe between sun and
shade. If my wits had not been too much congealed,
and my fingers too numb, I should like to have kept
a minute journal of my feelings and impressions
during the past fortnight. It would have shown
modern Rome in an aspect in which it has never yet


1858.]
55
ITALY.
it ;
and soon,
been depicted. But I have now grown somewhat ac-
climated, and the first freshness of my discomfort has
worn off, so that I shall never be able to
express
how
I dislike the place, and how wretched I have been in
I
suppose, warmer weather will come,
and perhaps reconcile me to Rome against my will.
Cold, narrow lanes, between tall, ugly, mean-looking
whitewashed houses, sour bread, pavements most un-
comfortable to the feet, enormous prices for poor
living ; beggars, pickpockets, ancient temples and
broken monuments, and clothes hanging to dry about
them ; French soldiers, monks, and priests of every
degree; a shabby population, smoking bad cigars,
these would have been some of the points of my
description. Of course there are better and truer
things to be said. .
It would be idle for me to attempt any sketches of
these famous sites and edifices, St. Peter's, for ex-
ample, which have been described by a thousand
people, though none of them have ever given me an
idea of what sort of place Rome is.
The Coliseum was very much what I had precon-
ceived it, though I was not prepared to find it turned
into a sort of Christian church, with a pulpit on the
verge of the open space. ... The French soldiers,
who keep guard within it, as in other public places in
Rome, have an excellent opportunity to secure the
welfare of their souls.
February 7th. - I cannot get fairly into the current
of my journal since we arrived, and already I per-
ceive that the nice peculiarities of Roman life are


56
[1858
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
.
passing from my notice before I have recorded them.
It is a very great pity. During the past week I have
plodded daily, for an hour or two, through the
narrow, stony streets, that look worse than the worst
backside lanes of any other city ; indescribably ugly
and disagreeable they are,
without sidewalks,
but provided with a line of larger square stones, set
crosswise to each other, along which there is some-
what less uneasy walking.
Ever and anon,
even in the meanest streets, – though, generally speak-
ing, one can hardly be called meaner than another,
we pass a palace, extending far along the narrow way
on a line with the other houses, but distinguished by
its architectural windows, iron-barred on the base-
ment story, and by its portal arch, through which we
have glimpses, sometimes of a dirty court-yard, or
perhaps of a clean, ornamented one, with trees, a
colonnade, a fountain, and a statue in the vista;
though, more likely, it resembles the entrance to
å stable, and may, perhaps, really be one. The
lowe regions of palaces come to strange uses in
Rome. .. In the basement story of the Bar-
berini Palace a regiment of French soldiers (or sol-
diers of some kind *) seems to be quartered, while no
doubt princes have magnificent domiciles above.
it palace or whatever other dwelling, the inmates
climb through rubbish often to the comforts, such as
they may be, that await them above. I vainly try to
get down upon paper the dreariness, the ugliness,
* We find them to be retainers of the Barberini family, not
French.


1858.]
57
ITALY.
shabbiness, un-home-likeness of a Roman street. It is
also to be said that you cannot go far in any direction
without coming to a piazza, which is sometimes little
more than a widening and enlarging of the dingy
street, with the lofty façade of a church or basilica
on one side, and a fountain in the centre, where the
water squirts out of some fantastic piece of sculpture
into a great stone basin. These fountains are often
of immense size and most elaborate design,
There are a great many of these fountain-shapes,
constructed under the orders of one pope or another,
in all parts of the city; and only the very simplest,
such as a jet springing from a broad marble or por-
phyry vase, and falling back into it again, are really
ornamental. If an' antiquary were to accompany me
through the streets, no doubt he would point out ten
thousand interesting objects that I now pass over
unnoticed, so general is the surface of plaster and
whitewash; but often I can see fragments of antiq-
uity built into the walls, or perhaps a church that
was a Roman temple, or a basement of ponderous
stones that were laid above twenty centuries ago.
It is strange how our ideas of what antiquity is be-
come altered here in Rome; the sixteenth century, in
which many of the churches and fountains seem to
have been built or re-edified, seems close at hand,
even like our own days; a thousand years, or the
days of the latter empire, is but a modern date, and
scarcely interests us; and nothing is really venerable
of a more recent epoch than the reign of Constantine.
And the Egyptian obelisks that stand in several of
3*


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[1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
.
the piazzas put even the Augustan or Republican
antiquities to shame. I remember reading in a New
York newspaper an account of one of the public
buildings of that city,—a relic of “the olden time,”
the writer called it; for it was erected in 1825! I
am glad I saw the castles and Gothic churches and
cathedrals of England before visiting Rome, or I never
could have felt that delightful reverence for their
gray and ivy-hung antiquity after seeing these so
much older remains. But, indeed, old things are not
so beautiful in this dry climate and clear atmosphere
as in moist England.
Whatever beauty there may be in a Roman ruin
is the remnant of what was beautiful originally ;
whereas an English ruin is more beautiful often in
its decay than even it was in its primal strength.
If we ever build such noble structures as these
Roman ones, we can have just as good ruins, after
two thousand years, in the United States ; but we .
never can have a Furness Abbey or a Kenilworth.
The Corso, and perhaps some other streets, does not
deserve all the vituperation which I have bestowed
on the generality of Roman vias, though the Corso
is narrow, pot averaging more than nine paces, if so
much, from sidewalk to sidewalk. But palace after
palace stands along almost its whole extent, — not,
however, that they make such architectural show on
the street as palaces should. The enclosed courts
were perhaps the only parts of these edifices which
the founders cared to enrich architecturally. I think
Linlithgow Palace, of which I saw the ruins during my


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last tour in Scotland, was built by an architect who
had studied these Roman palaces. There was never
any idea of domestic comfort, or of what we include
in the name of home, at all implicated in such struct-
ures, they being generally built by wifeless and
childless churchmen for the display of pictures and
statuary in galleries and long suites of rooms.
I have not yet fairly begun the sight-seeing of
Rome. I have been four or five times to St. Peter's,
and always with pleasure, because there is such a
delightful, summer-like warmth the moment we pass
beneath the heavy, padded leather curtains that
protect the entrances. It is almost impossible not to
believe that this genial temperature is the result of
furnace-heat, but, really, it is the warmth of last sum-
mer, which will be included within those massive
walls, and in that vast immensity of space, till, six
months hence, this winter's chill will just have made
its
way
thither. It would be an excellent plan for a
valetudinarian to lodge during the winter in St.
Peter's, perhaps establishing his household in one
of the papal tombs. I become, I think, more sensible
of the size of St. Peter's, but am as yet far from
being overwhelmed by it. It is not, as one expects,
80 big as all out o' doors, nor is its dome so immense
as that of the firmament. It looked queer, however,
the other day, to see a little ragged boy, the very
least of human things, going round and kneeling at
shrine after shrine, and a group of children standing
on tiptoe to reach the vase of holy water.
On coming out of St. Peter's at my last visit, I saw


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a great sheet of ice around the fountain on the right
hand, and some little Romans awkwardly sliding on
it. I, too, took a slide, just for the sake of doing
what I never thought to do in Rome. This in-
clement weather, I should suppose, must make the
whole city very miserable; for the native Romans, I
am told, never keep any fire, except for culinary pur-
poses, even in the severest winter.
They flee from
their cheerless houses into the open air, and bring
their firesides along with them in the shape of small
earthen vases, or pipkins, with a handle by which
they carry them up and down the streets, and so
warm at least their hands with the lighted charcoal.
I have had glimpses through open doorways into
interiors, and saw them as dismal as tombs. Wher-
I
pass my summers, let me spend my winters in
a cold country.
We went yesterday to the Pantheon.
When I first came to Rome, I felt embarrassed and
unwilling to pass, with my heresy, between a devotee
and his saint; for they often shoot their prayers at a
shrine almost quite across the church. But there
seems to be no violation of etiquette in so doing. A
woman begged of us in the Pantheon, and accused
my wife of impiety for not giving her an alms. ...
People of very decent appearance are often unexpect-
edly converted into beggars as you approach them;
but in general they take a “No” at once.
February 9th. — For three or four days it has been
cloudy and rainy, which is the greater pity, as this
should be the gayest and merriest part of the Carni-
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val. I go out but little, -- yesterday only as far as
Pakenham's and Hooker's bank in the Piazza di
Spagna, when I read Galignani and the American
papers. At last, after seeing in England more of my
fellow-compatriots than ever before, I really am dis-
joined from my country.
Today I walked out along the Pincian Hill.
As the clouds still threatened - rain, I deemed it my
safest course to go to St. Peter's for refuge. Heavy
and dull as the day was, the effect of this great world
of a church was still brilliant in the interior, as if it
nad a sunshine of its own, as well as its own temper-
ature; and, by and by, the sunshine of the outward
world came through the windows, hundreds of feet
aloft, and fell upon the beautiful inlaid pavement...
Against a pillar, on one side of the nave, is a mosaio
copy of Raphael's Transfiguration, fitly framed within
a great arch of gorgeous marble; and, no doubt, the
indestructible mosaic has preserved it far more com-
pletely than the fading and darkening tints in which
the artist painted it. At any rate, it seemed to me
the one glorious picture that I have ever seen. The
pillar nearest the great entrance, on the left of the
nave, supports the monument to the Stuart family,
where two winged figures, with inverted torches, stand
on either side of a marble door, which is closed
forever. It is an impressive monument, for you feel
as if the last of the race had passed through that
door.
Emerging from the church, I saw a French ser-
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the sea.
twigs, the poor result of their labor. The hook was a
knot of wood, with the lopped-off branches projecting
in three or four prongs. The Tiber has always the
hue of a mud-puddle ; but now, after a heavy rain
which has washed the clay into it, it looks like pease-
soup. It is a broad and rapid stream, eddying along
as if it were in haste to disgorge its impurities into
On the left side, where the city mostly is
situated, the buildings hang directly over the stream;
on the other, where stand the Castle of St. Angelo
and the Church of St. Peter, the town does not press
so imminent upon the shore. The banks are clayey,
and look as if the river had been digging them away
for ages; but I believe its bed is higher than of yore.
February 10th. - I went out to-day, and, going
along the Via Felice and the Via delle Quattro Fon-
tane, came unawares to the Basilica of Santa Maria
Maggiore, on the summit of the Esquiline Hill.
tered it, without in the least knowing what church
it was, and found myself in a broad and noble nave,
both very simple and very grand. There was a long
row of Ionic columns of marble, twenty or thereabouts
on each side, supporting a flat roof. There were
vaulted side-aisles, and, at the farther end, a bronze
canopy over the high altar; and all along the length
of the side aisles, were shrines with pictures, sculp-
ture, and burning lamps; the whole church, too, was
lined with marble : the roof was gilded; and yet the
general effect of severe and noble simplicity triumphed
over all the ornament. I should have taken it for a
Roman temple, retaining nearly its pristine aspect;
I en-


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but Murray tells us that it was founded A. D. 342 by
Pope Liberius, on the spot precisely marked out by a
miraculous fall of snow, in the month of August, and
it has undergone many alterations since his time.
But it is very fine, and gives the beholder the idea of
vastness, which seems harder to attain than anything
On the right hand, approaching the high altar,
there is a chapel, separated from the rest of the
church by an iron paling; and, being admitted into it
with another party, I found it most elaborately mag-
nificent. But one magnificence outshone another, and
made itself the brightest conceivable for the moment.
However, this chapel was as rich as the most precious
marble could make it, in pillars and pilasters, and
broad, polished slabs, covering the whole walls (except
where there were splendid and glowing frestos; or
where some monumental statuary or bas-relief, or
mosaic picture filled up an arched niche). Its archi-
tecture was a dome, resting on four great arches ;
and in size it would alone have been a church. In the
centre of the mosaic pavement there was a flight of
steps, down which we went, and saw a group in mar-
ble, representing the nativity of Christ, which, judging
by the unction with which our guide talked about it,
must have been of peculiar sanctity. I hate to leave
this chapel and church, without being able to say any
one thing that may reflect a portion of their beauty,
or of the feeling which they excite. Kneeling against
many of the pillars there were persons in
prayer, and
I stepped softly, fearing lest my tread on the marble
pavement should disturb them,
a needless precau-


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tion, however, for nobody seems to expect it, nor to
be disturbed by the lack of it.
The situation of the church, I should suppose, is
the loftiest in Rome : it has a fountain at one end,
and a column at the other ; but I did not pay par-
ticular attention to either, nor to the exterior of the
church itself.
On my return, I turned aside from the Via delle
Quattro Fontane into the Via Quirinalis, and was led
by it into the Piazza di Monte Cavallo. The street
through which I passed was broader, cleanlier, and
statelier than most streets in Rome, and bordered by
palaces; and the piazza had noble edifices around it,
and a fountain, an obelisk, and two nude statues in
the centre. The obelisk was, as the inscription indi-
cated, a relic of Egypt; the basin of the fountain was
an immense bowl of Oriental granite, into which
poured a copious flood of water, discolored by the
rain; the statues were colossal,
two beautiful young
men, each holding a fiery steed. On the pedestal of
one was the inscription, Opus PHIDIÆ ; on the other,
OPUS PRAXITELIS. What a city is this, when one may
stumble, by mere chance — at a street corner, as it
- on the works of two such sculptors! I do not
know the authority on which these statues (Castor
and Pollux, I presume) are attributed to Phidias and
Praxiteles; but they impressed me as noble and god-
like, and I feel inclined to take them for what they
purport to be. On one side of the piazza is the Pon-
tifical Palace ; but, not being aware of this at the
time, I did not look particularly at the edifice.
were
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I came home by way of the Corso, which seemed a
little enlivened by Carnival time; though, as it was
not yet two o'clock, the fun had not begun for the day.
The rain throws a dreary damper on the festivities.
February 13th. - Day before yesterday we took
J- and R in a carriage, and went to see the
Carnival, by driving up and down the Corso. It was
as ugly a day, as respects weather, as has befallen us
since we came to Rome, cloudy, with an indecisive
wet, which finally settled into a rain ; and people say
that such is generally the weather in Carnival time.
There is very little to be said about the spectacle.
Sunshine would have improved it, no doubt; but a
person must have very broad sunshine within himself
to be joyous on such shallow provocation. The street,
at all events, would have looked rather brilliant under
a sunny sky, the balconies being hung with bright-
colored draperies, which were also flung out of some
of the windows. . . . . Soon I had my first experience
of the Carnival, in a handful of confetti, right slap in
my face. . . . . Many of the ladies wore loose white
dominos, and some of the gentlemen had on defen-
sive armor of blouses; and wire masks over the
face were a protection for both sexes, - not a need-
less one, for I received a shot in my right eye which
cost me many tears. It seems to be a point of
courtesy (though often disregarded by Americans
and English) not to fling confetti at ladies, or
at non-combatants, or quiet bystanders; and the
engagements with these missiles
were generally
between open carriages, manned with youths, who


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were provided with confetti for such encounters,
and with bouquets for the ladies. We had one
real enemy on the Corso; for our former friend
Mrs. T was there, and as often as we passed and
repassed her, she favored us with a handful of lime.
Two or three times somebody ran by the carriage and
puffed forth a shower of winged seeds through a tube
into our faces and over our clothes; and, in the
course of the afternoon, we were hit with perhaps
half a dozen sugar-plums. Possibly we may not have
received our fair share of these last salutes, for J-
had on a black mask, which made him look like an
imp of Satan, and drew many volleys of confetti that
we might otherwise have escaped. A good many bou-
quets were flung at our little R-
and at us gener-
ally. .... This was what is called masking-day,
when it is the rule to wear masks in the Corso, but the
great majority of people appeared without them. ...
Two fantastic figures, with enormous heads, set round
with frizzly hair, came and grinned into our carriage,
and J tore out a handful of hair (which proved to
be sea-weed) from one of their heads, rather to the
discomposure of the owner, who muttered his indigna-
tion in Italian. On comparing notes with J-
and R - indeed with U— too, I find that they
all enjoyed the Carnival much more than I did. Only
the young ought to write descriptions of such scenes.
My cold criticism chills the life out of it.
February 14th. — Friday, 12th, was a sunny day,
the first that we had had for some time; and my
wife and I went forth to see sights as well as to make


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some calls that had long been due. We went first to
the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which I have
already mentioned, and, on our return, we went to the
Piazza di Monte Cavallo, and saw those admirable an-
cient statues of Castor and Pollux, which seem to me
sons of the morning, and full of life and strength.
The atmosphere, in such a length of time, has covered
the marble surface of these statues with a gray rust,
that envelops both the men and horses as with a
garment; besides which, there are strange discolora-
tion, such as patches of white moss on the elbows, and
reddish streaks down the sides ; but the glory of form
overcomes all these defects of color.
It is pleasant
to observe how familiar some little birds are with these
colossal statues, — hopping about on their heads and
over their huge fists, and very likely they have nests
in their ears or among their hair.
We called at the Barberini Palace, where William
Story has established himself and family for the next
seven years, or more, on the third piano, in apartments
that afford a very fine outlook over Rome, and have
the sun in them through most of the day. Mrs. S-
invited us to her fancy ball, but we declined.
On the staircase ascending to their piano we saw the
ancient Greek bas-relief of a lion, whence Canova is
supposed to have taken the idea of his lions on the
monument in St. Peter's. Afterwards we made two
or three calls in the neighborhood of the Piazza di
Spagna, finding only Mr. Hamilton Fisk and family,
at the Hôtel d'Europe, at home, and next visited the
studio of Mr. C. G. Thompson, whom I knew in


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Boston. He has very greatly improved since those
days, and, being always a man of delicate mind, and
earnestly desiring excellence for its own sake, he has
won himself the power of doing beautiful and elevated
works. He is now meditating a series of pictures
from Shakespeare's "Tempest," the sketches of one or
two of which he showed us, likewise a copy of a small
Madonna, by Raphael, wrought with a minute faithful-
ness which it makes one a better man to observe.
.... Mr. Thompson is a true artist, and whatever his
pictures have of beauty comes from very far beneath
the surface; and this, I suppose, is one weighty reason
why he has but moderate success. I should like his
pictures for the mere color, even if they represented
nothing. His studio is in the Via Sistina ; and, at a
little distance on the other side of the same street, is
William Story's, where we likewise went, and found
him at work on a sitting statue of Cleopatra.
William Story looks quite as vivid, in a graver way,
as when I saw him last, a very young man.
plexing variety of talents and accomplishments — he
being a poet, a prose writer, a lawyer, a painter, a
musician, and a sculptor - seems now to be concentrat-
ing itself into this latter vocation, and I cannot see
why he should not achieve something very good. He
has a beautiful statue, already finished, of Goethe's
Margaret, pulling a flower to pieces to discover whether
Faust loves her; a very type of virginity and simpli-
city. The statue of Cleopatra, now only fourteen
days advanced in the clay, is as wide a step from the
little maidenly Margaret as any artist could take ; it
His per-


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is a grand subject, and he is conceiving it with depth
and power, and working it out with adequate skill.
He certainly is sensible of something deeper in his art
than merely to make beautiful nudities and baptize
them by classic names. By the by, he told us several
queer stories of American visitors to his studio : one
of them, after long inspecting Cleopatra, into which
he has put all possible characteristics of her time and
nation and of her own individuality, asked, "Have
you baptized your statue yet?" as if the sculptor were
waiting till his statue were finished before he chose
the subject of it, -as, indeed, I should think many
sculptors do. Another remarked of a statue of Hero,
who is seeking Leander by torchlight, and in momen-
tary expectation of finding his drowned body, “Is
not the face a little sad?" Another time a whole
party of Americans filed into his studio, and ranged
themselves round his father's statue, and, after much
silent examination, the spokesman of the party in-
quired, “Well, sir, what is this intended to represent ?"
William Story, in telling these little anecdotes, gave
the Yankee twang to perfection.
The statue of his father, his first work, is very
noble, as noble and fine a portrait-statue as I ever
In the outer room of his studio a stone-cutter,
or whatever this kind of artisan is called, was at
work, transferring the statue of Hero from the
plaster-cast into marble; and already, though still in
some respects a block of stone, there was a wonderful
degree of expression in the face. It is not quite pleas-
ant to think that the sculptor does not really do the
saw.


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ITALY.
snow.
whole labor on his statues, but that they are all but
finished to his hand by merely mechanical people. It
is generally only the finishing touches that are given
by his own chisel.
Yesterday, being another bright day, we went to
the basilica of St. John Lateran, which is the basilica
next in rank to St. Peter's, and has the precedence of
it as regards certain sacred privileges. It stands on a
most noble site, on the outskirts of the city, com-
manding a view of the Sabine and Alban hills, blue in
the distance, and some of them hoary with sunny
The ruins of the Claudian aqueduct are close
at hand. The church is connected with the Lateran
palace and museum, so that the whole is one edifice;
but the façade of the church distinguishes it, and is
very lofty and grand, more so, it seems to me, than
that of St. Peter's. Under the portico is an old statue
of Constantine, representing him as a very stout and
sturdy personage.
The inside of the church disap-
pointed me, though no doubt I should have been
wonder-struck had I seen it a month ago. We went
into one of the chapels, which was very rich in col-
ored marbles ; and, going down a winding staircase,
found ourselves among the tombs and sarcophagi of
the Corsini family, and in presence of a marble Pietà,
very beautifully sculptured. On the other side of the
church we looked into the Torlonia Chapel, very rich
and rather profusely gilded, but, as it seemed to me,
not tawdry, though the white newness of the marble
is not perfectly agreeable after being accustomed to
the milder tint which time bestows on sculpture.


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The tombs and statues appeared like shapes and
images of new-fallen snow. The most interesting thing
which we saw in this church (and, admitting its
authenticity, there can scarcely be a more interesting
one anywhere) was the table at which the Last Supper
was eaten.
It is preserved in a corridor, on one side
of the tribune or chancel, and is shown by torchlight
suspended upon the wall beneath a covering of glass.
Only the top of the table is shown, presenting a
broad, flat surface of wood, evidently very old, and
showing traces of dry-rot in one or two places. There
are nails in it, and the attendant said that it had
formerly been covered with bronże. As well as I can
remember, it may be five or six feet square, and I
suppose would accommodate twelve persons, though
not if they reclined in the Roman fashion, nor if they
sat as they do in Leonardo da Vinci's picture. It
would be very delightful to believe in this table.
There are several other sacred relics preserved in
the church ; for instance, -the staircase of Pilate's
house up which Jesus went, and the porphyry slab on
which the soldiers cast lots for his garments. These,
however, we did not see. There are very glowing
frescos on portions of the walls; but, there being
much whitewash instead of incrusted marble, it has
not the pleasant aspect which one's eye learns to
demand in Roman churches. There is a good deal of
statuary along the columns of the nave, and in the
monuments of the side-aisles.
In reference to the interior splendor of Roman
churches, I must say that I think it a pity that paint-


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ITALY.
ed windows are exclusively a Gothic ornament ; for
the elaborate ornamentation of these interiors puts
the ordinary daylight out of countenance, so that a
window with only the white sunshine coming through
it, or even with a glimpse of the blue Italian sky,
looks like a portion left unfinished, and therefore a
blotch in the rich wall. It is like the one spot in
Aladdin's palace which he left for the king, his father-
in-law, to finish, after his fairy architects had exhaust-
ed their magnificence on the rest; and the sun, like
the king, fails in the effort. It has what is called a
porta santa, which we saw walled up, in front of the
church, one side of the main entrance. I know not
what gives it its sanctity, but it appears to be opened
by the pope on a year of jubilee, once every quarter
of a century.
After our return . I took R - along the Pin-
cian Hill, and finally, after witnessing what of the
Carnival could be seen in the Piazza del Popolo from
that safe height, we went down into the Corso, and
some little distance along it. Except for the sun-
shine, the scene was much the same as I have already
described ; perhaps fewer confetti and more bouquets.
Some Americans and English are said to have been
brought before the police authorities, and fined for
throwing lime. It is remarkable that the jollity, such
as it is, of the Carnival, does not extend an inch
beyond the line of the Corso; there it flows along in
a narrow stream, while in the nearest street we see
nothing but the ordinary Roman gravity.
February 15th. — Yesterday was a bright day, but I
.
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did not go out till the afternoon, when I took an hour's
walk along the Pincian, stopping a good while to look
at the old beggar who, for many years past, has occu-
pied one of the platforms of the flight of steps leading
from the Piazza di Spagna to the Trinita di Monti.
Hillard commemorates him in his book.
He is an
unlovely object, moving about on his hands and
knees, principally by aid of his hands, which are forti-
fied with a sort of wooden shoes; while his poor,
wasted lower shanks stick up in the air behind him,
loosely vibrating as he progresses. He is gray, old,
ragged, a pitiable sight, but seems very active in his
own fashion, and bestirs himself on the approach of
his visitors with the alacrity of a spider when a fly
touches the remote circumference of his web. While
I looked down at him he received alms from three
persons, one of whom was a young woman of the lower
orders; the other two were gentlemen, probably either
English or American. I could not quite make out the
principle on which he let some people pass without
molestation, while he shuffled from one end of the
platform to the other to intercept an occasional indi-
vidual. He is not persistent in his demands, nor,
indeed, is this a usual fault among Italian beggars.
A shake of the head will stop him when wriggling
towards you from a distance. I fancy he reaps a
pretty fair harvest, and no doubt leads as contented
and as interesting a life as most people, sitting there
all day on those sunny steps, looking at the world,
and making his profit out of it. It must be pretty
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the hopes and apprehensions; and probably he suffers
no more from the many refusals he meets with than
the angler does, when he sees a fish smell at his bait
and swim away.
One success pays for a hundred dis-
appointments, and the game is all the better for not
being entirely in his own favor.
Walking onward, I found the Pincian thronged with
promenaders, as also with carriages, which drove
round the verge of the gardens in an unbroken ring.
To-day has been very rainy. I went out in the
forenoon, and took a sitting for my bust in one of a
suite of rooms formerly occupied by Canova. It was
large, high, and dreary from the want of a carpet,
furniture, or anything but clay and plaster. A sculp-
tor's studio has not the picturesque charm of that of
a painter, where there is color, warmth, and cheerful-
ness, and where the artist continually turns towards
you the glow of some picture, which is resting against
the wall. ... I was asked not to look at the bust
at the close of the sitting, and, of course, I obeyed;
though I have a vague idea of a heavy-browed physi-
ognomy, something like what I have seen in the glass,
but looking strangely in that guise of clay. . ...
It is a singular fascination that Rome exercises
upon artists. There is clay elsewhere, and marble
enough, and heads to model, and ideas may be made
sensible objects at home as well as here. I think it is
the peculiar mode of life that attracts, and its freedom
from the inthralments of society, more than the ar-
tistic advantages which Rome offers; and, no doubt,
though the artists care little about one another's


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works, yet they keep each other warm by the pres-
ence of so many of them.
The Carnival still continues, though I hardly see
how it can 'have withstood such a damper as this
rainy day. There were several people -- three, I
think — killed in the Corso on Saturday; some ac-
counts
say
that they were run over by the horses in
the race; others, that they were ridden down by the
dragoons in clearing the course.
After leaving Canova's studio, I stepped into the
church of San Luigi de Franchesi, in the Via di
Ripetta. It was built, I believe, by Catherine di
Medici, and is under the protection of the French
government, and a most shamefully dirty place of
worship, the beautiful marble columns looking dingy,
for the want of loving and pious care.
There are
many tombs and monuments of French people, both of
the past and present, -- artists, soldiers, priests, and
others, who have died in Rome. It was so dusky
within the church that I could hardly distinguish the
pictures in the chapels and over the altar, nor did I
know that there were any worth looking for. Never-
theless, there were frescos by Domenichino, and oil-
paintings by Guido and others. I found it peculiarly
touching to read the records, in Latin or French, of
persons who had died in this foreign land, though
they were not my own country-people, and though I
was even less akin to them than they to Italy. Still,
there was a sort of relationship in the fact that neither
they nor I belonged here.
February 17th, — Yesterday morning was perfectly


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sunny, and we went out betimes to see churches ;
going first to the Capuchins', close by the Piazza
Barberini.
["The Marble Faun" takes up this description of
the church and of the dead monk, which we really
saw, just as recounted, even to the sudden stream
of blood which flowed from the nostrils, as we looked
at him. -Ed.]
We next went to the Trinita di Monti, which
stands at the head of the steps, leading, in several
flights, from the Piazza di Spagna. It is now con-
nected with a convent of French nuns, and when we
rang at a side door, one of the sisterhood answered
the summons, and admitted us into the church. This,
like that of the Capuchin's, had a vaulted roof over
the nave, and no side-aisles, but rows of chapels
instead. Unlike the Capuchin's, which was filthy,
and really disgraceful to behold, this church was most
exquisitely neat, as women alone would have thought
it worth while to keep it. It is not a very splendid
ehurch, not rich in gorgeous marbles, but pleasant
to be in, if it were only for the sake of its godly
purity. There was only one person in the nave; a
young girl, who sat perfectly still, with her face
towards the altar, as long as we stayed. Between
the nave and the rest of the church, there is a high
iron railing, and on the other side of it were two
kneeling figures in black, so motionless that I at
first thought them statues; but they proved to be two
nuns at their devotions; and others of the sisterhood
came by and by and joined them. Nuns, at least


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these nuns, who are French, and probably ladies of
refinement, having the education of young girls in
charge, are far pleasanter objects to see and think
about than monks; the odor of sanctity, in the latter,
not being an agreeable fragrance. But these holy
sisters, with their black crape and white muslin,
looked really pure and unspotted from the world.
On the iron railing above mentioned was the repre-
sentation of a golden heart, pierced with arrows; for
these are nuns of the Sacred Heart. In the various
chapels there are several paintings in fresco, some by
Daniele da Volterra ; and one of them, the “ Descent
from the Cross,” has been pronounced the third
greatest picture in the world. I never should have
had the slightest suspicion that it was a great picture
at all, so worn and faded it looks, and so hard, so
difficult to be seen, and so undelightful when one
does see it.
From the Trinità we went to the Santa Maria del
Popolo, a church built on a spot where Nero is said
to have been buried, and which was afterwards made
horrible by devilish phantoms. It now being past
twelve, and all the churches closing from twelve till
two, we had not time to pay much attention to the
frescos, oil-pictures, and statues, by Raphael and
other famous men, which are to be seen here. I
remember dimly the magnificent chapel of the Chigi
family, and little else, for we stayed but a short time;
and went next to the sculptor's studio, where
had another sitting for my bust. After I had been
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For my
but
my
wife concluded to hire a balcony for this last
afternoon and evening of the Carnival, and she took
possession of it, while I went home to send to her
Miss S and the two elder children.
part, I took R—, and walked, by way of the Pin-
cian, to the Piazza del Popolo, and thence along the
Corso, where, by this time, the warfare of bouquets
and confetti raged pretty fiercely. The sky being
blue and the sun bright, the scene looked much
gayer and brisker than I had before found it; and I
can conceive of its being rather agreeable than other-
wise, up to the age of twenty. We got several volleys
of confetti. R-received a bouquet and a sugar-
plum, and I a resounding hit from something that
looked more like a cabbage than a flower. Little as
I have enjoyed the Carnival, I think I could make
quite a brilliant sketch of it, without very widely de-
parting from truth.
February 19th. - Day before yesterday, pretty early,
we went to St. Peter's, expecting to see the pope cast
ashes on the heads of the cardinals, it being Ash-
Wednesday. On arriving, however, we found no
more than the usual number of visitants and devo-
tional people scattered through the broad interior of
St. Peter's; and thence concluded that the ceremonies
were to be performed in the Sistine Chapel. Accord-
ingly, we went out of the Cathedral, through the door
in the left transept, and passed round the exterior,
and through the vast courts of the Vatican, seeking
for the chapel. We had blundered into the carriage-
entrance of the palace; there is an entrance from


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were on
some point near the front of the church, but this wa
did not find. The papal guards, in the strangest
antique and antic costume that was ever seen,
party-colored dress, striped with blue, red, and yel-
low, white and black, with a doublet and ruff, and
trunk-breeches, and armed with halberds,
duty at the gateways, but suffered us to pass without
question. Finally, we reached a large court, where
some cardinals' red equipages and other carriages
were drawn up, but were still at a loss as to the
whereabouts of the chapel. At last an attendant
kindly showed us the proper door, and led us up
flights of stairs, along passages and galleries, and
through halls, till at last we came to a spacious and
lofty apartment adorned with frescos ; this was the
Sala Regia, and the antechamber to the Sistine
Chapel.
The attendant, meanwhile, had informed us that
my wife could not be admitted to the chapel in her
bonnet, and that I myself could not enter at all, for
lack of a dress-coat; so my wife took off her bonnet,
and, covering her head with her black lace veil, was
readily let in, while I remained in the Sala Regia,
with several other gentlemen, who found themselves
in the same predicament as I
There was
wonderful variety of costume to be seen and studied
among the persons around me, comprising garbs that
have been elsewhere laid aside for at least three cen-
turies, – the broad, plaited, double ruff, and black
velvet cloak, doublet, trunk-breeches, and sword of
Queen Elizabeth's time, – the papal guard, in their
was.
a


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striped and party-colored dress as before described,
looking not a little like harlequins; other soldiers in
helmets and jackboots; French officers of various
uniform ; monks and priests; attendants in old-
fashioned and gorgeous livery; gentlemen, some in
black dress-coats and pantaloons, others in wide-
awake hats and tweed overcoats; and a few ladies
in the prescribed costume of black; so that, in any
other country, the scene might have been taken for a
fancy ball. By and by, the cardinals began to arrive,
and added their splendid purple robes and red hats to
make the picture still more brilliant. They were old
men, one or two very aged and infirm, and generally
men of bulk and substance, with heavy faces, fleshy
about the chin. Their red hats, trimmed with gold-
lace, are a beautiful piece of finery, and are identical
in shape with the black, loosely cocked beavers worn
by the Catholic ecclesiastics generally. Wolsey's hat,
which I saw at the Manchester Exhibition, might have
been made on the same block, but apparently was
never cocked, as the fashion now is. The attendants
changed the upper portions of their master's attire,
and put a little cap of scarlet cloth on each of their
heads, after which the cardinals, one by one, or two
by two, as they happened to arrive, went into the
chapel, with a page behind each holding up his purple
train. In the mean while, within the chapel, we heard
singing and chanting ; and whenever the voluminous
curtains that hung before the entrance were slightly
drawn apart, we outsiders glanced through, but could
see only a mass of people, and beyond them still
4 *


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screen.
another chapel, divided from the hither one by a
Wben almost everybody had gone in, there
was a stir among the guards and attendants, and a
door opened, apparently communicating with the inner
apartments of the Vatican. Through this door came,
not the pope, as I had partly expected, but a
bulky old lady in black, with a red face, who bowed
towards the spectators with an aspect of dignified
complaisance as she passed towards the entrance of
the chapel. I took off my hat, unlike certain English
gentlemen who stood nearer, and found that I had
not done amiss, for it was the Queen of Spain.
There was nothing else to be seen; so I went back
through the antechambers (which are noble halls,
richly frescoed on the walls and ceilings), endeavoring
to get out through the same passages that had let me
in. I had already tried to descend what I now sup-
pose to be the Scala Santa, but had been turned back
by a sentinel. After wandering to and fro a good
while, I at last found myself in a long, long gallery,
on each side of which were innumerable inscriptions,
in Greek and Latin, on slabs of marble, built into the
walls ; and classic altars and tablets were ranged
along, from end to end. At the extremity was a
closed iron grating, from which I was retreating ; but
a French gentleman accosted me, with the informa-
tion that the custode would admit me, if I chose, and
would accompany me through the sculpture depart-
ment of the Vatican. I acceded, and thus took my
first view of those innumerable art-treasures, passing
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hardly a moment anywhere, and dismissing even the
Apollo, and the Laocoön, and the Torso of Hercules,
in the space of half a dozen breaths. I was well
enough content to do so, in order to get a general
idea of the contents of the galleries, before settling
down upon individual objects.
Most of the world-famous sculptures presented them-
selves to my eye with a kind of familiarity, through
the copies and casts which I had seen; but I found
the originals more different than I anticipated. The
Apollo, for instance, has a face which I have never
seen in any cast or copy. I must confess, however,
taking such transient glimpses as I did, I was more
impressed with the extent of the Vatican, and the
beautiful order in which it is kept, and its great sun-
ny, open courts, with fountains, grass, and shrubs, and
the views of Rome and the Campagna from its win-
dows, more impressed with these, and with certain
vastly, capacious vases, and two great sarcophagi, -
than with the statuary. Thus I went round the
whole, and was dismissed through the grated barrier
into the gallery of inscriptions again; and after a lit-
tle more wandering, I made my way out of the
palace.
Yesterday I went out betimes, and strayed through
some portion of ancient Rome, to the Column of Tra-
jan, to the Forum, thence along the Appian Way;
after which I lost myself among the intricacies of the
streets, and finally came out at the bridge of St. An-
gelo. The first observation which a stranger is led
to make, in the neighborhood of Roman ruins, is that
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the inhabitants seem to be strangely addicted to the
washing of clothes ; for all the precincts of Trajan's
Forum, and of the Roman Forum, and wherever else
an iron railing affords opportunity to hang them, were
whitened with sheets, and other linen and cotton, dry-
ing in the sun. It must be that washerwomen bur-
row among the old temples. The second observation
is not quite so favorable to the cleanly character of
the modern Romans ; indeed, it is so very unfavora-
ble, that I hardly know how to express it. But the
fact is, that, through the forum, . . . . and anywhere
out of the commonest foot-track and road-way, you
must look well to your steps.
If you tread be-
neath the triumphal arch of Titus or Constantine, you
had better look downward than upward, whatever be
the merit of the sculptures aloft. .
After a while the visitant finds himself getting ac-
customed to this horrible state of things ; and the
associations of moral sublimity and beauty seem to
throw a veil over the physical meannesses to which I
allude: Perhaps there is something in the mind of
the people of these countries that enables them quite
to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and
beauty. They spit upon the glorious pavement of St.
Peter's, and wherever else they like; they place pal-
try-looking wooden confessionals beneath its sublime
arches, and ornament them with cheap little colored
prints of the crucifixion; they hang tin hearts and
other tinsel and tru ery at the gorgeous shrines of
the saints, in chapels that are incrusted with gems, or
marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard stat-


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ues of saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon ; in
short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come
close together, and are not in the least troubled by
the proximity. It must be that their sense of the
beautiful is stronger than in the Anglo-Saxon mind,
and that it observes only what is fit to gratify it.
To-day, which was bright and cool, my wife and I
set forth immediately after breakfast, in search of the
Baths of Diocletian, and the church of Santa Maria
degl' Angeli. We went too far along the Via di Porta
Pia, and after passing by two or three convents, and
their high garden walls, and the villa Bonaparte on
one side, and the villa Torlonia on the other, at last
issued through the city gate. Before us, far away,
were the Alban hills, the loftiest of which was abso-
lutely silvered with snow and sunshine, and set in the
bluest and brightest of skies. We now retraced our
steps to the Fountain of the Termini, where is a pon-
derous heap of stone, representing Moses striking the
rock; a colossal figure, not without a certain enor-
mous might and dignity, though rather too evidently
looking his awfullest. This statue was the death of
its sculptor, whose heart was broken on account of
the ridicule it excited. There are many more absurd
aquatic devices in Rome, however, and few better.
We turned into the Piazza di Termini, the entrance
of which is at this fountain ; and after some inquiry of
the French soldiers, a numerous detachment of whom
appear to be quartered in the vicinity, we found our
way to the portal of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The
exterior of this church has no pretensions to beauty or


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No one
majesty, or, indeed, to arehitectural merit of any kind,
or to any architecture whatever ; for it looks like a
confused pile of ruined brickwork, with a façade re-
sembling half the inner curve of a large oven.
would imagine that there was a church under that
enormous heap of ancient rubbish. But the door ad-
mits you into a circular vestibule, once an apartment
of Diocletian's Baths, but now a portion of the nave of
the church, and surrounded with monumental busts;
and thence you pass into what was the central hall;
now, with little change, except of detail and ornament,
transformed into the body of the church. This space
is so lofty, broad, and airy, that the soul forth with
swells out and magnifies itself, for the sake of filling
it. It was Michel Angelo who contrived this miracle ;
and I feel even more grateful to him for rescuing such
a noble interior from destruction, than if he had origi-
nally built it himself.
In the ceiling above, you see
the metal fixtures whereon the old Romans hung their
lamps; and there are eight gigantic pillars of Egyp-
tian granite, standing as they stood of yore There is
a grand simplicity about the church, more satisfactory
than elaborate ornament; but the present pope has
paved and adorned one of the large chapels of the
transept in very beautiful style, and the pavement of
the central part is likewise laid in rich marbles. In
the choir there are several pictures, one of which was
veiled, as celebrated pictures frequently are in
churches. A person, who seemed to be at bis devo-
tions, withdrew the veil for us, and we saw a Martyr-
dom of St. Sebastian, by Domenichino, originally, I


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for us.
believe, painted in fresco in St. Peter's, but since trans-
ferred to canvas, and removed hither. Its place at
St. Peter's is supplied by a mosaic copy. I was a
good deal impressed by this picture, — the dying saint,
amid the sorrow of those who loved him, and the fury
of his enemies, looking upward, where a company of
angels, and Jesus with them, are waiting to welcome
him and crown him; and I felt what an influence
pictures might have upon the devotional part of our
nature. The nail-marks in the hands and feet of
Jesus, ineffaceable, even after he had passed into bliss
and glory, touched my heart with a sense of his love
I think this really a great picture. We walked
round the church, looking at other paintings and
frescos, but saw no others that greatly interested us.
In the vestibule there are monuments to Carlo Maratti
and Salvator Rosa, and there is a statue of St. Bruno,
by Houdon, which is pronounced to be very fine. I
thought it good, but scarcely worthy of vast admira-
tion. Houdon was the sculptor of the first statue of
Washington, and of the bust, whence, I suppose, all
subsequent statues have been, and will be, mainly
modelled.
After emerging from the church, I looked back
with wonder at the stack of shapeless old brickwork
that hid the splendid interior. I must go there again,
and breathe freely in that noble space.
February 20th. — This morning, after breakfast, I
walked across the city, making a pretty straight
course to the Pantheon, and thence to the bridge of
St. Angelo, and to St. Peter's.
It had been my pur-


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pose to go to the Fontana Paolina ; but, finding that
the distance was too great, and being weighed down
with a Roman lassitude, I'concluded to go into St.
Peter's. Here I looked at Michel Angelo's Pietà, a
representation of the dead Christ, in his mother's lap.
Then I strolled round the great church, and find that
it continues to grow upon me both in magnitude and
beauty, by comparison with the many interiors of
sacred edifices which I have lately seen. At times, a
single, casual, momentary glimpse of its magnificence
gleams upon my soul, as it were, when I happen to
glance at arch opening beyond arch, and I am sur-
prised into admiration. I have experienced that a
landscape and the sky unfold the deepest beauty in a
similar way; not when they are gazed at of set pur-
pose, but when the spectator looks suddenly through
a vista, among a crowd of other thoughts. Passing
near the confessional for foreigners to-day, I saw
Spaniard, who had just come out of the one devoted
to his native tongue, taking leave of his confessor,
with an affectionate reverence, which - as well as the
benign dignity of the good father - it was good to
behold...
I returned home early, in order to go with my wife
to the Barberini Palace at two o'clock. We entered
through the gateway, through the Via delle Quattro
Fontane, passing one or two sentinels; for there is
apparently a regiment of dragoons quartered on the
ground floor of the palace; and I stumbled upon a
room containing their saddles, the other day, when
seeking for Mr. Story's staircase. The entrance to
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ITALY.
the picture gallery is by a door on the right hand,
affording us a sight of a beautiful spiral staircase,
which goes circling upward from the very basement
to the very summit of the palace, with a perfectly
easy ascent, yet confining its sweep within a moderate
compass. We looked up through the interior of the
spiral, as through a tube, from the bottom to the top.
The pictures are contained in three contiguous rooms
of the lower piano, and are few in number, compris-
ing barely half a dozen which I should care to see
again, though doubtless all have value in their way.
One that attracted our attention was a picture of
“Christ disputing with the Doctors," by Albert
Dürer, in which was represented the ugliest, most
evil-minded, stubborn, pragmatical, and contentious
old Jew that ever lived under the law of Moses; and
he and the child Jesus were arguing, not only with
their tongues, but making hieroglyphics, as it were,
by the motion of their hands and fingers. It is a very
queer, as well as a very remarkable picture. But we
passed hastily by this, and almost all others, being
eager to see the two which chiefly make the collection
famous, - Raphael's Fornarina, and Guido's portrait of
Beatrice Cenci. These were found in the last of the
three rooms, and as regards Beatrice Cenci, I might as
well not try to say anything; for its spell is indefina-
ble, and the painter has wrought it in a way more
like magic than anything else.
It is the most profoundly wrought picture in the
world ; no artist did it, nor could do it again. Guido
may have held the brush, but he painted better than


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he knew. I wish, however, it were possible for some
spectator, of deep sensibility, to see the picture with-
out knowing anything of its subject or history; for,
i no doubt, we bring all our knowledge of the Cenci
tragedy to the interpretation of it.
Close beside Beatrice Cenci hangs the Forna-
rina.
While we were looking at these works Miss M-
unexpectedly joined us, and we went, all three to-
gether, to the Rospigliosi Palace, in the Piazza di
Monte Cavallo. A porter, in cocked hat, and with a
staff of office, admitted us into a spacious court be-
fore the palace, and directed us to a garden on one
side, raised as much as twenty feet above the level on
which we stood. The gardener opened the gate for
us, and we ascended a beautiful stone staircase, with
a carved balustrade, bearing many marks of time and
weather. Reaching the garden-level, we found it laid
out in walks, bordered with box and ornamental
shrubbery, amid which were lemon-trees, and one
large old exotic from some distant clime. In the
centre of the garden, surrounded by a stone balus-
trade, like that of the staircase, was a fish-pond, into
which several jets of water were continually spouting;
and on pedestals, that made part of the balusters,
stood eight marble statues of Apollo, Cupid, nymphs,
and other such sunny and beautiful people of classic
mythology. There had been many more of these
statues, but the rest had disappeared, and those which
remained had suffered grievous damage, here to a
pose, there to a hand or foot, and often a fracture of


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the body, very imperfectly mended. There was a
pleasant sunshine in the garden, and a springlike, or
rather a genial, autumnal atmosphere, though else-
where it was a day of poisonous Roman chill.
At the end of the garden, which was of no great
extent, was an edifice, bordering on the piazza, called
the Casino, which, I presume, means a garden-house.
The front is richly ornamented with bas-reliefs,
and statues in niches ; as if it were a place for
pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore ought to be
beautiful. As we approached it, the door swung
open, and we went into a large room on the ground
oor, and, looking up to the ceiling, beheld Guido's
Aurora. The picture is as fresh and brilliant as if
he had painted it with the morning sunshine which it
represents. It could not be more lustrous in its
hues, if he had given it the last touch an hour ago.
Three or four artists were copying it at that instant,
and positively their colors did not look brighter,
though a great deal newer than his.
The alacrity
and movement, briskness and morning stir and glow
of the picture are wonderful. It seems impossible to
catch its glory in a copy. Several artists, as I said,
were making the attempt, and we saw two other
attempted copies leaning against the wall, but it
was easy to detect failure in just essential points.
My memory, I believe, will be somewhat enlivened
by this picture hereafter : not that I remember it very
distinctly even now; but bright things leave a sheen
and glimmer in the mind, like Christian's tremulous
glimpse of the Celestial City.


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:
In two other rooms of the Casino we saw pictures
by Domenichino, Rubens, and other famous painters,
which I do not mean to speak of, because I cared
really little or nothing about them. Returning into
the garden, the unny warmth of which was most
grateful after the chill air and cold pavement of the
Casino, we walked round the laguna, examining the
statues, and looking down at some little fishes that
swarmed at the stone margin of the pool. There
were two infants of the Rospigliosi family : one, a
young child playing with a maid and head-servant ;
another, the very chubbiest and rosiest boy in the
world, sleeping on its nurse's bosom.
The nurse was
a comely woman enough, dressed in bright colors,
which fitly set off the deep hues of her Italian face.
An old painter very likely would have beautified and
refined the pair into a Madonna, with the child Jesus ;
for an artist need not go far in Italy to find a picture
ready composed and tinted, needing little more than
to be literally copied.
Miss M-
before
my
wife
and I, after leaving the Palazzo Rospigliosi, and on
our way home, went into the Church of St. Andrea,
which belongs to a convent of Jesuits. I have long
ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splen-
did interiors of churches, but methinks this little, little
temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has
a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other.
Its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and, above that,
another little dome, both of which are magnificently
frescoed. Around the base of the larger dome is
had gone away
us; but


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wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and
upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs,
cherub and angel all of pure white marble. The
oval centre of the church is walled round with pre-
cious and lustrous marble of a red-veined variety
interspersed with columns and pilasters of white;
and there are arches opening through this rich wall,
forming chapels, which the architect seems to have
striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the
main body of the church. They contain beautiful
pictures, not dark and faded, but glowing, as if just
from the painter's hands; and the shrines are adorned
with whatever is most rare, and in one of them was
the great carbuncle ; at any rate, a bright, fiery gem
as big as a turkey's egg. The pavement of the
church was one star of various-colored marble, and
in the centre was a mosaic, covering, I believe, the
tomb of the founder. I have not seen, nor expect
to see, anything else so entirely and satisfactorily
finished as this small oval church; and I only wish
I could pack it in a large box, and send it home.
I must not forget that, on our way from the Bar-
berini Palace, we stopped an instant to look at the
house, at the corner of the street of the four fountains,
where Milton was a guest while in Rome.
He seems
quite a man of our own day, seen so nearly at the
hither extremity of the vista through which we look
back, from the epoch of railways to that of the oldest
Egyptian obelisk. The house it was then occupied
by the Cardinal Barberini) looks as if it might have
been built within the present century; for medieval


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of re-
houses in Rome do not assume the aspect of antiq-
uity ; perhaps because the Italian style of architec-
ture, or something similar, is the one more generally
in vogue in most cities.
February 21st. - This morning I took my way
through the Porta del Popolo, intending to spend
the forenoon in the Campagna ; but, getting weary of
the straight, uninteresting street that runs out of the
gate, I turned aside from it, and soon found myself
on the shores of the Tiber. It looked, as usual, like a
saturated solution of yellow mud, and eddied hastily
along between deep banks of clay, and over a clay
bed, in which doubtless are hidden many a richer
treasure than we now possess.
The French once
proposed to draw off the river, for the
purpose
covering all the sunken statues and relics ; but the
Romans made strenuous objection, on account of the
increased virulence of malaria which would probably
result. I saw a man on the immediate shore of the
river, fifty feet or so beneath the bank on which I
stood, sitting patiently, with an angling rod; and I
waited to see what he might catch. Two other per-
sons likewise sat down to watch him ; but he caught
nothing so long as I stayed, and at last seemed to
give it up. The banks and vicinity of the river are
very bare and uninviting, as I then saw them; no
shade, no verdure, -- a rough, neglected aspect, and a
peculiar shabbiness about the few houses that were
visible. Farther down the stream the dome of St.
Peter's showed itself on the other side, seeming to
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the banks, with some expectation of finding a ferry,
by which I might cross the river; but my course was
soon interrupted by the wall, and I turned up a lane
that led me straight back again to the Porta del
Popolo. I stopped a moment, however, to see some
young men pitching quoits, which they appeared to
do with a good deal of skill.
I went along the Via di Ripetta, and through other
streets, stepping into two or three churches, one of
which was the Pantheon.
There are, I think, seven deep, pillared recesses
around the circumference of it, each of which becomes
a sufficiently capacious chapel ; and alternately with
these chapels there is a marble structure, like the
architecture of a doorway, beneath which is the shrine
of a saint ; so that the whole circle of the Pantheon is
filled up with the seven chapels and seven shrines.
A number of persons were sitting or kneeling around;
others came in while I was there, dipping their fin-
gers in the holy water, and bending the knee, as they
passed the shrines and chapels, until they reached the
one which, apparently, they had selected as the par-
ticular altar for their devotions. Everybody seemed
so devout, and in a frame of mind so suited to the
day and place, that it really made me feel a little
awkward not to be able to kneel down along with
them. Unlike the worshippers in our own churches,
each individual here seems to do his own individual
acts of devotion, and I cannot but think it better so
than to make an effort for united prayer as we do. It
is my opinion that a great deal of devout and reveren-


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tial feeling is kept alive in people's hearts by the
Catholic mode of worship.
Soon leaving the Pantheon, a few minutes' walk
towards the Corso brought me to the Church of St.
Ignazio, which belongs to the College of the Jesuits.
It is spacious and of beautiful architecture, but not
strikingly distinguished, in the latter particular, from
many others; a wide and lofty nave, supported upon
marble columns, between which arches open
into the
side-aisles, and at the junction of the nave and tran-
sept a dome, resting on four great arches. The
church seemed to be purposely somewhat darkened,
so that I could not well see the details of the orna-
mentation, except the frescos on the ceiling of the
nave, which were very brilliant, and done in so effec-
tual a style, that I really could not satisfy myself that
some of the figures did not actually protrude from the
ceiling, -in short, that they were not colored bas-re-
liefs, instead of frescos. No words can express the
beautiful effect, in an upholstery point of view, of this
kind of decoration. Here, as at the Pantheon, there
were many persons sitting silent, kneeling, or passing
from shrine to shrine.
I reached home at about twelve, and, at one, set
out again, with my wife, towards St. Peter's, where we
meant to stay till after vespers.
We walked across
the city, and through the Piazza de Navona, where we
stopped to look at one of Bernini's absurd fountains,
of which the water makes but the smallest part,
little squirt or two amid a prodigious fuss of gods and
monsters. Thence we passed by the poor, battered-
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İTALY.
I
down torso of Pasquin, and came, by devious ways, to
the bridge of St. Angelo; the streets bearing pretty
much their week-day aspect, many of the shops open,
the market-stalls doing their usual business, and the
people brisk and gay, though not indecorously so.
suppose there was hardly a man or woman who had
not heard mass, confessed, and said their prayers; a
thing which
- the prayers, I mean - it would be ab-
surd to predicate of London, New York, or any Prot-
estant city. In however adulterated a guise, the
Catholics do get a draught of devotion to slake the
thirst of their souls, and methinks it must needs do
them good, even if not quite so pure as if it came
from better cisterns, or from the original fountain-
head.
Arriving at St. Peter's shortly after two, we walked
round the whole church, looking at all the pictures
and most of the monuments, and paused lon-
gest before Guido's "Archangel Michael overcoming
Lucifer.” This is surely one of the most beautiful
things in the world, one of the human conceptions
that are imbued most deeply with the celestial. ...
We then sat down in one of the aisles and awaited
the beginning of vespers, which we supposed would
take place at half past three. Four o'clock came,
however, and no vespers ; and as our dinner hour is
five, we at last came away without hearing the
yesper hymn.
February 23d.-Yesterday, at noon, we set out for
the Capitol, and after going up the acclivity (not from
the Forum, but from the opposite direction), stopped
VOL. I.
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to look at the statues of Castor and Pollux, which,
with other sculptures, look down the ascent. Castor
and his brother seem to me to have heads dispropor-
tionately large, and are not so striking, in any respect,
as such great images ought to be. But we heartily
admired the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus, . . . . and looked at a fountain, principally
composed, I think, of figures representing the Nile and
the Tiber, who loll upon their elbows and preside over
the gushing water; and between them, against the
façade of the Senator's Palace, there is a statue of
Minerva, with a petticoat of red porphyry. Having
taken note of these objects, we went to the Museum,
in an edifice on our left, entering the piazza, and here,
in the vestibule, we found various old statues and
relics. Ascending the stairs, we passed through a
long gallery, and, turning to our left, examined some-
what more carefully a suite of rooms running parallel
with it. The first of these contained busts of the
Cæsars and their kindred, from the epoch of the
mightiest Julius downward; eighty-three, I believe, in
all. I had seen a bust of Julius Cæsar in the British
Museum, and was surprised at its thin and withered
aspect; but this head is of a very ugly old man indeed,
wrinkled, puckered, shrunken, lacking breadth and
substance ; careworn, grim, as if he had fought hard
with life, and had suffered in the conflict; a man of
schemes, and of eager effort to bring his schemes to
pass. His profile is by no means good, advancing
from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose,
and
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ITALY.
point to the bottom of his chin, which seems to be
thrust forcibly down into his meagre neck, not that
he pokes his head forward, however, for it is partic-
ularly erect.
The head of Augustus is very beautiful, and appears
to be that of a meditative, philosophic man, sad-
dened with the sense that it is not very much worth
while to be at the summit of human greatness after all.
It is a sorrowful thing to trace the decay of civilization
through this series of busts, and to observe how the
artistic skill, so requisite at first, went on declining
through the dreary dynasty of the Cæsars, till at
length the master of the world could not get his head
carved in better style than the figure-head of a ship.
In the next room there were better statues than we
had yet seen; but in the last room of the range we
found the “Dying Gladiator," of which I had already
caught a glimpse in passing by the open door. It had
made all the other treasures of the gallery tedious in
my eagerness to come to that. I do not believe that
so much pathos is wrought into any other block of
stone. Like all works of the highest excellence, how-
ever, it makes great demands upon the spectator.
He must make a generous gift of his sympathies to
the sculptor, and help out his skill with all his heart,
or else he will see little more than a skilfully wrought
surface. It suggests far more than it shows. I looked
long at this statue, and little at anything else, though,
among other famous works, a statue of Antinoüs was
in the same room.
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by, was piercingly chill, as if the multitude of statues
radiated cold out of their marble substance. We
might have gone to see the pictures in the Palace of
the Conservatori, and SM, whose receptivity is
unlimited and forever fresh, would willingly have
done so; but I objected, and we went towards the
Forum. I had noticed, two or three times, an in-
scription over a mean-looking door in this neighbor-
hood, stating that here was the entrance to the prison
of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul ; and we soon
found the spot, not far from the Forum, with two
wretched frescos of the apostles above the inscription.
We knocked at the door without effect; but a lame
beggar, who sat at another door of the same house
(which looked exceedingly like a liquor shop), desired
us to follow him, and began to ascend to the Capitol,
by the causeway leading from the Forum. A little
way upward we met a woman, to whom the beggar
delivered us over, and she led us into a church or
chapel door, and pointed to a long flight of steps,
which descended through twilight into utter darkness.
She called to somebody in the lower regions, and then
went away, leaving us to get down this mysterious
staircase by ourselves. Down we went, farther and
farther from the daylight, and found ourselves, anon,
in a dark chamber or cell, the shape or boundaries of
which we could not make out, though it seemed to be
of stone, and black and dungeon-like. Indistinctly,
and from a still farther depth in the earth, we heard
voices, -- one voice, at least, - apparently not address-
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saw
beneath our feet, we à glimmering of light
through a round, iron-grated hole in the bottom of
the dungeon. In a few moments the glimmer and
the voice came up through this hole,' and the light
disappeared, and it and the voice came glimmering
and babbling up a flight of stone stairs, of which we
had not hitherto been aware. It was the custode,
with a party of visitors, to whom he had been showing
St. Peter's dungeon. Each visitor was provided with
a wax taper, and the custode gave one to each of us,
bidding us wait a moment while he conducted the
other party to the upper air. During his absence we
examined the cell, as well as our dim lights would
permit, and soon found an indentation in the wall,
with an iron grate put over it for protection, and an
inscription above informing us that the Apostle Peter
had here left the imprint of his visage ; and, in truth,
there is a profile there, — forehead, nose, mouth,
and
chin, - plainly to be seen, an intaglio in the solid rock.
We touched it with the tips of our fingers, as well as
saw it with our eyes.
The custode soon returned, and led us down the
darksome steps, chattering in Italian all the time.
It is not a very long descent to the lower cell, the
roof of which is so low that I believe I could have
reached it with my hand. We were now in the
deepest and ugliest part of the old Mamertine Prison,
one of the few remains of the kingly period of Rome,
and which served the Romans as a state prison for
hundreds of years before the Christian era. A multi-
tude of criminals or innocent persons, no doubt, have


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languished here in misery, and perished in darkness.
Here Jugurtha starved; here Catiline's adherents
were strangled ; and, methinks, there cannot be in
the world another such an evil den, so haunted with
black memories and indistinct surmises of guilt and
suffering. In old Rome, I suppose, the citizens never
spoke of this dungeon above their breath. It looks
just as bad as it is; round, only seven paces across,
yet so obscure that our tapers could not illuminate it
from side to side, the stones of which it is con-
structed being as black as midnight. The custode
showed us a stone post, at the side of the cell, with
the hole in the top of it, into which, he said, St.
Peter's chain had been fastened ; and he uncovered
a spring of water, in the middle of the stone floor,
which he told us had miraculously gushed up to
enable the saint to baptize his jailer. The miracle
was perhaps the more easily wrought, inasmuch as
Jugurtha had found the floor of the dungeon oozy
with wet. However, it is best to be as simple and
childlike as we can in these matters; and whether
St. Peter stamped his visage into the stone, and
wrought this other miracle or no, and whether or no
he ever was in the prison at all, still the belief of a
thousand years and more gives a sort of reality and
substance to such traditions. The custode dipped an
iron ladle into the miraculous water, and we each of
us drank a sip; and, what is very remarkable, to me it
seemed hard water and almost brackish, while many
persons think it the sweetest in Rome. I suspect
that St. Peter still dabbles in this water, and tempers
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its qualities according to the faith of those who
drink it.
The staircase descending into the lower dungeon is
comparatively modern, there having been no entrance
of old, except through the small circular opening in
the roof. In the upper cell the custode showed us an
ancient flight of stairs, now built into the wall, which
used to lead from the Capitol. The whole precincts
are now consecrated, and I believe the upper portion,
perhaps both
upper and lower, are a shrine or a chapel.
I now left s in the Forum, and went to call on
Mr. J. P. K— at the Hôtel d'Europe. I found him
just returned from a drive, a gentleman of about
sixty, or more, with gray hair, a pleasant, intellectual
face, and penetrating, but not unkindly eyes. He
moved infirmly, being on the recovery from an illness.
We went up to his saloon together, and had a talk, - or,
rather, he had it nearly all to himself, — and particu-
larly sensiblė talk, too, and full of the results of learn-
ing and experience. In the first place, he settled the
whole Kansas difficulty ; then he made havoc of St.
Peter, who came very shabbily out of his hands, as
regarded his early character in the Church, and his
claims to the position he now holds in it. Mr. K
also gave a curious illustration, from something that
happened to himself, of the little dependence that can
be placed on tradition purporting to be ancient, and I
capped his story by telling him how the site of my
town pump, so plainly indicated in the sketch itself,
has already been mistaken in the city council and in
the public prints.


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February 24th. Yesterday I crossed the Ponte
Sisto, and took a short ramble on the other side of the
river; and it rather surprised me to discover, pretty
nearly opposite the Capitoline Hill, a quay, at which
several schooners and barks, of two or three hundred
tons' burden, were moored. There was also a steamer,
armed with a large gun and two brass swivels on her
forecastle, and I know not what artillery besides.
Probably she may have been a revenue-cutter.
Returning I crossed the river by way of the island
of St. Bartholomew over two bridges. The island' is
densely covered with buildings, and is a separate
small fragment of the city. It was a tradition of the
ancient Romans that it was formed by the aggregation
of soil and rubbish brought down by the river, and
accumulating round the nucleus of some sunken
baskets.
On reaching the hither side of the river, I soon
struck upon the ruins of the theatre of Marcellus,
which are very picturesque, and the more so from
being closely linked in, indeed, identified with the
shops, habitations, and swarming life of modern Rome.
The most striking portion was a circular edifice, which
seemed to have been composed of a row of Tonic col-
umns, standing upon a lower row of Doric, many
the antique pillars being yet perfect; but the inter-
vening arches built up with brickwork, and the whole
once magnificent structure now tenanted by poor and
squalid people, as thick as mites within the round of
an old cheese. From this point I cannot very clearly
trace out my course; but I passed, I think, between
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the Circus Maximus and the Palace of the Cæsars,
and near the Baths of Caracalla, and went into the
cloisters of the Church of San Gregorio. All along I
saw massive ruins, not particularly picturesque or
beautiful, but huge, mountainous piles, chiefly of
brickwork, somewhat weed-grown here and there, but
oftener bare and dreary. . . . . All the successive
ages since Rome began to decay have done their best
to ruin the very ruins by taking away the marble and
the hewn stone for their own structures, and leaving
only the inner filling up of brickwork, which the ancient
architects never designed to be seen. The consequence
of all this is, that, except for the lofty and poetical
associations connected with it, and except, too, for the
immense difference in magnitude, a Roman ruin may
be in itself not more picturesque than I have seen
an old cellar, with a shattered brick chimney half
crumbling down into it, in New England.
By this time I knew not whither I was going, and
turned aside from a broad, paved road (it was the
Appian Way) into the Via Latina, which I supposed
would lead to one of the city gates. It was a lonely
path : on my right hand extensive piles of ruin, in
strange shapes or shapelessness, built of the broad and
thin old Roman bricks, such as may be traced every-
where, when the stucco has fallen away from a mod-
ern Roman house ; for I imagine there has not been a
new "brick made here for a thousand years.
left, I think, was a high wall, and before me, grazing
in the road'...! (the buffalo calf of the Marble Faun.
-- ED.). The road went boldly on, with a well-worn
..
On my
5*


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track up to the very walls of the city; but there it
abruptly terminated at an ancient, closed-up gateway.
From a notice posted against a door, which appeared
to be the entrance to the ruins on my left, I found
that these were the remains of Columbaria, where the
dead used to be put away in pigeon-holes. Reaching
the paved road again, I kept. on my course, passing
the tomb of the Scipios, and soon came to the gate
of San Sebastiano, through which I entered the
Campagna. Indeed, the scene around was so rural,
that I had fancied myself already beyond the walls.
As the afternoon was getting advanced, I did not
proceed any farther towards the blue hills which I
saw in the distance, but turned to my left, following
a road that runs round the exterior of the city wall.
It was very dreary and solitary, — not a house on the
whole track, with the broad and shaggy Campagna on
one side, and the high, bare wall, looking down over
my head, on the other. It is not, any more than the
other objects of the scene, a very picturesque wall, but
is little more than a brick garden-fence seen through
a magnifying-glass, with now and then a tower, how-
ever, and frequent buttresses, to keep its height of
fifty feet from toppling ower. The top was ragged,
and fringed with a few weeds; there had been embra-
sures for guns and eyelet holes for musketry, but
these were plastered up with brick or stone. I passed
one or two walled-up gateways (by the by, the Porta
Latina was the gate through which Belisarius first
entered Rome), and one of these had two high, round
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antique strength than any other portion of the wall.
Immediately after this I came to the gate of San
Giovanni, just within which is the Basilica of St. John
Lateran, and there I was glad to rest myself upon a
bench before proceeding homeward.
There was a French sentinel at this gateway, as at
all the others; for the Gauls have always been a pest
to Rome, and now gall her worse than ever. I ob-
served, too, that an official, in citizen's dress, stood
there also, and appeared to exercise a supervision over
some carts with country produce, that were entering
just then.
February 25th. We went this forenoon to the
Palazzo Borghese, which is situated on a street that
runs at right angles with the Corso, and very near
the latter. Most of the palaces in Rome, and the
Borghese among them, were built somewhere about
the sixteenth century; this in 1590, I believe. It is
an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of
a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms com-
prising the picture-gallery forms an almost intermi-
nable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground floor
of one side. We enter from the street into a large
court, surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which
support a second series of arches above. The picture-
rooms open from one into another, and have many
points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with
vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescos, generally of
mythological subjects, in the flat central part of the
vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures
of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the


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doorways are of polished and variegated marble, or
covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as
durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbi-
ness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the
furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good
deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic tables,
which may serve to adorn another palace when this
one crumbles away with age. One beautiful hall,
with a ceiling more richly gilded than the rest, is
panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which
are painted pictures, both landscapes and human fig-
ures, in oils; so that the effect is somewhat as if
you
saw these objects represented in the mirrors. These
glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the
first building of the palace ; for they are so much
dimmed, that one's own figure appears indistinct in
them, and more difficult to be traced than the pictures
which cover them half over. It was very comfortless,
- indeed, I suppose nobody, ever thought of being
comfortable there, since the house was built, - but
especially uncomfortable on a chill, damp day like
this. My fingers were quite numb before I got half-
way through the suite of apartments, in spite of a
brazier of charcoal which was smouldering into ashes
in two or three of the rooms. There was not, so far
as I remember, a single fireplace in the suite. A con-
siderable number of visitors not many, however
were there; and a good many artists ; and three or four
ladies among them were making copies of the more
celebrated pictures, and in all or in most cases miss-
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value. The Prince Borghese certainly demeans him-
self like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing
open this invaluable collection to the public to see,
and for artists to carry away with them, and diffuse
all over the world, so far as their own power and skill
will permit. It is open every day of the week, except
Saturday and Sunday, without any irksome restriction
or supervision; and the fee, which custom requires
the visitor to pay to the custode, has the good effect
of making us feel that we are not intruders, nor re-
ceived in an exactly eleemosynary way. The thing
could not be better managed.
The collection is one of the most celebrated in the
world, and contains between eight and nine hundred
pictures, many of which are esteemed masterpieces. I
think I was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor
could achieve that free and generous surrender of
myself which I have already said is essential to the
proper estimate of anything excellent. Besides, how
is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable
part of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time,
among a thousand others, all of which set forth their
own claims in an equally good light ? Furthermore,
there is an external weariness, and sense of a thou-
sand-fold sameness to be overcome, before we can begin
to enjoy a gallery of the old Italian masters.
I remember but one painter, Francia, who seems
really to have approached this awful class of subjects
(Christs and Madonnas) in a fitting spirit ; his pic-
tures are very singular and awkward, if you look at
them with merely an external eye, but they are full


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of the beauty of holiness, and evidently wrought out
as acts of devotion, with the deepest sincerity; and
are veritable prayers upon canvas.
I was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to
come upon some Dutch and Flemish pictures, very
few, but very welcome ; Rubens, Rembrandt, Van-
dyke, Paul Potter, Teniers, and others, men of flesh
and blood and warm fists, and human hearts. As
compared with them, these mighty Italian masters
seem men of polished steel; not human, nor address-
ing themselves so much to human sympathies, as to
a formed, intellectual taste.
March 1st. — To-day began very unfavorably; but
we ventured out at about eleven o'clock, intending to
visit the gallery of the Colonna Palace. Finding it
closed, however, on account of the illness of the cus-
tode, we determined to go to the picture-gallery of the
Capitol; and, on our way thither, we stepped into St.
Gesù, the grand and rich church of the Jesuits, where
we found a priest in white, preaching a sermon, with
vast earnestness of action and variety of tones, inso-
much that I fancied sometimes that two priests were
in the agony of sermonizing at once. He had a pretty
large and seemingly attentive audience clustered
round him from the entrance of the church, half-way
down the nave; while in the chapels of the transepts
and in the remoter distances were persons occupied
with their own individual devotion. We sat down
near the chapel of St. Ignazio, which is adorned with
a picture over the altar, and with marble sculptures
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sides. What I particularly noted (for the angels were
not very real personages, being neither earthly nor
celestial) was the great ball of lapis lazuli, the biggest
in the world, at the feet of the First Person in the
Trinity. The church is a splendid one, lined with a
great variety of precious marbles, .. .. but partly,
perhaps, owing to the dusky light, as well as to the
want of cleanliness, there was a dingy effect upon
the
whole. We made but a very short stay, our New
England breeding causing us to feel shy of moving
about the church in sermon time.
It rained when we reached the Capitol, and, as the
museum was not yet open, we went into the Palace
of the Conservators, on the opposite side of the
piazza. Around the inner court of the ground floor,
partly under two opposite arcades, and partly under
the sky, are several statues and other ancient sculp-
tures ; among them a statue of Julius Cæsar, said to
be the only authentic one, and certainly giving an
impression of him more in accordance with his
character than the withered old face in the museum ;
also, a statue of Augustus in middle age, still re-
taining a resemblance to the bust of him in youth;
some gigantic heads and hands and feet in marble
and bronze; a stone lion and horse, which lay long
at the bottom of a river, broken and corroded, and
were repaired by Michel Angelo ; and other things
which it were wearisome to set down. We inquired
of two or three French soldiers the way into the
picture-gallery ; but it is our experience that French
soldiers in Rome never know anything of what is


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around them, not even the name of the palace or
public place over which they stand guard; and though
invariably civil, you might as well put a question to
a statue of an old Roman as to one of them. While
we stood under the loggia, however, looking at the
rain plashing into the court, a soldier of the Papal
Guard kindly directed us up the staircase, and even
took pains to go with us to the very entrance of the
picture-rooms. Thank heaven, there are but two of
them, and not many pictures which one cares to look
at very long.
Italian galleries are at a disadvantage as compared
with English ones, inasmuch as the pictures are not
nearly such splendid articles of upholstery ; though,
very likely, having undergone less cleaning and var-
nishing, they may retain more perfectly the finer
touches of the masters. Nevertheless, I miss the
mellow glow, the rich and mild external lustre, and
even the brilliant frames of the pictures I have seen
in England. You feel that they have had loving care
taken of them ; even if spoiled, it is because they
have been valued so much. But these pictures in
Italian galleries look rusty and lustreless, as far as
the exterior is concerned ; and, really, the splendor
of the painting, as a production of intellect and
feeling, has a good deal of difficulty in shining
through such clouds.
There is a picture at the Capitol, the “Rape of
Europa," by Paul Veronese, that would glow with
wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a magnificent
frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish ; and


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ITALY.
it is a kind of picture that would not be desecrated,
as some deeper and holier ones might be, by any
splendor of external adornment that could be be-
stowed on it. It is deplorable and disheartening to
see it in faded and shabby plight, -— this joyous, exu-
berant, warm, voluptuous work. There is the head
of a cow, thrust into the picture, and staring with
wild, ludicrous wonder at the godlike bull, so as to
introduce quite a new sentiment.
Here, and at the Borghese Palace, there were some
pictures by Garofalo, an artist of whom I never heard
before, but who seemed to have been a man of power.
A picture by Marie Sublegras --- a miniature copy
from one by her husband, of the woman anointing
the feet of Christ - is most delicately and beautifully
finished, and would be an ornament to a drawing-
room ; a thing that could not truly be said of one in
a hundred of these grim masterpieces. When they
were painted life was not what it is now, and the
artists had not the same ends in view. . It
depresses the spirits to go from picture to picture,
leaving a portion of your vital sympathy at every
one, so that you come, with a kind of half-torpid
desperation, to the end. On our way down the stair-
case we saw several noteworthy bas-reliefs, and among
them a very ancient one of Curtius plunging on horse-
back into the chasm in the Forum. It seems to me,
however, that old sculpture affects the spirits even
more dolefully than old painting ; it strikes colder to
the heart, and lies heavier upon it, being marble, than
if it were merely canvas.
H


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My wife went to revisit the museum, which we had
already seen, on the other side of the piazza ; but,
being cold, I left her there, and went out to ramble
in the sun; for it was now brightly, though fitfully,
shining again, I walked through the Forum (where
a thorn thrust itself out and tore the sleeve of my
talma), and under the Arch of Titus, towards the
Coliseum. About a score of French drummers were
beating a long, loud roll-call, at the base of the
Coliseum, and under its arches; and a score of
trumpeters responded to these, from the rising
ground opposite the Arch of Constantine ; and the
echoes of the old Roman ruins, especially those of
the Palace of the Cæsars, responded to this martial
uproar of the barbarians. There seemed to be no
cause for it; but the drummers beat, and the trum-
peters blew, as long as I was within hearing.
I walked along the Appian Way as far as the
Baths of Caracalla. The Palace of the Cæsars, which
I have never yet explored, appears to be crowned by
the walls of a convent, built, no doubt, out of some of
the fragments that would suffice to build a city; and
I think there is another convent among the baths.
The Catholics have taken a peculiar pleasure in
planting theniselves in the very citadels of paganism,
whether temples or palaces. There has been a good
deal of enjoyment in the destruction of old Rome. I
often think so when I see the elaborate pains that
have been taken to smash and demolish some
beautiful column, for no purpose whatever, except
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work. There is something in the impulse with which
one sympathizes; though I am afraid the destroyers
were not sufficiently aware of the mischief they did
to enjoy it fully. Probably, too, the early Christians
were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan
temples, before the happy thought occurred of con-
verting them into churches, i
March 3d. — This morning was U-'s birthday, ,
and we celebrated it by taking a barouche, and
driving (the whole family) out on the Appian Way
as far as the tomb of Cecelia Metella. For the first
time since we came to Rome, the weather was really
warm, - a kind of heat producing languor and dis-
inclination to active movement, though still a little
breeze which was stirring threw an occasional cool-
ness over us, and made us distrust the almost sultry
atmosphere. I cannot think the Roman climate
healthy in any of its moods that I have experienced.
Close on the other side of the road are the ruins
of a Gothic chapel, little more than a few bare walls
and painted windows, and some other fragmentary
structures which we did not particularly examine.
U— and I clambered through a gap in the wall,
extending from the basement of the tomb, and thus,
getting into the field beyond, went quite round the
mausoleum and the remains of the castle connected
with it. The latter, though still high and stalwart,
showed few or no architectural features of interest,
being built, I think, principally of large bricks, and
not to be compared to English ruins as a beautiful
or venerable object.


