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diff --git a/6354.txt b/6354.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d49b73f --- /dev/null +++ b/6354.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11640 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Italian Hours, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Italian Hours + +Author: Henry James + + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6354] +This file was first posted on November 29, 2002] +Last Updated: April 10, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALIAN HOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Richard Farris and the online team at +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +ITALIAN HOURS + +By Henry James + + +Published November 1909 + + + + +PREFACE + +The chapters of which this volume is composed have with few exceptions +already been collected, and were then associated with others +commemorative of other impressions of (no very extensive) excursions and +wanderings. The notes on various visits to Italy are here for the first +time exclusively placed together, and as they largely refer to quite +other days than these--the date affixed to each paper sufficiently +indicating this--I have introduced a few passages that speak for a later +and in some cases a frequently repeated vision of the places and scenes +in question. I have not hesitated to amend my text, expressively, +wherever it seemed urgently to ask for this, though I have not pretended +to add the element of information or the weight of curious and critical +insistence to a brief record of light inquiries and conclusions. +The fond appeal of the observer concerned is all to aspects and +appearances--above all to the interesting face of things as it mainly +_used_ to be. + +H. J. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + VENICE + THE GRAND CANAL + VENICE: AN EARLY IMPRESSION + TWO OLD HOUSES AND THREE YOUNG WOMEN + CASA AL VISI + FROM CHAMBERY TO MILAN + THE OLD SAINT-GOTHARD + ITALY REVISITED + A ROMAN HOLIDAY + ROMAN RIDES + ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS + THE AFTER-SEASON IN ROME + FROM A ROMAN NOTE-BOOK + A FEW OTHER ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS + A CHAIN OF CITIES + SIENA EARLY AND LATE + THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE + FLORENTINE NOTES + TUSCAN CITIES + OTHER TUSCAN CITIES + RAVENNA + THE SAINT'S AFTERNOON AND OTHERS + + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE HARBOUR, GENOA (Frontispiece) + FLAGS AT ST. MARK'S, VENICE + A NARROW CANAL, VENICE + PALAZZO MOCENIGO, VENICE + THE AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA + CASA ALVISI, VENICE + THE SIMPLON GATE, MILAN + THE CLOCK TOWER, BERNE + UNDER THE ARCADES, TURIN + ROMAN GATEWAY, RIMINI + SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE + THE FACADE OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, ROME + THE COLONNADE OF ST. PETER'S, ROME + CASTEL GANDOLFO + ENTRANCE TO THE VATICAN, ROME + VILLA D' ESTE, TIVOLI + SUBIACO + ASSISI + PERUGIA + ETRUSCAN GATEWAY, PERUGIA + A STREET, CORTONA + THE RED PALACE, SIENA + SAN DOMENICO, SIENA + ON THE ARNO, FLORENCE + THE GREAT EAVES, FLORENCE + BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE + THE HOSPITAL, PISTOIA + THE LOGGIA, LUCCA + TOWERS OF SAN GIMIGNANO + SAN APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA + RAVENNA PINETA + TERRACINA + + + + + +VENICE + + +It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not +a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been +painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of +the world is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the +first book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first +picture-dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views" +of it. There is notoriously nothing more to be said on the subject. +Every one has been there, and every one has brought back a collection of +photographs. There is as little mystery about the Grand Canal as about +our local thoroughfare, and the name of St. Mark is as familiar as +the postman's ring. It is not forbidden, however, to speak of familiar +things, and I hold that for the true Venice-lover Venice is always in +order. There is nothing new to be said about her certainly, but the +old is better than any novelty. It would be a sad day indeed when +there should be something new to say. I write these lines with the +full consciousness of having no information whatever to offer. I do not +pretend to enlighten the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to his +memory; and I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in +love with his theme. + + +I + +Mr. Ruskin has given it up, that is very true; but only after extracting +half a lifetime of pleasure and an immeasurable quantity of fame from +it. We all may do the same, after it has served our turn, which it +probably will not cease to do for many a year to come. Meantime it is +Mr. Ruskin who beyond anyone helps us to enjoy. He has indeed lately +produced several aids to depression in the shape of certain little +humorous--ill-humorous--pamphlets (the series of _St. Mark's Rest_) +which embody his latest reflections on the subject of our city and +describe the latest atrocities perpetrated there. These latter are +numerous and deeply to be deplored; but to admit that they have spoiled +Venice would be to admit that Venice may be spoiled--an admission +pregnant, as it seems to us, with disloyalty. Fortunately one reacts +against the Ruskinian contagion, and one hour of the lagoon is worth a +hundred pages of demoralised prose. This queer late-coming prose of +Mr. Ruskin (including the revised and condensed issue of the _Stones of +Venice_, only one little volume of which has been published, or perhaps +ever will be) is all to be read, though much of it appears addressed to +children of tender age. It is pitched in the nursery-key, and might +be supposed to emanate from an angry governess. It is, however, +all suggestive, and much of it is delightfully just. There is an +inconceivable want of form in it, though the author has spent his life +in laying down the principles of form and scolding people for departing +from them; but it throbs and flashes with the love of his subject--a +love disconcerted and abjured, but which has still much of the force of +inspiration. Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, +she has had the good fortune to become the object of a passion to a man +of splendid genius, who has made her his own and in doing so has made +her the world's. There is no better reading at Venice therefore, as I +say, than Ruskin, for every true Venice-lover can separate the wheat +from the chaff. The narrow theological spirit, the moralism _a tout +propos_, the queer provincialities and pruderies, are mere wild weeds in +a mountain of flowers. One may doubtless be very happy in Venice without +reading at all--without criticising or analysing or thinking a strenuous +thought. It is a city in which, I suspect, there is very little +strenuous thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost +as much happiness as misery. The misery of Venice stands there for all +the world to see; it is part of the spectacle--a thoroughgoing devotee +of local colour might consistently say it is part of the pleasure. The +Venetian people have little to call their own--little more than the bare +privilege of leading their lives in the most beautiful of towns. Their +habitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their +opportunities few. One receives an impression, however, that life +presents itself to them with attractions not accounted for in this +meagre train of advantages, and that they are on better terms with +it than many people who have made a better bargain. They lie in the +sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear bright rags; they fall into +attitudes and harmonies; they assist at an eternal _conversazione_. It +is not easy to say that one would have them other than they are, and it +certainly would make an immense difference should they be better fed. +The number of persons in Venice who evidently never have enough to eat +is painfully large; but it would be more painful if we did not equally +perceive that the rich Venetian temperament may bloom upon a dog's +allowance. Nature has been kind to it, and sunshine and leisure +and conversation and beautiful views form the greater part of its +sustenance. It takes a great deal to make a successful American, but +to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. +The Italian people have at once the good and the evil fortune to be +conscious of few wants; so that if the civilisation of a society is +measured by the number of its needs, as seems to be the common opinion +to-day, it is to be feared that the children of the lagoon would make +but a poor figure in a set of comparative tables. Not their misery, +doubtless, but the way they elude their misery, is what pleases the +sentimental tourist, who is gratified by the sight of a beautiful race +that lives by the aid of its imagination. The way to enjoy Venice is +to follow the example of these people and make the most of simple +pleasures. Almost all the pleasures of the place are simple; this may be +maintained even under the imputation of ingenious paradox. There is no +simpler pleasure than looking at a fine Titian, unless it be looking at +a fine Tintoret or strolling into St. Mark's,--abominable the way one +falls into the habit,--and resting one's light-wearied eyes upon the +windowless gloom; or than floating in a gondola or than hanging over +a balcony or than taking one's coffee at Florian's. It is of such +superficial pastimes that a Venetian day is composed, and the pleasure +of the matter is in the emotions to which they minister. These are +fortunately of the finest--otherwise Venice would be insufferably dull. +Reading Ruskin is good; reading the old records is perhaps better; but +the best thing of all is simply staying on. The only way to care for +Venice as she deserves it is to give her a chance to touch you often--to +linger and remain and return. + + +II + +The danger is that you will not linger enough--a danger of which the +author of these lines had known something. It is possible to dislike +Venice, and to entertain the sentiment in a responsible and intelligent +manner. There are travellers who think the place odious, and those who +are not of this opinion often find themselves wishing that the others +were only more numerous. The sentimental tourist's sole quarrel with his +Venice is that he has too many competitors there. He likes to be +alone; to be original; to have (to himself, at least) the air of making +discoveries. The Venice of to-day is a vast museum where the little +wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you +march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. There is +nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is +completely impossible. This is often very annoying; you can only turn +your back on your impertinent playfellow and curse his want of delicacy. +But this is not the fault of Venice; it is the fault of the rest of the +world. The fault of Venice is that, though she is easy to admire, she is +not so easy to live with as you count living in other places. After you +have stayed a week and the bloom of novelty has rubbed off you wonder if +you can accommodate yourself to the peculiar conditions. Your old habits +become impracticable and you find yourself obliged to form new ones of +an undesirable and unprofitable character. You are tired of your gondola +(or you think you are) and you have seen all the principal pictures +and heard the names of the palaces announced a dozen times by your +gondolier, who brings them out almost as impressively as if he were +an English butler bawling titles into a drawing-room. You have walked +several hundred times round the Piazza and bought several bushels of +photographs. You have visited the antiquity mongers whose horrible +sign-boards dishonour some of the grandest vistas in the Grand Canal; +you have tried the opera and found it very bad; you have bathed at +the Lido and found the water flat. You have begun to have a +shipboard-feeling--to regard the Piazza as an enormous saloon and +the Riva degli Schiavoni as a promenade-deck. You are obstructed and +encaged; your desire for space is unsatisfied; you miss your usual +exercise. You try to take a walk and you fail, and meantime, as I say, +you have come to regard your gondola as a sort of magnified baby's +cradle. You have no desire to be rocked to sleep, though you are +sufficiently kept awake by the irritation produced, as you gaze across +the shallow lagoon, by the attitude of the perpetual gondolier, with his +turned-out toes, his protruded chin, his absurdly unscientific stroke. +The canals have a horrible smell, and the everlasting Piazza, where you +have looked repeatedly at every article in every shop-window and found +them all rubbish, where the young Venetians who sell bead bracelets and +"panoramas" are perpetually thrusting their wares at you, where the same +tightly-buttoned officers are for ever sucking the same black weeds, at +the same empty tables, in front of the same cafes--the Piazza, as I say, +has resolved itself into a magnificent tread-mill. This is the state +of mind of those shallow inquirers who find Venice all very well for +a week; and if in such a state of mind you take your departure you act +with fatal rashness. The loss is your own, moreover; it is not--with +all deference to your personal attractions--that of your companions who +remain behind; for though there are some disagreeable things in Venice +there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors. The conditions are +peculiar, but your intolerance of them evaporates before it has had time +to become a prejudice. When you have called for the bill to go, pay it +and remain, and you will find on the morrow that you are deeply attached +to Venice. It is by living there from day to day that you feel the +fulness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink +into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman, whom you +know only when you know all the aspects of her beauty. She has high +spirits or low, she is pale or red, grey or pink, cold or warm, fresh or +wan, according to the weather or the hour. She is always interesting +and almost always sad; but she has a thousand occasional graces and is +always liable to happy accidents. You become extraordinarily fond of +these things; you count upon them; they make part of your life. Tenderly +fond you become; there is something indefinable in those depths of +personal acquaintance that gradually establish themselves. The place +seems to personify itself, to become human and sentient and conscious of +your affection. You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; +and finally a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a +perpetual love-affair. It is very true that if you go, as the author +of these lines on a certain occasion went, about the middle of March, a +certain amount of disappointment is possible. He had paid no visit for +several years, and in the interval the beautiful and helpless city had +suffered an increase of injury. The barbarians are in full possession +and you tremble for what they may do. You are reminded from the moment +of your arrival that Venice scarcely exists any more as a city at all; +that she exists only as a battered peep-show and bazaar. There was a +horde of savage Germans encamped in the Piazza, and they filled +the Ducal Palace and the Academy with their uproar. The English and +Americans came a little later. They came in good time, with a great many +French, who were discreet enough to make very long repasts at the Caffe +Quadri, during which they were out of the way. The months of April and +May of the year 1881 were not, as a general thing, a favourable season +for visiting the Ducal Palace and the Academy. The _valet-de-place_ +had marked them for his own and held triumphant possession of them. He +celebrates his triumphs in a terrible brassy voice, which resounds all +over the place, and has, whatever language he be speaking, the accent +of some other idiom. During all the spring months in Venice these gentry +abound in the great resorts, and they lead their helpless captives +through churches and galleries in dense irresponsible groups. They +infest the Piazza; they pursue you along the Riva; they hang about +the bridges and the doors of the cafes. In saying just now that I was +disappointed at first, I had chiefly in mind the impression that assails +me to-day in the whole precinct of St. Mark's. The condition of +this ancient sanctuary is surely a great scandal. The pedlars and +commissioners ply their trade--often a very unclean one--at the very +door of the temple; they follow you across the threshold, into the +sacred dusk, and pull your sleeve, and hiss into your ear, scuffling +with each other for customers. There is a great deal of dishonour about +St. Mark's altogether, and if Venice, as I say, has become a great +bazaar, this exquisite edifice is now the biggest booth. + + +III + +It is treated as a booth in all ways, and if it had not somehow a great +spirit of solemnity within it the traveller would soon have little +warrant for regarding it as a religious affair. The restoration of the +outer walls, which has lately been so much attacked and defended, is +certainly a great shock. Of the necessity of the work only an expert +is, I suppose, in a position to judge; but there is no doubt that, if +a necessity it be, it is one that is deeply to be regretted. To no +more distressing necessity have people of taste lately had to resign +themselves. Wherever the hand of the restorer has been laid all +semblance of beauty has vanished; which is a sad fact, considering that +the external loveliness of St. Mark's has been for ages less impressive +only than that of the still comparatively uninjured interior. I know not +what is the measure of necessity in such a case, and it appears indeed +to be a very delicate question. To-day, at any rate, that admirable +harmony of faded mosaic and marble which, to the eye of the traveller +emerging from the narrow streets that lead to the Piazza, filled all the +further end of it with a sort of dazzling silver presence--to-day this +lovely vision is in a way to be completely reformed and indeed well-nigh +abolished. The old softness and mellowness of colour--the work of the +quiet centuries and of the breath of the salt sea--is giving way to +large crude patches of new material which have the effect of a monstrous +malady rather than of a restoration to health. They look like blotches +of red and white paint and dishonourable smears of chalk on the cheeks +of a noble matron. The face toward the Piazzetta is in especial the +newest-looking thing conceivable--as new as a new pair of boots or +as the morning's paper. We do not profess, however, to