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A little way beyond Cecelia Metella's tomb, the
road still shows a specimen of the ancient Roman
pavement, composed of broad, flat flagstones, a good
deal cracked and worn, but sound enough, probably,
to outlast the little cubes which make the other por-
tions of the road so uncomfortable, We turned back
from this point and soon re-entered the gate of St.
Sebastian, which is flanked by two small towers, and
just within which is the old triumphal arch of Drusus,
- a sturdy construction, much dilapidated as regards
its architectural beauty, but rendered far more pic-
turesque than it could have been in its best days by
a crown of verdure on its head. Probably so much
of the dust of the highway has risen in clouds and
settled there, that sufficient soil for shrubbery to
root itself has thus been collected, by small annual
contributions, in the course of two thousand years.
A little farther towards the city we turned aside
from the Appian Way, and came to the site of some
ancient Columbaria, close by what seemed to partake
of the character of a villa and a farm-house. A man
came out of the house and unlocked a door in a low
building, apparently quite modern ; but on entering
we found ourselves looking into a large, square
chamber, sunk entirely beneath the surface of the
ground. A very narrow and steep staircase of stone,
and evidently ancient, descended into this chamber;
and, going down, we found the walls hollowed on
all sides into little semicircular niches, of which,
I believe, there were nine rows, one above another,
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somewhat like the little entrances to a pigeon-house,
and hence the name of Columbarium. Each semi-
circular niche was about a foot in its semidiameter.
In the centre of this subterranean chamber was a
solid square column, or pier, rising to the roof, and
containing other niches of the same pattern, besides
one that was high and deep, rising to the height
of a man from the floor on each of the four sides.
In every one of the semicircular niches were two
round holes covered with an earthen plate, and in
each hole were ashes and little fragments of bones,
the ashes and bones of the dead, whose names were
inscribed in Roman capitals on marble slabs inlaid
into the wall over each individual niche. Very likely
the great ones in the central pier had contained
statues, or busts, or large urns; indeed, I remember
that some such things were there, as well as bas-
reliefs in the walls ; but hardly more than the general
aspect of this strange place remains in my mind.
It was the Columbarium of the connections or de-
pendants of the Cæsars; and the impression left
on me was, that this mode of disposing of the dead
was infinitely preferable to any which has been
adopted since that day. The handful or two of dry
dust and bits of dry bones in each of the small round
holes had nothing disgusting in them, and they are
no drier now than they were when first deposited
there. I would rather have my ashes scattered over
the soil to help the growth of the grass and daisies;
but still I should not murmur much at having them
decently pigeon-holed in a Roman tomb.


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After ascending out of this chamber of the dead, we
looked down into another similar one, containing the
ashes of Pompey's household, which was discovered
only a very few years ago. Its arrangement was the
same as that first described, except that it had no cen-
tral pier with a passage round it, as the former had.
While we were down in the first chamber the pro-
prietor of the spot:— a half-gentlemanly and very
affable kind of person came to us, and explained
the arrangements of the Columbarium, though, indeed
we understood them better by their own aspect than
by his explanation. The whole soil around his dwell-
ing is elevated much above the level of the road, and
it is probable that, if he chose to excavate, he might
bring to light many more sepulchral chambers, and
find his profits in them too, by disposing of the urns
and busts. What struck me as much as anything
was the neatness of these subterranean apartments,
which were quite as fit to sleep in as most of those
occupied by living Romans; and, having undergone no
wear and tear, they were in as good condition as on
the day they were built.
In this Columbarium, measuring about twenty
feet square, I roughly estimate that there have been
deposited together the remains of at least seven
or eight hundred persons, reckoning two little heaps
of bones and ashes in each pigeon-hole, nine pigeon-
holes in each row, and nine rows on each side, besides
those on the middle pier. All difficulty in finding
space for the dead would be obviated by returning to
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only objection, though a very serious one, being the
quantity of fuel that it would require. But perhaps
future chemists may discover some better means of con-
suming or dissolving this troublesome mortality of ours.
We got into the carriage again, and, driving farther
towards the city, came to the tomb of the Scipios, of
the exterior of which I retain no very definite idea.
It was close upon the Appian Way, however, though
separated from it by a high fence, and accessible
through a gateway, leading into a court. I think the
tomb is wholly subterranean, and that the ground
above it is covered with the buildings of a farm-house;
but of this I cannot be certain, as we were led imme-
diately into a dark, underground passage, by an elderly
peasant, of a cheerful and affable demeanor. As soon
as he had brought us into the twilight of the tomb,
he lighted a long wax taper for each of us, and led
us groping into blacker and blacker darkness. Even
little R-followed courageously in the procession,
which looked very picturesque as we glanced back-
ward or forward, and beheld a twinkling line of seven
lights, glimmering faintly on our faces, and showing
nothing beyond. The passages and niches of the
tomb seem to have been hewn and hollowed out of
the rock, not built by any art of masonry; but the
walls were very dark, almost black, and our tapers so
dim that I could not gain a sufficient breadth of view
to ascertain what kind of place it was.
dark, indeed ; the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky could
not be darker. The rough-hewn roof was within
touch, and sometimes we had to stoop to avoid hit-
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ting our heads; it was covered with damps, which
collected and fell upon us in occasional drops. The
passages, besides being narrow, were so irregular and
crooked, that, after going a little way, it would have
been impossible to return upon our steps without the
help of the guide ; and we appeared to be taking
quite an extensive ramble underground, though in re-
ality I suppose the tomb includes no great space. At
several turns of our dismal way, the guide pointed to
inscriptions in Roman capitals, commemorating vari-
ous members of the Scipio family who were buried
here; among them, a son of Scipio Africanus, who
himself had his death and burial in a foreign land.
All these inscriptions, however, are copies, – the origi-
nals, which were really found here, having been re-
moved to the Vatican. Whether any bones and ashes
have been left, or whether any were found, I do not
know. It is not, at all events, a particularly interest-
ing spot, being such shapeless blackness, and a mere
dark hole, requiring a stronger illumination than that
of our tapers to distinguish it from any other cellar.
I did, at one place, see a sort of frieze, rather roughly
sculptured ; and, as we returned towards the twilight
of the entrance-passage, I discerned a large spider,
who fled hastily away from our tapers, – the solitary
living inhabitant of the tomb of the Scipios.
One visit that we made, and I think it was before
entering the city gates, I forgot to mention.
It was
to an old edifice, formerly called the Temple of Bac-
chus, but now supposed to have been the Temple of
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ITALY.
are
hall, which was converted from its pagan consecrationi
into a church or chapel, by the early Christians; and
the ancient marble pillars of the temple may still be
seen built in with the brick and stucco of the later
occupants. There is an altar, and other tokens of a
Catholic church, and high towards the ceiling, there
some frescos of saints or angels, very curious
specimens of mediaval, and earlier than mediaeval art.
Nevertheless, the place impressed me as still rather
pagan than Christian. What is most remarkable
about this spot or this vicinity lies in the fact that
the Fountain of Egeria was formerly supposed to be
close at hand; indeed, the custode of the chapel still
claims the spot as the identical one consecrated by the
legend. There is a dark grove of trees, not far from
the door of the temple; but Murray, a highly essential
nuisance on such excursions as this, throws such over-
whelming doubt, or rather incredulity, upon the site,
that I seized upon it as a pretext for not going thither.
In fact, my small capacity for sight-seeing was already
more than satisfied.
On account of - I am sorry that we did not see
the grotto, for her enthusiasm is as fresh as the waters
of Egeria's well can be, and she has poetical faith
enough to light her cheerfully through all these mists
of incredulity.
Our visits to sepulchral places ended with Scipio's
tomb, whence we returned to our dwelling, and Miss
M-
came to dine with us.
March 10th. - On Saturday last, a very rainy day,
we went to the Sciarra Palace, and took U— with
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us.
up before
It is on the Corso, nearly opposite to the Piazza
Colonna. It has (Heaven be praised !) but four rooms
of pictures, among which, however, are several very
celebrated ones. Only a few of these remain in my
memory, — Raphael's "Violin Player," which I am
willing to accept as a good picture; and Leonardo da
Vinci's " Vanity and Modesty,” which also I can bring
my
mind's
eye,
and find it very beautiful,
although one of the faces has an affected smile, which
I have since seen on another picture by the same artist,
Joanna of Arragon. The most striking picture in the
collection, I think, is Titian's “Bella Donna," -- the
only one of Titian's works that I have yet seen which
makes an impression on me corresponding with his
fame. It is a very splendid and very scornful lady,
as beautiful and as scornful as Gainsborough's Lady
Lyndoch, though of an entirely different type. There
were two Madonnas by Guido, of which I liked the
least celebrated one best; and several pictures by
Garofalo, who always produces something noteworthy.
All the pictures lacked the charm (no doubt I am a
barbarian to think it one) of being in brilliant frames,
and looked as if it were a long, long while since they
were cleaned or varnished. The light was so scanty,
too, on that heavily clouded day, and in those gloomy
old rooms of the palace, that scarcely anything could
be fairly made out.
[I cannot refrain from observing here, that Mr.
Hawthorne's inexorable demand for perfection in all
things leads him to complain of grimy pictures and
tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing be-


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" 6
yond measure to eyes that never failed to see every-
thing before him with the keenest apprehension. The
usual careless observation of people both of the good
and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this
imperfect world. But the insight which Mr. Haw-
thorne possessed was only equalled by his outsight,
and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived,
from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intel-
lectual. It is not, therefore, mere love of upholstery
that impels him to ask for perfect settings to priceless
gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which always
made me feel that “the New Jerusalem,” even like a
jasper stone, clear as crystal,” “where shall in no wise
enter anything that defileth, neither what worketh
abomination nor maketh a lie,” would alone satisfy
him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. It
may give an idea of this exquisite nicety of feeling to
mention, that one day he took in his fingers a half-
bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an
infinite joy, remarked, “This is perfect. On earth a
flower only can be perfect." - ED.]
The palace is about two hundred and fifty years
old, and looks as if it had never been a very cheerful
place; most shabbily and scantily furnished, moreover,
and as chill as any cellar. There is a small balcony,
looking down on the Corso, which probably has often
been filled with a merry little family party, in the
carnivals of days long past.
It has faded frescos,
and tarnished gilding, and green blinds, and a few
damask chairs still remain in it.
On Monday we all went to the sculpture-gallery of


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the Vatican, and saw as much of the sculpture as we
could in the three hours during which the public are
admissible. There were a few things which I really
enjoyed, and a few moments during which I really
seemed to see them ; but it is in vain to attempt
giving the impression produced by masterpieces of
art, and most in vain when we see them best. They
are a language in themselves, and if they could be
expressed as well any way except by themselves, there
would have been no need of expressing those particular
ideas and sentiments by sculpture. I saw the Apollo
Belvidere as something ethereal and godlike; only for
a flitting moment, however, and as if he had alighted
from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight,
and then had withdrawn himself again. I felt the
Laocoön very powerfully, though very quietly; an
immortal agony, with a strange calmness diffused
through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the
sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumụlt
of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because
it keeps pouring on for ever and ever. I have not
had so good a day as this (among works of art) since
we came to Rome; and I impute it partly to the
magnificence of the arrangements of the Vatican,- its
long vistas and beautiful courts, and the aspect of
immortality which marble statues acquire by being
kept free from dust. A very hungry boy, seeing in
one of the cabinets a vast porphyry vase, forty-four
feet in circumference, wished that he had it full of
soup.
Yesterday, we went to the Pamfili Doria Palace,


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which, I believe, is the most splendid in Rome. The
entrance is from the Corso into a court, surrounded
by a colonnade, and having a space of luxuriant ver-
dure and ornamental shrubbery in the centre. The
apartments containing pictures and sculptures are
fifteen in number, and run quite round the court in
the first piano, -- all the rooms, halls, and galleries of
beautiful proportion, with vaulted roofs, some of which
glow with frescos; and all are colder and more com-
fortless than can possibly be imagined without having
been in them. The pictures, most of them, interested
me very little.
I am of opinion that good pictures
are quite as rare as good poets ; and I do not see
why we should pique ourselves on admiring any
but the very best. One in a thousand, perhaps, ought
to live in the applause of men, from generation to
generation, till its colors fade or blacken out of sight,
and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in
garrets, or painted over by 'newer artists, just as
tolerable poets are shelved when their little day is
over. Nevertheless, there was one long gallery con-
taining many pictures that I should be glad to see
again under more favorable circumstances, that is,
separately, and where I might contemplate them
quite undisturbed, reclining in an easy-chair. At one
end of the long vista of this gallery is a bust of the
present Prince Doria, a smooth, sharp-nosed, rather
handsome young man, and at the other end his
princess, an English lady of the Talbot family, ap-
parently a blonde, with a simple and sweet expression.
There is a noble and striking portrait of the old


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Venetian admiral, Andrea Doria, by Sebastian del
Piombo, and some other portraits and busts of the
family.
In the whole immense range of rooms I saw but a
single fireplace, and that so deep in the wall that no
amount of blaze would raise the atmosphere of the
room ten degrees. If the builder of the palace, or
any of his successors, have committed crimes worthy
of Tophet, it would lw' a still worse punishment for
him to wander perpetually through this suite of rooms
on the cold floors of polished brick tiles or marble or
mosaic, growing a little chiller and chiller through
every moment of eternity, - or, at least, till the palace
crumbles down upon him.
Neither would it assuage his torment in the least
to be compelled to gaze up at the dark old pictures, -
the ugly ghosts of what may once have been beautiful.
I am not going to try any more to receive pleasure
from a faded, tarnished, lustreless picture, especially
if it be a landscape. There were two or three land-
scapes of Claude in this palace, which I doubt not
would have been exquisite if they were in the condi-
tion of those in the British National Gallery ; but here
they looked most forlorn, and even their sunshine was
sunless. The merits of historical painting may be
quite independent of the attributes that give pleasure,
and a superficial ugliness may even heighten the
effect; but not so of landscapes.
Via Porta, Palazzo Larazani, March 11th. -To-
day we called at Mr. Thompson's studio, and ...


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he had on the easel a little picture of St. Peter re-
leased from prison by the angel, which I saw once
before. It is very beautiful indeed, and deeply and
spiritually conceived, and I wish I could afford to
have it finished for myself. I looked again, too, at
his Georgian slave, and admired it as much as at first
view; so very warm and rich it is, so sensuously
beautiful, and with an expression of higher life and
feeling within. I do not think there is a better painter
than Mr. Thompson living, - among Americans at
least; not one so earnest, faithful, and religious in
his worship of art. I had rather look at his pictures
than at any except the very finest of the old masters,
and, taking into consideration only the comparative
pleasure to be derived, I would not except more
than one or two of those. In painting, as in liter-
ature, I suspect there is something in the productions
of the day that takes the fancy more than the works of
any past age, — not greater merit, nor nearly so great,
but better suited to this very present time.
After leaving him, we went to the Piazza di Ter-
mini, near the Baths of Diocletian, and found our
way with some difficulty to Crawford's studio. It
occupies several great rooms, connected with the
offices of the Villa Negroni ; and all these rooms were
full of plaster casts and a few works in marble, -
principally portions of his huge Washington monu-
ment, which he left unfinished at his death.
Close by
the door at which we entered stood a gigantic figure of
Mason, in bag-wig, and the coat, waistcoat, breeches,
and knee and shoe buckles of the last century, -- the
--


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enlargement of these unheroic matters to far more
than heroic size having a very odd effect. There was
a figure of Jefferson on the same scale; another of
Patrick Henry, besides a horse's head, and other por-
tions of the equestrian group which is to cover the
summit of the monument. In one of the rooms was
a model of the monument itself, on a scale, I should
think, of about an inch to a foot. It did not impress
me as having grown out of any great and genuine
idea in the artist's mind, but as being merely an
ingenious contrivance enough. There were also casts
of statues that seemed to be intended for some other
monument referring to Revolutionary times and per-
sonages; and with these were intermixed some ideal
statues or groups, — a naked boy playing marbles, very
beautiful; a girl with flowers; the cast of his Or-
pheus, of which I long ago saw the marble statue ;
Adam and Eve; Flora, all with a good deal of merit,
no doubt, but not a single one that justifies Craw-
ford's reputation, or that satisfies me of his genius.
They are but commonplaces in marble and plaster,
such as we should not tolerate on a printed page.
He seems to have been a respectable man, highly
respectable, but no more, although those who knew
him seem to have rated him much higher. It is said
that he exclaimed, not very long before his death,
that he had fifteen years of good work still in him ;
and he appears to have considered all his life and
labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great
things that he was to achieve hereafter. I should
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done his best, and had done it early; for his Orpheus
is quite as good as anything else we saw in his
studio.
People were at work chiselling several statues in
marble from the plaster models, - a very interesting
process, and what I should think a doubtful and
hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no
risk of mischief, and that the model is sure to be
accurately repeated in the marble. These persons,
who do what is considered the mechanical part of
the business, are often themselves sculptors, and of
higher reputation than those who employ them.
It is rather sad to think that Crawford died before
he could see his ideas in the marble, where they
gleam with so pure and celestial a light as compared
with the plaster. There is almost as much difference
as between flesh and spirit.
The floor of one of the rooms was burdened with
immense packages, containing parts of the Washing-
ton monument, ready to be forwarded to its destina-
tion. When finished, and set up, it will probably
make a very splendid appearance, by its height, its
mass, its skilful execution; and will produce a moral
effect through its images of illustrious men, and the
associations that connect it with our Revolutionary
history; but I do not think it will owe much to
artistic force of thought or depth of feeling. It is cer-
tainly, in one sense, a very foolish and illogical piece
of work, - Washington, mounted on an uneasy steed,
on a very narrow space, aloft in the air, whence a sin-
gle step of the horse backward, forward, or on either
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side, must precipitate him; and several of his con-
temporaries standing beneath him, not looking up to
wonder at his predicament, but each intent on mani-
festing his own personality to the world around.
They have nothing to do with one another, nor with
Washington, nor with any great purpose which all
are to work out together.
March 14th. -- On Friday evening I dined at Mr.
T. B. Reade's, the poet and artist, with a party com-
posed of painters and sculptors, -- the only exceptions
being the American banker and an American tourist
who has given Mr. Reade a commission. Next to
me at table sat Mr. Gibson, the English sculptor,
who, I suppose, stands foremost in his profession at
this day. He must be quite an old man now, for it
was whispered about the table that he is known to
have been in Rome forty-two years ago, and he him-
self spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here,
before he once returned home. I should hardly take
him to be sixty, however, his hair being more dark
than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his features un-
withered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is
somewhat venerable.
He has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a
bachelor, has doubtless spent a calm life among his
clay and marble, meddling little with the world, and
entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio.
He did not talk a great deal ; but enough to show
that he is still an Englishman in many sturdy traits,
though his accent has something foreign about it. His
conversation was chiefly about India, and other topics


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.
of the day, together with a few reminiscences of people
in Liverpool, where he once resided. There was a
kind of simplicity both in his manner and matter, and
nothing very remarkable in the latter
The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemna-
tory of the Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters,
of whom he seemed to spare none, and of their works
nothing; though he allowed that the old Pre-Raphael-
ites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns
entirely omit in their imitations.
In his own art,
he said the aim should be to find out the principles
on which the Greek sculptors wrought, and to do the
work of this day on those principles and in their
spirit; a fair doctrine enough, I should think, but
which Mr. Gibson can scarcely be said to practise.
The difference between the Pre-Raphaelites and
himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists
and realists, in a certain sense, and he a pagan
idealist. Methinks they have hold of the best end
of the matter.
March 18th. --- To-day, it being very bright and
mild, we set out, at noon, for an expedition to the
Temple of Vesta, though I did not feel much inclined
for walking, having been ill and feverish for two or
three days past with a cold, which keeps renewing
itself faster than I can get rid of it. We kept along
on this side of the Corso, and crossed the Forum,
skirting along the Capitoline Hill, and thence towards
the Circus Maximus. On our way, looking down a
cross street, we saw a heavy arch, and, on examina-
tion, made it out to be the Arch of Janus Quadrifrons,


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standing in the Forum Boarium. Its base is now
considerably below the level of the surrounding soil,
and there is a church or basilica close by, and some
mean edifices looking down upon it. There is some-
thing satisfactory in this arch, from the immense
solidity of its structure. It gives the idea, in the
first place, of a solid mass constructed of huge blocks
of marble, which time can never wear away, nor
earthquakes shake down; and then this solid mass
is penetrated by two arched passages, meeting in the
centre. There are empty niches, three in a row, and,
I think, two rows on each face ; but there seems to
have been very little effort to make it a beautiful
object. On the top is some brickwork, the remains
of a mediæval fortress built by the Frangipanis, look-
ing very frail and temporary being brought thus in
contact with the antique strength of the arch.
A few yards off, across the street, and close beside
the basilica, is what appears to be an ancient portal,
with carved bas-reliefs, and an inscription which I
could not make out. Some Romans were lying dor-
mant in the sun, on the steps of the basilica ; indeed,
now that the sun is getting warmer, they seem to take
advantage of every quiet nook to bask in, and perhaps
to go to sleep.
We had gone but a little way from the arch, and
across the Circus Maximus, when we saw the Temple
of Vesta before us, on the bank of the Tiber, which,
however, we could not see behind it. It is a most
perfectly preserved Roman ruin, and very beautiful,
though so small that, in a suitable locality, one would
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ITALY.
take it rather for a garden-house than an ancient
temple. A circle of white marble pillars, much time-
worn and a little battered, though but one of them
broken, surround the solid structure of the temple,
leaving a circular walk between it and the pillars, the
whole covered by a modern roof which looks like
wood, and disgraces and deforms the elegant little
building: · This roof resembles, as much as anything
else, the round wieker cover of a basket, and gives a
very squat aspect to the temple. The pilars are of
the Corinthian order, and when they were new and the
marble snow-white and sharply carved and cut, there
could not have been a prettier object in all Rome;
but so small an edifice does not appear well as a ruin.
Within view of it, and, indeed, "a very little way off,
is the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, which likewise re-
tains its antique form in better preservation than we
generally find a Roman-ruin, although the Ionic pillars
are now built up with blocks of stone and patches of
brickwork, the whole constituting a church which is
fixed against the side of a tall edifice, the nature of
which I do not know.
I forgot to say that we gained admittance into the
Temple of Vesta, and found the interior a plain
cylinder of marble, about ten paces across, and fitted
up as a chapel, where the Virgin takes the place of
Vesta.
In very close vicinity we came upon the Ponte
Rotto, the old Pons Emilius which was broken down
long ago, and has recently been pieced out by con-
recting a suspension bridge with the old piers. We


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crossed by this bridge, paying a toll of a baioccho
each, and stopped in the midst of the river to look
at the Temple of Vesta, which shows well, right on
the brink of the Tiber. We fancied, too, that we
could discern, a little farther down the river, the
ruined and almost submerged piers of the Sublician
bridge, which Horatius Cocles defended. The Tiber
here whirls rapidly along, and Horatius must have
had a perilous swim for his life, and the enemy a fair
mark at his head with their arrows. I think this is
the most picturesque part of the Tiber in its passage
through Rome.
After crossing the bridge, we kept along the right
bank of the river, through the dirty and hard-hearted
streets of Trastevere (which have iņ no respect the
advantage over those of hither Rome), till we reached
St. Peter's. We saw a family sitting before their
door on the pavement in the narrow and sunny street,
engaged in their domestic avocations, - the old woman
spinning with a wheel. I suppose the people now
begin to live out of doors. We entered beneath the
colonnade of St. Peter's, and immediately became
sensible of an evil odor, the bad odor of our fallen
nature, which there is no escaping in any nook of
Rome. .
Between the pillars of the colonnade, however, we
had the pleasant spectacle of the two fountains, send-
ing up their lily-shaped gush, with rainbows shining
in their falling spray. Parties of French soldiers, as
usual, were undergoing their drill in the piazza.
When we entered the church, the long, dusty sun-


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beams were falling aslantwise through the dome and
through the chancel behind it. ....
March 23d. On the 21st we all went to the
Coliseum, and enjoyed ourselves there in the bright,
warm sun, so bright and warm that we were glad to
get into the shadow of the walls and under the arches,
though, after all, there was the freshness of March in
the breeze that stirred now and then. J— and baby
found some beautiful flowers growing round about the
Coliseum ; and far up towards the top of the walls we
saw tufts of yellow wall-flowers and a great deal of
green grass growing along the ridges between the
arches. The general aspect of the place, however, is
somewhat bare, and does not compare favorably with
an English ruin both on account of the lack of ivy and
because the material is chiefly brick, the stone and
marble having been stolen away by popes and cardi-
nals to build their palaces. While we sat within the
circle, many people, of both sexes, passed through,
kissing the iron cross which stands in the centre, there-
by gaining an indulgence of seven years, I believe. In
front of several churches I have seen an inscription in
Latin, “ INDULGENTIA PLENARIA ET PERPETUA PRO CUNC-
TIS MORTUIS ET VIVIS ; than which, it seems to me,
nothing more could be asked or desired. The terms
of this great boon are not mentioned.
Leaving the Coliseum, we went and sat down in the
vicinity of the Arch of Constantine, and J—and
R went in quest of lizards. Jsoon caught a
large one with two tails ; one, a sort of afterthought,
or appendix, or corollary to the original tail, and


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growing out from it instead of from the body of the
lizard. These reptiles are very abundant, and J
has already brought home several, which make their
escape and appear occasionally darting to and fro on
the carpet: Since we have been here, J has taken
up various pursuits in turn. First he voted himself
to gathering snail-shells, of which there are many
sorts ; afterwards he had a fever for marbles, pieces
of which he found on the banks of the Tiber, just on
the edge of its muddy waters, and in the Palace of the
Cæsars, the Baths of Caracalla, and indeed wherever
else his fancy led him ; verde antique, rosso antico,
porphyry, giallo antico, serpentine, sometimes frag-
ments of bas-reliefs and mouldings, bits of mosaic, still
firmly stuck together, on which the foot of a Cæsar
had perhaps once trodden'; pieces of Roman "glass,
with the iridescence glowing on them; and all such
things, of which the soil of Rome is full. It would
not be difficult, from the spoil of his boyish rambles,
to furnish what would be looked upon as a curious
and valuable museum in America.
Yesterday we went to the sculpture-galleries of the
Vatican. I think I enjoy these noble galleries and
their contents and beautiful arrangement better than
anything else in the way of art, and often I seem tó
have a deep feeling of something wonderful in what I
look at. The Laocoon on this visit impressed me'not
less than before; it is such a type of human beings,
struggling with an inextricable trouble, and entangled
in a complication 'which they cannot free themselves
from by their own efforts, and 'ont of which Heaven


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ITALY.
alone can help them. It was a most powerful mind,
and one capable of reducing a complex idea to unity,
that imagined this group. I looked at Canova's Per-
seus, and thought it exceedingly beautiful, but found
myself less and less contented after a moment or two,
though I could not tell why. Afterwards, looking at
the Apollo, the recollection of the Perseus disgusted
me, and yet really I cannot explain how one is better
than the other.
I was interested in looking at the busts of the
Triumvirs, Antony, Augustus, and Lepidus. The first
two are men of intellect, evidently, though they do
not recommend themselves to one's affections by their
physiognomy; but Lepidus has the strangest, most
commonplace countenance that can be imagined, -
small-featured, weak, such a face as you meet any-
where in a man of no mark, but are amazed to find in
one of the three foremost men of the world. I sup-
pose that it is these weak and shallow men, when
chance raises them above their proper sphere, who
commit enormous crimes without any such restraint
as stronger men would feel, and without any retribu-
tion in the depth of their conscience. These old
Roman bústs, of which there are so many in the
Vatican, have often å most life-like aspect, a striking
individuality. One recognizes them as faithful por-
traits, just as certainly as if the living originals were
standing beside them." The arrangement of the hair
and beard too, in many cases, is just what we see now,
the fashions of two thousand years ago having come
round again.


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March 25th. On Tuesday we went to breakfast at
William Story's in the Palazzo Barberini. We had a
very pleasant time.
He is one of the most agreeable
men I know in society. He showed us a note from
Thackeray, an invitation to dinner, written in hiero-
glyphics, with great fun and pictorial merit. He spoke
of an expansion of the story of Blue Beard, which he
himself had either written or thought of writing, in
which the contents of the several chambers which
Fatima opened, before arriving at the fatal one, were
to be described. This idea has haunted my mind
ever since, and if it had but been my own I am pretty
sure that it would develop itself into something very
rich. I mean to press William Story to work it out.
The chamber of Blue Beard, too (and this was a part
of his suggestion), might be so handled as to become
powerfully interesting. Were I to take up the story
I would create an interest by suggesting a secret in
the first chamber, which would develop itself more
• and more in every successive hall of the great palace,
and lead the wife irresistibly to the chamber of horrors.
After breakfast, we went to the Barberini Library,
passing through the vast hall, which occupies the cen-
tral part of the palace. It is the most splendid do-
mestic hall I have seen, eighty feet in length at least,
and of proportionate breadth and height; and the
vaulted ceiling is entirely covered, to its utmost edge
and remotest corners, with a brilliant painting in
fresco, looking like a whole heaven of angelic people
descending towards the floor. The effect is indescrib-
ably gorgeous. On one side stands a Baldacchino, or


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canopy of state, draped with scarlet cloth, and fringed
with gold embroidery ; the scarlet indicating that the
palace is inhabited by a cardinal. Green would be
appropriate to a prince. In point of fact, the Palazzo
Barberini is inhabited by a cardinal, a prince, and a
duke, all belonging to the Barberini family, and each
having his separate portion of the palace, while their
servants have a common territory and meeting-ground
in this noble hall.
After admiring it for a few minutes, we made our
exit by a door on the opposite side, and went up the
spiral staircase of marble to the library, where we
were received by an ecclesiastic, who belongs to the
Barberini household, and I believe was born in it.
He is a gentle, refined, quiet-looking man, as well he
may be, having spent all his life among these books,
where few people intrude, and few cares can come.
He showed us a very old Bible in parchment, a speci-
men of the earliest printing, beautifully ornamented
with pictures, and some monkish illuminations of
indescribable delicacy and elaboration. No artist
could afford to produce such work, if the life that he
thus lavished on one sheet of parchment had any
value to him, either for what could be done or enjoyed
in it. There are about eight thousand volumes in this
library, and, judging by their outward aspect, the col-
lection must be curious and valuable; but having
another engagement, we could spend only a little time
here. We had a hasty glance, however, of some poems
of Tasso, in his own autograph.
We then went to the Palazzo Galitzin, where dwell


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ness.
the Misses Weston, with whom we lunched, and where
we met a French abbé, an agreeable man, and an an-
tiquarian, under whose auspices two of the ladies and
ourselves took carriage for the Castle of St. Angelo.
Being admitted within the external gateway, we
found ourselves in the court of guard, as I
presume it
is called, where the French soldiers were playing with
very dirty cards, or lounging about, in military idle-
They were well behaved and courteous, and
when we had intimated our wish to see the interior
of the castle, a soldier soon appeared, with a large
unlighted torch in his hand, ready to guide us. There
is an outer wall, surrounding the solid structure of
Hadrian's tomb; to which there is access by one or
two drawbridges; the entrance to the tomb, or castle,
not being at the base, but near its central height.
The ancient entrance, by which Hadrian's ashes, and
those of other imperial personages, were probably
brought into this tomb, has been walled up, -- perhaps
ever since the last emperor was buried here. We
were now in a vaulted passage, both lofty and broad,
which circles round the whole interior of the tomb,
from the base to the summit. During many hundred
years, the passage was filled with earth and rubbish,
and forgotten, and it is but partly excavated, even
now; although we found it a long, long, and gloomy
descent by torchlight to the base of the vast mauso-
leum. The passage was once lined and vaulted with
precious marbles, (which are now entirely gone), and
paved with fine mosaics, portions of which still remain :
and our gnide lowered his flaming torch to show them
;


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ITALY.
to us, here and there, amid the earthy dampness over
which we trod. It is strange to think what splendor
and costly adornment were here wasted on the dead.
After we had descended to the bottom of this pas-
sage, and again retraced our steps to the highest part,
the guide took a large cannon-ball, and sent it, with
his whole force, rolling down the hollow, arched way,
rumbling, and reverberating, and bellowing forth long
thunderous echoes, and winding up with a loud, dis-
tant crash, that seemed to come from the very bowels
of the earth.
We saw the place, near the centre of the mauso-
leum, and lighted from above, through an immense
thickness of stone and brick, where the ashes of the
emperor and his fellow-slumberers were found. It is
as much as twelve centuries, very likely, since they
were scattered to the winds, for the tomb has beer
nearly or quite that space of time a fortress. The
tomb itself is merely the base and foundation of the
castle, and, being so massively built, it serves just as
well for the purpose as if it were a solid granite rock.
The mediæval fortress, with its antiquity of more than
a thousand years, and having dark and deep dungeons
of its own, is but a modern excrescence on the top of
Hadrian's tomb.
We now ascended towards the upper region, and
were led into the vaults which used to serve as a pris-
on, but which, if I mistake not, are situated above
the ancient structure, although they seem as damp
and subterranean as if they were fifty feet under the
earth, We crept down to them through narrow and


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not a
ugly passages, which the torchlight would not illumi-
nate, and, stooping under a low, square entrance, we
followed the guide into a small, vaulted room,
room, but an artificial cavern, remote from light or
air, where Beatrice Cenci was confined before her exe-
cution. According to the abbé, she spent a whole
year in this dreadful pit, her trial having dragged on
through that length of time. How ghost-like she
must have looked when she came forth! Guido never
painted that beautiful picture from her blanched face,
as it appeared after this confinement.
And how re-
joiced she must have been to die at last, having al-
ready been in a sepulchre so long !
Adjacent to Beatrice's prison, but not communicat-
ing with it, was that of her step-mother; and next to
the latter was one that interested me almost as much
as Beatrice's, - that of Benvenuto Cellini, who was
confined here, I believe, for an assassination. All
these prison vaults are more horrible than can be im-
agined without seeing them ; but there are worse
places here, for the guide lifted a trap-door in one of
the passages, and held his torch down into an inscru-
table pit beneath our feet. It was an oubliette, a dun-
geon where the prisoner might be buried alive, and
never come forth again, alive or dead. Groping about
among these sad precincts, we saw various other
things that looked very dismal; but at last emerged
into the sunshine, and ascended from one platform
and battlement to another, till we found ourselves
right at the feet of the Archangel Michael. He has
stood there in bronze for I know not how many hun-


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dred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty
sword, such being the attitude in which he appeared
to one of the popes in a vision, in token that a pes-
tilence which was then desolating Rome was to be
stayed.
There is a fine view from the lofty station over
Rome and the whole adjacent country, and the abbé
pointed out the site of Ardea, of Corioli, of Veii, and
other places renowned in story. We were ushered,
too, into the French commandant's quarters in the
castle. There is a large hall, ornamented with fres-
cos, and accessible from this a drawing-room, com-
fortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furni-
ture, and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and
other symptoms that the place had perhaps just been
vacated by civilized and kindly people. But in one
corner of the ceiling the abbé pointed out a ring, by
which, in the times of mediæval anarchy, when popes,
cardinals, and barons were all by the ears together, a
cardinal was hanged. It was not an assassination,
but a legal punishment, and he was executed in the
best apartment of the castle as an act of grace.
The fortress is a straight-lined structure on the
summit of the immense round tower of Hadrian's
tomb; and to make out the idea of it we must throw
in drawbridges, esplanades, piles of ancient marble
balls for cannon; battlements and embrasures, lying
high in the breeze and sunshine, and opening views
round the whole horizon ; accommodation for the sol-
diers; and many small beds in a large room.
How much mistaken was the emperor in his expec-


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tation of a stately, solemn repose for his ashes through
all the coming centuries, as long as the world should
endure! Perhaps his ghost glides up and down dis-
consolate, in that spiral passage which goes from top
to bottom of the tomb, while the barbarous Gauls
plant themselves in his very mausoleum to keep the
imperial city in awe.
Leaving the Castle of St. Angelo, we drove, still on
the same side of the Tiber, to the Villa Pomfila,
which lies a short distance beyond the walls. As we
passed through one of the gates (I think it was that
of San Pancrazio) the abbé pointed out the spot
where the Constable de Bourbon was killed while
attempting to scale the walls. If we are to believe
Benvenuto Cellini, it was he who shot the constable.
The road to the villa is not very interesting, lying (as
the roads in the vicinity of Rome often do) between
very high walls, admitting not a glimpse of the
surrounding country; the road itself white and dusty,
with no verdant margin of grass or border of
shrubbery. At the portal of the villa we found many
carriages in waiting, for the Prince Doria throws
open the grounds to all comers, and on a pleasant
day like this they are probably sure to be thronged.
We left our carriage just within the entrance, and
rambled among these beautiful groves, admiring the
live-oak trees, and the stone pines, which latter are
truly a majestic tree, with tall columnar stems,
supporting a cloud-like density of boughs far aloft,
and not a straggling branch between them and the
ground. They stand in straight rows, but are now


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so ancient and venerable as to have lost the formal
look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that
might have arranged itself almost of its own will.
Beneath them is a flower-strewn turf, quite free of
underbrush. We found open fields and lawns, more-
over, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-
colored and purple and golden, and far larger than
could be found out of Italy, except in hothouses.
Violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant.
When we consider that all this floral exuberance
occurs in the midst of March, there does not appear
much ground for complaining of the Roman climate;
and so long ago as the first week of February I found
daisies among the grass, on the sunny side of the
Basilica of St. John Lateran. At this very moment I
suppose the country within twenty miles of Boston
may be two feet deep with snow, and the streams
solid with ice.
We wandered about the grounds, and found them
very beautiful indeed; nature having done much for
them by an undulating variety of surface, and art
having added a good many charms, which have all
the better effect now that decay and neglect have
thrown a natural grace over them likewise. There is
an artificial ruin, so picturesque that it betrays itself ;
weather-beaten statues, and pieces of sculpture,
scattered here and there ; an artificial lake, with
upgushing fountains ; cascades, and broad-bosomed
coves, and long, canal-like reaches, with
taking their delight upon them. I never saw such
a glorious and resplendent lustre of white as shone
swans
VOL. I.
7


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It was
between the wings of two of these swans.
really a sight to see, and not to be imagined before-
hand. Angels, no doubt, have just such lustrous
wings as those. English swans partake of the dingi-
ness of the atmosphere, and their plumage has noth-
ing at all to be compared to this ; in fact, there is
nothing like it in the world, unless it be the illumi-
nated portion of a fleecy, summer cloud.
While we were sauntering along beside this piece
of water, we were surprised to see on the
other side. She had come hither with ES-
and her two little brothers, and with our R, the
whole under the charge of Mrs. Story's nursery-maids.
U_and E crossed, not over, but beneath the
water, through a grotto, and exchanged greetings
with us.
Then, as it was getting towards sunset and
cool, we took our departure; the abbé, as we left the
grounds, taking me aside to give me a glimpse of a
Columbarium, which descends into the earth to about
the depth to which an ordinary house might rise
above it. These grounds, it is said, formed the coun-
try residence of the Emperor Galba, and he was
buried here after his assassination. It is a sad thought
that so much natural beauty and long refinement of
picturesque culture is thrown away, the villa being
uninhabitable during all the most delightful season
of the year on account of malaria. There is truly a
curse on Rome and all its neighborhood.
On our way home we sed by the great Paolina
fountain, and were assailed by many beggars during
the short time we stopped to look at it. It is a very


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copious fountain, but not so beautiful as the Trevi,
taking into view merely the water-gush of the latter,
March 26th. — Yesterday, between twelve and one,
our whole family went to the Villa Ludovisi, the
entrance to which is at the termination of a street
which passes out of the Piazza Barberini, and it is no
very great distance from our own street, Via Porta
Pinciana. The grounds, though very extensive, are
wholly within the walls of the city, which skirt them,
and comprise a part of what were formerly the gar-
dens of Sallust. The villa is now the property of
Prince Piombini, a ticket from whom procured us
admission. A little within the gateway, to the right,
is a casino, containing two large rooms filled with
sculpture, much of which is very valuable. A colossal
head of Juno, I believe, is considered the greatest
treasure of the collection, but I did not myself feel it
to be so, nor indeed did I receive any strong impres-
sion of its excellence. I admired nothing so much, I
think, as the face of Penelope (if it be her face) in the
group supposed also to represent Electra and Orestes.
The sitting statue of Mars is very fine; so is the Aria
and Pætus; so are many other busts and figures.
By and by we left the casino and wandered among
the grounds, threading interminable alleys of cypress,
through the long vistas of which we could see here
and there a statue, an urn, a pillar, a temple, or
It
garden-house, or a bas-relief against the wall.
seems as if there must have been a time,
and not so
very long ago, - when it was worth while to spend
money and thought upon the ornamentation of


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grounds in the neighborhood of Rome. That time
is past, however, and the result is very melancholy;
for great beauty has been produced, but it can be en-
joyed in its perfection only at the peril of one's
life. :.. For my part, and judging from my own
experience, I suspect that the Roman atmosphere,
never wholesome, is always more or less poisonous.
We came to another and larger casino remote from
the gateway, in which the Prince resides during two
months of the year. It was now under repair, but we
gained admission, as did several other visitors, and
saw in the entrance-hall the Aurora of Guercino,
painted in fresco on the ceiling. There is beauty in
the design ; but the painter certainly was most un-
happy in his black shadows, and in the work before
us they give the impression of a cloudy and lowering
morning which is likely enough to turn to rain by
and by. After viewing the fresco we mounted by a
spiral staircase to a lofty terrace, and found Rome at
our feet, and, far off, the Sabine and Alban moun-
tains, some of them still capped with snow. In
another direction there was à vast plain, on the
horizon of which, could our eyes have reached to its
verge, we might perhaps have seen the Mediterranean
Sea. After enjoying the view and the warm sunshine
we descended, and went in quest of the gardens of
Sallust, but found no satisfactory remains of them.
One of the most striking objects in the first casino
was a group by Bernini, — Pluto, an outrageously
masculine and strenuous figure, heavily bearded,
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holds aloft, while his forcible gripe impresses itself
into her soft virgin flesh. It is very disagreeable,
but it makes one feel that Bernini was a man of great
ability. There are some works in literature that bear
an analogy to his works in sculpture, when great
power is lavished a little outside of nature, and there-
fore proves to be only a fashion, and not permanently
adapted to the tastes of mankind.
March 27th. --- Yesterday forenoon my wife and I
went to St. Peter's to see the pope pray at the chape)
of the Holy Sacrament.
We found a good many
people in the church, but not an inconvenient num-
ber ; indeed, not so many as to make any remarkable
show in the great nave, nor even in front of the
chapel. A detachment of the Swiss Guard, in their
strange, picturesque, harlequin-like costume, were on
duty before the chapel, in which the wax tapers were
all lighted, and a priè-dieu was arranged near the
shrine, and covered with scarlet velvet. On each
side, along the breadth of the side-aisle, were placed
seats, covered with rich tapestry or carpeting ; and
some gentlemen and ladies - English, probably, or
American — had comfortably deposited themselves
here, but were compelled to move by the guards
before the pope's entrance. His holiness should have
appeared precisely at twelve, but we waited nearly
half an hour beyond that time; and it seemed to me
particularly ill-mannered in the pope, who owes the
courtesy of being punctual to the people, if not to
St. Peter. By and by, however, there was a stir ; the
guard motioned to us to stand away from the benches,


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against the backs of which we had been leaning ; the
spectators in the nave looked towards the door, as if
they beheld something approaching; and first, there
appeared some cardinals, in scarlet skull-caps and
purple robes, intermixed with some of the Noble
Guard and other attendants. It was not a
very
formal
and stately procession, but rather straggled onward,
with ragged edges, the spectators standing aside to
let it pass, and merely bowing, or perhaps slightly
bending the knee, as good Catholics are accustomed
to do when passing before the shrines of saints.
Then, in the midst of the purple cardinals, all of
whom were gray-haired men, appeared a stout old
man, with a white skull-cap, a scarlet, gold-em-
broidered cape falling over his shoulders, and a white
silk robe, the train of which was borne up by an
attendant. He walked slowly, with a sort of dignified
movement, stepping out broadly, and planting his
feet (on which were red shoes) flat upon the pave-
ment, as if he were not much accustomed to locomo-
tion, and perhaps had known a twinge of the gout.
His face was kindly and venerable, but not particu-
larly impressive. Arriving at the
Arriving at the scarlet-covered
priè-dieu, he kneeled down and took off his white
skull-cap;
the cardinals also kneeled behind and on
either side of him, taking off their scarlet skull-caps;
while the Noble Guard remained standing, six on one
side of his holiness and six on the other. The pope
bent his head upon the priè-dieu, and seemed to spend
three or four minutes in prayer; then rose, and all
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whatever degree, rose behind and beside him. Next,
he went to kiss St. Peter's toe ; at least I believe he
kissed it, but I was not near enough to be certain ;
and lastly, he knelt down, and directed his devotions
towards the high altar. This completed the ceremo-
nies, and his holiness left the church by a side door,
making a short passage into the Vatican.
I am very glad I have seen the pope, because now
he
may
be crossed out of the list of sights to be seen.
His proximity impressed me kindly and favorably
towards him, and I did not see one face among all
his cardinals (in whose number, doubtless, is his suc-
cessor) which I would so soon trust as that of Pio
Nono.
This morning I walked as far as the gate of San
Paolo, and, on approaching it, I saw the gray sharp
pyramid of Caius Cestius pointing upward close to
the two dark-brown, battlemented Gothic towers of
the gateway, each of these very different pieces of
architecture looking the more picturesque for the
contrast of the other. Before approaching the gate-
way and pyramid, I walked onward, and soon came
in sight of Monte Testaccio, the artificial hill made
of potsherds. There is a gate admitting into the
grounds around the hill, and a road encircling its
base. At a distance, the hill looks greener than any
other part of the landscape, and has all the curved
outlines of a natural hill, resembling in shape a head-
less sphinx, or Laddeback Mountain, as I used to
see it from Lenox. It is of very considerable height,
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and well entitled, both by its elevation and the space
it covers, to be reckoned among the hills of Rome.
Its base is almost entirely surrounded with small
structures, which seem to be used as farm-buildings.
On the summit is a large iron cross, the Church hav-
ing thought it expedient to redeem these shattered
pipkins from the power of paganism, as it has so
many other Roman ruins.
There was a pathway up
the hill, but I did not choose to ascend it under the
hot sun, so steeply did it clamber
up.
There
appears
to be a good depth of soil on most parts of Monte
Testaccio, but on some of the sides you observe
precipices, bristling with fragments of red or brown
earthenware, or pieces of vases of white unglazed
clay; and it is evident that this immense pile is
entirely composed of broken crockery, which I should
hardly have thought would have aggregated to such
a heap had it all been thrown here, urns, teacups,
porcelain, or earthen, — since the beginning of the
world.
I walked quite round the hill, and saw, at no great
distance from it, the enclosure of the Protestant
burial-ground, which lies so close to the pyramid of
Caius Cestius that the latter may serve as a general
monument to the dead. Deferring, for the present,
a visit to the cemetery, or to the interior of the pyra-
mid, I returned to the gateway of San Paolo, and,
passing through it, took a view of it from the outside
of the city wall. It is itself a portion of the wall,
having been built into it by the Emperor Aurelian,
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The brick or red stone material of the wall being so
unlike the marble of the pyramid, the latter is as
distinct, and seems as insulated, as if it stood alone
in the centre of a plain ; and really I do not think
there is a more striking architectural object in Rome.
It is in perfect condition, just as little ruined or de-
cayed as on the day when the builder put the last
peak on the summit; and it ascends steeply from
its base, with a point so sharp that it looks as if it
would hardly afford foothold to a bird. The marble
was once white, but is now covered with a gray coat-
ing like that which has gathered upon the statues of
Castor and Pollux on Monte Cavallo. Not one of the
great blocks is displaced, nor seems likely to be
through all time to come. They rest one upon an-
other, in straight and even lines, and present a vast
smooth triangle, ascending from a base of a hundred
feet, and narrowing to an apex at the height of a hun-
dred and twenty-five, the junctures of the marble
slabs being so close that, in all these twenty centuries,
only a few little tufts of grass, and a trailing plant
or two, have succeeded in rooting themselves into
the interstices.
It is good and satisfactory to see anything which,
being built for an enduring monument, has endured
so faithfully, and has a prospect of such an inter-
minable futurity before it. Once, indeed, it seemed
likely to be buried; for three hundred years ago it
had become covered to the depth of sixteen feet, but
the soil has since been dug away from its base, which
is now lower than that of the road which passes
7 *


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through the neighboring gate of San Paolo. Midway
up the pyramid, cut in the marble, is an inseription
in large Roman letters, still almost as legible as when
first wrought.
I did not return through the Paolo gateway, but
kept onward, round the exterior of the wall, till I
came to the gate of San Sebastiano. It was a hot and
not a very interesting walk, with only a high bare
wall of brick, broken by frequent square towers, on
one side of the road, and a bank and hedge or a
garden wall on the other. Roman roads are most
inhospitable, offering no shade, and no seat, and no
pleasant views of rustic domiciles ; nothing but the
wheel-track of white dust, without a footpath running
by its side, and seldom any grassy margin to refresh
the wayfarer's feet.
April 3d. A few days ago we visited the studio
of Mr. an American, who seems to have a good
deal of vogue as a sculptor. We found a figure of
Pocahontas, which he has repeated several times;
another, which he calls “ The Wept of the Wish-ton-
Wish," a figure of a smiling girl playing with a cat
and dog, and a school-boy mending a pen. These two
last were the only ones that gave me any pleasure, or
that really had any merit; for his cleverness and
ingenuity appear in homely subjects, but are quite
lost in attempts at a higher ideality. Nevertheless,
he has a group of the Prodigal Son, possessing more
merit than I should have expected from Mr. the
son reclining his head on his father's breast, with an
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rest, while the father bends his benign countenance
over him, and seems to receive him calmly into him-
This group (the plaster-cast standing beside it)
is now taking shape out of an immense block of mar-
ble, and will be as indestructible as the Laocoon; an
idea at once awful and ludicrous, when we consider
that it is at best but a respectable production. I have
since been told that Mr. had stolen, adopted,
we will rather say, the attitude and idea of the
group from one executed by a student of the French
Academy, and to be seen there in plaster. *
Mr.' has now been ten years in Italy, and,
after all this time, he is still entirely American in
everything but the most external surface of his man-
ners; scarcely Europeanized, or much modified even
in that. He is a native of but had his early
breeding in New York, and might, for any polish or
refinement that I can discern in him, still be a country
shopkeeper in the interior of New York State or New
England. How strange! For one expects to find the
polish, the close grain and white purity of marble, in the
artist who works in that noble material; but, after all,
he handles clay, and, judging by the specimens I have
seen here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself.
Mr. —is sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingeni-
ous workman, no doubt; with tact enough, and not
destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his
conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a
brook runs, without the slightest affectation. His
naturalness is, in fact, a rather striking characteristic,
* We afterwards saw it in the Medici Casino.
6


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in view of his lack of culture, while yet his life has
been concerned with idealities and a beautiful art.
What degree of taste he pretends to, he seems really
to possess, nor did I hear a single idea from him that
struck me as otherwise than sensible.
He called to see us last evening, and talked for
about two hours in a very amusing and interesting
style, his topics being taken from his own personal
experience, and shrewdly treated. He spoke much of
Greenough, whom he described as an excellent critic
of art, but possessed of not the slightest inventive
genius. His statue of Washington, at the Capitol, is
taken precisely from the Phillian Jupiter; his Chant-
ing Cherubs are copied in marble from two figures in
a picture by Raphael. He did nothing that was
original with himself. To-day we took R-
and went to see Miss and as her studio seems
to be mixed up with Gibson's, we had an opportunity
of glancing at some of his beautiful works.
We saw a
Venus and a Cupid, both of them tinted ; and, side
by side with them, other statues identical with these,
except that the marble was left in its
pure whiteness.
We found Miss in a little upper room.
She
has a small, brisk, wide-awake figure, not ungraceful ;
frank, simple, straightforward, and downright. She
had on a robe, I think, but I did not look so low, my
attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack
of purple or plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-
pockets of which her hands were thrust as she came
forward to greet us. She withdrew one hand, how-
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already knew) and to myself, without waiting for an
introduction. She had on a shirt-front, collar, and
cravat like a man's, with a brooch of Etruscan gold,
and on her curly head was a picturesque little cap of
black velvet, and her face was as bright and merry,
and as small of feature as a child's. It looked in one
aspect youthful, and yet there was something worn in
it too. There never was anything so jaunty as her
movement and action ; she was very peculiar, but she
seemed to be her actual self, and nothing affected or
made up; so that, for my part, I gave her full leave
to wear what may suit her best, and to behave as her
inner woman prompts. I don't quite see, however,
what she is to do when she grows older, for the deco-
rum of age will not be consistent with a costume that
looks pretty and excusable enough in a young woman.
Miss led us into a part of the extensive studio,
or collection of studios, where some of her own works
were to be seen : Beatrice Cenci, which did not very
greatly impress me; and a monumental design, a
female figure, — wholly draped even to the stockings
and shoes,
- in a quiet sleep. I liked this last. There
was also a, Puck, doubtless full of fun ; but I had
hardly time to glance at it. Miss-evidently has
good gifts in her profession, and doubtless she derives
great advantage from her close association with a
consummate artist like Gibson ; nor yet does his in-
fluence, seem to interfere with the originality of her
own conceptions. In one way, at least, she can hardly
fail to profit,
that is, by the opportunity of showing
her works to the throngs of people who go to see


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;
Gibson's own ; and these are just such people as an
artist would most desire to meet, and might never see
in a lifetime, if left to himself. I shook hands with
this frank and pleasant little person, and took- leave,
not without purpose of seeing her again.
Within a few days, there have been many pilgrims
in Rome, who come hither to attend the ceremonies
of holy week, and to perform their vows, and under-
go their penances. I saw two of them near the Forum
yesterday, with their pilgrim staves, in the fashion of
a thousand years ago.
I sat down on a bench
near one of the chapels, and a woman immediately
came up to me to beg. I at first refused; but she
knelt down by my side, instead of praying to the saint
prayed to me; and, being thus treated as a canonized
personage, I thought it incumbent on me to be gra-
cious to the extent of half a paul. My wife, some
time ago, came in contact with a pickpocket at the
entrance of a church; and, failing in his enterprise
upon her purse, he passed in, dipped his thieving fin-
gers in the holy water, and paid his devotions at a
shrine. Missing the purse, he said his prayers, in
the hope, perhaps, that the saint would send him bet-
ter luck another time.
April 10th. — I have made no entries in my journal
recently, being exceedingly lazy, partly from indispo-
sition, as well as from an atmosphere that takes the
vivacity out of everybody. Not much has happened
or been effected. Last Sunday, which was Easter
Sunday, I went with J— to St. Peter's, where we
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;
of people already assembled in the church. The in-
terior was arrayed in festal guise, there being a cover-
ing of scarlet damask over the pilasters of the nave,
from base to capital, giving an effect of splendor, yet
with a loss as to the apparent dimensions of the in-
terior. A guard of soldiers occupied the nave, keep-
ing open a wide space for the passage of a procession
that was momently expected, and soon arrived. The
crowd was too great to allow of my seeing it in detail
but I could perceive that there were priests, cardinals,
Swiss guards, some of them with corselets on, and
by and by the
pope
himself was borne
up
the
nave,
high over the heads of all, sitting under a canopy
crowned with his tiara. He floated slowly along, and
was set down in the neighborhood of the high altar;
and the procession being broken up, some of its scat-
tered members might be seen here and there, about
the church, - officials in antique Spanish dresses ; Swiss
guards, in polished steel breastplates ; serving men,
in richly embroidered liveries; officers, in scarlet coats
and military boots; priests, and divers other shapes
of men; for the papal ceremonies seem to forego little
or nothing that belongs to times past, while it includes
everything appertaining to the present. I ought to
have waited to witness the papal benediction from the
balcony in front of the church ; or, at least, to hear
the famous silver trumpets, sounding from the dome;
but Ja
grew weary (to say the truth, so did I), and
we went on a long walk, out of the nearest city gate,
and back through the Janiculum, and, finally, home-
ward over the Ponto Rotto. Standing on the bridge,
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I saw. the arch of the Cloaca Maxima, close by the
Temple of Vesta, with the water rising within two or
three feet of its keystone.
The same evening we went to Monte Cavallo, where,
from the gateway of the Pontifical Palace, we saw the
illumination of St. Peter's. Mr. Akers, the sculptor,
had recommended this position to us, and accompa-
nied us thither, as the best point from which the illu-
mination could be witnessed at a distance, without
the incommodity of such a crowd as would be as-
sembled at the Pincian. The first illumination, the
silver one, as it is called, was very grand and delicate,
describing the outline of the great edifice and crown-
ing dome in light; while the day was not yet wholly
departed. As finally remarked, it seemed like
the-glorified spirit of the Church, made visible, or, as
I will add, it looked as this famous and never-to-be-
forgotten structure will look to the imaginations of
men, through the waste and gloom of future ages,
after it shall have gone quite' to decay and ruin :
the brilliant, though scarcely distinct gleam of a
statelier dome than ever was seen, shining on the
background of the night of Time. This simile looked
prettier in my fancy than I have made it look on
paper.
After we had enjoyed the silver illumination a good
while, and when all the daylight had given place to
the constellated night, the distant outline of St.
Peter's burst forth, in the twinkling of an eye, into a
starry blaze, being quite the finest effect that I ever
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minutes; for I was quite ill and feverish with a cold, -
which, indeed, I have seldom been free from, since
my first breathing of the genial atmosphere of Rome.
This pestilence kept me within doors all the next
day, and prevented me from seeing the beautiful
fireworks that were exhibited in the evening from the
platform on the Pincian, above the Piazza del
Popolo.
On Thursday, I paid another visit to the sculpture-
gallery of the Capitol, where I was particularly struck
with a bust of Cato the Censor, who must have been
the most disagreeable, stubborn, ugly-tempered, pig-
headed, narrow-minded, strong-willed, old Roman that
ever lived. The collection of busts here and at the
Vatican are most interesting, many of the individual
heads being full of character, and commending them-
selves by intrinsic evidence as faithful portraits of the
originals. These stone people have stood face to
face with Cæsar, and all the other emperors, and
with statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, and poets
of the antique world, and have been to them like
their reflections in a mirror, It is the next thing to
seeing the men themselves.
We went afterwards into the Palace of the Conser-
vatori, and saw, among various other interesting
things, the bronze wolf suckling Romulus and Re-
mus, who sit beneath her dugs, with open mouths
to receive the milk,
. On Friday, we all went to see the Pope's Palace
on the Quirinal. There was a vast hall, and an
interminable suite of rooms, cased with marble,
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floored with marble or mosaics or inlaid wood,
adorned with frescos on the vaulted ceilings, and
many of them lined with Gobelin tapestry; not
wofully faded, like almost all that I have hitherto
seen, but brilliant as pictures. Indeed, some of
them so closely resembled paintings, that I could
hardly believe they were not so; and the effect
was even richer than that of oil-paintings. In every
room there was a crucifix; but I did not see a
single nook or corner where anybody could have
dreamed of being comfortable. Nevertheless, as
a stately and solemn residence for his holiness, it
is quite a satisfactory affair, Afterwards, we went
into the Pontifical Gardens, connected with the
palace. They are very extensive, and laid out in
straight avenues, bordered with walls of box, as
impervious as if of stone, -- not less than twenty
feet high, and pierced with lofty archways, cut
in the living wall. Some of the avenues
overshadowed with trees, the tops of which bent
over and joined one another from either side, so
as to resemble a side-aisle of a Gothic cathedral.
Marble sculptures, much weather-stained, and gen-
erally broken-nosed, stood along these stately walks;
there were many fountains gushing up into the
sunshine ; we likewise found a rich flower garden,
containing rare specimens of exotic flowers, . and
gigantic cactuses, and also an aviary, with vultures,
doves, and singing birds. We did not see half
the garden, but, stiff and formal as its general
arrangement is, it is a beautiful place, --- a delight-
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ful, sunny, and serene seclusion. Whatever it may
be to the pope, two young lovers might find the
Garden of Eden here, and never desire to stray
out of its precincts. They might fancy angels
standing in the long, glimmering vistas of the
avenues.
It would suit me well enough to have my daily
walk along such straight paths, for I think them
favorable to thought, which is apt to be disturbed by
variety and unexpectedness.
April 12th. — We all, except R-, went to-day
to the Vatican, where we found our way to the
Stanze of Raphael, these being four rooms, or
halls, painted with frescos. No doubt they were
once very brilliant and beautiful; but they have
encountered hard treatment since Raphael's time,
especially when the soldiers of the Constable de
Bourbon occupied these apartments, and made fires
on the mosaic floors. The entire walls and ceilings
are covered with pictures; but the handiwork or
designs of Raphael consist of paintings on the
four sides of each room, and include several works
of art. The School of Athens is perhaps the most
celebrated ; and the longest side of the largest
hall is occupied by a battle-piece, of which the
Emperor Constantine is the hero, and which covers
almost space enough for a real battle-field. There
was a wonderful light in one of the pictures, that
of St. Peter awakened in his prison, by the angel ;
it really seemed to throw a radiance into the hall
below. I shall not pretend, however, to have been


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sensible of any particular rapture at the sight of
these frescos; so faded as they are,
so battered
by the mischances of years, insomuch that, through
all the power and glory of Raphael's designs, the
spectator cannot but be continually sensible that
the groundwork of them is an old plaster wall.
They have been scrubbed, I suppose, - brushed, at
least, a thousand times over, till the surface, bril-
liant or soft, as Raphael left it, must have been
quite rubbed off, and with it, all the consummate
finish, and everything that made them originally
delightful. The sterner features remain, the skeleton
of thought, but not the beauty that once clothed
it. In truth, the frescos, excepting a few figures,
never had the real touch of Raphael's own hand
upon them, having been merely designed by him,
and finished by his scholars, or by other artists.
The halls themselves are specimens of antique
magnificence, paved with elaborate mosaies; and
wherever there is any woodwork, it is richly carved
with foliage and figures. In their newness, and
probably for a hundred years afterwards, there could
not have been so brilliant a suite of rooms in the
world.
Connected with them at any rate, not far distant
- is the little Chapel of San Lorenzo, the very site
of which, among the thousands of apartments of the
Vatican, was long forgotten, and its existence only
known by tradition.' After it had been walled up,
however, beyond the memory of man, there was still
a rumor of some beautiful frescos by Fra Angelico, in


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an old chapel of Pope Nicholas V., that had strangely
disappeared out of the palace, and, search at length
being made, it was discovered, and entered through a
window. It is a small, lofty room, quite covered over
with frescos of sacred subjects, both on the walls and
ceiling, a good deal faded, yet pretty distinctly pre-
served. It would have been no misfortune to me, if
the little old chapel had remained still hidden.
We next issued into the Loggie, which consist of
a long gallery, or arcade or colonnade, the whole
extent of which was once beautifully adorned by
Raphael. These pictures are almost worn away, and
so defaced as to be untraceable and unintelligible,
along the side wall of the gallery; although traceries
of Arabesque, and compartments where there seem to
have been rich paintings, but now only an indistin-
guishable waste of dull color, are still to be seen. In
the coved ceiling, however, there are still some bright
frescos, in better preservation than any others; not
particularly beautiful, nevertheless. I remember to
have seen (indeed, we ourselves possess them) a series
of very spirited and energetic engravings, old and
coarse, of these frescos, the subject being the Creation,
and the early Scripture history; and I really think
that their translation of the pictures is better than
the original. On reference to Murray, I find that
little more than the designs is attributed to Raphael,
the execution being by Giulio Romano and other
artists.
Escaping from these forlorn splendors, we went
into the sculpture-gallery, where I was able to enjoy,


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a
in some small degree, two or three wonderful works
of art, and had a perception that there were
thousand other wonders around me. It is as if the
statues kept, for the most part, a veil about them,
which they sometimes withdraw, and let their beauty
gleam upon my sight; only a glimpse, or two or
three glimpses, or a little space of calm enjoyment,
and then I see nothing but a discolored marble image
again. The Minerva Medica revealed herself to-day.
I wonder whether other people are more fortunate
than myself, and can invariably find their way to the
inner soul of a work of art. I doubt it; they look
at these things for just a minute, and pass on,
without any pang of remorse, such as I feel, for
quitting them so soon and so willingly. I am partly
sensible that some unwritten rules of taste are making
their way into my mind ; that all this Greek beauty
has done something towards refining me, though I am
still, however, a very sturdy Goth.
April 15th. · Yesterday I went with J- to the
Forum, and descended into the excavations at the
base of the Capitol, and on the site of the Basilica of
Julia. The essential elements of old Rome are there :
columns, single, or in groups of two or three, still
erect, but battered and bruised at some forgotten time
with infinite pains and labor; fragments of other
columns lying prostrate, together with rich capitals
and friezes ; the bust of a colossal female statue, show-
ing the bosom and upper part of the arms, but head-
less; a long, winding space of pavement, forming part
of the ancient ascent to the Capitol, still as firm and
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the greater
solid as ever; the foundation of the Capitol itself,
wonderfully massive, built of immense square blocks
of stone, doubtless three thousand years old, and
durable for whatever may be the lifetime of the
world ; the Arch of Septimius Severus, with bas-reliefs
of Eastern wars; the Column of Phocas, with the rude
series of steps ascending on four sides to its pedestal ;
the floor of beautiful and precious marbles in the
Basilica of Julia, the slabs cracked across,
part of them torn up and removed, the grass and
weeds growing up through the chinks of what remain;
heaps of bricks, shapeless bits of granite, and other
ancient rubbish, among which old men are lazily
rummaging for specimens that a stranger may be in-
duced to buy, --- this being an employment that suits
the indolence of a modern Roman. The level of
these excavations is about fifteen feet, I should judge,
below the present street which passes through the
Forum, and only a very small part of this alien sur-
face has been removed, though there can be no doubt
that it hides numerous treasures of art and monuments
of history. Yet these remains do not make that im-
pression of antiquity upon me, which Gothic ruins do.
Perhaps it is so because they belong to quite another
system of society and epoch of time, and in view of
them, we forget all that has intervened betwixt them
and us; being morally unlike and disconnected with
them, and not belonging to the same train of thought;
so that we look across a gulf to the Roman ages, and
do not realize how wide the gulf is. Yet in that in-
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feudal system, chivalry and romance, and a deeper
life of the human race than Rome brought to the
verge of the gulf.
To-day we went to the Colonna Palace, where we
saw some fine pictures, but, I think, no masterpieces.
They did not depress and dishearten me so much as
the pictures in Roman palaces usually do; for they
were in remarkably good order as regards frames and
varnish ; indeed, I rather suspect some of them had
been injured by the means adopted to preserve their
beauty. The palace is now occupied by the French
Ambassador, who probably looks upon the pictures as
articles of furniture and household adornment, and
does not choose to have squares of black and forlorn
canvas upon his walls. There were a few noble por-
traits by Vandyke ; a very striking one by Holbein,
or two by Titian, also by Guercino, and some
pictures by Rubens, and other forestieri painters,
which refreshed my weary eyes. But what chiefly
interested me was the magnificent and stately hall of
the palace; fifty-five of my paces in length, besides a
large apartment at either end, opening into it through
a pillared space, as wide as the gateway of a city.
The pillars are of giallo antico, and there are pilasters
of the same all the way up and down the walls, form-
ing a perspective of the richest aspect, especially as
the broad cornice flames with gilding, and the spaces
between the pilasters are emblazoned with heraldic
achievements and emblems in gold, and there are Ve-
netian looking-glasses, richly decorated over the sur-
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ITALY.
through which you catch the gleam of the mirror;
and two rows of splendid chandeliers extend from end
to end of the hall, which, when lighted up, if ever it
be lighted up, now-a-nights, must be the most bril-
liant interior that ever mortal eye beheld. The ceil-
ing glows with pictures in fresco, representing scenes
connected with the history of the Colonna family;
and the floor is paved with beautiful marbles, polished
and arranged in square and circular compartments;
and each of the many windows is set in a great archi-
tectural frame of precious marble, as large as the por-
tal of a door. The apartment at the farther end of
the hall is elevated above it, and is attained by several
marble steps, whence it must have been glorious in
former days to have looked down upon a gorgeous
throng of princes, cardinals, warriors, and ladies, in
such rich attire as might be worn when the palace
was built. It is singular how much freshness and
brightness it still retains; and the only objects to
mar the effect were some ancient statues and busts,
not very good in themselves, and now made dreary of
aspect by their colored surfaces, the result of long
burial under ground.
In the room at the entrance of the hall are two
cabinets, each a wonder in its
way, one being adorned
with precious stones ; the other with ivory carvings
of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, and of the fres:
cos of Raphael's Loggie. The world has ceased to
be so magnificent as it once was. Men make no such
marvels nowadays. The only defect that I remember
in this hall was in the marble steps that ascend to
YOL. I.
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the elevated apartment at the end of it; a large piece
had been broken out of one of them, leaving a rough
irregular gap in the polished marble stair. It is not
easy to conceive what violence can have done this,
without also doing mischief to all the other splendor
around it.
April 16th.
- We went this morning to the Acade-
my of St. Luke (the Fine Arts Academy at Rome) in
the Via-Bonella, close by the Forum. We rang the
bell at the house door; and after a few moments it
was unlocked or unbolted by some unseen agency from
above, no one making his appearance to admit us.
We ascended two or three flights of stairs, and en-
tered a hall, where was a young man, the custode,
and two or three artists engaged in copying some of
the pictures. The collection not being vastly large,
and the picturés being in more presentable condition
than usual, I enjoyed them more than I generally do ;
particularly a Virgin and Child by Vandyke, where
two angels are singing and playing, one on a lute and
the other on a violin, to remind the holy infant of the
strains he used to hear in heaven. It is one of the
few pictures that there is really any pleasure in look-
ing at.
There were several paintings by Titian, most-
ly of a voluptuous character, but not very charming ;
also two or more by Guido, one of which, representing
Fortune, is celebrated. They did not impress me
much, nor do I find myself strongly drawn towards
Guido, though there is no other painter who seems to
achieve things so magically and inscrutably as he
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than mine to appreciate him; and yet I do appreciate
him so far as to see that his Michael, for instance, is
perfectly beautiful. ... In the gallery, there are
whole rows of portraits of members of the Academy
of St. Luke, most of whom, judging by their physiog-
nomies, were very commonplace people; a fact, which
makes itself visible in a portrait, however much the
painter may try to flatter his sitter. Several of the
pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists,
now exhibited in the gallery, were formerly kept in a
secret cabinet in the Capitol, being considered of a too
voluptuous character for the public eye. I did not
think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a
hundred other pictures that are shown and looked at
without scruple; -- Calypso and her nymphs, a knot
of nude women by Titian, is perhaps as objectionable
as any. But.even Titian's flesh tints cannot keep, and
have not kept their warmth through all these centu-
ries. The illusion and lifelikeness effervesces and ex-
hales out of a picture as it grows old ; and we go on
talking of a charm that has forever vanished.
From St. Luke's we went to San Pietro, in Vinioli,
occupying a fine position on or near the summit of
the Esquiline mount. A little abortion of a man
(and, by the by, there are more diminutive and ill-
shapen men and women in Rome than I ever saw
elsewhere, a phenomenon to be accounted for, per-
haps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant
in swaddling-clothes), this two-foot abortion hastened
before us, as we drew nigh, to summon the sacristan
to open the church door. It was a needless service,


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for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi. San
Pietro is a simple and noble church, consisting of a
nave divided from the side aisles by rows of columns,
that once adorned some ancient temple ; and its wide,
unencumbered interior affords better breathing space
than most churches in Rome. The statue of Moses
occupies a niche in one of the side-aisles on the right,
not far from the high altar. I found it grand and
sublime, with a beard flowing down like a cataract; a
truly majestic figure, but not so benign as it were
desirable that such strength should be. The horns,
about which so much has been said, are not a very
prominent feature of the statue, being merely two
diminutive tips rising straight up over his forehead,
neither adding to the grandeur of the head, nor
detracting sensibly from it. The whole force of this
statue is not to be felt in one brief visit, but I agree
with an English gentleman who, with a large party,
entered the church while we were there, in thinking
that Moses has “very fine features," -- a compliment
for which the colossal Hebrew ought to have made
the Englishman a bow.
Besides the Moses, the church contains
attractions of a pictorial kind, which are reposited in
the sacristy, into which we passed through a side
door. The most remarkable of these pictures is a
face and bust of Hope, by Guido, with beautiful eyes
lifted upwards; it has a grace which artists are con-
tinually trying to get into their innumerable copies,
but always without success; for, indeed, though noth-
ing is more true than the existence of this charm in
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the picture, yet if you try to analyze it, or even look
too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with
more trusting simplicity.
Leaving the church, we wandered to the Coliseum,
and to the public grounds contiguous to them, where
a score and more of French drummers were beating
each man his drum, without reference to any rub-a-
dub but his own. This seems to be a daily or period-
ical practice and point of duty with them. After
resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we
came slowly home, through the Basilica of Constan-
tine, and along the shady sides of the streets and
piazzas, sometimes, perforce, striking boldly through
the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as
to shrivel us up bodily. It has been a most beautiful
and perfect day as regards weather, clear and bright,
very warm in the sunshine, yet freshened throughout
by a quiet stir in the air. Still there is something in
this air malevolent, or, at least, not friendly. The
Romans lie down and fall asleep in it, in any vacant
part of the streets, and wherever they can find any
spot sufficiently clean, and among the ruins of temples.
I would not sleep in the open air for whatever my life
may be worth.
On our way home, sitting in one of the narrow
streets, we saw an old woman spinning with a distaff ;
a far more ancient implement than the spinning-
wheel, which the housewives of other nations have
long since laid aside.
April 18th. — Yesterday, at noon, the whole family
of us set out on a visit to the Villa Borghese and its


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grounds, the entrance to which is just outside of the
Porta del Popolo. After getting within the grounds,
however, there is a long walk before reaching the
casino, and we found the sun rather uncomfortably
hot, and the road dusty and white in the sunshine;
nevertheless, a footpath ran alongside of it most of
the way through the grass and among the young
trees. It seems to me that the trees do not put forth
their leaves with nearly the same magical rapidity in
this southern land at the approach of summer, as they
do in more northerly countries. In these latter, hav-
ing a much shorter time to develop themselves, they
feel the necessity of making the most of it. But the
grass, in the lawns and enclosures along which we
passed, looked already fit to be mowed, and it was
interspersed with many flowers.
Saturday being, I believe, the only day of the week
on which visitors are admitted to the casino, there
were many parties in carriages, artists on foot, gentle-
men on horseback, and miscellaneous people, to whom
the door was opened by a custode on ringing a bell.
The whole of the basement floor of the casino, com-
prising a suite of beautiful rooms, is filled with statu-
ary. The entrance hall is a very splendid apartment,
brightly frescoed, and paved with ancient ' mosaics,
representing the combats with beasts and gladiators
in the Coliseum, curious, though very rudely and
awkwardly designed, apparently after the arts had
begun to decline. Many of the specimens of sculp-
ture displayed in these rooms are fine, but none of
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.
is beautiful; a group of a fighting Amazon, and her
enemies trampled under her horse's feet, is very im-
pressive; a Faun, copied from that of Praxiteles, and
another, who seems to be dancing, were exceedingly
pleasant to look at. I like these strange, sweet, play-
ful, rustic creatures, ... linked so prettily, with-
out monstrosity, to the lower tribes.
Their
character has never, that I know of, been wrought out
in literature ; and something quite good, funny, and
philosophical, as well as poetic, might very likely be
educed from them. . ... The faun is a natural and
delightful link betwixt human and brute life, with
something of a divine character intermingled.
The gallery, as it is called, on the basement floor of
the casino, is sixty feet in length, by perhaps a third
as much in breadth, and is (after all I have seen at
the Colonna Palace and elsewhere) a more magnificent
hall than I imagined to be in existence. It is floored
with rich marble in beautifully arranged compart-
ments, and the walls are almost entirely cased with
marble of various sorts, the prevailing kind being
giallo antico, intermixed with verde antique, and I
know not what else ; but the splendor of the giallo
antico gives the character to the room, and the large
and deep niches along the walls appear to be lined with
the same material. Without coming to Italy, one can
have no idea of what beauty and magnificence are pro-
duced by these fittings up of polished marble. Marble
to an American means nothing but white limestone.
This hall, moreover, is adorned with pillars of
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precious and richly colored marble it is frescoed with
arabesque ornaments; and over the whole is a coved
and vaulted ceiling, glowing with picture. There
never can be anything richer than the whole effect.
As to the sculpture here it was not very fine, so far
as I can remember, consisting chiefly of busts of the
emperors in porphyry; but they served a good pur-
pose in the upholstery way. There were also magnifi-
cent tables, each composed of one great slab of por-
phyry; and also vases of nero antico, and other rarest
substance. It remains to be mentioned that, on this
almost summer day, I was quite chilled in passing
through these glorious halls; no fireplace anywhere;
no possibility of comfort; and in the hot season, when
their coolness might be agreeable, it would be death
to inhabit them.
Ascending a long winding staircase, we arrived at
another suite of rooms, containing a good many not
very remarkable pictures, and a few more pieces of
statuary. Among the latter, is Canova's statue of
Pauline, the sister of Bonaparte, who is represented
with but little drapery, and in the character of Venus
holding the apple in her hand. It is admirably done,
and, I have no doubt, a perfect likeness ; very beauti-
ful too; but it is wonderful to see how the artificial
elegance of the woman of this world makes itself per-
ceptible in spite of whatever simplicity she could find
in almost utter nakedness. The statue does not afford
pleasure in the contemplation.
In one of these upper rooms are some works of
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David on the point of slinging a stone at Goliah,
have great merit, and do not tear and rend them-
selves quite out of the laws and limits of marble, like
his later sculpture. Here is also his Apollo over-
taking Daphne, whose feet take root, whose finger-
tips sprout into twigs, and whose tender body
roughens round about with bark, as he embraces
her. It did not seem very wonderful to me; not
so good as Hillyard's description of it made me
expect; and one does not enjoy these freaks in
marble.
We were glad to emerge from the casino into the
warm sunshine ; and, for my part, I made the best of
my way to a large fountain, surrounded by a circular
stone seat of wide sweep, and sat down in a sunny
segment of the circle. Around grew a solemn com-
pany of old trees, -ilexes, I believe, — with huge, con-
torted trunks and evergreen branches, deep
groves, sunny openings, the airy gush of fountains,
marble statues, dimly visible in recesses of foliage,
great urns and vases, terminal figures, temples, -- all
these works of art looking as if they had stood there
long enough to feel at home, and to be on friendly and
familiar terms with the grass and trees. It is a most
beautiful place, and the Malaria is its true
master and inhabitant !
April 22d. We have been recently to the studio
of Mr. Brown,* the American landscape-painter, and
were altogether surprised and delighted with his
pictures. He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite unpol-
* Now dead.
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8 *
L


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ished by his many years' residence in Italy; he talks
ungrammatically, and in Yankee idioms; walks with a
strange, awkward gait and stooping shoulders; is alto-
gether unpicturesque; but wins one's confidence by
his very lack of grace.
It is not often that we see an
artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect
and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss
and Italian scenery, and were most beautiful and true.
One of them, a moonlight picture, was really magical,
the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw
a light even beyond the limits of the picture, — and
yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides too, were
nowise inferior to this, although their excellence re-
quired somewhat longer study, to be fully appreciated.
I seemed to receive more pleasure from Mr. Brown's
pictures than from any of the landscapes by the old
masters; and the fact serves to strengthen me in the
belief that the most delicate if not the highest charm
of a picture is evanescent, and that we continue to
admire pictures prescriptively and by tradition, after
the qualities that first won them their fame have
vanished. I suppose Claude was a greater landscape-
painter than Brown; but for my own pleasure I would
prefer one of the latter artist's pictures, those of the
former being quite changed from what he intended
them to be by the effect of time on his pigments. Mr.
Brown showed us some drawings from nature, done
with incredible care and minuteness of detail, as studies
for his paintings.
We complimented him on his
patience; but he said, “O, it's not patience, it's
love !” In fact, it was a patient and most successful
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wooing of a beloved object, which at last rewarded
him by yielding itself wholly.
We have likewise been to Mr. B-'s studio,
where we saw several pretty statues and busts, and
among them an Eve, with her wreath of fig-leaves
lying across her poor nudity; comely in some points,
but with a frightful volume of thighs and calves. I
do not altogether see the necessity of ever sculpturing
another nakedness. Man is no longer a naked animal;
his clothes are as natural to him as his skin, and sculp-
tors have no more right to undress him than to flay him.
Also, we have seen again William Story's Cleo-
patra, - a work of genuine thought and energy, rep-
resenting a terribly dangerous woman; quite enough
for the moment, but very likely to spring upon you
like a tigress. It is delightful to escape to his
creations from this universal prettiness, which seems
to be the highest conception of the crowd of modern
sculptors, and which they almost invariably attain.
Miss Bremer called on us the other day. We find
her
very little changed from what she was when she
came to take tea and spend an evening at our little
red cottage, among the Berkshire hills, and went
away so dissatisfied with my conversational perform-
ances, and so laudatory of my brow and eyes, while
so severely criticizing my poor mouth and chin. She
is the funniest little old fairy in person whom one
can imagine, with a huge nose, to which all the rest
of her is but an insufficient appendage; but you feel
at once that she is most gentle, kind, womanly,
* Now dead.


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sympathetic, and true.
She talks English fluently,
in a low quiet voice, but with such an accent that it
is impossible to understand her without the closest
attention. This was the real cause of the failure of
our Berkshire interview ; for I could not guess, half
the time, what she was saying, and, of course, had to
take an uncertain aim with my responses. A more
intrepid talker than myself would have shouted his
ideas across the gulf ; but, for me, there must first
be a close and unembarrassed contiguity with my
companion, or I cannot say one real word. I doubt
whether I have ever really talked with half a dozen
persons in my life, either men or women.
To-day my wife and I have been at the picture and
sculpture galleries of the Capitol. I rather enjoyed
looking at several of the pictures, though at this
moment I particularly remember only a very beautiful
face of a man, one of two heads on the same canvas,
by Vandyke. Yes; I did look with new admiration
at Paul Veronese's “Rape of Europa.” It must have
been, in its day, the most brilliant and rejoicing
picture, the most voluptuous, the most exuberant, that
ever put the sunshine to shame. The búll has all
Jupiter in him, so tender and gentle, yet so passionate,
that
you feel it indecorous to look at him; and
Europa, under her thick, rich stuffs and embroideries,
is all a woman.
What a pity that such a picture
should fade, and perplex the beholder with such
splendor, shining through such forlornness!
We afterwards went into the sculpture-gallery,
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sensible of a peculiar charm in it; a sylvan beauty
and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. The
lengthened, but not preposterous ears, and the little
tail, which we infer, have an exquisite effect, and
make the spectator smile in his very heart. This
race of fauns was the most delightful of all that
antiquity imagined. It seems to me that a story,
with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be con-
trived on the idea of their species having become
intermingled with the human race; a family with the
faun blood in them, having prolonged itself from the
classic era till our own days. The tail might have
disappeared, by dint of constant intermarriages with
ordinary mortals ; but the pretty hairy ears should
occasionally reappear in members of the family, and
the moral instincts and intellectual characteristics of
the faun might be most picturesquely brought out,
without detriment to the human interest of the story.
Fancy this combination in the person of a young lady!
I have spoken of Mr. Gibson's colored statues. It
seems (at least Mr. Nichols tells me) that he stains
them with tobacco juice. Were he to send a
Cupid to America, he need not trouble himself to
stain it beforehand.
April 25th. - Night before last, my wife and I took
a moonlight ramble through Rome, it being a very
beautiful night, warm enough for comfort, and with
no perceptible dew or dampness. We set out at
about nine o'clock, and, our general direction being
towards the Coliseum, we soon came to the Fountain
of Trevi, full on the front of which the moonlight fell,
.
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making Bernini's sculptures look stately and beautiful,
though the semicircular gush and fall of the cascade,
and the many jets of the water, pouring and bubbling
into the great marble basin, are of far more account
than Neptune and his steeds, and the rest of the
figures.
We ascended the Capitoline Hill, and I felt a satis-
faction in placing my hand on those immense blocks
of stone, the remains of the ancient Capitol, which
form the foundation of the present edifice, and will
make a sure basis for as many edifices as posterity
may choose to rear upon it, till the end of the world.
It is wonderful, the solidity with which those old
Romans built; one would suppose they contem-
plated the whole course of Time as the only limit of
their individual life. This is not so strange in the
days of the Republic, when, probably, they believed
in the permanence of their institutions; but they still
seemed to build for eternity, in the reigns of the
emperors, when neither rulers nor people had any
faith or moral substance, or laid any earnest grasp on
life.
Reaching the top of the Capitoline Hill, we ascended
the steps of the portal of the Palace of the Sen-
ator, and looked down into the piazza, with the
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the centre of
it. The architecture that surrounds the piazza is
very ineffective ; and so, in my opinion, are all the
other architectural works of Michael Angelo, in-
cluding St. Peter's itself, of which he has made as
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material. He balances everything in such a way that
it seems but half of itself.
We soon descended into the piazza, and walked
round and round the statue of Marcus Aurelius, con-
templating it from every point and admiring it in all.
On these beautiful moonlight nights, Rome
appears to keep awake and stirring, though in a quiet
and decorous way. It is, in fact, the pleasantest time
for promenades, and we both felt less wearied than by
any promenade in the daytime, of similar extent, since
our residence in Rome. In future, I mean to walk
often after nightfall.
Yesterday, we set out betimes, and ascended the
dome of St. Peter's. The best view of the interior of
the church, I think, is from the first gallery beneath
the dome. The whole inside of the dome is set with
mosaio-work, the separate pieces being, so far as I
could see, about half an inch square. Emerging on
the roof, we had a fine view of all the surrounding
Rome, including the Mediterranean Sea in the remote
distance. Above us still rose the whole mountain of
the great dome, and it made an impression on me of
greater height and size than I had yet been able to
receive. The copper ball at the summit looked hardly
bigger than a man could lift; and yet, a little while
afterwards,
UJ -, and I stood all together in
that ball, which could have contained a dozen more
along with us. The esplanade of the roof is, of
course, very extensive; and along the front of it are
ranged the statues which we see from below, and
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hewn giants. There is a small house on the roof,
where, probably, the custodes of this part of the
edifice reside; and there is a fountain gushing abun-
dantly into a stone trough, that looked like an old
sarcophagus. It is strange where the water comes
from at such a height. The children tasted it, and
pronounced it very warm and disagreeable. After
taking in the prospect on all sides we rang a bell,
which summoned a man, who directed us towards a
door in the side of the dome, where a custode was
waiting to admit us. Hitherto the ascent had been
easy, along a slope without stairs, up which, I believe,
people sometimes ride on donkeys. The rest of the
way we mounted steep and narrow staircases, winding
round within the wall, or between the two walls of the
dome, and growing narrower and steeper, till, finally,
there is but a perpendicular iron ladder, by means of
which to climb into the copper ball. Except through
small windows and peep-holes, there is no external
prospect of a higher point than the roof of the church.
Just beneath the ball there is a circular room capable
of containing a large company, and a door which
ought to give access to a gallery on the outside ; but
the custode informed us that this door is never opened.
As I have said, U-,_, and I clambered into
the copper ball, which we found as hot as an oven ;
and, after putting our hands on its top, and on the
summit of St. Peter's, were glad to clamber down
again. I have made some mistake, after all, in my
narration. There certainly is a circular balcony at
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it, and looking, not only across the country, but down-
wards along the ribs of the dome; to which are
attached the iron contrivances for illuminating it on
Easter Sunday.
Before leaving the church we went to look at the
mosaic copy of the “ Transfiguration,” because we were
going to see the original in the Vatican, and wished
to compare the two. Going round to the entrance of
the Vatican, we went first to the manufactory of
mosaics, to which we had a ticket of admission. We
found it a long series of rooms, in which the mosaic
artists were at work, chiefly in making some medal-
lions of the heads of saints for the new church of
St. Paul's. It was rather coarse work, and it seemed
to me that the mosaic copy was somewhat stiffer and
more wooden than the original, the bits of stone not
flowing into color quite so freely as paint from a
brush. There was no large picture now in process
of being copied; but two or three artists were em-
ployed on small and delicate subjects. One had a
Holy Family of Raphael in hand ; and the Sibyls of
Guercino and Domenichino were hanging on the
wall, apparently ready to be put into mosaic.
Wherever great skill and delicacy, on the artists'
part, were necessary, they seemed quite adequate
to the occasion; but, after all, a mosaic of any
celebrated picture is but a copy of a copy. The
substance employed is a stone-paste, of innumerable
different veins, and in bits of various sizes, quanti-
ties of which were seen in cases along the whole
series of rooms.


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.
We next ascended an amazing height of staircases,
and walked along I know not what extent of passa-
ges, till we reached the picture gallery of the
Vatican, into which I had never been before. There
are but three rooms, all lined with red velvet, on
which hung about fifty pictures, each one of them,
no doubt, worthy to be considered a masterpiece.
In the first room were three Murillos, all so beauti-
ful that I could have spent the day happily in look-
ing at either of them; for, methinks, of all painters
he is the tenderest and truest. I could not enjoy
these pictures now, however, because in the next
room, and visible through the open door, hung the
“ Transfiguration." Approaching it, I felt that the
picture was worthy of its fame, and was far better
than I could at once appreciate ; admirably preserved,
too, though I fully believe it must have possessed
a charm when it left Raphael's hand that has now
vanished forever.' As church furniture and an ex-
ternal adornment, the mosaic copy is preferable to
the original, but no copy could ever reproduce all
the life and expression which we see here. Opposite
to it hangs the “Communion of St. Jerome,” the aged,
dying saint, half torpid with death already, partaking
of the sacrament, and a sunny garland of cherubs in
the upper part of the picture, looking down upon him,
and quite comforting the spectator with the idea that
the old man needs only to be quite dead in order to
flit away with them. As for the other pictures I did
but glance at, and have forgotten them.
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ness and detail, the weeds and blades of grass in
the foreground being as distinct as if they were
growing in a natural soil. A partly decayed stick
of wood with the bark is likewise given in close
imitation of nature. The reflection of a foot of one
of the apostles is seen in a pool of water at the verge
of the picture. One or two heads and arms seem
almost to project from the canvas. There is great
lifelikeness and reality, as well as higher qualities.
The face of Jesus, being so high aloft and so small
in the distance, I could not well see; but I am im-
pressed with the idea that it looks too much like
human flesh and blood to be in keeping with the
celestial aspect of the figure, or with the probabilities
of the scene, when the divinity and immortality of
the Saviour beamed from within him through the
earthly features that ordinarily shaded him. As
regards the composition of the picture, I am not
convinced of the propriety of its being in two so
distinctly separate parts, - the upper portion not
thinking of the lower, and the lower portion not
being aware of the higher. It symbolizes, however,
the spiritual shortsightedness of mankind that, amid
the trouble and grief of the lower picture, not a
single individual, either of those who seek help or
those who would willingly afford it, lifts his eyes
to that region, one glimpse of which would set
everything right. One or two of the disciples point
upward, but without really knowing what abundance
of help is to be had there.
April 27th. -To-day we have all been with Mr.


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Akers to some studios of painters ; first to that of Mr.
Wilde, an artist originally from Boston. His pictures
are principally of scenes from Venice, and are miracles
of color, being as bright as if the light were trans-
mitted through rubies and sapphires. And yet, after
contemplating them awhile, we became convinced that
the painter had not gone in the least beyond nature,
but, on the contrary, had fallen short of brilliancies
which no palette, or skill, or boldness in using color,
could attain. I do not quite know whether it is best
to attempt these things. They may be found in
nature, no doubt, but always so tempered by what
surrounds them, so put out of sight even while they
seem full before our eyes, that we question the
accuracy of a faithful reproduction of them on canvas.
There was a picture of sunset, the whole sky of which
would have outshone any gilded frame that could
have been put around it. There was a most gorgeous
sketch of a handful of weeds and leaves, such as may
be seen strewing acres of forest-ground in an American
autumn. I doubt whether any other man has ever
ventured to paint a picture like either of these two,
the Italian sunset or the American autumnal foliage.
Mr. Wilde, who is still young, talked with genuine
feeling and enthusiasm of his art, and is certainly a
man of genius.
We next went to the studio of an elderly Swiss
artist, named Müller, I believe, where we looked at a
great many water-color and crayon drawings of scenes
in Italy, Greece, and Switzerland. The artist was a
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man, from whose aspect one would expect a plodding
pertinacity of character rather than quickness of sen-
sibility. He must have united both these qualities,
however, to produce such pictures as these, such
faithful transcripts of whatever Nature has most
beautiful to show, and which she shows only to those
who love her deeply and patiently. They are wonder-
ful pictures, compressing plains, seas, and mountains,
with miles and miles of distance, into the space of a
foot or two without crowding anything or leaving out
a feature, and diffusing the free, blue atmosphere
throughout. The works of the English water-color
artists which I saw at the Manchester Exhibition
seemed to me nowise equal to these. Now, here are
three artists, Mr. Browne, Mr. Wilde, and Mr. Müller,
who have smitten me with vast admiration within
these few days past, while I am continually turning
away disappointed from the landscapes of the most
famous among the old masters, unable to find any
charm or illusion in them. Yet I suppose Claude,
Poussin, and Salvator Rosa must have won their
renown by real achievements. But the glory of a
picture fades like that of a flower.
Contiguous to Mr. Müller's studio was that of a
young German artist, not long resident in Rome, and
Mr. Akers proposed that we should go in there, as a
matter of kindness to the young man, who is scarcely
known at all, and seldom has à visitor to look at his
pictures. His studio comprised his whole establish-
ment; for there was his little bed, with its white
drapery, in a corner of the small room, and his dress-


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ing-table, with its brushes and combs, while the easel
and the few sketches of Italian scenes and figures
occupied the foreground. I did not like his pictures
very well, but would gladly have bought them all if I
could have afforded it, the artist looked so cheerful,
patient, and quiet, doubtless amidst huge discourage-
ment. He is probably stubborn of purpose, and is
the sort of man who will improve with every year of
his life. We could not speak his language, and were
therefore spared the difficulty of paying him any com-
pliments; but Miss Shepard said a few kind words to
him in German, and seemed quite to win his heart,
insomuch that he followed her with bows and smiles a
long way down the staircase. It is a terrible business,
this looking at pictures, whether good or bad, in the
presence of the artists who paint them; it is as great
a bore as to hear a poet read his own verses. It takes
away all my pleasure in seeing the pictures, and even
makes me question the genuineness of the impressions
which I receive from them.
After this latter visit Mr. Akers conducted us to
the shop of the jeweller Castellani, who is a great
reproducer of ornaments in the old Roman and Etrus-
can fashion. These antique styles are very fashion-
able just now, and some of the specimens he showed
us were certainly very beautiful, though I doubt
whether their quaintness and old-time curiousness, as
patterns of gewgaws dug out of immemorial tombs, be
not their greatest charm. We saw the toilet-case of
an Etruscan lady, — that is to say, a modern imitation
of it, -- with her rings for summer and winter, and for


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every day of the week, and for thumb and fingers ; her
ivory, comb; her bracelets; and more knick-knacks
than I can half remember. Splendid things of our
own time were likewise shown us ; a necklace of dia-
monds worth eighteen thousand scudi, together with
emeralds and opals and great pearls. Finally we
came away,
and
my wife and Miss Shepard were taken
up by the Misses Weston, who drove with them to
visit the Villa Albani. During their drive my wife
happened to raise her arm, and Miss Shepard espied a
little Greek cross of gold which had attached itself to
the lace of her sleeve. Pray heaven the jewel-
ler may not discover his loss before we have time to
restore the spoil! He is apparently so free and care-
less in displaying his precious wares, – putting inesti-
mable gems and brooches great and small into the
hands of strangers like ourselves, and leaving scores of
them strewn on the top of his counter, that it would
seem easy enough to take a diamond or two; but I
suspect there must needs be a sharp eye somewhere.
Before we left the shop he requested me to honor him
with my autograph in a large book that was full of
the names of his visitors. This is probably a measure
of precaution.
April 30th. - I went yesterday to the sculpture-
gallery of the Capitol, and looked pretty thoroughly
through the busts of the illustrious men, and less par-
ticularly at those of the emperors and their relatives
I likewise took particular note of the Faun of Praxi-
teles, because the idea keeps recurring to me of writ-
ing a little romance about it, and for that reason I


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shall endeavor to set down a somewhat minutely item-
ized detail of the statue and its surroundings. .
We have had beautiful weather for two or three
days, very warm in the sun, yet always freshened by
the gentle life of a breeze, and quite cool enough the
moment you pass within the limit of the shade...
In the morning there are few people there (on the
Pincian) except the gardeners, lazily trimming the
borders, or filling their watering-pots out of the mar-
ble-brimmed basin of the fountain ; French soldiers,
in their long mixed-blue surtouts, and wide scarlet
pantaloons, chatting with here and there a nursery-
maid and playing with the child in her care; and
perhaps a few smokers, . ... choosing each a marble
seat or wooden bench in sunshine or shade as best
suits him. 'In the afternoon, especially within an
hour or two of sunset, the gardens are much more
populous, and the seats, except when the sun falls
full upon them, are hard to come by. Ladies arrive
in carriages, splendidly dressed ; children are abun-
dant, much impeded in their frolics, and rendered stiff
and stately by the finery which they wear; English
gentlemen, and Americans with their wives and fami-
lies; the flower of the Roman population, too, both
male and female, mostly dressed with great nicety ;
but a large intermixture of artists, shabbily pictu-
resque; and other persons, not of the first stamp. A
French band, comprising a great many brass instru-
ments, by and by begins to play ; and what with
music, sunshine, a delightful atmosphere, flowers,
grass, well-kept pathways, bordered with box-hedges,


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pines, cypresses, horse-chestnuts, flowering shrubs, and
all manner of cultivated beauty, the scene is a very
lively and agreeable one. The fine equipages that
drive round and round through the carriage-paths are
another noticeable item. The Roman aristocracy are
magnificent in their aspect, driving abroad with beau-
tiful horses, and footmen in rich liveries, sometimes as
many as three behind and one sitting by the coach-
man.
May 1st. This morning, I wandered for the thou-
sandth time through some of the narrow intricacies of
Rome, stepping here and there into a church. I do
not know the name of the first one, nor had it any-
thing that in Rome could be called remarkable, though,
till I came here, I was not aware that any such
churches existed, -a marble pavement in variegated
compartments, a series of shrines and chapels round
the whole floor, each with its own adornment of sculp-
ture and pictures, its own altar with tall wax tapers
before it, some of wbich were burning; a great picture
over the high altar, the whole interior of the church
ranged round with pillars and pilasters, and lined,
every inch of it, with rich yellow marble. Finally, a
frescoed ceiling over the nave and transepts, and a
dome rising high above the central part, and filled
with frescos brought to such perspective illusion, that
the edges seem to project into the air. Two or three
persons are kneeling at separate shrines; there are
several wooden confessionals placed against the walls,
at one of which kneels a lady, confessing to a priest
who sits within; the tapers are lighted at the high
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altar and at one of the shrines ; an attendant is scrub-
bing the marble pavement with a broom and water, -
a process, I should think, seldom practised in Roman
churches. By and by the lady finishes her confession,
kisses the priest's hand, and sits down in one of the
chairs which are placed about the floor, while the
priest, in a black robe, with a short, white, loose jacket
over his shoulders, disappears by a side door out of
the church. I, likewise, finding nothing attractive in
the pictures, take my departure. Protestantism needs a
new apostle to convert it into something positive. .
I now found my way to the Piazza Navona. It is
to me the most interesting piazza in Rome ; a large
oblong space, surrounded with tall, shabby houses,
among which there are none that seem to be palaces.
The sun falls broadly over the area of the piazza, and
shows the fountains in it; one, a large basin with
great sea-monsters, probably of Bernini's inventions,
squirting very small streams of water into it; another
of the fountains I do not at all remember; but the
central one is an immense basin, over which is reared
an old Egyptian obelisk, elevated on a rock, which is
cleft into four arches. Monstrous devices in marble,
I know not of what purport, are clambering about
the cloven rock or burrowing beneath it; one and all
of them are superfluous and impertinent, the only
essential thing being the abundant supply of water in
the fountain. This whole Piazza Navona is usually
the scene of more business than seems to be trans-
acted anywhere else in Rome; in some part
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tools, and all such rubbish ; in other parts vegetables,
comprising, at this season, green peas, onions, cauli-
flowers, radishes, artichokes, and others with which I
have never made acquaintance; also, stalls or wheel-
barrows containing apples, chestnuts (the meats dried
and taken out of the shells), green almonds in their
husks, and squash seeds, - salted and dried in an
oven, - apparently a favorite delicacy of the Romans.
There are also lemons and oranges; stalls of fish,
mostly about the size of smelts, taken from the Tiber;
cigars of various qualities, the best at a baioccho and
a half apiece; bread in loaves or in small rings, a
great many of which are strung together on a long
stick, and thus carried round for sale. Women and
men sit with these things for sale, or carry them
about in trays or on boards on their heads, crying
them with shrill and hard voices. There is a shabby
crowd and much babble; very little picturesqueness of
costume or figure, however, the chief exceptions being,
here and there, an old white-bearded beggar. A few
of the men have the peasant costume, a short jacket
and breeches of light blue cloth and white stockings,
- the ugliest dress I ever saw.
The women
go
bare-
headed, and seem fond of scarlet and other bright
colors, but are homely and clumsy in form. The
piazza is dingy in its general aspect, and very dirty,
being strewn with straw, vegetable-tops, and the rub-
bish of a week's marketing ; but there is more life in
it than one sees elsewhere in Rome.
On one side of the piazza is the Church of St.
Agnes, traditionally said to stand on the site of the


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house where that holy maiden was exposed to infamy
by the Roman soldiers, and where her modesty and
innocence were saved by miracle. I went into the
church, and found it very splendid, with rich marble
columns, all as brilliant as if just built; a frescoed
dome above ; beneath, a range of chapels all round
the church, ornamented not with pictures but bas-
reliefs, the figures of which almost step and struggle
out of the marble. They did not seem very admirable
as works of art, none of them explaining themselves
or attracting me long enough to study out their
meaning ; but, as part of the architecture of the
church, they had a good effect.
good effect. Out of the busy
square two or three persons had stepped into this
bright and calm seclusion to pray and be devout for
a little while ; and, between sunrise and sunset of
the bustling market-day, many doubtless snatch a
moment to refresh their souls.
In the Pantheon (to-day) it was pleasant looking
up to the circular opening, to see the clouds flitting
across it, sometimes covering it quite over, then per-
mitting a glimpse of sky, then showing all the circle
of sunny blue. Then would come the ragged edge of
a cloud, brightened throughout with sunshine, pass-
ing and changing quickly, — not that the divine smile
was not always the same, but continually variable
through the medium of earthly influences. The great
slanting beam of sunshine was visible all the way
down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust, or
a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow.
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toward the opening. There is a wonderful charm in
the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a
swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening
and sporting in the broad ray, to gladden the faith of
worshippers on the pavement beneath; or angels
bearing prayers upward, or bringing down responses
to them, visible with dim brightness as they pass
through the pathway of heaven's radiance, even the
many hues of their wings discernible by a trusting
eye; though, as they pass into the shadow, they van-
ish like the motes. So the sunbeam would represent
those rays of divine intelligence which enable us to
see wonders and to know that they are natural things.
Consider the effect of light and shade in a church
where the windows are open and darkened with cur-
tains that are occasionally lifted by a breeze, letting in
the sunshine, which whitens a carved tombstone on
the pavement of the church, disclosing, perhaps, the
letters of the name and inscription, a death’s head, a
crosier, or other emblem ; then the curtain falls and
the bright spot vanishes.
May 8th. - This morning my wife and I went to
breakfast with Mrs. William Story at the Barberini
Palace, expecting to meet Mrs. Jameson, who has been
in Rome for a month or two. We had a very pleasant
breakfast, but Mrs. Jameson was not present on
account of indisposition, and the only other guests
were Mrs. A and Mrs. H-, two sensible Amer-
ican ladies. Mrs. Story, however, received a note
from Mrs. Jameson, asking her to bring us to see her
at her lodgings ; so in the course of the afternoon she


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called for us, and took us thither in her carriage
Mrs. Jameson lives on the first piano of an old piazzo
on the Via di Ripetta, nearly opposite the ferry-way
across the Tiber, and affording a pleasant view of the
yellow river and the green bank and fields on the
other side. I had expected to see an elderly lady,
but not quite so venerable a one as Mrs. Jameson
proved to be ; a rather short, round, and massive
personage, of benign and agreeable aspect, with a sort
of black skullcap on her head, beneath which appeared
her hair, which seemed once to have been fair, and
was now almost white. I should take her to be about
seventy years old. She began to talk to us with
affectionate familiarity, and was particularly kind in
her manifestations towards myself, who, on my part,
was equally gracious towards her. In truth, I have
found great pleasure and profit in her works, and was
glad to hear her say that she liked mine. We talked
about art, and she showed us a picture leaning up
against the wall of the room ; a quaint old Byzantine
painting, with a gilded background, and two stiff
figures (our Saviour and St. Catherine) standing shyly
at a sacred distance from one another, and going
through the marriage ceremony. There was a great
deal of expression in their faces and figures ; and the
spectator feels, moreover, that the artist must have
been a devout man,
an impression which we seldom
receive from modern pictures, however awfully holy
the subject, or however consecrated the place they
hang in.
Mrs. Jameson seems to be familiar with
Italy, its people and life, as well as with its picture-


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i
galleries. She is said to be rather irascible in her
temper ; but nothing could be sweeter than her voice,
her look, and all her manifestations to-day. When
we were coming away she clasped my hand in both
of hers, and again expressed the pleasure of having
seen me, and her gratitude to me for calling on her
nor did I refrain from responding Amen to these
effusions.
Taking leave of Mrs. Jameson, we drove through
the city, and out of the Lateran Gate ; first, however,
waiting a long while at Monaldini's bookstore in the
Piazza di Spagna for Mr. Story, whom we finally took
up in the street, after losing nearly an hour.
Just two miles beyond the gate is a space on the
green campagna where, for some time. past, excava-
tions have been in progress, which thus far have
resulted in the discovery of several tombs, and the
old, buried, and almost forgotten church or basilica
of San Stefano. It is a beautiful spot, that of the
excavations, with the Alban hills in the distance, and
some heavy, sunlighted clouds hanging above, or
recumbent at length upon them, and behind the city
and its mighty dome. The excavations are an object
of great interest both to the Romans and to strangers,
and there were many carriages and a great many
visitors viewing the progress of the works, which are
carried forward with greater energy than anything
else I have seen attempted at Rome. A short time
ago the ground in the vicinity was a green surface,
level, except here and there a little hillock, or scarcely
perceptible swell; the tomb of Cecelia Metella showing


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5
itself a mile or two distant, and other rugged ruins of
great tombs rising on the plain. Now the whole site
of the basilica is uncovered, and they have dug into
the depths of several tombs, bringing to light precious
marbles, pillars; a statue, and elaborately wrought
sarcophagi ; and if they were to dig into almost every
other inequality that frets the surface of the cam-
pagna, I suppose the result might be the same. You
sannot dig six feet downward anywhere into the soil,
deep enough to hollow out a grave, without finding
some precious relic of the past; only they lose some-
what of their value when you think that you can
almost spurn them out of the ground with your foot.
It is a very wonderful arrangement of Providence that
these things should have been preserved for a long
series of coming generations by that accumulation of
dust and soil and grass and trees and houses over
them, which will keep them safe, and cause their
reappearance above ground to be gradual, so that the
rest of the world's lifetime may have for one of its
enjoyments the uncovering of old Rome.
The tombs were accessible by long flights of steps,
going steeply downward, and they were thronged
with so many visitors that we had to wait some little
time for our own turn. In the first into which we
descended we found two tombs side by side, with only
a partition wall between; the outer tomb being, as
is supposed, a burial-place constructed by the early
Christians, while the adjoined and minor one was a
work of pagan Rome about the second century after
Christ. The former was much less interesting than


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the latter. It contained some large sarcophagi, with
sculpture upon them of rather heathenish aspect; and
in the centre of the front of each sarcophagus was a
bust in bas-relief, the features of which had never
been wrought, but were left almost blank, with only
the faintest indications of a nose, for instance. It is
supposed that sarcophagi were kept on hand by the
sculptors, and were bought ready made, and that it
was customary to work out the portrait of the de-
ceased upon the blank face in the centre ; but when
there was a necessity for sudden burial, as may have
been the case in the present instance, this was dis-
pensed with.
The inner tomb was found without any earth in it,
just as it had been left when the last old Roman was
buried there ; and it being only a week or two since
it was opened, there was very little intervention of
persons, though much of time, between the departure
of the friends of the dead and our own visit. It is
a square room, with a mosaic pavement, and is six or
seven paces in length and breadth, and as much in
height to the vaulted roof. The roof and
upper
walls
are beautifully ornamented with frescos, which were
very bright when first discovered, but have rapidly
faded since the admission of the air, though the
graceful and joyous designs, flowers and fruits and
trees, are still perfectly discernible. The room must
have been anything but sad and funereal; on the
contrary, as cheerful a saloon, and as brilliant, if
lighted up,
as one could desire to feast in.
It con-
tained several marble sarcophagi, covering indeed
9*


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almost the whole floor, and each of them as much as
three or four feet in length, and two much longer.
The longer ones I did not particularly examine, and
they seemed comparatively plainer ; but the smaller
sarcophagi were covered with the most delicately
wrought and beautiful bas-reliefs that I ever beheld ;
a throng of glad and lovely shapes in marble cluster-
ing thickly and chasing one another round the sides
of these old stone coffins. The work was as perfect
as when the sculptor gave it his last touch ; and if he
had wrought it to be placed in a frequented hall, to
be seen and admired by continual crowds as long as
the marble should endure, he could not have chiselled
with better skill and care, though his work was to be
shut up in the depths of a tomb forever.
This seems
to me the strangest thing in the world, the most alien
from modern sympathies. If they had built their
tombs above ground, one could understand the ar-
rangement better ; but no sooner had they adorned
them so richly, and furnished them with such ex-
quisite productions of art, than they annihilated them
with darkness. It was an attempt, no doubt, to
render the physical aspect of death cheerful, but
there was no good sense in it.
We went down also into another tomb close by,
the walls of which were ornamented with medallions
in stucco. These works presented a numerous series
of graceful designs, wrought by the hand in the short
.sr (Mr. Story said it could not have been more
than five or ten minutes) while the wet plaster re-
mained capable of being moulded ; and it was mar-


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vellous to think of the fertility of the artist's fancy,
and the rapidity and accuracy with which he must
have given substantial existence to his ideas. These
too -- all of them such adornments as would have
suited a festal hall were made to be buried forth-
with in eternal darkness. I saw and handled in this
tomb a great thigh-bone, and measured it with my
own; it was one of many such relics of the guests
who were laid to sleep in these rich chambers. The
sarcophagi that served them for coffins could not now
be put to a more appropriate use than as wine-coolers
in a modern dining-room ; and it would heighten the
enjoyment of a festival to look at them.
We would gladly have stayed much longer; but it
was drawing towards sunset, and the evening, though
bright, was unusually cool, so we drove home; and
on the way, Mr. Story told us of the horrible prac-
tices of the modern Romans with their dead, - how
they place them in the church, where, at midnight,
they are stripped of their last rag of funeral attire,
put into the rudest wooden coffins, and thrown into a
trench, -- a half-mile, for instance, of promiscuous
corpses. This is the fate of all, except those whose
friends choose to pay an exorbitant sum to have them
buried under the pavement of a church. The Italians
have an excessive dread of corpses, and never meddle
with those of their nearest and dearest relatives.
They have a horror of death, too, especially of sudden
death, and most particularly of apoplexy; and no
wonder, as it gives no time for the last rites of the
Church, and so exposes them to a fearful risk of per-


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dition forever. On the whole, the ancient practice
was, perhaps, the preferable one; but Nature has
made it very difficult for us to do anything pleasant
and satisfactory with a dead body. God knows best ;
but I wish he had so ordered it that our mortal
bodies, when we have done with them, might vanish
out of sight and sense, like bubbles. A person of
delicacy hates to think of leaving such a burden as
his decaying mortality to the disposal of his friends;
but, I say again, how delightful it would be, and how
helpful towards our faith in a blessed futurity, if the
dying could disappear like vanishing bubbles, leaving,
perhaps, a sweet fragrance diffused for a minute or
two throughout the death-chamber. This would be
the odor of sanctity! And if sometimes the evap-
oration of a sinful soul should leave an odor not so
delightful, a breeze through the open windows would
soon waft it quite away.
Apropos of the various methods of disposing of
dead bodies, William Story recalled a newspaper
paragraph respecting a ring, with a stone of a new
species in it, which a widower was observed to wear
upon his finger. Being questioned as to what the
gem was, he answered, “It is my wife.” He had
procured her body to be chemically resolved into this
stone. I think I could make a story on this idea :
the ring should be one of the widower's bridal gifts
to a second wife ; and, of course, it should have
wondrous and terrible qualities, symbolizing all that
disturbs the quiet of a second marriage,
husband's part, remorse for his inconstancy, and the
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constant comparison between the dead wife of his
youth, now idealized, and the grosser reality which
he had now adopted into her place; while on the
new wife's finger it should give pressures, shooting
pangs into her heart, jealousies of the past, and all
such miserable emotions.
By the by, the tombs which we looked at and
entered may have been originally above ground,
like that of Cecilia Metella, and a hundred others
along the Appian Way; though, even in this case,
the beautiful chambers must have been shut up in
darkness. Had there been windows, letting in the
light upon the rich frescos and exquisite sculptures,
there would have been a satisfaction in thinking of
the existence of so much visual beauty, though no
eye had the privilege to see it. But darkness, to
objects of sight, is annihilation, as long as the dark-
ness lasts.
May 9th. - Mrs. Jameson called this forenoon to
ask us to go and see her this evening ; . . . . so that
I had to receive her alone, devolving part of the
burden on Miss Shepard and the three children, all
of whom I introduced to her notice. Finding that I
had not been farther beyond the walls of Rome than
the tomb of Cecilia Metella, she invited me to take a
drive of a few miles with her this afternoon.
The poor lady seems to be very lame; and I am sure
I was grateful to her for having taken the trouble to
climb up the seventy steps of our staircase, and felt
pain at seeing her go down them again. It looks fear-
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soon
one foot. The hands, by the way, are white, and must
once have been, perhaps now are, beautiful. She
must have been a perfectly pretty woman in her day,
- a blue or gray eyed, fair-haired beauty. I think
that her hair is not white, but only flaxen in the
extreme.
At half past four, according to appointment, I
arrived at her lodgings, and had not long to wait
before her little one-horse carriage drove up to the
door, and we set out, rumbling along the Via Scrofa,
and through the densest part of the city, past the
theatre of Marcellus, and thence along beneath the
Palatine Hill, and by the Baths of Caracalla, through
the gate of San Sebastiano. After emerging from
the gate, we
came to the little Church of
“Dominè, quo vadis ?” Standing on the spot where
St. Peter is said to have seen a vision of our Saviour
bearing his cross, Mrs. Jameson proposed to alight;
and, going in, we saw a cast from Michael Angelo's
statue of the Saviour; and not far from the threshold
of the church, yet perhaps in the centre of the
edifice, which is extremely small, a circular stone is
placed, a little raised above the pavement, and sur-
rounded by a low wooden railing Pointing to this
stone, Mrs. Jameson showed me the prints of two
feet side by side, impressed into its surface, as if a
person had stopped short while pursuing his way to
Rome. These, she informed me, were supposed to
be the miraculous prints of the Saviour's feet; but on
looking into Murray, I am mortified to find that they
are merely facsimiles of the original impressions,
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which are treasured up among the relics of the
neighboring Basilica of San Sebastiano. The marks
of sculpture seemed to me, indeed, very evident in
these prints, nor did they indicate such beautiful feet
as should have belonged to the bearer of the best of
glad tidings.
Hence we drove on a little way farther, and came to
the Basilica of San Sebastiano, where also we alighted,
and, leaning on my arm, Mrs. Jameson went in. It is
a stately and noble interior, with a spacious unen-
cumbered nave, and a flat ceiling frescoed and gilded.
In a chapel at the left of the entrance is the tomb of
St. Sebastian, - a sarcophagus containing his remains,
raised on high before the altar, and beneath it a re-
cumbent statue of the saint pierced with gilded ar-
The sculpture is of the school of Bernini,
done after the design of Bernini himself, Mrs. Jame-
son said, and is more agreeable and in better taste
than most of his works. We walked round the basil-
ica, glancing at the pictures in the various chapels,
none of which seemed to be of remarkable merit,
although Mrs. Jameson pronounced rather a favor
able verdict on one of St. Francis. She says that
she can read a picture like the page of a book; in
fact, without perhaps assuming more taste and judg.
ment than really belong to her, it was impossible not
to perceive that she gave her companion no credit
for knowing one single simplest thing about art. Nor,
on the whole, do I think she underrated me; the only
mystery is, how she came to be so well aware of my
ignorance on artistical points.
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In the basilica the Franciscan monks were ar-
tanging benches on the floor of the nave, and some
peasant children and grown people besides were as-
sembling, probably to undergo an examination in the
catechism, and we hastened to depart, lest our pres-
ence should interfere with their arrangements. At
the door a monk met us, and asked for a contribution
in aid of his church, or some other religious purpose.
Boys, as we drove on, ran stoutly along by the side of
the chaise, begging as often as they could find breath,
but were constrained finally to give up the pursuit.
The great ragged bulks of the tombs along the Appian
Way now hove in sight, one with a farm-house on its
summit, and all of them preposterously huge and
massive. At a distance, across the green campagna
on our left, the Claudian aqueduct strode away over
miles of space, and doubtless reached even to that
circumference of blue hills which stand afar off, gird-
ling Rome about. The tomb of Cecilia Metella came
in sight a long while before we reached it, with the
warm buff hue of its travertine, and the gray battle-
mented wall which the Gaetenis erected on the top of
its circular summit six hundred years ago. After
passing it, we saw an interminable line of tombs on
both sides of the way, each of which might, for aught
I know, have been as massive as that of Cecilia Me-
tella, and some perhaps still more monstrously gigan-
tic, though now dilapidated and much reduced in size.
Mrs. Jameson had an engagement to dinner at half
past six, so that we could go but a little farther along
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-
strewn with broken marbles, fragments of capitals,
and nameless rubbish that once was beautiful. Me-
thinks the Appian Way should be the only entrance
to Rome, through an avenue of tombs.
The day had been cloudy, chill, and windy, but
was now grown calmer and more genial, and bright-
ened by à very pleasant sunshine, though great dark
clouds were still lumbering up the sky. We drove
homeward, looking at the distant dome of St. Peter's,
and talking of many things, --- painting, sculpture,
America, England, spiritualism, and whatever else
came up. She is a very sensible old lady, and sees a
great deal of truth; a good woman, too, taking ele-
vated views of matters ; but I doubt whether she has
the highest and, finest perceptions in the world. At
any rate, she pronounced a good judgment on the
American sculptors now in Rome, condemning them
in the mass as men with no high aims, no worthy
conception of the purposes of their art, and desecrat-
ing marble by the things they wrought in it. William
Story, I presume, is not to be included in this censure,
as she had spoken highly of his sculpturesque faculty
in our previous conversation. On my part, I sug-
gested that the English sculptors were little or noth-
ing better than our own, to which she acceded gener-
ally, but said that Gibson had produced works equal
to the antique, - which I did not dispute, but still
questioned whether the world needed Gibson, or was
any the better for him. We had a great dispute
about the propriety of adopting the costume of the
day in modern sculpture, and I contended that either
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same,
the art ought to be given up (which possibly would
be the best course), or else should be used for ideal-
izing the man of the day to himself; and that, as Na-
ture makes us sensible of the fact when men and
women are graceful, beautiful, and noble, through
whatever costume they wear, so it ought to be the
test of the sculptor's genius that he should do the
Mrs. Jameson decidedly objected to buttons,
breeches, and all other items of modern costume;
and, indeed, they do degrade the marble, and make
high sculpture utterly impossible. Then let the art
perish as one that the world has done with, as it has
done with many other beautiful things that belonged
to an earlier time.
It was long past the hour of Mrs. Jameson's dinner
engagement when we drove up to her door in the Via
Ripetta. I bade her farewell with much good-feeling
on my own side, and, I hope, on hers, excusing myself,
however, from keeping the previous engagement to
spend the evening. with her, for, in point of fact, we
had mutually had enough of one another for the time
being. I am glad to record that she expressed a very
favorable opinion of our friend Mr. Thompson's pic-
tures.
May 12th. To-day we have been to the Villa
Albani, to which we had a ticket of admission through
the agency of Mr. Cass (the American Minister). We
set out between ten and eleven o'clock, and walked
through the Via Felice, the Piazza Barberini, and a
long, heavy, dusty range of streets beyond, to the
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We were
sunny, between two high blank walls to the gate of
the villa, which is at no great distance.
admitted by a girl, and went first to the casino, along
an aisle of overshadowing trees, the branches of which
met above our heads. In the portico of the casino,
which extends along its whole front, there are many
busts and statues, and, among them, one of Julius
Cæsar, representing him at an earlier period of life
than others which I have seen. His aspect is not
particularly impressive; there is a lack of chin,
though not so much as in the older statues and busts.
Within the edifice there is a large hall, not so brilliant,
perhaps, with frescos and gilding as those at the Villa
Borghese, but lined with the most beautiful variety of
marbles. But, in fact, each new splendor of this sort
outshines the last, and unless we could pass from one
to another all in the same suite, we cannot remember
them well enough to compare the Borghese with the
Albani, the effect being more on the fancy than on the
intellect. I do not recall any of the sculpture, except
a colossal bas-relief of Antinoüs, crowned with flowers,
and holding flowers in his hand, which was found in
the ruins of Hadrian's Villa. This is said to be the
finest relic of antiquity next to the Apollo and the
Laocoon; but I could not feel it to be so, partly, I
suppose, because the features of Antinoüs do not seem
to me beautiful in themselves; and that heavy, down-
ward look is repeated till I am more weary of it than
of anything else in sculpture. We went up stairs and
down stairs, and saw a good many beautiful things,
but none, perhaps, of the very best and beautifullest;


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and second-rate statues, with the corroded surface of
old marble that has been dozens of centuries under
the ground, depress the spirits of the beholder. The
bas-relief of Antinoüs has at least the merit of being
almost as white and fresh, and quite as smooth, as if
it had never been buried and dug up again. The real
treasures of this villa, to the number of nearly three
hundred, were removed to Paris by Napoleon, and,
except the Antinoüs, not one of them ever came back.
There are some pictures in one or two of the rooms,
and among them I recollect one by Perugino, in which
is a St. Michael, very devout and very beautiful;
indeed, the whole picture (which is in compartments,
representing the three principal points of the Saviour's
history) impresses the beholder as being painted
devoutly and earnestly by a religious man. In one of
the rooms there is a small bronze Apollo, supposed by
Winckelmann to be an original of Praxiteles; but I
could not make myself in the least sensible of its
merit.
The rest of the things in the casino I shall pass
over, as also those in the coffee-house, an edifice which
stands a hundred yards or more from the casino, with
an ornamental garden, laid out in walks and flower-
plats between. The coffee-house has a semicircular
sweep of porch with a good many statues and busts
beneath it, chiefly of distinguished Romans. In this
building, as in the casino, there are curious mosaics,
large vases of rare marble, and many other things
worth long pauses of admiration ; but I think that we
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·art, and were at leisure to ramble about the grounds.
The Villa Abani itself is an edifice separate from both
the coffee-house and casino, and is not opened to
strangers. It rises, palace-like, in the midst of the
garden, and, it is to be hoped, has some possibility
of comfort amidst its splendors. Comfort, however,
would be thrown away upon it; for besides that the
site shares the curse that has fallen upon every pleas-
ant place in the vicinity of Rome, .... it really has
no occupant except the servants who take care of it.
The Count of Castelbarco, its present proprietor, resides
at Milan. The grounds are laid out in the old fashion
of straight paths, with borders of box, which form
hedges of great height and density, and as even as a
brick-wall at the top and sides. There are also alleys
forming long vistas between the trunks and beneath
the boughs of oaks, ilexes, and olives; and there are
shrubberies and tangled wildernesses of palm, caetus,
rhododendron, and I know not what ; and a profusion
of roses that bloom and wither with nobody to pluck
and few to look at them. They climb about the
sculpture of fountains, rear themselves against pillars
and porticos, run brimming over the walls, and strew
the paths with their falling leaves. We stole a few,
and feel that we have wronged our consciences in not
stealing more. In one part of the grounds we saw a
field actually ablaze with scarlet poppies. There are
great lagunas ; fountains presided over by naiads, who
squirt their little jets into basins; sunny lawns; a
temple, so artificially ruined that we half believed it
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.
water, in which stone swans seemed positively to float;
groves of cypress; balustrades and broad flights of
stone stairs, descending to lower levels of the garden ;
beauty, peace, sunshine, and antique repose on every
side ; and far in the distance the blue bills that encir-
cle the campagna of Rome. The day was very fine
for our purpose ; cheerful, but not too bright, and
tempered by a breeze that seemed even a little too cool
when we sat long in the shade. We enjoyed it till
three o'clock.
At the Capitol there is a sarcophagus with a most
beautiful bas-relief of the discovery of Achilles by
Ulysses, in which there is even an expression of
mirth on the faces of many of the spectators. And
to-day at the Albani a sarcophagus was ornamented
with the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis.
Death strides behind every man, to be sure, at
more or less distance, and, sooner or later, enters
upon any event of his life ; so that, in this point of
view, they might each and all serve for bas-reliefs on
a sarcophagus ; but the Romans seem to have treated
Death as lightly and playfully as they could, and tried
to cover his dart with flowers, because they hated it
so much.
May 15th. - My wife and I went yesterday to the
Sistine Chapel, it being my first visit. It is a room
of noble proportions, lofty and long, though divided
in the midst by a screen or partition of white marble,
which rises high enough to break the effect of spacious
unity. There are six arched windows on each side of
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of the walls, with as much as twenty feet of space
(more I should think) between them and the floor.
The entire walls and ceiling of this stately chapel are
covered with paintings in fresco, except the space
about ten feet in height from the floor, and that
portion was intended to be adorned by tapestries from
pictures by Raphael, but, the design being prevented
by his immature death, the projected tapestries have
no better substitute than paper-hangings. The roof,
which is flat at top, and coved or vaulted at the sides,
is painted in compartments by Michael Angelo, with
frescos representing the whole progress of the world
and of mankind from its first formation by the Al-
mighty .... till after the flood. On one of the
sides of the chapel are pictures by Perugino, and
other old masters, of subsequent events in sacred
history; and the entire wall behind the altar, a vast
expanse from the ceiling to the floor, is taken up with
Michael Angelo's summing up of the world's history
and destinies in his “ Last Judgment.”
There can be no doubt that while these frescos
continued in their perfection, there was nothing else
to be compared with the magnificent and solemn
beauty of this chapel. Enough of ruined splendor
still remains to convince the spectator of all that has
departed; but methinks I have seen hardly anything
else so forlorn and depressing as it is now, all dusky
and dim, even the very lights having passed into
shadows, and the shadows into utter blackness; so
that it needs a sunshiny day, under the bright Italian
heavens, to make the designs perceptible at all. As


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we sat in the chapel there were clouds flitting across
the sky; when the clouds came the pictures vanished;
when the sunshine broke forth the figures sadly glim-
mered into something like visibility, --- the Almighty
moving in chaos, – the noble shape of Adam, the
beautiful Eve; and, beneath where the roof curves,
the mighty figures of sibyls and prophets, looking as
if they were necessarily so gigantic because the
thought within them was so massive. In the “ Last
Judgment” the scene of the greater part of the picture
lies in the upper sky, the blue of which glows through
betwixt the groups of naked figures ; and above sits
Jesus, not looking in the least like the Saviour of the
world, but, with uplifted arm, denouncing eternal
misery on those whom he came to save. I fear I am
myself among the wicked, for I found myself inevita-
bly taking their part, and asking for at least a little
pity, some few regrets, and not such a stern denunci-
atory spirit on the part of Him who had thought us
worth dying for. Around him stand grim saints, and,
far beneath, people are getting up sleepily out of their
graves, not well knowing what is about to happen;
many of them, however, finding themselves clutched
by demons before they are half awake. It would be
a very terrible picture to one who should really see
Jesus, the Saviour, in that inexorable judge ; but it
seems to me very undesirable that he should ever be
represented in that aspect, when it is so essential to
our religion to believe him infinitely kinder and better
towards us than we deserve. At the last day - I
presume, that is, in all future days, when we see our-


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ITALY.
selves as we are - man's only inexorable judge will
be himself, and the punishment of his sins will be the
perception of them.
In the lower corner of this great picture, at the
right hand of the spectator, is a hideous figure of a
damned person, girdled about with a serpent, the
folds of which are carefully knotted between his
thighs, so as, at all events, to give no offence to
decency. This figure represents a man who suggested
to Pope Paul III. that the nudities of the “ Last
Judgment" ought to be draped, for which offence
Michael Angelo at once consigned him to hell. It
• shows what a debtor's prison and dungeon of private
torment men would make of hell if they had the
control of it. As to the nudities, if they were ever
more nude than now, I should suppose; in their fresh
brilliancy, they might well have startled a not very
squeamish eye. The effect, such as it is, of this
picture, is much injured by the high altar and its
canopy, which stands close against the wall, and
intercepts a considerable portion of the sprawl of
nakedness with which Michael Angelo has filled his
sky. However, I am not unwilling to believe, with
faith beyond what I can actually see, that the greatest
pictorial miracles ever yet achieved have been wrought
upon the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
In the afternoon I went with Mr. Thompson to see
what bargain could be made with vetturinos for
taking myself and family to Florence. We talked
with three or four, and found them asking prices of
various enormity, from a hundred and fifty scudi
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down to little more than ninety ; but Mr. Thompson
says that they always begin in this way, and will
probably come down to somewhere about seventy-
five. Mr. Thompson took me into the Via Porto-
ghese, and showed me an old palace, above which
rose —not a very customary feature of the architecture
of Rome - a tall, battlemented tower.
At one angle
of the tower we saw a shrine of the Virgin, with a
lamp, and all the appendages of those numerous
shrines which we see at the street corners, and in
hundreds of places about the city. Three or foui
centuries ago this palace was inhabited by a noble-
inan who had an only son and a large pet monkey,
and one day the monkey caught the infant up and
clambered to this lofty turret, and sat there with him
in his arms, grinning and chattering like the Devil
himself. The father was in despair, but was afraid
to pursue the monkey lest he should fing down the
child from the height of the tower and make his
escape. At last he vowed that if the boy were safely
restored to him he would build a shrine at the summit
of the tower, and cause it to be kept as a sacred place
forever. By and by the monkey came down and
deposited the child on the ground; the father fulfilled
his vow, built the shrine, and made it obligatory on
all future possessors of the palace to keep the lamp
burning before it. Centuries have passed, the prop-
erty has changed hands; but still there is the
shrine on the giddy top of the tower, far aloft over
the street, on the very spot where the monkey sat,
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Vow. This being the tenure by which the estate is
held, the extinguishment of that flame might yet turn
the present owner out of the palace.
May 21st. - Mamma and I went, yesterday forenoon,
to the Spada Palace, which we found among the
intricacies of Central Rome; a dark and massive old
edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on
which are adorned with statues in niches, and sculp-
tured ornaments. A woman led us up a staircase,
and ushered us into a great, gloomy hall, square and
lofty, and wearing a very gray and ancient aspect,
its walls being painted in chiaro-oscuro, apparently a
great many years ago. The hall was lighted by small
windows, high upward from the floors, and admitting
only a dusky light. The only furniture or ornament,
so far as I recollect, was the colossal statue of Pompey,
which stands on its pedestal at one side, certainly the
sternest and severest of figures, and producing the most
awful impression on the spectator. Much of the
effect, no doubt, is due to the sombre obscurity of the
hall, and to the loneliness in which the great naked
statue stands. It is entirely nude, except for a cloak
that hangs down from the left shoulder; in the left
hand, it holds a globe ; the right arm is extended.
The whole expression is such as the statue might have
assumed, if, during the tumult of Cæsar's murder, it
had stretched forth its marble hand, and motioned the
conspirators to give over the attack, or to be quiet,
now that their victim had fallen at its feet. On the
left leg, about midway above the ankle, there is a dull,
red stain, said to be Cæsar's blood; but, of course, it


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is just such a red stain in the marble as may be seen
on the statue of Antinoüs at the Capitol. I could not
see any resemblance in the face of the statue to that
of the bust of Pompey, shown as such at the Capitol,
in which there is not the slightest moral dignity, or
sign of intellectual eminence. I am glad to have seen
this statue, and glad to remember it in that gray,
dim, lofty hall; glad that there were no bright
frescos on the walls, and that the ceiling was wrought
with massive beams, and the floor paved with ancient
brick.
From this anteroom we passed through several
saloons containing pictures, some of which were by
eminent artists ; the Judith of Guido, a copy of which
used to weary me to death, year after year, in the
Boston Athenæum ; and many portraits of Cardinals
in the Spada family, and other pictures by Guido.
There were some portraits, also of the family, by
Titian ; some good pictures by Guercino ; and many
which I should have been glad to examine more at
leisure ; but, by and by, the custode made his appear-
ance, and began to close the shutters, under pretence
that the sunshine would injure the paintings, -an
effect, I presume, not very likely to follow after two
or three centuries' exposure to light, air, and whatever
else might hurt them. However, the pictures seemed
to be in much better condition, and more enjoyable,
so far as they had merit, than those in most Roman
picture-galleries ; although the Spada Palace itself
has a decayed and impoverished aspect, as if the
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ITALY.
grandeur, and now, perhaps, smuggled itself into
some out-of-the-way corner of the old edifice. If such
be the case, there is something touching in their still
keeping possession of Pompey's statue, which makes
• their house famous, aud the sale of which might give
them the means of building it up anew ; for surely
it is worth the whole sculpture-gallery of the Vatican.
In the afternoon Mr. Thompson and I went, for
the third or fourth time, to negotiate with vetturinos.
So far as I know them they are a very tricky
set of people, bent on getting as much as they can,
by hook or by crook, out of the unfortunate individual
who falls into their hands. They begin, as I have
said, by asking about twice as much as they ought to
receive; and anything between this exorbitant amount
and the just price is what they thank heaven for, as
so much clear gain. Nevertheless, I am not quite
sure that the Italians are worse than other people
even in this matter. In other countries it is the
custom of persons in trade to take as much as they
can get from the public, fleecing one man to exactly
the same extent as another; here they take what
they can obtain from the individual customer. In
fact, Roman tradesmen do not pretend to deny that
they ask and receive different prices from different
people, taxing them according to their supposed
means of payment; the article supplied being the
same in
as in another. A shopkeeper
looked into his books to see if we were of the class
who paid two pauls, or only a paul and a half for
candles ; a charcoal-dealer said that seventy baiocchi
one
case


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was a very reasonable sum for us to pay for charcoal,
and that some persons paid eighty; and Mr. Thompson,
recognizing the rule, told the old vetturino that "a
hundred and fifty scudi was a very proper charge
for carrying a prince to Florence, but not for carrying
me, who was merely a very good artist.” The result
is well enough; the rich man lives expensively, and
pays a larger share of the profits which people of a
different system of trade-morality would take equally
from the poor man.
The effect on the conscience of
the vetturino, however, and of tradesmen of all kinds,
cannot be good; their only intent being, not to do
justice between man and man, but to go as deep as
they can into all pockets, and to the very bottom of
some.
We had nearly concluded a bargain, a day or two
ago, with a vetturino to take or send us to Florence,
via Perugia, in eight days, for a hundred scudi ; but
he now drew back, under pretence of having misun-
derstood the terms, though, in reality, no doubt, he
was in hopes of getting a better bargain from some-
body else. We made an agreement with another
man, whom Mr. Thompson knows and highly recom-
mends, and immediately made it sure and legally
binding by exchanging a formal written contract, in
which everything is set down, even to milk, butter,
bread, eggs, and coffee, which we are to have for
breakfast ; the vetturino being to pay every expense
for himself, his horses, and his passengers, and include
it within ninety-five scudi, and five crowns in addition
for buon-mano.


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ITALY.
May 22d. — Yesterday, while we were at dinner,
Mr. called. I never saw him but once before,
and that was at the door of our little red cottage in
Lenox; he sitting in a wagon with one or two of the
Sedgewicks, merely exchanging a greeting with me
from under the brim of his straw hat, and driving on.
He presented himself now with a long white beard,
such as a palmer might have worn as the growth of
his long pilgrimages, a brow almost entirely bald,
and what hair he has quite hoary; a forehead im-
pending, yet not massive; dark, bushy eyebrows and
keen eyes, without much softness in them; a dark
and sallow complexion ; a slender figure, bent a little
with
age ;
but at once alert and infirm. It surprised
me to see him so venerable ; for, as poets are Apollo's
kinsmen, we are inclined to attribute to them his
enviable quality of never growing old.
There was
a weary look in his face, as if he were tired of see-
ing things and doing things, though with certainly
enough still to see and do, if need were. My family
gathered about him, and he conversed with great
readiness and simplicity about his travels, and what-
ever other subject came up ; telling us that he had
been abroad five times, and was now getting a little
home-sick, and had no more eagerness for sights,
though his "gals" (as he called his daughter and
another young lady) dragged him out to see the
wonders of Rome again. His manners and whole
aspect are very particularly plain, though not affect-
edly so ; but it seems as if in the decline of life, and
the security of his position, he had put off whatever


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artificial polish he may have heretofore had, and re-
sumed the simpler habits and deportment of his early
New England breeding. Not but what you discover,
nevertheless, that he is a man of refinement, who has
seen the world, and is well aware of his own place in
it. He spoke with great pleasure of his recent visit
to Spain. I introduced the subject of Kansas, and
methought his face forthwith assumed something of
the bitter keenness of the editor of a political news-
paper, while speaking of the triumph of the admin-
istration over the free-soil opposition. I inquired
whether he had seen S -, and he gave a very sad
account of him as he appeared at their last meeting,
which was in Paris. S he thought, had suffered
terribly, and would never again be the man he was ;
he was getting fat; he talked continually of himself,
and of trifles concerning himself, and seemed to have
no interest for other matters; and Mr. feared
that the shock upon his nerves had extended to his
intellect, and was irremediable. He said that S-
ought to retire from public life, but had no friend
true enough to tell him so. This is about as sad as
anything can be. I hate to have s undergo the
fate of a martyr, because he was not naturally of the
stuff that martyrs are made of, and it is altogether
by mistake that he has thrust himself into the posi-
tion of one.
He was merely, though with excellent
abilities, one of the best of fellows, and ought to have
lived and died in good fellowship with all the world.
S-was not in the least degree excited about this
or any other subject. He uttered neither passion nor


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ITALY.
poetry, but excellent good sense, and accurate in-
formation on whatever subject transpired; a very
pleasant man to associate with, but rather cold, I
should imagine, if one should seek to touch his heart
with one's own. He shook hands kindly all round,
but not with any warmth of gripe ; although the ease
of his deportment had put us all on sociable terms
with him.
At seven o'clock, we went by invitation to take tea
with Miss Bremer. After much search, and lumber-
ing painfully up two or three staircases in vain, and
at last going about in a strange circuity, we found
her in a small chamber of a large old building, situ-
ated a little way from the brow of the Tarpeian Rock.
It was the tiniest and humblest domicile that I have
seen in Rome, just large enough to hold her narrow
bed, her tea-table, and a table covered with books, -
photographs of Roman ruins, and some pages written
by herself.
I wonder whether she be poor. Probably
so; for she told us that her expensé of living here is
only five pauls a day. She welcomed us, however,
with the greatest cordiality and ladylike simplicity,
making no allusion to the humbleness of her environ-
ment (and making us also lose sight of it, by the
absence of all apology) any more than if she were
receiving us in a palace. There is not a better bred
woman; and yet one does not think whether she has
any breeding or no. Her little bit of a round table
was already spread for us with her blue earthenware
teacups; and after she had got through an interview
with the Swedish Minister, and dismissed him with a
10 *


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hearty pressure of his hand between both her own,
she gave us our tea, and some bread, and a mouthful
of cake. Meanwhile, as the day declined, there had
been the most beautiful view over the campagna, out
of one of her windows; and, from the other, looking
towards St. Peter's, the broad gleam of a mildly
glorious sunset; not so pompous and magnificent as
many that I have seen in America, but softer and
sweeter in all its changes. As its lovely hues died
slowly away, the half-moon shone out brighter and
brighter; for there was not a cloud in the sky, and it
seemed like the moonlight of my younger days. In
the garden, beneath her window, verging upon the
Tarpeian Rock, there was shrubbery and one large
tree, softening the brow of the famous precipice,
adown which the old Romans used to fling their
traitors, or sometimes, indeed, their patriots.
Miss Bremer talked plentifully in her strange
manner, - good English enough for a foreigner, but
so oddly intonated and accented, that it is impossible
to be sure of more than one word in ten. Being so
little comprehensible, it is very singular how she
contrives to make her auditors so perfectly certain, as
they are, that she is talking the best sense, and in
the kindliest spirit. There is no better heart than
hers, and not many sounder heads; and a little touch
of sentiment comes delightfully in, mixed
up
quick and delicate humor and the most perfect sim-
plicity. There is also a very pleasant atmosphere of
maidenhood about her; we are sensible of a freshness
and odor of the morning still in this little withered
with a


1858.
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ITALY.
rose, its recompense for never having been gathered
and worn, but only diffusing fragrance on its stem.
I forget mainly what we talked about, a good deal
about art, of course, although that is a subject of
which Miss Bremer evidently knows nothing. Once
we spoke of fleas, -- insects that, in Rome, come home
to everybody's business and bosom, and are so com-
mon and inevitable, that no delicacy is felt about al-
luding to the sufferings they inflict. Poor little Miss
Bremer was tormented with one while turning out our
tea. She talked, among other things, of the win-
ters in Sweden, and said that she liked them, long and
severe as they are; and this made me feel ashamed of
dreading the winters of New England, as I did before
coming from home, and do now still more, after five
or six mild English Decembers.
By and by, two young ladies came in, Miss
Bremer's neighbors, it seemed, — fresh from a long
walk on the campagna, fresh and weary at the same
time. One apparently was German, and the other
French, and they brought her an offering of flowers,
and chattered to ber with affectionate vivacity; and,
as we were about taking leave, Miss Bremer asked
them to accompany her and us on a visit to the edge
of the Tarpeian Rock. Before we left the room, she
took a bunch of roses that were in a vase, and gave
them to Miss Shepard, who told her that she should
make her six sisters happy by giving one to each.
Then .we went down the intricate stairs, and, emer-
ging into the garden, walked round the brow of the
hill, which plunges headlong with exceeding abrupt-


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We re-
ness; but, so far as I could see in the moonlight,
is no longer quite a precipice. Then we re-entered
the house, and went up stairs and down again,
through intricate passages, till we got into the street,
which was still peopled with the ragamuffins who
infest and burrow in that part of Rome.
turned through an archway, and descended the broad
flight of steps into the piazza of the Capitol ; and
from the extremity of it, just at the head of the long
graded way, where Castor and Pollux and the old
inilestones stand, we turned to the left, and followed
a somewhat winding path, till we came into the court
of a palace. This court is bordered by a parapet,
leaning over which we saw the sheer precipice of the
Tarpeixn Rock, about the height of a four-story
house.
On the edge of this, before we left the court, Miss
Bremer bade us farewell, kissing my wife most affec-
tionately on each cheek,
and then turning
towards myself, ... she pressed my hand, and we
parted, probably never to meet again. God bless
her good heart! .... She is a most amiable little
woman, worthy to be the maiden aunt of the whole
human race. I suspect, by the by, that she does not
like me half so well as I do her; it is my impression
that she thinks me unamiable, or that there is some-
thing or other not quite right about me.
I am sorry
if it be so, because such a good, kindly, clear-sighted,
and delicate person is very apt to have
ason at the
bottom of her harsh thoughts, when, in rare cases,
she allows them to harbor with her.


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.
English gentleman), Mr. and Mrs. Apthorp, Miss
Hosmer, and one or two other ladies. Bryant was
very quiet, and made no conversation audible to the
general table. Mr. T talked of English politics
and public men ; the “Times” and other newspapers,
English clubs and social habits generally; topics in
which I could well enough bear my part of the discus-
sion. After breakfast, and aside from the ladies, he
mentioned an illustration of Lord Ellenborough's laok
of administrative ability, - a proposal seriously made
by his fordship in reference to the refractory Se-
poys.
We had a very pleasant breakfast, and certainly a
breakfast is much preferable to a dinner, not merely
in the enjoyment while it is passing, but afterwards.
I made a good suggestion to Miss Hosmer for the de-
sign of a fountain, - a lady bursting into tears, water
gushing from a thousand pores, in literal translation
of the phrase; and to call the statue “Niobe, all
Tears.” I doubt whether she adopts the idea ; but
Bernini would have been delighted with it. I should
think the gush of water might be so arranged as to
form a beautiful drapery about the figure, swaying
and fluttering with every breath of wind, and re-
arranging itself in the calm; in which case, the lady
might be said to have “a habit of weeping."
Apart, with William Story, he and I talked of the
unluckiness of Friday, etc. I like him particularly
well.
We have been plagued to-day with our preparations
for leaving Rome tomorrow, and especially with veri-


1858.]
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ITALY.
fying the inventory of furniture, before giving up the
house to our landlord. He and his daughter have
been examining every separate article, down even to
the kitchen skewers, I believe, and charging us to the
amount of several scudi for cracks and breakages,
which very probably existed when we
came into
possession. It is very uncomfortable to have dealings
with such a mean people (though our landlord is
German), - mean in their business transactions; mean
even in their beggary; for the beggars seldom ask for
more than a mezzo baioccho, though they sometimes
grumble when you suit your gratuity exactly to their
petition. It is pleasant to record that the Italians
have great faith in the honor of the English and Amer-
icans, and never hesitate to trust entire strangers, to
any reasonable extent, on the strength of their being
of the honest Anglo-Saxon race.
This evening, U- and I took a farewell walk in
the Pincian Gardens to see the sunset ; and found
them crowded with people, promenading and listening
to the music of the French band. It was the feast of
Whitsunday, which probably brought a greater throng
than usual abroad.
When the sun went down, we descended into the
Piazza del Popolo, and thence into the Via Ripetta,
and emerged through a gate to the shore of the Tiber,
along which there is a pleasant walk beneath a grove
of trees. We traversed it once and back again, looking
at the rapid river, which still kept its mud-puddly
aspect even in the clear twilight, and beneath the
brightening moon. The great bell of St. Peter's tolled


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with a deep boom, a grand and solemn sound; the
moon gleamed through the branches of the trees above
us; and U-spoke with somewhat alarming fervor
of her love for Rome, and regret at leaving it. We
shall have done the child no good office in bringing
her here, if the rest of her life is to be a dream of this
“city of the soul,” and an unsatisfied yearning to
come back to it. On the other hand, nothing elevating
and refining can be really injurious, and so I hope she
will always be the better for Rome, even if her life
should be spent where there are no pictures, no stat-
ues, nothing but the dryness and meagreness of a New
England village.
JOURNEY TO FLORENCE.
Civita Castellana, May 24th. - We left Rome this
morning, after troubles of various kinds, and a dis-
pute in the first place with Lalla, our female servant,
and her mother. . . . . Mother and daughter exploded
into a livid rage, and cursed us plentifully, — wishing
that we might never come to our journey's end, and
that we might all break our necks or die of apoplexy,
– the most awful curse that an Italian knows how to
invoke upon his enemies, because it precludes the
possibility of extreme unction. However, as we are
heretics, and certain of damnation therefore, anyhow,
it does not much matter to us; and also the anathe-
mas may have been blown back upon those who in-
voked them, like the curses that were flung out from.
the balcony of St. Peter's during Holy Week and


1858.]
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ITALY.
.
wafted by heaven's breezes right into the faces of some
priests who stood near the pope. Next we had a
disagreement with two men who brought down our
luggage, and put it on the vetturo; and, lastly,
we were infested with beggars, who hung round the
carriages with doleful petitions, till we began to move
away ; but the previous warfare had put me into too
stern a mood for almsgiving, so that they also were
doubtless inclined to curse more than to bless, and I
am persuaded that we drove off under a perfect
shower of anathemas.
We passed through the Porta del Popolo at about
eight olclock; and after a moment's delay, while the
passport was examined, began our journey along the
Flaminian Way, between two such high and inhospi-
table walls of brick or stone, as seem to shut in all the
avenues to Rome, We had not gone far before we
heard military music in advance of us, and saw the
road blocked up with people, and then the glitter of
muskets, and soon appeared the drummers, fifers, and
trumpeters, and then the first battalion of a French
regiment, marching into the city, with two mounted
officers at their head; then appeared a second and
then a third battalion, the whole seeming to make
almost an army, though the number on their caps
showed them all to belong to one regiment, — the 1st;
then came a battery of artillery, then a detachment of
horse, - these last, by the crossed keys on their hel-
mets, being apparently papal troops. All were young,
fresh, good-looking men, in excellent trim as to uni-
form and equipments, and marched rather as if they


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were setting out on a campaign than returning from
it; the fact being, I believe, that they have been en-
camped or in barracks within a few miles of the city.
Nevertheless, it reminded me of the military proces-
sions of various kinds which so often, two thousand
years ago and more, have entered Rome over the Fla-
minian Way, and over all the roads that led to the
famous city, — triumphs oftenest, but sometimes the
downcast train of a defeated army, like those who re-
treated before Hannibal. On the whole, I was not
sorry to see the Gauls still pouring into Rome ; but
yet I begin to find that I have a strange affection for
it, and so did we all, — the rest of the family in a
greater degree than myself even. It is very singular,
the sad embrace with which Rome takes possession of
the soul. Though we intend to return in a few
months, and for a longer residence than this has been,
yet we felt the city pulling at our heartstrings far
more than London did, where we shall probably never
spend much time again. It may be because the in-
tellect finds a home there more than in any other spot
in the world, and wins the heart to stay with it, in
spite of a good many things strewn all about to dis-
gust us.
The road in the earlier part of the way was not
particularly picturesque, -- the country undulated, but
scarcely rose into hills, and was destitute of trees;
there were a few shapeless ruins, too indistinct for us
to make out whether they were Roman or medieval.
Nothing struck me so much, in the forenoon, as the
spectacle of a peasant woman riding on horseback as


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ITALY.
if she were a man. The houses were few, and those
of a dreary aspect, built of gray stone, and looking
bare and desolate, with not the slightest promise of
comfort within doors. We passed two or three lo-
candas or inns, and finally came to the village (if vil-
lage it were, for I remember no houses except our
osteria) of Castel Nuovo di Porta, where we were to
take a déjeuner à la fourchette, which was put upon
the table between twelve and one. On this journey,
according to the custom of travellers in Italy, we pay
the vetturino a certain sum, and live at his expense ;
and this meal was the first specimen of his catering on
our behalf. It consisted of a beefsteak, rather dry
and hard, but not unpalatable, and a large omelette;
and for beverage, two quart bottles of red wine, which,
being tasted, had an agreeable acid flavor. .... The
locanda was built of stone, and had what looked like
an old Roman altar in the basement-hall, and a
shrine, with a lamp before it, on the staircase ; and
the large public saloon in which we ate had a brick
floor, a ceiling with cross-beams, meagrely painted in
fresco, and a scanty supply of chairs and settees.
After lunch, we wandered out into a valley or
ravine near the house, where we gathered some
flowers, and J. found a nest with the
young
birds
in it, which, however, he put back into the bush
whence he took it.
Our afternoon drive was more picturesque and
noteworthy. Soracte rose before us, bulging up
quite abruptly out of the plain, and keeping itself
entirely distinct from a whole horizon of hills. Byron


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well compares
to a wave just on the bend, and
about to break over towards the spectator. As we
approached it nearer and nearer, it looked like the
barrenest great rock that ever protruded out of the
substance of the earth, with scarcely a strip or a
spot of verdure upon its steep and gray declivities.
The road kept trending towards the mountain, fol-
lowing the line of the old Flaminian Way, which
we could see, at frequent intervals, close beside the
modern track. It is paved with large flag-stones,
laid so accurately together, that it is still, in some
places, as smooth and even as the floor of a church;
and everywhere the tufts of grass find it difficult
to root themselves into the interstices. Its course
is straighter than that of the road of to-day, which
often turns aside to avoid obstacles which the ancient
one surmounted. Much of it, probably, is covered
with the soil and overgrowth deposited in later
years; and, now and then, we could see its flag-
stones partly protruding from the bank through
which our road has been cut, and thus showing that
the thickness of this massive pavement was more
than a foot of solid stone. We lost it over and over
again ; but still it reappeared, now on one side of
us, now on the other; perhaps from beneath the
roots of old trees, or the pasture-land of a thousand
years old, and leading on towards the base of
Soracte. I forget where we finally lost it. Passing
through a town called Rignano, we found it dressed
out in festivity, with festoons of foliage along both
sides of the street, which ran beneath a triumphal


1858.]
237
ITALY.
a
arch, bearing an inscription in honor of a ducal
personage of the Massinii family. I know no occa-
sion for the feast, except that it is Whitsuntide.
The town was thronged with peasants, in their best
attire, and we met others on their way thither, par-
ticularly women and girls, with heads bare in the
sunshine ; but there was no tiptoe jollity, nor, in-
deed, any more show of festivity than I have seen
in my own country at cattle-show or muster.
Really, I think, not half so much.
The road still grew more and more picturesque,
and now lay along ridges, at the bases of which
were deep ravines and hollow valleys. Woods were
not wanting ; wilder forest than I have seen since
leaving America, of oak-trees chiefly; and, among
the green foliage, grew golden tufts of broom,
making a gay and lovely combination of hues. I
must not forget to mention the poppies, which
burned like live coals along the wayside, and lit
up the landscape, even a single one of them, with
wonderful effect. At other points, we saw olive-
trees, hiding their eccentricity of boughs under thick
masses of foliage of a livid tint, which is caused, I
believe, by their turning their reverse sides to the
light and to the spectator. Vines were abundant,
but were of little account in the scene. By and by
we came in sight of the high, flat table-land, on
which stands Cività Castellana, and beheld, straight
downward, between us and the town, a deep level
valley with a river winding through it; it was the
valley of the Treja. A precipice, hundreds of feet in


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height, falls perpendicularly upon the valley, from
the site of Cività Castellana; there is an equally
abrupt one, probably, on the side from which we
saw it; and a modern road, skilfully constructed,
goes winding down to the stream, crosses it by a
narrow stone bridge, and winds upward into the
town. After passing over the bridge, I alighted,
with Je and R-
and made the ascent
on foot, along walls of natural rock, in which old
Etruscan tombs were hollowed out. There are like-
wise antique remains of masonry, whether Roman
or of what earlier period, I cannot tell. At the
summit of the acclivity, which brought us close to
the town, our vetturino took us into the carriage
again and quickly brought us to what appears to be
really a good hotel, where all of us are accommo-
dated with sleeping-chambers in a range, beneath
an arcade, entirely secluded from the rest of the
population of the hotel. After a splendid dinner
(that is, splendid, considering that it was ordered
by our hospitable vetturino), U-, Miss Shepard,
J-
and I walked out of the little town, in the
opposite direction from our entrance, and crossed a
bridge at the height of the table-land, instead of
at its base, On either side, we had a view down
into a profound gulf, with sides of precipitous rock,
and heaps of foliage in its lap, through which ran
the
snowy
track of a stream ; here snowy, there
dark; here hidden among the foliage, there quite
revealed in the broad depths of the gulf. This was
wonderfully fine. Walking on a little farther, So-
-


1858.]
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ITALY.
racte came fully into view, starting with bold ab-
ruptness out of the middle of the country; and
before we got back, the bright Italian moon was
throwing a shower of silver over the scene, and
making it so beautiful that it seemed miserable not
to know how to put it into words ; a foolish thought,
however, for such scenes are an expression in them-
selves, and need not be translated into any feebler
language. On our walk, we met parties of laborers,
both men and women, returning from the fields,
with rakes and wooden forks over their shoulders,
singing in chorus. It is very customary for women
to be laboring in the fields.
TO TERNI.
- BORGHETTO.
May 25th. We were aroused at four o'clock this
morning; had some eggs and coffee, and were ready
to start between five and six; being thus matutinary,
in order to get to Terni in time to see the falls. The
road was very striking and picturesque ; but I remem-
ber nothing particularly, till we came to Borghetto,
which stands on a bluff, with a broad valley sweeping
round it, through the midst of which flows the Tiber.
There is an old castle on a projecting point; and we
saw other battlemented fortresses, of mediæval date,
along our way, forming more beautiful ruins than any
of the Roman remains to which we have become
accustomed. This is partly, I suppose, owing to the
fact that they have been neglected, and allowed to
mantle their decay with ivy, instead of being cleaned,