undertake a +scientific quarrel with these changes; we admit that our complaint is +a purely sentimental one. The march of industry in united Italy must +doubtless be looked at as a whole, and one must endeavour to believe +that it is through innumerable lapses of taste that this deeply +interesting country is groping her way to her place among the nations. +For the present, it is not to be denied, certain odd phases of the +process are more visible than the result, to arrive at which it seems +necessary that, as she was of old a passionate votary of the beautiful, +she should to-day burn everything that she has adored. It is doubtless +too soon to judge her, and there are moments when one is willing to +forgive her even the restoration of St. Mark's. Inside as well there has +been a considerable attempt to make the place more tidy; but the general +effect, as yet, has not seriously suffered. What I chiefly remember is +the straightening out of that dark and rugged old pavement--those deep +undulations of primitive mosaic in which the fond spectator was thought +to perceive an intended resemblance to the waves of the ocean. Whether +intended or not the analogy was an image the more in a treasure-house +of images; but from a considerable portion of the church it has now +disappeared. Throughout the greater part indeed the pavement remains as +recent generations have known it--dark, rich, cracked, uneven, spotted +with porphyry and time-blackened malachite, polished by the knees of +innumerable worshippers; but in other large stretches the idea imitated +by the restorers is that of the ocean in a dead calm, and the model they +have taken the floor of a London club-house or of a New York hotel. +I think no Venetian and scarcely any Italian cares much for such +differences; and when, a year ago, people in England were writing to the +_Times_ about the whole business and holding meetings to protest against +it the dear children of the lagoon--so far as they heard or heeded the +rumour--thought them partly busy-bodies and partly asses. Busy-bodies +they doubtless were, but they took a good deal of disinterested trouble. +It never occurs to the Venetian mind of to-day that such trouble may be +worth taking; the Venetian mind vainly endeavours to conceive a state of +existence in which personal questions are so insipid that people have +to look for grievances in the wrongs of brick and marble. I must not, +however, speak of St. Mark's as if I had the pretension of giving a +description of it or as if the reader desired one. The reader has been +too well served already. It is surely the best-described building in the +world. Open the _Stones of Venice_, open Theophile Gautier's _Italia_, +and you will see. These writers take it very seriously, and it is only +because there is another way of taking it that I venture to speak of +it; the way that offers itself after you have been in Venice a couple of +months, and the light is hot in the great Square, and you pass in under +the pictured porticoes with a feeling of habit and friendliness and a +desire for something cool and dark. There are moments, after all, when +the church is comparatively quiet and empty, and when you may sit there +with an easy consciousness of its beauty. From the moment, of course, +that you go into any Italian church for any purpose but to say your +prayers or look at the ladies, you rank yourself among the trooping +barbarians I just spoke of; you treat the place as an orifice in the +peep-show. Still, it is almost a spiritual function--or, at the worst, +an amorous one--to feed one's eyes on the molten colour that drops from +the hollow vaults and thickens the air with its richness. It is all so +quiet and sad and faded and yet all so brilliant and living. The strange +figures in the mosaic pictures, bending with the curve of niche and +vault, stare down through the glowing dimness; the burnished gold that +stands behind them catches the light on its little uneven cubes. St. +Mark's owes nothing of its character to the beauty of proportion or +perspective; there is nothing grandly balanced or far-arching; there +are no long lines nor triumphs of the perpendicular. The church arches +indeed, but arches like a dusky cavern. Beauty of surface, of tone, +of detail, of things near enough to touch and kneel upon and lean +against--it is from this the effect proceeds. In this sort of beauty the +place is incredibly rich, and you may go there every day and find afresh +some lurking pictorial nook. It is a treasury of bits, as the painters +say; and there are usually three or four of the fraternity with their +easels set up in uncertain equilibrium on the undulating floor. It is +not easy to catch the real complexion of St. Mark's, and these laudable +attempts at portraiture are apt to look either lurid or livid. But if +you cannot paint the old loose-looking marble slabs, the great panels +of basalt and jasper, the crucifixes of which the lonely anguish looks +deeper in the vertical light, the tabernacles whose open doors disclose +a dark Byzantine image spotted with dull, crooked gems--if you cannot +paint these things you can at least grow fond of them. You grow fond +even of the old benches of red marble, partly worn away by the breeches +of many generations and attached to the base of those wide pilasters of +which the precious plating, delightful in its faded brownness, with a +faint grey bloom upon it, bulges and yawns a little with honourable age. + +{Illustration: FLAGS AT ST. MARK'S VENICE} + + +IV + +Even at first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges reduced +to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its keenness, there was +a great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging on Riva Schiavoni +and looking out at the far-shimmering lagoon. There was entertainment +indeed in simply getting into the place and observing the queer +incidents of a Venetian installation. A great many persons contribute +indirectly to this undertaking, and it is surprising how they spring +out at you during your novitiate to remind you that they are bound up +in some mysterious manner with the constitution of your little +establishment. It was an interesting problem for instance to trace the +subtle connection existing between the niece of the landlady and the +occupancy of the fourth floor. Superficially it was none too visible, as +the young lady in question was a dancer at the Fenice theatre--or when +that was closed at the Rossini--and might have been supposed absorbed by +her professional duties. It proved necessary, however, that she should +hover about the premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid +gloves with one little white button; as also, that she should apply a +thick coating of powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a +sweet weak expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, +who, as a general thing--it was not a peculiarity of the land-lady's +niece--are fond of besmearing themselves with flour. You soon recognise +that it is not only the many-twinkling lagoon you behold from a +habitation on the Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. +Straight across, before my windows, rose the great pink mass of San +Giorgio Maggiore, which has for an ugly Palladian church a success +beyond all reason. It is a success of position, of colour, of the +immense detached Campanile, tipped with a tall gold angel. I know not +whether it is because San Giorgio is so grandly conspicuous, with a +great deal of worn, faded-looking brickwork; but for many persons the +whole place has a kind of suffusion of rosiness. Asked what may be the +leading colour in the Venetian concert, we should inveterately say Pink, +and yet without remembering after all that this elegant hue occurs +very often. It is a faint, shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright +sea-light seems to flush with it and the pale whiteish-green of lagoon +and canal to drink it in. There is indeed a great deal of very evident +brickwork, which is never fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, +as it were, always exquisitely mild. + +Certain little mental pictures rise before the collector of memories at +the simple mention, written or spoken, of the places he has loved. When +I hear, when I see, the magical name I have written above these pages, +it is not of the great Square that I think, with its strange basilica +and its high arcades, nor of the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, with the +stately steps and the well-poised dome of the Salute; it is not of +the low lagoon, nor the sweet Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St. +Mark's. I simply see a narrow canal in the heart of the city--a patch +of green water and a surface of pink wall. The gondola moves slowly; it +gives a great smooth swerve, passes under a bridge, and the gondolier's +cry, carried over the quiet water, makes a kind of splash in the +stillness. A girl crosses the little bridge, which has an arch like +a camel's back, with an old shawl on her head, which makes her +characteristic and charming; you see her against the sky as you float +beneath. The pink of the old wall seems to fill the whole place; it +sinks even into the opaque water. Behind the wall is a garden, out +of which the long arm of a white June rose--the roses of Venice are +splendid--has flung itself by way of spontaneous ornament. On the other +side of this small water-way is a great shabby facade of Gothic windows +and balconies--balconies on which dirty clothes are hung and under +which a cavernous-looking doorway opens from a low flight of slimy +water-steps. It is very hot and still, the canal has a queer smell, and +the whole place is enchanting. + +{Illustration: A NARROW CANAL, VENICE} + +It is poor work, however, talking about the colour of things in Venice. +The fond spectator is perpetually looking at it from his window, when he +is not floating about with that delightful sense of being for the moment +a part of it, which any gentleman in a gondola is free to entertain. +Venetian windows and balconies are a dreadful lure, and while you rest +your elbows on these cushioned ledges the precious hours fly away. But +in truth Venice isn't in fair weather a place for concentration of mind. +The effort required for sitting down to a writing-table is heroic, +and the brightest page of MS. looks dull beside the brilliancy of your +_milieu_. All nature beckons you forth and murmurs to you sophistically +that such hours should be devoted to collecting impressions. Afterwards, +in ugly places, at unprivileged times, you can convert your impressions +into prose. Fortunately for the present proser the weather wasn't always +fine; the first month was wet and windy, and it was better to judge +of the matter from an open casement than to respond to the advances +of persuasive gondoliers. Even then however there was a constant +entertainment in the view. It was all cold colour, and the steel-grey +floor of the lagoon was stroked the wrong way by the wind. Then there +were charming cool intervals, when the churches, the houses, the +anchored fishing-boats, the whole gently-curving line of the Riva, +seemed to be washed with a pearly white. Later it all turned warm--warm +to the eye as well as to other senses. After the middle of May the whole +place was in a glow. The sea took on a thousand shades, but they were +only infinite variations of blue, and those rosy walls I just spoke of +began to flush in the thick sunshine. Every patch of colour, every yard +of weather-stained stucco, every glimpse of nestling garden or daub of +sky above a _calle_, began to shine and sparkle--began, as the painters +say, to "compose." The lagoon was streaked with odd currents, which +played across it like huge smooth finger-marks. The gondolas multiplied +and spotted it allover; every gondola and gondolier looking, at a +distance, precisely like every other. + +There is something strange and fascinating in this mysterious +impersonality of the gondola. It has an identity when you are in it, +but, thanks to their all being of the same size, shape and colour, and +of the same deportment and gait, it has none, or as little as possible, +as you see it pass before you. From my windows on the Riva there was +always the same silhouette--the long, black, slender skiff, lifting its +head and throwing it back a little, moving yet seeming not to move, with +the grotesquely-graceful figure on the poop. This figure inclines, +as may be, more to the graceful or to the grotesque--standing in the +"second position" of the dancing-master, but indulging from the waist +upward in a freedom of movement which that functionary would deprecate. +One may say as a general thing that there is something rather awkward in +the movement even of the most graceful gondolier, and something graceful +in the movement of the most awkward. In the graceful men of course the +grace predominates, and nothing can be finer than the large, firm way +in which, from their point of vantage, they throw themselves over +their tremendous oar. It has the boldness of a plunging bird and +the regularity of a pendulum. Sometimes, as you see this movement in +profile, in a gondola that passes you--see, as you recline on your own +low cushions, the arching body of the gondolier lifted up against the +sky--it has a kind of nobleness which suggests an image on a Greek +frieze. The gondolier at Venice is your very good friend--if you choose +him happily--and on the quality of the personage depends a good deal +that of your impressions. He is a part of your daily life, your double, +your shadow, your complement. Most people, I think, either like their +gondolier or hate him; and if they like him, like him very much. In this +case they take an interest in him after his departure; wish him to be +sure of employment, speak of him as the gem of gondoliers and tell their +friends to be certain to "secure" him. There is usually no difficulty in +securing him; there is nothing elusive or reluctant about a gondolier. +Nothing would induce me not to believe them for the most part excellent +fellows, and the sentimental tourist must always have a kindness for +them. More than the rest of the population, of course, they are the +children of Venice; they are associated with its idiosyncrasy, with its +essence, with its silence, with its melancholy. + +When I say they are associated with its silence I should immediately add +that they are associated also with its sound. Among themselves they are +an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the _traghetti_, +where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl +across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy +each other from afar. If you happen to have a _traghetto_ under your +window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even +further than I went just now, and say that the voice of the gondolier is +in fact for audibility the dominant or rather the only note of Venice. +There is scarcely another heard sound, and that indeed is part of the +interest of the place. There is no noise there save distinctly human +noise; no rumbling, no vague uproar, nor rattle of wheels and hoofs. It +is all articulate and vocal and personal. One may say indeed that Venice +is emphatically the city of conversation; people talk all over the place +because there is nothing to interfere with its being caught by the ear. +Among the populace it is a general family party. The still water carries +the voice, and good Venetians exchange confidences at a distance of half +a mile. It saves a world of trouble, and they don't like trouble. Their +delightful garrulous language helps them to make Venetian life a +long _conversazione_. This language, with its soft elisions, its +odd transpositions, its kindly contempt for consonants and other +disagreeables, has in it something peculiarly human and accommodating. +If your gondolier had no other merit he would have the merit that he +speaks Venetian. This may rank as a merit even--some people perhaps +would say especially--when you don't understand what he says. But he +adds to it other graces which make him an agreeable feature in your +life. The price he sets on his services is touchingly small, and he +has a happy art of being obsequious without being, or at least without +seeming, abject. For occasional liberalities he evinces an almost +lyrical gratitude. In short he has delightfully good manners, a merit +which he shares for the most part with the Venetians at large. One +grows very fond of these people, and the reason of one's fondness is the +frankness and sweetness of their address. That of the Italian family +at large has much to recommend it; but in the Venetian manner there is +something peculiarly ingratiating. One feels that the race is old, that +it has a long and rich civilisation in its blood, and that if it hasn't +been blessed by fortune it has at least been polished by time. It hasn't +a genius for stiff morality, and indeed makes few pretensions in that +direction. It scruples but scantly to represent the false as the +true, and has been accused of cultivating the occasion to grasp and +to overreach, and of steering a crooked course--not to your and my +advantage--amid the sanctities of property. It has been accused further +of loving if not too well at least too often, of being in fine as little +austere as possible. I am not sure it is very brave, nor struck with its +being very industrious. But it has an unfailing sense of the amenities +of life; the poorest Venetian is a natural man of the world. He is +better company than persons of his class are apt to be among the nations +of industry and virtue--where people are also sometimes perceived to lie +and steal and otherwise misconduct themselves. He has a great desire to +please and to be pleased. + + +V + +In that matter at least the cold-blooded stranger begins at last to +imitate him; begins to lead a life that shall be before all things easy; +unless indeed he allow himself, like Mr. Ruskin, to be put out of humour +by Titian and Tiepolo. The hours he spends among the pictures are his +best hours in Venice, and I am ashamed to have written so much of +common things when I might have been making festoons of the names of +the masters. Only, when we have covered our page with such festoons +what more is left to say? When one has said Carpaccio and Bellini, the +Tintoret and the Veronese, one has struck a note that must be left to +resound at will. Everything has been said about the mighty painters, and +it is of little importance that a pilgrim the more has found them to +his taste. "Went this morning to the Academy; was very much pleased with +Titian's 'Assumption.'" That honest phrase has doubtless been written +in many a traveller's diary, and was not indiscreet on the part of +its author. But it appeals little to the general reader, and we must +moreover notoriously not expose our deepest feelings. Since I have +mentioned Titian's "Assumption" I must say that there are some people +who have been less