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propped up, and restored. The antiquarian is apt to
spoil the objects that interest him.
Sometimes we passed through wildernesses of vari-
ous trees, each contributing a different hue of verdure
to the scene; the vine, also, marrying itself to the fig-
tree, so that a man might sit in the shadow of both at
once, and temper the luscious sweetness of the one
fruit with the fresh flavor of the other. The wayside
incidents were such as meeting a man and woman
borne along as prisoners, handcuffed, and in a cart;
two men reclining across one another, asleep, and
lazily lifting their heads to gaze at us as we passed by;
a woman spinning with a distaff as she walked along
the road. An old tomb or tower stood in a lonely
field, and several caves were hollowed in the rocks,
which might have been either sepulchres or habita-
tions. Soracte kept us company, sometimes a little
on one side, sometimes behind, looming up again and
again, when we thought that we had done with it, and
sọ becoming rather tedious at last, like a person who
presents himself for another and another leave-taking
after the one which ought to have been final. Honey-
suckles sweetened the hedges along the road.
After leaving Borghetto, we crossed the broad valley
of the Tiber, and skirted along one of the ridges that
border it, looking back upon the road that we had
passed, lying white behind us. We saw a field covered
with buttercups, or some other yellow flower, and
poppies burned along the roadside, as they did yes-
terday, and there were flowers of a delicious blue, as
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and scattered down upon the green earth. Otricoli
by and by appeared, situated on a bold promontory
above the valley, a village of a few gray houses and
huts, with one edifice gaudily painted in white and
pink. It looked more important at a distance than
we found it on our nearer approach. As the road
kept ascending, and as the hills grew to be mountains,
we had taken two additional horses, making six in all,
with a man and boy running beside them, to keep
them in motion. The boy had two club feet, so incon-
veniently disposed that it seemed almost inevitable
for him to stumble over them at every step; besides
which, he seemed to tread upon his ankles, and moved
with a disjointed gait, as if each of his legs and thighs
had been twisted round together with his feet. Never-
theless, he had a bright, cheerful, intelligent face, and
was exceedingly active, keeping up with the horses at
their trot, and inciting them to better speed when
they lagged. I conceived a great respect for this poor
boy, who had what most Italian peasants would con-
sider an enviable birthright in those two club feet, as
giving him a sufficient excuse to live on charity, but
yet took no advantage of them; on the contrary,
putting his poor misshapen hoofs to such good use, as
might have shamed many a better provided biped.
When he quitted us, he asked no alms of the travel-
lers, but merely applied to Gaetano for some slight
recompense for his well-performed service. This
behavior contrasted most favorably with that of some
other boys and girls, who ran begging beside the car-
riage door, keeping up a low, miserable murmur, like
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that of a kennel-stream, for a long, long way. Beggars,
indeed, started up at every point, when we stopped for
a moment, and whenever a hill imposed a slower pace
upon us ; each village had his deformity or its infirm-
ity, offering his wretched petition at the step of the
carriage ; and even a venerable, white-headed patri-
arch, the grandfather of all the beggars, seemed to
grow up by the roadside, but was left behind from
inability to join in the race with his light-footed
juniors. No shame is attached to begging in Italy.
In fact, I rather imagine it to be held an honorablo
profession, inheriting some of the odor of sanctity that
used to be attached to a mendicant and idle life in the
days of early Christianity, when every saint lived upon
Providence, and deemed it meritorious to do nothing
for his support.
Murray's guide-book is exceedingly vague and un-
satisfactory along this route; and whenever we asked
Gaetano the name of a village or a castle, he gave
some one which we had never heard before, and could
find nothing of in the book. We made out the river
Nar, bowever, or what I supposed to be such, though
he called it Nera. It flows through a most stupendous
mountain-gorge; winding its narrow passage between
high hills, the broad sides of which descend steeply
upon it, covered with trees and shrubbery, that man-
tle a host of rocky roughnesses, and make all look
smooth. Here and there a precipice juts sternly
forth. We saw an old castle on a hillside, frowning
down into the gorge; and farther on, the gray tower
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depths below, and with its battlemented castle above
pow converted into a prison, and therefore kept
in excellent repair. A long winding street passes
through Narni, broadening at one point into a mar,
ket-place, where an old cathedral showed its venera-
ble front, and the great dial of its clock, the figures
on which were numbered in two semicircles of twelve
points each ; one, I suppose, for noon, and the other
for midnight. The town has, so far as its principal
street is concerned, a city like aspect, with large, fair
edifices, and shops as good as most of those at Rome,
the smartness of which contrasts strikingly with the
rude and lonely scenery of mountain and stream,
through which we had come to reach it. We drove
through Narni without stopping, and came out from
it on the other side, where a broad, level valley opened
before us, most unlike the wild, precipitous gorge
which had brought us to the town. The road went
winding down into the peaceful vale, through the
midst of which flowed the same stream that cuts its
way between the impending hills, as already described.
We passed a monk and a soldier,
the two curses of
Italy, each in his way, — walking sociably side by
side ; and from Narni to Terni I remember nothing
that need be recorded.
Terni, like so many other towns in the neighbor-
hood, stands in a high and commanding position,
chosen doubtless for its facilities of defence, in days
long before the mediæval warfares of Italy made such
sites desirable. I suppose that, like Narni and
Otricoli, it was a city of the Umbrians. We reached


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it between eleven' and twelve o'clock, intending
to employ the afternoon on a visit to the famous
falls of Terni ; but, after lowering all day, it has
begun to rain, and we shall probably have to give
them up.
Half past eight o'clock, It has rained in torrents
during the afternoon, and we have not seen the
cascade of Terni ; considerably to my regret, for I
think I felt the more interest in seeing it, on account
of its being artificial. Methinks nothing was more
characteristic of the energy and determination of the
old Romans, than thus to take a river, which they
wished to be rid of, and fling it over a giddy precipice,
breaking it into ten million pieces by the fall. .
We are in the Hôtel delle tre Colonne, and find it
reasonably good, though not, so far as we are con-
cerned, justifying the rapturous commendations of
previous tourists, who probably travelled at their
own charges. However, there is nothing really to be
complained of, either in our accommodations or table,
and the only wonder is how Gaetano contrives to get
any profit out of our contract, since the hotel bills
would alone cost us more than we pay him for the
journey and all. It is worth while to record as history
of vetturino commissary customs, that for breakfast
this morning we had coffee, eggs, and bread and
butter; for lunch an omelette, some stewed veal, and
a dessert of figs and grapes, besides two decanters of
a light-colored acid wine, tasting very like indiffer-
ent cider; for dinner, an excellent vermicelli soup,
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roast lamb, with fritters, oranges and figs, and two
more decanters of the wine aforesaid,
This hotel is an edifice with a gloomy front upon a
narrow street, and enterable through an arch, which
admits
you
into an enclosed court; around the court,
on each story, run the galleries, with which the par-
lors and sleeping - apartments communicate. The
whole house is dingy, probably old, and seems not
very clean ; but yet bears traces of former magnifi-
cence ; for instance, in our bedroom, the door of
which is ornamented with gilding, and the cornices
with frescos, some of which appear to represent the
cascade of Terni, the roof is crossed with carved
beams, and is painted in the interstices; the floor has
a carpet, but rough tiles underneath it, which show
themselves at the margin. The windows admit the
wind; the door shuts so loosely as to leave great
cracks; and, during the rain to-day, there was a
heavy shower through our ceiling, which made a flood
upon the carpet. We see no chambermaids; noth-
ing of the comfort and neatness of an English hotel,
nor of the smart splendors of an American one; but
still this dilapidated palace affords us a better shelter
than I expected to find in the decayed country towns
of Italy. In the album of the hotel, I find the names
of more English travellers than of any other nation
except the Americans, who, I think, even exceed the
former ; and, the route being the favorite one for
tourists between Rome and Florence, whatever merit
the inns have is probably owing to the demands of
the Anglo-Saxons I doubt not, if we chose to pay


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for it, this hotel would supply us with any luxury we
might ask for; and perhaps even a gorgeous saloon
and state bedchamber.
After dinner, J-- and I walked out in the dusk
to see what we could of Terni.
We found it compact
and gloomy (but the latter characteristic might well
enough be attributed to the dismal sky), with narrow
streets, paved from wall to wall of the houses, like
those of all the towns in Italy; the blocks of paving-
stone larger than the little square torments of Rome.
The houses are covered with dingy stucco, and mostly
low, compared with those of Rome, and inhospitable
as regards their dismal aspects and uninviting door-
ways.
The streets are intricate, as well as narrow w;
insomuch that we quickly lost our way, and could not
find it again, though the town is of so small dimen-
sions, that we passed through it in two directions,
in the course of our brief wanderings. There are no
lamp-posts in Terni; and as it was growing dark,
and beginning to rain again, we at last inquired of a
person in the principal piazza, and found our hotel,
as I expected, within two minutes' walk of where we
stood.
FOLIGNO.
May 26th. -- At six o'clock this morning, we packed
ourselves into our vetturo, my wife and I occupying
the coupé, and drove out of the city gate of Terni.
There are some old towers near it, ruins of I know
not what, and care as little, in the plethora of antiq.
uities and other interesting objects. Through the
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ITALY.
arched gateway, as we approached, we had a view of
one of the great hills that surround the town, looking
partly bright in the early sunshine, and partly catch-
ing the shadows of the clouds that floated about the
sky. Our way was now through the Vale of Terni, as
I believe it is called, where we saw somewhat of the
fertility of Italy: vines trained on poles, or twining
round mulberry and other trees, ranged regularly
like orchards; groves of olives and fields of grain.
There are interminable shrines in all sorts of situa-
tions; some under arched niches, or little pent-
houses, with a brick-tiled roof, just large enough to
cover them; or perhaps in some bit of old Roman
masonry, on the wall of a wayside inn, or in a shallow
cavity of the natural rock, or high upward in the
deep cuts of the road; everywhere, in short, so that
nobody need be at a loss when he feels the religious
sentiment stir within him. Our way soon began to
wind among the hills, which rose steep and lofty from
the scanty, level space that lay between; they con-
tinually thrust themselves across the passage, and
appeared as if determined to shut us completely in.
A great hill would put its foot right before us; but,
at the last moment, would grudgingly withdraw it,
and allow us just room enough to creep by. Adown
their sides, we discerned the dry beds of mountain
torrents, which had lived too fierce a life to let it be a
long one.
On here and there a hillside or promon-
tory, we saw a ruined castle or a convent, looking
from its commanding height upon the road, which
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with his banditti, retreating with his booty to the
security of such strongholds. We came, once in a
while, to wretched villages, where there was no token
of prosperity or comfort; but perhaps there may have
been more than we could appreciate, for the Italians
do not seem to have any of that sort of pride which
we find in New England villages, where every man,
according to his taste and means, endeavors to make
his homestead an ornament to the place. We miss
nothing in Italy more than the neat door-steps and
pleasant porches and thresholds and delightful lawns
or grass-plots, which hospitably invite the imagination
into a sweet domestic interior. Everything, however
sunny and luxuriant may be the scene around, is
especially dreary and disheartening in the immediate
vicinity of an Italian home.
At Strettura (which, as the name indicates, is a
very narrow part of the valley) we added two oxen to
our horses, and began to ascend the Monte Somma,
which, according to Murray, is nearly four thousand
feet high, where we crossed it. When we came to
the steepest part of the ascent, Gaetano, who exercises
a pretty decided control over his passengers, allowed
us to walk; and we all, with one exception, alighted,
and began to climb the mountain on foot. I walked
on briskly, and soon left the rest of the party behind,
reaching the top of the pass in such a short time that
I could not believe it, and kept onward, expecting still
another height to climb. But the road began to
descend, winding among the depths of the hills as
heretofore ; now beside the dry, gravelly bed of a


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ITALY.
departed stream, now crossing it by a bridge, and
perhaps passing through some other gorge, that yet
gave no decided promise of an outlet into the world
beyond. A glimpse might occasionally be caught,
through a gap between the hill-tops, of a company of
distant mountain peaks, pyramidal, as those hills are
apt to be, and resembling the camp of an army of
giants. The landscape was not altogether savage;
sometimes a hillside was covered with a rich field of
grain, or an orchard of olive-trees, looking not unlike
puffs of smoke, from the peculiar hue of their foliage ;
but oftener there was a vast mantle of trees and
shrubbery from top to bottom, the golden tufts of
the broom shining out amid the verdure, and glad-
dening the whole. Nothing was dismal except the
houses ; those were always so, whether the compact,
gray lines of village hovels, with a narrow street
between, or the lonely farm-house, standing far apart
from the road, built of stone, with window-gaps high
in the wall, empty of glass; or the half-castle, half-
dwelling, of which I saw a specimen or two, with
what looked like a defensive rampart, drawn around
its court. I saw no look of comfort anywhere ; and
continually, in this wild and solitary region, I met
beggars, just as if I were still in the streets of Rome.
Boys and girls kept beside me, till they delivered me
into the hands of others like themselves; hoary grand-
sires and grandmothers caught a glimpse of my ap-
proach, and tottered as fast as they could to intercept
me; women came out of the cottages, with rotten
wherries on a plate, entreating me to buy them for a
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mezzo baioccho; a man, at work on the road, left his
toil to beg, and was grateful for the value of a cent;
in short, I was never safe from importunity, as long
as there was a house or a human being in sight.
We arrived at Spoleto before noon, and while our
déjeuner was being prepared, looked down from the
window of the inn into the narrow street beneath,
which, from the throng of people in it, I judged to
be the principal one: priests, papal soldiers, women
with no bonnets on their heads; peasants in breeches
and mushroom hats; maids and matrons, drawing
water at a fountain ; idlers, smoking on a bench
under the window; a talk, a bustle, but no genuine
activity. After lunch we walked out to see the lions
of Spoleto, and found our way up a steep and narrow
street that led us to the city gate, at which, it is
traditionally said, Hannibal sought to force an en-
trance, after the battle of Thrasymene, and was
repulsed. The gateway has a double arch, on the
inner one of which is a tablet, recording the above
tradition as an unquestioned historical fact. From
the gateway we went in search of the Duomo or
Cathedral, and were kindly directed thither by an
officer, who was descending into the town from the
citadel, which is an old castle, now converted into a
prison. The Cathedral seemed small, and did not
much interest us, either by the Gothic front or its
modernized interior. We saw nothing else in Spoleto,
but went back to the inn and resumed our journey,
emerging from the city into the classic valley of the
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It is very
auspices, because it was overcast, and the wind as
chill as if it had the east in it. The valley, though
fertile, and smilingly picturesque, perhaps, is not such
as I should wish to celebrate, either in prose or
poetry. It is of such breadth and extent, that its
frame of mountains and ridgy hills hardly serve to
shut it in sufficiently, and the spectator thinks of a
boundless plain, rather than of a secluded vale.
After passing Le Vene, we came to the little temple
which Byron describes, and which has been supposed
to be the one immortalized by Pliny.
small, and stands on a declivity that falls immediately
from the road, right upon which rises the pediment
of the temple, while the columns of the other front
find sufficient height to develop themselves in the
lower ground. A little farther down than the base
of the edifice we saw the Clitumnus, so recently from
its source in the marble rock, that it was still as pure
as a child's heart, and as transparent as truth itself.
It looked airier than nothing, because it had not sub-
stance enough to brighten, and it was clearer than the
atmosphere. I remember nothing else of the valley
of Clitumnus, except that the beggars in this region
of proverbial fertility are wellnigh profane in the
urgency of their petitions; they absolutely fall down
on their knees as you approach, in the same attitude
as if they were praying to their Maker, and beseech
you for alms with a fervency which I am afraid they
seldom use before an altar or shrine. Being denied,
they ran hastily beside the carriage, but got nothing,
and finally gave over.


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ITALY.
were all paved with brick, and without carpets; and
the characteristic of the whole was an exceeding plain-
ness and antique clumsiness of fitting up. We found
ourselves sufficiently comfortable, however; and, as
has been the case throughout our journey, had a very
fair and well-cooked dinner. It shows, as perhaps I
have already remarked, that it is still possible to live
well in Italy, at no great expense, and that the high
prices charged to the forestieri at Rome and elsewhere
are artificial, and ought to be abated. ...
The day had darkened since morning, and was now
ominous of rain; but as soon as we were established,
we sallied out to see whatever worth looking at.
A beggar boy, with one leg, followed us, without ask-
ing for anything, apparently only for the pleasure of
our company, though he kept at too great a distance
for conversation, and indeed did not attempt to speak,
We went first to the Cathedral, which has a Gothic
front, and a modernized interior, stuccoed and white-
washed, looking as peat as a New England meeting-
house, and very mean, after our familiarity with the
gorgeous churches in other cities.
There were some
pictures in the chapels, but, I believe, all modern,
and I do not remember a single one of them. Next
we went, without any guide, to a church attached to a
convent of Dominican monks, with a Gothic exterior,
and two hideous pictures of Death, the skeleton lean-
ing on his scythe, one on each side of the door. This
church, likewise, was whitewashed, but we understood
that it had been originally frescoed all over, and by
famous hands; but these pictures, having become


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much injured, they were all obliterated, as we saw,
all, that is to say, except a few specimens of the best
preserved, which were spared to show the world what
the whole had been. I thanked my stars that the
obliteration of the rest had taken place before our
visit; for if anything is dreary and calculated to make
the beholder utterly miserable, it is a faded fresco,
with spots of the white plaster dotted over it.
Our one-legged boy had followed us into the church
and stood near the door till he saw us ready to come
out, when he hurried on before us, and waited a little
way off to see whither we should go. We still went
on at random, taking the first turn that offered itself
and soon came to another old church, — that of St.
Mary within the Walls, into which we entered, and
found it whitewashed, like the other two. This was
especially fortunate, for the doorkeeper informed us
that, two years ago, the whole church (except, I sup-
pose, the roof, which is of timber) had been covered
with frescos by Pinturicchio, all of which had been
ruthlessly obliterated, except a very few fragments.
These he proceeded to show us; poor, dim ghosts of
what may once have been beautiful, now so far gone
towards nothingness that I was hardly sure whether
I saw a glimmering of the design or not. By the by,
it was not Pinturicchio, as I have written above, but
Giotto, assisted, I believe, by Cimabue, who painted
these frescos. Our one-legged attendant had fol-
lowed us also into this church, and again hastened
out of it before us; and still we heard the dot of his
crutch upon the pavement, as we passed from street


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to street. By and by a sickly-looking man met us,
and begged for "qualche cosa"; but the boy shouted
to him “Niente !” whether intimating that we would
give him nothing, or that he himself had a prior claim
to all our charity, I cannot tell. However, the beg-
gar man turned round, and likewise followed our devi-
ous course, Once or twice we missed him ; but it was
only because he could not walk so fast as we; for he
appeared again as we emerged from the door of an-
other church. Our one-legged friend we never missed
for a moment; he kept pretty near us, near enough
to be amused by our indecision whither to go; and he
seemed much delighted when it began to rain, and he
saw us at a loss how to find our way back to the hotel.
Nevertheless, he did not offer to guide us; but
stumped on behind with a faster or slower dot of his
crutch, according to our pace. I began to think that
he must have been engaged as a spy upon our move-
ments by the police who had taken away my pass-
port at the city gate. In this way he attended us to
the door of the hotel, where the beggar had already
arrived. The latter again put in his doleful petition ;
the one-legged boy said not a word, nor seemed to ex-
pect anything, and both had to go away without so
much as a mezzo baioccho out of our pockets. The
multitude of beggars in Italy makes the heart as obdu-
rate as a paving-stone.
We left Foligno this morning, and, all ready for us
at the door of the hotel, as we got into the carriage,
were our friends, the beggar man and the one-legged
boy; the latter holding out his ragged hat, and smil.


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ing with as confident an air as if he had done us some
very particular service, and were certain of being paid
for it, as from contract, It was so very funny, so im-
pudent, so utterly absurd, that I could not help giy-
ing him a trifle ; but the man .got nothing,
that gives me a twinge or two, for he looked sickly and
miserable. But where everybody begs, everybody, as
a general rule, must be denied ; and, besides, they act
their misery so well that you are never sure of the
genuine article.
a fact
PERUGIĄ.
May 28th. — As I said last night, we left Foligno
betimes in the morning, which was bleak, chill, and
very threatening, there being very little blue sky
anywhere, and the clouds lying heavily on some of
the mountain-ridges. The wind blew sharply right in
U—'s face and mine, as we occupied the coupé, 80
that there must have been a great deal of the north
in it. We drove through a wide plain -- the Um-
brian valley, I suppose — and soon passed the old
town of Spello, just touching its skirts, and wondering
how people, who had this rich and convenient plain
from which to choose a site, could think of covering
a huge island of rock with their dwellings, — for Spello
tumbled its crooked and narrow streets down a steep
descent, and cannot well have a yard of even space
within its walls. It is said to contain some rare
treasures of ancient pictorial art.
I do not remember much that we saw on our route.
The plains and the lower hillsides seemed fruitful


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ITALY.
of everything that belongs to Italy, especially the
olive and the vine. As usual, there were a great
many shrines, and frequently a cross by the wayside.
Hitherto it had been merely a plain wooden cross;
but now almost every cross was hung with various
instruments, represented in wood, apparently symbols
of the crucifixion of our Saviour, - the
sponge, the crown of thorns, the hammer, a pair of
pincers, and always St. Peter's cock, made a promi-
nent figure, generally perched on the summit of the
spear, the
cross.
From our first start this morning we had seen
mists in various quarters, betokening that there was
rain in those spots, and now it began to spatter in
our own faces, although within the wide extent of our
prospect we could see the sunshine falling on por-
tions of the valley. A rainbow, too, shone out, and
remained so long visible that it appeared to have
made a permanent stain in the sky.
By and by we reached Assisi, which is magnifi-
cently situated for pictorial purposes, with a gray
castle above it, and a gray wall around it, itself on a
mountain, and looking over the great plain which we
had been traversing, and through which lay our on-
We drove through the Piazza Grande
to an ancient house a little beyond, where a hos-
pitable old lady receives travellers for a consideration,
without exactly keeping an inn.
In the piazza we saw the beautiful front of a temple
of Minerva, consisting of several marble pillars, fluted,
and with rich capitals supporting a pediment. It was
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as fine as anything I had seen at Rome, and is now,
of course, converted into a Catholic church.
I ought to have said that, instead of driving
straight to the old lady's, we alighted at the door
of a church near the city gate, and went in to inspect
some melancholy frescos, and thence clambered up
a narrow street to the Cathedral, which has a Gothic
front, old enough, but not very impressive. I really
remember not a single object that we saw within,
but am pretty certain that the interior had been
stuccoed and whitewashed. The ecclesiastics of old
time did an excellent thing in covering the interiors
of their churches with brilliant frescos, thus filling
the holy places with saints and angels, and almost
with the presence of the Divinity. The modern eccle-
siastics do the next best thing in obliterating the
wretched remnants of what has had its day and done
its office. These frescos might be looked upon as
the symbol of the living spirit that made Cathol-
icism a true religion, and glorified it as long as it did
live ; now the glory and beauty have departed from
one and the other.
My wife, U-, and Miss Shepard now set out
with a cicerone to visit the great Franciscan convent,
in the church of which are preserved some miracu-
lous specimens, in fresco and in oils, of early Italian
art; but as I had no mind to suffer any further in
this way, I stayed behind with J-- and R-
who were equally weary of these things.
After they were gone we took a ramble through
the city, but were almost swept away by the violence
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ITALY
an
of the wind, which struggled with me for my hat, and
whirled R before it like a feather. The people
in the public square seemed much diverted at our
predicament, being, I suppose, accustomed to these
rude blasts in their mountain-home. However, the
wind blew in momentary gusts, and then became
more placable till another fit of fury came, and
passed as suddenly as before. We walked out of
the same gate through which we had entered,
ancient gate, but recently stuccoed and whitewashed,
in wretched contrast to the gray, venerable wall
through which it affords ingress, — and I stood gazing
at the magnificent prospect of the wide valley be-
neath. It was so vast that there appeared to be all
varieties of weather in it at the same instant; fields
of sunshine, tracts of storm, — here the coming tem-
pest, there the departing one. It was a picture of
the world on a vast canvas, for there was rural life
and city life within the great expanse, and the whole
set in a frame of mountains, - the nearest bold and
distinct, with the rocky ledges showing through their
sides, the distant ones blue and dim, - so far stretched
this broad valley.
When I had looked long enough, — no, not long
enough, for it would take a great while to read that
page, we returned within the gate, and we clam-
bered up, past the Cathedral and into the narrow
streets above it. The aspect of everything was
immeasurably old ; a thousand years would be but
a middle
age
for one of those houses, built so mas-
sively with huge stones and solid arches, that I do


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not see how they are ever to tumble down, or to be
less fit for human habitation than they are now. The
streets crept between them, and beneath arched pas-
sages, and up and down steps of stone or ancient
brick, for it would be altogether impossible for a
carriage to ascend above the Grand Piazza, though
possibly a donkey or a chairman's mule might find
foothold. The city seems like a stony growth out
of the hillside, or a fossilized city, so old and singu-
lar it is, without enough life and juiciness in it to
be susceptible of decay. An earthquake is the only
chance of its ever being ruined, beyond its present
ruin. Nothing is more strange than to think that
this now dead city - dead, as regards the purposes
for which men live nowadays — was, centuries ago,
the seat and birthplace almost of art, the only art
in which the beautiful part of the human mind then
developed itself.
How came that flower to grow
among these wild mountains ? I do not conceive,
however, that the people of Assisi were ever much
more enlightened or cultivated on the side of art
than they are at present. The ecclesiastics were
then the only patrons; and the flower grew here
because there was a great ecclesiastical garden in
which it was sheltered and fostered. But it is very
curious to think of Assisi, a school of art within, and
mountain and wilderness without.
My wife and the rest of the party returned from
the convent before noon, delighted with what they
had seen, as I was delighted not to have seen it.
We ate our déjeuner, and resumed our journey,
*


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ITALY.
passing beneath the great convent, after emerging
from the gate opposite to that of our entrance. The
edifice made a very good spectacle, being of great
extent, and standing on a double row of high and
narrow arches, on which it is built up from the de-
clivity of the hill.
We soon reached the Church of St. Mary of the
Angels, which is
a modern structure, and very
spacious, built in place of one destroyed by an
earthquake. It is a fine church, opening out a
magnificent space in its nave and aisles; and be-
neath the great dome stands the small old chapel,
with its rude stone walls, in which St. Francis
founded his order. This chapel and the dome appear
to have been the only portions of the ancient church
that were not destroyed by the earthquake. The
dwelling of St. Francis is said to be also preserved
within the church ; but we did not see it, unless it
a little dark closet into which we squeezed
to see some frescos by La Spagna. It had an old
wooden door, of which Upicked off a little bit
of a chip, to serve as a relic. There is a fresco in
the church, on the pediment of the chapel, by Over-
beck, representing the Assumption of the Virgin.
It did not strike me as wonderfully fine. The other
pictures, of which there were many, were modern,
and of no great merit.
We pursued our way, and came, by and by, to the
foot of the high hill on which stands Perugia, and
which is so long and steep that Gaetano took a yoke
of oxen to aid his horses in the ascent.
We all,
were


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except my wife, walked a part of the way up, and I
myself, with J--for my companion, kept on even
to the city gate, a distance, I should think, of two or
three miles, at least. The lower part of the road was
on the edge of the hill, with a narrow valley on our
left; and as the sun had now broken out, its verdure
and fertility, its foliage and cultivation, shone forth in
miraculous beauty, as green as England, as bright as
only Italy. Perugia appeared above us, crowning a
mighty hill, the most picturesque of cities; and the
higher we ascended, the more the view opened before
us, as we looked back on the course that we had tray-
ersed, and saw the wide valley, sweeping down and
spreading out, bounded afar by mountains, and sleep-
ing in sun and shadow. No.language nor any art of
the pencil can give an idea of the scene. When God
expressed himself in the landscape to mankind, he
did not intend that it should be translated into any
tongue save his own immediate one. Jmean-
while, whose heart is now wholly in snail-shells, was
rummaging for them among the stones and hedges
by the roadside; yet, doubtless, enjoyed the prospect
more than he knew. The coach lagged far behind
us, and when it came up, we entered the gate, where
a soldier appeared, and demanded my passport. We
drove to the Grand Hôtel de France, which is near
the gate, and two fine little boys ran beside the
carriage, well dressed and well looking enough to
have been a gentleman's sons, but claiming Gaetano
for their father. He is an inhabitant of Perugia,
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ITALY.
are still little more than midway to our journey's
end.
Our hotel proves, thus far, to be the best that we
have yet met with. We are only in the outskirts of
Perugia; the bulk of the city, where the most inter-
esting churches and the public edifices are situated,
being far above us on the hill. My wife, U-, Miss
Shepard, and R-streamed forth immediately, and
saw a church; but J, who hates them, and I
remained behind; and, for my part, I added several
pages to this volume of scribble.
This morning was as bright as morning could be,
even in Italy, and in this transparent mountain
atmosphere. We at first declined the services of a
cicerone, and went out in the hopes of finding our
way. to. whatever we wished to see, by our
instincts. This proved to be a mistaken hope, how:
ever; and we wandered about the upper city, much
persecuted by a shabby old man who wished to guide
us; so, at last, Miss Shepard went back in quest of
the cicerone at the hotel, and, meanwhile, we climbed
to the summit of the hill of Perugia, and, leaning over
a wall, looked forth upon a most magnificent view of
mountain and valley, terminating in some peaks,
lofty and dim, which surely must be the Apennines.
There again a young man accosted us, offering to,
guide us to the Cambio or Exchange ; and as this
was one of the places which we especially wished to
see, we accepted his services. By the by, I ought to
have mentioned that we had already entered a church
(San Luigi, I believe), the interior of which we found
own


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very impressive, dim with the light of stained and
painted windows, insomuch that it at first seemed
almost dark, and we could only see the bright
twinkling of the tapers at the shrines; but, after a
few minutes, we discerned the tall octagonal pillars
of the nave, marble, and supporting a beautiful roof
of crossed- arches. The church was neither Gothic
nor classic, but a mixture of both, and most likely
barbarous; yet it had a grand effect in its tinted twi-
light, and convinced me more than ever how desir-
able it is that religious edifices should have painted
windows.
The door of the Cambio proved to be one that we
had passed several times, while seeking for it, and was
very near the church just mentioned, Which fronts on
one side of the same piazza. We were received by
an old gentleman, who appeared to be a public
officer, and found ourselves in a small room, wain-
scoted with beautifully carved oak, roofed with a
coved ceiling, painted with symbols of the planets,
and arabesqued in 'rich designs by Raphael, and
lined with splendid frescos of subjects, scriptural
and historical, by Perugino. When the room was in
its first glory, I can conceive that the world had not
elsewhere to show, within so small a space, such mag-
nificence and beauty as were then displayed here.
Even now, I enjoyed (to the best of my belief, for' we
can never feel sure that we are not bamboozling our-
selves in such matters) some real pleasure in what I
saw; and especially seemed to feel, after all these
ages, the old painter's devout sentiment still breathing


1858.]
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ITALY.
forth from the religious pictures, the work of a hand
that had so long been dust.
When we had looked long at these, the old gentle-
man led us into a chapel, of the same size as the
former room, and built in the same fashion, wain-
scoted likewise with old oak. The walls were also
frescoed, entirely frescoed, and retained more of their
original brightness than those we had already seen,
although the pictures were the production of a some-
what inferior hand, a pupil of Perugino. They seemed
to be very striking, however, not the less so, that one
of them provoked an unseasonable smile. It was the
decapitation of John the Baptist; and this holy per-
sonage was represented as still on his knees, with his
hands clasped in prayer, although the executioner
was already depositing the head in a charger, and the
blood was spouting from the headless trunk, directly,
as it were, into the face of the spectator.
While we were in the outer room, the cicerone who
first offered his services at the hotel had come in; so
we paid our chance guide, and expected him to take
his leave. It is characteristic of this idle country,
however, that if you once speak to a person; or con-
nect yourself with him by the slightest possible tie,
you will hardly get rid of him by anything short of
main force. He still lingered in the room, and was
still there when I came away ; for, having had as
many pictures as I could digest, I left my wife and
U with the cicerone, and set out on a ramble
with J—We plunged from the upper city down
through some of the strangest passages that ever
VOL. I.
12


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were called streets; some of them, indeed, being
arched all over, and, going down into the unknown
darkness, looked like caverns; and we followed one
of them doubtfully, till it opened out upon the light.
The houses on each side were divided only by a pace
or two, and communicated with one another, here and
there, by arched passages. They looked very ancient,
and may have been inhabited by Etruscan princes,
judging from the massiveness of some of the founda-
tion stones. The present inhabitants, nevertheless,
are by no means princely, - shabby men, and the care-
worn wives and mothers of the people, one of whom
was guiding a child in leading-strings through these
antique alleys, where hundreds of generations have
trod before those little feet. Finally we came out
through a gateway, the same gateway at which we
entered last night.
I ought to have mentioned, in the narrative of
yesterday, that we crossed the Tiber shortly before
reaching Perugia, already a broad and rapid stream,
and already distinguished by the same turbid and
mud-puddly quality of water that we see in it at
Rome. I think it will never be so disagreeable to
me hereafter, now that I find this turbidness to be
its native color, and not like that of the Thames)
accruing from city sewers or any impurities of the
lowlands.
As I now remember, the small Chapel of Santa
Maria degli Angeli seems to have been originally the
house of St. Francis.
May 29th. - This morning we visited the Church of


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and I followed one of these descending streets, and
were led a long way by it, till we at last emerged from
one of the gates of the city, and had another view
of the mountains and valleys, the fertile and sunny
wilderness in which this ancient civilization stands.
On the right of the gate there was a rude country-
path, partly overgrown with grass, bordered by a
hedge on one side, and on the other by the gray city
wall, at the base of which the tract kept onward. We
followed it, hoping that it would lead us to some
other gate by which we might re-enter the city ; but
it soon grew so indistinct and broken, that it was
evidently on the point of melting into somebody's
olive-orchard or wheat-fields or vineyards, all of which
lay.on the other side of the hedge; and a kindly old
woman of whom I inquired told me (if I rightly under-
stood her Italian) that I should find no further passage
in that direction. So we turned back, much broiled
in the hot sun, and only now and then relieved by the
shadow of an angle or a tower.
A lame beggar-man sat by the gate, and as we
passed him — gave him two baiocchi (which he
himself had begged of me to buy an orange with), and
was loaded with the pauper's prayers and benedictions
as we entered the city. A great many blessings can
be bought for very little money anywhere in Italy;
and whether they avail anything or no, it is pleasant
to see that the beggars have gratitude enough to
bestow them in such abundance.
Of all beggars I think a little fellow, who rode
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ITALY.
merrily, while he managed his steed with one hand,
and held out the other for charity, howling piteously
the while, amused me most.
PASSIGNANO.
May 29th. — We left Perugia at about three
o'clock to-day, and went down a pretty steep descent;
but I have no particular recollection of the road till it
again began to descend, before reaching the village of
Mugione. We all, except my wife, walked up the
long hill, while the vetturo was dragged after us with
the aid of a yoke of oxen. Arriving first at the
village, I leaned over the wall to admire the beautiful
paese (“le bel piano," as a peasant called it, who
made acquaintance with me) that lay at the foot of
the hill, so level, so bounded within moderate limits by
a frame of hills and ridges that it looked like a green
lake. In fact, I think it was once a real lake, which
made its escape from its bed, as I have known some
lakes to have done in America.
Passing through and beyond the village, I saw, on
a height above the road, a half-ruinous tower, with
great cracks running down its walls, half-way from
top to bottom. Some little children had mounted the
hill with us, begging all the way; they were recruited
with additional members in the village ; and here,
beneath the ruinous tower, a madman, as it seemed,
assaulted us, and ran almost under the carriage-wheels,
in his earnestness to get a baioccho. Ridding our-
selves of these annoyances, we drove on, and, between


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one
five and six o'clock, came in sight of the Lake of
Thrasymene, obtaining our first view of it, I think, in
its longest extent. There were high hills, and
mountain with its head in the clouds, visible on the
farther shore, and on the horizon beyond it; but the
nearer banks were long ridges, and hills of only mod-
erate height. The declining sun threw a broad sheen
of brightness over the surface of the lake, so that we
could not well see it for excess of light; but had a
vision of headlands and islands floating about in a
flood of gold, and blue, airy heights bounding it afar.
When we first drew near the lake, there was but a
narrow tract, covered with vines and olives, between
it and the hill that rose on the other side. As we
advanced, the tract grew wider, and was very fertile,
as was the hillside, with wheat-fields, and vines, and
olives, especially the latter, which, symbol of peace as
it is, seemed to find something congenial to it in the
soil stained long ago with blood. Farther onward,
the
space
between the lake and hill grew still
narrower, the road skirting along almost close to the
water-side ; and when we reached the town of Pas-
signano there was but room enough for its dirty and
ugly street to stretch along the shore. I have seldom
beheld a lovelier scene than that of the lake and the
landscape around it; never an uglier one than that of
this idle and decaying village, where we were imme-
diately surrounded by beggars of all ages, and by
men vociferously proposing to row us out upon the
lake. We declined their offers of a boat, for the
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ITALY.
should have liked an outside garment, a temperature
that I had not anticipated, so near the beginning of
June, in sunny Italy. Instead of a row, we took a
walk through the village, hoping to come upon the
shore of the lake, in some secluded spot; "but an
incredible number of beggar-children, both boys and
girls, but more of the latter, rushed out of every door,
and went along with us, all howling their miserable
petitions at the same moment. The village street is
long, and our escort waxed more numerous at every
step, till Miss Shepard actually counted forty of these
little reprobates, and more were doubtless added after-
wards. At first, no doubt, they begged in earnest
hope of getting some baiocchi ; but, by and by, per-
ceiving that we had determined not to give them any-
thing, they made a joke of the matter, and began to
laugh and to babble, and turn heels over head, still
keeping about us, like a swarm of flies, and now and
then begging again with all their might. There were
as few pretty faces as I ever saw among the same
number of children ; and they were as ragged and
dirty little imps as any in the world, and, moreover,
tainted the air with a very disagreeable odor from
'their rags and dirt; rugged and healthy enough,
nevertheless, and sufficiently intelligent; certainly
bold and persevering too ; so that it is hard to say
what they needed to fit them for success in life. Yet
they begin as beggars, and no doubt will end so, as all
their parents and grandparents do ; for in our walk
through the village, every old woman and many
younger ones held out their hands for alms, as if they


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had all been famished. Yet these people kept their
houses over their heads; had firesides in winter, I
suppose, and food out of their little gardens every
day; pigs to kill, chickens, olives, wine, and a great
many things to make life comfortable. The children,
desperately as they begged, looked in good bodily
case, and happy enough ; but, certainly, there was a
look of earnest misery in the faces of some of the old
women, either genuine or exceedingly well acted.
I could not bear the persecution, and went into our
hotel, determining not to venture out again till our
departure; at least not in the daylight. My wife,
and the rest of the family, however, continued their
walk, and at length were relieved from their little
pests by three policemen (the very images of those
in Rome, in their blue, long-skirted coats, cocked
chapeaux-bras, white shoulder-belts, and swords), who
boxed their ears, and dispersed them. Meanwhile,
they had quite driven away all sentimental effusion
(of which I felt more, really, than I expected) about
the Lake of Thrasymene.
The inn of Passignano promised little from its out-
ward appearance; a tall, dark old house, with a stone
staircase leading us up from one sombre story to an-
other, into a brick-paved dining-room, with our sleep-
ing-chambers on each side. There was a fireplace of
tremendous depth and height, fit to receive big forest-
logs, and with a queer, double pair of ancient andirons,
capable of sustaining them; and in a handful of
ashes lay a small stick of olive-wood, a specimen, I
suppose, of the sort of fuel which had made the chim-


1858.]
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ITALY.
ney black, in the course of a good many years. There
must have been much shivering and misery of cold
around this fireplace. However, we needed no fire
now, and there was promise of good cheer in the spec-
tacle of a man cleaning some lake-fish for our dinner,
while the poor things flounced and wriggled under the
knife.
The dinner made its appearance, after a long while,
and was most plentiful, ... so that, having meas-
ured our appetite in anticipation of a paucity of food,
we had to make more room for such overflowing abun-
dance.
When dinner was over, it was already dusk, and
before retiring I opened the window, and looked out
on Lake Thrasymene, the margin of which lies just on
the other side of the narrow village street.
The moon
was a day or two past the full, just a little clipped on
the edge, but gave light enough to show the lake and
its nearer shores almost as distinctly as by day; and
there being a ripple on the surface of the water, it
made a sheen of silver over a wide space.
AREZZO.
May 30th. We started at six o'clock, and left the
one ugly street of Passignano, before many of the
beggars were awake. Immediately in the vicinity of
the village, there is very
little
space between the lake
in front and the ridge of hills in the rear; but the
plain widened as we drove onward, so that the lake
was scarcely to be seen, or often quite hidden among
12
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the intervening trees, although we could still discern
the summits of the mountains that rise far beyond its
shores. The country was fertile, presenting, on each
side of the road, vines trained on fig-trees ; wheat-
fields and olives, in greater abundance than any other
product. On our right, with a considerable width of
plain between; was the bending ridge of hills that shut
in the Roman army, by its close approach to the lake
at Passignano. In perhaps half an hour's drive, we
reached the little bridge that throws its arch over the
Sanguinetto, and alighted there. The stream has but
about a yard's width of water; and its whole course,
between the hills and the lake, might well have been
reddened and swollen with the blood of the multitude
of slain Romans. Its name put me in mind of the
Bloody Brook at Deerfield, where a company of Massa-
chusetts men were massacred by the Indians.
The Sanguinetto flows over a bed of pebbles ; and
- crept under the bridge, and got one of them
for a memorial, while U-Miss Shepard, and R-
plucked some olive twigs and oak leaves, and made
them into wreaths together, -- symbols of victory and
peace. The tower, which is traditionally named after
Hannibal, is seen on a height that makes part of the
line of enclosing hills. It is a large, old castle, appar-
ently of the Middle Ages, with a square front, and a
battlemented
sweep
of wall. The town of Torres (its
name, I think), where Hannibal's main army is sup-
posed to have lain while the Romans came through
the pass, was in full view; and I could understand
the plan of the battle better than any system of mili-


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ITALY.
tary operations which I have hitherto tried to fathom.
Both last night and to-day, I found myself stirred
more sensibly than I expected by the influences of
this scene.
The old battle-field is still fertile in
thoughts and emotions, though it is so many ages
since the blood spilt there has ceased to make the
grass and flowers grow more luxuriantly. I doubt
whether I should feel so much on the field of Saratoga
or Monmouth; but these old classic battle-fields be-
long to the whole world, and each man feels as if
his own forefathers fought them. Mine, by the by, if
they fought them at all, must have been on the side
of Hannibal ; for, certainly, I sympathized with him,
and exulted in the defeat of the Romans on their own
soil. They excite much the same emotion of general
hostility that the English do. Byron has written some
very fine stanzas on the battle-field, not so good as
others that he has written on classical scenes and sub-
jects, yet wonderfully impressing his own perception
of the subject on the reader. Whenever he has to
deal with a statue, a ruin, a battle-field, he pounces
upon the topic like a vulture, and tears out its heart
in a twinkling, so that there is nothing more to be
said.
If I mistake not, our passport was examined by
the papal officers at the last custom-house in the
pontifical territory, before we traversed the path
through which the Roman army marched to its de-
struction. Lake Thrasymene, of which we took our
last view, is not deep set among the hills, but is
bordered by long ridges, with loftier mountains re-


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✓
ceding into the distance. It is not to be compared
to Windermere or Loch Lomond for beauty, nor with
Lake Champlain and many a smaller lake in my own
country, none of which, I hope, will ever become so
historically interesting as this famous spot. A few
miles onward our passport was countersigned at the
Tuscan custom-house, and our luggage permitted to
pass without examination on payment of a fee of nine
or ten pauls, besides two pauls to the porters. There
appears to be no concealment on the part of the
officials in thus waiving the exercise of their duty,
and I rather imagine that the thing is recognized and
permitted by their superiors. At all events, it is
very convenient for the traveller.
We saw Cortona, sitting, like so many other cities
in this region, on its hill, and arrived about noon at
Arezzo, which also stretches up a high hillside, and
is surrounded, as they all are, by its walls or the re-
mains of one, with a fortified gate across every en-
trance.
I remember one little village, somewhere in the
neighborhood of the Clitumnus, which we entered by
one gateway, and, in the course of two minutes at the
utmost, left by the opposite one, so diminutive was
this walled town. Everything hereabouts bears traces
of times when war was the prevalent condition, and
peace only a rare gleam of sunshine.
At Arezzo we have put up at the Hotel Royal,
which has the appearance of a grand old house, and
proves to be a tolerable inn enough. After lunch,
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ITALY.
greatly interest me after Perugia, being much more
modern and less picturesque in its aspect. We went
to the Cathedral, - a Gothic edifice, but not of strik-
ing exterior. As the doors were closed, and not to be
opened till three o'clock, we seated ourselves under
the trees, on a high, grassy space surrounded and
intersected with gravel-walks, -- a public promenade,
in short, near the Cathedral ; and after resting our-
selves here we went in search of Petrarch's house,
which Murray mentions as being in this neighbor-
hood. We inquired of several people, who knew
nothing about the matter; one woman misdirected
us, out of mere fun, I believe, for she afterwards met
us and asked how we had succeeded. But finally,
through —'s enterprise and perseverance, we found
the spot, not a stone's-throw from where we had been
sitting
Petrarch's house stands below the promenade which
I have just mentioned, and within hearing of the
reverberations between the strokes of the Cathedral
bell. It is two stories high, covered with a light-
colored stucco, and has not the slightest appearance
of antiquity, no more than many a modern and
modest dwelling-house in an American city. Its
only remarkable feature is a pointed arch of stone,
let into the plastered wall, and forming a framework
for the doorway. I set my foot on the door-steps,
ascended them, and Miss Shepard and J gathered
some weeds or blades of grass that grew in the chinks
between the steps. There is a long inscription on a
slab of marble set in the front of the house, as is the


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fashion in Arezzo when a house has been the birth-
place or residence of a distinguished man.
Right opposite Petrarch's birth-house
and it must
have been the well whence the water was drawn that
first bathed him - is a well which Boccaccio has in-
troduced into one of his stories. It is surrounded
with a stone curb, octagonal in shape, and evidently
as ancient as Boccaccio's time. It has a wooden
cover, through which is a square opening, and look-
ing down I saw my own face in the water far be-
neath.
There is no familiar object connected with daily
life so interesting as a well; and this well of old
Arezzo, whence Petrarch had drank, around wh
he had played in his boyhood, and which Boccaccio
has made famous, really interested me more than the
Cathedral. It lies right under the pavement of the
street, under the sunshine, without any shade of trees
about it, or any grass, except a little that grows in
the crevices of its stones; but the shape of its stone-
work would make it a pretty object in an engraving.
As I lingered round it I thought of my own town-
pump in old Salem, and wondered whether my towns-
people would ever point it out to strangers, and
whether the stranger would gaze at it with any
degree of such interest as I felt in Boccaccio's well.
0, certainly not; but yet I made that humble town-
pump the most celebrated structure in the good town.
A thousand and a thousand people had pumped there,
merely to water oxen or fill their teakettles; but
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ITALY.
that meandered as far as England, as far as India,
besides tasting pleasantly in every town and village
of our own country. I like to think of this, so long
after I did it, and so far from home, and am not
without hopes of some kindly local remembrance on
this score.
Petrarch's house is not a separate and insulated
building, but stands in contiguity and connection
with other houses on each side ; and all, when I saw
them, as well as the whole street, extending down
the slope of the hill, had the bright and sunny aspect
of a modern town.
As the Cathedral was not yet open, and as J—
and I had not so much patience as my wife, we left
her and Miss Shepard, and set out to return to the
hotel. We lost our way, however, and finally had to
return to the Cathedral, to take a fresh start; and as
the door was now open we went in. We found the
Cathedral very stately with its great arches, and
darkly magnificent with the dim rich light coming
through its painted windows, some of which are
reckoned the most beautiful that the whole world has
to show. The hues are far more brilliant than those
of any painted glass I saw in England, and a great
wheel window looks like a constellation of many-
The old English glass gets so smoky
and dull with dust, that its pristine beauty cannot
any longer be even imagined ; nor did I imagine it
till I saw these Italian windows. We saw nothing of
my wife and Miss Shepard; but found afterwards
that they had been much annoyed by the attentions
colored gems.


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of a priest who wished to show them the Cathedral,
till they finally told him that they had no money with
them, when he left them without another word. The
attendants in churches seem to be quite as venal as
most other Italians, and, for the sake of their little
profit, they do not hesitate to interfere with the great
purposes for which their churches were built and
decorated; hanging curtains, for instance, before all
the celebrated pictures, or hiding them away in the
sacristy, so that they cannot be seen without a fee.
Returning to the hotel, we looked out of the
window, and, in the street beneath, there was a very
busy scene, it being Sunday, and the whole popula-
tion, apparently, being astir, - promenading up and
down the smooth flagstones, which made the breadth
of the street one sidewalk, or at their windows, or
sitting before their doors.
The vivacity of the population in these parts is
very striking, after the gravity and lassitude of
Rome; and the air was made cheerful with the talk
and laughter of hundreds of voices. I think the
women are prettier than the Roman maids and
matrons, who, as I think I have said before, have
chosen to be very uncomely since the rape of their
ancestresses, by way of wreaking a terrible spite and
revenge.
I have nothing more to say of Arezzo, except that,
finding the ordinary wine very bad, as black as ink,
and tasting as if it had tar and vinegar in it, we
called for a bottle of Monte Pulciano, and were ex-
ceedingly gladdened and mollified thereby.


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ITALY.
INCISA.
We left Arezzo early on Monday morning, the sun
throwing the long shadows of the trees across the
road, which at first, after we had descended the hill,
lay over a plain. As the morning advanced, or as
we advanced, the country grew more hilly. We saw
many bits of rustic life, such as old women tending
pigs or sheep by the roadside, and spinning with a
distaff; women sewing under trees, or at their own
doors; children leading goats, tied by the horns,
while they browse ; sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in
petticoats, but otherwise manlike, at work side by
side with male laborers in the fields. The broad-
brimmed, high-crowned hat of Tuscan straw is the
customary female head-dress, and is as unbecoming
as can possibly be imagined, and of little use, one
would suppose, as a shelter from the sun, the brim
continually blowing upward from the face. Some of
the elder women wore black felt hats, likewise broad-
brimmed; and the men wore felt hats also, shaped a
good deal like a mushroom, with hardly any brim at
all. The scenes in the villages through which we
passed were very lively and characteristic, all the
population seeming to be out of doors : some at the
butcher's shop, others at the well; a tailor sewing in
the open air, with a young priest sitting sociably
beside him; children at play; women mending
clothes, embroidering, spinning with the distaff at
their own door-steps; many idlers, letting the pleas-
ant morning pass in the sweet-do-nothing; all as-


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sembling in the street, as in the common room of one
large household, and thus brought close together, and
made familiar with one another, as they can never be
in a different system of society. As usual, along the
road, we passed multitudes of shrines, where the
Virgin was painted in fresco, or sometimes repre-
sented in bas-reliefs, within niches, or under more
spacious arches. It would be a good idea to place a
comfortable and shady seat beneath all these wayside
shrines, where the wayfarer might rest himself, and
thank the Virgin for her hospitality; nor can I be-
lieve that it would offend her, any more than other
incense, if he were to regale himself, even in such
consecrated spots, with the fragrance of a pipe or
cigar.
In the wire-work screen, before many of the shrines,
hung offerings of roses and other flowers, some wilted
and withered, some fresh with that morning's dew,
some that never bloomed and never faded, being
artificial. I wonder that they do not plant rose-trees
and all kinds of fragrant and flowering shrubs under
the shrines, and twine and wreathe them all around,
so that the Virgin may dwell within a bower of per-
petual freshness; at least put flower-pots, with living
plants, into the niche. There are many things in the
customs of these people that might be made very
beautiful, if the sense of beauty were as much alive
now as it must have been when these customs were
first imagined and adopted.
I must not forget, among these little descriptive
items, the spectacle of women and girls bearing huge


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ITALY.
bundles of twigs and shrubs, or grass, with scarlet
poppies and blue flowers intermixed; the bundles
sometimes so huge as almost to hide the woman's
figure from head to heel, so that she looked like a
locomotive mass of verdure and flowers; sometimes
reaching only half-way down her back, so as to show
the crooked knife slung behind, with which she had
been reaping this strange harvest-sheaf. A Pre-
Raphaelite painter — the one, for instance, who paint-
ed the heap of autumnal leaves, which we saw at the
Manchester Exhibition - would find an admirable
subject in one of these girls, stepping with a free,
erect, and graceful carriage, her burden on her head;
and the miscellaneous herbage and flowers would
give him all the scope he could desire for minute and
various delineation of nature.
The country houses which we passed had some-
times open galleries or arcades on the second story
and above, where the inhabitants might perform their
domestic labor in the shade, and in the air. The
houses were often ancient, and most picturesquely
time-stained, the plaster dropping in spots from the
old brickwork ; others were tinted of pleasant and
cheerful hues; some were frescoed with designs in
arabesques, or with imaginary windows; some had
escutcheons of arms painted on the front. Wherever
there was a pigeon-house, a flight of doves were
represented as flying into the holes, doubtless for the
invitation and encouragement of the real birds.
Once or twice I saw a bush stuck up before the
door of what seemed to be a wine-shop. If so, it is


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the ancient custom, so long disused in England, and
alluded to in the proverb, “Good wine needs no
bush.” Several times we saw grass spread to dry on
the road, covering half the track, and concluded it to
have been cut by the roadside for the winter forage of
his ass by some poor peasant, or peasant's wife, who
had no grass land, except the margin of the public
way.
A beautiful feature of the scene to-day, as the pre-
ceding day, were the vines growing on fig-trees (),* and
often wreathed in rich festoons from one tree to an-
other, by and by to be hung with clusters of purple
grapes. I suspect the vine is a pleasanter object of
sight under this mode of culture than it can be in
countries where it produces a more precious wine, and
therefore is trained more artificially. Nothing can be
more picturesque than the spectacle of an old grape-
vine, with almost a trunk of its own, clinging round
its tree, imprisoning within its strong embrace the
friend that supported its tender infancy, converting
the tree wholly to its own selfish ends, as seemingly
flexible natures are apt to do, stretching out its
innumerable arms on every bough, and allowing
hardly a leaf to sprout except its own. I must not
yet quit this hasty sketch, without throwing in, both
in the early morning, and later in the forenoon, the
mist that dreamed among the hills, and which, now
that I have called it mist, I feel almost more inclined
to call light, being so quietly cheerful with the sun-
* This interrogation-mark must mean that Mr. Hawthorne
was not sure they were fig-trees. — ED.


1858.]
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ITALY.
pare it to.
shine through it. Put in, now and then, a castle
on a hill-top ; a rough ravine, a smiling valley ; a
mountain stream, with a far wider bed than it at
present needs, and a stone bridge across it, with
ancient and massive arches ; — and I shall say no
more, except that all these particulars, and many
better ones which escape me, made up a very pleasant
whole.
At about noon we drove into the village of Incisa,
and alighted at the albergo where we were to lunch.
It was a gloomy old house, as much like my idea of
an Etruscan tomb as anything else that I can com-
We passed into a wide and lofty entrance-
hall, paved with stone, and vaulted with a roof of
intersecting arches, supported by heavy calumns of
stuccoed-brick, the whole as sombre and dingy as can
well be. This entrance-hall is not merely the pas-
sageway into the inn, but is likewise the carriage-
house, into which our vettura is wheeled ; and it has,
on one side, the stable, odorous with the litter of
horses and cattle, and on the other the kitchen, and a
common sitting-room. A narrow stone staircase leads
from it to the dining-room, and chambers above, which
are paved with brick, and adorned with rude frescos
instead of paper-hangings. We look out of the
windows, and step into a little iron-railed balcony,
before the principal window, and observe the scene in
the village street.
The street is narrow, and nothing
can exceed the tall, grim ugliness of the village
houses, many of them four stories high, contiguous
all along, and paved quite across ; so that nature is


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as completely shut out from the precincts of this little
town às from the heart of the widest city. The walls
of the houses are plastered, gray, dilapidated; the
windows small, some of them drearily closed with
wooden shutters, others flung wide open, and with
women's heads protruding, others merely frescoed,
for a show of light and air. It would be a hideous
street to look at in a rainy day, or when no human
life pervaded it. Now it has vivacity enough to keep
it cheerful. People lounge round the door of the
albergo, and watch the horses as they drink from a
stone trough, which is built against the wall of the
house, and filled with the unseen gush of a spring.
At first there is a shade entirely across the street,
and all the within-doors of the village empties itself
there, and keeps up a babblement that seems quite
disproportioned even to the multitude of tongues
that make it. So many words are not spoken in
a New England village in a whole year as here in
this single day. People talk about nothing as if
they were terribly in earnest, and laugh at nothing
as if it were an excellent joke.
As the hot noon sunshine encroaches on our side
of the street, it grows a little more quiet. The
loungers now confine themselves to the shady margin
(growing narrower and narrower) of the other side,
where, directly opposite the albergo, there are two
cafés and a wine-shop, “vendeta di pane, vino, ed
altri generi,” all in a row with benches before them.
The benchers joke with the women passing by, and
are joked with back again. The sun still eats away


1858.]
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ITALY.
the shadow inch by inch, beating down with such
intensity that finally everybody disappears except a
few passers by
Doubtless the village snatches this half-hour for its
siesta. There is a song, however, inside one of the
cafés, with a burden in which several voices join.
A girl goes through the street, sheltered under her
great bundle of freshly cut grass. By and by the
song ceases, and two young peasants come out of the
café, a little affected by liquor, in their shirt-sleeves
and bare feet, with their trousers tucked up. They
resume their song in the street, and dance along, one's
arm around his fellow's neck, his own waist grasped
by the other's arm. They whirl one another quite
round about, and come down upon their feet. Meet-
ing a village maid coming quietly along, they dance
up and intercept her for a moment, but give way to
her sobriety of aspect. They pass on, and the shadow
soon” begins to spread from one side of the street,
which presently fills again, and becomes once more,
for its size, the noisiest place I ever knew.
We had quite a tolerable dinner at this ugly inn,
where many preceding travellers had written their
condemnatory judgments, as well as a few their
favorable ones, in pencil on the walls of the dining-
room,
TO FLORENCE.
At setting off (from Incisa], we were surrounded by
beggars as usual, the most interesting of whom were a
little blind boy and his mother, who had besieged us


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ex-
with gentle pertinacity during our whole stay there.
There was likewise a man with a maimed hand, and
other hurts or deformities; also, an old woman who,
I suspect, only pretended to be blind, keeping her
eyes tightly squeezed together, but directing her hand
very accurately where the copper shower was
pected to fall.
Besides these, there were a good
many sturdy little rascals, vociferating in proportion
as they needed nothing. It was touching, however,
to see several persons
themselves beggars for aught
I know -- assisting to hold up the little blind boy's
tremulous hand, so that he, at all events, might not
lack the pittance which we had to give. Our dole
was but a poor one after all, consisting of what
Roman coppers we had brought into Tuscany with
us; and as we drove off, some of the boys' ran shout-
ing and whining after us in the hot sunshine, nor
stopped till we reached the summit of the hill, which
rises immediately from the village street. We heard
Gaetano once say a good thing to a swarm of beggar-
children, who were infesting us, Are
your
fathers all
dead ?" -a proverbial expression, I suppose.
pertinacity of beggars does not, I think, excite the in-
dignation of an Italian, as it is apt to do that of
Englishmen or Americans. The Italians probably
sympathize more, though they give less. Gaetano is
very gentle in his modes of repelling them, and,
indeed, never interferes at all, as long as there is a
prospect of their getting anything.
Immediately after leaving Incisa, we saw the Arno,
already a considerable river, rushing between deep
-


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ITALY.
soon
banks, with the greenish hue of a duck-pond diffused
through its water. Nevertheless, though the first
impression was not altogether agreeable, we
became reconciled to this hue, and ceased to think
it an indication of impurity; for, in spite of it, the
river is still to a certain degree transparent, and is,
at any rate, a mountain-stream, and comes uncon-
taminated from its source. The pure, transparent
brown of the New England rivers is the most beauti-
ful color ; but I am content that it should be peculiar
to them.
Our afternoon's drive was through scenery less
striking than some which we had traversed, but still
picturesque and beautiful. We saw deep valleys and
ravines, with streams at the bottom; long, wooded
hillsides, rising far and high, and dotted with white
dwellings, well towards the summits. By and by,
we had a distant glimpse of Florence, showing its
great dome and some of its towers out of a sidelong
valley, as if we were between two great waves of the
tumultuous sea of hills ; while, far beyond, rose in
the distance the blue peaks of three or four of the
Apennines, just on the remote horizon.
There being
a haziness in the atmosphere, however, Florence was
little more distinct to us than the Celestial City was
to Christian and Hopeful, when they spied at it from
the Delectable Mountains.
Keeping steadfastly onward, we ascended a winding
road, and passed a grand villa, standing very high,
and surrounded with extensive grounds. It must be
the residence of some great noble; and it has an :
13
VOL. I.
S


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avenue of poplars or aspens, very light and gay, and
fit for the passage of the bridal procession, when the
proprietor or his heir brings home his bride ;. while, in
another direction from the same front of the palace,
stretches an avenue or grove of cypresses, very long,
and exceedingly black and dismal, like a train of gigan-
tic mourners. I have seen few things more striking,
in the way of trees, than this grove of cypresses.
From this point we descended, and drove along an
ugly, dusty avenue, with a high brick-wall on one
side or both, till we reached the gate of Florence,
into which we were admitted with as little trouble as
custom-house officers, soldiers, and policemen can
possibly give. They did not examine our luggage,
and even declined a fee, as we had already paid one at
the frontier custom-house. Thank heaven, and the
Grand Duke !
As we hoped that the Casa del Bello had been taken
for us, we drove thither in the first place, but found
that the bargain had not been concluded. As the
house and studio of Mr. Powers were just on the oppo-
site side of the street, I went to it, but found him too
much engrossed to see me at the moment; so I re-
turned to the vettura, and we told Gaetano to carry
us to a hotel. He established us at the Albergo della,
Fontana, a good and comfortable house. Mr.
Powers called in the evening, ---a plain personage,
characterized by strong simplicity and warm kindli-
ness, with an impending brow, and large eyes, which
kindle as he speaks. He is gray, and slightly bald,
but does not seem elderly, nor past his prime. I ac-


1858.]
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ITALY.
cept him at once as an honest and trustworthy man,
and shall not vary from this judgment. Through his
good offices, the next day, we engaged the Casa del
Bello, at a rent of fifty dollars a month, and I shall
take another opportunity (my fingers and head being
tired now) to write about the house, and Mr. Powers,
and what appertains to him, and about the beautiful
city of Florence. At present, I shall only say further,
that this journey from Rome has been one of the
brightest and most uncareful interludes of my life; we
have all enjoyed it exceedingly, and I am happy that
our children have it to look back upon.
June 4th. - At our visit to Powers's studio on Tues-
day, we saw a marble copy of the fisher-boy holding a
shell to his ear, and the bust of Proserpine, and two or
three other ideal busts; various casts of most of the
ideal statues and portrait busts which he has executed.
He talks very freely about his works, and is no excep-
tion to the rule that an artist is not apt to speak-in a
very laudatory style of a brother artist. He showed
us a bust of Mr. Sparks by Persico, - a lifeless and
thoughtless thing enough, to be sure, -- and compared
it with a very good one of the same gentleman by
himself; but his chiefest scorn was bestowed on a
wretched and ridiculous image of Mr. King, of Ala-
bama, by Clarke Mills, of which he said he had been
employed to make several copies for Southern gentle-
The consciousness of power is plainly to be
seen, and the assertion of it by n means withheld, in
his simple and natural character; nor does it give me
an idea of vanity on his part to see and hear it. He
men.


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appears to consider himself neglected by his country, -
by the government of it, at least, and talks with
indignation of the byways and political intrigue which,
he thinks, win the rewards that ought to be bestowed
exclusively on merit. An appropriation of twenty-five
thousand dollars was made, some years ago, for a work
of sculpture by him, to be placed in the Capitol ; but
the intermediate measures necessary to render it
effective have been delayed; while the above-men-
tioned Clarke Mill --- certainly the greatest bungler
that ever botched a block of marble has received an
order for an equestrian statue of Washington. Not
that Mr. Powers is made bitter or sour by these
wrongs, as he considers them; he talks of them with
the frankness of his disposition when the topic comes
in his way, and is pleasant, kindly, and sunny when
he has done with it. ,'.
His long absence from our country has made him
think worse of us than we deserve; and it is an effect
of what I myself am sensible, in my shorter exile :
the most piercing shriek, the wildest yell, and all the
ugly sounds of popular turmoil, inseparable from the
life of a republic, being a million times more audible
than the peaceful hum of prosperity and content
which is going on all the while.
He talks of going home, but says that he has been
talking of it every year since he first came to Italy;
and between his pleasant life of congenial labor, and
his idea of moral deterioration in America, I think it
doubtful whether he ever crosses the sea again. Like
most exiles of twenty years, he has lost his native


1858.]
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ITALY.
country without finding another; but then it is
as well to recognize the truth, - that an individ-
ual country is by no means essential to one's com-
fort.
Powers took us into the farthest room, I believe, of
his very extensive studio, and showed us a statue of
Washington that has much dignity and stateliness.
He expressed, however, great contempt for the coat
and breeches, and masonic emblems, in which he had
been required to drape the figure. What would he
do with Washington, the most decorous and respec-
table personage that ever went ceremoniously through
the realities of life? Did anybody ever see Washing-
ton nude? It is inconceivable. He had no naked-
ness, but I imagine he was born with his clothes on,
and his hair powdered, and made a stately bow on his
first appearance in the world. His costume, at all
events, was a part of his character, and must be dealt
with by whatever sculptor undertakes to represent
him. I wonder that so very sensible a man as Powers
should not see the necessity of accepting drapery, and
the very drapery of the day, if he will keep his art
alive. It is his business to idealize the tailor's actual
work. But he seems to be especially fond of nudity,
none of his ideal statues, so far as I know them, hav-
ing so much as a rag of clothes. His statue of Cali-
fornia, lately finished, and as naked as Venus, seemed
to me a very good work; not an actual woman, capa-
ble of exciting passion, but evidently a little out of
the category of human nature. In one hand she holds
a divining rod. "She says to the emigrants," observed


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Powers, " Here is the gold, if you choose to take it."
But in her face, and in her eyes, very finely expressed,
there is a look of latent mischief, rather grave than
playful, yet somewhat impish or sprite-like; and, in
the other hand, behind her back, she holds a bunch of
thorns. Powers oalls her eyes Indian. The statue is
true to the present fact and history of California, and
includes the age-long truth as respects the “auri sacra
fames.”
When we had looked sufficiently at the sculpture,
Powers proposed that we should now go across the
street and see the Casa del Bello. We did so in a
body, Powers in his dressing-gown and slippers, and
his wife and daughters without assuming any street
costume.
The Casa del Bello is a palace of three pianos, the
topmost of which is occupied by the Countess of St.
George, an English lady, and two lower pianos are to
be let, and we looked at both. The upper one would
have suited me well enough ; but the lower has a
terrace, with a rustic summer-house over it, and is
connected with a garden, where there are arbors and
a willow-tree, and a little wilderness of shrubbery and
roses, with a fountain in the midst. It has likewise
an immense suite of rooms, round the four sides of a
small court, spacious, lofty, with frescoed ceilings and
rich hangings, and abundantly furnished with arm-
chairs, sofas, marble tables, and great looking-glasses.
Not that these last are a great temptation, but in our
wandering life I wished to be perfectly comfortable
myself, and to make my family so, for just this sum-


1858.]
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ITALY.
mer, and so I have taken the lower piano, the price
being only fifty dollars per month (entirely furnished,
even to silver and linen). Certainly this is something
like the paradise of cheapness we were told of, and
which we vainly sought in Rome. .
To me has been assigned the pleasantest room for
my study; and when I like I can overflow into the
summer-house or an arbor, and sit there dreaming
of a story. The weather is delightful, too warm to
walk, but perfectly fit to do nothing in, in the cool-
ness of these great rooms. Every day I shall write a
little, perhaps, - and probably take a brief nap some-
where between breakfast and tea, but go to see
pictures and statues occasionally, and so assuage and
mollify myself a little after that uncongenial life of
the consulate, and before going back to my own hard
and dusty New England.
After concluding the arrangement for the Casa del
Bello, we stood talking a little while with Powers and
his wife and daughter before the door of the house, for
they seem so far to have adopted the habits of the
Florentines as to feel themselves at home on the
shady side of the street. The out-of-door life and free
communication with the pavement, habitual apparently
among the middle classes, reminds me of the plays of
. Molière and other old dramatists, in which the street
or the square becomes a sort of common parlor, where
most of the talk and scenic business of the people is
carried on.
June 5th. For two or three mornings after break-
fast I have rambled a little about the city till the


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shade grew narrow beneath the walls of the houses,
and the heat made it uncomfortable to be in motion.
To-day I went over the Ponte Carraja, and thence
into and through the heart of the city, looking into
several churches, in all of which I found people taking
advantage of the cool breadth of these sacred interiors
to refresh themselves and
say
their
prayers.
Florence
at first struck me as having the aspect of a very
new city in comparison with Rome; but, on closer
acquaintance, I find that many of the buildings are
antique and massive, though still the clear atmos-
phere, the bright sunshine, the light, cheerful hues
of the stucco, and - as much as anything else, perhaps
the vivacious character of the human life in the
streets, take away the sense of its being an ancient
city. The streets are delightful to walk in after so
many penitential pilgrimages as I have made over
those little square, uneven blocks of the Roman pave-
ment, which wear out the boots and torment the soul.
I absolutely walk on the smooth flags of Florence for
the mere pleasure of walking, and live in its atmos-
phere for the mere pleasure of living; and, warm
as the weather is getting to be, I never feel that
inclination to sink down in a heap and never stir
again, which was my dull torment and misery as long
as I stayed in Rome. I hardly think there can be ile
place in the world where life is more delicious for its
own simple sake than here.
I went to-day into the Baptistery, which stands
near the Duomo, and, like that, is covered externally
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brown and yellow with age. The edifice is octagonal,
and on entering, one immediately thinks of the Pan-
theon, - the whole space within being free from side
to side, with a dome above; but it differs from the
severe simplicity of the former edifice, being elabo-
rately ornamented with marble and frescos, and lack-
ing that great eye in the roof that looks so nobly and
reverently heavenward from the Pantheon. I did lit-
tle more than pass through the Baptistery, glancing
at the famous bronze doors, some perfect and admira-
ble casts of which I had already seen at the Crystal
Palace.
The entrance of the Duomo being just across the
piazza, I went in there after leaving the Baptistery,
and was struck anew for this is the third or fourth
visit - with the dim grandeur of the interior, lighted
as it is almost exclusively by painted windows, which
seem to me worth all the variegated marbles and rich
cabinet-work of St. Peter's. The Florentine Cathe-
dral has a spacious and lofty nave, and side-aisles
divided from it by pillars; but there are no chapels
along the aisles, so that there is far more breadth
and freedom of interior, in proportion to the actual
space, than is usual in churches. It is woful to think
how the vast capaciousness within St. Peter's is
thrown away, and made to seem smaller than it is
by every possible device, as if on purpose. The
pillars and walls of this Duomo are of a uniform
brownish, neutral tint; the pavement, a mosaic work
of marble ; the ceiling of the dome itself is covered
with frescos, which, being very imperfectly lighted, it
13 *


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is impossible to trace out. Indeed, it is but a twilight
region that is enclosed within the firmament of this
great dome, which is actually larger than that of St.
Peter's, though not lifted so high from the pavement.
But looking at the painted windows, I little cared
what dimness there might be elsewhere; for certainly
the art of man has never contrived any other beauty
and glory at all to be compared to this.
The dome sits, as it were, upon three smaller
domes, — smaller, but still great, beneath which are
three vast niches, forming the transepts of the Cathe-
dral and the tribune behind the high altar. All
round these hollow, dome-covered arches or niches,
are high and narrow windows crowded with saints,
angels, and all manner of blessed shapes, that turn
the common daylight into à miracle of richness and
splendor as it passes through their heavenly substance.
And just beneath the swell of the great central dome
is a wreath of circular windows quite round it, as
brilliant as the tall and narrow ones below.
It is a
pity anybody should die without seeing an antique
painted window, with the bright Italian sunshine
glowing through it. This is “the dim, religious
light” that Milton speaks of; but I doubt whether
he saw these windows when he was in Italy, or any
but those faded or dusty and dingy ones of the Eng-
lish cathedrals, else he would have illuminated that
word “dim” with some epithet that should not chase
away the dimness, yet should make it shine like a
million of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes, -
bright in themselves, but dim with tenderness and


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ITALY.
reverence because God himself was shining through
them. I hate what I have said.
All the time that I was in the Cathedral the space
around the high altar, which stands exactly under
the dome, was occupied by priests or acolytes in
white garments, chanting a religious service,
After coming out, I took a view of the edifice from
a corner of the street nearest to the dome, where it
and the smaller domes can be seen at once. It is
greatly more satisfactory than St. Peter's in any view
I ever had of it, --striking in its outline, with a
mystery, yet not a bewilderment, in its masses and
curves and angles, and wrought out with a richness
of detail that gives the eyes new arches, new galleries,
new niches, new pinnacles, new beauties, great and
small, to play with when wearied with the vast whole.
The hue, black and white marbles, like the Baptistery,
turned also yellow and brown, is greatly preferable to
the buff travertine of St. Peter's.
From the Duomo it is but a moderate street's
length to the Piazza del Gran Duca, the principal
square of Florence, It is a very interesting place,
and has on one side the old Governmental Palace,
the Palazzo Vecchio, – where many scenes of historic
interest have been enacted; for example, conspir-
ators have been hanged from its windows, or pre-
cipitated from them upon the pavement of the square
below.
It is a pity that we cannot take as much interest
in the history of these Italian Republics as in that of
England, for the former is much the more picturesque


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and fuller of curious incident. The sobriety of the
Anglo-Saxon race - in connection, too, with their
moral sense keeps them from doing a great many
things that would enliven the page of history; and
their events seem to come in great masses, shoved
along by the agency of many persons, rather than to
result from individual will and character. A hundred
plots for a tragedy might be found in Florentine
history for one in English.
At one corner of the Palazzo Vecchio is a bronze
· equestrian statue of Cosmo di Medici, the first Grand
Duke, very stately and majestic ; there are other
narble statues one of David, by Michael Angelo —
at each side of the palace door; and entering the
court I found a rich antique arcade within, surrounded
by marble pillars, most elaborately carved, support-
ing arches that were covered with faded frescos.
I went no farther, but stepped across a little
space
of
the square to the Loggio di Lanzi, which is broad
and noble, of three vast archés, at the end of which,
I take it, is a rt of the Palazzo Uffizzi fronting on
the piazza. I should call it a portico if it stood
before the palace door; but it seems to have been
constructed merely for itself, and as a shelter for
the people from sun and rain, and to contain some
fine specimens of sculpture, as well antique as of
more modern times. Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus
stands here ; but it did not strike me so much as the
cast of it in the Crystal Palace.
A good many people were under these great arches;
some of whom were reclining, half or quite asleep, on


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ITALY.
the marble seats that are built against the back of the
loggia. A group was reading an edict of the Grand
Duke, which appeared to have been just posted on a
board, at the farther end of it; and I was surprised
at the interest which they ventured to manifest, and
the freedom with which they seemed to discuss it.
A soldier was on guard, and doubtless there were
spies enough to carry every word that was said to
the ear of absolute authority. Glancing myself at the
edict, however, I found it referred only to the further-
ance of a project, got up among the citizens them-
selves, for bringing water into the city; and on such
topics, I suppose there is freedom of discussion.
June 7th. -- Saturday evening we walked with U-
and J into the city, and looked at the exterior of
the Duomo with new admiration. Since my former
view of it, I have noticed -- which, strangely enough,
did not strike me before that the façade is but a
great, bare, ugly space, roughly plastered over, with
the brickwork peeping through it in spots, and a
faint, almost invisible fresco of colors upon it. This
front was once nearly finished with an incrustation of
black and white marble, like the rest of the edifice;
but one of the city magistrates, Benedetto Uguacione,
demolished it, three hundred years ago, with the idea
of building it again in better style. He failed to do
so, and ever since, the magnificence of the great
church has been marred by this unsightly roughness
of what should have been its richest part; nor is
there, I suppose, any hope that it will ever be finished
now.


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The campanile, or bell-tower, stands within a few
paces of the Cathedral, but entirely disconnected from
it, rising to a height of nearly three hundred feet, a
square tower of light marbles, now discolored by
time. It is impossible to give an idea of the richness
of effect produced by its elaborate finish ; the whole
surface of the four sides, from top to bottom, being
decorated with all manner of statuesque and architec-
tural sculpture. It is like a toy of ivory, which some
ingenious and pious monk might have spent his
lifetime in adorning with scriptural designs and
figures of saints; and when it was finished, seeing
it so beautiful, he prayed that it might be mirac-
ulously magnified from the size of one foot to that
of three hundred. This idea somewhat satisfies me,
as conveying an impression how gigantesque the
campanile is in its mass and height, and how minute
and varied in its detail. Surely these mediæval
works have an advantage over the classic. They
combine the telescope and the microscope.
The city was all alive in the summer evening, and
the streets humming with voices. Before the doors
of the cafés were tables, at which people were taking
refreshment, and it went to my heart to see a bottle
of English ale, some of which was poured foaming
into a glass; at least it had exactly the amber hue
and the foam of English bitter ale; but perhaps it
may have been merely a Florentine imitation.
As we returned home over the Arno, crossing the
Ponte di Santa Trinita, we were struck by the beau-
tiful scene of the broad, calm river, with the palaces


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ITALY.
along its shores repeated in it, on either side, and the
neighboring bridges, too, just as perfect in the tide
beneath as in the air above, a city of dream and
shadow so close to the actual one. God has a mean-
ing, no doubt, in putting this spiritual symbol con-
tinually beside us.
Along the river, on both sides, as far as we could
see, there was a row of brilliant lamps, which, in the
far distance, looked like a cornice of golden light; and
this also shone as brightly in the river's depths. The
hues of the evening, in the quarter where the sun had
gone down, were very soft and beautiful, though not
so gorgeous as thousands that I have seen in America.
But I believe I must fairly. confess that the Italian
sky, in the daytime, is bluer and brighter than our
own, and that the atmosphere has a quality of showing
objects to better advantage. It is more than 'mere
daylight; the magic of moonlight is somehow mixed
up with it, although it is so transparent a medium of
light:
Last evening, Mr. Powers called to see us, and sat
down to talk in a friendly and familiar way. I do not
know a man of more facile intercourse, nor with whom
one so easily gets rid of ceremony. His conversation,
too, is interesting. He talked, to begin with, about
Italian food, as poultry, mutton, beef, and their lack
of savoriness as compared with our own; and men-
tioned an exquisite dish of vegetables which they
prepare from squash or pumpkin blossoms; likewise
another dish, which it will be well for us to remember
when we get back to the Wayside, where we are over-


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run with acacias. It consists of the acacia-blossoms
in a certain stage of their development fried in olive-oil.
I shall get the receipt from Mrs. Powers, and mean to
deserve well of my country by first trying it, and then
making it known; only I doubt whether American
lard, or even butter, will produce the dish quite so
delicately as fresh Florence oil.
Meanwhile, I like Powers all the better, because he
does not put his life wholly into marble. We had
much talk, nevertheless, on matters of sculpture, for
he drank a cup of tea with us, and stayed a good
while.
He passed a condemnatory sentence on classic busts
in general, saying that they were conventional, and not
to be depended upon as true representations of the
persons. He particularly excepted none but the bust
of Caracalla ; and, indeed, everybody that has seen this
bust must feel the justice of the exception, and so be
the more inclined to accept his opinion about the rest.
There are not more than half a dozen - - that of Cato
the Censor among the others - in regard to which I
should like to ask his judgment individually. He
seems to think the faculty of making a bust an ex-
tremely rare one. Canova put his own likeness into
all the busts he made. Greenough could not make a
good one; nor Crawford, nor Gibson. Mr. Harte, he
observed, an American sculptor, now a resident in
Florence,- is the best man of the day for making
busts. Of course, it is to be presumed that he excepts
himself; but I would not do Powers the great injustice
to imply that there is the slightest professional jeal-


1858.]
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ITALY.
ousy in his estimate of what others have done, or are
now doing, in his own art. If he saw a better man
than himself, he would recognize him at once, and tell
the world of him; but he knows well enough that, in
this line, there is no better, and probably none so
good. It would not accord with the simplicity of his
character to blink a fact that stands so broadly be-
fore him.
We asked him what he thought of Mr. Gibson's
practice of coloring his statues, and he quietly and
slyly said that he himself had made wax figures in
his earlier days, but had left off making them now.
In short, he objected to the practice wholly, and said
that a letter of his on the subject had been published
in the London “Athenæum," and had given great offence
to some of Mr. Gibson's friends. It appeared to me,
however, that his arguments did not apply quite
fairly to the case, for he seems to think Gibson aims
at producing an illusion of life in the statue, whereas
I think his object is merely to give warmth and
softness to the snowy marble, and so bring it a little
nearer to our hearts and sympathies. Even so far,
nevertheless, I doubt whether the practice is de-
fensible, and I was glad to see that Powers scorned,
at all events, the argument drawn from the use of
color by the antique sculptors, on which Gibson
relies so much. It might almost be implied, from
the contemptuous way in which Powers spoke of
color, that he considers it an impertinence on the
face of visible nature, and would rather the world
had been made without it; for he said that every-
1


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thing in intellect or feeling can be expressed as per-
fectly, or more so, by the sculptor in colorless
marble, as by the painter with all the resources of
his palette. I asked him whether he could model
the face of Beatrice Cenei from Guido's picture so ás
to retain the subtle expression, and he said he could,
for that the expression depended entirely on the
drawing, “the picture being a badly colored thing."
I inquired whether he could model a blush, and he
said “Yes”; and that he had once proposed to an
artist to express a blush in marble, if he would ex-
press it in picture. On consideration, I believe one
to be as impossible as the other; the life and reality
of the blush being in its tremulousness, coming and
going. It is lost in a settled red just as much as in a
settled paleness, and neither the sculptor nor painter
can do more than represent the circumstances of
attitude and expression that accompany the blush.
There was a great deal of truth in what Powers said
about this matter of color, and in one of our inter-
minable New England winters it ought to comfort
us to think how little necessity there is for any
hue
but that of the snow.
Mr. Powers, nevertheless, had brought us a bunch
of beautiful roses, and seemed as capable of appre-
ciating their delicate blush as we were. The best
thing he said against the use of color in marble
was to the effect that the whiteness removed the ob-
ject represented into a sort of spiritual region, and so
gave chaste permission to those nudities which would
otủerwise suggest immodesty. I have myself felt the
7


1858.]
307
ITALY.
truth of this in a certain sense of shame as I looked
at Gibson's tinted Venus.
He took his leave at about eight o'olock, being to
make a call on the Bryants, who are at the Hôtel de
New York, and also on Mrs. Browning, at Casa
Guidi.
END OF VOL. I.









TUBE
Sec page 215.


PASSAGES
FROM
THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN
NOTE-BOOKS
VOL. II.





PASSAGES
FROM
HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS IN FRANCE
AND ITALY.
FLORENCE
continued.
June 8th. — I went this morning to the Uffizzi
gallery. The entrance is from the great court of the
palace, which communicates with Lung' Arno at one
end, and with the Grand Ducal Piazza at the other.
The gallery is in the upper story of the palace, and
in the vestibule are some busts of the princes and
cardinals of the Medici family, none of them beau-
tiful, one or two so ugly as to be ludicrous, especially
one who is all but buried in his own wig. I at first
travelled slowly through the whole extent of this
long, long gallery, which occupies the entire length
of the palace on both sides of the court, and is full
of sculpture and pictures. The latter, being opposite
to the light, are not seen to the best advantage ; but
it is the most perfect collection, in a chronological
series, that I have seen, comprehending specimens of
all the masters since painting began to be an art.
Here are Giotto, and Cimabue, and Botticelli, and
Fra Angelico, and Filippo Lippi, and a hundred
VOL. II.
1


2
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others, who have haunted me in churches and gal-
leries ever since I have been in Italy, and who ought
to interest me a great deal more than they do. Occa-
sionally to-day I was sensible of a certain degree of
emotion in looking at an old picture; as, for example,
by a large, dark, ugly picture of Christ bearing the
cross and sinking beneath it, when, somehow or other,
a sense of his agony and the fearful wrong that man-
kind did (and does) its Redeemer, and the scorn of his
enemies, and the sorrow of those who loved him, came
knocking at my heart and got entrance there. Once
more I deem it a pity that Protestantism should have
entirely laid aside this mode of appealing to the re-
ligious sentiment.
I chiefly paid attention to the sculpture, and was
interested in a long series of busts of the emperors
and the members of their families, and some of the
great men of Rome. There is a bust of Pompey the
Great, bearing not the slightest resemblance to that
vulgar and unintellectual one in the gallery of the
Capitol, altogether a different cast of countenance.
I could not judge whether it resembled the face of
the statue, having seen the latter so imperfectly in
the duskiness of the hall of the Spada Palace. These,
I presume, are the busts which Mr. Powers con-
demns, from internal evidence, as unreliable and
conventional. He may be right,
and is far more
likely, of course, to be right than I am, — yet there
certainly seems to be character in these marble faces,
and they differ as much among themselves as the
same number of living faces might. The bust of


1858.]
3
ITALY.
Caracalla, however, which Powers excepted from his
censure, certainly does give stronger assurance of its
being an individual and faithful portrait than any
other in the series. All the busts of Caracalla - of
which I have seen many — give the same evidence of
their truth; and I should like to know what it was
in this abominable emperor that made him insist
upon having his actual likeness perpetrated, with
all the ugliness of its animal and moral character. I
rather respect him for it, and still more the sculptor,
whose hand, methinks, must have trembled as he
wrought the bust. Generally these wicked old fel-
lows, and their wicked wives and daughters, are not
so hideous as we might expect. Messalina, for in-
stance, has small and pretty features, though with
rather a sensual development of the lower part of the
face. The busts, it seemed to me, are usually superior
as works of art to those in the Capitol, and either
better preserved or more thoroughly restored. The
bust of Nero might almost be called handsome here,
though bearing his likeness unmistakably.
I wish some competent person would undertake to
analyze and develop his character, and how and by
what necessity — with all his elegant tastes, his love
of the beautiful, his artist nature he
grew to be such
a monster. Nero has never yet had justice done him,
nor have any of the wicked emperors; not that I
suppose them to have been any less monstrous than
history represents them; but there must surely have
been something in their position and circumstances
to render the terrible moral disease which seized upon


4
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
them so generally almost inevitable. A wise and
profound man, tender and reverent of the human
soul, and capable of appreciating it in its height and
depth, has a great field here for the exercise of his
powers. It has struck me, in reading the history of
the Italian republics, that many of the tyrants, who
sprung up after the destruction of their liberties,
resembled the worst of the Roman emperors. The
subject of Nero and his brethren has often perplexed
me with vain desires to come at the truth.
There were many beautiful specimens of antique,
ideal sculpture all along the gallery, -- Apollos, Bac-
chuses, Venuises, Mercurys, Fauns, - with the general
character of all of which I was familiar enough to
recognize them at a glance. The mystery and wonder
of the gallery, however, the Venus di Medici, I
could nowhere see, and indeed was almost afraid to
see it; for I somewhat apprehended the extinction of
another of those lights that shine along a man's
pathway, and go out in a snuff the instant he comes
within eyeshot of the fulfilment of his hopes. My
European experience has extinguished many such.
I was pretty well contented, therefore, not to find the
famous statue in the whole of my long journey from
end to end of the gallery, which terminates on the
opposite side of the court from that where it com-
The ceiling, by the by, through the entire
length, is covered with frescos, and the floor paved
with a composition of stone smooth and polished like
marble. The final piece of sculpture, at the end of
the gallery, is a copy of the Laocoon, considered very
mences.


1858.]
ITALY.
a
fine. I know not: why, but it did not impress me
with the sense of mighty and terrible repose
repose growing out of the infinitude of trouble that
I had felt in the original.
Parallel with the gallery, on both sides of the
palace-court, there runs a series of rooms devoted
chiefly to pictures, although statues and bas-reliefs are
likewise contained in some of them. . I remember an
unfinished bas-relief by Michael Angelo of a Holy Fam-
ily, which I touched with my finger, because it seemed
as if he might bave been at work upon it only an hour
ago. The pictures I did little more than glance at,
till I had almost completed again the circuit of the
gallery, through this series of parallel rooms, and then
I came upon a collection of French and Dutch and
Flemish masters, all of which interested me more than
the Italian generally. There was a beautiful picture
by Claude, almost as good as those in the British
National Gallery, and very like in subject; the sun
near the horizon, of course, and throwing its line of
light over the ripple of water, with ships at the strand,
and one of two palaces of stately architecture on the
shore. Landscapes by Rembrandt ; fat Graces and
other plump nudities by Rubens; brass pans and
earthen pots and herrings by Teniers and other
Dutchmen; none by Gerard Dow, I think, but several
by Mieris; all of which were like bread and beef and
ale, after having been fed too long on made dishes.
This is really a wonderful collection of pictures; and
from first to last - from Giotto to the men of yester-
day - they are in admirable condition, and may be


6
(1858.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
appreciated for all the merit that they ever pos-
sessed.
I could not quite believe that I was not to find the
Venus di Medici ; and still, as I passed from one room
to another, my breath rose and fell a little, with the
half-hope, half-fear, that she might stand before me.
Really, I did not know that I cared so much about
Venus, or any possible woman of marble. At last,
when I had come from among the Dutchmen, I believe,
and was looking at some works of Italian artists, chiefly
Florentines, I caught a glimpse of her through the
door of the next room. It is the best room of the
series, octagonal in shape, and hung with red damask,
and the light comes down from a row of windows,
passing quite round, beneath an octagonal dome. The
Venus stands somewhat aside from the centre of the
room, and is surrounded by an iron railing, a pace or
two from her pedestal in front, and less behind. I
think she might safely be left to the reverence her
womanhood would win, without any other protection.
She is very beautiful, very satisfactory; and has a
fresh and new charm about her unreached by any cast
or copy
The hué of the marble is just so much
mellowed by time, as to do for her all that Gibson
tries, or ought to try to do for his statues by color,
softening her, warming her almost imperceptibly,
making her an inmate of the heart, as well as a
spiritual existence. I felt a kind of tenderness for
her ; an affection, not as if she were one woman, but
all womanhood in one. Her modest attitude, which,
before I saw her I had not liked, deeming that it


1858.)
7
ITALY.
woman.
might be an artificial shame, is partly what unmakes
her as the heathen goddess, and softens her into
There is a slight degree of alarm, too, in
her face; not that she really thinks anybody is look-
ing at her, yet the idea has fitted through her mind,
and startled her a little. Her face is so beautiful and
intellectual, that it is not dazzled out of sight by her
form. Methinks this was a triumph for the sculptor
to achieve. I may as well stop here. It is of no use
to throw heaps of words upon her; for they all fall
away, and leave her standing in chaste and naked
grace, as untouched as when I began.
She has suffered terribly by the mishaps of her long
existence in the marble. Each of her legs has been
broken into two or three fragments, her arms have
been severed, her body has been broken quite across
at the waist, her head has been snapped off at the
neck. Furthermore, there have been grievous wounds
and losses of substance in various tender parts of her
person.
But on account of the skill with which the
statue has been restored, and also because the idea is
perfect and indestructible, all these injuries do not in
the least impair the effect, even when you see where the
dissevered fragments have been reunited. She is just
as whole as when she left the hands of the sculptor.
I am glad to have seen this Venus, and to have found
her só tender and so chaste. On the wall of the room,
and to be taken in at the same glance, is a painted Venus
by Titian, reclining on a couch, naked and lustful.
The room of the Venus seems to be the treasure-
place of the whole Uffizzi Palace, containing more


8
[1858
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS,
pictures by famous masters than are to be found in
all the rest of the gallery. There were several by
Raphael, and the room was crowded with the easels
of artists. I did not look half enough at anything,
but merely took a preliminary taste, as a prophecy of
enjoyment to come.
As we were at dinner to-day, at half past three,
there was a ring at the door, and a minute after our
servant brought a card. It was Mr. Robert Brown-
ing's, and on it was written in pencil an invitation
for us to go to see them this evening. He had left
the card and gone away; but very soon the bell
rang again, and he had come back, having forgotten
to give his address. This time he came in ; and he
shook hands with all of us, children and grown
people, and was very vivacious and agroeable. He
looked younger and even handsomer than when I
saw him in London, two years ago, and his gray
hairs seemed fewer than those that had then strayed
into his youthful head. He talked wonderful
quantity in a little time, and told us - among other
things that we should never have dreamed of that
Italian people will not cheat you, if you construe
them generously, and put them upon their honor.
Mr. Browning was very kind and warm in his
expressions of pleasure at seeing us; and, on our
part, we were all very glad to meet him. He must
be an exceedingly likeable man. . . They are to
leave Florence very soon, and are going to Nor-
mandy, I think he said, for the rest of the summer.
The Venus di Medici has a dimple in her chin.


1858.]
9
ITALY.
« Casa
June 9th. We went last evening, at eight o'clock,
to see the Brownings; and, after some search and
inquiry, we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace
in a street not very far from our own. It being dusk,
I could not see the exterior, which, if I remember,
Browning has celebrated in song; at all events,
Mrs. Browning has called one of her poems
Guidi Windows."
The street is a narrow one ; but on entering the
palace, we found a spacious staircase and ample
accommodations of vestibule and hall, the latter
opening on a balcony, where we could hear the
chanting of priests in a church close by. Browning
told us that this was the first church where an
oratorio had ever been performed. He came into
the anteroom to greet us, as did his little boy,
Robert, whom they call Pennini for fondness. The
latter cognomen
a diminutive of Apennino, which
was bestowed upon him at his first advent into the
world because he was so very small, there being
a statue in Florence of colossal size called Apennino.
I never saw such a boy as this before ; so slender,
fragile, and spirit-like, — not as if he were actually in
ill health, but as if he had little or nothing to do
with human flesh and bload. His face is very pretty
and most intelligent, and exceedingly like his
mother's. He is nine years old, and seems at once
less childlike and less manly than would befit that
age. I should not quite like to be the father of such
a boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and
affection on him as he cannot fail to inspire. I wonder
? *


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what is to become of him, -- whether he will ever grow
to be a man,
whether it is desirable that he should.
His parents ought to turn their whole attention to
making him robust and earthly, and to giving him a
thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in.
He was
born in Florence, and prides himself on being a
Florentine, and is indeed as un-English a produc-
tion as if he were native of another planet.
Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing-
room, and greeted us most kindly, a pale, small
person, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate, only
substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers
to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet,
tenuity of voice. Really, I do not see how Mr.
Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife
any more than an earthly child ; both are of the
elfin race, and will flit away from him some day
when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind
fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards the
human race, although only remotely akin to it. It
is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her
cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is
not such another figure in the world; and her black
ringlets cluster down into her neck, and make her
face look the whiter by their sable profusion.
could not form any judgment about her age; it
may range anywhere within the limits of human
life or elfin life. When I met her in London at
Lord Houghton's breakfast-table, she did not impress
me so singularly; for the morning light is more prosaic
than the dim illumination of their great tapestried
honey


1858.]
11
ITALY.
drawing-room; and besides, sitting next to her, she
did not have occasion to raise her voice in speaking,
and I was not sensible what a slender voice she has.
It is marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute,
so sensitive a creature can impress us, as she does,
with the certainty of her benevolence. It seems to
me there were a million chances to one that she
would have been a miracle of acidity and bitterness.
We were not the only guests. Mr. and Mrs.
E-Americans, recently from the East, and on
intimate terms with the Brownings, arrived after
us; also Miss F. H4, an English literary lady,
whom I have met several times in Liverpool; and
lastly came the white head and palmer-like beard of
Mr. with his daughter. Mr. Browning was
very efficient in keeping up conversation with every-
body, and seemed to be in all parts of the room and
in every group at the same moment; a most vivid
and quick-thoughted person, logical and common-
sensible, as, I presume, poets generally are in their
daily talk.
Mr.
-, as usual, was homely and
plain of manner, with an old-fashioned dignity,
nevertheless, and a remarkable deference and gentle-
ness of tone in addressing Mrs. Browning. I doubt,
however, whether he has any high appreciation
either of her poetry or her husband's, and it is my
impression that they care as little about his.
We had some tea and some strawberries, and
påssed a pleasant evening. There was no very note-
worthy conversation; the most interesting topic
being that disagreeable and now wearisome one of


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spiritual communications, as regards which Mrs.
Browning is a believer, and her husband an infidel.
Mr. appeared not to have made up his mind on
the matter, but told a story of a successful communi-
cation between Cooper the novelist and his sister,
who had been dead fifty years. Browning and his
wife had both been present at a spiritual session held
by Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly
hands, one of which had placed a laurel wreath on
Mrs. Browning's head. Browning, however, avowed
his belief that these hands were affixed to the feet of
Mr. Hume, who lay extended in his chair, with his legs
stretched far under the table. The marvellousness of
the fact, as I have read of it, and heard it from other
eye-witnesses, melted strangely away in his hearty
gripe, and at the sharp touch of his logic; while his
wife, ever and anon, put in a little gentle word of
expostulation.
I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation
should be so clear, and so much to the purpose at the
moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed far
without running into the high grass of latent mean-
ings and obscure allusions.
Mrs. Browning's health does not permit late hours,
so we began to take leave at about ten o'clock. I
heard her ask Mr. if he did not mean to revisit
Europe, and heard him answer, not uncheerfully, taking
hold of his white hair, “ It is getting rather too late in
the evening now.” If any old age can be cheerful, I
should think his might be; so good a man, so cool,
80 calm, so bright, too, we may say. His life has


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ITALY.
been like the days that end in pleasant sunsets. He
has a great loss, however, or what ought to be a
great loss, soon to be encountered in the death of
his wife, who, I think, can hardly live to reach
America. He is not eminently an affectionate man.
I take him to be one who cannot get closely home to
his sorrow, nor feel it so sensibly as he gladly would;
and, in consequence of that deficiency, the world
lacks substance to him. It is partly the result, per-
haps, of his not having sufficiently cultivated his
emotional nature. His poetry shows it, and his per-
sonal intercourse, though kindly, does not stir one's
blood in the least. .
Little Pennini, during the evening, sometimes
helped the guests to cake and strawberries; joined
in the conversation, when he had anything to say, or
sat down upon a couch to enjoy his own meditations.
He has long curling hair, and has not yet emerged
from his frock and short hose. It is funny to think
of putting him into trousers. His likeness to his
mother is strange to behold.
June 10th. - My wife and I went to the Pitti Palace
to-day; and first entered a court where, yesterday,
she had seen a carpet of flowers, arranged for some
great ceremony. It must have been a most beautiful
sight, the pavement of the court being entirely covered
by them, in a regular pattern of brilliant hues, so as
really to be a living mosaic. This morning, however,
the court had nothing but its usual stones, and the
show of yesterday seemed so much the more ines-
timable as having been so evanescent.
Around the


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walls of the court there were still some pieces of
splendid tapestry which had made part of yesterday's
magnificence. We went up the staircase, of regally
broad and easy ascent, and made application to be
admitted to see the grand ducal apartments. An
attendant accordingly took the keys, and ushered us
first into a great hall with a vaulted ceiling, and then
through a series
with rich frescos
above and mosaic floors, hung with damask, adorned
with gilded chandeliers, and glowing, in short, with
more gorgeousness than I could have imagined
beforehand, or can now remember. In many of the
rooms were those superb antique cabinets which I
admire more than any other furniture ever invented ;
only these were of unexampled art and glory, inlaid
with precious stones, and with beautiful Florentine
mosaics, both of flowers and landscapes, — each cabinet
worth a lifetime's toil to make it, and the cost a whole
palace to pay for it. Many of the rooms were covered
with arras, of landscapes, hunting-scenes, mytho-
logical subjects, or historical scenes, equal to pictures
in truth of representation, and possessing an in-
describable richness that makes them preferable as
a mere adornment of princely halls and chambers.
Some of the rooms, as I have said, were laid in
mosaic of stone and marble, otherwise in lovely
patterns of various woods; others were covered with
carpets, delightful to tread upon, and glowing like
the living floor of flowers which my wife saw yester-
day. There were tables, too, of Florentine mosaic,
the mere materials of which — lapis lazuli, malachite,


1858.]
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ITALY.
pearl, and a hundred other precious things --- were
worth a fortune, and made a thousand times more
valuable by the artistic skill of the manufacturer. I
toss together brilliant words by the handful, and
make a rude sort of patchwork, but can record no
adequate idea of what I saw in this suite of rooms;
and the taste, the subdued splendor, so that it did
not shine too high, but was all tempered into an
effect at once grand and soft, — this was quite as re-
markable as the gorgeous material. I have seen a
very dazzling effect produced in the principal cabin
of an American clipper-ship quite opposed to this in
taste.
After making the circuit of the grand ducal apart-
ments, we went into a door in the left wing of the
palace, and ascended a narrow flight of stairs,
several tortuous flights indeed, to the picture-gal-
lery. It fills a great many stately halls, which them-
selves are well worth a visit for the architecture and
frescos; only these matters become commonplace
after travelling through a mile or two of them. The
collection of pictures as well for their number as
for the celebrity and excellence of many of them
is the most interesting that I have seen, and I do not
yet feel in a condition, nor perhaps ever shall, to
speak of a single one. It gladdened my very heart
to find that they were not darkened out of sight, nor
apparently at all injured by time, but were well
kept and varnished, brilliantly framed, and, no doubt,
restored by skilful touches if any of them needed it.
The artists and amateurs may say what they like ;


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-
for my part, I know no drearier feeling than that
inspired by a ruined picture, - ruined, that is, by time,
damp, or rough treatment, and I would a thousand
times rather an artist should do his best towards
reviving it, than have it left in such a condition. I
do not believe, however, that these pictures have
been sacrilegiously interfered with ; at all events, I
saw in the masterpieces no touch but what seemed
worthy of the master-hand.
The most beautiful picture in the world, I am con-
vinced, is Raphael's “ Madonna della Seggiola.” I was
familiar with it in a hundred engravings and copies,
and therefore it shone upon me as with a familiar
beauty, though infinitely more divine than I had ever
seen it before.
An artist was copying it, and pro-
ducing certainly something very like a fac-simile, yet
leaving out, as a matter of course, that mysterious
something that renders the picture a miracle. It is
my present opinion that the pictorial art is capable
of something more like magic, more wonderful and
inscrutable in its methods, than poetry or any other
mode of developing the beautiful. But how does
this accord with what I have been saying only a
minute ago ? How then can the decayed picture of a
great master ever be restored by the touches of an
inferior hand ? Doubtless it never can be restored ;
but let some devoted worshipper do his utmost, and
the whole inherent spirit of the divine picture may
pervade his restorations likewise.
I saw the “ Three Fates ” of Michael Angelo, which
were also being copied, as were many other of the


1858.]
17
ITALY.
best pictures. Miss Fanny Howorth, whom I met
in the gallery, told me that to copy the “Madonna
della Seggiola," application must be made five years
beforehand, so many are the artists who aspire to copy
it. Michael Angelo's Fates are three very grim
and pitiless old women, who respectively spin, hold,
and cut the thread of human destiny, all in a mood
of sombre gloom, but with no more sympathy than
if they had nothing to do with us.
I remember seeing
an etching of this when I was a child, and being
struck, even then, with the terrible, stern, passionless
severity, neither loving us nor hating us, that charac-
terizes these ugly old women. If they were angry,
or bad the least spite against human kind, it would
render them the more tolerable. They are a great
work, containing and representing the very idea that
makes a belief in fate such a cold torture to the
human soul. God give me the sure belief in his
Providence !
In a year's time, with the advantage of access to
this magnificent gallery, I think I might come to
have some little knowledge of pictures. At present
I still know nothing ; but am glad to find myself
capable, at least, of loving one picture better than
another. I cannot always " keep the heights I gain,"
however, and after admiring and being moved by a
picture one day, it is within my experience to look
at it the next as little moved as if it were a tavern-
sign. It is pretty much the same with statuary ; the
same, too, with those pictured windows of the Duomo,
which I described so rapturously a few days ago. I
B


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looked at them again the next morning, and thought
they would have been hardly worthy of my eulogium,
even had all the separate windows of the Cathedral
combined their narrow lights into one grand, re-
splendent, many-colored arch at the eastern end.
It is a pity they are so narrow. England has many
å great chancel-window that, though dimmer in its
hues, dusty, and perhaps made up of heterogeneous
fragments, eclipses these by its spacious breadth.
From the gallery, I went into the Bololi Gardens,
which are contiguous to the palace ; but found them
too sunny for enjoyment. They seem to consist partly
of a wilderness; but the portion into which I strayed
was laid out with straight walks, lined with high þox-
hedges, along which there was only a narrow margin
of shade. I saw an amphitheatre, with a wide sweep
of marble seat around it, enclosing a grassy space,
where, doubtless, the Medici may have witnessed
splendid spectacles.
June 1lth. I paid another visit to the Uffizzi
gallery this morning, and found that the Venus is one
of the things the charm of which does not diminish on
better acquaintance. The world has not grown weary
of her in all these ages ; and mortal man may look on
her with new delight from infancy to old age, and
keep the memory of her, I should imagine, as one of
the treasures of spiritual existence hereafter. Surely,
it makes me more ready to believe in the high des-
tinies of the human race, to think that this beautiful
form is but nature's plan for all womankind, and that
the nearer the actual woman approaches it, the more


1858.1
19
ITALY.
natural she is. I do not, and cannot think of her as a
senseless image, but as a being that lives to gladden
the world, incapable of decay and death ; as young
and fair to-day as she was three thousand years ago,
and still to be young and fair as long as a beautiful
thought shall require physical embodiment. I wonder
how any sculptor has had the impertinence to aim at
any other presentation of female beauty. I mean no
disrespect to Gibson or Powers, or a hundred other
men who people the world with nudities, all of which
are abortions as compared with her ; but I think the
world would be all the richer if their Venuses, their
Greek Slaves, their Eves, were burnt into quicklime,
leaving us only this statue as our image of the beauti-
ful. I observed to-day that the eyes of the statue are
slightly hollowed out, in a peculiar way, so as to give
them a look of depth and intelligence. She is a
miracle. The sculptor must have wrought religiously,
and have felt that something far beyond his own skill
was working through his hands. I mean to leave off
speaking of the Venus hereafter, in utter despair of
saying what I wish ; especially as the contemplation
of the statue will refine and elevate my taste, and
make it continually more difficult to express my sense
of its excellence, as the perception of it grows upon
If at any time I become less sensible of it, it
will be my deterioration, not any defect in the statue.
I looked at many of the pictures, and found myself
in a favorable mood for enjoying them. It seems to
me that a work of art is entitled to credit for all that
it makes us feel in our best moments; and we must
me.


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judge of its merits by the impression it then makes,
and not by the coldness and insensibility of our less
genial moods.
After leaving the Uffizzi Palace, .. I went into
the Museum of Natural History, near the Pitti Palace,
It is a very good collection of almost everything that
Nature has made, ----or exquisite copies of what she has
made, stones, shells, vegetables, insects, fishes, ani-
mals, man; the greatest wonders of the museum being
some models in wax of all parts of the human frame.
It is good to have the wholeness and summed-up
beauty of woman in the memory, when looking at the
details of her system as here displayed ; for these last,
to the natural eye, are by no means beautiful. But
they are what belong only to our mortality.
The
beauty that makes them invisible is our immortal
type, which we shall take away with us: Under glass
cases, there were some singular and horribly truthful
representations, in small wax figures, of a time of
pestilence; the hasty burial, or tossing into one
common sepulchre, of discolored corpses, - a very ug-
ly piece of work, indeed. I think Murray says that
these things were made for the Grand Duke Cosmo;
and if so, they do him no credit, indicating something
dark and morbid in his character.
June 13th. We called at the Powers's yesterday
morning to leave R—there for an hour or two to play
with the children ; and it being not yet quite time for
the Pitti Palace, we stepped into the studio. Soon
Mr. Powers made his appearance, in his dressing-gown
and slippers and sculptor's cap, smoking a cigar. ...


1858]
21
ITALY.
He was very cordial and pleasant, as I have always
found him, and began immediately to be communica-
tive about his own works, or any other subject that
came up, There were two casts of the Venus di
Medici in the rooms, which he said were valuable in a
commercial point of view, being genuine casts from
the mould taken from the statue.
He then gave us a
quite unexpected but most interesting lecture on the
Venus, demonstrating it, as he proceeded, by reference
to the points which he criticised. The figure, he
seemed to allow, was admirable, though I think he
hardly classes it so high as his own Greek Slave or
Eva; but the face, he began with saying, was that of
an idiot. Then, leaning on the pedestal of the cast,
he continued, “It is rather a bold thing to say, is n't
it, that the sculptor of the Venus di Medici did not
know what he was about?”
Truly, it appeared to me so; but Powers went on
remorselessly, and showed, in the first place, that the
eye was not like any eye that Nature ever made ;
and, indeed, being examined closely, and abstracted
from the rest of the face, it has a very queer look, -
less like a human eye than a half-worn buttonhole !
Then he attacked the ear, which, he affirmed and
demonstrated, was placed a good deal too low on the
head, thereby giving an artificial and monstrous
height to the portion of the head above it. The fore-
head met with no better treatment in his hands, and
as to the mouth, it was altogether wrong, as well in
its general make as in such niceties as the junction of
the skin of the lips to the common skin around them.


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not urge
In a word, the poor face was battered all to pieces and
utterly demolished ; nor was it possible to doubt or
question that it fell by its own demerits. All that
could be urged in its defence and even that I did
- being that this very face had affected me,
only the day before, with a sense of higher beauty
and intelligence than I had ever then received from
sculpture, and that its expression seemed to accord
with that of the whole figure, as if it were the sweetest
note of the same music. There must be something
in this; the sculptor disregarded technicalities, and
the imitation of actual nature, the better to produce
the effect which he really does produce, in somewhat
the same way as a painter works his magical illusions
by touches that have no relation to the truth if looked
at from the wrong point of view. But Powers con-
siders it certain that the antique sculptor had be-
stowed all his care on the study of the human figure,
and really did not know how to make a face. I
myself used to think that the face was a much less
important thing with the Greeks, among whom the
entire beauty of the form was familiarly seen, than
with ourselves, who allow no other nudity.
After annihilating the poor visage, Powers showed
us his two busts of Proserpine and Psyche, and con-
tinued his lecture by showing the truth to nature
with which these are modelled. I freely acknowledge
the fact; there is no sort of comparison to be made
between the beauty, intelligence, feeling, and ac-
curacy of representation in these two faces and in
that of the Venus di Medici. A light — the light


1858. ]
23
ITALY.
seems
of a soul proper to each individual character
to shine from the interior of the marble, and beam
forth from the features, chiefly from the eyes. Still
insisting upon the eye, and hitting the poor Venus
another and another and still another blow on that
unhappy feature, Mr. Powers turned up and turned
inward and turned outward his own Titanic orb,
the biggest, by far, that ever I saw in mortal head,
and made us see and confess that there was nothing
right in the Venus and everything right in Psyche
and Proserpine. To say the truth, their marble eyes
have life, and, placing yourself in the proper position
towards them, you can meet their glances, and feel
them mingle with your own.
Powers is a great man,
and also a tender and delicate one, massive and rude
of surface as he looks; and it is rather absurd to feel
bow he impressed his auditor, for the time being,
with his own evident idea that nobody else is worthy
to touch marble. Mr. B told me that Powers
has had many difficulties on professional grounds, as
I understood him, and with his brother artists. No
wonder! He has said enough in my hearing to put
him at swords' points with sculptors of every epoch
and every degree between the two inclusive extremes
of Phidias and Clarke Mills.
He has a bust of the reigning Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, who sat to him for it. The bust is that of
a noble-looking lady; and Powers remarked that
royal personages have a certain look that distin-
guishes them from other people; and is seen in
individuals of no lower rank. They all have it; the


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Queen of England and Prince Albert have it; and
so likewise has every other Royalty, although the
possession of this kingly look implies nothing what-
ever as respects kingly and commanding qualities.
He said that none of our public men, whatever
authority they may have held, or for whatever length
of time, possess this look, but he added afterwards
that Washington had it. Commanders of armies
sometimes have it, but not in the degree that royal
personages do.
It is, as well as I could make out
Powers's idea, a certain coldness of demeanor, and
especially of eye, that surrounds them with an at-
mosphere through which the electricity of human
brotherhood cannot pass. From their youth upward
they are taught to feel themselves apart from the
rest of mankind, and this manner becomes a second
nature to them in consequence, and as a safeguard
to their coriventional dignity. They put themselves
under glass, as it were (the illustration is my own),
so that, though you see them, and see them looking
no more noble and dignified than other mortals, nor
so much so as many, still they keep themselves within
à sort of sanctity, and repel you by an invisible bar-
rier. Even if they invite you with a show of warmth
and hospitality, you cannot get through. I, too,
recognize this look in the portraits of Washington ;
in him, à mild, benevolent coldness and apartness, but
indicating that forniality which seems to have been
deeper in him thau in any other mortal, and which
built up an actual fortification between himself and
human sympathy. I wish; for once, Washington could


1858.]
25
ITALY.
come out of his envelopment and show us what his
real dimensions were.
Among other models of statues heretofore made,
Powers showed us one of Melancholy, or rather of
Contemplation, from Milton's "Penseroso”; a female
figure with uplifted face and rapt look, “communing
with the skies.” It is very fine, and goes deeply into
Milton's thought ; but, as far as the outward form
and action are concerned, I remember seeing a rude
engraving in my childhood that probably suggested
the idea. It was prefixed to a cheap American edi-
tion of Milton's poems, and was probably as familiar
to Powers as to myself. It is very remarkable how
difficult it seems to be to strike out a new attitude in
sculpture ; a new group, or a new single figure.
One piece of sculpture Powers exhibited, however,
which was very exquisite, and such as I never saw
before. Opening a desk, he took out something care-
fully enclosed between two layers of cotton wool, on
removing which there appeared a little baby's hand
most delicately represented in the whitest marble ;
all the dimples where the knuckles were to be, all
the creases in the plump flesh, every infantine wrinkle
of the soft skin being lovingly recorded. “The critics
condemn minute representation," said Powers; "but
you may look at this through a microscope and see
if it injures the general effect." Nature herself never
made a prettier or truer little hand. It was the hand
of his daughter, -"Luly's hand," Powers called it, --
the same that gave my own such a frank and friendly
grasp when I first met " Luly.” The sculptor made
2
VOL. II.


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it only for himself and his wife, but so many people,
he said, had insisted on having a copy, that there are
now forty scattered about the world. At sixty years,
Luly ought to have her hand sculptured again, and
give it to her grandchildren with the baby's hand of
five months old. The baby-hand that had done noth-
ing, and felt only its mother's kiss; the old lady's
hand that had exchanged the love-pressure, worn the
marriage-ring, closed dead eyes, - done a lifetime's
work, in short. The sentiment is rather obvious, but
true nevertheless,
Before we went away, Powers took us into a room
apart - apparently the secretest room he had and
showed us some tools, and machinery, all of his own
contrivance and invention. “ You see I am a bit of a
Yankee," he observed.
This machinery is chiefly to facilitate the process of
modelling his works, for- except in portrait-busts
he makes no clay model as other sculptors do, but
models directly in the plaster ; so that instead of be-
ing crumbled, like clay, the original model remains a
permanent possession. He has also invented a certain
open file, which is of great use in finishing the surface
of the marble ; and likewise a machine for making
these files and for punching holes through iron, and
he demonstrated its efficiency by punching a hole
through an iron bar, with a force equivalent to ten
thousand pounds, by the mere application of a part of
his own weight. These inventions, he says, are his
amusement, and the bent of his nature towards sculp-
ture must indeed have been strong, to counteract, in


1858.)
27
ITALY
ence.
an American, such a capacity for the contrivance of
steam-engines.
I had no idea of filling so many pages of this jour-
nal with the sayings and characteristics of Mr. Powers,
but the man and his talk are fresh, original, and full
of bone and muscle, and I enjoy him much.
We now proceeded to the Pitti Palace, and spent
several hours pleasantly in its saloons of pictures. I
never enjoyed pictures anywhere else as I do in Flor-
There is an admirable Judith in this gallery
by Allori ; a face of great beauty and depth, and her
hand clutches the head of Holofernes by the hair in a
way that startles the spectator. There are two peas-
ant Madonnas by Murillo; simple women, yet with a
thoughtful sense of some high mystery connected with
the baby in their arms.
Raphael grows upon me; several other famous
painters Guido, for instance - are fading out of my
mind. Salvator Rosa has two really wonderful land-
scapes, looking from the shore seaward ; and Rubens
too, likewise on a large scale, of mountain and plain.
It is very idle and foolish to talk of pictures ; yet,
after poring over them and into them, it seems a pity
to let all the thought excited by them pass into noth-
ingness.
The copyists of pictures are very numerous, both in
the Pitti and Uffizzi galleries; and, unlike sculptors,
they appear to be on the best of terms with one an-
other, chatting sociably, exchanging friendly criticism,
and giving their opinions as to the best mode of at-
taining the desired effects. Perhaps, as mere copy-


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ists, they escape the jealousy that might spring up
between rival painters attempting to develop original
ideas. Miss Howorth says that the business of copy-
ing pictures, especially those of Raphael, is a regular
profession, and she thinks it exceedingly obstructive
to the progress or existence of a modern school of
painting, there being a regular demand and sure sale
for all copies of the old masters, at prices proportioned
to their merit ; whereas the effort to be original in.
sures nothing, except long neglect, at the beginning of
a career, and probably ultimate failure, and the neces-
sity of becoming a copyist at last. Some artists em-
ploy themselves from youth to age in nothing else but
the copying of one single and self-sąme picture by”
Raphael, and grow at last to be perfectly mechanical,
making, I suppose, the same identical stroke of the
brush in fifty successive pictures.
The
Weather is very hot now,
hotter in the sun-
shine, I think, than a midsummer day usually is in
America, but with rather a greater possibility of
being comfortable in the shade. The nights, too,
are warm, and the bats fly forth at dusk, and the
fireflies quite light up the green depths of our little
garden. The atmosphere, or something else, causes
a sort of alacrity in my mind and an affluence of
ideas, such as they are; but it does not thereby
make me the happier. I feel an impulse to be at
work, but am kept idle by the sense of being un-
settled with removals to be gone through, over and
over again, before I can shut myself into a quiet
room of my own, and turn the key. I need monotony


1858.]
29
ITALY.
upon her face.
too, an eventless exterior life, before I can live in
the world within,
June 15th. Yesterday we went to the Uffizzi gal-
lery, and, of course, I took the opportunity to look
again at the Venus di Medici after Powers's attack
Some of the defects he attributed to
her I could not see in the statue ; for instance, the
ear appeared to be in accordance with his own rule,
the lowest part of it being about in a straight line
with the upper lip. The eyes must be given up, as
not, when closely viewed, having the shape, the
curve outwards, the formation of the lids, that eyes
ought to have ; but still, at a proper distance, they
seemed to have intelligence in them beneath the
shadow cast by the brow. I cannot help thinking
that the sculptor intentionally made every feature
what it is, and calculated them all with a view to
the desired effect. Whatever rules may be trans-
gressed, it is a noble and beautiful face,
more so,
perhaps, than if all rules had been obeyed. I wish
Powers would do his best to fit the Venus's figure
(which he does not deny to be admirable) with a
face which he would deem equally admirable and in
accordance with the sentiment of the form.
We looked pretty thoroughly through the gallery,
and I saw many pictures that impressed me; but
among such a multitude, with only one poor mind to
take note of them, the stamp of each new impression
helps to obliterate a former one. I am sensible,
however, that a process is going on, and has been
ever since I came to Italy, that puts me in a state to


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see pictures with less toil, and more pleasure, and
makes me more fastidious, yet more sensible of
beauty where I saw none before. It is the sign, I
presume, of a taste still very defective, that I take sin-
gular pleasure in the elaborate imitations of Van
Mieris, Gerard Dow, and other old Dutch wizards, who
painted such brass pots that you can see your face
in them, and such earthen pots that they will surely
hold water; and who spent weeks and months in
turning a foot or two of canvas into a perfect micro-
scopic illusion of some homely scene. For my part,
I wish Raphael had painted the “ Transfiguration " in
this style, at the same time preserving his breadth
and grandeur of design ; nor do I believe that there
is any real impediment to the combination of the two
styles, except that. no possible space of human life
could suffice to cover a quarter part of the canvas of
the “ Transfiguration” with such touches as Gerard
Dow's. But one feels the vast scope of this wonderful
art, when we think of two excellences so far apart as
that of this last painter and Raphael. I pause a good
while, too, before the Dutch paintings of fruit and
flowers, where tulips and roses acquire an immortal
bloom, and grapes have kept the freshest juice in
them for two or three hundred years. Often, in these
pictures, there is a bird's-nest, every straw perfectly
represented, and the stray feather, or the down that
the mother-bird plucked from her bosom, with the
three or four small speckled eggs, that seem as if
they might be yet warm. These pretty miracles have
their use in assuring us that painters really can do


1858.]
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ITALY.
something that takes hold of us in our most matter-
of-fact moods; whereas, the merits of the grander
style of art may be beyond our ordinary appreciation,
and leave us in doubt whether we have not befooled
ourselves with a false admiration.
Until we learn to appreciate the cherubs and angels
that Raphael scatters through the blessed air, in a
picture of the “Nativity,” it is not amiss to look at a
Dutch fly settling on a peach, or a humblebee burying
himself in a flower.
It is another token of imperfect taste, no doubt,
that queer pictures and absurd pictures remain
in 'my memory, when better ones pass away by
the score. There is a picture of Venus, combing
her son Cupid's head with a small-tooth comb, and
looking with maternal care among his curls; this I
shall not forget. Likewise, a picture of a broad,
rubicund Judith by Bardone, a widow of fifty, of an
easy, lymphatic, cheerful temperament, who has just
killed Holofernes, and is as self-complaisant as if she
had been carving a goose. What could possibly have
stirred
up this pudding of a woman (unless it were a
.pudding-stick) to do such a deed ! I looked with much
pleasure at an ugly, old, fat, jolly Bacchus, astride
on a barrel, by Rubens; the most natural and life-like
representation of a tipsy rotundity of flesh that it is
possible to imagine. And sometimes, amid these sensual
images, I canght the divine pensiveness of a Madon-
na's face, by Raphael, or the glory and majesty of the
babe Jesus in her arm, with his Father shining through
him. This is a sort of revelation, whenever it comes.


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This morning, immediately after breakfast, I
walked into the city, meaning to make myself better
acquainted with its appearance, and to go into its
various churches; but it soon grew so hot, that I
turned homeward again. The interior of the Duomo
was deliciously cool, to be sure, --- cool and dim, after
the white-hot sunshine; but an old woman began to
persecute me, so that I came away. A male beggar
drove me out of another church; and I took refuge in
the street, where the beggar and I would have been
two cinders together, if we had stood long enough on
the sunny sidewalk. After my five summers' ex-
perience of England, I may have forgotten what hot
weather is; but it does appear to me that an Ameri-
can summer is not so fervent as this. Besides the
direct rays, the white pavement throws a furnace-
heat up into one's face; the shady margin of the
street is barely tolerable, but it is like going through
the ordeal of fire to cross the broad bright glare of an
open piazza. The narrow streets prove themselves a
blessing at this season, except when the sun looks
directly into them; the broad eaves of the houses,
too, make a salvage of shade, almost always. I do
not know what becomes of the street-merchants at
the noontide of these hot days. They form a
numerous class in Florence, displaying their wares
linen or cotton cloth, threads, combs, and all manner
of haberdashery on movable counters that are
borne about on wheels. In the shady morning, you
see a whole side of a street in a piazza occupied by
them, all offering their merchandise at full cry. They
1


1858.]
33
ITALY.
dodge as they can from shade to shade; but at last
the sunshine floods the whole space, and they seem
to have melted away, leaving not a rag of themselves
or what they dealt in.
Cherries are very abundant now, and have been so
ever since we came here, in the markets and all
about the streets. They are of various kinds, some
exceedingly large, insomuch that it is almost neces-
sary to disregard the old proverb about making two
bites of a cherry. Fresh figs are already spoken of,
though I have seen none; but I saw some peaches
this morning, looking as if they might be ripe.
June 16th. Mr. and Mrs. Powers called to see us
last evening. Mr. Powers, as usual, was full of talk,
and gave utterance to a good many instructive and
entertaining ideas.
Aş one instance of the little influence the religion
of the Italians has upon their morals, he told a story
of one of his servants, who desired leave to set up a
small shrine of the Virgin in their room a cheap
print, or bas-relief, or image, such as are sold every-
where at the shops — and to burn a lamp before it;
she engaging, of course, to supply the oil at her own
expense. By and by, her oil-flask appeared to possess
a miraculous property of replenishing itself, and Mr.
Powers took measures to ascertain where the oil
came from. It turned out that the servant had all
the time been stealing the oil from them, and keeping
up her daily sacrifice and worship to the Virgin by
this constant theft.
His talk soon turned upon sculpture, and he spoke
2*


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once more of the difficulty imposed upon an artist
by the necessity of clothing portrait statues in the
modern costume. I find that he does not approve
either of nudity or of the Roman toga for a modern
statue ; neither does he think it right to shirk the
difficulty --- as Chantrey did in the case of Washington
- by énveloping him in a cloak; but acknowledges
the propriety of taking the actual costume of the age
and doing his best with it. He himself did so with his
own Washington, and also with a statue that he made
of Daniel Webster. I suggested that though this
costume might not appear ridiculous to us now, yet,
two or three centuries hence, it would create, to the
people of that day, an impossibility of seeing the real
man through the absurdity of his envelopment, after
it shall have entirely grown out of fashion and
remembrance;' and Webster would seem as absurd
to them then as he would to us now in the masquerade
of some bygone day. It might be well, therefore,
to adopt some conventional costume, never actual,
but always graceful and noble. Besides, Webster,
for example, had other costumes than that which he
wore in public, and perhaps it was in those that he
lived his most real life; his dressing-gown, his drapery
of the night, the dress that he wore on his fishing
excursions; in these other costumes he spent three
fourths of his time, and most probably was thus ar-
rayed when he conceived the great thoughts that af-
terwards, in some formal and outside mood, he gave
forth to the public. I scarcely think I was right, but
am not sure of the contrary. At any rate, I know


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35
ITALY.
that I should have felt much more sure that I knew
the real Webster, if I had seen him in any of the
above-mentioned dresses, than either in his swallow-
tailed coat or frock.
Talking of a taste for painting and sculpture, Powers
observed that it was something very different and
quite apart from the moral sense, and that it was
often, perhaps generally possessed by unprincipled
men of ability and cultivation. I have had this per-
ception myself. A genuine love of painting and sculp-
ture, and perhaps of music, seems often to have dis-
+inguished men capable of every social crime, and to
have formed a fine and hard enamel over their charac-
ters. Perhaps it is because such tastes are artificial,
the product of cultivation, and, when highly developed,
imply a great remove from natural simplicity.
This morning I went with — to the Uffizzi gal-
lery, and again looked with more or less attention at
almost every picture and statue. I saw a little pic-
ture of the golden age, by Zucchero, in which the
charms of youths and virgins are depicted with a free-
dom that this iron age can hardly bear to look at.
The cabinet of gems happened to be open for the ad-
mission of a privileged party, and we likewise went in
and saw a brilliant collection of goldsmiths' work,
among which, no doubt, were specimens from such
hands as Benvenuto Cellini. Little busts with dia-
mond eyes; boxes of gems; cups carved out of pre-
cious material; crystal vases, beautifully chased and
engraved, and sparkling with jewels; great pearls, in
the midst of rubies; opals, rich with all manner of


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lovely lights. I remember Benvenuto Cellini, in his
memoirs, speaks of manufacturing such playthings as
these.
I observed another characteristic of the summer
streets of Florence to-day ; tables, movable to and
fro, on wheels, and set out with cool iced drinks and
cordials.
June 17th. My wife and I went, this morning, to
the Academy of Fine Arts, and, on our way thither,
went into the Duomo, where we found a deliciously
cool twilight, through which shone the mild gleam of
the painted windows. I cannot but think it a pity
that St. Peter's is not lighted by such windows as
these, although I by no means saw the glory in them
now that I have spoken of in a record of my former
visit. We found out the monument of Giotto, a
tablet, and portrait in bas-relief, on the walk, near the
entrance of the Cathedral, on the right hand; also, a
representation, in fresco, of a knight on horseback,
the memorial of one John Iławkwood, close by the
door, to the left. The priests were chanting a service
of some kind or other in the choir, terribly inharmo-
nious, and out of tune.
On reaching the Academy, the soldier or policeman
at the entrance directed us into the large hall, the
walls of which were covered on both sides with pictures,
arranged as nearly as possible in a progressive series,
with reference to the date of the painters; so that
here the origin and procession of the art may be
traced through the course of, at least, two hundred
years. Giotto, Cimabue, and others of unfaräiliar


1858.]
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ITALY.
names to me, are among the earliest ; and, except as
curiosities, I should never desire to look once at them,
nor think of looking twice. They seem to have been
executed with great care and conscientiousness, and
the heads are often wrought out with minuteness and
fidelity, and have so much expression that they tell
their own story clearly enough ; but it seems not to
have been the painter's aim to effect a lifelike illusion,
the background and accessories being conventional.
The trees are no more like real trees than the feather
of a pen, and there is no perspective, the figure of the
picture being shadowed forth on a surface of burnished
gold. The effect, when these pictures, some of them
very large, were new and freshly gilded, must have
been exceedingly brilliant, and much resembling, on
an immensely larger scale, the rich illuminations in an
old monkish missal. In fact, we have not now, in pic-
torial ornament, anything at all comparable to what
their splendor must have been. I was most struck
with a picture, hy Fabriana Gentile, of the Adoration
of the Magi, where the faces and figures have a great
deal of life and action, and even grace, and where the
jewelled crowns, the rich embroidered robes, and cloth
of gold, and all the magnificence of the three kings,
are represented with the vividness of the real thing :
a gold sword-hilt, for instance, or a pair of gold spurs,
being actually embossed on the picture. The effect is
very powerful, and though produced in what modern
painters would pronounce an unjustifiable way, there
is yet pictorial art enough to reconcile it to the spec-
tator's mind. Certainly, the people of the Middle Ages


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knew better than ourselves what is magnificence, and
how to produce it; and what a glorious work must
that have been, both in its mere sheen of burnished
gold, and in its illuminating art, which shines thus
through the gloom of perhaps four centuries.
Fra Angelico is a man much admired by those
who have a taste for Pre-Raphaelite painters; and,
though I take little or no pleasure in his works, I can
see that there is great delicacy of execution in his
heads, and that generally he produces such a Christ,
and such a Virgin, and such saints, as he could not
have foreseen, except in a pure and holy imagination,
nor have wrought out without saying a prayer between
every two touches of his brush. I might come to like
him, in time, if I thought it worth while ; but it is
enough to have an outside perception of his kind and
degree of merit, and so to let him pass into the garret
of oblivion, where many things as good, or better, are
piled away, that our own age may not stumble over
them. Perugino is the first painter whose works seem
really worth preserving for the genuine merit that is
in them, apart from any quaintness and curiosity of
an ancient and new-born art. Probably his religion
was more genuine than Raphael's, and therefore the
Virgin often revealed herself to him in a loftier and
sweeter face of divine womanhood than all the genius
of Raphael could produce. There is a Crucifixion
by him in this gallery, which made me partly feel as if
I were a far-off spectator, no, I did not mean a Cru-
cifixion, but a picture of Christ dead, lying, with a calm,
sweet face, on his mother's knees [“ A Pietà "].


1858.]
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ITALY.
The most inadequate and utterly absurd picture
here, or in any other gallery, is a head of the Eternal
Father, by Carlo Dolce; it looks like a feeble saint,
on the eve of martyrdom, and very doubtful how he
shall be able to bear it; very finely and prettily
painted, nevertheless.
After getting through the principal gallery we went
into a smaller room, in which are contained a great
many small specimens of the old Tuscan artists,
among whom Fra Angelico makes the principal figure.
These pictures are all on wood, and seem to have been
taken from the shrines and altars of ancient churches ;
they are predellas and tryptiches, or pictures on three
folding tablets, shaped quaintly, in Gothic peaks or
arches, and still gleaming with backgrounds of antique
gold. The wood is much worm-eaten, and the colors
have often faded or changed from what the old artists
meant them to be; a bright angel darkening into
what looks quite as much like the Devil. In one of
Fra Angelico's pictures, - a representation of the
Last Judgment, — he has tried his saintly hand at
making devils indeed, and showing them busily at
work, tormenting the poor, damned souls in fifty
ghastly ways. Above sits Jesus, with the throng of
blessed saints around him, and a flow of tender and
powerful love in his own face, that ought to suffice to
redeem all the damned, and convert the very fiends,
and quench the fires of hell. At any rate, Fra An-
gelico had a higher conception of his Saviour than
Michael Angelo
June 19th. - This forenoon we have been to the


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Church of St. Lorenzo, which stands on the site of an
ancient basilica, and was itself built more than four
centuries ago. The façade is still an ugly height of
rough brickwork, as is the case with the Duomo, and,
I think, some other churches in Florence; the design
of giving them an elaborate and beautiful finish
having been delayed from cycle to cycle, till at length
the day for spending mines of wealth on churches is
gone by. The interior had a nave with a flat roof,
divided from the side-aisles by Corinthian pillars, and,
at the farther end, a raised space around the high
altar. The pavement is a mosaic of squares of black
and white marble, the squares meeting one another
cornerwise; the pillars, pilasters, and other architec-
tural material is dark brown or grayish stone; and the
general effect is very sombre, especially as the church
is somewhat dimly lighted, and as the shrines along
the aisles, and the statues, and the monuments of
whatever kind, look dingy with time and neglect.
The nave is thickly set with wooden seats, brown and
worn. What pictures there are, in the shrines and
chapels, are dark and faded. On the whole, the
edifice has a shabby aspect. On each side of the
high altar, elevated on four pillars of beautiful marble,
is what looks like a great sarcophagus of bronze.
They are, in fact, pulpits, and are ornamented with
mediæval bas-reliefs, representing scenes in the life of
our Saviour. Murray says that the resting-place of
the first Cosmo di Medici, the old banker, who so man-
aged his wealth as to get the posthumous title of
“father of his country," and to make his posterity its


1858.1
41
ITALY.
reigning princes, is in front of the high altar, marked
by red and green porphyry and marble, inlaid into
the pavement. We looked, but could not see it
there.
There were worshippers at some of the shrines, and
persons sitting here and there along the nave, and in
the aisles, wrapt in devotional thought, doubtless, and
sheltering themselves here from the white sunshine of
the piazzas. In the vicinity of the choir and the high
altar, workmen were busy repairing the church, or
perhaps only making arrangements for celebrating the
great festival of St. John.
On the left hand of the choir is what is called the
old sacristy, with the peculiarities or notabilities of
which I am not acquainted. On the right hand is the
new sacristy, otherwise called the Capella dei Deposité,
or Chapel of the Buried, built by Michael Angelo, to
contain two monuments of the Medici family. The
interior is of somewhat severe and classio architecture,
the walls and pilasters being of dark stone, and
surmounted by a dome, beneath which is a row of win-
dows, quite round the building, throwing their light
down far beneath, upon niches of white marble. These
niches are ranged entirely around the chapel, and
might have sufficed to contain more than all the Medici
monuments that the world would ever care to have,
Only two of these niches are filled, however.
of them sits Giuliano di Medici, sculptured by Michael
Angelo, -- a figure of dignity, which would perhaps be
very striking in any other presence than that of the
statue which occupies the corresponding niche. At
In one


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the feet of Giuliano recline two allegorical statues, Day
and Night, whose meaning there I do not know, and
perhaps Michael Angelo knew as little. As the great
sculptor's statues are apt to do, they fling their limbs
abroad with adventurous freedom. Below the corre-
sponding niche, on the opposite side of the chapel,
recline two similar statues, representing Morning and
Evening, sufficiently like Day and Night to be their
brother and sister; all, in truth, having sprung from
the same father.
But the statue that sits above these two latter
allegories, Morning and Evening, is like no other that
ever came from a sculptor's hand. It is the one work
worthy of Michael Angelo's reputation, and grand
enough to vindicate for him all the genius that the
world
gave
him credit for.
seems a simple
thing enough to think of or to execute; merely a sit-
ting figure, the face partly overshadowed by a helmet,
one hand supporting the chin, the other resting on the
thigh. But after looking at it a little while, the spec-
tator ceases to think of it as a marble statue; it comes
to life, and you see that the princely figure is brooding
over some great design, which, when he has arranged
in his own mind, the world will be fain to execute for
him. No such grandeur and majesty has elsewhere
been put into human shape. It is all a miracle ; the
deep repose, and the deep life within it. It is as much
a miracle to have achieved this as to make a statue
that would rise up and walk. The face, when one
gazes earnestly into it, beneath the shadow of its
helmet, is seen to be calmly sombre; a mood which, I
And yet


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ITALY.
think, is generally that of the rulers of mankind,
except in moments of vivid action. This statue is one
of the things which I look at with highest enjoyment,
but also with grief and impatience, because I feel that
I do not come at all which it involves, and that by
and by I must go away and leave it forever. How
wonderful! To take a block of marble, and convert it
wholly into thought, and to do it through all the
obstructions and impediments of drapery; for there is
nothing nude in this statue but the face and hands.
The vest is the costume of Michael Angelo's century.
This is what I always thought a sculptor of true genius
should be able to do, to show the man of whatever
epoch, nobly and heroically, through the costume
which he might actually have worn.
The statue sits within a square niche of white
marble, and completely fills it. It seems to me a pity
that it should be thus confined. At the Crystal
Palace, if I remember, the effect is improved by a free
surrounding space.
Its naturalness is as if it came
out of the marble of its own accord, with all its
grandeur hanging heavily about it, and sat down
there beneath its weight. I cannot describe it. It
is like trying to stop the ghost of Hamlet's father, by
crossing spears before it.
Communicating with the sacristy is the Medicean
Chapel, which was built more than two centuries ago,
for the reception of the Holy Sepulchre; arrangements
having been made about that time to steal this most
sacred relic from the Turks. The design failing, the
chapel was converted by Cosmo II. into a place of


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sepulture for the princes of his family. It is a very
grand and solemn edifice, octagonal in shape, with a
lofty dome, within which is a series of brilliant fres-
cos, painted not more than thirty years ago. These
pictures are the only portion of the adornment of the
chapel which interferes with the sombre beauty of the
general effect; for though the walls are incrusted,
from pavement to dome, with marbles of inestimable
cost, and it is a Florentine mosaic on a grander scale
than was ever executed elsewhere, the result is not
gaudy, as in many of the Roman chapels, but a dark
and melaneholy richness. The architecture strikes
me as extremely fine; each alternate side of the octa-
gon being an arch, rising as high as the cornice of the
lofty dome, and forming the frame of a vast niche. All
the dead princes, no doubt, according to the general
design, were to have been honored with statues within
this stately mausoleum ; but only two — those of Fer-.
dinand I. and Cosmo II. seem to have been placed
here. They were a bad breed, and few of them
deserved
any
better monument than a dung-hill ; and
yet they have this grand chapel for the family at
large, and yonder grand statue for one of its most
worthless members. I am glad of it; and as for the
statue, Michael Angelo wrought it through the efficacy
of a kingly idea, which had no reference to the
individual whose name it bears.
In the piazza, adjoining the church, is a statue of
the first Cosmo, the old banker, in Roman costume,
seated, and looking like a man fit to hold authority.
No, I mistake; the statue is of John di Medici, the


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45
ITALY.
father of Cosmo, and himself no banker, but a sol-
dier.
June 21st. — Yesterday, after dinner, we went with
the two eldest children, to the Boboli Gardens.
We entered by a gate, nearer to our house than that
by the Pitti Palace, and found ourselves almost imme-
diately among embowered walks of box and shrubbery,
and little wildernesses of trees, with here and there a
seat under an arbor, and a marble statue, gray with
ancient weather-stains. The site of the garden is a
very uneven surface, and the paths go upward and
downward, and ascend, at their ultimate point, to a
base of what appears to be a fortress, commanding the
city. A good many of the Florentines were rambling
about the gardens, like ourselves; little parties of
school-boys, fathers and mothers, with their youth-
ful progeny; young men in couples, looking closely
into
every
female face ; lovers, with a maid or two at-
tendant on the young lady. All appeared to enjoy
themselves, especially the children, dancing on the
esplanades, or rolling down the slopes of the hills;
and the loving pairs, whom it was rather embarrassing
to come upon unexpectedly, sitting together on the
stone seat of an arbor, with clasped hands, a passion-
ate solemnity in the young man's face, and a downcast
pleasure in the lady's. Policemen, in cocked hats and
epaulets, cross-belts, and swords, were scattered about
the grounds, but interfered with nobody, though they
seemed to keep an eye on all. A sentinel stood in the
hot sunshine, looking down over the garden from the
ramparts of the fortress.


46 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. (1858.
see.
, .
For my part, in this foreign country, I have no
objection to policemen or any other minister of author-
ity ; though I remember, in America, I had an innate
antipathy to constables, and always sided with the
mob against law. This was very wrong and foolish,
considering that I was one of the sovereigns; but a
sovereign, or any number of sovereigns, or the twenty-
millionth part of a sovereign, does not love to find
himself, as an American must, included within the
delegated authority of his own servants.
There is a sheet of water somewhere in the Boboli
Gardens, inhabited by swans; but this we did not
We found a smaller pond, however, set in
marble, and surrounded by a parapet, and alive with
a multitude of fish. There were minnows by the
who had brought some bread to feed the swans,
threw in handfuls of crumbs for the benefit of these
finny people. They seemed to be accustomed to
such courtesies on the part of visitors; and imme-
diately the surface of the water was blackened, at
the spot where each crumb fell, with shoals of min-
nows, thrusting one another even above the surface
in their eagerness to snatch it. Within the depths
of the pond, the yellowish-green water ---- its hue being
precisely that of the Arno — would be reddened dusk-
ily with the larger bulk of two or three gold-fishes,
who finally poked their great snouts up among the
minnows, but generally missed the crumb. Beneath
the circular margin of the pond, there are little
arches, into the shelter of which the fish retire, when


1858.]
47
ITALY.
the noonday sun burns straight down into their dark
waters. We went on through the garden-paths,
shadowed quite across by the high walls of box,
and reached an esplanade, whence we had a good
view of Florence, with the bare brown ridges on the
northern side of the Arno, and glimpses of the river
itself, flowing like a street, between two rows of
palaces. A great way off, too, we saw some of the
cloud-like peaks of the Apennines, and, above them,
the clouds into which the sun was descending, look-
ing quite as substantial as the distant mountains.
The city did not present a particularly splendid
aspect, though its great Duomo was seen in the
middle distance, sitting in its circle of little domes,
with the tall campanile close by, and within one or
two hundred yards of it, the high, cumbrous bulk
of the Palazzo Vecchio, with its lofty, machicolated,
and battlemented tower, very picturesque, yet looking
exceedingly like a martin-box, on a pole. There
were other domes and towers and spires, and here
and there the distinct shape of an edifice; but the
general picture was of a contiguity of red, earthen
roofs, filling a not very broad or extensive valley,
among dry and ridgy hills, with a river-gleam
lightening up the landscape a little. U took
out her pencil and tablets, and began to sketch the
tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; in doing which, she
immediately became an object of curiosity to some
little boys and larger people, who failed not, under
such pretences as taking a grasshopper off her dress,
or no pretence at all, to come and look over her


48
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shoulder. There is a kind of familiarity among these
Florentines, which is not meant to be discourteous,
and ought to be taken in good part.
We continued to ramble through the gardens, in
quest of a good spot from which to see the sunset,
and at length found a stone bench, on the slope of
a hill, whence the entire cloud and sun scenery was
fully presented to us. At the foot of the hill were
statues, and among them a Pegasus, with wings out-
spread; and, a little beyond, the garden-front of the
Pitti Palace, which looks a little less like a state
prison here, than as it fronts the street. Girls and
children, and young men and old, were taking their
pleasure in our neighborhood ; and, just before us,
a lady stood talking with her maid. By and by, we
discovered her to be Miss Howorth. There was a
misty light, streaming down on the hither side of
the ridge of hills, that was rather peculiar; but the
most remarkable thing was the shape into which the
clouds gathered themselves, after the disappearance
of the sun. It was like a tree, with a broad and
heavy mass of foliage, spreading high upward on the
sky, and a dark and well-defined trunk, which rooted
itself on the verge of the horizon.
This morning we went to the Pitti Palace. The
air was very sultry, and the pavements, already
heated with the sun, made the space between the
buildings seem like a close room. The earth, I
think, is too much stoned out of the streets of an
Italian city, — paved, like those of Florence, quite
across, with broad flagstones, to the line where the


1858.]
49
ITALY.
stones of the houses on each side are piled up.
Thunder rumbled over our heads, however, and the
clouds were so dark that we scarcely hoped to reach
the palace without feeling the first drops of the
shower. The air still darkened and darkened, so
that by the time we arrived at the suite of picture-
rooms the pictures seemed all to be changed to
Rembrandts; the shadows as black as midnight,
with only some highly illuminated portions gleaming
out. The obscurity of the atmosphere made us sen-
sible how splendid is the adornment of these saloons.
For the gilded cornices shone out, as did the gilding
of the arches and wreathed circles that divide the
ceiling into compartments, within which the frescos
are painted, and whence the figures looked dimly
down, like gods out of a mysterious sky. The white
marble sculptures also gleamed from their height,
where winged cupids or cherubs gambolled aloft in
bas-reliefs; or allegoric shapes reclined along the
cornices, hardly noticed, when the daylight comes
brightly into the window. On the walls, all the rich
picture frames glimmered in gold, as did the frame-
work of the chairs, and the heavy gilded pedestals
of the marble, alabaster, and mosaic tables. These
are very magnificent saloons; and since I have begun
to speak of their splendor, I may as well add that
the doors are framed in polished, richly veined marble,
and the walls hung with scarlet damask.
It was useless to try to see the pictures. All the
artists engaged in copying laid aside their brushes;
and we looked out into the square before the palace,
VOL. II.
3
D


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where a mighty wind sprang up, and quickly raised
a prodigious cloud of dust. It hid the opposite side
of the street, and was carried, in a great dusky whirl,
higher than the roofs of the houses, higher than the
top of the Pitti Palace itself. The thunder muttered
and grumbled, the lightning now and then flashed,
and a few rain-drops pattered against the windows;
but, for a long time, the shower held off. At last it
came down in a stream, and lightened the air to
such a degree that we could see some of the pictures,
especially those of Rubens, and the illuminated parts
of Salvator Rosa's, and, best of all, Titian's “Magdalen,"
the one with golden hair, clustering round her naked
body. The golden hair, indeed, seemed to throw
out a glory of its own. This Magdalen is very coarse
and sensual, with only an impudent assumption of
penitence and religious sentiment, scarcely so deep
as the eyelids ; but it is a splendid picture, neverthe-
less, with those naked, lifelike arms, and the hands
that press the rich locks about her, and so carefully
permit those voluptuous breasts to be seen.
penitent! She would shake off all pretence to it as
easily as she would shake aside that clustering
hair. . ... Titian must have been a very good-for-
nothing old man.
I looked again at Michael Angelo's Fates to-day;
but cannot satisfactorily make out what he meant by
them. One of them she who holds the distaff - has
her mouth open, as if uttering a cry, and might be
fancied to look somewhat irate. The second, who
holds the thread, has a pensive air, but is still, I
She a


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lost the great Florentine festivity, the Feast of St.
John, which took place on Thursday last, with the
fireworks and illuminations the evening before, and
the races and court ceremonies on the day itself.
However, unless it were more characteristic and pecu-
liar than the Carnival, I have not missed anything
.very valuable.
me
Mr. Powers called to see one evening, and
poured out, as usual, a stream of talk, both racy and
oracular in its character. Speaking of human eyes,
he observed that they did not depend for their ex-
pression upon color, nor upon any light of the soul
beaming through them, nor any glow of the eyeball,
nor upon anything but the form and action of the
surrounding muscles. He illustrates it by saying,
that if the eye of a wolf, or of whatever fiercest
animal, could be placed in another setting, it would
be found capable of the utmost gentleness of expres-
sion. “You yourself,” said he, “have a very bright
and sharp look sometimes ; but it is not in the eye
itself.” His own eyes, as I could have sworn, were
glowing all the time he spoke ; and, remembering how
many times I have seemed to see eyes glow, and blaze,
and flash, and sparkle, and melt, and soften ; and how
all poetry is illuminated with the light of ladies' eyes ;
and how many people have been smitten by the
lightning of an eye, whether in love or anger, it was
difficult to allow that all this subtlest and keenest fire
is illusive, not even phosphorescent, and that any
other jelly in the same socket would serve as well as
the brightest -eye. Nevertheless, he must be right;


1858.)
53
ITALY.
of course he must, and I am rather ashamed ever
to have thought otherwise. Where should the light
come from ? Has a man a flame inside of his head ?
Does his spirit manifest itself in the semblance of
flame ? The moment we think of it, the absurdity
becomes evident. I am not quite sure, however, that
the outer surface of the eye may not reflect more light
in some states of feeling than in others; the state of
the health, certainly, has an influence of this kind.
I asked Powers what he thought of Michael Angelo's
statue of Lorenzo di Medici. He allowed that its
effect was very grand and mysterious ; but added
that it owed this to a trick, the effect being pro-
duced by the arrangement of the hood, as he called it,
or helmet, which throws the upper part of the face
into shadow. The niche in which it sits has, I sup-
pose, its part to perform in throwing a still deeper
shadow. It is very possible that Michael Angelo may
have calculated upon this effect of sombre shadow,
and legitimately, I think; but it really is not worthy
of Mr. Powers to say that the whole effect of this
mighty statue depends, not on the positive efforts of
Michael Angelo's chisel, but on the absence of light in
a space of a few inches.
He wrought the whole statue
in harmony with that small part of it which he leaves
to the spectator's imagination, and if he had erred at
any point, the miracle would have been a failure ; so
that, working in marble, he has positively reached a
degree of excellence above the capability of marble,
sculpturing his highest touches upon air and duski-
ness,


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The man
Mr. Powers gave some amusing anecdotes of his
early life, when he was a clerk in a store in Cincin-
nati. There was a museum opposite, the proprietor
of which had a peculiar physiognomy that struck
Powers, insomuch that he felt impelled to make con-
tinual caricatures of it. He used to draw them upon
the door of the museum, and became so familiar with:
the face, that he could draw them in the dark; so
that, every morning, here was this absurd profile of
himself, greeting the museum-man when he came to
open his establishment. Often, too, it would reappear
within an hour after it was rubbed out.
was infinitely annoyed, and made all possible efforts
to discover the unknown artist, but in vain ; and
finally concluded, I suppose, that the likeness broke
out upon the door of its own accord, like the nettle-
rash. Some years afterwards, the proprietor of the
museum engaged Powers himself as an assistant; and
one day Powers asked him if he remembered this
mysterious profile. “Yes," said he, "did you know
who drew them ?” Powers took a piece of chalk, and
touched off the very profile again, before the man's
eyes. “Ah,” said he, “if I had known it at the time,
I would have broken every bone in your body!”
Before he began to work in marble, Powers had
greater practice and success in making wax figures,
and he produced a work of this kind called “The In-
fernal Regions,” which he seemed to imply had been
He said he once wrought a face in wax
which was life itself, having made the eyes on purpose
for it, and put in every hair in the eyebrows individ-
very famous.


1858.]
55
ITALY.
ually, and finished the whole with similar minuteness ;
so that, within the distance of a foot or two, it was
impossible to tell that the face did not live..
I have hardly ever before felt an impulse to write
down a man's conversation as I do that of Mr. Powers.
The chief reason is, probably, that it is so possible to
do it, his ideas being square, solid, and tangible, and
therefore readily grasped and retained. He is a very
instructive man, and sweeps one's empty and dead no-
tions out of the way with exceeding vigor ; but when
you have his ultimate thought and perception, you
feel inclined to think and see a little further for your-
self. He sees too clearly what is within his range
to
be aware of any region of mystery beyond. Probably,
however, this latter remark does him injustice. I like
the man, and am always glad to encounter the mill-
stream of his talk. ... Yesterday he met me in the
street (dressed in his linen blouse and slippers, with
a little bit of a sculptor's cap on the side of his head),
and gave utterance to a theory of colds, and a disserta-
tion on the bad effects of draughts, whether of cold air
or hot, and the dangers of transfusing blood from the
veins of one living subject to those of another. On
the last topic, he remarked that if a single particle of
air found its way into the veins, along with the trans-
fused blood, it caused convulsions and inevitable
death; otherwise the process might be of excellent
effect.
Last evening, we went to pass the evening with
Miss Blagden, who inhabits a villa at Bellosquardo,
about a mile outside of the walls. The situation is


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you get the
very lofty, and there are good views from every win-
dow of the house, and an especially fine one of Flor-
ence and the hills beyond, from the balcony of the
drawing-room. By and by came Mr. Browning, Mr.
Trollope, Mr. Boott and his young daughter, and two
or three other gentlemen.
Browning was very genial and full of life, as usual,
but his conversation has the effervescent aroma which
you cannot catch, even if
very
words that
seem to be imbued with it. He spoke most raptur-
ously of a portrait of Miss Browning, which an Ital-
ian artist is painting for the wife of an American gen-
tleman, as a present from her husband. The success
was already perfect, although there had been only two
sittings as yet, and both on the same day; and in this
relation, Mr. Browning remarked that P—, the
American artist, had had no less than seventy-three
sittings of him for a portrait. In the result, every
hair and speck of him was represented; yet, as I in-
ferred from what he did not say, this accumulation of
minute truths did not, after all, amount to the true
whole.
I do not remember much else that Browning said,
except a playful abuse of a little King Charles spaniel,
named Frolic, Miss Blagden's lap-dog, whose venerable
age (he is eleven years old) ought to have pleaded in
his behalf. Browning's nonsense is of very genuine
and excellent quality, the true babble and effervescence
of a bright and powerful mind; and he lets it play
among his friends with the faith and simplicity of a
child. He must be an amiable man. I should like


1858.]
57
ITALY.
him much, and should make him like me, if oppor-
tunities were favorable.
I conversed principally with Mr. Trollope, the son,
I believe, of the Mrs. Trollope to whom America owes
more for her shrewd criticisms than we are ever likely
to repay. Mr. Trollope is a very sensible and culti-
vated man, and, I suspect, an author : at least, there
is a literary man of repute of this name, though I
have never read his works. He has resided in Italy
eighteen years. It seems a pity to do this. It needs
the native air to give life a reality ; a truth which I
do not fail to take home regretfully to myself, though
without feeling much inclination to go back to the
realities of my own.
We had a pleasant cup of tea, and took a moonlight
view of Florence from the balcony. .
June 28th. --- Yesterday afternoon, J and I
went to a horse-race, which took place in the Corso
and contiguous line of streets, in further celebration
of the Feast of St. John. A crowd of people was al-
ready collected, all along the line of the proposed race,
as early as six o'clock; and there were a great many
carriages driving amid the throng, open barouches
mostly, in which the beauty and gentility of Flor-
ence were freely displayed. It was a repetition of
the scene in the Corso at Rome, at Carnival time,
without the masks, the fun, and the confetti. The
Grand Duke and Duchess and the Court likewise made
their appearance
as many as seven or eight coaches-
and-six, each with a coachman, three footmen, and a
postilion in the royal livery, and attended by a troop
3*


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of horsemen in scarlet coats and cocked hats. I did
not particularly notice the Grand Duke himself; but,
in the carriage behind him, there sat only a lady, who
favored the people along the street with a constant
succession of bows, repeated at such short intervals,
and so quickly, as to be little more than nods; there-
fore not particularly graceful or majestic. Having
the good fortune to be favored with one of these nods,
I lifted my hat in response, and may
therefore claim
a bowing acquaintance with the Grand Duchess. She
is a Bourbon of the Naples family, and was a pale,
handsome woman, of princely aspect enough. The
• crowd evinced no enthusiasm, nor the slightest feeling
of any kind, in acknowledgment of the presence of
their rulers; and, indeed, I think I never saw a crowd
so well behaved ; that is, with so few salient points,
so little ebullition, so absolutely tame, as the Floren-
tine one.
After all, and much contrary to my expec-
tations, an American crowd has incomparably more
life than any other; and, meeting on any casual occa-
sion, it will talk, laugh, roar, and be diversified with
a thousand characteristic incidents and gleams and
shadows, that you see nothing of here. The people
seems to have no part even in its own gatherings. It
comes together merely as a mass of spectators, and
must not so much as amuse itself by any activity of
mind.
The race, which was the attraction that drew us all
together, turned out a very pitiful affair. When we
had waited till nearly dusk, the street being thronged
quite across, insomuch that it seemed impossible that


1858.]
59
ITALY.
never
it should be cleared as a race-course, there came sud-
denly from every throat a quick, sharp exclamation,
combining into a general shout. Immediately the
crowd pressed back on each side of the street; a
moment afterwards, there was a rapid pattering of
hoofs over the earth with which the pavement was
strewn, and I saw the head and back of a horse rush-
ing past. A few seconds more, and another horse
followed; and at another little interval, a third. This
was all that we had waited for; all that I saw, or
anybody else, except those who stood on the utmost
verge of the course, at the risk of being trampled
down and killed. Two men were killed in this way
on Thursday, and certainly human life was
spent for a poorer object. The spectators at the
windows, to be sure, having the horses in sight for a
longer time, might get a little more enjoyment out of
the affair. By the by, the most picturesque aspect of
the scene was the life given to it by the many faces,
some of them fair ones, that looked out from window
and balcony, all along the curving line of lofty palaces
and edifices, between which the race-course lay; and
from nearly every window, and over every balcony,
was flung a silken texture, or cloth of brilliant hue, or
piece of tapestry or carpet, or whatever adornment of
the kind could be had, so as to dress up the street in
gala attire. But the Feast of St. John, like the Carni-
val, is but a meagre semblance of festivity, kept alive
factitiously, and dying a lingering death of centuries.
It takes the exuberant mind and heart of a people to
keep its holidays alive.