pleased with it than the observer we have just +imagined. It is one of the possible disappointments of Venice, and you +may if you like take advantage of your privilege of not caring for it. +It imparts a look of great richness to the side of the beautiful room of +the Academy on which it hangs; but the same room contains two or three +works less known to fame which are equally capable of inspiring a +passion. "The 'Annunciation' struck me as coarse and superficial": that +note was once made in a simple-minded tourist's book. At Venice, strange +to say, Titian is altogether a disappointment; the city of his adoption +is far from containing the best of him. Madrid, Paris, London, Florence, +Dresden, Munich--these are the homes of his greatness. + +There are other painters who have but a single home, and the greatest of +these is the Tintoret. Close beside him sit Carpaccio and Bellini, who +make with him the dazzling Venetian trio. The Veronese may be seen and +measured in other places; he is most splendid in Venice, but he shines +in Paris and in Dresden. You may walk out of the noon-day dusk of +Trafalgar Square in November, and in one of the chambers of the National +Gallery see the family of Darius rustling and pleading and weeping +at the feet of Alexander. Alexander is a beautiful young Venetian in +crimson pantaloons, and the picture sends a glow into the cold London +twilight. You may sit before it for an hour and dream you are floating +to the water-gate of the Ducal Palace, where a certain old beggar who +has one of the handsomest heads in the world--he has sat to a hundred +painters for Doges and for personages more sacred--has a prescriptive +right to pretend to pull your gondola to the steps and to hold out a +greasy immemorial cap. But you must go to Venice in very fact to see +the other masters, who form part of your life while you are there, who +illuminate your view of the universe. It is difficult to express one's +relation to them; the whole Venetian art-world is so near, so familiar, +so much an extension and adjunct of the spreading actual, that it seems +almost invidious to say one owes more to one of them than to the other. +Nowhere, not even in Holland, where the correspondence between the +real aspects and the little polished canvases is so constant and so +exquisite, do art and life seem so interfused and, as it were, so +consanguineous. All the splendour of light and colour, all the Venetian +air and the Venetian history are on the walls and ceilings of the +palaces; and all the genius of the masters, all the images and visions +they have left upon canvas, seem to tremble in the sunbeams and dance +upon the waves. That is the perpetual interest of the place--that you +live in a certain sort of knowledge as in a rosy cloud. You don't go +into the churches and galleries by way of a change from the streets; +you go into them because they offer you an exquisite reproduction of +the things that surround you. All Venice was both model and painter, +and life was so pictorial that art couldn't help becoming so. With +all diminutions life is pictorial still, and this fact gives an +extraordinary freshness to one's perception of the great Venetian works. +You judge of them not as a connoisseur, but as a man of the world, and +you enjoy them because they are so social and so true. Perhaps of all +works of art that are equally great they demand least reflection on the +part of the spectator--they make least of a mystery of being enjoyed. +Reflection only confirms your admiration, yet is almost ashamed to show +its head. These things speak so frankly and benignantly to the sense +that even when they arrive at the highest style--as in the Tintoret's +"Presentation of the little Virgin at the Temple"--they are still more +familiar. + +But it is hard, as I say, to express all this, and it is painful as well +to attempt it--painful because in the memory of vanished hours so filled +with beauty the consciousness of present loss oppresses. Exquisite +hours, enveloped in light and silence, to have known them once is to +have always a terrible standard of enjoyment. Certain lovely mornings +of May and June come back with an ineffaceable fairness. Venice isn't +smothered in flowers at this season, in the manner of Florence and Rome; +but the sea and sky themselves seem to blossom and rustle. The gondola +waits at the wave-washed steps, and if you are wise you will take your +place beside a discriminating companion. Such a companion in Venice +should of course be of the sex that discriminates most finely. An +intelligent woman who knows her Venice seems doubly intelligent, and it +makes no woman's perceptions less keen to be aware that she can't help +looking graceful as she is borne over the waves. The handsome Pasquale, +with uplifted oar, awaits your command, knowing, in a general way, +from observation of your habits, that your intention is to go to see +a picture or two. It perhaps doesn't immensely matter what picture +you choose: the whole affair is so charming. It is charming to wander +through the light and shade of intricate canals, with perpetual +architecture above you and perpetual fluidity beneath. It is charming +to disembark at the polished steps of a little empty _campo_--a sunny +shabby square with an old well in the middle, an old church on one +side and tall Venetian windows looking down. Sometimes the windows are +tenantless; sometimes a lady in a faded dressing-gown leans vaguely on +the sill. There is always an old man holding out his hat for +coppers; there are always three or four small boys dodging possible +umbrella-pokes while they precede you, in the manner of custodians, to +the door of the church. + + +VI + +The churches of Venice are rich in pictures, and many a masterpiece +lurks in the unaccommodating gloom of side-chapels and sacristies. Many +a noble work is perched behind the dusty candles and muslin roses of a +scantily-visited altar; some of them indeed, hidden behind the altar, +suffer in a darkness that can never be explored. The facilities offered +you for approaching the picture in such cases are a mockery of your +irritated wish. You stand at tip-toe on a three-legged stool, you climb +a rickety ladder, you almost mount upon the shoulders of the _custode_. +You do everything but see the picture. You see just enough to be sure +it's beautiful. You catch a glimpse of a divine head, of a fig tree +against a mellow sky, but the rest is impenetrable mystery. You +renounce all hope, for instance, of approaching the magnificent Cima da +Conegliano in San Giovanni in Bragora; and bethinking yourself of the +immaculate purity that shines in the spirit of this master, you renounce +it with chagrin and pain. Behind the high altar in that church hangs +a Baptism of Christ by Cima which I believe has been more or less +repainted. You make the thing out in spots, you see it has a fullness +of perfection. But you turn away from it with a stiff neck and promise +yourself consolation in the Academy and at the Madonna dell' Orto, +where two noble works by the same hand--pictures as clear as a summer +twilight--present themselves in better circumstances. It may be said +as a general thing that you never see the Tintoret. You admire him, +you adore him, you think him the greatest of painters, but in the great +majority of cases your eyes fail to deal with him. This is partly +his own fault; so many of his works have turned to blackness and are +positively rotting in their frames. At the Scuola di San Rocco, where +there are acres of him, there is scarcely anything at all adequately +visible save the immense "Crucifixion" in the upper story. It is true +that in looking at this huge composition you look at many pictures; it +has not only a multitude of figures but a wealth of episodes; and you +pass from one of these to the other as if you were "doing" a gallery. +Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life; there +is everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty. It is one of +the greatest things of art; it is always interesting. There are works of +the artist which contain touches more exquisite, revelations of beauty +more radiant, but there is no other vision of so intense a reality, an +execution so splendid. The interest, the impressiveness, of that whole +corner of Venice, however melancholy the effect of its gorgeous and +ill-lighted chambers, gives a strange importance to a visit to the +Scuola. Nothing that all travellers go to see appears to suffer less +from the incursions of travellers. It is one of the loneliest booths +of the bazaar, and the author of these lines has always had the good +fortune, which he wishes to every other traveller, of having it to +himself. I think most visitors find the place rather alarming and +wicked-looking. They walk about a while among the fitful figures that +gleam here and there out of the great tapestry (as it were) with which +the painter has hung all the walls, and then, depressed and bewildered +by the portentous solemnity of these objects, by strange glimpses of +unnatural scenes, by the echo of their lonely footsteps on the vast +stone floors, they take a hasty departure, finding themselves again, +with a sense of release from danger, a sense that the _genius loci_ was +a sort of mad white-washer who worked with a bad mixture, in the bright +light of the _campo_, among the beggars, the orange-vendors and the +passing gondolas. Solemn indeed is the place, solemn and strangely +suggestive, for the simple reason that we shall scarcely find four walls +elsewhere that inclose within a like area an equal quantity of genius. +The air is thick with it and dense and difficult to breathe; for it was +genius that was not happy, inasmuch as it, lacked the art to fix itself +for ever. It is not immortality that we breathe at the Scuola di San +Rocco, but conscious, reluctant mortality. + +Fortunately, however, we can turn to the Ducal Palace, where everything +is so brilliant and splendid that the poor dusky Tintoret is lifted in +spite of himself into the concert. This deeply original building is of +course the loveliest thing in Venice, and a morning's stroll there is a +wonderful illumination. Cunningly select your hour--half the enjoyment +of Venice is a question of dodging--and enter at about one o'clock, when +the tourists have flocked off to lunch and the echoes of the charming +chambers have gone to sleep among the sunbeams. There is no brighter +place in Venice--by which I mean that on the whole there is none half so +bright. The reflected sunshine plays up through the great windows from +the glittering lagoon and shimmers and twinkles over gilded walls and +ceilings. All the history of Venice, all its splendid stately past, +glows around you in a strong sealight. Everyone here is magnificent, but +the great Veronese is the most magnificent of all. He swims before you +in a silver cloud; he thrones in an eternal morning. The deep blue sky +burns behind him, streaked across with milky bars; the white colonnades +sustain the richest canopies, under which the first gentlemen and ladies +in the world both render homage and receive it. Their glorious garments +rustle in the air of the sea and their sun-lighted faces are the very +complexion of Venice. The mixture of pride and piety, of politics and +religion, of art and patriotism, gives a splendid dignity to every +scene. Never was a painter more nobly joyous, never did an artist take a +greater delight in life, seeing it all as a kind of breezy festival and +feeling it through the medium of perpetual success. He revels in the +gold-framed ovals of the ceilings, multiplies himself there with the +fluttering movement of an embroidered banner that tosses itself into the +blue. He was the happiest of painters and produced the happiest picture +in the world. "The Rape of Europa" surely deserves this title; it is +impossible to look at it without aching with envy. Nowhere else in art +is such a temperament revealed; never did inclination and opportunity +combine to express such enjoyment. The mixture of flowers and gems and +brocade, of blooming flesh and shining sea and waving groves, of youth, +health, movement, desire--all this is the brightest vision that ever +descended upon the soul of a painter. Happy the artist who could +entertain such a vision; happy the artist who could paint it as the +masterpiece I here recall is painted. + +The Tintoret's visions were not so bright as that; but he had several +that were radiant enough. In the room that contains the work just cited +are several smaller canvases by the greatly more complex genius of the +Scuola di San Rocco, which are almost simple in their loveliness, almost +happy in their simplicity. They have kept their brightness through the +centuries, and they shine with their neighbours in those golden rooms. +There is a piece of painting in one of them which is one of the sweetest +things in Venice and which reminds one afresh of those wild flowers of +execution that bloom so profusely and so unheeded in the dark corners +of all of the Tintoret's work. "Pallas chasing away Mars" is, I believe, +the name that is given to the picture; and it represents in fact a young +woman of noble appearance administering a gentle push to a fine young +man in armour, as if to tell him to keep his distance. It is of the +gentleness of this push that I speak, the charming way in which she puts +out her arm, with a single bracelet on it, and rests her young hand, its +rosy fingers parted, on his dark breastplate. She bends her enchanting +head with the effort--a head which has all the strange fairness that the +Tintoret always sees in women--and the soft, living, flesh-like glow +of all these members, over which the brush has scarcely paused in its +course, is as pretty an example of genius as all Venice can show. +But why speak of the Tintoret when I can say nothing of the great +"Paradise," which unfolds its somewhat smoky splendour and the wonder of +its multitudinous circles in one of the other chambers? If it were not +one of the first pictures in the world it would be about the biggest, +and we must confess that the spectator gets from it at first chiefly +an impression of quantity. Then he sees that this quantity is really +wealth; that the dim confusion of faces is a magnificent composition, +and that some of the details of this composition are extremely +beautiful. It is impossible however in a retrospect of Venice to specify +one's happiest hours, though as one looks backward certain ineffaceable +moments start here and there into vividness. How is it possible to +forget one's visits to the sacristy of the Frari, however frequent +they may have been, and the great work of John Bellini which forms the +treasure of that apartment? + + +VII + +Nothing in Venice is more perfect than this, and we know of no work of +art more complete. The picture is in three compartments; the Virgin sits +in the central division with her child; two venerable saints, standing +close together, occupy each of the others. It is impossible to imagine +anything more finished or more ripe. It is one of those things that sum +up the genius of a painter, the experience of a life, the teaching of +a school. It seems painted with molten gems, which have only been +clarified by time, and is as solemn as it is gorgeous and as simple as +it is deep. Giovanni Bellini is more or less everywhere in Venice, and, +wherever he is, almost certain to be first--first, I mean, in his own +line: paints little else than the Madonna and the saints; he has not +Carpaccio's care for human life at large, nor the Tintoret's nor the +of the Veronese. Some of his greater pictures, however, where several +figures are clustered together, have a richness of sanctity that is +almost profane. There is one of them on the dark side of the room at the +Academy that contains Titian's "Assumption," which if we could only see +it--its position is an inconceivable scandal--would evidently be one of +the mightiest of so-called sacred pictures. So too is the Madonna of San +Zaccaria, hung in a cold, dim, dreary place, ever so much too high, but +so mild and serene, and so grandly disposed and accompanied, that the +proper attitude for even the most critical amateur, as he looks at it, +strikes one as the bended knee. There is another noble John Bellini, +one of the very few in which there is no Virgin, at San Giovanni +Crisostomo--a St. Jerome, in a red dress, sitting aloft upon the rocks +and with a landscape of extraordinary purity behind him. The absence of +the peculiarly erect Madonna makes it an interesting surprise among the +works of the painter and gives it a somewhat less strenuous air. But it +has brilliant beauty and the St. Jerome is a delightful old personage. + +The same church contains another great picture for which the haunter +of these places must find a shrine apart in his memory; one of the most +interesting things he will have seen, if not the most brilliant. Nothing +appeals more to him than three figures of Venetian ladies which occupy +the foreground of a smallish canvas of Sebastian del Piombo, placed +above the high altar of San Giovanni Crisostomo. Sebastian was a +Venetian by birth, but few of his productions are to be seen in his +native place; few indeed are to be seen anywhere. The picture represents +the patron-saint of the church, accompanied by other saints and by the +worldly votaries I have mentioned. These ladies stand together on the +left, holding in their hands little white caskets; two of them are in +profile, but the foremost turns her face to the spectator. This face and +figure are almost unique among the beautiful things of Venice, and they +leave the susceptible observer with the impression of having made, +or rather having missed, a strange, a dangerous, but a most valuable, +acquaintance. The lady, who is superbly handsome, is the typical +Venetian of the sixteenth century, and she remains for the mind the +perfect flower of that society. Never was there a greater air of +breeding, a deeper expression of tranquil superiority. She walks a +goddess--as if she trod without sinking the waves of the Adriatic. It +is impossible to conceive a more perfect expression of the aristocratic +spirit either in its pride or in its benignity. This magnificent +creature is so strong and secure that she is gentle, and so quiet that +in comparison all minor assumptions of calmness suggest only a vulgar +alarm. But for all this there are depths of possible disorder in her +light-coloured eye. + +I had meant however to say nothing about her, for it's not right to +speak of Sebastian when one hasn't found room for Carpaccio. These +visions come to one, and one can neither hold them nor brush them aside. +Memories of Carpaccio, the magnificent, the delightful--it's not for +want of such visitations, but only for want of space, that I haven't +said of him what I would. There is little enough need of it for +Carpaccio's sake, his fame being brighter to-day--thanks to the generous +lamp Mr. Ruskin has held up to it--than it has ever been. Yet there is +something ridiculous in talking of Venice without making him almost the +refrain. He and the Tintoret are the two great realists, and it is hard +to say which is the more human, the more various. The Tintoret had +the mightier temperament, but Carpaccio, who had the advantage of more +newness and more responsibility, sailed nearer to perfection. Here and +there he quite touches it, as in the enchanting picture, at the Academy, +of St. Ursula asleep in her little white bed, in her high clean room, +where the angel visits her at dawn; or in the noble St. Jerome in his +study at S. Giorgio Schiavoni. This latter work is a pearl of sentiment, +and I may add without being fantastic a ruby of colour. It unites the +most masterly finish with a kind of universal largeness of feeling, and +he who has it well in his memory will never hear the name of Carpaccio +without a throb of almost personal affection. Such indeed is the feeling +that descends upon you in that wonderful little chapel of St. George +of the Slaves, where this most personal and sociable of artists has +expressed all the sweetness of his imagination. The place is small +and incommodious, the pictures are out of sight and ill-lighted, the +custodian is rapacious, the visitors are mutually intolerable, but +the shabby little chapel is a palace of art. Mr. Ruskin has written a +pamphlet about it which is a real aid to enjoyment, though I can't but +think the generous artist, with his keen senses and his just feeling, +would have suffered to hear his eulogist declare that one of his +other productions--in the Museo Civico of Palazzo Correr, a delightful +portrait of two Venetian ladies with pet animals--is the "finest picture +in the world." It has no need of that to be thought admirable; and what +more can a painter desire? + + +VIII + +May in Venice is better than April, but June is best of all. Then the +days are hot, but not too hot, and the nights are more beautiful than +the days. Then Venice is rosier than ever in the morning and more golden +than ever as the day descends. She seems to expand and evaporate, to +multiply all her reflections and iridescences. Then the life of her +people and the strangeness of her constitution become a perpetual +comedy, or at least a perpetual drama. Then the gondola is your sole +habitation, and you spend days between sea and sky. You go to the Lido, +though the Lido has been spoiled. When I first saw it, in 1869, it was +a very natural place, and there was but a rough lane across the little +island from the landing-place to the beach. There was a bathing-place in +those days, and a restaurant, which was very bad, but where in the warm +evenings your dinner didn't much matter as you sat letting it cool on +the wooden terrace that stretched out into the sea. To-day the Lido is +a part of united Italy and has been made the victim of villainous +improvements. A little cockney village has sprung up on its rural bosom +and a third-rate boulevard leads from Santa Elisabetta to the Adriatic. +There are bitumen walks and gas-lamps, lodging-houses, shops and a +_teatro diurno_. The bathing-establishment is bigger than before, +and the restaurant as well; but it is a compensation perhaps that +the cuisine is no better. Such as it is, however, you won't scorn +occasionally to partake of it on the breezy platform under which bathers +dart and splash, and which looks out to where the fishing-boats, with +sails of orange and crimson, wander along the darkening horizon. The +beach at the Lido is still lonely and beautiful, and you can easily walk +away from the cockney village. The return to Venice in the sunset is +classical and indispensable, and those who at that glowing hour have +floated toward the towers that rise out of the lagoon will not easily +part with the impression. But you indulge in larger excursions--you go +to Burano and Torcello, to Malamocco and Chioggia. Torcello, like the +Lido, has been improved; the deeply interesting little cathedral of the +eighth century, which stood there on the edge of the sea, as touching +in its ruin, with its grassy threshold and its primitive mosaics, as the +bleached bones of a human skeleton washed ashore by the tide, has now +been restored and made cheerful, and the charm of the place, its strange +and suggestive desolation, has well-nigh departed. + +It will still serve you as a pretext, however, for a day on the lagoon, +especially as you will disembark at Burano and admire the wonderful +fisher-folk, whose good looks--and bad manners, I am sorry to say--can +scarcely be exaggerated. Burano is celebrated for the beauty of its +women and the rapacity of its children, and it is a fact that though +some of the ladies are rather bold about it every one of them shows +you a handsome face. The children assail you for coppers, and in their +desire to be satisfied pursue your gondola into the sea. Chioggia is +a larger Burano, and you carry away from either place a half-sad, +half-cynical, but altogether pictorial impression; the impression of +bright-coloured hovels, of bathing in stagnant canals, of young girls +with faces of a delicate shape and a susceptible expression, with +splendid heads of hair and complexions smeared with powder, faded yellow +shawls that hang like old Greek draperies, and little wooden shoes +that click as they go up and down the steps of the convex bridges; of +brown-cheeked matrons with lustrous tresses and high tempers, massive +throats encased with gold beads, and eyes that meet your own with a +certain traditional defiance. The men throughout the islands of +Venice are almost as handsome as the women; I have never seen so many +good-looking rascals. At Burano and Chioggia they sit mending their +nets, or lounge at the street corners, where conversation is always +high-pitched, or clamour to you to take a boat; and everywhere they +decorate the scene with their splendid colour--cheeks and throats as +richly brown as the sails of their fishing-smacks--their sea-faded +tatters which are always a "costume," their soft Venetian jargon, and +the gallantry with which they wear their hats, an article that nowhere +sits so well as on a mass of dense Venetian curls. If you are happy you +will find yourself, after a June day in Venice (about ten o'clock), on +a balcony that overhangs the Grand Canal, with your elbows on the broad +ledge, a cigarette in your teeth and a little good company beside you. +The gondolas pass beneath, the watery surface gleams here and there from +their lamps, some of which are coloured lanterns that move mysteriously +in the darkness. There are some evenings in June when there are too many +gondolas, too many lanterns, too many serenades in front of the hotels. +The serenading in particular is overdone; but on such a balcony as I +speak of you needn't suffer from it, for in the apartment behind +you--an accessible refuge--there is more good company, there are more +cigarettes. If you are wise you will step back there presently. + +1882. + + + + + +THE GRAND CANAL + + +The honour of representing the plan and the place at their best might +perhaps appear, in the City of St. Mark, properly to belong to the +splendid square which bears the patron's name and which is the centre +of Venetian life so far (this is pretty well all the way indeed) as +Venetian life is a matter of strolling and chaffering, of gossiping and +gaping, of circulating without a purpose, and of staring--too often with +a foolish one--through the shop-windows of dealers whose hospitality +makes their doorsteps dramatic, at the very vulgarest rubbish in all the +modern market. If the Grand Canal, however, is not quite technically a +"street," the perverted Piazza is perhaps even less normal; and I hasten +to add that I am glad not to find myself studying my subject under the +international arcades, or yet (I will go the length of saying) in the +solemn presence of the church. For indeed in that case I foresee I +should become still more confoundingly conscious of the stumbling-block +that inevitably, even with his first few words, crops up in the path +of the lover of Venice who rashly addresses himself to expression. +"Venetian life" is a mere literary convention, though it be an +indispensable figure. The words have played an effective part in the +literature of sensibility; they constituted thirty years ago the title +of Mr. Howells's delightful volume of impressions; but in using +them to-day one owes some frank amends to one's own lucidity. Let me +carefully premise therefore that so often as they shall again drop +from my pen, so often shall I beg to be regarded as systematically +superficial. + +Venetian life, in the large old sense, has long since come to an end, +and the essential present character of the most melancholy of cities +resides simply in its being the most beautiful of tombs. Nowhere else +has the past been laid to rest with such tenderness, such a sadness of +resignation and remembrance. Nowhere else is the present so alien, so +discontinuous, so like a crowd in a cemetery without garlands for +the graves. It has no flowers in its hands, but, as a compensation +perhaps--and the thing is doubtless more to the point--it has money +and little red books. The everlasting shuffle of these irresponsible +visitors in the Piazza is contemporary Venetian life. Everything else is +only a reverberation of that. The vast mausoleum has a turnstile at the +door, and a functionary in a shabby uniform lets you in, as per tariff, +to see how dead it is. From this _constatation_, this cold curiosity, +proceed all the industry, the prosperity, the vitality of the place. The +shopkeepers and gondoliers, the beggars and the models, depend upon +it for a living; they are the custodians and the ushers of the great +museum--they are even themselves to a certain extent the objects of +exhibition. It is in the wide vestibule of the square that the polygot +pilgrims gather most densely; Piazza San Marco is the lobby of the opera +in the intervals of the performance. The present fortune of Venice, the +lamentable difference, is most easily measured there, and that is why, +in the effort to resist our pessimism, we must turn away both from the +purchasers and from the vendors of _ricordi_. The _ricordi_ that we +prefer are gathered best where the gondola glides--best of all on the +noble waterway that begins in its glory at the Salute and ends in +its abasement at the railway station. It is, however, the cockneyfied +Piazzetta (forgive me, shade of St. Theodore--has not a brand new cafe +begun to glare there, electrically, this very year?) that introduces us +most directly to the great picture by which the Grand Canal works its +first spell, and to which a thousand artists, not always with a talent +apiece, have paid their tribute. We pass into the Piazzetta to look down +the great throat, as it were, of Venice, and the vision must console us +for turning our back on St. Mark's. + +We have been treated to it again and again, of course, even if we have +never stirred from home; but that is only a reason the more for catching +at any freshness that may be left in the world of photography. It is in +Venice above all that we hear the small buzz of this vulgarising voice +of the familiar; yet perhaps it is in Venice too that the picturesque +fact has best mastered the pious secret of how to wait for us. Even +the classic Salute waits like some great lady on the threshold of her +saloon. She is more ample and serene, more seated at her door, than all +the copyists have told us, with her domes and scrolls, her scolloped +buttresses and statues forming a pompous crown, and her wide steps +disposed on the ground like the train of a robe. This fine air of the +woman of the world is carried out by the well-bred assurance with which +she looks in the direction of her old-fashioned Byzantine neighbour; +and the juxtaposition of two churches so distinguished and so different, +each splendid in its sort, is a sufficient mark of the scale and range +of Venice. However, we ourselves are looking away from St. Mark's--we +must blind our eyes to that dazzle; without it indeed there are +brightnesses and fascinations enough. We see them in abundance even +while we look away from the shady steps of the Salute. These steps are +cool in the morning, yet I don't know that I can justify my excessive +fondness for them any better than I can explain a hundred of the other +vague infatuations with which Venice sophisticates the spirit. Under +such an influence fortunately one need n't explain--it keeps account +of nothing but perceptions and affections. It is from the Salute steps +perhaps, of a summer morning, that this view of the open mouth of +the city is most brilliantly amusing. The whole thing composes as if +composition were the chief end of human institutions. The charming +architectural promontory of the Dogana stretches out the most graceful +of arms, balancing in its hand the gilded globe on which revolves the +delightful satirical figure of a little weathercock of a woman. This +Fortune, this Navigation, or whatever she is called--she surely needs no +name--catches the wind in the bit of drapery of which she has divested +her rotary bronze loveliness. On the other side of the Canal twinkles +and glitters the long row of the happy palaces which are mainly +expensive hotels. There is a little of everything everywhere, in +the bright Venetian air, but to these houses belongs especially the +appearance of sitting, across the water, at the receipt of custom, +of watching in their hypocritical loveliness for the stranger and the +victim. I call them happy, because even their sordid uses and their +vulgar signs melt somehow, with their vague sea-stained pinks and drabs, +into that strange gaiety of light and colour which is made up of the +reflection of superannuated things. The atmosphere plays over them like +a laugh, they are of the essence of the sad old joke. They are almost +as charming from other places as they are from their own balconies, +and share fully in that universal privilege of Venetian objects which +consists of being both the picture and the point of view. + +This double character, which is particularly strong in the Grand Canal, +adds a difficulty to any control of one's notes. The Grand Canal may +be practically, as in impression, the cushioned balcony of a high and +well-loved palace--the memory of irresistible evenings, of the +sociable elbow, of endless lingering and looking; or it may evoke the +restlessness of a fresh curiosity, of methodical inquiry, in a gondola +piled with references. There are no references, I ought to mention, in +the present remarks, which sacrifice to accident, not to completeness. +A rhapsody of Venice is always in order, but I think the catalogues +are finished. I should not attempt to write here the names of all the +palaces, even if the number of those I find myself able to remember in +the immense array were less insignificant. There are many I delight in +that I don't know, or at least don't keep, apart. Then there are the bad +reasons for preference that are better than the good, and all the sweet +bribery of association and recollection. These things, as one stands on +the Salute steps, are so many delicate fingers to pick straight out +of the row a dear little featureless house which, with its pale green +shutters, looks straight across at the great door and through the +very keyhole, as it were, of the church, and which I needn't call by +a name--a pleasant American name--that every one in Venice, these many +years, has had on grateful lips. It is the very friendliest house in all +the wide world, and it has, as it deserves to have, the most beautiful +position. It is a real _porto di mare_, as the gondoliers say--a port +within a port; it sees everything that comes and goes, and takes it all +in with practised eyes. Not a tint or a hint of the immense iridescence +is lost upon it, and there are days of exquisite colour on which it may +fancy itself the heart of the wonderful prism. We wave to it from the +Salute steps, which we must decidedly leave if we wish to get on, a +grateful hand across the water, and turn into the big white church of +Longhena--an empty shaft beneath a perfunctory dome--where an American +family and a German party, huddled in a corner upon a pair of benches, +are gazing, with a conscientiousness worthy of a better cause, at +nothing in particular. + +For there is nothing particular in this cold and conventional temple to +gaze at save the great Tintoretto of the sacristy, to which we quickly +pay our respects, and which we are glad to have for ten minutes to +ourselves. The picture, though full of beauty, is not the finest of the +master's; but it serves again as well as another to transport--there +is no other word--those of his lovers for whom, in far-away days when +Venice was an early rapture, this strange and mystifying painter was +almost the supreme revelation. The plastic arts may have less to say +to us than in the hungry years of youth, and the celebrated picture in +general be more of a blank; but more than the others any fine Tintoret +still carries us back, calling up not only the rich particular vision +but the freshness of the old wonder. Many things come and go, but this +great artist remains for us in Venice a part of the company of the mind. +The others are there in their obvious glory, but he is the only one for +whom the imagination, in our expressive modern phrase, sits up. "The +Marriage in Cana," at the Salute, has all his characteristic and +fascinating unexpectedness--the sacrifice of the figure of our Lord, +who is reduced to the mere final point of a clever perspective, and the +free, joyous presentation of all the other elements of the feast. +Why, in spite of this queer one-sidedness, does the picture give us no +impression of a lack of what the critics call reverence? For no other +reason that I can think of than because it happens to be the work of its +author, in whose very mistakes there is a singular wisdom. Mr. Ruskin +has spoken with sufficient eloquence of the serious loveliness of the +row of heads of the women on the right, who talk to each other as they +sit at the foreshortened banquet. There could be no better example +of the roving independence of the painter's vision, a real spirit of +adventure for which his subject was always a cluster of accidents; not +an obvious order, but a sort of peopled and agitated chapter of life, +in which the figures are submissive pictorial notes. These notes are all +there in their beauty and heterogeneity, and if the abundance is of a +kind to make the principle of selection seem in comparison timid, +yet the sense of "composition" in the spectator--if it happen to +exist--reaches out to the painter in peculiar sympathy. Dull must be the +spirit of the worker tormented in any field of art with that particular +question who is not moved to recognise in the eternal problem the high +fellowship of Tintoretto. + +If the long reach from this point to the deplorable iron bridge which +discharges the pedestrian at the