1858.]
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ITALY.
pointed arches, which regt upon octagonal pillars.
The octagon seems to be a favorite shape in Florence.
These pillars were clad in yellow and scarlet damask,
in honor of the Feast of St. John. The aisles, on
each side of the nave, are lighted with high and some-
what narrow windows of painted glass, the effect of
which, however, is much diminished by the flood of
common daylight that comes in through the windows
of the clere-story. It is like admitting too much of the
light of reason and worldly intelligence into the mind,
instead of illuminating it wholly through a religious
medium. The many-hued saints and angels lose their
mysterious effulgence, when we get white light enough,
and find we see all the better without their help.
The main pavement of the church is brickwork ;
but it is inlaid with many sepulchral slabs of marble,
some of which knightly or priestly figures are
sculptured in bas-relief. In both of the side-aisles
there are saintly shrines, alternating with mural
monuments, some of which record names as illus-
trious as any in the world. As you enter, the first
monument on your right is that of Michael Angelo,
occupying the ancient burial site of his family. The
general design is a heavy sarcophagus of colored
marble, with the figures of Sculpture, Painting, and
Architecture as mourners, and Michael Angelo's bust
above, the whole assuming a pyramidal form. You
pass a shrine, within its framework of marble pillars
and a pediment, and come next to Dante's monu-
ment, a modern work, with likewise its sarcophagus,
and some huge, cold images weeping and sprawling
on


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over it, and an unimpressive statue of Dante sitting
above.
Another shrine intervenes, and next you see the
tomb of Alfieri, erected to his memory by the Count-
ess of Albany, who pays, out of a woman's love, the
honor which his country owed him. Her own monu-
ment is in one of the chapels of the transept.
Passing the next shrine you see the tomb of Mac-
chiavelli, which, I think, was constructed not many
years after his death. The rest of the monuments,
on this side of the church, commemorate people of
less than world-wide fame; and though the opposite
side has likewise a monument alternating with each
shrine, I remember only the names of Raphael Mor-
ghem and of Galileo. The tomb of the latter is over
against that of Michael Angelo, being the first large
tomb on the left-hand wall as you enter the church.
It has the usual heavy sarcophagus, surmounted by a
bust of Galileo, in the habit of his time, and is, of
course, duly provided with mourners in the shape
of Science or Astronomy, or some such cold-hearted
people. I wish every sculptor might be at once
imprisoned for life who shall hereafter chisel an alle-
goric figure; and as for those who have sculptured
them heretofore, let them be kept in purgatory till the
marble shall have crumbled away. It is especially
absurd to assign to this frozen sisterhood of the
allegoric family the office of weeping for the dead,
inasmuch as they have incomparably less feeling than
a lump of ice, which might contrive to shed a tear
if the sun shone on it. But they seem to let them.
3


1858.]
63
ITALY,
selves out, like the hired mourners of an English
funeral, for the very reason that, having no interest
in the dead person, nor any affections or emotions
whatever, it costs them no wear and tear of heart.
All round both transepts of the church there is a
series of chapels, into most of which we went, and
generally found an inscrutably dark picture over the
altar, and often a marble bust or two, or perhaps a
mediæval statue of a saint or a modern monumental
bas-relief in marble, as white as new-fallen snow.
A chapel of the Bonapartes is here, containing
memorials of two female members of the family. In
several chapels, moreover, there were some of those
distressing frescos by Giotto, Cimabue, or their com-
peers, which, whenever I see them,-poor, faded relics,
looking as if the Devil had been rubbing and scrub-
bing them for centuries, in spite against the saints,
my heart sinks and my stomach sickens. There is no
other despondency like this; it is a new shade of
human misery, akin to the physical disease that comes
from dry-rot in a wall. These frescos are to a church
what dreary, old remembrances are to a mind; the
drearier because they were once bright : Hope fading
into Disappointment, Joy into Grief, and festal splen-
dor passing into funereal duskiness, and saddening you
all the more by the grim identity that you find to exist
between gay things and sorrowful ones. Only wait
long enough, and they turn out to be the very same.
All the time we were in the church some great
religious ceremony had been going forward; the
organ playing and the white-robed priests bowing,


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gesticulating, and making Latin prayers at the high
altar, where at least a hundred wax tapers were
burning in constellations. Everybody knelt, except
ourselves, yet seemed not to be troubled by the
echoes of our passing footsteps, nor to require that
we should pray along with them. They consider us
already lost irrevocably, no doubt, and therefore right
enough in taking no heed of their devotions ; not but
what we take so much heed, however, as to give the
smallest possible disturbance. By and by we sat
down in the nave of the church, till the ceremony
should be concluded ; and then my wife left me to go
in quest of yet another chapel, where either Cimabue
or Giotto, or both, have left some of their now ghastly
decorations. While she was gone I threw my eyes
about the church, and came to the conclusion that,
in spite of its antiquity, its size, its architecture, its
painted windows, its tombs of great men, and all the
reverence and interest that broods over them, it is not
an impressive edifice. Any little Norman church in
England would impress me as much, and more.
There is something, I do not know what, but it is
in the region of the heart, rather than in the intellect,
that Italian architecture, of whatever age or style,
never seems to reach.
Leaving the Santa Croce, we went next in quest of
the Riccardi Palace. On our way, in the rear of the
Grand Ducal Piazza, we passed by the Pargello, former-
ly the palace of the Podestà Florence, and now con-
verted into a prison. It is an immense square edifice
of dark stone, with a tall, lank tower rising high above


1858.]
65
ITALY.
it at one corner. Two stone lions, symbols of the city,
lash their tails and glare at the passers-by; and all
over the front of the building windows are scattered
irregularly, and grated with rusty iron bars; also
there are many square holes, which probably admit a
little light and a breath or two of air into prisoners'
cells. It is a very ugly edifice, but looks antique, and
as if a vast deal of history might have been transacted
within it, or have beaten, like fierce blasts, against its
dark, massive walls, since the thirteenth century.
When I first saw the city it struck me that there were
few marks of antiquity in Florence ; but I am now in-
clined to think otherwise, although the bright Italian
atmosphere, and the general squareness and monotony
of the Italian architecture, have their effect in appar-
ently modernizing everything. But everywhere we
see the ponderous Tuscan basements that never can
decay, and which will look, five hundred years hence,
as they look now; and one often passes beneath an
abbreviated remnant of what was once a lofty tower,
perhaps three hundred feet high, such as used to be
numerous in Florence when each noble of the city had
his own warfare to wage; and there are patches of
sculpture that look old on houses, the modern stucco
of which causes them to look almost new. Here and
there an unmistakable antiquity stands in its own im-
pressive shadow; the Church of Or San Michele, for
instance, once a market, but which grew to be a church
by some inherent fitness and inevitable consecration.
It has not the least the aspect of a church, being high
and square, like a mediæval palace; but deep and


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high niches are let into its walls, within which stand
great statues of saints, masterpieces of Donatello, and
other sculptors of that age, before sculpture began to
be congealed by the influence of Greek art.
The Riccardi Palace is at the corner of the Via
Larga. It was built by the first Cosmo di Medici, the
old banker, more than four centuries ago, and was
long the home of the ignoble race of princes which he
left behind him. It looks fit to be still the home of a
princely race, being nowise dilapidated nor decayed
externally, nor likely to be so, its high Tuscan base-
ment being as solid as a ledge of rock, and its upper
portion not much less so, though smoothed into an-
other order of stately architecture. Entering its
court from the Via Larga, we found ourselves beneath
a pillared arcade, passing round the court like a clois-
ter; and on the walls of the palace, under this succes-
sion of arches, were statues, bas-reliefs, and sarcophagi,
in which, first, dead Pagans had slept, and then dead
Christians, before the sculptured coffins were brought
hither to adorn the palace of the Medici. In the
most prominent place was a Latin inscription of great
length and breadth, chiefly in praise of old Cosmo and
his deeds and wisdom. This mansion gives the vis-
itor a stately notion of the life of a commercial man in
the days when merchants were princes; not that it
seems to be so wonderfully extensive, nor so very
grand, for I suppose there are a dozen Roman palaces
that excel it in both these particulars. Still, we can-
not but be conscious that it must have been, in some
sensé, a great man who thought of founding a home.


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ITALY.
stead like this, and was capable of filling it with his
personality, as the hand fills a glove. It has been
found spacious enough, since Cosmo's time, for an
emperor and a pope and a king, all of whom have been
guests in this house. After being the family mansion
of the Medici for nearly two centuries, it was sold to
the Riccardis, but was subsequently bought of them
by the government, and it is now occupied by public
offices and societies.
After sufficiently examining the court and its antiq-
uities, we ascended a noble staircase that passes, by
broad flights and square turns, to the region above the
basement. Here the palace is cut up and portioned
off into little rooms and passages, and everywhere
there were desks, inkstands, and men, with pens in
their fingers or behind their ears. We were shown
into a little antique chapel, quite covered with fres-
cos in the Giotto style, but painted by a certain Gon-
zoli. They were in pretty good preservation, and, in
fact, I am wrong in comparing them to Giotto's works,
inasmuch as there must have been nearly two hun-
dred
years
between the two artists. The chapel was
furnished with curiously carved old chairs, and looked
surprisingly venerable within its little precinct.
We were next guided into the grand gallery, a hall
of respectable size, with a frescoed ceiling, on which is
represented the blue sky, and various members of the
Medici family ascending through it by the help of
angelic personages, who seem only to have waited for
their society to be perfectly happy. At least, this was
the meaning, so far as I could make it out. Along


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one side of the gallery were oil pictures on looking-
glasses, rather good than otherwise ; but Rome, with
her palaces and villas, takes the splendor out of all
this sort of thing elsewhere.
On our way home, and on our own side of the
Ponte Vecchio, we passed the Palazzo Guicciardini,
the ancient residence of the historian of Italy, who
was a politic statesman of his day, and probably as
cruel and unprincipled as any of those whose deeds
he has recorded. Opposite, across the narrow way,
stands the house of Macchiavelli, who was his friend,
and, I should judge, an honester man than he. The
house is distinguished by a marble tablet, let into the
wall, commemorative of Macchiavelli, but has nothing
antique or picturesque about it, being in a contiguous
line with other smooth-faced and stuccoed edifices.
June 30th. -- Yesterday, at three o'clock P. M., , I
went to see the final horse-race of the Feast of St.
John, or rather to see the concourse of people and
grandees whom it brought together. I took my stand
in the vicinity of the spot whence the Grand Duke
and his courtiers view the race, and from this point
the scene was rather better worth looking at than
from the street-corners whence I saw it before. The
vista of the street, stretching far adown between two
rows of lofty edifices, was really gay and gorgeous
with the silks, damasks, and tapestries of all bright
hues, that flaunted from windows and balconies,
whence ladies looked forth and looked down, them-
selves making the liveliest part of the show. The
whole capacity of the street swarmed with moving


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heads, leaving scarce room enough for the carriages,
which, as on Sunday, passed up and down, until the
signal for the race was given. Equipages, too, were
constantly arriving at the door of the building which
communicates with the open loggia, where the Grand
Ducal party sit to see and to be seen. Two sentinels
were standing at the door, and presented arms as each
courtier or ambassador, or whatever dignity it might
be, alighted. Most of them had on gold-embroidered
court-dresses ; some of them had military uniforms,
and medals in abundance at the breast; and ladies
also came, looking like heaps of lace and gauze in the
carriages, but lightly shaking themselves into shape
as they went up the steps. By and by a trumpet
sounded, a drum beat, and again appeared a succes-
sion of half a dozen royal equipages, each with its six
horses, its postilion, coachman, and three footmen,
grand with cocked hats and embroidery; and the
gray-headed, bowing Grand Duke and his nodding
Grand Duchess as before. The Noble Guard ranged
themselves on horseback opposite the loggia; but
there was no irksome and impertinent show of cere-
mony and restraint upon the people. The play-guard
of volunteer soldiers, who escort the President of the
United States in his Northern progresses, keep back
. their fellow-citizens much more sternly and immiti-
gably than the Florentine guard kept baek the popu-
lace from its despotic sovereign.
This morning J— and I have been to the Uffizzi
gallery. It was his first visit there, and he passed
a sweeping condemnation upon everything he saw,


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I
except a fly, a snail-shell, a caterpillar, a lemon, a
piece of bread, and a wineglass, in some of the Dutch
pictures. The Venus di Medici met with no sort of
favor. His. feeling of utter distaste reacted upon me,
and I was sensible of the same weary lack of appre-
ciation that used to chill me through, in my earlier
visits to picture galleries; the same doubt, moreover,
whether we do not bamboozle ourselves in the greater
part of the admiration which we learn to bestow.
looked with some pleasure at one of Correggio's Ma-
donnas in the Tribune, - no divine and deep-thoughted
mother of the Saviour, but a young woman playing
with her first child, as gay and thoughtless as itself.
I looked at Michael Angelo's Madonna, in which
William Ware saw such prophetic depth of feeling;
but I suspect it was one of the many instances in
which the spectator sees more than the painter ever
dreamed of.
Straying through the city, after leaving the gallery,
we went into the Church of Or San Michele, and saw
in its architecture the traces of its transformation
from a market into a church. In its pristine state it
consisted of a double row of three great open arches,
with the wind blowing through them, and the sun.
shine falling aslantwise into them, while the bustle
of the market, the sale of fish, flesh, or fruit went on
within, or brimmed over into the streets that enclosed
them on every side. But, four or five hundred years
ago, the broad arches were built up with stone-work;
windows were pierced through and filled with painted
glass ; a high altar, in a rich style of pointed Gothic,


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was raised ; shrines and confessionals were set up;
and here it is, a solemn and antique church, where a
man may buy his salvation instead of his dinner.
At any rate, the Catholic priests will insure it to him,
and take the price. The sculpture within the beauti-
fully decorated niches, on the outside of the church, is
very curious and interesting. The statues of those old
saints seem to have that charm of earnestness which
so attracts the admirers of the Pre-Raphaelite painters.
It appears that a picture of the Virgin used to hang
against one of the pillars of the market-place while it
was still a market, and in the year 1291 several mir-
acles were wrought by it, insomuch that a chapel was
consecrated for it. So many worshippers came to the
shrine that the business of the market was impeded,
and ultimately the Virgin and St. Michael won the
whole space for themselves. The upper part of the
edifice was at that time a granary, and is still used
for other than religious purposes. This church was
one spot to which the inhabitants betook themselves
much for refuge and divine assistance during the
great plague described by Boccaccio.
July 2d. - We set out yesterday morning to visit
the Palazzo Buonarotti, Michael Angelo's ancestral
home. . . . . It is in the Via Ghibellina, an ordinary-
looking, three-story house, with broad-brimmed eaves,
a stuccoed front, and two or three windows painted in
fresco, besides the real ones. Adown the street, there
is a glimpse of the hills outside of Florence. The sun
shining heavily directly upon the front, we rang the
door-bell, and then drew back into the shadow that


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fell from the opposite side of the street. After we
had waited some time a man looked out from an
upper window, and a woman from a lower one, and
informed us that we could not be admitted now, nor
for two or three months to come, the house being
under repairs. It is a pity, for I wished to see
Michael Angelo's sword and walking-stick and old slip-
pers, and whatever other of his closest personalities
are to be shown.
We passed into the Piazza of the Grand Duke, and
looked into the court of the Palazzo Vecchio, with its
beautifully embossed pillars; and, seeing just beyond
the court a staircase of broad and easy steps, we
ascended it at a venture. Upward and upward we
went, flight after flight of stairs, and through passages,
till at last we found an official who ushered us into
a large saloon.
It was the Hall of Audience. Its
heavily embossed ceiling, rich with tarnished gold,
was a feature of antique magnificence, and the only
one that it retained, the floor being paved with tiles
and the furniture scanty or none. There were, how-
ever, three cabinets standing against the walls, two of
which contained very curious and exquisite carvings
and cuttings in ivory ; some of them in the Chinese
style of hollow, concentric balls; others, really beauti-
ful works of art : little crucifixes, statues, saintly and
knightly, and cups enriched with delicate bas-reliefs.
The custode pointed to a small figure of St. Sebastian,
and also to a vase around which the reliefs seemed to
assume life. Both these specimens, he said, were by
Benvenuto Cellini, and there were many others that


1858.]
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ITALY.
might well have been wrought by his famous hand.
The third cabinet contained a great number and
variety of crucifixes, chalices, and whatever other
vessels are needed in altar service, exquisitely carved
out of amber. They belong to the chapel of the pal-
ace, and into this holy closet we were now conducted.
It is large enough to accommodate comfortably
perhaps thirty worshippers, and is quite covered with
frescos by Ghirlandaio in good preservation, and with
remnants enough of gilding and bright color to show
how splendid the chapel must have been when the
Medicean Grand Dukes used to pray here. The altar
is still ready for service, and I am not sure that some
of the wax tapers were not burning; but Lorenzo the
Magnificent was nowhere to be seen.
The custode now led us back through the Hall of
Audience into a smaller room, hung with pictures
chiefly of the Medici and their connections, among
whom was one Carolina, an intelligent and pretty
child, and Bianca Capella.
There was nothing else to show us except a very
noble and most spacious saloon, lighted by two large
windows at each end, coming down level with the
floor, and by a row of windows on one side just
beneath the cornice. A gilded framework divides the
ceiling into squares, circles, and octagons, the com-
partments of which are filled with pictures in oil; and
the walls are covered with immense frescos, represent-
ing various battles and triumphs of the Florentines.
Statues by Michael Angelo, John of Bologna, and Ban-
dinello, as well historic as ideal, stand round the hall,
VOL. II.
4


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and it is really a fit theatre for the historic scenes of
a country to be acted in. It was built, moreover,
with the idea of its being the council-hall of a free
people; but our own little Faneuil, which was meant,
in all simplicity, to be merely a spot where the towns-
people should meet to choose their selectmen, has
served the world better in that respect. I wish I had
more room to speak of this vast, dusky, historic hall.
[This volume of journal closes here.]
July 4th, 1858. -- Yesterday forenoon we went to
see the Church of Santa Maria Novella. We found
the piazza, on one side of which the church stands,
encumbered with the amphitheatrical ranges of
wooden seats that had been erected to accommodate
the spectators of the chariot-races, at the recent Feast
of St. John. The front of the church is composed of
black and white marble, which, in the course of the
five centuries that it has been built, has turned brown
and yellow. On the right hand, as you approach, is
a long colonnade of arches, extending on a line with
the façade, and having a tomb beneath every arch. .
This colonnade forms one of the enclosing walls of a
cloister. We found none of the front entrances open,
but on our left, in a wall at right angles with the
church, there was an open gateway, approaching
which, we saw, within the four-sided colonnade, an
enclosed green space of a cloister. This is what is
called the Chiostro Verde, so named from the pre-
vailing color of the frescos with which the walls
beneath the arches are adorned.
This cloister is the reality of what I used to imagine


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when I saw the half-ruinous colonnades connected
with English cathedrals, or endeavored to trace out
the lines along the broken wall of some old abbey.
Not that this extant cloister, still perfect and in daily
use for its original purposes, is nearly so beautiful as
the crumbling ruin which has ceased to be trodden
by monkish feet for more than three centuries. The
cloister of Santa Maria has not the seclusion that is
desirable, being open, by its gateway, to the public
square; and several of the neighbors, women as well
as men, were loitering within its precincts. The
convent, however, has another and larger cloister,
which I suppose is kept free from interlopers. The
Chiostro Verde is a walk round the four sides of a
square, beneath an arched and groined roof. One
side of the walk looks upon an enclosed green space
with a fountain or a tomb (I forget which) in the
centre; the other side is ornamented all along with
a succession of ancient frescos, representing subjects
of Scripture history. In the days when the designs
were more distinct than now, it must have been a
very effective way for a monk to read Bible history,
to see its personages and events thus passing visibly
beside him in his morning and evening walks. Be-
neath the frescos on one side of the cloistered walk,
and along the low stone parapet that separates it
from the grass-plat on the other, are inscriptions to
the
memory
of the dead who are buried underneath
the pavement. The most of these were modern, and
recorded the names of persons of no particular note.
Other monumental slabs were inlaid with the pave-


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ment itself. Two or three Dominican monks, belong-
ing to the convent, passed in and out while we were
there in their white habits.
After going round three sides, we came to the
fourth, formed by the wall of the church, and heard
the voice of a priest behind a curtain that fell down
before a door. Lifting it aside, we went in, and found
ourselves in the ancient chapter-house, a large in-
terior formed by two great pointed arches crossing
one another in a groined roof. The broad spaces of
the walls were entirely covered with frescos that are
rich even now, and must have glowed with an inex-
pressible splendor, when fresh from the artists' hands,
five hundred years ago.
There is a long pewiod,
during which frescos illuminate a church or a hall in
a way that no other adornment can; when this epoch
of brightness is past, they become the dreariest ghosts
of perished magnificence. .... This chapter-house is
the only part of the church that is now used for the
purposes of public worship. There are several con-
fessionals, and two chapels or shrines, each with its
lighted tapers. A priest performed mass while we
were there, and several persons, as usual, stepped in
tu do a little devotion, either praying on their own
account, or uniting with the ceremony that was going
forward. One man was followed by two little dogs,
and in the midst of his prayers, as one of the dogs
was inclined to stray about the church, he kept
snapping his fingers to call him back. The cool,
dusky refreshment of these holy places, affording such
a refuge from the hot noon of the streets and piazzas,


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ITALY.
we
probably suggests devotional ideas to the people, and
it may be, when they are praying, they feel a breath
of Paradise fanning them. If we could only see any
good effects in their daily life, we might deem it an
excellent thing to be able to find incense and a prayer
always ascending, to which every individual may join
his own. I really wonder that the Catholics are not
better men and women.
When we had looked at the old frescos,
emerged into the cloister again, and thence ventured
into a passage which would have led us to the Chiostro
Grande, where strangers, and especially ladies, have
no right to go. It was a secluded corridor, very
neatly kept, bordered with sepulchral monuments,
and at the end appeared a vista of cypress-trees,
which indeed were but an illusory perspective, being
painted in fresco. While we loitered along .... the
sacristan appeared and offered to show us the church,
and led us into the transept on the right of the high
altar, and ushered us into the sacristy, where we
found two artists copying some of Fra Angelico's
pictures. These were painted on the three wooden
leaves of a tryptich, and, as usual, were glorified with
a great deal of gilding, so that they seemed to float
in the brightness of a heavenly element. Solomon
speaks of “apples of gold in pictures of silver.” The
pictures of Fra Angelico, and other artists of that
age, are really pictures of gold ; and it is wonderful
to see how rich the effect, and how much delicate
beauty is attained (by Fra Angelico at least) along
with it. His miniature-heads appear to me much


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more successful than his larger ones. In a monkish
point of view, however, the chief value of the tryptich
of which I am speaking does not lie in the pictures,
for they merely serve as the framework of some
relics, which are set all round the edges of the
three leaves. They consist of little bits and fragments
of bones, and of packages carefully tied up in silk,
the contents of which are signified in Gothic letters
appended to each parcel. The sacred vessels of the
church are likewise kept in the sacristy. ....
Re-entering the transept, our guide showed us the
chapel of the Strozzi family, which is accessible by a
flight of steps from the floor of the church. The
walls of this chapel are covered with frescos by Or-
gagna, representing around the altar the Last Judg-
ment, and on one of the walls heaven and the assem-
bly of the blessed, and on the other, of course, hell.
I cannot speak as to the truth of the representation ;
but, at all events, it was purgatory to look at
it.
We next passed into the choir, which occupies the
extreme end of the church behind the great square
mass of the high altar, and is surrounded with a
double row of ancient oaken seats of venerable shape
and carving. The choir is illuminated by a threefold
Gothic window, full of richly painted glass, worth all
the frescos that ever stained a wall or ceiling ; but
these walls, nevertheless, are adorned with frescos by
Ghirlandaio, and it is easy to see must once have
made a magnificent appearance. I really was sen-
sible of a sad and ghostly beauty in many of the


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figures ; but all the bloom, the magic of the painter's
touch, his topmost art, have long ago been rubbed off,
the white plaster showing through the colors in spots,
and even in large spaces. Any other sort of ruin
acquires a beauty proper to its decay, and often supe-
rior to that of its pristine state; but the ruin of a
picture, especially of a fresco, is wholly unredeemed ;
and, moreover, it dies so slowly that many genera-
tions are likely to be saddened by it.
We next saw the famous picture of the Virgin by
Cimabue, which was deemed a miracle in its day,
... and still brightens the sombre walls with the
lustre of its gold ground. As to its artistic merits, it
seems to me that the babe Jesus has a certain air of
state and dignity ; but I could see no charm whatever
in the broad-faced Virgin, and it would relieve my
mind and rejoice my spirit if the picture were borne
out of the church in another triumphal procession
(like the one which brought it there), and reverently
burnt. This should be the final honor paid to all
human works that have served a good office in their
day, for when their day is over, if still galvanized into
false life, they do harm instead of good. . . . . The
interior of Santa Maria Novella is spacious and in the
Gothic style, though differing from English churches
of that order of architecture. It is not now kept open
to the public, nor were any of the shrines and chapels,
nor even the high altar itself, adorned and lighted for
worship. The pictures that decorated the shrines
along the side-aisles have been removed, leaving bare,
blank spaces of brickwork, very dreary and desolate


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to behold. This is almost worse than a black oil-
painting or a faded fresco. The church was much
injured by the French, and afterwards by the Austri-
ans, both powers having quartered their troops within
the holy precincts. Its old walls, however, are yet
stalwart enough to outlast another set of frescos, and
to see the beginning and the end of a new school of
painting as long-lived as Cimabue’s. I should be
sorry to have the church go to decay, because it was
here that Boccaccio's dames and cavaliers encountered
one another, and formed their plan of retreating into
the country during the plague. .
At the door we bought a string of beads, with a
small crucifix appended, in memory of the place.
The beads seem to be of a grayish, pear-shaped seed,
and the seller assured us that they were the tears of
St. Job. They were cheap, probably because Job shed
so many tears in his lifetime.
It being still early in the day, we went to the
Uffizzi gallery, and after loitering a good while among
the pictures, were so fortunate as to find the room of
the bronzes open. The first object that attracted us
was John of Bologna's Mercury, poising himself on
tiptoe, and looking not merely buoyant enough to
float, but as if he possessed more than the eagle's
power of lofty flight. It seems a wonder that he did
not absolutely Aing himself into the air when the
artist gave him the last touch. No bolder work was
ever achieved; nothing so full of life has been done
I was much interested, too, in the original
little wax model, two feet high, of Benvenuto Cellini's


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ITALY.
same name.
Perseus. The wax seems to be laid over a wooden
framework, and is but roughly finished off. .
In an adjoining room are innumerable specimens of
Roman and Etruscan bronzes, great and small. A
bronze Chimera did not strike me as very ingeniously
conceived, the goat's head being merely an adjunct;
growing out of the back of the monster, without pos-
sessing any original and substantive share in its nature.
The snake's head is at the end of the tail. The object
most really interesting was a Roman eagle, the stand-
ard of the Twenty-fourth Legion, about the size of a
blackbird.
July 8th. - On the 6th we went to the Church of
the Annunziata, which stands in the piazza of the
On the corner of the Via dei Servi is the
palace which I suppose to be the one that Browning
makes the scene of his poem, “ The Statue and the
Bust," and the statue of Duke Ferdinand sits stately
on horseback, with his face turned towards the win-
dow, where the lady ought to appear. Neither she
nor the bust, however, was visible, at least not to my
eyes. The church occupies one side of the piazza,
and in front of it, as likewise on the two adjoining
sides of the square, there are pillared arcades, con-
structed by Brunelleschi or his scholars. After pass-
ing through these arches, and still before entering the
church itself, you come to an ancient cloister, which
is now quite enclosed in glass as a means of preserv-
ing some frescos of Andrea del Sarto and others,
which are considered valuable.
Passing the threshold of the church, we were quite


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dazzled by the splendor that shone upon us from the
ceiling of the nave, the great parallelograms of which,
viewed from one end, look as if richly embossed all
over with gold. The whole interior, indeed, has an
effect of brightness and magnificence, the walls being
covered mostly with light-colored marble, into which
are in Mid compartments of rarer and richer marbles.
The pillars and pilasters, too, are of variegated mar-
bles, with Corinthian capitals, that shine just as brightly
as if they were of solid gold, so faithfully have they
· been gilded and burnished. The pavement is formed of
squares of black and white marble. There are no side-
aisles, but ranges of chapels, with communication from
one to another, stand round the whole extent of the
nave and choir; all of marble, all decorated with pic-
tures, statues, busts, and mural monuments; all
worth, separately, a day's inspection. The high altar
is of great beauty and richness, .. and also the
tomb of John of Bologna in a chapel at the remotest
extremity of the church. In this chapel there are
some bas-reliefs by him, and also a large crucifix, with
a marble Christ upon it. I think there has been no
better sculptor since the days of Phidias. . ..
The church was founded by seven gentlemen of
Florence, who formed themselves into a religious order
called “Servants of Mary.” Many miraculous cures
were wrought here ; and the church, in consequence,
was so thickly hung with votive offerings of legs,
arms, and other things in wax, that they used to
tumble upon people's heads, so that finally they were
all cleared out as rubbish. The church is still, I


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ITALY.
should imagine, looked upon as a place of peculiar sanc-
tity; for while we were there it had an unusual number
of kneeling worshippers, and persons were passing from
shrine to shrine all round the nave and choir, praying
awhile at each, and thus performing a pilgrimage at
little cost of time and labor. One old gentleman, I
observed, carried a cushion or pad, just big enough for
one knee, on which he carefully adjusted his genu-
flexions before each altar. An old woman in the choir
prayed alternately to us and to the saints, with most
success, I hope, in her petitions to the latter, though
certainly her prayers to ourselves seemed the more
fervent of the two.
When we had gone entirely round the church, we
came at last to the chapel of the Annunziata, which
stands on the floor of the nave, on the left hand as
we enter. It is a very beautiful piece of architecture,
a sort of canopy of marble, supported upon pillars ;
and its magnificence within, in marble and silver, and
all manner of holy decoration, is quite indescribable.
It was built four hundred years ago, by Pietro di
Medici, and has probably been growing richer ever
since. The altar is entirely of silver, richly embossed.
As many people were kneeling on the steps before it
as could find room, and most of them, when they fin-
ished their prayers, ascended the steps, kissed over
and over again the margin of the silver altar, laid
their foreheads upon it, and then deposited an offer-
ing in a box placed upon the altar's top. From the
dulness of the chink in the only case when I heard it,
I judged it to be a small copper coin.


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In the inner part of this chapel is preserved a mirac-
ulous picture of the “Santissima Annunziata," painted
by angels, and held in such holy repute that forty
thousand dollars have lately been expended in provid.
ing a new crown for the sacred personage represented.
The picture is now veiled behind a curtain ; and as it
is a fresco, and is not considered to do much credit to
the angelic artists, I was well contented not to see it,
We found a side door of the church admitting us
into the great cloister, which has a walk of intersecting
arches round its four sides, paved with flat tomb-
stones, and broad enough for six people to walk
abreast. On the walls, in the semicircles of each
successive arch, are frescos representing incidents in
the lives of the seven founders of the church, and all
the lower part of the wall is incrusted with marble
inscriptions to the memory of the dead, and mostly of
persons
who have died not very long ago. The space
enclosed by the cloistered walk, usually made cheerful
by green grass, has a pavement of tombstones laid in
regular ranges.
In the centre is a stone octagona)
structure, which at first I supposed to be the tomb of
some deceased mediæval personage ; but, on approach-
ing, I found it a well, with its bucket hanging within
the curb, and looking as if it were in constant use.
The surface of the water lay deep beneath the deepest
dust of the dead people, and thence threw up its picture
of the sky; but I think it would not be a moderate
thirst that would induce me to drink of that well.
On leaving the church we bought a little gilt cru-
cifix.


1853.]
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ITALY
On Sunday evening I paid a short visit to Mr.
Powers, and, as usual, was entertained and instructed
with his conversation. It did not, indeed, turn upon
artistical subjects; but the artistic is only one side of
his character, and, I think, not the principal side.
He might have achieved valuable success as an en-
gineer and mechanician. He gave a dissertation on fly-
ing-machines, evidently from his own experience, and
came to the conclusion that it is impossible to fly by
means of steam or any other motive power now known
to man. No force hitherto attained would suffice to
lift the engine which generated it. He appeared to
anticipate that flying will be a future mode of locomo-
tion, but not till the moral condition of mankind is so
improved as to obviate the bad uses to which the
power might be applied. Another topic discussed was
a cure for complaints of the chest by the inhalation of
nitric acid ; and he produced his own apparatus for
that purpose, being merely a tube inserted into a
bottle containing a small quantity of the acid, just
enough to produce the gas for inhalation. He told
me, too, a remedy for burns accidentally discovered by
himself; viz., to wear wash-leather, or something equiv-
alent, over the burn, and keep it constantly wet.
prevents all pain, and cures by the exclusion of the
air. He evidently has a great tendency to empirical
remedies, and would have made a natural doctor of
mighty potency, possessing the shrewd sense, inventive
faculty, and self-reliance that such persons require. It
is very singular that there should be an ideal vein in
a man of this character.


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This morning he called to see me, with intelligence of
the failure of the new attempt to lay the electric cable
between England and America ; and here, too, it
appears the misfortune might have been avoided if a
plan of his own for laying the cable had been adopted.
He explained his process, and made it seem as practi:
cable as to put up a bell-wire. I do not remember
how or why (but appositely) he repeated some verses,
from a pretty little ballad about fairies, that had
struck his fancy, and he wound up his talk with some
acute observations on the characters of General Jack-
son and other public men. He told an anecdote,
illustrating the old general's small acquaintance with
astronomical science, and his force of will in compel-
ļing a whole dinner-party of better instructed people
than himself to succumb to him in an argument about
eclipses and the planetary system generally. Powers
witnessed the scene himself. He thinks that General
Jackson was a man of the keenest and surest intuitions,
in respect to men and measures, but with no power
reasoning out his own conclusions, or of imparting
them intellectually to other persons. Men who have
known Jackson intimately, and in great affairs, would
not agree as to this intellectual and argumentative
deficiency, though they would fully allow the intuitive
faculty. I have heard General Pierce tell a striking
instance of Jackson's power of presenting his own view
of a subject with irresistible force to the mind of the
auditor. President Buchanan has likewise expressed
to me as high admiration of Jackson as I ever heard
one man award to another. Surely he was a great
of


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ITALY.
man, and his native strength, as well of intellect as
character, compelled every man to be his tool that
came within his reach; and the more cunning the
individual might be, it served only to make him the
sharper tool.
Speaking of Jackson, and remembering Raphael's
picture of Pope Julius II., the best portrait in the
whole world, and excellent in all its repetitions, I
wish it had been possible for Raphael to paint General
Jackson !
Referring again to General Jackson's intuitions,
and to Powers's idea that he was unable to render a
reason to himself or others for what he chose to do, I
should have thought that this very probably might
have been the case, were there not such strong evi-
dence to the contrary.
The highest, or perhaps any
high administrative ability is intuitive, and precedes
argument, and rises above it. It is a revelation of
the very thing to be done, and its propriety and
necessity are felt so strongly that very likely it can-
not be talked about ; if the doer can likewise talk, it
is an additional and gratuitous faculty, as little to be
expected as that a poet should be able to write an
explanatory criticism on his own poem.
The English
overlook this in their scheme of government, which
requires that the members of the national executive
should be orators, and the readiest and most fluent
orators that can be found. The very fact (on which
they are selected) that they are of words makes
it improbable that they are likewise men of deeds.
And it is only tradition and old custom, founded on
nd


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an obsolete state of things, that assigns any value to
parliamentary oratory. The world has done with it,
except as an intellectual pastime. The speeches have
no effect till they are converted into newspaper para-
graphs; and they had better be composed as such,
in the first place, and oratory reserved for churches,
courts of law, and public dinner-tables.
July 10th. - My wife and I went yesterday fore-
noon to see the Church of San Marco, with which is
connected a convent of Dominicans.
The inte-
rior is not less than three or four hundred years old,
and is in the classic style, with a flat ceiling, gilded,
and a lofty arch, supported by pillars, between the
nave and choir. There are no side-aisles, but ranges
of shrines on both sides of the nave, each beneath its
own pair of pillars and pediments. The pavement is
of brick, with here and there a marble tombstone
inlaid. It is not a magnificent church ; but looks
dingy with time and apparent neglect, though ren-
dered sufficiently interesting by statues of mediæval
date by John of Bologna and other old sculptors, and
by monumental busts and bas-reliefs : also, there is a
wooden crucifix by Giotto, with ancient gilding on
it; and a painting of Christ, which was considered a
wonderful work in its day. Each shrine, or most of
them, at any rate, had its dark old picture, and there
is a very old and hideous mosaic of the Virgin and
two saints, which I looked at very slightly, with the
purpose of immediately forgetting it. Savonarola, the
reforming monk, was a brother of this convent, and
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1858.
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ITALY.
and burnt in the Grand Ducal Piazza. A large chapel
in the left transept is of the Salviati family, dedicated
to St. Anthony, and decorated with several statues
of saints, and with some old frescos. When we had
more than sufficiently examined these, the custode
proposed to show us some frescos of Fra Angelico, and
conducted us into a large cloister, under the arches
of which, and beneath a covering of glass, he pointed
to a picture of St. Dominic kneeling at the Cross.
There are two or three others by the angelic friar in
different parts of the cloister, and a regular series,
filling up all the arches, by various artists. Its four-
sided, cloistered walk surrounds a square, open to the
sky as usual, and paved with gray stones that have no
inscriptions, but probably are laid over graves. Its
walls, however, are incrusted, and the walk itself is
paved with monumental inscriptions on marble, none
of which, so far as I observed, were of ancient date:
Either the fashion of thus commemorating the dead
is not ancient in Florence, or the old tombstones have
been removed to make room for new ones. I do not
know where the monks themselves have their burial-
place; perhaps in an inner cloister, which we did not
All the inscriptions here, I believe, were in
memory of persons not connected with the convent:
A door in the wall of the cloister admitted us into
the chapter-house, its interior moderately spacious;
with a roof formed by intersecting arches. Three
sides of the walls were covered with blessed white-
wash ; but on the fourth side, opposite to the en-
trance, was a great fresco of the Crucifixion, by Fra
see,


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Angelico, surrounded with a border or pictured frame-
work, in which are represented the heads of saints,
prophets, and sibyls, as large as life. The cross of
the Saviour and those of the thieves were painted
against a dark red sky; the figures upon them were
lean and attenuated, evidently the vague conceptions
of a man who had never seen a naked figure. Be-
neath, was a multitude of people, most of whom were
saints who had lived and been martyred long after
the Crucifixion; and some of these had wounds
from which gilded rays shone forth, as if the inner
glory and blessedness of the holy men blazed through
them. It is a very ugly picture, and its ugliness is
not that of strength and vigor, but of weakness and
incompetency. Fra Angelico should have confined
himself to miniature heads, in which his delicacy of
touch and minute labor often produce an excellent
effect. The custode informed us that there were
more frescos of this pious artist in the interior of the
convent, into which I might be allowed admittance,
but not my wife. I declined seeing them, and heartily
thanked heaven for my escape.
Returning through the church, we stopped to look
at a shrine on the right of the entrance, where several
wax candles were lighted, and the steps of which were
crowded with worshippers. It was evidently a spot
of special sanctity, and, approaching the steps, we
saw, behind a gilded framework of stars and pro-
tected by glass, a wooden image of the Saviour, naked,
covered with spots of blood, crowned with thorns,
and expressing all the human wretchedness that the
-
-


1858.]
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ITALY.
carver's skill could represent. The whole shrine,
within the glass, was hung with offerings, as well of
silver and gold as of tinsel and trumpery, and the
body of Christ glistened with gold chains and orna-
ments, and with watches of silver and gold, some of
which appeared to be of very old manufacture, and
others might be new. Amid all this glitter the face
of pain and grief looked forth, not a whit comforted.
While we stood there, a woman, who had been pray-
ing, arose from her knees and laid an offering of a
single flower upon the shrine.
The corresponding arch, on the opposite side of the
entrance, contained a wax-work within a large glass
case, representing the Nativity. I do not remember
how the Blessed Infant looked, but the Virgin was
gorgeously dressed in silks, satins, and gauzes, with
spangles and ornaments of all kinds, and I believe
brooches of real diamonds on her bosom.
Her attire,
judging from its freshness and newness of glitter,
might have been put on that very morning.
July 13th.
We went for the second time, this
morning, to the Academy of Fine Arts, and I looked
pretty thoroughly at the Pre-Raphaelite pictures, few
of which are really worth looking at nowadays. Cima-
bue and Giotto might certainly be dismissed, hence-
forth and forever, without any detriment to the cause
of good art. There is what seems to me a better
picture than either of these has produced, by Bona-
mico Buffalmacco, an artist of about their date or
not long after. The first real picture in the series is
the “ Adoration of the Magi," by Gentile da Fabriano,


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more.
a really splendid work in all senses, with noble and
beautiful figures in it, and a crowd of personages,
managed with great skill. Three pictures by Perugino
are the only other ones I cared to look at. In one of
these, the face of the Virgin who holds the dead Christ
on her knees has a deeper expression of woe than can
ever have been painted since. After Perugino the
pictures cease to be interesting; the art came forward
with rapid strides, but the painters and their pro-
ductions do not take nearly so much hold of the
spectator as before. They all paint better than Giotto
and Cimabue, — in some respects better than Peru-
gino; but they paint in vain, probably because they
were not nearly so much in earnest, and meant far
less, though possessing the dexterity to express far
Andrea del Sarto appears to have been a
good painter, yet I always turn away readily from his
pictures. I looked again, and for a good while, at
Carlo Dolce's portrait of the Eternal Father, for it
is a miracle and masterpiece of absurdity, and almost
equally a miracle of pictorial art. It is the All-
powerless, a fair-haired, soft, consumptive deity, with
a mouth that has fallen open through very weakness.
He holds one hand on his stomach, as if the wicked-
ness and wretchedness of mankind made him qualm-
ish; and he is looking down out of Heaven with an
expression of pitiable appeal, or as if seeking some-
where for assistance in his heavy task of ruling the
universe. - You might fancy such a being falling on
his knees before a strong-willed man, and beseeching
him to take the reins of omnipotence out of bis hands.


1858.]
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ITALY.
No wonder that wrong gets the better of right, and
that good and ill are confounded, if the Supreme
Head were as here depicted ; for I never saw, and
nobody else ever saw, so perfect a representation of
a person burdened with a task infinitely above his
strength. If Carlo Dolce had been wicked enough to
know what he was doing, the picture would have been
most blasphemous, -- a satire, in the very person of
the Almighty, against all incompetent rulers, and
against the rickety machine and crazy action of the
universe. Heaven forgive me for such thoughts as
this picture has suggested! It must be added that
the great original defect in the character as here
represented is an easy good-nature. I wonder what
Michael Angelo would have said to this painting.
In the large, enclosed court connected with the
Academy there are a number of statues, bas-reliefs,
and casts, and what was especially interesting, the
vague and rude commencement of a statue of St.
Matthew by Michael Angelo. The conceptions of this
great sculptor were so godlike that he seems to have
been discontented at not likewise possessing the god-
like attribute of creating and embodying them with
an instantaneous thought, and therefore we often find
sculptures from his hand left at the critical point of
their struggle to get out of the marble. The statue
of St. Matthew looks like the antediluvian fossil of
a human being of an epoch when humanity was
mightier and more majestic than now, long ago im-
prisoned in stone, and half uncovered again.
July 16th.
We went yesterday forenoon to see the


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Bargello. I do not know anything more picturesque
in Florence than the great interior court of this an-
cient Palace of the Podesta, with the lofty height of
the edifice looking down into the enclosed space, dark
and stern, and the armorial bearings of a long succes-
sion of magistrates carved in stone upon the walls, a
garland, as it were, of these Gothic devices extending
quite round the court. The best feature of the whole
is the broad stone staircase, with its heavy balustrade,
ascending externally from the court to the iron-grated
door in the second story. We passed the sentinels
under the lofty archway that communicates with the
street, and went up the stairs without being ques-
tioned or impeded. At the iron-grated door, however,
we were met by two officials in uniform, who cour-
teously informed us that there was nothing to be ex-
hibited in the Bargello except an old chapel contain-
ing some frescos by Giotto, and that these could only
be seen by making a previous appointment with the
custode, he not being constantly on hand. I was not
sorry to escape the frescos, though one of them is a
portrait of Dante.
We next went to the Church of the Badia, which is
built in the form of a Greek cross, with a flat roof
embossed and once splendid with now tarnished gold.
The pavement is of brick, and the walls of dark stone,
similar to that of the interior of the Cathedral (pietra
serena), and there being, according to Florentine cus-
tom, but little light, the effect was sombre, though
the cool gloomy dusk was refreshing after the hot tur-
moil and dazzle of the adjacent street. Here we found
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1858.]
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ITALY.
three or four Gothic tombs, with figures of the de.
ceased persons stretched in marble slumber
upon
them. There were likewise a picture or two, which it
was impossible to see ; indeed, I have hardly ever met
with a picture in a church that was not utterly wasted
and thrown away in the deep shadows of the chapel it
was meant to adorn. If there is the remotest chance
of its being seen, the sacristan hangs a curtain before
it for the sake of his fee for withdrawing it. In the
chapel of the Bianco family we saw (if it could be
called seeing) what is considered the finest oil-painting
of Fra Filippo Lippi. It was evidently hung with
reference to a lofty window on the other side of the
church, whence sufficient light might fall upon it to
show a picture so vividly painted as this is, and as
most of Fra Filippo Lippi's are. The window was
curtained, however, and the chapel so dusky that I
could make out nothing.
Several persons came in to say
their prayers during
the little time that we remained in the church, and
came out we passed a good woman who sat
knitting in the coolness of the vestibule, which was
lined with mural tombstones. Probably she spends
the day thus, keeping up the little industry of her
fingers, slipping into the church to pray whenever a
devotional impulse swells into her heart, and asking
an alms as often as she sees a person of charitable
aspect.
From the church we went to the Uffizzi gallery,
and reinspected the greater part of it pretty faithfully.
We had the good fortune, too, again to get admittanco
as we


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into the cabinet of bronzes, where we admired anew
the wonderful airiness of John of Bologna's Mercury,
which, as I now observed, rests on nothing substan-
tial, but on the breath of a zephyr beneath him. We
also saw a bronze bust of one of the Medici by Ben-
venuto Cellini, and a thousand other things the curi-
osity of which is overlaid by their multitude. The
Roman eagle, which I have recorded to be about the
size of a blackbird, I now saw to be as large as a
pigeon.
On our way towards the door of the gallery, at our
departure, we saw the cabinet of gems open, and again
feasted our eyes with its concentrated brilliancies and
magnificences. Among them were two crystal cups,
with engraved devices, and covers of enamelled gold,
wrought by Benvenuto Cellini, and wonderfully beau-
tiful. But it is idle to mention one or two things,
when all are so beautiful and curious ; idle, too, be-
cause language is not burnished gold, with here and
there a brighter word flashing like a diamond ; and
therefore no amount of talk will give the slightest idea
of one of these elaborate handiworks.
July 27th. -- I seldom go out nowadays, having
already seen Florence tolerably well, and the streets
being very hot, and myself having been engaged in
sketching out a romance,* which whether it will
ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided.
At any rate, it leaves me little heart for journalizing
and describing new things; and six months of unin-
terrupted monotony would be more valuable to me
* The Marble Faun. - ED,


1858.]
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ITALY.
just now, than the most brilliant succession of novel-
ties.
Yesterday I spent a good deal of time in watching
the setting out of a wedding party from our door; the
bride being the daughter of an English lady, the
Countess of After all, there was nothing very
characteristic. The bridegroom is a young man of
English birth, son of the Countess of St. G who
inhabits the third piano of this Casa del Bello. The
very curious part of the spectacle was the swarm of
beggars who haunted the street all day ; the most
wretched mob conceivable, chiefly women, with a few
blind people, and some old men and boys. Among
these the bridal party distributed their beneficence in
the shape of some handfuls of copper, with here and
there a half-paul intermixed; whereupon the whole
wretched mob flung themselves in a heap upon the
pavement, struggling, fighting, tumbling one over an-
other, and then looking up to the windows with petition-
ary gestures for more and more, and still for more.
Doubtless, they had need enough, for they looked
thin, sickly, ill-fed, and the women ugly to the last
degree. The wedding party had a breakfast above
stairs, which lasted till four o'clock, and then the
bridegroom took his bride in a barouche and pair,
which was already crammed with his own luggage and
hers. .... He was a well-looking young man enough,
in a uniform of French gray with silver epaulets ;
more agreeable in aspect than his bride, who, I think,
will have the upper hand in their domestic life. I
observed that, on getting into the barouche, he sat
VOL. II,
5


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down on her dress, as he could not well help doing,
and received a slight reprimand in consequence. After
their departure, the wedding guests took their leave;
the most noteworthy person being the Pope's Nuncio
(the young man being son of the Pope's Chamberlain,
and one of the Grand Duke's Noble Guard), an ecclesi-
astical personage in purple stockings, attended by two
priests, all of whom got into a coach, the driver and
footmen of which wore gold-laced cocked hats and
other splendors.
To-day I paid a short visit to the gallery of the
Pitti Palace. I looked long at a Madonna of Raphael's,
the one which is usually kept in the Grand Duke's
private apartments, only brought into the public gal-
lery for the purpose of being copied. It is the holiest
of all Raphael's Madonnas, with a great reserve in
the expression, a sense of being apart, and yet with
the utmost tenderness and sweetness; although she
drops her eyelids before her like a veil, as it were,
and has a primness of eternal virginity about the
mouth. It is one of Raphael's earlier works, when
he mixed more religious sentiment with his paint than
afterwards. Perugino's pictures give the impression
of greater sincerity and earnestness than Raphael's,
though the genius of Raphael often gave him miracu-
lous vision.
July 28th. - Last evening we went to the Powers's,
and sat with them on the terrace, at the top of the
house, till nearly ten o'clock. It was a delightful,
calm, summer evening, and we were elevated far
above all the adjacent roofs, and had a prospect of the
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ITALY.
greater part of Florence and its towers, and the sur-
rounding hills, while directly beneath us rose the
trees of a garden, and they hardly sent their summits
higher than we sat. At a little distance, with only a
house or two between, was a theatre in full action,
the Teatro Goldoni, which is an open amphitheatre, in
the ancient fashion, without any roof. We could see
the upper part of the proscenium, and, had we been a
little nearer, might have seen the whole performance,
as did several boys who crept along the tops of the
surrounding houses. As it was, we heard the music
and the applause, and now and then an actor's stento-
rian tones, when we chose to listen. Mrs. P- and
my wife, U— and Master Bob, sat in a group
together, and chatted in one corner of our aerial
drawing-room, while Mr. Powers and myself leaned
against the parapet, and talked of innumerable things.
When the clocks struck the hour, or the bells rung
from
the steeples, as they are continually doing, I spoke of
the sweetness of the Florence bells, the tones of some
of them being as if the bell were full of liquid melody,
and shed it through the air on being upturned. I
had supposed, in my lack of musical ear, that the
bells of the Campanile were the sweetest; but Mr.
Powers
says
that there is a defect in their tone, and
that the bell of the Palazzo Vecchio is the most
melodious he ever heard. Then he spoke of his having
been a manufacturer of organs, or, at least, of reeds
for
organs, at one period of his life. I wonder what
he has not been! He told me of an invention of his
in the musical line, a jew's-harp with two tongues;


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and by and by he produced it for my inspection. It
was carefully kept in a little wooden case, and was
very neatly and elaborately constructed, with screws
to tighten it, and a silver centre-piece between the
two tongues. Evidently a great deal of thought had
been bestowed on this little harp; but Mr. Powers
told me that it was an utter failure, because the
tongues were apt to interfere and jar with one another,
although the strain of music was very sweet and melo-
dious --- as he proved, by playing on it a little — when
everything went right. It was a youthful production,
and he said that its failure had been a great disap-
pointment to him at the time; whereupon I congrat-
ulated him that his failures had been in small matters,
and his successes in great ones.
We talked, furthermore, about instinct and reason,
and whether the brute creation have souls, and, if
they have none, how justice is to be done them for
their sufferings here; and Mr. Powers came finally
to the conclusion that brutes suffer only in appear-
ance, and that God enjoys for them all that they
seem to enjoy, and that man •is the only intelligent
and sentient being. We reasoned high about other
states of being; and I suggested the possibility that
there might be beings inhabiting this earth, con-
temporaneously with us, and close beside us, but of
whose existence and whereabout we could have no
perception, nor they of ours, because we are endowed
with different sets of senses ; for certainly it was in
God's power to create beings who should communicate
with nature by innumerable other senses than those


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have therefore taken this suburban villa for the two
next months, and, yesterday morning, we all came
out hither. J had preceded us with B. -
The villa is on a hill called Bellosguardo, about a mile
beyond the Porta Romana. Less than half an hour's
walk brought us, who were on foot, to the iron gate
of our villa, which we found shut and locked. We
shouted to be let in, and while waiting for somebody
to appear, there was a good opportunity to contem-
plate the external aspect of the villa. After we had
waited a few minutes, J. came racing down to the
gate, laughing heartily, and said that Bob and he had
been in the house, but had come out, shutting the
door behind them; and as the door closed with a
spring-lock, they could not get in again. Now as the
key of the outer gate as well as that of the house
itself was in the pocket of J-'s coat, left inside, we
were shut out of our own castle, and compelled to
carry on a siege against it, without much likelihood
of taking it, although the garrison was willing to
surrender. But B. P-called in the assistance of
the contadini who cultivate the ground, and live in the
farm-house close by; and one of them got into a
window by means of a ladder, so that the keys were
got, the gates opened, and we finally admitted. Be-
fore examining any other part of the house, we
climbed to the top of the tower, which, indeed, is not
very high, in proportion to its massive square. Very
probably, its original height was abbreviated, in com-
pliance with the law that lowered so many of the
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ITALY.
we
Florence, The stairs were not of stone, built in
with the original mass of the tower, as in English
castles, but of now decayed wood, which shook be-
neath us, and grew more and more crazy as
ascended. It will not be many years before the height
of the tower becomes unattainable..... Near at
hand, in the vicinity of the city, we saw the convent
of Monte Olivetto, and other structures that looked
like convents, being built round an enclosed square;
also numerous white villas, many of which had towers,
like that we were standing upon, square and massive,
some of them battlemented on the summit, and others
apparently modernized for domestic purposes. Among
them U. pointed out Galileo's tower, whither she
made an excursion the other day. It looked lower
than our own, but seemed to stand on a higher eleva-
tion. We also saw the duke's viļla, the Poggio, with
a long avenue of cypresses leading from it, as if a
funeral were going forth. And having wasted thus
much of description on the landscape, I will finish
with saying that it lacked only water to be a very
fine one.
It is strange what a difference the gleam
of water makes, and how a scene awakens and comes
to life wherever it is visible. The landscape, more-
over, gives the beholder (at least, this beholder) a
sense of oppressive sunshine and scanty shade, and
does not incite a longing to wander through it on
foot, as a really delightful landscape should. The
vine, too, being cultivated in so trim a manner, does
not suggest that idea of luxuriant fertility, which is
the poetical notion of a vineyard. The olive orchards


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have a pale and unlovely hue. An English view
would have been incomparably richer in its never-
fading green; and in my own country, the wooded
hills would have been more delightful than these
peaks and ridges of dreary and barren sunshine ; and
there would have been the bright eyes of half a dozen
ļittle lakes, looking heavenward, within an extent
like that of the Val d'Arno.
By and by mamma's carriage came along the dusty
road, and passed through the iron gateway, which we
had left open for her reception. We shouted down
to her and R and they waved their handker-
chiefs upward to us; and, on my way down, I met
R- and the servant coming up through the ghostly
rooms.
The rest of the day we spent mostly in exploring
the premises. The house itself is of almost bewilder-
ing extent, insomuch that we might each of us have
a suite of rooms individually. I have established
myself on the ground-floor, where I have a dressing-
room, a large vaulted saloon, hung with yellow
damask, and a square writing-study, the walls and
ceilings of the two latter apartments being orna-
'mented with angels and cherubs aloft in fresco, and
with temples, statues, vases, broken columns, peacocks,
parrots, vines, and sunflowers below. I know not how
many more saloons, anterooms, and sleeping-chambers
there are on this same basement story, besides an
equal number over them, and a great subterranean
establishment. I saw some immense jars there, which
I suppose were intended to hold oil; and iron kettles,


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ITALY.
for what purpose I cannot tell. There is also a chapel
in the house, but it is locked up, and we cannot yet
with certainty find the door of it, por even, in this
great wilderness of a house, decide absolutely what
space the holy precincts occupy. Adjoining - 's
chamber, which is in the tower, there is a little ora-
tory, hung round with sacred prints of very ancient
date, and with crucifixes, holy-water vases, and other
consecrated things; and here, within a glass case,
there is the representation of an undraped little boy
in wax, very prettily modelled, and holding up a heart
that looks like a bit of red sealing-wax. If I had
found him anywhere else I should have taken him for
Cupid; but, being in an oratory, I presume him to
have some religious signification. In the servants'
room a crucifix hung on one side of the bed, and a
little vase for holy water, now overgrown with a cob-
web, on the other; and, no doubt, all the other sleep-
ing-apartments would have been equally well provided,
only that their occupants were to be heretics.
The lower floor of the house is tolerably furnished,
and looks cheerful with its frescos, although the bare
pavements in every room give an impression of dis-
comfort. But carpets are universally taken up in
Italy during summer-time. It must have been an
immense family that could have ever filled such a
house with life. We go on voyages of discovery, and
when in quest of any particular point, are likely
enough to fetch up at some other. This morning I
had difficulty in finding my way again to the top of
the tower, One of the most peculiar rooms is con-
5*


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structed close to the tower, under the roof of the
main building, but with no external walls on two
sides! It is thus left open to the air, I presume for
the sake of coolness. A parapet runs round the ex-
posed sides for the sake of security. Some of the
palaces in Florence have such open loggias in their
upper stories, and I saw others on our journey hither,
after arriving in Tuscany.
The grounds immediately around the house are
laid out in gravel-walks, and ornamented with shrub-
bery, and with what ought to be a grassy lawn; but
the Italian sun is quite as little favorable to beauty
of that kind as our own. I have enjoyed the luxury,
however, almost for the first time since I left
my
hill.
top at the Wayside, of flinging myself at full length on
the ground without any fear of catching cold. Moist
England would punish a man soundly for taking such
liberties with her greensward. A podere, or culti-
vated tract, comprising several acres, belongs to the
villa, and seems to be fertile, like all the surrounding
country. The possessions of different proprietors are
not separated by fences, but only marked out by
ditches; and it seems possible to walk miles and
miles, along the intersecting paths, without obstruc-
tion. The rural laborers, so far as I have observed,
go about in their shirt-sleeves, and look very much
like tanned and sunburnt Yankees.
Last night it was really a work of time and toil to
go about making our defensive preparations for the
night; first closing the iron gate, then the ponderous
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ITALY.
the separate barricadoes of each iron-barred window
on the lower floor, with a somewhat slighter arrange-
ment above. There are bolts and shutters, however,
for every window in the house, and I suppose it
would not be amiss to put them all in use. Our
garrison is so small that we must depend more upon
the strength of our fortifications than upon our own
active efforts in case of an attack. In England, in
an insulated country house, we should need all these
bolts and bars, and Italy is not thought to be the
safer country of the two.
It deserves to be recorded that the Count Montauto,
a nobleman, and seemingly a man of property, should
deem it worth while to let his country seat, and re.
side during the hot months in his palace in the city,
for the consideration of a comparatively small sum a
month. He seems to contemplate returning hither
for the autumn and winter, when the situation must
be very windy and bleak, and the cold deathlike in
these great halls; and then, it is to be supposed, he
will let his palace in town. The Count, through the
agency of his son, bargained very stiffly for, and finally
obtained, three dollars in addition to the sum which
we at first offered him. This indicates that even a
little money is still a matter of great moment in Italy.
Signor del Bello, who, I believe, is also a nobleman,
haggled with us about some cracked crockery at our
late residence, and finally demanded and received fifty
cents in compensation. But this poor gentleman has
been a spendthrift, and now acts as the agent of
another.


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August 3d. — Yesterday afternoon William Story
called on me, he being on a day or two's excursion
from Siena, where he is spending the summer with his
family. He was very entertaining and conversative,
as usual, and said, in reply to my question whether he
were not anxious to return to Cleopatra, that he had
already sketched out another subject for sculpture,
which would employ him during next winter. He
told me, what I was glad to hear, that his sketches
of Italian life, intended for the “Atlantic Monthly," and
supposed to be lost, have been recovered. Speaking
of the superstitiousness of the Italians, he said that
they universally believe in the influence of the evil
eye. The evil influence is supposed not to be depend-
ent on the will of the possessor of the evil eye; on the
contrary, the persons to whom he wishes well are the
very ones to suffer by it. It is oftener found in
monks than in any other class of people ; and on
meeting a monk, and encountering his eye, an Italian
usually makes a defensive sign by putting both hands
behind him, with the forefingers and little fingers
extended, although it is a controverted point whether
it be not more efficacious to extend the hand with its
outspread fingers towards the suspected person. It is
considered an evil omen to meet a monk on first going
out for the day. The evil eye may be classified with
the phenomena of mesmerism.
The Italians, espe-
cially the Neapolitans, very generally wear amulets.
Pio Nono, perhaps as being the chief of all monks
and other religious people, is supposed to have an evil
eye of tenfold malignancy; and its effect has been


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ITALY.
seen in the ruin of all schemes for the public good so
soon as they are favored by him. When the pillar in
the Piazza di Spagna, commemorative of his dogma of
the Immaculate Conception, was to be erected, the
people of Rome refused to be present, or to have
anything to do with it, unless the pope promised to
abstain from interference. His holiness did promise,
but so far broke his word as to be present one day
while it was being erected, and on that day a man
was killed. • A little while ago there was a Lord
Clifford, an English Catholic nobleman, residing in
Italy, and, happening to come to Rome, he sent his
compliments to Pio Nono, and requested the favor of
an interview. The pope, as it happened, was indis-
posed, or for some reason could not see his lordship,
but very kindly sent him his blessing. Those who
knew of it shook their heads, and intimated that it
would
go ill with his lordship now that he had been
blessed by Pio Nono, and the very next day poor Lord
Clifford was dead! His holiness had better construe
the scriptural injunction literally, and take to blessing
his enemies.
I walked into town with J. this morning, and,
meeting a monk in the Via Fornace, I thought it no
more than reasonable, as the good father fixed his eyes
on me, to provide against the worst by putting both
hands behind me, with the forefingers and little fingers
stuck out.
In speaking of the little oratory connected with
U-'s chamber, I forgot to mention the most
remarkable object in it. It is a skull, the size of


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life (or death). . . . . This part of the house must be
very old, probably coeval with the tower. The ceil-
ing of 's apartment is vaulted with intersecting
arches; and adjoining it is a very large saloon, like-
wise with a vaulted and groined ceiling, and having
a cushioned divan running all round the walls. The
windows of these rooms look out on the Val d' Arno.
The apartment above this saloon is of the same
size, and hung with engraved portraits, printed on
large sheets by the score and hundred -together, and
enclosed in wooden frames. They comprise the whole
series of Roman emperors, the succession of popes,
the
kings of Europe, the doges of Venice, and the sultans
of Turkey. The engravings bear different dates be-
tween 1685 and thirty years later, and were executed
at Rome.
August 4th.
We ascended our tower yesterday
afternoon to see the sunset. In my first sketch of the
Val d'Arno I said that the Arno seemed to hold its
course near the bases of the hills. I now observe that
the line of trees which marks its current divides the
valley into two pretty equal parts, and the river runs
nearly east and west. At last, when it was
growing dark, we went down, groping our way over
the shaky staircases, and peeping into each dark
chamber as we passed. I gratified J exceedingly
by hitting my nose against the wall. Reaching the
bottom, I went into the great saloon, and stood at a
window watching the lights twinkle forth, near and
far, in the valley, and listening to the convent bells
that sounded from Monte Olivetto, and more remotely


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ITALY.
still. The stars came out, and the constellation of
the Dipper hung exactly over the Val d'Arno, pointing
to the North Star above the hills on my right.
August 12th.
We drove into town yesterday after-
noon, with Miss Blagden, to call on Mr. Kirkup, an
old Englishman who has resided a great many years
in Florence. He is noted as an antiquarian, and has
the reputation of being a necromancer, not unde-
servedly, as he is deeply interested in spirit-rappings,
and holds converse, through a medium, with dead
poets and emperors. He lives in an old house, for-
merly a residence of the Knights Templars, hanging
over the Arno, just as you come upon the Ponte Vec-
chio; and, going up a dark staircase and knocking at a
door on one side of the landing-place, we were received
by Mr. Kirkup. He had had notice of our visit, and
was prepared for it, being dressed in a blue frock-coat
of rather an old fashion, with a velvet collar, and in a
thin waistcoat and pantaloons fresh from the drawer;
looking very sprucely, in short, and unlike his custom-
ary guise, for Miss Blagden hinted to us that the poor
gentleman is generally so untidy that it is not quite
pleasant to take him by the hand. He is rather low
of stature, with a pale, shrivelled face, and hair and
beard perfectly white, and the hair of a particularly
soft and silken texture. He has a high, thin nose, of
the English aristocratic type ; his eyes have a queer,
rather wild look, and the eyebrows are arched above
them, so that he seems all the time to be seeing some-
thing that strikes him with surprise. I judged him
to be a little crack-brained, chiefly on the strength


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of this expression. His whole make is delicate, his
hands white and small, and his appearance and man-
ners those of a gentleman, with rather more embroid-
ery of courtesy than belongs to an Englishman. He
appeared to be very nervous, tremulous, indeed, to his
fingers' ends, without being in any degree disturbed
or embarrassed by our presence. Finally, he is very
deaf ; an infirmity that quite took away my pleasure
in the interview, because it is impossible to say any-
thing worth while when. one is compelled to raise one's
voice above its ordinary level.
He ushered us through two or three large rooms,
dark, dusty, hung with antique-looking pictures, and
lined with bookcases containing, I doubt not, a very
curious library. Indeed, he directed my attention to
one case, and said that he had collected those works,
in former days, merely for the sake of laughing at
them. They were books of magic and occult sciences.
What he seemed really to value, however, were some
manuscript copies of Dante, of which he showed us
two; one, a folio on parchment, beautifully written in
German text, the letters as clear and accurately cut as
printed type; the other a small volume, fit, as Mr.
Kirkup said, to be carried in a capacious medieval
sleeve. This also was on vellum, and as elegantly
executed as the larger one ; but the larger had beau-
tiful illuminations, the vermilion and gold of which
looked as brilliant now as they did five centuries ago.
Both of these books were written early in the four-
teenth century. Mr. Kirkup has also a plaster cast
of Dante's face, which he believes to be the original


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ITALY.
one taken from his face after death ; and he has like-
wise his own accurate tracing from Giotto's fresco of
Dante in the chapel of the Bargello. This fresco was
discovered through Mr. Kirkup's means, and the
tracing is particularly valuable, because the original
has been almost destroyed by rough usage in drawing
out a nail that had been driven into the eye. It
represents the profile of a youthful but melancholy
face, and has the general outline of Dante's features
in other portraits.
Dante. has held frequent communications with Mr.
Kirkup through a medium, the poet being described
by the medium as wearing the same dress seen in the
youthful portrait, but as bearing more resemblance to
the cast taken from his dead face than to the picture
from his youthful one.
There was a very good picture of Savonarola in one
of the rooms, and many other portraits, paintings, and
drawings, some of them ancient, and others the work
of Mr. Kirkup himself. He has the torn fragment of
an exquisite drawing of a nude figure by Rubens, and
a portfolio of other curious drawings. And besides
books and works of art, he has no end of antique
knickknackeries, none of which we had any time to
look at; among others some instruments with which
nuns used to torture themselves in their convents by
way of penance. But the greatest curiosity of all,
and no antiquity, was a pale, large-eyed little girl,
about four years
who followed the conjurer's
footsteps wherever he went. She was the brightest
and merriest little thing in the world, and frisked
H


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ITALY.
on the ceilings, black pictures hanging on the walls,
old books on the shelves, and hundreds of musty
antiquities, emitting an odor of past centuries; the
shrivelled, white-bearded old man, thinking all the time
of ghosts, and looking into the child's eyes to seek
them; and the child herself, springing so freshly out
of the soil, so pretty, so intelligent, so playful, with
never a playmate save the conjurer and a kitten. It
is a Persian kitten, and lay asleep in a window; but
when I touched it, it started up at once in as game-
some a mood as the child herself.
The child looks pale, and no wonder, seldom or
never stirring out of that old palace, or away from
the river atmosphere. Miss Blagden advised Mr.
Kirkup to go with her to the seaside or into the
country, and he did not deny that it might do her
good, but seemed to be hampered by an old man's
sluggishness and dislike of change. I think he will
not live a great while, for he seems very frail. When
he dies the little girl will inherit what property he
may leave. A lady, Catharine Fleming, an English-
woman, and a friend of Mr. Kirkup, has engaged to
take her in charge. She followed us merrily to the
door, and so did the Persian kitten, and Mr. Kirkup
shook hands with us, over and over again, with viva-
cious courtesy, his manner having been characterized
by a great deal of briskness throughout the interview.
He expressed himself delighted to have met
(whose books he had read), and said that the day
would be a memorable one to him, — which I did not
in the least believe.
me


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Mr. Kirkup is an intimate friend of Trelawny,
author of “Adventures of a Younger Son," and, long
ago, the latter promised him that, if he ever came
into possession of the family estate, he would divide
it with him. Trelawny did really succeed to the es-
tate, and lost no time in forwarding to his friend the
legal documents, entitling him to half of the property.
But Mr. Kirkup declined the gift, as he himself was
not destitute, and Trelawny had a brother. There
were two pictures of Trelawny in the saloons, one a
slight sketch on the wall, the other a half-length por-
trait in a Turkish dress; both handsome, but indi-
cating no very amiable character.
It is not easy to
forgive Trelawny for uncovering dead Byron's limbs,
and telling that terrible story about them, -- equally
disgraceful to himself, be it truth or a lie.
It seems that Regina had a lover, and a sister who
was very disreputable. It rather adds than
otherwise to the romance of the affair, - the idea that
this pretty little elf has no right whatever to the
asylum which she has found. Her name is Imogen.
The small manuscript copy of Dante which he
showed me was written by à Florentine gentleman
of the fourteenth century, one of whose ancestors the
poet had met and talked with in Paradise.
August 19th. — Here is a good Italian incident,
which I find in Valery. Andrea del Castagno was a
painter in Florence in the fifteenth century; and he
had a friend, likewise a painter, Domenico of Venice.
The latter had the secret of painting in oils, and
yielded to Castagno's entreaties to impart it to him.


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hands purported to belong to the aunt of the Countess
Cotterel, whº was present, and were a pair of thin,
delicate, aged, ladylike hands and arms, appearing
at the edge of the table, and terminating at the elbow
in a sort of white mist. One of the hands took up a
fan and began to use it. The countess then said,
“Fan yourself as you used to do, dear aunt"; and
forthwith the hands waved the fan back and forth in
a peculiar manner, which the countess recognized as
the manner of her dead aunt. The spirit was then
requested to fan each member of the party; and
accordingly, each separate individual round the table
was fanned in turn, and felt the breeze sensibly upon
his face. Finally, the hands sank beneath the table,
I believe Mr. Powers said ; but I am not quite sure
that they did not melt into the air. During this
apparition, Mr. Hume sat at the table, but not in
such a position or within such distance that he could
have put out or managed the spectral hands; and of
this Mr. Powers satisfied himself by taking precisely
the same position after the party had retired. Mr.
Powers did not feel the hands at this time, but he
afterwards felt the touch of infant hands, which were
at the time invisible. He told of many of the won-
ders, which seem to have as much right to be set
down as facts as anything else that depends on human
testimony. For example, Mr. K- one of the party,
gave a sudden start and exclamation. He had felt on
his knee a certain token, which could have been given
him only by a friend, long ago in his grave. Mr.
Powers inquired what was the last thing that had


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ITALY.
been given as a present to a deceased child; and
suddenly both he and his wife felt a prick as of some
sharp instrument, on their knees. The present had
been a penknife. I have forgotten other incidents
quite as striking as these ; but, with the exception
of the spirit-hands, they seemed to be akin to those
that have been produced by mesmerism, returning the
inquirer's thoughts and veiled recollections to himself,
as answers to his queries. The hands are certainly
an inexplicable phenomenon. Of course, they are not
portions of a dead body, nor any other kind of sub-
stance; they are impressions on the two senses, sight
and touch, but how produced I cannot tell. Even
admitting their appearance, — and certainly I do
admit it as freely and fully as if I had seen them
myself, — there is no need of supposing them to come
from the world of departed spirits.
Powers seems to put entire faith in the verity of
spiritual communications, while acknowledging the
difficulty of identifying spirits as being what they
pretend to be. He is a Swedenborgian, and so far
prepared to put faith in many of these phenomena.
As for Hume, Powers gives a decided opinion that he
is a knave, but thinks him so organized, nevertheless,
as to be a particularly good. medium for spiritual
communications. Spirits, I suppose, like earthly
people, are obliged to use such instruments as will
answer their purposes ; but rather than receive a
message from a dead friend through the organism
of a rogue or charlatan, methinks I would choose to
wait till we meet. But what most astonishes me is


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the indifference with which I listen to these marvels.
They throw old ghost-stories quite into the shade ;
they bring the whole world of spirits down amongst
us, visibly and audibly; they are absolutely proved
to be sober facts by evidence that would satisfy us
of any other alleged realities; and yet I cannot force
my mind to interest myself in them. They are facts
to my understanding, which, it might have been
anticipated, would have been the last to acknowledge
them; but they seem not to be facts to my
intuitions
and deeper perceptions. My inner soul does not in
the least admit them; there is a mistake somewhere.
So idle and empty do I feel these stories to be, that I
hesitated long whether or no to give up a few pages
of this not very important journal to the record of
them.
We have had written communications through
Miss with several spirits; my wife's father,
mother, two brothers, and a sister, who died long ago,
in infancy; a certain Mary Hall, who announces her-
self as the guardian spirit of Miss ; and, queerest
of all, a Mary Runnel, who seems to be a wandering
spirit, having relations with nobody, but thrusts her
finger into everybody's affairs. My wife's mother is
the principal communicant; she expresses strong
affection, and rejoices at the opportunity of conversing
with her daughter. She often says very pretty things;
for instance, in a dissertation upon heavenly music;
but there is a lack of substance in her talk, a want of
gripe, a delusive show, a sentimental surface, with no
bottom beneath it. The same sort of thing has struck


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ITALY.
.
me in all the poetry and prose that I have read from
spiritual sources. I should judge that these effusions
emanated from earthly minds, but had undergone
some process that had deprived them of solidity and
warmth. In the communications between my wife
and her mother, I cannot help thinking that (Miss
being unconsciously in a mesmeric state) all the
responses are conveyed to her fingers from my wife's
mind.
We have tried the spirits by various test questions,
on every one of which they have failed egregiously.
Here, however, the aforesaid Mary Runnel comes into
play. The other spirits have told us that the veracity
of this spirit is not to be depended upon; and so,
whenever it is possible, poor Mary Runnel is thrust
forward to bear the odium of every mistake or false-
hood. They have avowed themselves responsible for
all statements signed by themselves, and have there-
by brought themselves into more than one inextricable
dilemma; but it is very funny, where a response or a
matter of fact has not been thus certified, how invari-
ably Mary Runnel is made to assume the discredit of
it, on its turning out to be false. It is the most in-
genious arrangement that could possibly have been
contrived; and somehow or other, the pranks of this
lying spirit give a reality to the conversations which
the more respectable ghosts quite fail in imparting.
The whole matter seems to me a sort of dreaming
awake. It resembles a dream, in that the nole
material is, from the first, in the dreamer's mind,
though concealed at various depths below the surface;
VOL. II.