Academy--or, more comprehensively, to +the painted and gilded Gothic of the noble Palazzo Foscari--is too much +of a curve to be seen at any one point as a whole, it represents the +better the arched neck, as it were, of the undulating serpent of which +the Canalazzo has the likeness. We pass a dozen historic houses, we note +in our passage a hundred component "bits," with the baffled sketcher's +sense, and with what would doubtless be, save for our intensely Venetian +fatalism, the baffled sketcher's temper. It is the early palaces, of +course, and also, to be fair, some of the late, if we could take them +one by one, that give the Canal the best of its grand air. The fairest +are often cheek-by-jowl with the foulest, and there are few, alas, so +fair as to have been completely protected by their beauty. The ages and +the generations have worked their will on them, and the wind and the +weather have had much to say; but disfigured and dishonoured as they +are, with the bruises of their marbles and the patience of their ruin, +there is nothing like them in the world, and the long succession of +their faded, conscious faces makes of the quiet waterway they overhang +a _promenade historique_ of which the lesson, however often we read it, +gives, in the depth of its interest, an incomparable dignity to Venice. +We read it in the Romanesque arches, crooked to-day in their very +curves, of the early middle-age, in the exquisite individual Gothic of +the splendid time, and in the cornices and columns of a decadence almost +as proud. These things at present are almost equally touching in their +good faith; they have each in their degree so effectually parted with +their pride. They have lived on as they could and lasted as they might, +and we hold them to no account of their infirmities, for even those of +them whose blank eyes to-day meet criticism with most submission are far +less vulgar than the uses we have mainly managed to put them to. We have +botched them and patched them and covered them with sordid signs; we +have restored and improved them with a merciless taste, and the best of +them we have made over to the pedlars. Some of the most striking objects +in the finest vistas at present are the huge advertisements of the +curiosity-shops. + +The antiquity-mongers in Venice have all the courage of their opinion, +and it is easy to see how well they know they can confound you with an +unanswerable question. What is the whole place but a curiosity-shop, and +what are you here for yourself but to pick up odds and ends? "We pick +them up _for_ you," say these honest Jews, whose prices are marked +in dollars, "and who shall blame us if, the flowers being pretty well +plucked, we add an artificial rose or two to the composition of the +bouquet?" They take care, in a word, that there be plenty of relics, and +their establishments are huge and active. They administer the antidote +to pedantry, and you can complain of them only if you never cross their +thresholds. If you take this step you are lost, for you have parted with +the correctness of your attitude. Venice becomes frankly from such a +moment the big depressing dazzling joke in which after all our sense +of her contradictions sinks to rest--the grimace of an over-strained +philosophy. It's rather a comfort, for the curiosity-shops are amusing. +You have bad moments indeed as you stand in their halls of humbug and, +in the intervals of haggling, hear through the high windows the soft +splash of the sea on the old water-steps, for you think with anger of +the noble homes that are laid waste in such scenes, of the delicate +lives that must have been, that might still be, led there. You +reconstruct the admirable house according to your own needs; leaning on +a back balcony, you drop your eyes into one of the little green gardens +with which, for the most part, such establishments are exasperatingly +blessed, and end by feeling it a shame that you yourself are not in +possession. (I take for granted, of course, that as you go and come you +are, in imagination, perpetually lodging yourself and setting up your +gods; for if this innocent pastime, this borrowing of the mind, be not +your favourite sport there is a flaw in the appeal that Venice makes +to you.) There may be happy cases in which your envy is tempered, or +perhaps I should rather say intensified, by real participation. If you +have had the good fortune to enjoy the hospitality of an old Venetian +home and to lead your life a little in the painted chambers that still +echo with one of the historic names, you have entered by the shortest +step into the inner spirit of the place. If it did n't savour of +treachery to private kindness I should like to speak frankly of one of +these delightful, even though alienated, structures, to refer to it as +a splendid example of the old palatial type. But I can only do so in +passing, with a hundred precautions, and, lifting the curtain at the +edge, drop a commemorative word on the success with which, in this +particularly happy instance, the cosmopolite habit, the modern sympathy, +the intelligent, flexible attitude, the latest fruit of time, adjust +themselves to the great gilded, relinquished shell and try to fill it +out. A Venetian palace that has not too grossly suffered and that is not +overwhelming by its mass makes almost any life graceful that may be +led in it. With cultivated and generous contemporary ways it reveals a +pre-established harmony. As you live in it day after day its beauty and +its interest sink more deeply into your spirit; it has its moods and +its hours and its mystic voices and its shifting expressions. If in +the absence of its masters you have happened to have it to yourself +for twenty-four hours you will never forget the charm of its haunted +stillness, late on the summer afternoon for instance, when the call of +playing children comes in behind from the campo, nor the way the old +ghosts seemed to pass on tip-toe on the marble floors. It gives you +practically the essence of the matter that we are considering, for +beneath the high balconies Venice comes and goes, and the particular +stretch you command contains all the characteristics. Everything has its +turn, from the heavy barges of merchandise, pushed by long poles and the +patient shoulder, to the floating pavilions of the great serenades, and +you may study at your leisure the admirable Venetian arts of managing a +boat and organising a spectacle. Of the beautiful free stroke with which +the gondola, especially when there are two oars, is impelled, you never, +in the Venetian scene, grow weary; it is always in the picture, and the +large profiled action that lets the standing rowers throw themselves +forward to a constant recovery has the double value of being, at the +fag-end of greatness, the only energetic note. The people from the +hotels are always afloat, and, at the hotel pace, the solitary gondolier +(like the solitary horseman of the old-fashioned novel) is, I confess, +a somewhat melancholy figure. Perched on his poop without a mate, he +re-enacts perpetually, in high relief, with his toes turned out, the +comedy of his odd and charming movement. He always has a little the +look of an absent-minded nursery-maid pushing her small charges in a +perambulator. + +But why should I risk too free a comparison, where this picturesque and +amiable class are concerned? I delight in their sun-burnt complexions +and their childish dialect; I know them only by their merits, and I am +grossly prejudiced in their favour. They are interesting and touching, +and alike in their virtues and their defects human nature is simplified +as with a big effective brush. Affecting above all is their dependence +on the stranger, the whimsical stranger who swims out of their ken, yet +whom Providence sometimes restores. The best of them at any rate are +in their line great artists. On the swarming feast-days, on the strange +feast-night of the Redentore, their steering is a miracle of ease. The +master-hands, the celebrities and winners of prizes--you may see them +on the private gondolas in spotless white, with brilliant sashes and +ribbons, and often with very handsome persons--take the right of way +with a pardonable insolence. They penetrate the crush of boats with +an authority of their own. The crush of boats, the universal sociable +bumping and squeezing, is great when, on the summer nights, the ladies +shriek with alarm, the city pays the fiddlers, and the illuminated +barges, scattering music and song, lead a long train down the Canal. The +barges used to be rowed in rhythmic strokes, but now they are towed by +the steamer. The coloured lamps, the vocalists before the hotels, are +not to my sense the greatest seduction of Venice; but it would be +an uncandid sketch of the Canalazzo that shouldn't touch them with +indulgence. Taking one nuisance with another, they are probably the +prettiest in the world, and if they have in general more magic for the +new arrival than for the old Venice-lover, they in any case, at their +best, keep up the immemorial tradition. The Venetians have had from the +beginning of time the pride of their processions and spectacles, and +it's a wonder how with empty pockets they still make a clever show. The +Carnival is dead, but these are the scraps of its inheritance. Vauxhall +on the water is of course more Vauxhall than ever, with the good fortune +of home-made music and of a mirror that reduplicates and multiplies. +The feast of the Redeemer--the great popular feast of the year--is a +wonderful Venetian Vauxhall. All Venice on this occasion takes to the +boats for the night and loads them with lamps and provisions. Wedged +together in a mass it sups and sings; every boat is a floating arbour, +a private _cafe-concert_. Of all Christian commemorations it is the most +ingenuously and harmlessly pagan. Toward morning the passengers repair +to the Lido, where, as the sun rises, they plunge, still sociably, into +the sea. The night of the Redentore has been described, but it would be +interesting to have an account, from the domestic point of view, of its +usual morrow. It is mainly an affair of the Giudecca, however, which is +bridged over from the Zattere to the great church. The pontoons are laid +together during the day--it is all done with extraordinary celerity and +art--and the bridge is prolonged across the Canalazzo (to Santa Maria +Zobenigo), which is my only warrant for glancing at the occasion. We +glance at it from our palace windows; lengthening our necks a little, as +we look up toward the Salute, we see all Venice, on the July afternoon, +so serried as to move slowly, pour across the temporary footway. It is +a flock of very good children, and the bridged Canal is their toy. All +Venice on such occasions is gentle and friendly; not even all Venice +pushes anyone into the water. + +But from the same high windows we catch without any stretching of the +neck a still more indispensable note in the picture, a famous pretender +eating the bread of bitterness. This repast is served in the open air, +on a neat little terrace, by attendants in livery, and there is no +indiscretion in our seeing that the pretender dines. Ever since the +table d'hote in "Candide" Venice has been the refuge of monarchs in want +of thrones--she would n't know herself without her _rois en exil._ The +exile is agreeable and soothing, the gondola lets them down gently. Its +movement is an anodyne, its silence a philtre, and little by little it +rocks all ambitions to sleep. The proscript has plenty of leisure to +write his proclamations and even his memoirs, and I believe he has +organs in which they are published; but the only noise he makes in the +world is the harmless splash of his oars. He comes and goes along the +Canalazzo, and he might be much worse employed. He is but one of the +interesting objects it presents, however, and I am by no means sure +that he is the most striking. He has a rival, if not in the iron +bridge, which, alas, is within our range, at least--to take an immediate +example--in the Montecuculi Palace. Far-descended and weary, but +beautiful in its crooked old age, with its lovely proportions, its +delicate round arches, its carvings and its disks of marble, is the +haunted Montecuculi. Those who have a kindness for Venetian gossip like +to remember that it was once for a few months the property of Robert +Browning, who, however, never lived in it, and who died in the splendid +Rezzonico, the residence of his son and a wonderful cosmopolite +"document," which, as it presents itself, in an admirable position, but +a short way farther down the Canal, we can almost see, in spite of the +curve, from the window at which we stand. This great seventeenth century +pile, throwing itself upon the water with a peculiar florid assurance, +a certain upward toss of its cornice which gives it the air of a rearing +sea-horse, decorates immensely--and within, as well as without--the wide +angle that it commands. + +There is a more formal greatness in the high square Gothic Foscari, +just below it, one of the noblest creations of the fifteenth century, +a masterpiece of symmetry and majesty. Dedicated to-day to official +uses--it is the property of the State--it looks conscious of the +consideration it enjoys, and is one of the few great houses within our +range whose old age strikes us as robust and painless. It is visibly +"kept up"; perhaps it is kept up too much; perhaps I am wrong in +thinking so well of it. These doubts and fears course rapidly through my +mind--I am easily their victim when it is a question of architecture--as +they are apt to do to-day, in Italy, almost anywhere, in the presence +of the beautiful, of the desecrated or the neglected. We feel at such +moments as if the eye of Mr. Ruskin were upon us; we grow nervous and +lose our confidence. This makes me inevitably, in talking of Venice, +seek a pusillanimous safety in the trivial and the obvious. I am on +firm ground in rejoicing in the little garden directly opposite our +windows--it is another proof that they really show us everything--and in +feeling that the gardens of Venice would deserve a page to themselves. +They are infinitely more numerous than the arriving stranger can +suppose; they nestle with a charm all their own in the complications of +most back-views. Some of them are exquisite, many are large, and even +the scrappiest have an artful understanding, in the interest of colour, +with the waterways that edge their foundations. On the small canals, +in the hunt for amusement, they are the prettiest surprises of all. +The tangle of plants and flowers crowds over the battered walls, the +greenness makes an arrangement with the rosy sordid brick. Of all the +reflected and liquefied things in Venice, and the number of these is +countless, I think the lapping water loves them most. They are numerous +on the Canalazzo, but wherever they occur they give a brush to the +picture and in particular, it is easy to guess, give a sweetness to the +house. Then the elements are complete--the trio of air and water and of +things that grow. Venice without them would be too much a matter of the +tides and the stones. Even the little trellises of the _traghetti_ count +charmingly as reminders, amid so much artifice, of the woodland nature +of man. The vine-leaves, trained on horizontal poles, make a roof +of chequered shade for the gondoliers and ferrymen, who doze there +according to opportunity, or chatter or hail the approaching "fare." +There is no "hum" in Venice, so that their voices travel far; they +enter your windows and mingle even with your dreams. I beg the reader +to believe that if I had time to go into everything, I would go into the +_traghetti_, which have their manners and their morals, and which +used to have their piety. This piety was always a _madonnina_, the +protectress of the passage--a quaint figure of the Virgin with the red +spark of a lamp at her feet. The lamps appear for the most part to have +gone out, and the images doubtless have been sold for _bric-a-brac_. +The ferrymen, for aught I know, are converted to Nihilism--a faith +consistent happily with a good stroke of business. One of the figures +has been left, however--the Madonnetta which gives its name to a +_traghetto_ near the Rialto. But this sweet survivor is a carven stone +inserted ages ago in the corner of an old palace and doubtless difficult +of removal. _Pazienza_, the day will come when so marketable a relic +will also be extracted from its socket and purchased by the devouring +American. I leave that expression, on second thought, standing; but I +repent of it when I remember that it is a devouring American--a lady +long resident in Venice and whose kindnesses all Venetians, as well as +her country-people, know, who has rekindled some of the extinguished +tapers, setting up especially the big brave Gothic shrine, of painted +and gilded wood, which, on the top of its stout _palo_, sheds its +influence on the place of passage opposite the Salute. + +If I may not go into those of the palaces this devious discourse has +left behind, much less may I enter the great galleries of the Academy, +which rears its blank wall, surmounted by the lion of St. Mark, well +within sight of the windows at which we are still lingering. This +wondrous temple of Venetian art--for all it promises little from +without--overhangs, in a manner, the Grand Canal, but if we were so much +as to cross its threshold we should wander beyond recall. It contains, +in some of the most magnificent halls--where the ceilings have all +the glory with which the imagination of Venice alone could over-arch a +room--some of the noblest pictures in the world; and whether or not +we go back to them on any particular occasion for another look, it is +always a comfort to know that they are there, as the sense of them on +the spot is a part of the furniture of the mind--the sense of them close +at hand, behind every wall and under every cover, like the inevitable +reverse of a medal, of the side exposed to the air that reflects, +intensifies, completes the scene. In other words, as it was the +inevitable destiny of Venice to be painted, and painted with passion, so +the wide world of picture becomes, as we live there, and however much we +go about our affairs, the constant habitation of our thoughts. The truth +is, we are in it so uninterruptedly, at home and abroad, that there +is scarcely a pressure upon us to seek it in one place more than in +another. Choose your standpoint at random and trust the picture to come +to you. This is manifestly why I have not, I find myself conscious, said +more about the features of the Canalazzo which occupy the reach between +the Salute and the position we have so obstinately taken up. It is +still there before us, however, and the delightful little Palazzo Dario, +intimately familiar to English and American travellers, picks itself out +in the foreshortened brightness. The Dario is covered with the loveliest +little marble plates and sculptured circles; it is made up of exquisite +pieces--as if