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the dead appear alive, as they always do in dreams;
unexpected combinations occur, as continually in
dreams; the mind speaks through the various persons
of the drama, and sometimes astonishes itself with its
own wit, wisdom, and eloquence, as often in dreams;
but, in both cases, the intellectual manifestations are
really of a very flimsy texture. Mary Runnel is the
only personage who does not come evidently from
dream-land; and she, I think, represents that lurking
scepticism, that sense of unreality, of which we are
often conscious, amid the most vivid phantasmagoria
of a dream. I should be glad to believe in the genu-
ineness of these spirits, if I could; but the above is
the conclusion to which my soberest thoughts tend.
There remains, of course, a great deal for which I can-
not account, and I cannot sufficiently wonder at the
pigheadedness both of metaphysicians and physiolo-
gists, in not accepting the phenomena, so far as to
make them the subject of investigation.
In writing the communications, Miss — holds the
pencil rather loosely between her fingers ; it moves
rapidly, and with equal facility whether she fixes her
eyes on the paper or not. The handwriting has far
more freedom than her own. At the conclusion of a
sentence, the pencil lays itself down. She sometimes
has a perception of each word before it is written; at
other times, she is quite unconscious what is to come
next. Her integrity is absolutely indubitable, and
she herself totally disbelieves in the spiritual authen-
ticity of what is communicated through her medium.
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day, betimes after breakfast, it being comfortably cool,
and a gray, English sky; though, indeed, the clouds
had a tendency to mass themselves more than they
do on an overcast English day.
We found it warmer
in Florence, but not inconveniently so, even in the
sunniest streets and squares.
We went to the Uffizzi gallery, the whole of which
with its contents is now familiar to us, except the
room containing drawings; and our to-day's visit was
especially to them. The door giving admittance to
them is the very last in the gallery; and the rooms,
three in number, are, I should judge, over the Loggia
de Lanzi, looking on the Grand Ducal Piazza. The
drawings hang on the walls, framed and glazed ; and
number, perhaps, from one to two hundred in each
room; but this is only a small portion of the collec-
tion, which amounts, it is said, to twenty thousand,
and is reposited in portfolios. The sketches on the
walls are changed, from time to time, so as to exhibit
all the most interesting ones in turn. Their whole
charm is artistic, imaginative, and intellectual, and in
no degree of the upholstery kind; their outward pre-
sentment being, in general, a design hastily shadowed
out, by means of colored crayons, on tinted paper, or
perhaps scratched rudely in pen and ink; or drawn in
pencil or charcoal, and half rubbed out; very rough
things, indeed, in many instances, and the more inter-
esting on that account, because it seems as if the
artist had bestirred himself to catch the first glimpse
of an image that did but reveal itself and vanish. The
sheets, or sometimes scraps of paper, on which they


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are drawn, are discolored with age, creased, soiled ;
but yet you are magnetized by the hand of Raphael,
Michael Angelo, Leonardo, or whoever may have jotted
down those rough-looking master-touches. They cer-
tainly possess a charm that is lost in the finished pic-
ture ; and I was more sensible of forecasting thought,
skill, and prophetic design, in these sketches than in
the most consummate works that have been elaborated
from them. There is something more divine in these ;
for I suppose the first idea of a picture is real inspira-
tion, and all the subsequent elaboration of the master
serves but to cover up the celestial germ with some-
thing that belongs to himself. At any rate, the first
sketch is the more suggestive, and sets the spectator's
imagination at work; whereas the picture, if a good
one, leaves him nothing to do; if bad, it confuses,
stupefies, disenchants, and disheartens him. First
thoughts have an aroma and fragrance in them, that
they do not lose in three hundred years; for so old,
and a good deal more, are some of these sketches.
None interested me more than some drawings, on
separate pieces of paper, by Perugino, for his picture
of the mother and friends of Jesus round his dead
body, now at the Pitti Palace. The attendant figures
are distinctly made out, as if the Virgin, and John,
and Mary Magdalen had each favored the painter with
a sitting ; but the body of Jesus lies in the midst,
dimly hinted with a few pencil marks.
There were several designs by Michael Angelo, none
of which made much impression on me; the most
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.
niches hollowed into the exterior walls of the Church
of San Michele. They are now in the process of being
cleaned, and each niche is elaborately inlaid with
precious marbles, and some of them magnificently
gilded ; and they are all surmounted with marble
canopies as light and graceful as frost-work. Within
stand statues, St. George, and many other saints, by
Donatello and others, and all taking a hold upon one's
sympathies, even if they be not beautiful. Classic
statues escape you with their slippery beauty, as if
they were made of ice. Rough and ugly things can
be clutched. This is nonsense, and yet it means
something The streets were thronged and vo-
ciferative with more life and outcry than usual. It
must have been market-day in Florence, for the com-
merce of the streets was in great vigor, narrow tables
being set out in them, and in the squares, burdened
with all kinds of small merchandise, such as cheap
jewelry, glistening as brightly as what we had just
seen in the gem-room of the Uffizzi ; crockery ware ;
toys, books, Italian and French; silks ; slippers ; old
iron; all advertised by the dealers with terribly loud
and high voices, that reverberated harshly from side
to side of the narrow streets. Italian street-cries go
through the head, not that they are so very sharp,
but exceedingly hard, like a blunt iron bar.
We stood at the base of the Campanile, and looked
at the bas-reliefs which wreathe it round; and, above
them, ow of statues; and from bottom to top
marvellous minuteness of inlaid marbles, filling up
the vast and beautiful design of this heaven-aspiring


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tower. Looking upward to its lofty summit, — - where
angels might alight, lapsing downward from heaven,
and gaze curiously at the bustle of men below, -I
could not but feel that there is a moral charm in this
faithful minuteness of Gothic architecture, filling up
its outline with a million of beauties that perhaps
may never be studied out by a single spectator. It
is the very process of nature, and no doubt produces
an effect that we know not of. Classic architecture is
nothing but an outline, and affords no little points, no
interstices where human feelings may cling and over-
grow it like ivy. The charm, as I said, seems to be
moral rather than intellectual ; for in the gem-room
of the Uffizzi you may see fifty designs, elaborated on
a small scale, that have just as much merit as the
design of the Campanile. If it were only five inches
long, it might be a case for some article of toilet;
being two hundred feet high, its prettiness develops
into grandeur as well as beauty, and it becomes really
one of the wonders of the world. The design of the
Pantheon, on the contrary, would retain its sublimity
on whatever scale it might be represented.
Returning homewards, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio,
and went to the Museum of Natural History, where
we gained admittance into the rooms dedicated to
Galileo. They consist of a vestibule, a saloon, and a
semicircular tribune, covered with a frescoed dome,
beneath which stands a colossal statue of Galileo,
long-bearded, and clad in a student's gown, or some
voluminous garb of that kind. Around the tribune,
beside and behind the statue, are six niches, — in one


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;
of which is preserved a forefinger of Galileo, fixed on
a little gilt pedestal, and pointing upward, under a
glass cover. It is very much shrivelled and mummy-
like, of the color of parchment, and is little more
than a finger-bone, with the dry skin or flesh flaking
away from it; on the whole, not a very delightful
relić; but Galileo used to point heavenward with this
finger, and I hope has gone whither he pointed.
Another niche contains two telescopes, wherewith
he made some of his discoveries ; they are perhaps a
yard long, and of very small calibre. Other astro-
nomical instruments are displayed in the glass cases
that line the rooms; but I did not understand their
use any better than the monks, who wished to burn
Galileo for his heterodoxy about the planetary
system.
After dinner I climbed the tower. Florence
lay in the sunshine, level, compact, and small of
compass.
Above the tiled roofs rose the tower of the
Palazzo Vecchio, the loftiest and the most picturesque,
though built, I suppose, with no idea of making it so.
But it attains, in a singular degree, the end of causing
the imagination to fly upward and alight on its airy
battlements. Near it I beheld the square mass of Or
San Michele, and farther to the left the bulky Duomo
and the Campanile close beside it, like a slender
bride or daughter ; the dome of San Lorenzo too.
The Arno is nowhere visible. Beyond, and on all
sides of the city, the hills pile themselves lazily
upward in ridges, here and there developing into a
peak; towards their bases white villas were strewn
.
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numerously, but the upper region was lonely and
bare.
As we passed under the arch of the Porta Romana
this morning, on our way into the city, we saw a
queer object. It was what we at first took for a
living man, in a garb of light reddish or yellowish
red color, of antique or priestly fashion, and with a
cowl falling behind. His face was of the same hue,
and seemed to have been powdered, as the faces of
maskers sometimes are. He sat in a cart, which he
seemed to be driving into the city with a load of
earthen jar's and pipkins, the color of which was
precisely like his own. On closer inspection, this
priestly figure proved to be likewise an image of
earthenware, but his lifelikeness had a very strange
and rather ghastly effect. Adam, perhaps, was made
of just such red earth, and had the complexion of this
figure.
September 7th. - I walked into town yesterday
morning, by way of the Porta San Frediano. The
gate of a city might be a good locality for a chapter in
a novel, or for a little sketch by itself, whether by
painter or writer. The great arch of the gateway,
piercing through the depth and height of the massive
masonry beneath the battlemented summit; the
shadow brooding below, in the immense thickness
of the wall and beyond it, the vista of the street,
sunny and swarming with life ; outside of the gate,
a throng of carts, laden with fruits, vegetables, small
flat barrels of wine, waiting to be examined by the
custom-house officers ; carriages too, and foot passen-
6 *
I


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gers entering, and others swarming outward. Under
the shadowy arch are the offices of the police and
customs, and probably the guard-room of the soldiers,
all hollowed out in the mass of the gateway. Civil
officers loll on chairs in the shade, perhaps with an
awning over their heads. Where the sun falls aslant-
wise under the arch a sentinel, with musket and
bayonet, paces to and fro in the entrance, and other
soldiers lounge close by. The life of the city seems
to be compressed and made more intense by this
barrier ; and on passing within it you do not breathe
quite so freely, yet are sensible of an enjoyment in
the close elbowing throng, the clamor of high voices
from side to side of the street, and the million of
petty sights, actions, traffics, and personalities, all so
squeezed together as to become a great whole.
The street by which I entered led me to the Carraja
Bridge; crossing which, I kept straight onward till I
came to the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Doubt-
less, it looks just the same as when Boccaccio's party
stood in a cluster on its broad steps arranging their
excursion to the villa. Thence I went to the Church
of St. Lorenzo, which I entered by the side door, and
found the organ sounding and a religious ceremony
going forward.
It is a church of sombre aspect, with
its gray walls and pillars, but was decked out for some
festivity with hangings of scarlet damask and gold.
I sat awhile to rest myself, and then pursued my
way to the Duomo. I entered, and looked at Sir
John Hawkwood's painted effigy, and at several busts
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rounding the dome, through which the sunshine
glowed, white in the outer air, but a hundred-hued
splendor within. I tried to bring up the scene of
Lorenzo di Medici's attempted assassination, but with
no great success; and after listening a little while to
the chanting of the priests and acolytes, I went to the
Bank. It is in a palace of which Raphael was the
architect, in the Piazza Gran Duca.
I next went, as a matter of course, to the Uffizzi
gallery, and, in the first place, to the Tribune, where
the Venus di Medici deigned to reveal herself rather
more satisfactorily than at my last visit. . ...
..I
looked into all the rooms, bronzes, drawings, and
gem-room ; a volume might easily be written upon
either subject. The contents of the gem-room espe-
cially require to be looked at separately in order to
convince one's self of their minute magnificences ; for,
among so many, the eye slips from one to another
with only a vague outward sense that here are whole
shelves full of little miracles, both of nature's material
and man's workmanship. Greater (larger] things can
be reasonably well appreciated with a less scrupulous
though broader attention; but in order to estimate
the brilliancy of the diamond eyes of a little agate
bust, for instance, you have to screw your mind down
to them and nothing else. You must sharpen your
faculties of observation to a point, and touch the
object exactly on the right spot, or you do not appre-
ciate it at all. It is a troublesome process when there
are a thousand such objects to be seen.
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dor, and looked down upon the Armo, and across at
the range of edifices that impend over it on the
opposite side. The river, I should judge, may be a
hundred or a hundred and fifty yards wide in its
course between the Ponte alle Grazie and the Ponte
Vecchio; that is, the width between strand and
strand is at least so much. The river, however, leaves
a broad margin of mud and gravel on its right bank,
on which water-weeds grow pretty abundantly, and
creep even into the stream.
On my first arrival in
Florence I thought the goose-pond green of the water
rather agreeable than otherwise ; but its hue is now
that of unadulterated mud, as yellow as the Tiber
itself, yet not impressing me as being enriched with
city sewerage like that other famous river. From the
Ponte alle Grazie downward, half-way towards the
Ponte Vecchio, there is an island of gravel, and the
channel on each side is so shallow as to allow the
passage
of men and horses, wading not overleg. I have seen
fishermen wading the main channel from side to side,
their feet sinking into the dark mud, and thus dis-
coloring the yellow water with a black track visible,
step by step, through its shallowness. But still the
Arno is a mountain stream, and liable to be tetchy
and turbulent like all its kindred, and no doubt it
often finds its borders of hewn stone not too far apart
for its convenience.
Along the right shore, beneath the Uffizzi and the
adjacent buildings, there is a broad paved way, with
a parapet; on the opposite shore the edifices are
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the water, supported upon arches and machicolations,
as I think that peculiar arrangement of buttressing
arcades is called. The houses are picturesquely vari-
ous in height, from two or three stories to seven ;
picturesque in hue likewise, - pea-green, yellow, white,
and of aged discoloration, -- but all with green blinds;
picturesque also in the courts and galleries that look
upon the river, and in the wide arches that open
beneath, intended perhaps to afford a haven for the
household boat. Nets were suspended before one or
two of the houses, as if the inhabitants were in the
habit of fishing out of window. As a general effect,
the houses, though often palatial in size and height,
have a shabby, neglected aspect, and are jumbled
too closely together. Behind their range the city
swells upward in a hillside, which rises to a great
height above, forming, I believe, a part of the Boboli
Gardens.
I returned homewards over the Ponte Vecchio,
which is a continuous street of ancient houses, except
over the central arch, so that a stranger might easily
cross the river without knowing it. In these small,
old houses there is a community of goldsmiths, who
set out their glass cases, and hang their windows with
rings, bracelets, necklaces, strings of pearl, ornaments
of malachite and coral, and especially with Florentine
mosaics ; watches, too, and snuff-boxes of old fashion
or new; offerings for shrines also, such as silver
hearts pierced with swords; an infinity of pretty
things, the manufacture of which is continually going
on in the little back-room of each little shop. This


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me.
gewgaw business has been established on the Ponte
Vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it was an
art of far higher pretensions than now. Benvenuto
Cellini had his workshop here, probably in one of
these self-same little nooks. It would have been a
ticklish affair to be Benvenuto's fellow-workman with-
in such narrow limits.
Going out of the Porta Romana, I walked for some
distance along the city wall, and then, turning to the
left, toiled up the hill of Bellosguardo, through narrow
zigzag lanes between high walls of stone or plastered
brick, where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle
There were scattered villas and houses, here
and there concentrating into a little bit of a street,
paved with flagstones from side to side, as in the city,
and shadowed quite across its narrowness by the
height of the houses. Mostly, however, the way was
inhospitably sunny, and shut out by the high wall
from every glimpse of a view, except in one spot,
where Florence spread itself before my eyes, with
every tower, dome, and spire which it contains.
little way farther on my own gray tower rose before
me, the most welcome object that I had seen in the
course of the day.
September 10th. -- I went into town again yesterday,
by way of the Porta San Frediano, and observed that
this gate (like the other gates of Florence, as far as I
have observed) is a tall, square structure of stone or
brick, or both, rising high above the adjacent wall,
and having a range of open loggie in the upper story.
The arch externally is about half the height of the


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ITALY.
one.
structure. Inside, towards the town, it rises nearly
to the roof. On each side of the arch there is much
room for offices, apartments, storehouses, or whatever
else. On the outside of the gate, along the base, are
those iron rings and sockets for torches, which are
said to be the distinguishing symbol of illustrious
houses. As contrasted with the vista of the narrow,
swarming street through the arch from without, the
view from the inside might be presented with a
glimpse of the free blue sky.
I strolled a little about Florence, and went into two
or three churches; into that of the Annunziata for
I have already described this church, with its
general magnificence, and it was more magnificent
than ever to-day, being hung with scarlet silk and
gold-embroidery. A great many people were at their
devotions, thronging principally around the Virgin's
shrine. I was struck now with the many bas-reliefs
and busts in the costume of their respective ages, and
seemingly with great accuracy of portraiture, in the
passage leading from the front of the church into the
cloisters. The marble was not at all abashed nor de-
graded by being made to assume the guise of the
mediæval furred robe, or the close-fitting tunic with
elaborate ruff, or the breastplate and gorget, or the
Aowing wig, or whatever the actual costume might be ;
and one is sensible of a rectitude and reality in the
affair, and respects the dead people for not putting
themselves into an eternal masquerade. The dress of
the present day will look equally respectable in one
or two hundred years.


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The Fair is still going on, and one of its principal
centres is before this church, in the Piazza, of the
Annunziata. Cloth is the chief commodity offered
for sale, and none of the finest ; coarse, unbleached
linen and cotton prints for country-people's wear, to-
gether with yarn, stockings, and, here and there an
assortment of bright-colored ribbons. Playthings, of
a very rude fashion, were also displayed ; likewise
books in Italian and French ; and a great deal of
ironwork. Both here and in Rome they have this odd
custom of offering rusty iron implements for sale,
spread out on the pavements. There was a good deal
of tinware, too, glittering in the sunshine, especially
around the pedestal of the bronze statue of Duke Fer-
dinand, who curbs his horse and looks down
upon
the
bustling piazza in a very stately way. .1.. The peo-
ple attending the fair had mostly a rustic appearance ;
sunburnt faces, thin frames; no beauty, no bloom, no
joyousness of young or old; an anxious aspect, as if
life were no easy or holiday matter with them; but I
should take them to be of a kindly nature, and reason-
ably honest. Except the broad-brimmed Tuscan hats
of the women, there was no peculiarity of costume.
At a careless glance I could very well have mis-
taken most of the men for Yankees ; as for the wo-
men, there is very little resemblance between them
and ours, - the old being absolutely hideous, and the
young ones very seldom pretty. It was a very dull
crowd. They do not generate any warmth among
themselves by contiguity ; they have no pervading
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rough merriment from an American crowd ; they have
nothing to do with one another; they are not a crowd,
considered as one mass, but a collection of individuals.
A despotic government has perhaps destroyed their
principle of cohesion, and crumbled them to atoms.
Italian crowds are noted for their civility ; possibly
they deserve credit for native courtesy and gentleness;
possibly, on the other hand, the crowd has not
spirit and self-consciousness enough to be rampant. I
wonder whether they will ever hold another parlia-
ment in the Piazza of Santa Croce !
I paid a visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace.
There is too large an intermixture of Andrea del
Sarto's pictures in this gallery ; everywhere you see
them, cold, proper, and uncriticisable, looking so much
like first-rate excellence, that you inevitably quarrel
with your own taste for not admiring them. .
It was one of the days when my mind misgives
me whether the pictorial art be not a humbug, and
when the minute accuracy of a fly in a Dutch picture
of fruit and flowers seems to me something more
reliable than the master-touches of Raphael. The
gallery was considerably thronged, and many of the
visitors appeared to be from the country, and of a
class intermediate between gentility and labor. Is
there such a rural class in Italy? I saw a respect-
able-looking man feeling awkward and uncomfortable
in a new and glossy pair of pantaloons not yet bent
and creased to his natural movement.
Nothing pleased me better to-day than some amber
cups, in one of the cabinets of curiosities. They are


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richly wrought, and the material is as if the artist
had compressed a great deal of sunshine together,
and when sufficiently solidified had moulded these cups
out of it and let them harden. This simile was sug-
gested by —
Leaving the palace, I entered the Boboli Gardens,
and wandered up and down a good deal of its uneven
surface, through broad, well-kept edges of box, sprout-
ing loftily, trimmed smoothly, and strewn between
with cleanly gravel; skirting along plantations of
aged trees, throwing a deep shadow within their
precincts; passing many statues, not of the finest
art, yet approaching so near it, as to serve just as
good a purpose for garden ornament; coming now
then to the borders of a fish-pool, or a pond, where
stately swans circumnavigated an island of flowers ; -
all very fine and very wearisome.
I have never
enjoyed this garden; perhaps because it suggests
dress-coats, and such elegant formalities.
September 11th. — We have heard a good deal of
spirit matters of late, especially of wonderful incidents
that attended Mr. Hume's visit to Florence, two or
three years ago. Mrs. Powers told a very marvellous
thing; how that when Mr. Hume was holding a
seance in her house, and several persons present, a
great scratching was heard in a neighboring closet.
She addressed the spirit, and requested it not to
disturb the company then, as they were busy with
cther affairs, promising to converse with it on a future
occasion. On a subsequent night, accordingly, the
scratching was renewed, with the utmost violence;


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.
and in reply to Mrs. Powers's questions, the spirit
assured her that it was not one, but legion, being the
ghosts of twenty-seven monks, who were miserable
and without hope ! The house now occupied by
Powers was formerly a convent, and I suppose these
were the spirits of all the wicked monks that had
ever inhabited it; at least, I hope that there were
not such a number of damnable sinners extant at any
one time. These ghostly fathers must have been very
improper persons in their lifetime, judging by the
indecorousness of their behavior even after death, and
in such dreadful circumstances ; for they pulled Mrs.
Powers's skirts so hard as to break the gathers.
It was not ascertained that they desired to have any-
thing done for their eternal welfare, or that their
situation was capable of amendment anyhow; but,
being exhorted to refrain from further disturbance,
they took their departure, after making the sign of
the cross on the breast of each person present. This
was very singular in such reprobates, who, by their
own confession, had forfeited all claim to be benefited
by that holy symbol : it curiously suggests that the
forms of religion may still be kept up in purgatory
and hell itself. The sign was made in a way that
conveyed the sense of something devilish and spiteful ;
the perpendicular line of the cross being drawn gently
enough, but the transverse one sharply and violently,
so as to leave a painful impression. Perhaps the
monks meant this to express their contempt and
hatred for heretics; and how queer, that this an-
tipathy should survive their own damnation ! But I


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cannot help hoping that the case of these poor
devils
may not be so desperate as they think. They cannot
be wholly lost, because their desire for communica-
tion with mortals shows that they need sympathy,
therefore are not altogether hardened, therefore, with
loving treatment, may be restored.
A great many other wonders took place within the
knowledge and experience of Mrs. P- She saw,
not one pair of hands only, but many. The head of
one of her dead children, a little boy, was laid in
her lap, not in 'ghastly fashion, as a head out of the
coffin and the grave, but just as the living child
might have laid it on his mother's knees. It was
invisible, by the by, and she recognized it by the
features and the character of the hair, through the senso
of touch. Little hands grasped hers. In short, these
soberly attested incredibilities are so numerous that
I forget nine tenths of them, and judge the others
too cheap to be written down. Christ spoke the
truth surely, in saying that men would not believe,
though one rose from the dead.” In my own case,
the fact makes absolutely no impression. I regret
such confirmation of truth as this.
Within a mile of our villa stands the Villa Colum-
baria, a large house, built round a square court.
Like Mr. Powers's residence, it was formerly a convent.
It is inhabited by Major Gregorie, an old soldier of
Waterloo and various other fights, and his family
consists of Mrs. the widow of one of the major's
friends, and her two daughters. We have become
acquainted with the family, and Mrs. — the mar-


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around this monk suggests new ideas as to the climate
of Hades. If all the aforementioned twenty-seven
monks had a similar one, the combined temperature
must have been that of a polar winter.
Mrs. saw, at one time, the fingers of her monk,
long, yellow, and skinny; these fingers grasped the
hands of individuals of the party, with a cold, clammy,
and horrible touch.
After the departure of this ghost other seances were
held in her bedchamber, at which good and holy
spirits manifested themselves, and behaved in a very
comfortable and encouraging way. It was their be-
nevolent purpose, apparently, to purify her apartments
from all traces of the evil spirit, and to reconcile her
to what had been so long the haunt of this miserable
monk, by filling it with happy and sacred associations,
in which, as Mrs. intimates, they entirely suc-
ceeded.
These stories remind me of an incident that took
place at the old manse, in the first summer of our
marriage. .
September 17th. - We walked yesterday to Florence,
and visited the Church of St. Lorenzo, where we saw,
for the second time, the famous Medici statues of
Michael Angelo. I found myself not in a very appre-
ciative state, and, being a stone myself, the statue of
Lorenzo was at first little more to me than another
stone; but it was beginning to assume life, and would
have impressed me as it did before if I had gazed long
enough. There was a better light upon the face, un-
der the helmet, than at my former visit, although
-


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still the features were enough overshadowed to pro-
duce that mystery on which, according to Mr. Powers,
the effect of the statue depends. 'I observe that the
costume of the figure, instead of being mediæval, as I
believe I have stated, is Roman; but, be it what it
may, the grand and simple character of the figure
imbues the robes with its individual propriety. I
still think it the greatest miracle ever wrought in
marble.
We crossed the church and entered a cloister on
the opposite side, in quest of the Laurentian Library.
Ascending a staircase we found an old man blowing
the bellows of the organ, which was in full blast in
the church ; nevertheless he found time to direct us
to the library door. We entered a lofty vestibule, of
ancient aspect and stately architecture, and thence
were admitted into the library itself; a long and wide
gallery or hall, lighted by a row of windows on which
were painted the arms of the Medici. The ceiling
was inlaid with dark wood, in an elaborate pattern,
which was exactly repeated in terra-cotta on the pave-
ment beneath our feet. Long desks, much like the
old-fashioned ones in schools, were ranged on each
side of the mid aisle, in a series from end to end, with
seats for the convenience of students; and on these
desks were rare manuscripts, carefully preserved under
glass; and books, fastened to the desks by iron chains,
as the custom of studious antiquity used to be. Along
the centre of the hall, between the two ranges of
desks, were tables and chairs, at which two or three
scholarly persons were seated, diligently consulting


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volumes in manuscript or old type. It was a very
quiet place, imbued with a cloistered sanctity, and
remote from all street-cries and rumble of the city,
odorous of old literature, a spot where the common-
est ideas ought not to be expressed in less than Latin.
The librarian or custode he ought rather to be
termed, for he was a man not above the fee of a paul
-- now presented himself, and showed us some of the
literary curiosities; a vellum manuscript of the Bible,
with a splendid illumination by Ghirlandaio, covering
two folio pages, and just as brilliant in its color as
if finisbed yesterday. Other illuminated manuscripts
or at least separate pages of them, for the volumes
were kept under glass, and not to be turned over-
were shown us, very magnificent, but not to be com-
pared with this of Ghirlandaio. Looking at such
treasures I could almost say that we have left behind
us more splendor than we have kept alike to our own
age. We publish beautiful editions of books, to be
sure, and thousands of people enjoy them; but in
ancient times the expense that we spread thinly over
a thousand volumes was all compressed into one, and
it became a great jewel of a book, a heavy folio,
worth its weight in gold. Then, what a spiritual
charm it gives to a book to feel that every letter has
been individually wrought, and the pictures glow for
that individual page alone! Certainly the ancient
reader had a luxury which the modern one lacks.
was surprised, moreover, to see the clearness and
accuracy of the chirography. Print does not surpass
it in these respects.


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The custode showed us an ancient manuscript of
the Decameron ; likewise, a volume containing the
portraits of Petrarch and of Laura, each covering the
whole of a vellum page, and very finely done. They
are authentic portraits, no doubt, and Laura is de-
picted as a fair-haired beauty, with a very satisfactory
amount of loveliness. We saw some choice old editions
of books in a small separate room; but as these were
all ranged in shut bookcases, and as each volume,
moreover, was in a separate cover or modern binding,
this exhibition did us very little good. By the by,
there is a conceit struggling blindly in my mind
about Petrarch and Laura, suggested by those two
lifelike portraits, which have been sleeping cheek to
cheek through all these centuries. But I cannot lay
hold of it.
September 21st. — Yesterday morning the Val d'Arno
was entirely filled with a thick fog, which extended
even up to our windows, and concealed objects within
a very short distance. It began to dissipate itself
betimes, however, and was the forerunner of an
unusually bright and warm day. We set out after
breakfast and walked into town, where we looked at
mosaic brooches.
These are very pretty little bits of
manufacture; but there seems to have been no in-
fusion of fresh fancy into the work, and the specimens
present little variety. It is the characteristic com-
modity of the place; the central mart and manu-
facturing locality being on the Ponte Vecchio, from
end to end of which they are displayed in cases ; but
there are other mosaic shops scattered about the
VOL. II.
7


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a feeling mixed up with scorn and good-nature ; self-
complacency on his own merits, and as an English-
man; pride at being in foreign parts; contempt for
everybody around him ; a rough kindliness towards
people in general, I liked the man, and should be
glad to know him better. As for his criticism, I am
sorry to remember only one. It was upon the pic-
ture of the Nativity, by Correggio, in the Tribune,
where the mother is kneeling before the Child, and
adoring it in an awful rapture, because she sees the
eternal God in its baby face and figure. The English-
man was highly delighted with this picture, and began
to gesticulate, as if dandling a baby, and to make a
chirruping sound. It was to him merely a represen-
tation of a mother fondling her infant. He then said,
“If I could have my choice of the pictures and stat-
ues in the Tribune, I would take this picture, and
that one yonder ” (it was a good enough Enthronement
of the Virgin by Andrea del Sarto) “and the Dancing
Faun, and let the rest go." A delightful man ; I love
that wholesome coarseness of mind and heart, which
no education nor opportunity can polish out of the
genuine Englishman; a coarseness without vulgarity.
When a Yankee is coarse, he is pretty sure to be vul-
gar too.
The two critics seemed to be considering whether
it were practicable to go from the Uffizzi to the Pitti
gallery; but “it confuses one,” remarked the little
more than one gallery in a day.” (I
should think so,-— the Pitti Palace tumbling into
his small receptacle on the top of the Uffizzi.) “It
man, “to


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ITALY.
does so," responded the big man, with heavy em-
phasis.
September 23d. - The vintage has been going on in
our podere for about a week, and I saw a part of the
process of making wine, under one of our back win-
dows. It was on a very small scale, the grapes being
thrown into a barrel, and crushed with a sort of
pestle ; and as each estate seems to make its own
wine, there are probably no very extensive and elabo-
rate appliances in general use for the manufacture.
The cider-making of New England is far more pictur-
esque ; the great heap of golden or rosy apples under
the trees, and the cider-mill worked by a circumgyra-
tory horse, and all agush with sweet juice. Indeed,
nothing connected with the grape-culture and the
vintage here has been picturesque, except the large
inverted pyramids in which the clusters hang; those
great bunches, white or purple, really satisfy my idea
both as to aspect and taste. We can buy a large bas-
ketful for less than a paul; and they are the only
things that one can never devour too much of — and
there is no enough short of a little too much with-
out subsequent repentance. It is a shame to turn
such delicious juice into such sour wine as they make
in Tuscany. I tasted a sip or two of a flask which
the contadini sent us for trial, the rich result of the
process I had witnessed in the barrel. It took me al-
together by surprise ; for I remembered the nectare-
ousness of the new cider, which I used to sip through
a straw in my boyhood, and I never doubted that this
would be as dulcet, but finer and more ethereal; as


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much more delectable, in short, as these grapes are
better than puckery cider apples. Positively, I never
tasted anything so detestable, such a sour and bitter
juice, still lukewarm with fermentation : it was a wai)
of woe, squeezed out of tħe wine-press of tribulation,
and the more a man drinks of such, the sorrier he will
be.
Besides grapes, we have had figs, and I have now
learned to be very fond of them. When they first
began to appear, two months ago, they had scarcely
any sweetness, and tasted very like a decaying squash ;
this was an early variety, with purple skins. There
are many kinds of figs, the best being green-skinned,
growing yellower as they ripen; and the riper they
are, the more the sweetness within them intensifies,
till they resemble dried figs in everything, except that
they retain the fresh fruit-flavor ; rich, luscious, yet
not palling. We have had pears, too, some of them
very tolerable ; and peaches, which look magnificently,
as regards size and downy blush, but have seldom
much more taste than a cucumber. A succession of
fruits has followed us, ever since our arrival in Flor-
ence; - first, and for a long time, abundance of
cherries; then apricots, which lasted many weeks, till
we were weary of them; then plums, pears, and finally
figs, peaches, and grapes. Except the figs and grapes,
a New England summer and autumn would give us
better fruit than any we have found in Italy.
Italy beats us, I think, in mosquitoes; they are
horribly pungent little satanic particles. They pos-
sess strange intelligence, and exquisite acuteness of


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ITALY.
sight and smell, -- prodigious audacity and courage to
match it, insomuch that they venture on the most
hazardous attacks, and get safe off. One of them flew
into my mouth, the other night, and stung me far
down in my throat; but luckily I coughed him up in
halves. They are bigger than American mosquitoes;
and if you crush them, after one of their feasts, it
makes a terrific blood-spot. It is a sort of suicide
at least, a shedding of one's own blood - to kill
them ; but it gratifies the old Adam to do it. It
shocks me to feel how revengeful I am; but it is
impossible not to impute a certain malice and intel-
lectual venom to these diabolical insects. I wonder
whether our health, at this season of the year, requires
that we should be kept in a state of irritation, and
so the mosquitoes are Nature's prophetic remedy for
some disease; or whether we are made for the mos-
quitoes, not they for us. It is possible, just possible,
that the infinitesimal doses of poison which they
infuse into us are a homeopathic safeguard against
pestilence; but medicine never was administered in a
more disagreeable way.
The moist atmosphere about the Arno, I suppose,
produces these insects, and fills the broad, ten-mile
valley with them; and as we are just on the brim of
the basin, they overflow into our windows.
September 25th. U-
and I walked to town yes-
terday morning, and went to the Uffizzi gallery. It
is not a pleasant thought that we are so soon to give
up this gallery, with little prospect (none, or hardly
any, on my part) of ever seeing it again. It interests


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me and all of us far more than the gallery of the
Pitti Palace, wherefore I know not, for the latter is
the richer of the two in admirable pictures. Perhaps
it is the picturesque variety of the Uffizzi -- the com-
bination of painting, sculpture, gems, and bronzes ---
that makes the charm. The Tribune, too, is the richest
room in all the world ; a heart that draws all hearts
to it. The Dutch pictures, moreover, give a homely,
human interest to the Uffizzi ; and I really think that
the frequency of Andrea del Sarto's productions at the
Pitti Palace --- looking so very like masterpieces, yet
lacking the soul of art and nature have much to do
with the weariness that comes from better acquaintance
with the latter gallery.
gallery. The splendor of the gilded
and frescoed saloons is perhaps another bore; but,
after all, my memory will often tread there as long as
I live. What shall we do in America ?
Speaking of Dutch pictures, I was much struck
yesterday, as frequently before, with a small picture
by Teniers the elder. It seems to be a pawnbroker
in the midst of his pledges ; old earthen jugs, flasks,
a brass kettle, old books, and a huge pile of worn-out
and broken rubbish, which he is examining. These
things are represented with vast fidelity, yet with
bold and free touches, unlike the minute, microscopic
work of other Dutch masters; and a wonderful pic-
turesqueness is wrought out of these humble materials,
and even the figure and head of the pawnbroker have
& strange grandeur.
We spent no very long time at the Uffizzi, and
afterwards crossed the Ponte alle Grazie, and went to


1858.]
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ITALY.
the convent of San Miniato, which stands on a hill out-
side of the Porta San Gallo. A paved pathway, along
which stands crosses marking stations at which pil-
grims are to kneel and pray, goes steeply to the hill-
top, where, in the first place, is a smaller church and
convent than those of San Miniato. The latter are
seen at a short distance to the right, the convent
being a large, square battlemented mass, adjoining,
which is the church, showing a front of aged white
marble, streaked with black, and having an old stone
tower behind.
I have seen
no other convent or
monastery that so well corresponds with my idea of
what such structures were. The sacred precincts are
enclosed by a high wall, gray, ancient, and luxu-
riously ivy-grown, and lofty and strong enough for
the rampart of a fortress. We went through the
gateway and entered the church, which we found in
much disarray, and masons at work upon the pave-
ment. The tribune is elevated considerably above
the nave, and accessible by marble staircases ; there
are great arches and a chapel, with curious monu-
ments in the Gothic style, and ancient carvings and
mosaic works, and, in short, a dim, dusty, and vener-
able interior, well worth studying in detail.
The view of Florence from the church door is very
fine, and seems to include every tower, dome, or
whatever object emerges out of the general mass.
September 28th. I went to the Pitti Palace yester-
day, and to the Uffizzi to-day, paying them probably
my last visit, yet cherishing an unreasonable doubt
whether I may not see them again. At all events, I
.
7 *


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have seen them enough for the present, even what is
best of them; and, at the same time, with a sad
reluctance to bid them farewell forever, I experience
an utter weariness of Raphael's old canvas, and of the
time-yellowed marble of the Venus di Medici. When
the material embodiment presents itself outermost,
and we perceive them only by the grosser sense, miss-
ing their ethereal spirit, there is nothing so heavily
burdensome as masterpieces of painting and sculpture.
I threw my farewell glance at the Venus di Medici to-
day with strange insensibility.
The nights are wonderfully beautiful now. When
the moon was at the full, a few nights ago, its light
was an absolute glory, such as I seem only to have
dreamed of heretofore, and that only in my younger
days. At its rising I have fancied that the orb of the
moon has a kind of purple brightness, and that this
tinge is communicated to its radiance until it has
climbed high aloft and sheds a flood of white over hill
and valley. Now that the moon is on the wane, there
is a gentler lustre, but still bright; and it makes the
Val d'Arno with its surrounding hills, and its soft
mist in the distance, as beautiful a scene as exists
anywhere out of heaven. And the morning is quite
as beautiful in its own way. This mist, of which I
have so often spoken, sets it beyond the limits of
actual sense and makes it ideal ; it is as if you were
dreaming about the valley, -- as if the valley itself
were dreaming, and met you half-way in your own
dream. If the mist were to be withdrawn, I believe
the whole beauty of the valley would go with it.
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1858. ]
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ITALY.
Until pretty late in the morning we have the comet
streaming through the sky, and dragging its intermi-
nable tạil among the stars. It keeps brightening from
night to night, and I should think must blaze fiercely
enough to cast a shadow by and by. I know not
whether it be in the vicinity of Galileo's tower, and in
the influence of his spirit, but I have hardly ever
watched the stars with such interest as now.
September 29th. — Last evening I met Mr. Powers
at Miss Blagden's, and he talked about his treatment
by our government in reference to an appropriation
of twenty-five thousand dollars made by Congress for
a statue by him. Its payment and the purchase of
the statue were left at the option of the President,
and he conceived himself wronged because the affair
was never concluded. ... As for the President, he
knows nothing of art, and probably acted in the mat-
ter by the advice of the director of public works. No
doubt a sculptor gets commissions as everybody gets
public employment and emolument of whatever kind
from our government, not by merit or fitness, but by
political influence skilfully applied. As Powers him-
self observed, the ruins of our Capitol are not likely
to afford sculptures equal to those which Lord Elgin
took from the Parthenon, if this be the system under
which they are produced. .... I wish our great
Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to
its vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and archi-
tecture when it was a republic; but we have the
meanest government and the shabbiest, and -- if
truly represented by it - we are the meanest and


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company, Mr.
shabbiest people known in history. And yet the less
we attempt to do for art the better, if our future at-
tempts are to have no better result than such brazen
troopers as the equestrian statue of General Jackson,
or even such naked respectabilities as Greenough's
Washington. There is something false and affected
in our highest taste for art; and I suppose, further-
more, we are the only people who seek to decorate
their public institutions, not by the highest taste
among them, but by the average at best.
There was also at Miss Blagden's, among other
an artist in Florence, and a sen-
sible man. talked with him about Hume, the
medium, whom he had many opportunities of obsery-
ing when the latter was in these parts. Mr.
says that Hume is unquestionably a knave, but that
he himself is as much perplexed at his own preter-
natural performances as any other person; he is
startled and affrighted at the phenomena which he
produces. Nevertheless, when his spiritual powers
fall short, he does his best to eke them out with im-
posture. This moral infirmity is a part of his nature,
and I suggested that perhaps if he were of a firmer
and healthier moral make, if his character were suf-
ficiently sound and dense. to be capable of steadfast
principle, he would not have possessed the impressi-
bility that fits him for the so-called spiritual influences.
Mr. says that Louis Napoleon is literally one of
the most skilful jugglers in the world, and that prob-
ably the interest he has taken in Mr. Hume was caused
partly by a wish to acquire his art.


1858.]
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ITALY.
This morning Mr. Powers invited me to go with
him to the Grand Duke's new foundry, to see the
bronze statue of Websterwhich has just been cast
from his model. It is the second cast of the statue,
the first having been shipped some months ago on
board of a vessel which was lost; and as Powers
observed, the statue now lies at the bottom of the
Atlantic Ocean somewhere in the vicinity of the tele-
graphic cable.
We were received with much courtesy and em-
phasis by the director of the foundry, and conducted
into a large room walled with bare, new brick, where
the statue was standing in front of the extinct fur-
nace : a majestic Webster indeed, eight feet high,
and looking even more colossal than that. The like-
ness seemed to me perfect, and, like a sensible man,
Powers has dressed him in his natural costume, such
as I have seen Webster bave on while making a
speech in the open air at a mass meeting in Concord,
dress-coat buttoned pretty closely across the breast,
pantaloons and boots, - everything finished even to a
seam and a stitch. Not an inch of the statue but is
Webster; even his coat-tails are imbued with the
man, and this true artist has succeeded in showing
him through the broadcloth as nature showed him.
He has felt that a man's actual clothes are as much
a part of him as his flesh, and I respect him for dis-
daining to shirk the difficulty by throwing the mean-
ness of a cloak over it, and for recognizing the folly
of masquerading our Yankee statesman in a Roman
toga, and the indecorousness of presenting him as a


1858.]
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ITALY.
.
to Boston, and I hope will be placed in the open air,
for it is too mighty to be kept under any roof that
now exists in America.
After seeing this, the director showed us some very
curious and exquisite specimens of castings, such as
baskets of flowers, in which the most delicate and
fragile blossoms, the curl of a petal, the finest veins
in a leaf, the lightest flower-spray that ever quivered
in a breeze, were perfectly preserved; and the basket
contained an abundant heap of such sprays.
There
were likewise a pair of hands, taken actually from
life, clasped together as they were, and they looked
like parts of a man who had been changed suddenly
from flesh to brass. They were worn and rough
and unhandsome hands, and so very real, with all
their veins and the pores of the skin, that it was
shocking to look at them. A bronze leaf, cast also
from the life, was as curious and more beautiful.
Taking leave of Powers, I went hither and thither
about Florence, seeing for the last time things that
I have seen many times before : the market, for in-
stance, blocking up a line of narrow streets with fruit-
stalls, and obstreperous dealers crying their peaches,
their green lemons, their figs, their delicious grapes,
their mushrooms, their pomegranates, their radishes,
their lettuces. They use one vegetable here which
I have not known so used elsewhere ; that is, very
young pumpkins or squashes, of the size of apples,
and to be cooked by boiling. They are not to my
taste, but the people here like unripe things, ---- unripe
fruit, unripe chickens, unripe lamb. This market is the


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such a soft calm evening as this. Yet I am not loath
to go away ; impatient rather ; for, taking no root, I
soon weary of any soil in which I may be temporarily
deposited. The same impatience I sometimes feel or
conceive of as regards this earthly life. ...
I forgot to mention that Powers showed me, in his
studio, the model of the statue of America, which he
wished the government to buy. It has great merit,
and embodies the ideal of youth, freedom, progress,
and whatever we consider as distinctive of our coun-
try's character and destiny. It is a female figure,
vigorous, beautiful, planting its foot lightly on a
broken chain, and pointing upward. The face has a
high look of intelligence and lofty feeling ; the form,
nude to the middle, has all the charms of woman-
hood, and is thus warmed and redeemed out of the
cold allegoric sisterhood who have generally no merit
in chastity, being really without sex. I somewhat
question whether it is quite the thing, however, to
make a genuine woman out of an allegory : we ask,
Who is to wed this lovely virgin ? and we are not sat-
isfied to banish her into the realm of chilly thought.
But I liked the statue, and all the better for what I
criticise, and was sorry to see the huge package in
which the finished marble lies bundled up, ready to
be sent to our country,
which does not call for it.
Mr. Powers and his two daughters called to take
leave of us, and at parting I expressed a hope of seeing
him in America. He said that it would make him
very unhappy to believe that he should never return
thither; but it seems to me that he has no such
K


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definite purpose of return as would be certain to bring
itself to pass. It makes a very unsatisfactory life,
thus to spend the greater part of it in exile. In such
a case we are always deferring the reality of life till a
future moment, and, by and by, we have deferred it
till there are no future moments; or, if we do go back,
we find that life has shifted whatever of reality it had
to the country where we deemed ourselves only living
temporarily; and so between two stools we come to
the ground, and make ourselves a part of one or the
other country only by laying our bones in its soil.
It
is particularly a pity in Powers's case, because he is so
very American in character, and the only convenience
for him of his Italian residence is, that here he can
supply himself with marble, and with workmen to
chisel it according to his designs.
SIENA.
October 2d. — Yesterday morning, at six o'clock,
we left our ancient tower, and threw a parting glance
- and a rather sad one over the misty Val d'Arno.
This summer will look like a happy one in our chil-
dren's retrospect, and also, no doubt, in the years
that remain to ourselves; and, in truth, I have found
it a peaceful and not uncheerful one.
It was not a pleasant morning, and Monte Morello,
looking down on Florence, had on its cap, betokening
foul weather, according to the proverb. Crossing the
suspension-bridge, we reached the Leopoldo railway
without entering the city. By some mistake,
or


1858.]
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ITALY.
perhaps because nobody ever travels by first-class car-
riages in Tuscany, we found we had received second-
class tickets, and were put into a long, crowded
carriage, full of priests, military men, commercial tray-
ellers, and other respectable people, facing one another
lengthwise along the carriage, and many of them
smoking cigars. They were all perfectly civil, and I
think I must own that the manners of this second-
class would compare favorably with those of an Ameri-
can first-class one.
At Empoli, about an hour after we started, we had
to change carriages, the main train proceeding to Leg-
horn. .... My observations along the road were
very scanty: a hilly country, with several old towns
seated on the most elevated hill-tops, as is common
throughout Tuscany, or sometimes a fortress with a
town on the plain at its base; or, once or twice, the
towers and battlements of a mediæval castle, com-
manding the pass below it. Near Florence the coun-
try was fertile in the vine and olive, and looked as un-
picturesque as that sort of fertility usually makes it;
not but what I have come to think better of the
tint of the olive-leaf than when I first saw it. In the
latter part of our journey I remember a wild stream,
of a greenish hue, but transparent, rushing along over
a rough bed, and before reaching Siena we rumbled
into a long tunnel, and emerged from it near the
city.
We drove up hill and down (for the surface of Siena
seems to be nothing but an irregularity) through nar-
row old streets, and were set down at the Aquila


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Neva, a grim-looking albergo near the centre of the
town: Mrs. Shad already taken rooms for us
there, and to these we were now. ushered up the
highway of a dingy stone staircase, and into a small,
brick-paved parlor. The house seemed endlessly
old, and all the glimpses that we caught of Siena
out of window seemed more ancient still. Almost
within arm's reach, across a narrow street, a tall
palace of gray, time-worn stone clambered skyward,
with arched windows, and square windows, and large
windows and small, scattered up and down its side.
It is the Palazzo Tolomei, and looks immensely
venerable. From the windows of our bedrooms we
looked into a broader street, though still not very
wide, and into a small piazza, the most conspicuous
object in which was a column, bearing on its top a
bronze wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. This
symbol is repeated in other parts of the city, and
seems to indicate that the Sienese people pride them-
selves in a Roman origin. In another direction, over
the tops of the houses, we saw a very high tower,
with battlements projecting around its summit, so
that it was a fortress in the air; and this I have since
found to be the Palazzo Publico. It was pleasant,
looking downward into the little old piazza and
narrow streets, to see the swarm of life on the pave-
ment, the life of to-day just as new as if it had never
been lived before ; the citizens, the priests, the sol-
diers, the mules and asses with their panniers, the
diligence lumbering along, with a postilion in a faded
crimson coat bobbing up and down on the off-horse.


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ITALY.
Such a bustling scene, vociferous,, too, with various
street-cries, is wonderfully. set off by the gray an-
tiquity of the town, and makes the town look older
than if it were a solitude.
Soon Mr. and Mrs. Story came, and accompanied
us to look for lodgings. They also drove us about
the city in their carriage, and showed us the outside
of the Palazzo Publico; and of the Cathedral and other
remarkable edifices. The aspect of Siena is far more
picturesque than that of any other town in Italy, so
far as I know Italian towns; and yet, now that I
have written it, I remember Perugia, and feel that
the observation is a mistake. But at any rate Siena
is remarkably picturesque, standing on such a site,
on the verge and within the crater of an extinct vol-
cano, and therefore being as uneven as the sea in a
tempest; the streets so narrow, ascending between
tall, ancient palaces, while the side streets rush head-
long down, only to be threaded by sure-footed mules,
such as climb Alpine heights; old stone balconies on
the palace fronts; old arched doorways, and windows
set in frames of Gothic architecture; arcades, resem-
bling canopies of stone, with quaintly sculptured
statues in the richly wrought Gothic niches of each
pillar ;- everything massive and lofty, yet minutely
interesting when
you look at it stone by stone. The
Florentines, and the Romans too, have obliterated,
as far as they could, all the interest of their mediæval
structures by covering them with stucco, so that they
have quite lost their character, and affect the spectator
with no reverential idea of age. Here the city is all


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overwritten with black-letter, and the glad Italian
sun makes the effect so much the stronger.
We took a lodging, and afterwards J- and I
rambled about, and went into the Cathedral for a
moment, and strayed also into the Piazza del Campo,
the great public, square of Siena. I am not in the
mood for further description of public places now, so
shall say a word or two about the old palace in
which we have established ourselves. We have the
second piano, and dwell amid faded grandeur, having
for our saloon what seems to have been a ball-room.
It is ornamented with a great fresco in the centre of
the vaulted ceiling, and others covering the sides of
the apartment, and surrounded with arabesque frame-
works, where Cupids gambol and chase one another.
The subjects of the frescos I cannot make out, not
that they are faded like Giotto's, for they are as fresh
as roses, and are done in an exceedingly workman-
like style; but they are allegories of Fame and Plenty
and other matters, such as I could never understand.
Our whole accommodation is in similar style,
spacious, magnificent, and mouldy.
In the evening Miss S and I drove to the rail-
way, and on the arrival of the train from Florence we
watched with much eagerness the unlading of the
luggage-van. At last the whole of our ten trunks
and tin bandbox were produced, and finally my
leather bag, in which was my journal and a manu-
script book containing my sketch of a romance. It
gladdened my very heart to see it, and I shall think
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in its clustered columns and intersecting arches, and
its frescos, pictures, statues, and ornaments. More-
over, a father and mother had brought their baby to
be baptized, and the poor little thing, in its gay swad.
dling-clothes, looked just like what I have seen in old
pictures, and a good deal like an Indian pappoose. It
gave one little slender squeak when the priest put the
water on its forehead, and then was quiet again.
We now went round to the façade of the Cathedral.
.... It is of black and white marble, with, I believe,
an intermixture of red and other colors; but time has
toned them down, so that white, black, and red do not
contrast so strongly with one another as they may
have done five hundred years ago.
The architecture
is generally of the pointed Gothic style, but there are
likewise carved arches over the doors and windows,
and a variety which does not produce the effect of
confusion, - a magnificent eccentricity, an exuberant
imagination flowering out in stone. On high, in the
great peak of the front, and throwing its colored
radiance into the nave within, there is a round window
of immense circumference, the painted figures in which
we can see dimly from the outside. But what I wish
to express, and never can, is the multitudinous richness
of the ornamentation of the front; the arches within
arches, sculptured inch by inch, of the deep doorways;
the statues of saints, some making a hermitage of a
niche, others standing forth ; the scores of busts, that
look like faces of ancient people gazing down out of
the Cathedral; the projecting shapes of stone lions,
the thousand forms of Gothic fancy, which seemed to


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İTALY.
soften the marble and express whatever it liked, and
allow it to harden again to last forever. But my
description seems like knocking off the noses of some
of the busts, the fingers and toes of the statues, the
projecting points of the architecture, jumbling them
all up together, and flinging them down upon the page.
This gives no idea of the truth, nor, least of all, can it
shadow forth that solemn whole, mightily combined
out of all these minute particulars, and sanctifying the
entire space of ground over which this cathedral-front
flings its shadow, or on which it reflects the sun. A
majesty and a minuteness, neither interfering with the
other, each assisting the other ; this is what I love in
Gothic architecture. We went in and walked about ;
but I mean to go again before sketching the interior
in my poor water-colors.
October 4th. On looking again at the Palazzo
Publico, I see that the pillared portal which I have
spoken of does not cover an entrance to the palace,
but is a chapel, with an altar, and frescos above it.
Bouquets of fresh flowers are on the altar, and a lamp
burns, in all the daylight, before the crucifix. The
chapel is quite unenclosed, except by an openwork
balustrade of marble, on which the carving looks very
ancient. Nothing could be more convenient for the
devotions of the crowd in the piazza, and no doubt the
daily prayers offered at the shrine might be numbered
by the thousand, brief, but I hope earnest, - like
those glimpses I used to catch at the blue sky, reveal-
ing so much in an instant, while I was toiling at Brook
Farm. Another picturesque thing about the Palazzo


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the sky,
Publico is a great stone balcony quaintly wrought,
about midway in the front and high aloft, with two
arched windows opening into it.
After another glimpse at the Cathedral, too, I
realize how utterly I have failed in conveying the
idea of its elaborate ornament, its twisted and clus-
tered pillars, and numberless devices of sculpture;
nor did I mention the venerable statues that stand
all round the summit of the edifice, relieved against
- the highest of all being one of the Saviour,
on the topmost peak of the front; nor the tall tower
that ascends from one side of the building, and is
built of layers of black and white marble piled one
upon another in regular succession; nor the dome
that swells upward close beside this tower.
Had the Cathedral been constructed on the plan
and dimensions at first contemplated, it would have
been incomparably majestic; the finished portion,
grand as it is, being only what was intended for a
transept. One of the walls of what was to have been
the nave is still standing, and looks like a ruin,
though, I believe, it has been turned to account as
the wall of a palace, the space of the never-completed
nave being now a court or street.
The whole family of us were kindly taken out yes-
terday, to dine and spend the day at the Villa Belve-
dere with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Story. The
vicinity of Siena is much more agreeable than that
of Florence, being cooler, breezier, with more foliage
and shrubbery both near at hand and in the distance ;
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İTALY.
diameter of about a hundred miles between hills
north and south. The Villa Belvedere was built and
owned by an Englishman now deceased, who has
left it to his butler, and its lawns and shrubbery
have something English in their character, and there
was almost a dampness in the grass, which really
pleased me in this parched Italy. Within the house
the walls are hung with fine old-fashioned engrav-
ings from the pictures of Gainsborough, West, and
other English painters. The Englishman, though
he had chosen to live and die in Italy, had evidently
brought his native tastes and peculiarities along with
him. Mr. Story thinks of buying this villa : I do not
know but I might be tempted to buy it myself if
Siena were
a practicable residence for the entire
year; but the winter here, with the bleak mountain-
winds of a hundred miles round about blustering
against it, must be terribly disagreeable.
We spent a very pleasant day, turning over books
or talking on the lawn, whence we could behold
scenes picturesque afar, and rich vineyard glimpses
near at hand. Mr. Story is the most variously ac-
complished and brilliant person, the fullest of social
life and fire, whom I ever met; and without seeming
to make an effort, he kept us amused and entertained
the whole day long; not wearisomely entertained
neither, as we should have been if he had not let his
fountain play naturally. Still, though he bubbled
and brimmed over with fun, he left the impression
on me that .... there is a pain and care, bred, it
may be, out of the very richness of his gifts and


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abundance of his outward prosperity. Rich, in the
prime of life, ... and children budding and
blossoming around him as fairly as his heart could
wish; with sparkling talents, — so many, that if he
choose to neglect or Aing away one, or two, or three,
he would still have enough left to shine with, — who
should be happy if not he?
Towards sunset we all walked out into the podere,
pausing a little while to look down into a well that
stands on the verge of the lawn. Within the spacious
circle of its stone curb was an abundant growth of
maidenhair, forming a perfect wreath of thickly
clustering leaves quite round, and trailing its tendrils
downward to the water which gleamed beneath. It
was a very pretty sight. Mr. Story bent over the
well and uttered deep, musical tones, which were
reverberated from the hollow depths with wonderful
effect, as if a spirit dwelt within there, and (unlike the
spirits that speak through mediums) sent him back
responses even profounder and more melodious than
the tones that awakened them. Such a responsive
well as this might have been taken for an oracle in
old days.
We went along paths that led from one vineyard
to another, and which might have led us for miles
across the country. The grapes had been partly
gathered, but still there were many purple or white
clusters hanging heavily on the vines. We passed
cottage-doors, and saw groups of contadini and con-
tadine in their festal attire, and they saluded us gra-
ciously; but it was observable that one of the men


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tally. It looks very curiously, and might remind the
spectator of a stuff with horizontal stripes. Never-
theless, the effect is exceedingly rich, these alternate
lines stretching away along the walls and round the
clustered pillars, seen aloft, and through the arches;
everywhere, this inlay of black and white. Every
sort of ornament that could be thought of seems to
have been crammed into the Cathedral in one place
or another : gilding, frescos, pictures; a roof of blue,
spangled with golden stars; a magnificent wheel
window of, old painted glass over the entrance, and
another at the opposite end of the Cathedral; statues,
some of marble, others of gilded bronze ; pulpits of
carved marble ; a gilded organ; a cornice of marble
busts of the popes, extending round the entire church;
a pavement, covered all over with a strange kind
of mosaic-work in various marbles, wrought into
marble pictures of sacred subjects; immense clustered
pillars supporting the round arches that divide the
nave from the side-aisles; a clere-story of windows
within pointed arches ; - it seemed as if the spectator
were reading an antique volume written in black-
letter of a small character, but conveying a high and
solemn meaning. I can find no way of expressing its
effect on me, so quaint and venerable as I feel this
cathedral to be in its immensity of striped waistcoat,
now dingy with five centuries of wear. I ought not
to say anything that might detract from the grandeur
and sanctity of the blessed edifice, for these attributes
are really uninjured by any of the Gothic oddities
which I have hinted at.
;


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ITALY.
We went this morning to the Institute of the Fine
Arts, which is interesting as containing a series of
the works of the Sienese painters from a date earlier
than that of Cimabue. There is a dispute, I believe,
between Florence and Siena as to which city may
claim the credit of having originated the modern art
of painting. The Florentines put forward Cimabue
as the first artist, but as the Sienese produce a pic-
ture, by Guido da Siena, dated before the birth of
Cimabue, the victory is decidedly with them. As to
pictorial merit, to my taste there is none in either of
these old painters, nor in any of their successors for
a long time afterwards. At the Institute there are
several rooms hung with early productions of the
Sienese school, painted before the invention of oil-
colors, on wood shaped into Gothic altar-pieces. The
backgrounds still retain a bedinmed splendor of
gilding There is a plentiful use of red, and I can
conceive that the pictures must have shed an illumina-
tion through the churches where they were displayed.
There is often, too, a minute care bestowed on the
faces in the pictures, and sometimes a very strong
expression, stronger than modern artists get, and it
is very strange how they attained this merit while
they were so inconceivably rude in other respects.
It is remarkable that all the early faces of the Ma-
donna are especially stupid, and all of the same type,
a sort of face such as one might carve on a pumpkin,
representing a heavy, sulky, phlegmatic woman, with
a long and low arch of the nose. This same dull
face continues to be assigned to the Madonna, even
8 *


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when the countenances of the surrounding saints and
angels are characterized with power and beauty, so
that I think there must have been some portrait of
this sacred personage reckoned authentic, which the
early painters followed and religiously repeated.
At last we came to a picture by Sodoma, the most
illustrious representative of the Sienese school. It
was a fresco; Christ bound to the pillar, after having
been scourged. I do believe that painting has never
done anything better, so far as expression is con-
cerned, than this figure. In all these generations
since it was painted it must have softened thousands
of hearts, drawn down rivers of tears, been more
effectual than a million of sermons. Really, it is a
thing to stand and weep at. No other painter has
done anything that can deserve to be compared to
this.
There are some other pictures by Sodoma, among
them a Judith, very noble and admirable, and full of
a profound sorrow for the deed which she has felt it
her mission to do.
Aquila Nera, October 7th. -- Our lodgings in Siena
had been taken only for five days, as they were al-
ready engaged after that period; so yesterday we
returned to our old quarters at the Black Eagle.
In the forenoon J - and I went out of one of the
gates (the road from it leads to Florence) and had a
pleasant country walk. Our way wound downward,
round the hill on which Siena stands, and gave us
views of the Duomo and its campanile, seemingly
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ITALY.
quite remote from them. Sitting awhile on the para-
pet of a bridge, I saw a laborer chopping the branches
off a poplar-tree which he had felled ; and, when it
was trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one of his
shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. He
did not look like a particularly robust man ; but I
have never seen such an herculean feat attempted by
an Englishman or American. It has frequently struck
me that the Italians are able to put forth a great deal
of strength in such insulated efforts as this; but I
have been told that they are less capable of continued
endurance and hardship than our own race. I do not
know why it should be so, except that I presume their
food is less strong than ours. There was no other
remarkable incident in our walk, which lay chiefly,
through gorges of the hills, winding beneath high cliffs
of the brown Siena earth, with many pretty scenes
of rural landscape ; vineyards everywhere, and olive-
trees; a mill on its little stream, over which there
was an old stone bridge, with a graceful arch; farm-
houses ; a villa or two; subterranean passages, pass-
ing from the roadside through the high banks into the
vineyards. At last we turned aside into a road which
led us pretty directly to another gate of the city, and
climbed steeply upward among tanneries, where the
young men went about with their well-shaped legs
bare, their trousers being tucked up till they were
strictly breeches and nothing else. The campanile
stood high above us; and by and by, and very soon,
indeed, the steep ascent of the street brought us into
the neighborhood of the Piazza del Campo, and of our


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own hotel.
From about twelve o'clock till one,
I sat at my chamber window watching the specimens
of human life as displayed in the Piazza Tolomei.
[Here follow several pages of moving objects.] ...
Of course, a multitude of other people passed by, but
the curiousness of the catalogue is the prevalence of
the martial and religious elements. The general cos-
tume of the inhabitants is frocks or sacks, loosely
made, and rather shabby; often, shirt-sleeves; or the
coat hung over one shoulder. They wear felt hats
and straw. People of respectability seem to prefer
cylinder hats, either black or drab, and broadcloth
frock-coats in the French fashion ; but, like the rest,
they look a little shabby. Almost all the women wear
shawls. Ladies in swelling, petticoats, and with fans,
some of which are highly gilded, appear. The people
generally are not tall, but have a sufficient breadth of
shoulder ; in complexion, similar to Americans ; beard-
ed, universally. The vehicle used for driving is a lit-
tle gig without a top; but these are seldom seen, and
still less frequently a cab or other carriages. The
gait of the people has not the energy of business or
decided purpose. Everybody appears to lounge, and
to have time for a moment's chat, and a disposition to
rest, reason or none.
After dinner I walked out of another gate of the
city, and wandered among some pleasant country
lanes, bordered with hedges, and wearing an English
aspect; at least, I could fancy so. The vicinity of
Siena is delightful to walk about in; there being a
verdant outlook, a wide prospect of purple mountains,


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beauty of its impression; and I am never weary of
gazing through the vista of its arches, and noting con-
tinually something that I had not seen before in its
exuberant adornment. The pavement alone is inex-
haustible, being covered all over with figures of life-
size or larger, which look like immense engravings of
Gothic or Scriptural scenes. There is Absalom hang-
ing by his hair and Joab slaying him with a spear.
There is Samson belaboring the Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass. There are armed knights in the
tumult of battle, all wrought with wonderful expres-
sion. The figures are in white marble, inlaid with
darker stone, and the shading is effected by means of
engraved lines in the marble, filled in with black. It
would be possible, perhaps, to print impressions from
some of these vast plates, for the process of cutting the
lines was an exact anticipation of the modern art of
engraving. However, the same thing was done - and
I suppose at about the same period on monumental
brasses, and I have seen impressions or rubbings from
those for sale in the old English churches.
Yesterday morning, in the Cathedral, I watched a
woman at confession, being curious to see how long
it would take her to tell her sins, the growth of a
week perhaps. I know not how long she had been
confessing when I first observed her, but nearly an
hour passed before the priest came suddenly from the
confessional, looking weary and moist with perspira-
tion, and took his way out of the Cathedral. The
was left on her knees. This morning I
watched another woman, and she too was very long
woman
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in this direction as in all others. I came to a little
stream flowing over into a pebbly bed, and collecting
itself into pools, with a scanty rivulet between. Its
glen was deep, and was crossed by a bridge of several
lofty and narrow arches like those of a Roman
aqueduct. It is a modern structure, however. Far-
ther on, as I wound round along the base of a hill
which fell down upon the road by precipitous cliffs of
brown earth, I saw a gray, ruined wall on the summit,
surrounded with cypress-trees. This tree is very fre-
quent about Siena, and the scenery is made soft and
beautiful by a variety of other trees and shrubbery,
without which these hills and gorges would have
scarcely a charm. The road was thronged with coun-
try people, mostly women and children, who had been
spending the feast-day in Siena ; and parties of boys
were chasing one another through the fields, pretty
much as boys do in New England of a Sunday, but
the Sienese lads had not the sense of Sabbath-breaking
like our boys. Sunday with these people is like any
other feast-day, and consecrated to cheerful enjoy-
ment. So much religious observance, as regards out-
ward forms, is diffused through the whole week that
they have no need to intensify the Sabbath except
by making it gladden the other days.
Returning through the same gate by which I had
come out, I ascended into the city by a long and
steep street, which was paved with bricks set edge-
wise. This pavement is common in many of the
streets, which, being too steep for horses and car-
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ITALY.
of mules and asses. The more level streets are paved
with broad, smooth flagstones, like those of Florence,
-a fashion which I heartily regret to change for the
little penitential blocks of Rome. The walls of Siena
in their present state, and so far as I have seen them,
are chiefly brick ; but there are intermingled frag-
ments of ancient stone-work, and I wonder why the
latter does not prevail more largely. The Romans,
however, --- and Siena had Roman characteristics, -- al-
ways liked to build of brick, a taste that has made
their ruins (now that the marble slabs are torn off)
much less grand than they ought to have been.
am grateful to the old Sienese for having used stone
so largely in their domestic architecture, and thereby
rendered their city so grimly picturesque, with its
black palaces frowning upon one another from arched
windows, across narrow streets, to the height of six
stories, like opposite ranks of tall men looking sternly
into one another's
eyes.
October 11th. Again I went to the Cathedral this
morning, and spent an hour listening to the music
and looking through the orderly intricacies of the
arches, where many vistas open away among the
columns of the choir. There are five clustered columns
on each side of the nave; then under the dome there
are two more arches, not in a straight line, but form-
ing the segment of a circle ; and beyond the circle of
the dome there are four more arches, extending to the
extremity of the chancel. I should have said, instead
of “ clustered columns as above, that there are five
arches along the nave supported by columns. This


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make me dream of finding a home in Italy; a sense
that I had lost my country through absence or incon-
gruity, and that earth is not an abiding-place. I
wonder that we Americans love our country at all, it
having no limits and no oneness ; and when you try
'to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away
except one's native State ; neither can you seize hold
of that unless you tear it out of the Union, bleeding
and quivering. Yet unquestionably, we do stand by
our national flag as stoutly as any people in the
world, and I myself have felt the heart throb at sight
of it as sensibly as other men. I think the singularity
of our form of government contributes to give us a
kind of patriotism, by separating us from other nations
more entirely. If other nations had similar institu-
tions, --if England, especially, were a democracy, -
we should as readily make ourselves at home in an-
other country as now in a new State.
October 12th. And again we went to the Cathedral
this forenoon, and the whole family, except myself,
sketched portions of it.
Even Rosebud stood gravely
sketching some of the inlaid figures of the pavement.
As for me, I can but try to preserve some memorial
of this beautiful edifice in ill-fitting words that never
hit the mark. This morning visit was not my final
one, for I went again after dinner and walked quite
round the whole interior. I think I have not yet
mentioned the rich carvings of the old oaken seats
round the choir, and the curious mosaic of lighter and
darker woods, by which figures and landscapes are
skilfully represented on the backs of some of the


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stalls. The process seems to be the same as the in-
laying and engraving of the pavement, the material
in one case being marble, in the other wood. The
only other thing that I particularly noticed was, that
in the fonts of holy water at the front entrance,
marble fish are sculptured in the depths of the basin,
and eels and shellfish crawling round the brim. Have
I spoken of the sumptuous carving of the capitals of
the columns ? At any rate I have left a thousand
beauties without a word. Here I drop the subject.
As I took my parting glance the Cathedral had a
gleam of golden sunshine in its far depths, and it
seemed to widen and deepen itself, as if to convince
me of my error in saying, yesterday, that it is not
very large. I wonder how I could say it.
After taking leave of the Cathedral, I found my way
out of another of the city gates, and soon turned aside
into a green lane. ... Soon the lane passed through
a hamlet consisting of a few farm-houses, the shabbiest
and dreariest that can be conceived, ancient, and ugly,
and dilapidated, with iron-grated windows below, and
heavy wooden shutters on the windows above, -- high,
ruinous walls shutting in the courts, and ponderous
gates, one of which was off its hinges. The farm-yards
were perfect pictures of disarray and slovenly admin-
istration of home affairs. Only one of these houses
had a door opening on the road, and that was the
meanest in the hamlet. A flight of narrow stone
stairs ascended from the threshold to the second story.
All these houses were specimens of a rude antiquity,
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1858.]
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ITALY.
doors and windows where a subsequent generation had
shut
up the lights, or the accesses which the original
builders had opened. Humble as these dwellings are,
- though large and high compared with rural resi-
dences in other countries, -- they may very probably
date back to the times when Siena was a warlike re-
public, and when every house in its neighborhood had
need to be a fortress. I suppose, however, prowling
banditti were the only enemies against whom a defence
would be attempted. What lives must now be lived
there, — in beastly ignorance, mental sluggishness,
hard toil for little profit, filth, and a horrible discom-
fort of fleas; for if the palaces of Italy are overrun
with these pests, what must the country hovels
be!..
We are now all ready for a start to-morrow.
RADICOFANI.
October 13th. - We arranged to begin our journey
at six. It was a chill, lowering morning, and
the rain blew a little in our faces before we had gone
far, but did not continue long. The country soon lost
the pleasant aspect which it wears immediately about
Siena, and grew very barren and dreary. Then it
changed again for the better, the road leading us
through a fertility of vines and olives, after which
the dreary and barren hills came back again, and
formed our prospect throughout most of the day. We
stopped for our déjeuner à la fourchette at a little old
town called San Querico, which we entered through a


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ruined gateway, the town being entirely surrounded
by its ancient wall. This wall is far more picturesque
than that of Siena, being lofty and built of stone,
with a machicolation of arches running quite round
its top, like a cornice. It has little more than a single
street, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, narrow,
paved with flagstones in the Florentine fashion, and
lined with two rows of tall, rusty, stone houses, with-
out a gap between them from end to end. The cafés
were numerous in relation to the size of the town,
and there were two taverns, our own, the Eagle,
being doubtless the best, and having three arched en-
trances in its front. Of these, the middle one led to
the guests' apartments, the one on the right to the
barn, and that on the left to the stable, so that, as is
usual in Italian inns, the whole establishment was
under one roof. We were shown into a brick-paved
room on the first floor, adorned with a funny fresco of
Aurora on the ceiling, and with some colored prints,
both religious and profane.
As we drove into the town we noticed a Gothic
church with two doors of peculiar architecture, and
while our déjeuner was being prepared we went to
The interior had little that was remarkable,
for it had been repaired early in the last century, and
spoilt of course; but an old tryptich is still hanging in
a chapel beside the high altar. It is painted on wood,
and dates back beyond the invention of oil-painting,
and represents the Virgin and some saints and angels.
Neither is the exterior of the church particularly in-
teresting, with the exception of the carving and orna-
see it.