there had been only enough to make it small--so that it +looks, in its extreme antiquity, a good deal like a house of cards that +hold together by a tenure it would be fatal to touch. An old Venetian +house dies hard indeed, and I should add that this delicate thing, +with submission in every feature, continues to resist the contact of +generations of lodgers. It is let out in floors (it used to be let as +a whole) and in how many eager hands--for it is in great +requisition--under how many fleeting dispensations have we not known and +loved it? People are always writing in advance to secure it, as they +are to secure the Jenkins's gondolier, and as the gondola passes we +see strange faces at the windows--though it's ten to one we recognise +them--and the millionth artist coming forth with his traps at the +water-gate. The poor little patient Dario is one of the most flourishing +booths at the fair. + +The faces in the window look out at the great Sansovino--the splendid +pile that is now occupied by the Prefect. I feel decidedly that I +don't object as I ought to the palaces of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries. Their pretensions impose upon me, and the imagination peoples +them more freely than it can people the interiors of the prime. Was not +moreover this masterpiece of Sansovino once occupied by the Venetian +post-office, and thereby intimately connected with an ineffaceable first +impression of the author of these remarks? He had arrived, wondering, +palpitating, twenty-three years ago, after nightfall, and, the first +thing on the morrow, had repaired to the post-office for his letters. +They had been waiting a long time and were full of delayed interest, and +he returned with them to the gondola and floated slowly down the Canal. +The mixture, the rapture, the wonderful temple of the _poste restante_, +the beautiful strangeness, all humanised by good news--the memory of +this abides with him still, so that there always proceeds from the +splendid waterfront I speak of a certain secret appeal, something that +seems to have been uttered first in the sonorous chambers of youth. Of +course this association falls to the ground--or rather splashes into the +water--if I am the victim of a confusion. _Was_ the edifice in question +twenty-three years ago the post-office, which has occupied since, for +many a day, very much humbler quarters? I am afraid to take the proper +steps for finding out, lest I should learn that during these years I +have misdirected my emotion. A better reason for the sentiment, at any +rate, is that such a great house has surely, in the high beauty of its +tiers, a refinement of its own. They make one think of colosseums and +aqueducts and bridges, and they constitute doubtless, in Venice, the +most pardonable specimen of the imitative. I have even a timid kindness +for the huge Pesaro, far down the Canal, whose main reproach, more even +than the coarseness of its forms, is its swaggering size, its want +of consideration for the general picture, which the early examples so +reverently respect. The Pesaro is as far out of the frame as a modern +hotel, and the Cornaro, close to it, oversteps almost equally the +modesty of art. One more thing they and their kindred do, I must add, +for which, unfortunately, we can patronise them less. They make even the +most elaborate material civilisation of the present day seem woefully +shrunken and _bourgeois_, for they simply--I allude to the biggest +palaces--can't be lived in as they were intended to be. The modern +tenant may take in all the magazines, but he bends not the bow of +Achilles. He occupies the place, but he doesn't fill it, and he has +guests from the neighbouring inns with ulsters and Baedekers. We are +far at the Pesaro, by the way, from our attaching window, and we take +advantage of it to go in rather a melancholy mood to the end. The long +straight vista from the Foscari to the Rialto, the great middle stretch +of the Canal, contains, as the phrase is, a hundred objects of interest, +but it contains most the bright oddity of its general Deluge air. In all +these centuries it has never got over its resemblance to a flooded city; +for some reason or other it is the only part of Venice in which the +houses look as if the waters had overtaken them. Everywhere else they +reckon with them--have chosen them; here alone the lapping seaway seems +to confess itself an accident. + +{Illustration: PALAZZO MONCENIGO, VENICE} + +There are persons who hold this long, gay, shabby, spotty perspective, +in which, with its immense field of confused reflection, the houses have +infinite variety, the dullest expanse in Venice. It was not dull, we +imagine, for Lord Byron, who lived in the midmost of the three Mocenigo +palaces, where the writing-table is still shown at which he gave the +rein to his passions. For other observers it is sufficiently enlivened +by so delightful a creation as the Palazzo Loredan, once a masterpiece +and at present the Municipio, not to speak of a variety of other +immemorial bits whose beauty still has a degree of freshness. Some of +the most touching relics of early Venice are here--for it was here she +precariously clustered--peeping out of a submersion more pitiless than +the sea. As we approach the Rialto indeed the picture falls off and a +comparative commonness suffuses it. There is a wide paved walk on either +side of the Canal, on which the waterman--and who in Venice is not a +waterman?--is prone to seek repose. I speak of the summer days--it is +the summer Venice that is the visible Venice. The big tarry barges are +drawn up at the _fondamenta_, and the bare-legged boatmen, in faded blue +cotton, lie asleep on the hot stones. If there were no colour anywhere +else there would be enough in their tanned personalities. Half the low +doorways open into the warm interior of waterside drinking-shops, and +here and there, on the quay, beneath the bush that overhangs the door, +there are rickety tables and chairs. Where in Venice is there not the +amusement of character and of detail? The tone in this part is very +vivid, and is largely that of the brown plebeian faces looking out of +the patchy miscellaneous houses--the faces of fat undressed women and of +other simple folk who are not aware that they enjoy, from balconies once +doubtless patrician, a view the knowing ones of the earth come thousands +of miles to envy them. The effect is enhanced by the tattered clothes +hung to dry in the windows, by the sun-faded rags that flutter from the +polished balustrades--these are ivory-smooth with time; and the whole +scene profits by the general law that renders decadence and ruin +in Venice more brilliant than any prosperity. Decay is in this +extraordinary place golden in tint and misery _couleur de rose_. The +gondolas of the correct people are unmitigated sable, but the poor +market-boats from the islands are kaleidoscopic. + +The Bridge of the Rialto is a name to conjure with, but, honestly +speaking, it is scarcely the gem of the composition. There are of course +two ways of taking it--from the water or from the upper passage, where +its small shops and booths abound in Venetian character; but it mainly +counts as a feature of the Canal when seen from the gondola or even from +the awful _vaporetto_. The great curve of its single arch is much to +be commended, especially when, coming from the direction of the +railway-station, you see it frame with its sharp compass-line the +perfect picture, the reach of the Canal on the other side. But the backs +of the little shops make from the water a graceless collective hump, and +the inside view is the diverting one. The big arch of the bridge--like +the arches of all the bridges--is the waterman's friend in wet weather. +The gondolas, when it rains, huddle beside the peopled barges, and +the young ladies from the hotels, vaguely fidgeting, complain of the +communication of insect life. Here indeed is a little of everything, and +the jewellers of this celebrated precinct--they have their immemorial +row--make almost as fine a show as the fruiterers. It is a universal +market, and a fine place to study Venetian types. The produce of +the islands is discharged there, and the fishmongers announce their +presence. All one's senses indeed are vigorously attacked; the whole +place is violently hot and bright, all odorous and noisy. The churning +of the screw of the _vaporetto_ mingles with the other sounds--not +indeed that this offensive note is confined to one part of the Canal. +But Just here the little piers of the resented steamer are particularly +near together, and it seems somehow to be always kicking up the water. +As we go further down we see it stopping exactly beneath the glorious +windows of the Ca'd'Oro. It has chosen its position well, and who +shall gainsay it for having put itself under the protection of the +most romantic facade in Europe? The companionship of these objects is +a symbol; it expresses supremely the present and the future of Venice. +Perfect, in its prime, was the marble Ca'd'Oro, with the noble recesses +of its _loggie_, but even then it probably never "met a want," like the +successful _vaporetto_. If, however, we are not to go into the Museo +Civico--the old Museo Correr, which rears a staring renovated front +far down on the left, near the station, so also we must keep out of the +great vexed question of steam on the Canalazzo, just as a while since we +prudently kept out of the Accademia. These are expensive and complicated +excursions. It is obvious that if the _vaporetti_ have contributed to +the ruin of the gondoliers, already hard pressed by fate, and to that of +the palaces, whose foundations their waves undermine, and that if +they have robbed the Grand Canal of the supreme distinction of its +tranquillity, so on the other hand they have placed "rapid transit," in +the New York phrase, in everybody's reach, and enabled everybody--save +indeed those who wouldn't for the world--to rush about Venice as +furiously as people rush about New York. The suitability of this +consummation needn't be pointed out. + +Even we ourselves, in the irresistible contagion, are going so fast now +that we have only time to note in how clever and costly a fashion the +Museo Civico, the old Fondaco dei Turchi, has been reconstructed and +restored. It is a glare of white marble without, and a series of showy +majestic halls within, where a thousand curious mementos and relics of +old Venice are gathered and classified. Of its miscellaneous treasures +I fear I may perhaps frivolously prefer the series of its remarkable +living Longhis, an illustration of manners more copious than the +celebrated Carpaccio, the two ladies with their little animals and their +long sticks. Wonderful indeed today are the museums of Italy, where +the renovations and the _belle ordonnance_ speak of funds apparently +unlimited, in spite of the fact that the numerous custodians +frankly look starved. What is the pecuniary source of all this civic +magnificence--it is shown in a hundred other ways--and how do the +Italian cities manage to acquit themselves of expenses that would be +formidable to communities richer and doubtless less aesthetic? Who pays +the bills for the expressive statues alone, the general exuberance +of sculpture, with which every _piazzetta_ of almost every village +is patriotically decorated? Let us not seek an answer to the puzzling +question, but observe instead that we are passing the mouth of the +populous Canareggio, next widest of the waterways, where the race of +Shylock abides, and at the corner of which the big colourless church of +San Geremia stands gracefully enough on guard. The Canareggio, with its +wide lateral footways and humpbacked bridges, makes on the feast of St. +John an admirable noisy, tawdry theatre for one of the prettiest and the +most infantile of the Venetian processions. + +The rest of the course is a reduced magnificence, in spite of +interesting bits, of the battered pomp of the Pesaro and the Cornaro, +of the recurrent memories of royalty in exile which cluster about the +Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, once the residence of the Comte de Chambord +and still that of his half-brother, in spite too of the big Papadopoli +gardens, opposite the station, the largest private grounds in Venice, +but of which Venice in general mainly gets the benefit in the usual form +of irrepressible greenery climbing over walls and nodding at water. The +rococo church of the Scalzi is here, all marble and malachite, all a +cold, hard glitter and a costly, curly ugliness, and here too, opposite, +on the top of its high steps, is San Simeone Profeta, I won't say +immortalised, but unblushingly misrepresented, by the perfidious +Canaletto. I shall not stay to unravel the mystery of this prosaic +painter's malpractices; he falsified without fancy, and as he apparently +transposed at will the objects he reproduced, one is never sure of the +particular view that may have constituted his subject. It would look +exactly like such and such a place if almost everything were not +different. San Simeone Profeta appears to hang there upon the wall; but +it is on the wrong side of the Canal and the other elements quite fail +to correspond. One's confusion is the greater because one doesn't +know that everything may not really have changed, even beyond all +probability--though it's only in America that churches cross the street +or the river--and the mixture of the recognisable and the different +makes the ambiguity maddening, all the more that the painter is almost +as attaching as he is bad. Thanks at any rate to the white church, domed +and porticoed, on the top of its steps, the traveller emerging for +the first time upon the terrace of the railway-station seems to have a +Canaletto before him. He speedily discovers indeed even in the presence +of this scene of the final accents of the Canalazzo--there is a charm in +the old pink warehouses on the hot _fondamenta_--that he has something +much better. He looks up and down at the gathered gondolas; he has his +surprise after all, his little first Venetian thrill; and as the terrace +of the station ushers in these things we shall say no harm of it, though +it is not lovely. It is the beginning of his experience, but it is the +end of the Grand Canal. + +1892. + + + + + +VENICE: AN EARLY IMPRESSION + + +There would be much to say about that golden chain of historic cities +which stretches from Milan to Venice, in which the very names--Brescia, +Verona, Mantua, Padua--are an ornament to one's phrase; but I should +have to draw upon recollections now three years old and to make my short +story a long one. Of Verona and Venice only have I recent impressions, +and even to these must I do hasty justice. I came into Venice, just as +I had done before, toward the end of a summer's day, when the shadows +begin to lengthen and the light to glow, and found that the attendant +sensations bore repetition remarkably well. There was the same last +intolerable delay at Mestre, just before your first glimpse of the +lagoon confirms the already distinct sea-smell which has added speed to +the precursive flight of your imagination; then the liquid level, +edged afar off by its band of undiscriminated domes and spires, soon +distinguished and proclaimed, however, as excited and contentious heads +multiply at the windows of the train; then your long rumble on the +immense white railway-bridge, which, in spite of the invidious contrast +drawn, and very properly, by Mr. Ruskin between the old and the new +approach, does truly, in a manner, shine across the green lap of the +lagoon like a mighty causeway of marble; then the plunge into the +station, which would be exactly similar to every other plunge save for +one little fact--that the keynote of the great medley of voices borne +back from the exit is not "Cab, sir!" but "Barca, signore!" + +I do not mean, however, to follow the traveller through every phase of +his initiation, at the risk of stamping poor Venice beyond repair as the +supreme bugbear of literature; though for my own part I hold that to +a fine healthy romantic appetite the subject can't be too diffusely +treated. Meeting in the Piazza on the evening of my arrival a young +American painter who told me that he had been spending the summer just +where I found him, I could have assaulted him for very envy. He was +painting forsooth the interior of St. Mark's. To be a young American +painter unperplexed by the mocking, elusive soul of things and satisfied +with their wholesome light-bathed surface and shape; keen of eye; fond +of colour, of sea and sky and anything that may chance between them; of +old lace and old brocade and old furniture (even when made to order); of +time-mellowed harmonies on nameless canvases and happy contours in cheap +old engravings; to spend one's mornings in still, productive analysis +of the clustered shadows of the Basilica, one's afternoons anywhere, in +church or campo, on canal or lagoon, and one's evenings in star-light +gossip at Florian's, feeling the sea-breeze throb languidly between the +two great pillars of the Piazzetta and over the low black domes of the +church--this, I consider, is to be as happy as is consistent with the +preservation of reason. + +The mere use of one's eyes in Venice is happiness enough, and generous +observers find it hard to keep an account of their profits in this line. +Everything the attention touches holds it, keeps playing with it--thanks +to some inscrutable flattery of the atmosphere. Your brown-skinned, +white-shirted gondolier, twisting himself in the light, seems to you, +as you lie at contemplation beneath your awning, a perpetual symbol of +Venetian "effect." The light here is in fact a mighty magician and, with +all respect to Titian, Veronese and Tintoret, the greatest artist +of them all. You should see in places the material with which it +deals--slimy brick, marble battered and befouled, rags, dirt, decay. +Sea and sky seem to meet half-way, to blend their tones into a soft +iridescence, a lustrous compound of wave and cloud and a hundred +nameless local reflections, and then to fling the clear tissue against +every object of vision. You may see these elements at work everywhere, +but to see them in their intensity you should choose the finest day +in the month and have yourself rowed far away across the lagoon to +Torcello. Without making this excursion you can hardly pretend to +know Venice or to sympathise with that longing for pure radiance which +animated her great colourists. It is a perfect bath of light, and I +couldn't get rid of a fancy that we were cleaving the upper atmosphere +on some hurrying cloud-skiff. At Torcello there is nothing but the light +to see--nothing at least but a sort of blooming sand-bar intersected +by a single narrow creek which does duty as a canal and occupied by a +meagre cluster of huts, the dwellings apparently of market-gardeners +and fishermen, and by a ruinous church of the eleventh century. It is +impossible to imagine a more penetrating case