1858.)
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ITALY.
ments of two of the doors. Both of them have round
arches, deep and curiously wrought, and the pillars of
one of the two are formed of a peculiar knot or twine
in stone-work, such as I cannot well describe, but it
is both ingenious and simple. These pillars rest on
two nondescript animals, which look as much like
walruses as anything else. The pillars of the other
door consist of two figures supporting the capitals, and
themselves standing on two handsomely carved lions.
The work is curious, and evidently very ancient, and
the material a red freestone.
After lunch, J- and I took a walk out of the
gate of the town opposite to that of our entrance.
There were no soldiers on guard, as at city gates of
more importance; nor do I think that there is really
any gate to shut, but the massive stone gateway still
stands entire over the empty arch. Looking back
after we had passed through, I observed that the lofty
upper story is converted into a dove-cot, and that
pumpkins were put to ripen in some open chambers
at one side. We passed near the base of a tall, square
tower, which is said to be of Roman origin. The
little town is in the midst of a barren region, but its
immediate neighborhood is fertile, and an olive-
orchard, venerable of aspect, lay on the other side of
the pleasant lane with its English hedges, and olive-
trees grew likewise along the base of the city wall.
The arched machicolations, which I have before men-
tioned,. were here and there interrupted by a house
which was built upon the old wall or incorporated into
it; and from the windows of one of them I saw ears of
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Indian corn hung out to ripen in the sun, and some-
body was winnowing grain at a little door that
opened through the wall. It was very pleasant to
see the ancient warlike rampart thus overcome with
rustic peace. The ruined gateway is partly overgrown
with ivy.
Returning to our inn, along the street, we saw
sketching one of the doors of the Gothic church, in
the midst of a crowd of the good people of San
Querico, who made no scruple to look over her
shoulder, pressing so closely as hardly to allow her
elbow-room. I must own that I was too cowardly to
come forward and take my share of this public notice,
so I turned away to the inn and there awaited her
coming. Indeed, she has seldom attempted to sketch
without finding herself the nucleus of a throng.
VITERBO.
The Black Eagle, October 14th. - Perhaps I had
something more to say of San Querico, but I shall
merely add that there is a stately old palace of the
Piccolomini, close to the church above described. It
is built in the style of the Roman palaces, and looked
almost large enough to be one of them. Neverthe-
less, the basement story, or part of it, seems to be
used as a barn and stable, for I saw a yoke of oxen in
the entrance. I cannot but mention a most wretched
team of vetturo-horses which stopped at the door of
our albergo : poor, lean, downcast creatures, with deep
furrows between their ribs; nothing but skin and


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ments of stone. It looked as if some great ruin had
taken place there, only it was too vast a ruin to have
been the dismemberment and dissolution of anything
made by man.
We could now see the castle on the height pretty
distinctly. It seemed to impend over the precipice;
and close to the base of the latter we saw the street
of a town on as strange and inconvenient a founda-
tion as ever one was built upon.
I suppose the in-
habitants of the village were dependants of the old
knight of the castle ; his brotherhood of robbers, as
they married and had families, settled there under the
shelter of the eagle's nest. But the singularity is,
how a community of people have contrived to live
and perpetuate themselves so far out of the reach of
the world's help, and seemingly with no means of as-
sisting in the world's labor. I cannot imagine how
they employ themselves except in begging, and even
that branch of industry appears to be left to the old
women and the children. No house was ever built
in this immediate neighborhood for any such natural
purpose as induces people to build them on other sites.
Even our hotel, at which we now arrived, could not
be said to be a natural growth of the soil ; it had
originally been a whim of one of the Grand Dukes of
Tuscany,--a hunting-palace, - intended for habitation
only during a few weeks of the year. Of all dreary
hotels I ever alighted at, methinks this is the most
so; but on first arriving I merely followed the waiter
to look at our rooms, across stone-paved basement-
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ITALY.
side, too, except where the path just finds space
enough, there is an enormous rubbish of huge stones,
which seems to have fallen from the precipice above,
or else to have rained down out of the sky. We kept
on, and by and by reached what seemed to have been
a lower outwork of the castle on the top; there was
the massive old arch of a gateway, and a great deal of
ruin of man's work, beside the large stones that here,
as elsewhere, were scattered so abundantly. Within
the wall and gateway just mentioned, however, there
was a kind of farm-house adapted, I suppose, out of
the old ruin, and I noticed some ears of Indian corn
hanging out of a window. There were also a few
stacks of hay, but no signs of human or animal life ;
and it is utterly inexplicable to me where these pro-
ducts of the soil could have come from, for certainly
they never grew amid that barrenness.
We had not yet reached Ghino's castle, and, being
now beneath it, we had to bend our heads far back-
ward to see it rising up against the clear sky while
we were now in twilight. The path upward looked
terribly steep and rough, and if we had climbed it we
should probably have broken our necks in descending
again into the lower obscurity. We therefore stopped
here, much against J-'s will, and went back as we
came, still wondering at the strange situation of Radi-
cofani; for its aspect is as if it had stepped off the
top of the cliff and lodged at its base, though still in
danger of sliding farther down the hillside. Emer-
ging from the compact, grimy life of its street, we saw
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pended itself in a region beneath us, for we were above
the scope of many of the showery clouds that haunt a
hill-country. There was a very bright star visible, I
remember, and we saw the new moon, now a third to-
wards the full, for the first time this evening. The
air was cold and bracing.
But I am excessively sleepy, so will not describe
our great dreary hotel, where a blast howled in an
interminable corridor all night. It did not seem to
have anything to do with the wind out of doors, but
to be a blast that had been casually shut in when
the doors were closed behind the last Grand Duke
who came hither and departed, and ever since it has
been kept prisoner, and makes a melancholy wail
along the corridor. The dreamy stupidity of this
conceit proves how sleepy I am.
SETTE VENE.
October 15th. We left Radicofani long before sun-
rise, and I saw that ceremony take place from the
coupé of the vetturo for the first time in a long while.
A sunset is the better sight of the two. I have always
suspected it, and have been strengthened in the idea
whenever I have had an opportunity of comparison.
Our departure from Radicofani was most dreary,
except that we were very glad to get away; but the
cold discomfort of dressing in a chill bedroom by
candle-light, and our uncertain wandering through the
immense hotel with a dim taper in search of the
breakfast - room, and our poor breakfast of eggs,
-
-


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ITALY.
Italian bread, and coffee, -all these things made me
wish that people were created with roots like trees,
so that they could not befool themselves with wan-
dering about. However, we had not long been on
our way before the morning air blew away all our
troubles, and we rumbled cheerfully onward, ready
to encounter even the papal custom-house officers at
Ponte Centino. Our road thither was a pretty steep
descent. I remember the barren landscape of hills,
with here and there a lonely farm-house, which there
seemed to be no occasion for, where nothing grew.
At Ponte Centino my passport was examined, and
I was invited into an office where sat the papal
custom-house officer, a thin, subtle-looking, keen-eyed,
sallow personage, of aspect very suitable to be the
agent of a government of priests. I communicated
to him my wish to pass the custom-house without
giving the officers the trouble of examining my lug-
gage. He inquired whether I had any dutiable ar-
ticles, and wrote for my signature a declaration in the
negative; and then he lifted a sand-box, beneath
which was a little heap of silver coins. On this
delicate hint I asked what was the usual fee, and
was told that fifteen pauls was the proper sum.
presume it was entirely an illegal charge, and that
he had no right to pass any luggage without ex-
amination; but the thing is winked at by the
authorities, and no money is better spent for the
traveller's convenience than these fifteen pauls. There
was a papal military officer in the room, and he, I
believe, cheated me in the change of a Napoleon, as
I
9*


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with all its novelty shows strikingly the difference
between places that grow up and shape out their
streets of their own accord; as it were, and one that is
built on a settled plan of malice aforethought. This
little rural village has gates of classic architecture, a
spacious piazza, and a great breadth of straight and
rectangular streets, with houses of uniform style, airy
and wholesome looking to a degree seldom seen on
the Continent. Nevertheless, I must say that the
town looked hatefully dull and ridiculously prim,
and, of the two, I had rather spend my life in Radi-
cofani. We drove through it, from gate to gate, with-
out stopping, and soon came to the brow of a hill,
whence we beheld, right beneath us, the beautiful
lake of Bolsena ; not exactly at our feet, however, for
a portion of level ground lay between, haunted by
the pestilence which has depopulated all these shores,
and made the lake and its neighborhood a solitude.
It looked very beautiful, nevertheless, with a sheen
of a silver and a gray like that of steel as the
wind blew and the sun shone over it; and, judging
by my own feelings, I should really have thought
that the breeze from its surface was bracing and
nealthy.
Descending the hill, we passed the ruins of the old
town of San Lorenzo, of which the prim village on
the hill-top may be considered the daughter. There
is certainly no resemblance between parent and child,
the former being situated on a sort of precipitous
bluff, where there could have been no room for piazzas
and spacious streets, nor accessibility except by mules,


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were as dirty a people as we everywhere find those
who have succeeded them; for there seems to have
been something in the places that have been inhabited
by Romans, or made famous in their history, and in
the monuments of every kind that they have raised,
that puts people in mind of their very earthliness,
and incites them to defile therewith whatever temple,
column, ruined palace, or triumphal arch may fall in
their way. I think it must be an hereditary trait,
probably weakened and robbed of a little of its horror
by the influence of milder ages ; and I am much afraid
that Cæsar trod narrower and fouler ways in his path
to power than those of modern Rome, or even of this
disgusting town of Bolsena. I cannot imagine any-
thing worse than these, however. Rotten vegetables
thrown everywhere about, musty straw, standing pud-
dles, running rivulets of dissolved nastiness, -- these
matters were a relief amid viler objects. The town
was full of great black hogs wallowing before every
door, and they grunted at us with a kind of courtesy
and affability as if the town were theirs, and it was
their part to be hospitable to strangers. Many don-
keys likewise accosted us with braying ; children,
growing more uncleanly every day they lived, pes-
tered us with begging; men stared askance at us as
they lounged in corners, and women endangered us
with slons which they were flinging from doorways
into the street. No decent words can describe, no
admissible image can give an idea of this noisome
place. And yet, I remember, the donkeys came up
the height loaded with fruit, and with little flat-sided


1858.]
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ITALY.
barrels of wine; the people had a good atmosphere -
except as they polluted it themselves -- on their high
site, and there seemed to be no reason why they should
not live a beautiful and jolly life.
I did not mean to write such an ugly description
as the above, but it is well, once for all, to have at-
tempted conveying an idea of what disgusts the trav-
eller, more or less, in all these Italian towns. Setting
aside this grand characteristic, the upper town of Bol-
sena is a most curious and interesting place. It was
originally an Etruscan city, the ancient Volsinii, and
when taken and destroyed by the Romans was said to
contain two thousand statues. Afterwards the Ro-
mans built a town upon the site, including, I suppose,
the space occupied by the lower city, which looks as if
it had brimmed over like Radicofani, and fallen from
the precipitous height occupied by the upper. The lat-
ter is a strange confusion of black and ugly houses, piled
massively out of the ruins of former ages, built rudely
and without plan, as a pauper would build his hovel,
and yet with here and there an arched gateway,
a cornice, a pillar, that might have adorned a pal-
The streets are the narrowest
have seen
anywhere, of no more width, indeed, than
may
suf-
fice for the passage of a donkey with his panniers.
They wind in and out in strange confusion, and hardly
look like streets at all, but, nevertheless, have names
printed on the corners, just as if they were stately
After looking about us awhile and drawing
half-breaths so as to take in the less quantity of
gaseous pollution, we went back to the castle, and
ace,
avenues.


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of very good design. Around most of them there were
wine-hogsheads, waiting their turn to be cleansed and
rinsed, before receiving the wine of the present vint-
age. Passing a doorway, J- saw some men tread-
ing out the grapes in a great vat with their naked
feet.
Among the beggars here, the loudest and most
vociferous was à crippled postilion, wearing his
uniform jacket, green, faced with red ; and he seemed
to consider himself entitled still to get his living from
travellers, as having been disabled in the way of his
profession. I recognized his claim, and was rewarded
with a courteous and grateful bow at our departure.
To beggars -- after my much experience both
in England and Italy - I give very little, though I
am not certain that it would not often be real benefi-
cence in the latter country, There being little or no
provision for poverty and age, the poor must often
suffer. Nothing can be more earnest than their en-
treaties for aid ; nothing seemingly more genuine
than their gratitude when they receive it. They
return you the value of their alms in
prayers, and
say,
“God will accompany you.” Many of them have a
professional whine, and a certain doleful twist of the
neck and turn of the head, which hardens my heart
against them at once. A painter might find numerous
models among them, if canvas had not already been
more than sufficiently covered with their style of the
picturesque. There is a certain brick-dust colored
cloak worn in Viterbo, not exclusively by beggars,
which, when ragged enough, is exceedingly artistic.


1858.]
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ITALY.
ROME.
68 Piazza Poli, October 17th. - We left Viterbo
on the 15th, and proceeded, through Monterosi, to
Sette Vene. There was nothing interesting at Sette
Vene, except an old Roman bridge, of a single arch,
which had kept its sweep, composed of one row of
stones, unbroken for two or more thousand years, and
looked just as strong as ever, though gray with age,
and fringed with plants that found it hard to fix
themselves in its close crevices.
The next day we drove along the Cassian Way
towards Rome. It was a most delightful morning, a
genial atmosphere ; the more so, I suppose, because
this was the Campagna, the region of pestilence and
death. I had a quiet, gentle, comfortable pleasure,
as if, after many wanderings, I was drawing near
Rome, for, now that I have known it once, Rome
certainly does draw into itself my heart, as I think
even London, or even little Concord itself, or old
sleepy Salem, never did and never will. Besides, we
are to stay here six months, and we had now a house
all prepared to receive us ; so that this present ap-
proach, in the noontide of a genial day, was most
unlike our first one, when we crept towards Rome
through the wintry midnight, benumbed with cold,
ill, weary, and not knowing whither to betake our-
selves. Ah! that was a dismal time! One thing,
however, that disturbed even my present equanimity
a little was the necessity of meeting the custom-house
at the Porta del Popolo; but my past experience


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warranted me in believing that even these ogres
might be mollified by the magic touch of a scudo ;
and so it proved. We should have escaped any ex-
amination at all, the officer whispered me, if his
superior had not happened to be present; but, as the
case stood, they took down only one trunk from the
top of the vetturo, just lifted the lid, closed it again,
and gave us permission to proceed. So we came to
68 Piazza Poli, and found ourselves at once at home,
in such a comfortable, cosey little house, as I did not
think existed in Rome.
I ought to say a word about our vetturino, Constan-
tino Bacci, an excellent and most favorable specimen
of his class ; for his magnificent conduct, his liberality,
and all the good qualities that ought to be imperial,
S-called him the Emperor. He took us to good
hotels, and feasted us with the best ; he was kind to
us all, and especially to little Rosebud, who used to
run by his side, with her small white hand in his
great brown one ; he was cheerful in his deportment,
and expressed his good spirits by the smack of his
whip, which is the barometer of a vetturino's inward
weather; he drove admirably, and would rumble up
to the door of an albergo, and stop to a hair’s-breadth,
just where it was most convenient for us to alight ;
he would hire postilions and horses, where other
vetturini would take nothing better than sluggish
oxen, to help us up the hilly roads, so that sometimes
we had a team of seven; he did all that we could
possibly require of him, and was content and more,
with a buon mano of five scudi, in addition to the


1858.]
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ITALY.
perceiving the pavement loose and broken near the
altar where Guido's Archangel is placed, we picked up
some bits of rosso antico and gray marble, to be set in
brooches, as relics.
We have the snuggest little set of apartments in
Rome, seven rooms, including an antechamber; and
though the stairs are exceedingly narrow, there is
really a carpet on them,-a civilized comfort, of which
the proudest palaces in the Eternal City cannot boast.
The stairs are very steep, however, and I should not
wonder if some of us broke our noses down them.
Narrowness of space within doors strikes us all rather
ludicrously, yet not unpleasantly, after being accus-
tomed to the wastes and deserts of the Montauto Villa.
It is well thus to be put in training for the over-snug-
ness of our cottage in Concord. Our windows here
look out on a small and rather quiet piazza, with an
immense palace on the left hand, and a smaller yet
statelier one on the right, and just round the corner
of the street, leading out of our piazza, is the Fountain
of Trevi, of which I can hear the plash in the evening,
when other sounds are hushed.
Looking over what I have said of Sodoma's “ Christ
Bound,” at Siena, I see that I have omitted to notice
what seems to me one of its most striking character-
istics, -its loneliness. You feel as if the Saviour were
deserted, both in heaven and earth ; the despair is in
him which made him say, "My God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" Even in this extremity, however, he
is still Divine, and Sodoma almost seems to have
reconciled the impossibilities of combining an omni-.
10
YOL. II.


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fied ;
by the display of masks of wire, pasteboard, silk, or
cloth, some of beautiful features, others hideous,
fantastic, currish, asinine, huge-nosed, or otherwise
monstrous; some 'intended to cover the whole face,
others' concealing only the upper part, also white
dominos, or robes bedizened with gold - lace and
theatric splendors, displayed at the windows of
mercers or flaunting before the doors. Yesterday,
U- and I came along the Corso, between one and
two o'clock, after a walk, and found all these symp-
toms of impending merriment multiplied and intensi-
rows of chairs, set out along the side-
walks, elevated à foot or two by means of planks ;
great baskets, full of confetti, for sale in the nooks
and recesses of the streets; bouquets of all qualities
and prices. The Corso was becoming pretty well
thronged with people; but, until two o'clock, nobody
dared to fling as much as a rosebud or a handful of
sugar-plums. There was a sort of holiday expression
however, on almost everybody's face, such as I have
not hitherto seen in Rome, or in any part of Italy; a
smile gleaming out, an aurora of mirth, which prob-
ably will not be very exuberant in its noontide.
The day was so sunny and bright that it made this
opening scene far more cheerful than any day of the
last year's carnival. As we threaded our way through
the Corso, U— kept wishing she could plunge into
the fun and uproar as I would, and for my own
part, though I pretended to take no interest in the
matter, I could have bandied confetti and nosegays
as readily and as riotously as any urchin there. But


1859.]
223
ITALY.
.
my black hat and grave talma would have been too
good a mark for the combatants, So we went
home before a shot was fired.
March 7th. - I, as well as the rest of the family,
have followed op the Carnival pretty faithfully, and
enjoyed it as well, or rather better than could have
been expected; principally in the street, as a mere
looker-on, -- which does not let one into the mystery
of the fun, - and twice from a balcony, where I threw
confetti, and partly understood why the young people
like it so much. Certainly, there cannot well be a
more picturesque spectacle in human life, than that
stately, palatial avenue of the Corso, the more pic-
turesque because so narrow, all hung with carpets
and Gobelin tapestry, and the whole palace-heights
alive with faces; and all the capacity of the street
thronged with the most fantastic figures that either
the fancies of folks alive at this day are able to con-
trive, or that live traditionally from year to year.
The Prince of Wales has fought manfully
through the Carnival with confetti and bouquets, and
U-received several bouquets from him, on Satur-
day, as her carriage moved along.
March 8th. - I went with US to Mr. Motley's
balcony, in the Corso, and saw the Carnival from it
yesterday afternoon; but the spectacle is strangely
like a dream, in respect to the difficulty of retaining
it in the mind and solidifying it into a description.
I enjoyed it a good deal, and assisted in so far as to
pelt all the people in cylinder hats with handsful of
confetti. The scene opens with a long array of cavalry,


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who ride through the Corso, preceded by a large band,
playing loudly on their brazen instruments. .
There were some splendid dresses, particularly con-
tadina costumes of scarlet and gold, which seem to be
actually the festal attire of that class of people, and
must needs be so expensive that one must serve for a
lifetime, if indeed it be not an inheritance.
March 9th. -- I was, yesterday, an hour or so among
the people on the sidewalks of the Corso, just on the
edges of the fun. They appeared to be in a decorous,
good-natured mood, neither entering into the merri-
ment, nor harshly repelling; and when groups of
maskers overflowed among them, they received their
jokes in good part. Many women of the lower class
were in the crowd of bystanders ; generally broad and
sturdy figures, clad evidently in their best attire,
and wearing a good many ornaments; such as gold or
coral beads and necklaces, combs of silver or gold,
heavy ear-rings, curiously wrought brooches, perhaps
cameos or mosaics, though I think they prefer purely
metallic work to these. One ornament very common
among them is a large bodkin, which they stick
through their hair. It is usually of silver, but some
times it looks like steel, and is made in the shape of a
sword, -- a long Spanish thrusting-sword, for example.
Dr. Franco told us a story of a woman of Trastevere,
who was addressed rudely at the Carnival by a gentle-
man ; she warned him to desist, but as he still per-
sisted, she drew the bodkin from her hair, and stabbed
him to the heart.
By and by I went to Mr. Motley's balcony, and


1859.]
225
ITALY.
looked down on the closing scenes of the Carnival.
Methought the merry-makers labored harder to be
mirthful, and yet were somewhat tired of their eight
play-days; and their dresses looked a little shabby,
rumpled, and draggled; but the lack of sunshine -
which we have had on all the preceding days -- may
have produced this effect. The wheels of some of the
carriages were wreathed round and spoked with green
foliage, making a very pretty and fanciful appearance,
as did likewise the harnesses of the horses, which were
trimmed with roses. The pervading noise and uproar
of human voices is one of the most effective points of
the matter; but the scene is quite indescribable, and
its effect not to be conceived without both witnessing
and taking part in it. If you merely look at it, it de-
presses you ;
if
you take even the slightest share in it,
you become aware that it has a fascination, and you
no longer wonder that the young people, at least, take
such delight in plunging into this mad river of fun
that goes roaring between the narrow limits of the
Corso.
As twilight came on, the moccoli commenced, and,
as it grew darker, the whole street twinkled with
lights, which would have been innumerable if every
torch-bearer had not been surrounded by a host of
enemies, who tried to extinguish bis poor little
twinkle. It was a pity to lose so much splendor as
there might have been ; but yet there was a kind of
symbolism in the thought that every one of those
thousands of twinkling lights was in charge of some-
body, who was striving with all his might to keep it
10 *


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alive. Not merely the street-way, but all the bal-
conies and hundreds of windows were lit up with these
little torches ; so that it seemed as if the stars had
crumbled into glittering fragments, and rained down
upon the Corso, some of them lodging upon the palace-
fronts, some falling on the ground. Besides this,
there were gas-lights burning with a white flame; but
this illumination was not half so interesting as that of
the torches, which indicated human struggle. All
this time there were niyriad voices shouting, “SENZA
MOCCOLO !” and mingling into one long roar. We, in
our balcony, carried on a civil war against one an-
other's torches, as is the custom of human beings,
within even the narrowest precincts; but after a while
we grew tired, and so did the crowd, apparently; for
the lights vanished, one after another, till the gas-
lights --- which at first were an unimportant part of
the illumination -- shone quietly out, overpowering
the scattered twinkles of the moccoli. They were
what the fixed stars are to the transitory splendors of
human life.
Mr. Motley tells me, that it was formerly the cus-
tom to have a mock funeral of Harlequin, who was
supposed to die at the close of the Carnival, during
which he had reigned supreme, and all the people, or
as many as chose, bore torches at his burial. But
this being considered an indecorous mockery of
Popish funereal customs, the present frolic of the
moccoli was instituted, in some sort, growing out
of it.
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ITALY.
there was a noise of song and late revellers in the
streets ; but to-day we have waked up in the sad and
sober season of Lent.
It is worthy of remark, that all the jollity of the
Carnival is a genuine ebullition of spirit, without the
aid of wine or strong drink.
March 11th. - Yesterday we went to the Catacomb
of St. Calixtus, the entrance to which is alongside of
the Appian Way, within sight of the tomb of Cecilia
Metella. We descended not a very great way under
ground, by a broad flight of stone steps, and, lighting
some wax tapers, with which we had provided our-
selves, we followed the guide through a great many
intricate passages, which mostly were just wide
enough for me to touch the wall on each side, while
keeping my elbows close to my body; and as to
height, they were from seven to ten feet, and some-
times a good deal higher. It was rather pic-
turesque, when we saw the long line of our tapers,
for another large party had joined us, twinkling
along the dark passage, and it was interesting to think
of the former inhabitants of these caverns.
one or two places there was the round mark in the
stone or plaster, where a bottle had been deposited.
This was said to have been the token of a martyr's
burial-place, and to have contained his blood. After
leaving the Catacomb, we drove onward to Cecilia
Metella's tomb, which we entered and inspected.
Within the immensely massive circular substance of
the tomb was a round, vacant space, and this inte-
rior vacancy was open at the top, and had nothing
:... In


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66
but some fallen stones and a heap of earth at the bot-
tom.
On our way home we entered the Church of
“ Domine, quò Vadis," and looked at the old frag-
ment of the Appian Way, where our Saviour met St.
Peter, and left the impression of his feet in one of the
Roman paving-stones. The stone has been removed,
and there is now only a fac-simile engraved in a
block of marble, occupying the place where Jesus
stood. It is a great pity they had not left the
original stone ; for then all its brother-stones in the
pavement would have seemed to confirm the truth of
the legend.
While we were at dinner, a gentleman called and
was shown into the parlor. We supposed it to be
Mr. May; but soon his voice grew familiar, and my
wife was sure it was General Pierce, so I left the
table, and found it to be really he. I was rejoiced to
see him, though a little saddened to see the marks of
care and coming age, in many a whitening hair, and
many a furrow, and, still more, in something that
seemed to have passed away out of him, without
leaving any trace. His voice, sometimes, sounded
strange and old, though generally it was what it used
to be. He was evidently glad to see me, glad to see
my wife, glad to see the children, though there was
something melancholy in his tone, when he remarked
what a stout boy J—had grown.
Poor fellow ! he
has neither son nor daughter to keep his heart warm.
This morning I have been with him to St. Peter's,
and elsewhere about the city, and find him less


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ITALY.
o'-the-Wisp, both very pretty and fanciful. It indi-
cates much variety of power, that Zenobia should be
the sister of these, which would seem the more nat-
ural offspring of her quick and vivid character. But
Zenobia is a high, heroic ode.
On my way up the Via Babuino, I met
General Pierce. We have taken two or three walks
together, and stray among the Roman ruins, and old
scenes of history, talking of matters in which he is
personally concerned, yet which are as historic as
anything around us. He is singularly little changed;
the more I see him, the more I get him back, just
such as he was in our youth. This morning, his
face, air, and smile were so wonderfully like himself
of old, that at least thirty years are annihilated.
Zenobia's manacles serve as bracelets; a very in-
genious and suggestive idea.
March 18th. - I went to the sculpture gallery of
the Capitol yesterday, and saw, among other things,
the Venus in her secret cabinet. This was my second
view of her : the first time, I greatly admired her;
now, she made no very favorable impression. There
are twenty Venuses whom I like as well, or better.
On the whole, she is a heavy, clumsy, unintellectual,
and commonplace figure; at all events, not in good
looks to-day. Marble beauties seem to suffer the
same occasional eclipses as those of flesh and blood.
We looked at the Faun, the Dying Gladiator, and
other famous sculptures; but nothing had a glory
round it, perhaps because the sirocco was blowing.
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like all or almost all other Roman windows, it is
divided vertically, and each half swings back on
hinges.
Last week a fritter establishment was opened in our
piazza. It was a wooden booth erected in the open
square, and covered with canvas painted red, which
looked as if it had withstood much rain and sunshine.
In front were three great boughs of laurel, not so
much for shade, I think, as ornament.
There were
two men, and their apparatus for business was a sort
of stove, or charcoal furnace, and a frying-pan to place
over it; they had an armful or two of dry sticks, some
flour, and I suppose oil, and this seemed to be all. It
was Friday, and Lent besides, and possibly there was
some other peculiar propriety in the consumption of
fritters just then. At all events, their fire burned
merrily from morning till night, and pretty late into
the evening, and they had a fine run of custom ; the
commodity being simply dough, cut into squares or
rhomboids, and thrown into the boiling oil, which
quickly turned them to a light brown color. I sent
J- to buy some, and, tasting one, it resembled an
unspeakably bad doughnut, without any sweetening.
In fact, it was sour, for the Romans like their bread,
and all their preparations of flour, in a state of acetous
fermentation, which serves them instead of salt or
other condiment. This fritter-shop had grown up in
a night, like Aladdin's palace, and vanished as sud-
denly ; for after standing through Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, it was gone on Monday morning, and a
charcoal-strewn place on the pavement where the fur-
;


1859.1
ITALY.
It w
nace had been was the only memorial of it.
curious to observe how immediately it became a loul
ging-place for idle people, who stood and talked all
day with the fritter-friers, just as they might at any
old shop in the basement of a palace, or between the
half-buried pillars of the Temple of Minerva, which
had been familiar to them and their remote grand-
fathers.
April 14th. - Yesterday afternoon I drove with Mr.
and Mrs. Story and Mr. Wilde to see a statue of
Venus, which has just been discovered, outside of the
Porta Portese, on the other side of the Tiber. A
little distance beyond the gate we
came to the
entrance of a vineyard, with a wheel-track through
the midst of it; and, following this, we soon came to
a hillside, in which an excavation had been made
with the purpose of building a grotto for keeping and
storing wine. They had dug down into what seemed
to be an ancient bath-room, or some structure of that
kind, the excavation being square and cellar-like,
and built round with old subterranean walls of brick
and stone. Within this hollow space the statue had
been found, and it was now standing against one of
the walls, covered with a coarse cloth, or a canvas
bag. This being removed, there appeared a headless
marble figure, earth-stained, of course, and with a
slightly corroded surface, but wonderfully delicate
and beautiful, the shape, size, and attitude, appar-
ently, of the Venus di Medici, but, as we all thought,
more beautiful than that. It is supposed to be the
original, from which the Venus di Medici was copied.


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Both arms were broken off, but the greater part of
both, and nearly the whole of one hand, had been
found, and these being adjusted to the figure, they
took the well-known position before the bosom and
the middle, as if the fragmentary woman retained her
instinct of modesty to the last. There were the
marks on the bosom and thigh where the fingers had
touched ; whereas in the Venus di Medici, if I re-
member rightly, the fingers are sculptured quite free
of the person. The man who showed the statue now
lifted from a corner a round block of marble, which
had been lying there among other fragments, and
this he placed upon the shattered neck of the Venus;
and hold, it was her head and face, perfect, all but
the nose! Even in spite of this mutilation, it seemed
immediately to light up and vivify the entire figure ;
and, whatever I may heretofore have written about
the countenance of the Venus di Medici, I here record
my belief that that head has been wrongfully foisted
upon the statue ; at all events, it is unspeakably
inferior to this newly discovered one. This face has
a breadth and front which are strangely deficient in
the other. The eyes are well opened, most unlike
the buttonhole lids of the Venus di Medici ; the
whole head is so much larger as to entirely obviate
the criticism that has always been made on the
diminutive head of the Di Medici statue. If it had
but a nose! They ought to sift every handful of
earth that has been thrown out of the excavation, for
the nose and the missing hand and fingers must
needs be there; and, if they were found, the effect


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air, each with a glass of thin wine and something to
eat before him ; for the Germans refresh nature ten
times to other persons once.
How the whole world might be peopled with antique
beauty if the Romans would only dig!
April 19th. — General Pierce leaves Rome this
morning for Venice, by way of Ancona, and taking
the steamer thence to Trieste. I had hoped to make
the journey along with him; but 's terrible
illness has made it necessary for us to continue here
another month, and we are thankful that this seems
how to be the extent of our misfortune. Never
having had any trouble before that pierced into my
very vitals, I did not know what comfort there might
be in the manly sympathy of a friend ; but Pierce has
undergone so great a sorrow of his own, and has so
large and kindly a heart, and is so tender and so
strong, that he really did me good, and I shall always
love him the better for the recollection of his minis-
trations in these dark days. Thank God, the thing
we dreaded did not come to pass.
Pierce is wonderfully little changed. Indeed, now
that he has won and enjoyed — if there were any
enjoyment in it — the highest success that public life
could give him, he seems more like what he was in
his early youth than at any subsequent period. He
is evidently happier than I have ever known him
since our college days; satisfied with what he has
been, and with the position in the country that re-
mains to him, after filling such an office. Amid all
his former successes, — early as they came, and great


1859.]
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ITALY.
as they were, - I always perceived that something
gnawed within him, and kept him forever restless and
miserable. Nothing he won was worth the winning, ex-
cept as a step gained toward the summit. I cannot tell
how early he began to look towards the Presidency;
but I believe he would have died an unhappy man
without it. And yet what infinite chances there
seemed to be against his attaining it! When I look
at it in one way, it strikes me as absolutely miracu-
lous ; in another, it came like an event that I had all
along expected. It was due to his wonderful tact,
which is of so subtle a character that he himself is
but partially sensible of it.
I have found in him, here in Rome, the whole of
my early friend, and even better than I used to know
him; a heart as true and affectionate, a mind much
widened and deepened by his experience of life. We
hold just the same relation to each other as of yore,
and we have passed all the turning-off places, and
may hope to go on together still the same dear friends
as long as we liv I do not love him one whit the
less for having been President, nor for having done me
the greatest good in his power; a fact that speaks
eloquently in his favor, and perhaps says a little for
myself. If he had been merely a benefactor, perhaps
I might not have borne it so well ; but each did his
best for the other as friend for friend.
May 15th. -- Yesterday afternoon we went to the
Barberini picture-gallery to take a farewell look at
the Beatrice Cenci, which I have twice visited before
since our return from Florence. I attempted a de-
11
VOL. II.
P


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scription of it at my first visit, more than a year ago,
but the picture is quite indescribable and unaccount-
able in its effect, for if you attempt to analyze it you
can never succeed in getting at the secret of its fasci-
nation. Its peculiar expression eludes a straightfor-
ward glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses,
or when the eye falls upon it casually as it were, and
without thinking to discover anything, as if the pic-
ture had a life and consciousness of its own, and were
resolved not to betray its secret of grief or guilt,
though it wears the full expression of it when it im-
agines itself unseen. I think no other such magical
effect can ever have been wrought by pencil. I looked
close into its eyes, with a determination to see all that
there was in them, and could see nothing that might
not have been in any young girl's eyes ; and yet, a
moment afterwards, there was the expression
aside, and vanishing in a moment of a being un-
humanized by some terrible fate, and gazing at me
out of a remote and inaccessible region, where she
was frightened to be alone, but where no sympathy
could reach her. The mouth is beyond measure
touching; the lips apart, looking as innocent as
baby's after it has been crying. The picture never
can be copied. Guido himself could not have done it
over again. The copyists get all sorts of expression,
gay as well as grievous; some copies have a coquet-
tish air, a half-backward glance, thrown alluring at
the spectator, but nobody ever did catch, or ever will,
the vanishing charm of that sorrow. I hated to leave
the picture, and yet was glad when I had taken my
seen


1859.)
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FRANCE.
last glimpse, because it so perplexed and troubled me
not to be able to get hold of its secret.
Thence we went to the Church of the Capuchins,
and saw Guido's Archangel. I have been several
times to this church, but never saw the picture before,
though I am familiar with the mosaic copy at St.
Peter's, and had supposed the latter to be an equiva-
lent representation of the original. It is nearly or
quite so as respects the general effect; but there is a
beauty in the archangel's face that immeasurably sur-
passes the copy,--the expression of heavenly severity,
and a degree of pain, trouble, or disgust, at being
brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of
quelling and punishing it. There is something fini-
cal in the copy, which I do not find in the original.
The sandalled feet are here those of an angel ; in the
mosaic they are those of a celestial coxcomb, treading
daintily, as if he were afraid they would be soiled by
the touch of Lucifer.
After looking at the Archangel we went down
under the church, guided by a fleshy monk, and saw
the famous cemetery, where the dead monks of many
centuries back have been laid to sleep in sacred earth
from Jerusalem.
FRANCE.
Hôtel des Colonies, Marseilles, May 29th, Saturday.
Wednesday was the day fixed for our departure
from Rome, and after breakfast I walked to the
Pincian, and saw the garden and the city, and the
Borghese grounds, and St. Peter's in an earlier sun-


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I saw
light chan ever before. Methought they never looked
so beautiful, nor the sky so bright and blue.
Soracte on the horizon, and I looked at everything
as if for the last time; nor do I wish ever to see any
of these objects again, though no place ever took so
strong a hold of my being as Rome, nor ever seemed
so close to me and so strangely familiar, I seem to
know it better than my birthplace, and to have known
it longer; and though I have been very miserable
there, and languid with the effects of the atmosphere,
and disgusted with a thousand things in its daily
life, still I cannot say I hate it, perhaps might fairly
own a love for it. But life being too short for such
questionable and troublesome enjoyments, I desire
never to set eyes on it again. . .
We traversed again that same weary and
dreary tract of country which we passed over in a
winter afternoon and night on our first arrival in
Rome. It is as desolate a country as can well be
imagined, but about midway of our journey we came
to the sea-shore, and kept very near it during the
rest of the way. The sight and fragrance of it were
exceedingly refreshing after so long an interval, and
U-revived visibly as we rushed along, while J-
chuckled and contorted himself with ineffable delight.
We reached Cività Vecchia in three or four hours,
and were there subjected to various troubles. . .
All the while Miss S and I were bothering about
the passport, the rest of the family sat in the sun on
the
quay, with all kinds of bustle and confusion
around them ; a very trying experience to U— after


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FRANCE.
the long seclusion and quiet of her sick-chamber. But
she did not seem to suffer from it, and we finally
reached the steamer in good condition and spirits.
I slept wretchedly in my short and narrow berth,
more especially as there was an old gentleman who
snored as if he were sounding a charge ; it was
terribly hot too, and I rose before four o'clock, and was
on deck amply in time to watch the distant approach
of sunrise. We arrived at Leghorn pretty early, and
might have gone ashore and spent the day. Indeed,
we had been recommended by Dr. Franco, and had
fully purposed to spend a week or ten days there, in
expectation of benefit to U-'s health from the sea
air and sea bathing, because he thought her still too
feeble to make the whole voyage to Marseilles at a
stretch. But she showed herself so strong that we
thought she would get as much good from our three
days' voyage as from the days by the sea-shore.
Moreover, .... we all of us still felt the languor of
the Roman atmosphere, and dreaded the hubbub and
crazy confusion of landing at an Italian port. ...
So we lay in the harbor all day without stirring from
the steamer. . . It would have been pleasant, how-
ever, to have gone to Pisa, fifteen miles off, and seen
the leaning tower; but, for my part, I have arrived
at that point where it is somewhat pleasanter to sit
quietly in any spot whatever than to see whatever
grandest or most beautiful thing. At least this was
my mood in the harbor of Leghorn. From the deck
of the steamer there were many things visible that
wight have been interesting to describe : the boats


1859.]
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FRANCE.
.
afternoon. Genoa looks most picturesquely from
the sea, at the foot of a sheltering semicircle of
lofty hills; and as we lay in the harbor we saw,
among other interesting objects, the great Doria
Palace, with its gardens, and the Cathedral, and a
heap and sweep of stately edifices, with the moun-
tains looking down upon the city, and crowned with
fortresses. The variety of hue in the houses, white,
green, pink, and orange, was very remarkable. It
would have been well to go ashore here for an hour
or two and see the streets, - having already seen the
palaces, churches, and public buildings at our former
visit, - and buy a few specimens of Genoa goldsmiths'
work ; but I preferred the steamer's deck, so the
evening passed pleasantly away; the two lighthouses
at the entrance of the port kindled up their fires, and
at nine o'clock the evening gun thundered from the
fortress, and was reverberated from the heights. We
sailed
away at eleven, and I was roused from
my
first
sleep by the snortings and hissings of the vessel as
she got under way.
At Genoa we took on board some more passengers,
an English nobleman with his lady being of the
number. These were Lord and Lady J-, and be-
fore the end of our voyage his lordship talked to me
of a translation of Tasso in which he is engaged,
and a stanza or two of which he repeated to me. I
really liked the lines, and liked too the simplicity and
frankness with which he spoke of it to me a stranger,
and the
way he seemed to separate his egotism from
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FRANCE.
ened the sky all over in a twinkling; our vessel pitched
and tossed, and a brig a little way from us had her
sails blown about in wild fashion. The blue of the
sea turned as black as night, and soon the rain began
to spatter down upon us, and continued to sprinkle
and drizzle a considerable time after the wind had sub-
sided. It was quite calm and pleasant when we en-
tered the harbor of Marseilles, which lies at the foot of
very fair hills, and is set among great cliffs of stone.
I did not attend much to this, however, being in dread
of the difficulty of landing and passing through the
custom-house with our twelve or fourteen trunks and
numberless carpet-bags. The trouble vanished into
thin air, nevertheless, as we approached it, for not a
single trunk or bag was opened, and, moreover, our
luggage and ourselves were not only landed, but the
greater part of it conveyed to the railway without any
expense. Long live Louis Napoleon, say I. We es-
tablished ourselves at the Hôtel des Colonies, and then
Miss S J-, and I drove hither and thither
about Marseilles, making arrangements for our journey
to Avignon, where we mean to go to-day. We might
have avoided a good deal of this annoyance; but
travellers, like other people, are continually, getting
their experience just a little too late. It was after
nine before we got back to the hotel and took our tea
in peace.
AVIGNON
Hôtel de l'Europe, June 1st. -I remember nothing
very special to record about Marseilles; though it was
11*


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really like passing from death into life, to find our-
selves in busy, cheerful, effervescing France, after liv-
ing so long between asleep and awake in sluggish
Italy. Marseilles is a very interesting and entertain-
ing town, with its bold surrounding heights, its wide
streets, so they seemed to us after the Roman
alleys, ---- its squares, shady with trees, its diversified
population of sailors, citizens, Orientals, and what not;
but I have no spirit for description any longer; being
tired of seeing things, and still more of telling myself
about them. Only a young traveller can have patience
to write his travels. The newest things, nowadays,
have a familiarity to my eyes ; whereas in their lost
sense of novelty lies the charm and power of de-
scription.
On Monday (30th May), though it began with heavy
rain, we set early about our preparations for depart-
ure,
and, at about three, we left the Hôtel des
Colonies. It is a very comfortable hotel, though
expensive. The Restaurant connected with it occu-
pies tbe enclosed court-yard and the arcades around
it; and it was a good amusement to look down from
the surrounding gallery, communicating with our
apartments, and see the fashion and manner of
French eating, all the time going forward. In sunny
weather a great awning is spread over the whole
court, across from the upper stories of the house.
There is a grass plat in the middle, and a very
spacious and airy dining-saloon is thus formed.
Our railroad carriage was comfortable, and
found in it, besides two other Frenchwomen, two
.


1859.]
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FRANCE.
nuns. They were very devout, and sedulously read
their little books of devotion, repeated prayers under
their breath, kissed the crucifixes which hung at their
girdles, and told a string of beads, which they passed
from one to the other. So much were they occupied
with these duties, that they scarcely looked at the
scenery along the road, though, probably, it is very
rare for them to see anything outside of their convent-
walls. They never failed to mutter a prayer and kiss
the crucifix whenever we plunged into a tunnel. If
they glanced at their fellow-passengers, it was shyly
and askance, with their lips in motion all the time,
like children afraid to let their eyes wander from their
lesson-book. One of them, however, took occasion
to pull down R-'s dress, which, in her frisky
movements about the carriage, had got out of place,
too high for the nun's sense of decorum. Neither of
them was at all pretty, nor was the black stuff dress
and white muslin cap in the least becoming, neither
were their features of an intelligent or high-bred
stamp. Their manners, however, or such little
glimpses as I could get of them, were unexception-
able ; and when I drew a curtain to protect one of
them from the sun, she made me a very courteous
gesture of thanks.
We had some very good views both of sea and
hills; and a part of our way lay along the banks
of the Rhone. By the by, at the station at
Marseilles, I bought the two volumes of the “Livre
des Merveilles," by a certain author of my acquaint-
ance, translated into French, and printed and illus-


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re-
trated in very pretty style. Miss S also bought
them, and, in answer to her inquiry for other works
by the same author, the bookseller observed that
“she did not think Monsieur Nathaniel had pub-
lished anything else." The Christian name seems
to be the most important one in France, and still
more especially in Italy.
We arrived at Avignon, Hôtel de l'Europe, in the
dusk of the evening. The lassitude of Rome
still clings to us, and I, at least, feel no spring of life
or activity, whether at morn or eve. In the morning
we found ourselves very pleasantly situated as
yards lodgings. The gallery of our suite of rooms
looks down as usual into an enclosed court, three
sides of which are formed by the stone house and
its two wings, and the third by a high wall, with
a gateway of iron between two lofty stone pillars,
which, for their capitals, have great stone vases, with
grass growing in them, and hanging over the brim.
There is a large plane-tree in one corner of the court,
and creeping plants clamber up trellises; and there
are pots of flowers and bird-cages, all of which give
à very fresh and cheerful aspect to the enclosure.
The court is paved with small round stones; the
omnibus belonging to the hotel, and all the carriages
of guests, drive into it; and the wide arch of the
stable door opens under the central part of the house.
Nevertheless, the scene is not in all respects that of
a stable-yard; for gentlemen and ladies come from
the salle à manger and other rooms, and stand
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FRANCE.
there; children play about; the hostess or her
daughter often appears and talks with her guests
or servants; dogs lounge, and, in short, the court
might well enough be taken for the one scene of
a classic play. The hotel seems to be of the first
class, though such would not be indicated, either in
England or America, by thus mixing up the stable
with the lodgings. I have taken two or three rambles
about the town, and have climbed a high rock which
dominates over it, and gives a most extensive view
from the broad table-land of its summit. The old
church of Avignon
as old as the times of its popes,
and older -- stands close beside this mighty and
massive crag.
We went into it, and found it a dark
old place, with broad, interior arches, and a singularly
shaped dome; a venerable Gothic and Grecian porch,
with ancient frescos in its arched spaces; some
dusky pictures within ; an ancient chair of stone,
formerly occupied by the popes, and much else that
would have been exceedingly interesting before I
went to Rome. But Rome takes the charm out of
all inferior antiquity, as well as the life out of human
beings.
This forenoon, J and I have crossed the Rhone
by a bridge, just the other side of one of the city
gates, which is near our hotel. We walked along the
river-side, and saw the ruins of an ancient bridge,
which ends abruptly in the midst of the stream ; two
or three arches still making tremendous strides
across, while the others have long ago been crumbled
away by the rush of the rapid river. The bridge was


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XXII., where the recumbent statue of the pope lies
beneath one of those beautiful and venerable canopies
of stone which look at once so light and so solemn.
I know not how many hundred years old it is, but
everything of Gothic origin has a faculty of conveying
the idea of age; whereas classic forms seem to have
nothing to do with time, and so lose the kind of im-
pressiveness that arises from suggestions of decay and
the past.
In the sacristy the guide opened a cupboard that
contained the jewels and sacred treasures of the
church, and showed a most exquisite figure of Christ
in ivory, represented as on a cross of ebony; and it
was executed with wonderful truth and force of ex-
pression, and with great beauty likewise. I do not
see what a full-length marble statue could have bad
that was lacking in this little ivory figure of hardly
more than a foot high. It is about two centuries
old, by an unknown artist. There is another famous
ivory statuette in Avignon which seems to be more
celebrated than this, but can hardly be superior. I
shall gladly look at it if it comes in my way.
Next to this, the prettiest thing the man showed us
was a circle of emeralds, in one of the holy imple-
ments; and then he exhibited a little bit of a pope's
skull; also a great old crozier, that looked as if made
chiefly of silver, and partly gilt; but I saw where the
plating of silver was worn away, and betrayed the
copper of its actual substance. There were two or
three pictures in the sacristy, by ancient and modern
French artists, very unlike the productions of the
-


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Italian masters, but not without a beauty of their
own.
Leaving the sacristy, we returned into the chureh,
where U -- and began to draw the pope's old
stone chair. There is a beast, or perhaps more than
one, grotesquely sculptured upon it; the seat is high
and square, the back low and pointed, and it offers no
enticing promise to a weary man.
The interior of the church is massively picturesque,
with its vaulted roof, and a stone gallery, heavily
ornamented, running along each side of the nave.
Each arch of the nave gives admittance to a chapel,
in all of which there are pictures, and sculptures in
most of them. One of these chapels is of the time of
Charlemagne, and has a vaulted roof of admirable
architecture, covered with frescos of modern date and
little merit. In an adjacent chapel is the stone monu-
ment of Pope Benedict, whose statue reposes on it,
like many which I have seen in the Cathedral of York
and other old English churches. In another part we
saw a monument, consisting of a plain slab supported
on pillars; it is said to be of a Roman or very early
Christian epoch. In another chapel was a figure of
Christ in wax, I believe, and clothed in real drapery ;
a very ugly object. Also, a figure reposing under a
slab, which strikes the spectator with the idea that it
is really a dead person enveloped in a shroud. There
are windows of painted glass in some of the chapels ;
and the gloom of the dimly lighted interior, espe-
cially beneath the broad, low arches, is very impressive.
While we were there some women assembled at one


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of the altars, and went through their acts of devotion
without the help of a priest ; one and another of them
alternately repeating prayers, to which the rest re-
sponded. The murmur of their voices took a musical
tone, which was reverberated by the vaulted arches.
U
and I now came out; and, under the porch,
we found an old woman selling rosaries, little religious
books, and other holy things. We bought two little
medals of the Immaculate Virgin, one purporting to
be of silver, the other of gold; but as both together
cost only two or three sous, the genuineness of the
material may
well be doubted. We sat down on the
steps of a crucifix which is placed in front of the
church, and the children began to draw the porch, of
which I hardly know whether to call the architecture
classic or Gothic (as I said before); at all events it
has a venerable aspect, and there are frescos within its
arches by Simone Memmi. . . . . The popes' palace
is contiguous to the church, and just below it, on the
hillside. It is now occupied as barracks by some
regiments of soldiers, a number of whom were loun-
ging before the entrance ; but we passed the sentinel
without being challenged, and addressed ourselves to
the concierge, who readily assented to our request to
be shown through the edifice. A French gentleman
and lady, likewise, came with similar purpose, and went
the rounds along with us. The palace is such a con-
fused heap and conglomeration of buildings, that it is
impossible to get within any sort of a regular descrip-
tion. It is a huge, shapeless mass of architecture;
and if it ever had any pretence to a plan, it has lost it


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in the modern alterations. For instance, an immense
and lofty chapel, or rather church, has had two floors,
one above the other, laid at different stages of its
height; and the upper one of these floors, which ex-
tends just where the arches of the vaulted roof begin
to spring from the pillars, is ranged round with the
beds of one of the regiments of soldiers. They are
small iron bedsteads, each with its narrow mattress,
and covered with a dark blanket. On some of them
lay or lounged a soldier ; other soldiers were cleaning
their accoutrements; elsewhere we saw parties of them
playing cards.
So it was wherever we went among
those large, dingy, gloomy halls and chambers, which,
no doubt, were once stately and sumptuous, with pic-
tures, with tapestry, and all sorts of adornment that
the Middle Ages knew how to use. The windows
threw a sombre light through embrasures at least
two feet thick. There were staircases of magnificent
breadth. We were shown into two small chapels, in
different parts of the building, both containing the re-
mains of old frescos wofully defaced. In one of them
was a light, spiral staircase of iron, built in the centre
of the room as a means of contemplating the frescos,
which were said to be the work of our old friend
Giotto. . . . Finally, we climbed a long, long, nar-
row stair, built in the thickness of the wall, and thus
gained access to the top of one of the towers, whence
we saw the noblest landscapes, mountains, plains, and
the Rhone, broad and bright, winding hither and
thither, as if it had lost its
way.
Beneath our feet was the gray, ugly old palace,


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and its many courts, just as void of system and as in-
conceivable as when we were burrowing through its
bewildering passages. No end of historical romances
might be made out of this castle of the popes; and
there ought to be a ghost in every room, and droves
of them in some of the rooms; for there have been
murders here in the gross and in detail, as well hun.
dreds of years ago, as no longer back than the French
Revolution, when there was a great massacre in one
of the courts. Traces of this bloody business were
visible in actual stains on the wall only a few years
ago.
Returning to the room of the concierge, who, being
a little stiff with age, had sent an attendant round
with us, instead of accompanying us in person, he
showed us a picture of Rienzi, the last of the Roman
tribunes, who was once a prisoner here. On a table,
beneath the picture, stood a little vase of earthenware
containing some silver coin. We took it as a hint, in
the customary style of French elegance, that a fee
should be deposited here, instead of being put into
the hand of the concierge ; so the French gentleman
deposited half a franc, and I, in my magnificence,
twice as much.
Hôtel de l'Europe, June 6th. We are still here.
I have been daily to the Rocher des Doms,
and have grown familiar with the old church on its
declivity. I think I might become attached to it
by seeing it often. A sombre old interior, with its
heavy arches, and its roof vaulted like the top of


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setting off for the course a walk of several miles,
I believe - with prodigious courage and alacrity,
flourishing his wooden leg with an air and grace that
seemed to render it positively flexible. The crowd
returned towards sunset, and almost all night long
the streets and the whole air of the old town were
full of song and merriment. There was a ball in a
temporary structure, covered with an awning, in the
Place d'Horloge, and a showman has erected his tent
and spread forth his great painted canvases, announ-
cing an anaconda and a sea-tiger to be seen. J-
paid four sous for admittance, and found that the
sea-tiger was nothing but a large seal, and the ana-
conda altogether a myth.
I have rambled a good deal about the town. Its
streets are crooked and perplexing, and paved with
round pebbles for the most part, which afford more
uncomfortable pedestrianism than the pavement of
Rome itself. It is an ancient-looking place, with
some large old mansions, but few that are individ-
ually impressive ; though here and there one sees
an antique entrance, a corner tower, or other bit of
antiquity, that throws a venerable effect over the
gray commonplace of past centuries. The town is
not overclean, and often there is a kennel of un-
happy odor. There appear to have been many more
churches and devotional establishments under the an-
cient dominion of the popes than have been kept
intact in subsequent ages; the tower and façade of
a church, for instance, form the front of a carpen-
ter's shop, or some such plebeian place. The church


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where Laura lay has quite disappeared, and her tomb
along with it. The town reminds me of Chester,
though it does not in the least resemble it, and is
not nearly so picturesque. Like Chester, it is entirely
surrounded by a wall; and that of Avignon -- though
it has no delightful promenade on its top, as the
wall of Chester has - is the more perfectly preserved
in its mediæval form, and the more picturesque of
the two. J and I have once or twice walked
nearly round it, commencing from the gate of Ouelle,
which is very near our hotel. From this point it
stretches for a considerable distance along by the
river, and here there is a broad promenade, with
trees, and blocks of stone for seats; on one side “the
arrowy Rhone," generally carrying a cooling breeze
along with it; on the other, the gray wall, with its
battlements and machicolations, impending over what
was once the moat, but which is now full of careless
and untrained shrubbery. At intervals there are
round towers swelling out from the wall, and rising
a little above it. After about half a mile along the
river-side the wall turns at nearly right angles, and
still there is a wide road, a shaded walk, a boulevard;
and at short distances are cafés, with their little round
tables before the door, or small shady nooks of shrub-
bery. So numerous are these retreats and pleasaunces
that I do not see how the little old town can support
them all, especially as there are a great many cafés
within the walls. I do not remember seeing any sol-
diers on guard at the numerous city gates, but there
is an office in the side of each gate for levying the


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are
octroi, and old women sometimes on guard
there.
This morning, after breakfast, J—and I crossed
the suspension-bridge close by the gate nearest our
hotel, and walked to the ancient town of Villeneuve,
on the other side of the Rhone. The first bridge
leads to an island, from the farther side of which
another very long one, with a timber foundation,
accomplishes the passage of the other branch of the
Rhone. There was a good breeze on the river, but
after crossing it we found the rest of the walk exces-
sively hot. This town of Villeneuve is of very ancient
origin, and owes its existence, it is said, to the famous
holiness of a female saint, which gathered round her
abode and burial-place a great many habitations of
people who reverenced her. She was the daughter
of the King of Saragossa, and I presume she chose
this site because it was so rocky and desolate. After-
wards it had a long mediæval history; and in the
time of the Avignon popes, the cardinals, regretful of
their abandoned Roman villas, built pleasure-houses
here, so that the town was called Villa Nuova. After
they had done their best, it must have seemed to these
poor cardinals but a rude and sad exchange for the
Borghese, the Albani, the Pamfili Doria, and those
other perfectest results of man's luxurious art. And
probably the tradition of the Roman villas had really
been kept alive, and extant examples of them all the
way downward from the times of the empire. But
this Villeneuve is the stoniest, roughest town that
can be imagined. There are a few large old houses,


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was a long, venerable, tarnished, Old-World vista, not
at all tampered with by modern taste.
We now went on our way through the village, and,
emerging from a gate, went clambering towards the
castle of St. André, which stands, perhaps, a quarter
of a mile beyond it. This castle was built by Philip
le Bel, as a restraint to the people of Avignon in
extending their power on this side of the Rhone. We
happened not to take the most direct way, and so
approached the castle on the farther side and were
obliged to go nearly round the hill on which it stands,
before striking into the path which leads to its gate.
It crowns a very bold and difficult hill, directly above
the Rhone, opposite to Avignon, -- which is so far off
that objects are not minutely distinguishable, - and
looking down upon the long, straggling town of Ville-
It must have been a place of mighty strength,
in its day. Its ramparts seem still almost entire, as
looked upon from without, and when, at length, we
climbed the rough, rocky pathway to the entrance, we
found the two vast round towers, with their battle-
mented summits and arched gateway between them,
just as perfect as they could have been five hundred
or more years ago. Some external defences are now,
however, in a state of ruin; and there are only the
remains of a tower, that once arose between the two
round towers, and was apparently much more elevated
than they. A little in front of the gate was a monu-
mental cross of stone; and in the arch, between the
two round towers, were two little boys at play; and
an old woman soon showed herself, but took no notice
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which, by the by, did not seem to me nearly so thick
as the walls of English castles. Then we returned
through the gate, and I stopped, rather impatiently,
under the hot sun, while J drew the outline of
the two round towers. This done, we resumed our
way homeward, after drinking from a very deep well
close by the square tower of Philip le Bel. Thence
we went melting through the sunshine, which beat
upward as pitilessly from the white road as it blazed
downwards from the sky.
GENEVA.
Hôtel d'Angleterre, June 11th. - We left Avignon
on Tuesday, 7th, and took the rail to Valence, where
we arrived between four and five, and put up at the
Hôtel de la Poste, an ancient house, with dirty floors
and dirt generally, but otherwise comfortable enough.
Valence is a stately old town, full of tall
houses and irregular streets. We found a Cathedral
there, not very large, but with a high and venerable
interior, a nave supported by tall pillars, from the
height of which spring arches. This loftiness is char-
acteristic of French churches, as distinguished from
those of Italy. .. .. We likewise saw, close by the
Cathedral, a large monument with four arched en-
trances meeting beneath a vaulted roof; but, on in-
quiry of an old priest and other persons, we could get
no account of it, except that it was a tomb, and of
"unknown antiquity. The architecture seemed classic,
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reverend and beautiful object. Had I written up my
journal while the town was fresh in my remembrance,
I might have found much to describe ; but a succes-
sion of other objects have obliterated most of the
impressions I have received here. Our railway ride
to Valence was intolerably hot. I have felt noth-
ing like it since leaving America, and that is so long
ago that the terrible discomfort was just as good as
new...
We left Valence at four, and came that afternoon
to Lyons, still along the Rhone. Either the waters of
this river assume a transparency in winter which
they lose in summer, or I was mistaken in thinking
them transparent on our former journey. They are
now turbid ; but the hue does not suggest the idea of
a running mud-puddle, as the water of the Tiber does.
No streams, however, are so beautiful in the quality
of their waters as the clear, brown rivers of New Eng-
land. The scenery along this part of the Rhone, as
we have found all the way from Marseilles, is very
fine and impressive ; old villages, rocky cliffs, castel-
lated steeps, quaint châteaux, and a thousand other
interesting objects.
We arrived at Lyons at five o'clock, and went to
the Hôtel de l'Universe, to which we had been recom-
mended by our good hostess at Avignon. The day
had become showery, but — and I strolled about
a little before nightfall, and saw the general character-
istics of the place. Lyons is a city of very stately
aspect, hardly inferior to Paris ; for it has regular
streets of lofty houses, and immense squares planted


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with trees, and adorned with statues and fountains.
New edifices of great splendor are in process of erec-
tion; and on the opposite side of the Rhone, where
the site rises steep and high, there are structures
of older date, that have an exceedingly picturesque
effect, looking down upon the narrow town.
The next morning I went out with J- in quest
of my bankers, and of the American Consul; and as I
had forgotten the directions of the waiter of the hotel,
I of course went astray, and saw a good deal more of
Lyons than I intended. In my wanderings I crossed
the Rhone, and found myself in a portion of the city
evidently much older than that with which I had pre-
viously made acquaintance; narrow, crooked, irreg-
ular, and rudely paved streets, full of dingy business
and bustle, — the city, in short, as it existed a century
ago, and how much earlier I know not. Above rises
that lofty elevation of ground which I before noticed ;
and the glimpses of its stately old buildings through
the openings of the street were very picturesque.
Unless it be Edinburgh, I have not seen any other
city that has such striking features. Altogether un-
awares, immediately after crossing the bridge, we
came upon the Cathedral ; and the grand, time-black-
ened Gothic front, with its deeply arched entrances,
seemed to me as good as anything I ever saw,
expectedly more impressive than all the ruins of Rome.
I could but merely glance at its interior ; so that its
noble height and venerable space, filled with the dim,
consecrated light of pictured windows, recur to me as
a vision. And it did me good to enjoy the awfulness
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and sanctity of Gothic architecture again, after so long
shivering in classic porticos. .
We now recrossed the river. The Frank
methods and arrangements in matters of business
seem to be excellent, so far as effecting the proposed
object is concerned; but there is such an inexorable
succession of steel-wrought forms, that life is not long
enough for so much accuracy. The stranger, too,
goes blindfold through all these processes, not know-
ing what is to turn up next, till, when quite in
despair, he suddenly finds his business mysteriously
accomplished. ...
We left Lyons at four o'clock, taking the railway
for Geneva. The scenery was very striking through-
out the journey; but I allowed the hills, deep valleys,
high impending cliffs, and whatever else I saw along
the road, to pass from me without an ink-blot. We
reached Geneva at nearly ten o'clock. . . . . It is
situated partly on low, flat ground, bordering the
lake, and behind this level space it rises by steep,
painfully paved streets, some of which can hardly be
accessible by wheeled carriages. The prosperity of
the town is indicated by a good many new and splen-
did edifices, for commercial and other purposes, in
the vicinity of the lake; but intermixed with these
there are many, quaint buildings of a stern gray
color, and in a style of architecture that I prefer
a thousand times to the monotony of Italian streets.
Immensely high, red roofs, with windows in them,
produce an effect that delights me. They are
ugly, perhaps, as can well be conceived, but very
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look down into this intense, brightly transparent
blue, that hurries beneath you with the speed of a
race-horse.
The shops of Geneva are very tempting to a trav-
eller, being full of such little knick-knacks as he
would be glad to carry away in memory of the place :
wonderful carvings in wood and ivory, done with
exquisite taste and skill; jewelry that seems very
cheap, but is doubtless dear enough, if you estimate
it by the solid gold that goes into its manufacture;
watches, above all things else, for a third or a quar-
ter of the price that one pays in England, looking
just as well, too, and probably performing the whole
of a watch's duty as uncriticisably. The Swiss people
are frugal and inexpensive in their own habits, I
believe, plain and simple, and careless of ornament;
but they seem to reckon on other people's spending a
great deal of money for gewgaws. We bought some
of their wooden trumpery, and likewise a watch for
U
Next to watches, jewelry, and wood-
carving, I should say that cigars were one of the
principal articles of commerce in Geneva.
Cigar-
shops present themselves at every step or two, and
at a reasonable rate, there being no duties, I believe,
on imported goods. There was no examination of
our trunks on arrival, nor any questions asked on that
score.
VILLENEUVE.
Hôtel de Byron, June 12th. -- Yesterday afternoon
we left Geneva by a steamer, starting from the quay
12*
R


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at only a short distance from our hotel. The fore-
noon had been showery ; but the sun now came out
very pleasantly, although there were still clouds and
mist enough to give infinite variety to the mountain
scenery. At the commencement of our voyage the
scenery of the lake was not incomparably superior to
that of other lakes on which I have sailed, as Lake
Windermere, for instance, or Loch Lomond, or our
own Lake Champlain. It certainly grew more grand
and beautiful, however, till at length I felt that I had
never seen anything worthy to be put beside it. The
southern shore has the grandest scenery ; the great
hills on that side appearing close to the water's edge,
and after descending, with headlong slope, directly
from their rocky and snow-streaked summits down
into the blue water. Our course lay nearer to the
northern shore, and all our stopping-places were on
that side. The first was Coppet, where Madame de
Staël or her father, or both, were either born or
resided or died, I know not which, and care very
little. It is a picturesque village, with an old church,
and old, high-roofed, red-tiled houses, the whole
looking as if nothing in it had been changed for
many, many years. All these villages, at several of
which we stopped momentarily, look delightfully un-
modified by recent fashions. There is the church,
with its tower crowned by a pyramidal roof, like an
extinguisher; then the château of the former lord,
half castle and half dwelling-house, with a round
tower at each corner, pyramid topped; then, perhaps,
the ancient town-house or Hôtel de Ville, in an open


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square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid
to a considerably greater height than the circum-
jacent ones. The whole are in a close cluster, and
make a fine picture of ancient strength when seen at
a proper proximity ; for I do not think that distance
adds anything to the effect. There are hardly any
windows, or few, and very small ones, except the
loopholes for arrows and for the garrison of the
castle to peep from on the sides towards the water;
indeed, there are larger windows at least in the upper
apartments; but in that direction, no doubt, the
castle was considered impregnable. Trees here and
there on the land side grow up against the castle
wall, on one part of which, moreover, there was a
green curtain of ivy spreading from base to battle-
ment. The walls retain their machicolations, and
I should judge that nothing had been [altered), nor
any more work been done upon the old fortress than
to keep it in singularly good repair. It was formerly
a castle of the Duke of Savoy, and since his sway
over the country ceased (three hundred years at
least), it has been in the hands of the Swiss govern-
ment, who still keep some arms and ammunition
there.
We passed on, and found the view of it better, as
we thought, from a farther point along the road.
The rain-drops began to spatter down faster, and we
took shelter under an impending precipice, where
the ledge of rock had been blasted and hewn away
to form the road. Our refuge was not a very con-
venient and comfortable one, so we took advantage


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an iron ring; at the height of perhaps three feet from
the ground. His chain was fastened to this ring,
and his only freedom was to walk round this pillar,
about which he is said to have worn a path in the
stone pavement of the dungeon ; but as the foor is
now covered with earth of gravel, I could not satisfy
myself whether this be true. Certainly six years,
with nothing else to do in then save to walk round
the pillar, might well suffice to wear away the rock,
even with naked feet. This column, and all the
columns, were cut and hewn in a good style of
architecture, and the dungeon arches are not with-
out a certain gloomy beauty. On Bonnivard's pillar,
as well as on all the rest, were many names inscribed ;
but I thought better of Byron's delicacy and sensi-
tiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar.
Perhaps, knowing nothing of Bonnivard's story, he
did not know to which column he was chained.
Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led
us through other parts of the castle, showing us the
Duke of Savoy's kitchen, with a fireplace at least
twelve feet long; also the judgment-hall, or some
such place, hung round with the coats of arms of
some officers or other, and having at one end a
wooden post, reaching from floor to ceiling, and
having upon it the marks of fire. By means of this
post, contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful
torture, being drawn up by cords and pulleys, while
their limbs were scorched by a fire underneath. We
also saw a chapel or two, one of which is still in
good and sanctified condition, and was to be used


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with the earthly ones, that we hardly knew whether
we were sojourning in the material or spiritual world.
It was like sailing through the sky, moreover, to be
borne along on such water as that of Lake Leman,
the bluest, brightest, and profoundest element, the
most radiant eye that the dull earth ever opened to
see heaven withal. I am writing nonsense, but it is
because no sense within my mind will answer the
purpose.
Some of these mountains, that looked at no such
mighty distance, were at least forty or fifty miles off,
and appeared as if they were near neighbors and
friends of other mountains, from which they were
really still farther removed. The relations into which
distant points are brought, in a view of mountain
scenery, symbolize the truth, which we can never judge
within our partial scope of vision, of the relations
which we bear to our fellow-creatures and human cir-
cumstances. These mighty mountains think that
they have nothing to do with one another, each seems
itself its own centre, and existing for itself alone ; and
yet, to an eye that can take them all in, they are evi-
dently portions of one grand and beautiful idea, which
could not be consummated without the lowest and
the loftiest of them. I do not express this satisfacto-
rily, but have a genuine meaning in it nevertheless.
We passed again by Chillon, and gazed at it as
long as it was distinctly visible, though the water
view does no justice to its real picturesqueness, there
being no towers nor projections on the side towards
the lake, nothing but a wall of dingy white, with an


288
(1850.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
indentation that looks something like a gateway
About an hour and a half brought us to Ouchy, the
point where passengers land to take the omnibus to
Lausanne. The ascent from Ouchy to Lausanne is a
mile and a half, which it took the omnibus nearly half
an hour to accomplish. We left our shawls and car-
pet-bags in the salle à manger of the Hotel Faucon,
and set forth to find the Cathedral, the pinnacled
tower of which is visible for a long distance up and
down the lake. Prominent as it is, however, it is by
no means very easy to find it while rambling through
the intricate streets and declivities of the town itself,
for Lausanne is the town, I should fancy, in all the
world the most difficult to go directly from one point
to another. It is built on the declivity of a hill,
adown which run several valleys or ravines, and over
these the contiguity of houses extends, so that the
communication is kept up by means of steep streets
and sometimes long weary stairs, which must be sur-
mounted and descended again in accomplishing a very
moderate distance. In some inscrutable way we at
last arrived at the Cathedral, which stands on a higher
site than any other in Lausanne. It has a very ven-
erable exterior, with all the Gothic grandeur which
arched mullioned windows, deep portals, buttresses,
towers, and pinnacles, gray with a thousand years, can
give to architecture. After waiting awhile we ob-
tained entrance by means of an old woman, who acted
the part of sacristán, and was then showing the church
to some other visitors.
The interior disappointed us ; not but what it was
-


1859.]
289
SWITZERLAND.
very beautiful, but I think the excellent repair that it
was in, and the puritanic neatness with which it is
kept, does much towards effacing the majesty and
mystery that belong to an old church. Every inch
of every wall and column, and all the mouldings and
tracery, and every scrap of grotesque carviny, had
been washed with a drab mixture. There were like-
wise seats all up and down the nave, made of pine
wood, and looking very new and neat, just such seats
as I shall see in a hundred meeting-houses (if ever I
go into so many) in America. Whatever might be
the reason, the stately nave, with its high-groined
roof, the clustered columns and lofty pillars, the in-
tersecting arches of the side aisles, the choir, the
armorial and knightly tombs that surround what was
once the high altar, all produced far less effect than I
could have thought beforehand.
As it happened, we had more ample time and free-
dom to inspect this Cathedral than any other that we
have visited, for the old woman consented to go away
and leave us there, locking the door behind her. The
others, except Rosebud, sat down to sketch such
portions as struck their fancy; and for myself, I
looked at the monuments, of which some, being those
of old knights, ladies, bishops, and a king, were
curious from their antiquity; and others are inter-
esting as bearing memorials of English people, who
have died at Lausanne in comparatively recent years.
Then I went up into the pulpit, and tried, without
success, to get into the stone gallery that runs all
round the nave; and I explored my way into various
VOL. II.
13


290
[1859.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
side apartments of the Cathedral, which I found fitted
up with seats for Sabbath schools, perhaps, or pos-
sibly for meeting of elders of the Church. I opened
the great Bible of the church, and found it to be a
French version, printed at Lille some fifty years ago.
There was also a liturgy, adapted, probably, to the
Lutheran form of worship. In one of the side apart-
ments I found a strong box, heavily clamped with
iron, and having a contrivance, like the hopper of a
mill, by which money could be turned into the top,
while a double lock prevented its being abstracted
again. This was to receive the avails of contribu-
tions made in the church; and there were like-
wise boxes, stuck on the ends of long poles, where-
with the deacons could go round among the worship-
pers, conveniently extending the begging-box to the
remotest curmudgeon among them all. From the
arrangement of the seats in the nave, and the labels
pasted or painted on them, I judged that the women
sat on one side and the men on the other, and the
seats for various orders of magistrates, and for eccle-
siastical and collegiate people, were likewise marked
out.
I soon grew weary of these investigations, and so
did Rosebud and J-who essayed to amuse them-
selves with running races together over the horizontal
tombstones in the pavement of the choir, treading
remorselessly over the noseless effigies of old digni-
taries, who never expected to be so irreverently
treated. I put a stop to their sport, and banished
them to different parts of the Cathedral ; and by and


1859.]
291
SWITZERLAND.
one.
by, the old woman appeared again, and released us
from durance.
While waiting for our déjeuner, we saw the people
dining at the regular table d'hôte of the hotel, and the
idea was strongly borne in upon me, that the pro-
fessional mystery of a male waiter is a very unmanly
It is so absurd to see the solemn attentiveness
with which they stand behind the chairs, the earnest-
ness of their watch for any crisis that may demand
their interposition, the gravity of their manner in
performing some little office that the guest might
better do for himself, their decorous and softly steps;
in short, as I sat and gazed at them, they seemed to
me not real men, but creatures with a clerical aspect,
engendered out of a very artificial state of society.
When they are waiting on myself, they do not appear
so absurd ; it is necessary to stand apart in order to
see them properly.
We left Lausanne which was to us a tedious and
weary place — before four o'clock. I should have liked
well enough to see the house of Gibbon, and the
garden in which he walked, after finishing “The
Decline and Fall” ; but it could not be done without
some trouble and inquiry, and as the house did not
come to see me, I determined not to go and see the
house. There was, indeed, a mansion of somewhat
antique respectability, near our hotel, having a garden
and a shaded terrace behind it, which would have
answered accurately enough to the idea of Gibbon's
residence. Perhaps it was so ; far more probably
not.


1860.)
295
ENGLAND.
years ago, and now seems to be quite renewed, with
the exception of its square, gray, battlemented tower,
which has still the aspect of unadulterated antiquity.
On Saturday J and I walked to Warwick by the
old road, passing over the bridge of the Avon, within
view of the castle. It is as fine a piece of English
scenery as exists anywhere, -- the quiet little river,
shadowed with drooping trees, and, in its vista, the
gray towers and long line of windows of the lordly
castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; ancient
strength, a little softened by decay.
The town of Warwick, I think, has been con-
siderably modernized since I first saw it. The whole
of the central portion of the principal street now
looks modern, with its stuccoed or brick fronts of
houses, and, in many cases, handsome shop windows.
Leicester Hospital and its adjoining chapel still look
venerably antique ; and so does a gateway that half
bestrides the street. Beyond these two points on
either side it has a much older aspect. The modern
signs heighten the antique impression.
February 5th, 1860. – Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch are
staying for a little while at Mr. B's at Coventry,
and Mr. B called upon us the other day, with
Mr. Bennoch, and invited us to go and see the lions of
Coventry; so yesterday and I went. It was
not my first visit, therefore I have little or nothing to
record, unless it were to describe a ribbon-factory into
which Mr. B took us. But I have no con e-
hension of machinery, and have only a confused recol-
lection of an edifice of four or five stories, on each


296
(1860.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
floor of which were rows of huge machines, all busy
with their iron hands and joints in turning out deli-
cate ribbons. It was very curious and unintelligible
to me to observe how they caused different colored
patterns to appear, and even flowers to blossom, on
the plain surface of a ribbon. Some of the designs
were pretty, and I was told that one manufacturer
pays £ 500 annually to French artists (or artisans, for
I do not know whether they have a connection with
higher art) merely for new patterns of ribbons. The
English find it impossible to supply themselves with
tasteful productions of this sort merely from the re-
sources of English fancy. If an Englishman possessed
the artistic faculty to the degree requisite to produce
such things, he would doubtless think himself a great
artist, and scorn to devote himself to these humble
purposes. Every Frenchman is probably more of an
artist than one Englishman in a thousand.
We ascended to the very roof of the factory, and
gazed thence over smoky Coventry, which is now a
town of very considerable size, and rapidly on the in-
The three famous spires rise out of the midst,
that of St. Michael being the tallest and very beauti-
ful. Had the day been clear, we should have had a
wide view on all sides; for Warwickshire is well laid
out for distant prospects, if you can only gain a little
elevation from which to see them.
Descending from the roof, we next went to see Trinity
Church, which has just come through an entire process
of renovation, whereby much of its pristine beauty
has doubtless been restored; but its venerable awful-
crease.


1860. ]
299
ENGLAND.
edge of English rural life by the connection with
which this origin brought her with the farmers.
was entirely self-educated, and has made herself an
admirable scholar in classical as well as in modern
languages. Those who knew her had always recog-
nized her wonderful endowments, and only watched
to see in what way they would develop themselves.
She is a person of the simplest manners and character,
amiable and unpretending, and Mrs. B-spoke of
her with great affection and respect. . Mr. B-
our host, is an extremely sensible man; and it is re-
markable how many sensible men there are in Eng-
land, men who have read and thought, and can
develop very good ideas, not exactly original, yet so
much the product of their own minds that they can
fairly call them their own.
February 18th. -. . . This present month has
been somewhat less dismal than the preceding ones ;
there have been some sunny and breezy days when
there was life in the air, affording something like
enjoyment in a walk, especially when the ground
was frozen. It is agreeable to see the fields still green
through a partial covering of snow; the trunks and
branches of the leafless trees, moreover, have a ver-
dant aspect, very unlike that of American trees in
winter, for they are covered with a delicate green moss,
which is not so observable in summer. Often, too,
there is a twine of green ivy up and down the trunk.
The other day, as J and I were walking to Whit-
nash, an elm was felled right across our path, and I
was much struck by this verdant coating of moss


1860.)
301
ENGLAND.
sheltered in the lap of hills, the sides of the valley
rising steep and high from the level spot on which it
stands, and through which runs the muddy little
stream of the Avon. The older part of the town is
on the level, and the more modern growth — the
growth of more than a hundred
years
climbs higher
and higher up the hillside, till the upper streets are
very airy and lofty. The houses are built almost
entirely of Bath stone, which in time loses its origi-
nal buff color, and is darkened by age and coal-
smoke into a dusky gray; but still the city looks
clean and pure as compared with most other English
towns. In its architecture, it has somewhat of a
Parisian aspect, the houses having roofs rising steep
from their high fronts, which are often adorned with
pillars, pilasters, and other good devices, so that you
see it to be a town built with some general idea of
beauty, and not for business. There are Circuses,
Crescents, Terraces, Parades, and all such fine names
as we have become familiar with at Leamington, and
other watering-places. The declivity of most of the
streets keeps them remarkably clean, and they are
paved in a very comfortable way, with large blocks
of stone, so that the middle of the street is generally
practicable to walk upon, although the sidewalks
leave no temptation so to do, being of generous
width. In many alleys, and round about the Abbey
and other edifices, the pavement is of square flags,
like those of Florence, and as smooth as a palace
floor. On the whole, I suppose there is no place iis
England where a retired man, with a moderate in-


302
(1860.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
come, could live so tolerably as at Bath; it being
almost a city in size and social advantages; quite so,
indeed, if eighty thousand people make a city, — and
yet having no annoyance of business nor spirit of
worldly struggle. All modes of enjoyment that Eng-
lish people like may be had here, and even the cli-
mate is said to be milder than elsewhere in England.
How this may be, I know not; but we have rain
or passing showers almost every day since we arrived,
and I suspect the surrounding hills are just about of
that inconvenient height, that keeps catching clouds,
and compelling them to squeeze out their moisture
upon the included valley. The air, however, certainly
is preferable to that of Leamington.
There are no antiquities except the Abbey, which
has not the interest of many other English churches
and cathedrals. In the midst of the old part of the
town, stands the house which was formerly Beau
Nash's residence, but which is now part of the es-
tablishinent of an ale-merchant. The edifice is a tall,
but rather mean-looking, stone building, with the
entrance from little side court, which is so cumbered
with empty beer barrels as hardly to afford a passage.
The doorway has some architectural pretensions, being
pillared and with some sculptured devices --- whether
lions or winged heraldic monstrosities I forget — on
the pediment. Within, there is a small entry, not
large 'enough to be termed a hall, and a staircase,
with carved balustrade, ascending by angular turns
and square landing-places. For a long course of
years, ending a little more than a century ago, princes,
-


1860.]
303
ENGLAND.
nobles, and all the great and beautiful people of
old times, used to go up that staircase, to pay their
respects to the King of Bath. On the side of the
house there is a marble slab inserted, recording that
here he resided, and that here he died in 1767,
between eighty and ninety years of age. My first
acquaintance with him was in Smollett's “ Roderick
Random," and I have met him in a hundred other
novels.
His marble statue is in a niche at one end of the
great pump-room, in wig, square-skirted coat, flapped
waistcoat, and all the queer costume of the period,
still looking ghost-like upon the scene where he used
to be an autocrat. Marble is not a good material for
Beau Nash, however; or, if so, it requires color to set
him off adequately.
It is usual in Bath to see the old sign of the
checker-board on the doorposts of taverns. It was
originally a token that the game might be played
there, and is now merely a tavern-sign.
LONDON.
an
31 llertford Street, Mayfair, May 16th, 1860.-
I came hither from Bath on the 14th, and
staying with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Motley. I
would gladly journalize some of my proceedings, and
describe things and people ; but I find the same cold-
ness and stiffness in my pen as always since our
return to England. I dined with the Motleys at
Lord Dufferin's, on Monday evening, and there met,


304
[1860.
FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS.
was
among a few other notable people, the Honorable
Mrs. Norton, a dark, comely woman, who doubtless
once most charming, and still has charms, at
above fifty years
of
age. In fact, I should not have
taken her to be greatly above thirty, though she
seems to use no art to make herself look younger,
and talks about her time of life, without any squeam-
ishness. Her voice is very agreeable, having a sort
of muffled quality, which is excellent in woman. She
is of a very cheerful temperament, and so has borne
a great many troubles without being destroyed by
them. But I can get no color into my sketch, so
shall leave it here.
London, May 17th. [From a letter.] - Affairs suc-
ceed each other so fast, that I have really forgotten
what I did yesterday. I remember seeing my dear
friend, Henry Bright, and listening to him, as we
strolled in the Park, and along the Strand. To-day
I met at breakfast Mr. Field Talfourd, who promises
to send you the photograph of his portrait of Mr.
Browning. He was very agreeable, and seemed de-
lighted to see me again. At lunch, we had Lord
Dufferin, the Honorable Mrs. Norton, and Mr. Ster-
ling (author of the “Cloister Life of Charles V.”), with
whom we are to dine on Sunday.
You would be stricken dumb, to see how quietly I
accept a whole string of invitations, and what is more,
perform my engagements without a murmur.
A German artist has come to me with a letter of
introduction, and a request that I will sit to him for a









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