of unheeded collapse. +Torcello was the mother-city of Venice, and she lies there now, a mere +mouldering vestige, like a group of weather-bleached parental bones left +impiously unburied. I stopped my gondola at the mouth of the shallow +inlet and walked along the grass beside a hedge to the low-browed, +crumbling cathedral. The charm of certain vacant grassy spaces, in +Italy, overfrowned by masses of brickwork that are honeycombed by the +suns of centuries, is something that I hereby renounce once for all the +attempt to express; but you may be sure that whenever I mention such a +spot enchantment lurks in it. + +A delicious stillness covered the little campo at Torcello; I remember +none so subtly audible save that of the Roman Campagna. There was +no life but the visible tremor of the brilliant air and the cries of +half-a-dozen young children who dogged our steps and clamoured for +coppers. These children, by the way, were the handsomest little brats in +the world, and, each was furnished with a pair of eyes that could only +have signified the protest of nature against the meanness of fortune. +They were very nearly as naked as savages, and their little bellies +protruded like those of infant cannibals in the illustrations of books +of travel; but as they scampered and sprawled in the soft, thick grass, +grinning like suddenly-translated cherubs and showing their hungry +little teeth, they suggested forcibly that the best assurance of +happiness in this world is to be found in the maximum of innocence and +the minimum of wealth. One small urchin--framed, if ever a child was, to +be the joy of an aristocratic mamma--was the most expressively beautiful +creature I had ever looked upon. He had a smile to make Correggio sigh +in his grave; and yet here he was running wild among the sea-stunted +bushes, on the lonely margin of a decaying world, in prelude to how +blank or to how dark a destiny? Verily nature is still at odds with +propriety; though indeed if they ever really pull together I fear nature +will quite lose her distinction. An infant citizen of our own republic, +straight-haired, pale-eyed and freckled, duly darned and catechised, +marching into a New England schoolhouse, is an object often seen and +soon forgotten; but I think I shall always remember with infinite tender +conjecture, as the years roll by, this little unlettered Eros of the +Adriatic strand. Yet all youthful things at Torcello were not cheerful, +for the poor lad who brought us the key of the cathedral was shaking +with an ague, and his melancholy presence seemed to point the moral of +forsaken nave and choir. The church, admirably primitive and curious, +reminded me of the two or three oldest churches of Rome--St. Clement +and St. Agnes. The interior is rich in grimly mystical mosaics of the +twelfth century and the patchwork of precious fragments in the pavement +not inferior to that of St. Mark's. But the terribly distinct Apostles +are ranged against their dead gold backgrounds as stiffly as grenadiers +presenting arms--intensely personal sentinels of a personal Deity. Their +stony stare seems to wait for ever vainly for some visible revival +of primitive orthodoxy, and one may well wonder whether it finds much +beguilement in idly-gazing troops of Western heretics--passionless even +in their heresy. + +I had been curious to see whether in the galleries and temples of Venice +I should be disposed to transpose my old estimates--to burn what I had +adored and adore what I had burned. It is a sad truth that one can stand +in the Ducal Palace for the first time but once, with the deliciously +ponderous sense of that particular half-hour's being an era in one's +mental history; but I had the satisfaction of finding at least--a great +comfort in a short stay--that none of my early memories were likely to +change places and that I could take up my admirations where I had left +them. I still found Carpaccio delightful, Veronese magnificent, Titian +supremely beautiful and Tintoret scarce to be appraised. I repaired +immediately to the little church of San Cassano, which contains the +smaller of Tintoret's two great Crucifixions; and when I had looked +at it a while I drew a long breath and felt I could now face any other +picture in Venice with proper self-possession. It seemed to me I had +advanced to the uttermost limit of painting; that beyond this another +art--inspired poetry--begins, and that Bellini, Veronese, Giorgione, and +Titian, all joining hands and straining every muscle of their genius, +reach forward not so far but that they leave a visible space in which +Tintoret alone is master. I well remember the exaltations to which +he lifted me when first I learned to know him; but the glow of that +comparatively youthful amazement is dead, and with it, I fear, +that confident vivacity of phrase of which, in trying to utter my +impressions, I felt less the magniloquence than the impotence. In +his power there are many weak spots, mysterious lapses and fitful +intermissions; but when the list of his faults is complete he still +remains to me the most _interesting_ of painters. His reputation rests +chiefly on a more superficial sort of merit--his energy, his unsurpassed +productivity, his being, as Theophile Gautier says, _le roi des +fougueux_. These qualities are immense, but the great source of his +impressiveness is that his indefatigable hand never drew a line that was +not, as one may say, a moral line. No painter ever had such breadth and +such depth; and even Titian, beside him, scarce figures as more than a +great decorative artist. Mr. Ruskin, whose eloquence in dealing with the +great Venetians sometimes outruns his discretion, is fond of speaking +even of Veronese as a painter of deep spiritual intentions. This, it +seems to me, is pushing matters too far, and the author of "The Rape +of Europa" is, pictorially speaking, no greater casuist than any other +genius of supreme good taste. Titian was assuredly a mighty poet, but +Tintoret--well, Tintoret was almost a prophet. Before his greatest works +you are conscious of a sudden evaporation of old doubts and dilemmas, +and the eternal problem of the conflict between idealism and realism +dies the most natural of deaths. In his genius the problem is +practically solved; the alternatives are so harmoniously interfused that +I defy the keenest critic to say where one begins and the other ends. +The homeliest prose melts into the most ethereal poetry--the literal and +the imaginative fairly confound their identity. + +This, however, is vague praise. Tintoret's great merit, to my mind, was +his unequalled distinctness of vision. When once he had conceived the +germ of a scene it defined itself to his imagination with an intensity, +an amplitude, an individuality of expression, which makes one's +observation of his pictures seem less an operation of the mind than +a kind of supplementary experience of life. Veronese and Titian are +content with a much looser specification, as their treatment of any +subject that the author of the Crucifixion at San Cassano has also +treated abundantly proves. There are few more suggestive contrasts than +that between the absence of a total character at all commensurate with +its scattered variety and brilliancy in Veronese's "Marriage of Cana," +at the Louvre, and the poignant, almost startling, completeness of +Tintoret's illustration of the theme at the Salute church. To compare +his "Presentation of the Virgin," at the Madonna dell' Orto, with +Titian's at the Academy, or his "Annunciation" with Titian's close at +hand, is to measure the essential difference between observation and +imagination. One has certainly not said all that there is to say for +Titian when one has called him an observer. _Il y mettait du sien_, +and I use the term to designate roughly the artist whose apprehension, +infinitely deep and strong when applied to the single figure or +to easily balanced groups, spends itself vainly on great dramatic +combinations--or rather leaves them ungauged. It was the whole scene +that Tintoret seemed to have beheld in a flash of inspiration intense +enough to stamp it ineffaceably on his perception; and it was the whole +scene, complete, peculiar, individual, unprecedented, that he committed +to canvas with all the vehemence of his talent. Compare his "Last +Supper," at San Giorgio--its long, diagonally placed table, its dusky +spaciousness, its scattered lamp-light and halo-light, its startled, +gesticulating figures, its richly realistic foreground--with the +customary formal, almost mathematical rendering of the subject, in which +impressiveness seems to have been sought in elimination rather than +comprehension. You get from Tintoret's work the impression that he +_felt_, pictorially, the great, beautiful, terrible spectacle of human +life very much as Shakespeare felt it poetically--with a heart that +never ceased to beat a passionate accompaniment to every stroke of +his brush. Thanks to this fact his works are signally grave, and their +almost universal and rapidly increasing decay doesn't relieve their +gloom. Nothing indeed can well be sadder than the great collection of +Tintorets at San Rocco. Incurable blackness is settling fast upon all of +them, and they frown at you across the sombre splendour of their great +chambers like gaunt twilight phantoms of pictures. To our children's +children Tintoret, as things are going, can be hardly more than a name; +and such of them as shall miss the tragic beauty, already so dimmed +and stained, of the great "Bearing of the Cross" in that temple of his +spirit will live and die without knowing the largest eloquence of art. +If you wish to add the last touch of solemnity to the place recall +as vividly as possible while you linger at San Rocco the painter's +singularly interesting portrait of himself, at the Louvre. The old +man looks out of the canvas from beneath a brow as sad as a sunless +twilight, with just such a stoical hopelessness as you might fancy him +to wear if he stood at your side gazing at his rotting canvases. It +isn't whimsical to read it as the face of a man who felt that he had +given the world more than the world was likely to repay. Indeed before +every picture of Tintoret you may remember this tremendous portrait with +profit. On one side the power, the passion, the illusion of his art; on +the other the mortal fatigue of his spirit. The world's knowledge of +him is so small that the portrait throws a doubly precious light on his +personality; and when we wonder vainly what manner of man he was, and +what were his purpose, his faith and his method, we may find forcible +assurance there that they were at any rate his life--one of the most +intellectually passionate ever led. + +Verona, which was my last Italian stopping-place, is in any conditions +a delightfully interesting city; but the kindness of my own memory of it +is deepened by a subsequent ten days' experience of Germany. I rose one +morning at Verona, and went to bed at night at Botzen! The statement +needs no comment, and the two places, though but fifty miles apart, are +as painfully dissimilar as their names. I had prepared myself for your +delectation with a copious tirade on German manners, German scenery, +German art and the German stage--on the lights and shadows of Innsbrueck, +Munich, Nueremberg and Heidelberg; but just as I was about to put pen +to paper I glanced into a little volume on these very topics lately +published by that famous novelist and moralist, M. Ernest Feydeau, +the fruit of a summer's observation at Homburg. This work produced a +reaction; and if I chose to follow M. Feydeau's own example when he +wishes to qualify his approbation I might call his treatise by any vile +name known to the speech of man. But I content myself with pronouncing +it superficial. I then reflect that my own opportunities for seeing and +judging were extremely limited, and I suppress my tirade, lest some more +enlightened critic should come and hang me with the same rope. Its sum +and substance was to have been that--superficially--Germany is ugly; +that Munich is a nightmare, Heidelberg a disappointment (in spite of its +charming castle) and even Nueremberg not a joy for ever. But comparisons +are odious, and if Munich is ugly Verona is beautiful enough. You may +laugh at my logic, but will probably assent to my meaning. I carried +away from Verona a precious mental picture upon which I cast an +introspective glance whenever between Botzen and Strassburg the +oppression of external circumstance became painful. It was a lovely +August afternoon in the Roman arena--a ruin in which repair and +restoration have been so watchfully and plausibly practised that it +seems all of one harmonious antiquity. The vast stony oval rose high +against the sky in a single clear, continuous line, broken here and +there only by strolling and reclining loungers. The massive tiers +inclined in solid monotony to the central circle, in which a small +open-air theatre was in active operation. A small quarter of the great +slope of masonry facing the stage was roped off into an auditorium, in +which the narrow level space between the foot-lights and the lowest +step figured as the pit. Foot-lights are a figure of speech, for the +performance was going on in the broad glow of the afternoon, with +a delightful and apparently by no means misplaced confidence in the +good-will of the spectators. What the piece was that was deemed so +superbly able to shift for itself I know not--very possibly the same +drama that I remember seeing advertised during my former visit to +Verona; nothing less than _La Tremenda Giustizia di Dio_. If titles +are worth anything this product of the melodramatist's art might surely +stand upon its own legs. Along the tiers above the little group of +regular spectators was gathered a free-list of unauthorised observers, +who, although beyond ear-shot, must have been enabled by the generous +breadth of Italian gesture to follow the tangled thread of the piece. +It was all deliciously Italian--the mixture of old life and new, the +mountebank's booth (it was hardly more) grafted on the antique circus, +the dominant presence of a mighty architecture, the loungers and idlers +beneath the kindly sky and upon the sun-warmed stones. I never felt more +keenly the difference between the background to life in very old and +very new civilisations. There are other things in Verona to make it +a liberal education to be born there, though that it is one for +the contemporary Veronese I don't pretend to say. The Tombs of the +Scaligers, with their soaring pinnacles, their high-poised canopies, +their exquisite refinement and concentration of the Gothic idea, I can't +profess, even after much worshipful gazing, to have fully comprehended +and enjoyed. They seemed to me full of deep architectural meanings, such +as must drop gently into the mind one by one, after infinite tranquil +contemplation. But even to the hurried and preoccupied traveller the +solemn little chapel-yard in the city's heart, in which they stand +girdled by their great swaying curtain of linked and twisted iron, is +one of the most impressive spots in Italy. Nowhere else is such a wealth +of artistic achievement crowded into so narrow a space; nowhere else are +the daily comings and goings of men blessed by the presence of _manlier_ +art. Verona is rich furthermore in beautiful churches--several with +beautiful names: San Fermo, Santa Anastasia, San Zenone. This last is a +structure of high antiquity and of the most impressive loveliness. The +nave terminates in a double choir, that is a sub-choir or crypt into +which you descend and where you wander among primitive columns whose +variously grotesque capitals rise hardly higher than your head, and an +upper choral plane reached by broad stairways of the bravest effect. I +shall never forget the impression of majestic chastity that I received +from the great nave of the building on my former visit. I then decided +to my satisfaction that every church is from the devotional point of +view a solecism that has not something of a similar absolute felicity +of proportion; for strictly formal beauty seems best to express our +conception of spiritual beauty. The nobly serious character of San +Zenone is deepened by its single picture--a masterpiece of the most +serious of painters, the severe and exquisite Mantegna. + +{Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA} + +1872 + + + + + +TWO OLD HOUSES AND THREE YOUNG WOMEN + + +There are times and places that come back yet again, but that, when the +brooding tourist puts out his hand to them, meet it a little slowly, or +even seem to recede a step, as if in slight fear of some liberty he may +take. Surely they should know by this time that he is capable of taking +none. He has his own way--he makes it all right. It now becomes just +a part of the charming solicitation that it presents precisely a +problem--that of giving the particular thing as much as possible without +at the same time giving it, as we say, away. There are considerations, +proprieties, a necessary indirectness--he must use, in short, a little +art. No necessity, however, more than this, makes him warm to his work, +and thus it is that, after all, he hangs his three pictures. + + +I + +The evening that was to give me the first of them was by no means the +first occasion of my asking myself if that inveterate "style" of which +we talk so much be absolutely conditioned--in dear old Venice and +elsewhere--on decrepitude. Is it the style that has brought about the +decrepitude, or the decrepitude that has, as it were, intensified +and consecrated the style? There is an ambiguity about it all that +constantly haunts and beguiles. Dear old Venice has lost her complexion, +her figure, her reputation, her self-respect; and yet, with it all, has +so puzzlingly not lost a shred of her distinction. Perhaps indeed the +case is simpler than it seems, for the poetry of misfortune is familiar +to us all, whereas, in spite of a stroke here and there of some happy +justice that charms, we scarce find ourselves anywhere arrested by the +poetry of a run of luck. The misfortune of Venice being, accordingly, at +every point, what we most touch, feel and see, we end by assuming it to +be of the essence of her dignity; a consequence, we become aware, by the +way, sufficiently discouraging to the general application or pretension +of style, and all the more that, to make the final felicity deep, the +original greatness must have been something tremendous. If it be the +ruins that are noble we have known plenty that were not, and moreover +there are degrees and varieties: certain monuments, solid survivals, +hold up their heads and decline to ask for a grain of your pity. Well, +one knows of course when to keep one's pity to oneself; yet one clings, +even in the face of the colder stare, to one's prized Venetian privilege +of making the sense of doom and decay a part of every impression. +Cheerful work, it may be said of course; and it is doubtless only in +Venice that you gain more by such a trick than you lose. What was most +beautiful is gone; what was next most beautiful is, thank goodness, +going--that, I think, is the monstrous description of the better part +of your thought. Is it really your fault if the place makes you want so +desperately to read history into everything? + +You do that wherever you turn and wherever you look, and you do it, +I should say, most of all at night. It comes to you there with longer +knowledge, and with all deference to what flushes and shimmers, that the +night is the real time. It perhaps even wouldn't take much to make you +award the palm to the nights of winter. This is certainly true for the +form of progression that is most characteristic, for every question +of departure and arrival by gondola. The little closed cabin of +this perfect vehicle, the movement, the darkness and the plash, the +indistinguishable swerves and twists, all the things you don't see and +all the things you do feel--each dim recognition and obscure arrest is +a possible throb of your sense of being floated to your doom, even when +the truth is simply and sociably that you are going out to tea. Nowhere +else is anything as innocent so mysterious, nor anything as mysterious +so pleasantly deterrent to protest. These are the moments when you are +most daringly Venetian, most content to leave cheap trippers and other +aliens the high light of the mid-lagoon and the pursuit of pink and +gold. The splendid day is good enough for _them_; what is best for you +is to stop at last, as you are now stopping, among clustered _pali_ and +softly-shifting poops and prows, at a great flight of water-steps that +play their admirable part in the general effect of a great entrance. +The high doors stand open from them to the paved chamber of a basement +tremendously tall and not vulgarly lighted, from which, in turn, mounts +the slow stone staircase that draws you further on. The great point is, +that if you are worthy of this impression at all, there isn't a single +item of it of which the association isn't noble. Hold to it fast that +there is no other such dignity of arrival as arrival by water. Hold to +it that to float and slacken and gently bump, to creep out of the low, +dark _felze_ and make the few guided movements and find the strong +crooked and offered arm, and then, beneath lighted palace-windows, pass +up the few damp steps on the precautionary carpet--hold to it that these +things constitute a preparation of which the only defect is that it may +sometimes perhaps really prepare too much. It's so stately that what +can come after?--it's so good in itself that what, upstairs, as we +comparative vulgarians say, can be better? Hold to it, at any rate, that +if a lady, in especial, scrambles out of a carriage, tumbles out of a +cab, flops out of a tram-car, and hurtles, projectile-like, out of +a "lightning-elevator," she alights from the Venetian conveyance as +Cleopatra may have stepped from her barge. Upstairs--whatever may be +yet in store for her--her entrance shall still advantageously enjoy +the support most opposed to the "momentum" acquired. The beauty of +the matter has been in the absence of all momentum--elsewhere so +scientifically applied to us, from behind, by the terrible life of our +day--and in the fact that, as the elements of slowness, the felicities +of deliberation, doubtless thus all hang together, the last of +calculable dangers is to enter a great Venetian room with a rush. + +Not the least happy note, therefore, of the picture I am trying to frame +is that there was absolutely no rushing; not only in the sense of a +scramble over marble floors, but, by reason of something dissuasive and +distributive in the very air of the place, a suggestion, under the +fine old ceilings and among types of face and figure abounding in the +unexpected, that here were many things to consider. Perhaps the simplest +rendering of a scene into the depths of which there are good grounds of +discretion for not sinking would be just this emphasis on the value of +the unexpected for such occasions--with due qualification, naturally, of +its degree. Unexpectedness pure and simple, it is needless to say, may +easily endanger any social gathering, and I hasten to add moreover +that the figures and faces I speak of were probably not in the least +unexpected to each other. The stage they occupied was a stage of +variety--Venice has ever been a garden of strange social flowers. It +is only as reflected in the consciousness of the visitor from +afar--brooding tourist even call him, or sharp-eyed bird on the +branch--that I attempt to give you the little drama; beginning with the +felicity that most appealed to him, the visible, unmistakable fact that +he was the only representative of his class. The whole of the rest of +the business was but what he saw and felt and fancied--what he was +to remember and what he was to forget. Through it all, I may say +distinctly, he clung to his great Venetian clue--the explanation of +everything by the historic idea. It was a high historic house, with such +a quantity of recorded past twinkling in the multitudinous candles that +one grasped at the idea of something waning and displaced, and might +even fondly and secretly nurse the conceit that what one was having was +just the very last. Wasn't it certainly, for instance, no mere illusion +that there is no appreciable future left for such manners--an urbanity +so comprehensive, a form so transmitted, as those of such a hostess and +such a host? The future is for a different conception of the graceful +altogether--so far as it's for a conception of the graceful at all. Into +that computation I shall not attempt to enter; but these representative +products of an antique culture, at least, and one of which the secret +seems more likely than not to be lost, were not common, nor indeed +was any one else--in the circle to which the picture most insisted on +restricting itself. + +Neither, on the other hand, was anyone either very beautiful or very +fresh: which was again, exactly, a precious "value" on an occasion +that was to shine most, to the imagination, by the complexity of its +references. Such old, old women with such old, old jewels; such ugly, +ugly ones with such handsome, becoming names; such battered, fatigued +gentlemen with such inscrutable decorations; such an absence of youth, +for the most part, in either sex--of the pink and white, the "bud" of +new worlds; such a general personal air, in fine, of being the worse for +a good deal of wear in various old ones. It was not a society--that was +clear--in which little girls and boys set the tune; and there was that +about it all that might well have cast a shadow on the path of even the +most successful little girl. Yet also--let me not be rudely inexact--it +was in honour of youth and freshness that we had all been convened. The +_fiancailles_ of the last--unless it were the last but one--unmarried +daughter of the house had just been brought to a proper climax; the +contract had been signed, the betrothal rounded off--I'm not sure that +the civil marriage hadn't, that day, taken place. The occasion then had +in fact the most charming of heroines and the most ingenuous of heroes, +a young man, the latter, all happily suffused with a fair Austrian +blush. The young lady had had, besides other more or less shining recent +ancestors, a very famous paternal grandmother, who had played a great +part in the political history of her time and whose portrait, in the +taste and dress of 1830, was conspicuous in one of the rooms. The +grand-daughter of this celebrity, of royal race, was strikingly like her +and, by a fortunate stroke, had been habited, combed, curled in a +manner exactly to reproduce the portrait. These things were charming and +amusing, as indeed were several other things besides. The great Venetian +beauty of our period was there, and nature had equipped the great +Venetian beauty for her part with the properest sense of the suitable, +or in any case with a splendid generosity--since on the ideally suitable +_character_ of so brave a human symbol who shall have the last word? +This responsible agent was at all events the beauty in the world about +whom probably, most, the absence of question (an absence never wholly +propitious) would a little smugly and monotonously flourish: the one +thing wanting to the interest she inspired was thus the possibility +of ever discussing it. There were plenty of suggestive subjects round +about, on the other hand, as to which the exchange of ideas would by no +means necessarily have dropped. You profit to the full at such times by +all the old voices, echoes, images--by that element of the history of +Venice which represents all Europe as having at one time and another +revelled or rested, asked for pleasure or for patience there; which +gives you the place supremely as the refuge of endless strange secrets, +broken fortunes and wounded hearts. + + +II + +There had been, on lines of further or different speculation, a +young Englishman to luncheon, and the young Englishman had proved +"sympathetic"; so that when it was a question afterwards of some of the +more hidden treasures, the browner depths of the old churches, the case +became one for mutual guidance and gratitude--for a small afternoon tour +and the wait of a pair of friends in the warm little _campi_, at locked +doors for which the nearest urchin had scurried off to fetch the keeper +of the key. There are few brown depths to-day into which the light of +the hotels doesn't shine, and few hidden treasures about which +pages enough, doubtless, haven't already been printed: my business, +accordingly, let me hasten to say, is not now with the fond renewal of +any discovery--at least in the order of impressions most usual. +Your discovery may be, for that matter, renewed every week; the only +essential is the good luck--which a fair amount of practice has taught +you to count upon-of not finding, for the particular occasion, other +discoverers in the field. Then, in the quiet corner, with the closed +door--then in the presence of the picture and of your companion's +sensible emotion--not only the original happy moment, but everything +else, is renewed. Yet once again it can all come back. The old custode, +shuffling about in the dimness, jerks away, to make sure of his tip, the +old curtain that isn't much more modern than the wonderful work itself. +He does his best to create light where light can never be; but you have +your practised groping gaze, and in guiding the young eyes of your less +confident associate, moreover, you feel you possess the treasure. These +are the refined pleasures that Venice has still to give, these odd happy +passages of communication and response. + + +But the point of my reminiscence is that there were other communications +that day, as there were certainly other responses. I have forgotten +exactly what it was we were looking for--without much success--when we +met the three Sisters. Nothing requires more care, as a long knowledge +of Venice works in, than not to lose the useful faculty of getting lost. +I had so successfully done my best to preserve it that I could at that +moment conscientiously profess an absence of any suspicion of where we +might be. It proved enough that, wherever we were, we were where the +three sisters found us. This was on a little bridge near a big campo, +and a part of the charm of the matter was the theory that it was very +much out of the way. They took us promptly in hand--they were +only walking over to San Marco to match some coloured wool for the +manufacture of such belated cushions as still bloom with purple and +green in the long leisures of old palaces; and that mild errand could +easily open a parenthesis. The obscure church we had feebly imagined +we were looking for proved, if I am not mistaken, that of the sisters' +parish; as to which I have but a confused recollection of a large grey +void and of admiring for the first time a fine work of art of which I +have now quite lost the identity. This was the effect of the charming +beneficence of the three sisters, who presently were to give our +adventure a turn in the emotion of which everything that had preceded +seemed as nothing. It actually strikes me even as a little dim to have +been told by them, as we all fared together, that a certain low, wide +house, in a small square as to which I found myself without particular +association, had been in the far-off time the residence of George Sand. +And yet this was a fact that, though I could then only feel it must +be for another day, would in a different connection have set me richly +reconstructing. + +Madame Sand's famous Venetian year has been of late immensely in the +air--a tub of soiled linen which the muse of history, rolling her +sleeves well up, has not even yet quite ceased energetically and +publicly to wash. The house in question must have been the house +to which the wonderful lady betook herself when, in 1834, after the +dramatic exit of Alfred de Musset, she enjoyed that remarkable period +of rest and refreshment with the so long silent, the but recently +rediscovered, reported, extinguished, Doctor Pagello. As an old +Sandist--not exactly indeed of the _premiere heure_, but of the fine +high noon and golden afternoon of the great career--I had been, though I +confess too inactively, curious as to a few points in the topography of +the eminent adventure to which I here allude; but had never got beyond +the little public fact, in itself always a bit of a thrill to the +Sandist, that the present Hotel Danieli had been the scene of its first +remarkable stages. I am not sure indeed that the curiosity I speak +of has not at last, in my breast, yielded to another form of +wonderment--truly to the rather rueful question of why we have so +continued to concern ourselves, and why the fond observer of the +footprints of genius is likely so to continue, with a body of +discussion, neither in itself and in its day, nor in its preserved and +attested records, at all positively edifying. The answer to such an +inquiry would doubtless reward patience, but I fear we can now glance at +its possibilities only long enough to say that interesting persons--so +they be of a sufficiently approved and established interest--render +in some degree interesting whatever happens to them, and give it an +importance even when very little else (as in the case I refer to) may +have operated to give it a dignity. Which is where I leave the issue of +further identifications. + +For the three sisters, in the kindest way in the world, had asked us if +we already knew their sequestered home and whether, in case we didn't, +we should be at all amused to see it. My own acquaintance with them, +though not of recent origin, had hitherto lacked this enhancement, at +which we both now grasped with the full instinct, indescribable enough, +of what it was likely to give. But how, for that matter, either, can I +find the right expression of what was to remain with us of this episode? +It is the fault of the sad-eyed old witch of Venice that she so easily +puts more into things that can pass under the common names that do for +them elsewhere. Too much for a rough sketch was to be seen and felt +in the home of the three sisters, and in the delightful and slightly +pathetic deviation of their doing us so simply and freely the honours +of it. What was most immediately marked was their resigned cosmopolite +state, the effacement of old conventional lines by foreign contact and +example; by the action, too, of causes full of a special interest, +but not to be emphasised perhaps--granted indeed they be named at +all--without a certain sadness of sympathy. If "style," in Venice, sits +among ruins, let us always lighten our tread when we pay her a visit. + +Our steps were in fact, I am happy to think, almost soft enough for a +death-chamber as we stood in the big, vague _sala_ of the three sisters, +spectators of their simplified state and their beautiful blighted rooms, +the memories, the portraits, the shrunken relics of nine Doges. If I +wanted a first chapter it was here made to my hand; the painter of life +and manners, as he glanced about, could only sigh--as he so frequently +has to--over the vision of so much more truth than he can use. What on +earth is the need to "invent," in the midst of tragedy and comedy that +never cease? Why, with the subject itself, all round, so inimitable, +condemn the picture to the silliness of trying not to be aware of it? +The charming lonely girls, carrying so simply their great name and +fallen fortunes, the despoiled _decaduta_ house, the unfailing Italian +grace, the space so out of scale with actual needs, the absence of +books, the presence of ennui, the sense of the length of the hours and +the shortness of everything else--all this was a matter not only for a +second chapter and a third, but for a whole volume, a _denoument_ and a +sequel. + +This time, unmistakably, it _was_ the last--Wordsworth's stately +"shade of that which once was great"; and it was _almost_ as if our +distinguished young friends had consented to pass away slowly in order +to treat us to the vision. Ends are only ends in truth, for the painter +of pictures, when they are more or less conscious and prolonged. One +of the sisters had been to London, whence she had brought back the +impression of having seen at the British Museum a room exclusively +filled with books and documents devoted to the commemoration of her +family. She must also then have encountered at the National Gallery +the exquisite specimen of an early Venetian master in which one of her +ancestors, then head of the State, kneels with so sweet a dignity before +the Virgin and Child. She was perhaps old enough, none the less, to have +seen this precious work taken down from the wall of the room in which +we sat and--on terms so far too easy--carried away for ever; and not +too young, at all events, to have been present, now and then, when her +candid elders, enlightened too late as to what their sacrifice might +really have done for them, looked at each other with the pale hush of +the irreparable. We let ourselves note that these were matters to put a +great deal of old, old history into sweet young Venetian faces. + + +III + +In Italy, if we come to that, this particular appearance is far from +being only in the streets, where we are apt most to observe it--in +countenances caught as we pass and in the objects marked by the +guide-books with their respective stellar allowances. It is behind +the walls of the houses that old, old history is thick and that the +multiplied stars of Baedeker might often best find their application. +The feast of St. John the Baptist is the feast of the year in Florence, +and it seemed to me on that night that I could have scattered about me a +handful of these signs. I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours +on a signal high terrace that overlooks the Arno, as well as in the +galleries that open out to it, where I met more than ever the pleasant +curious question of the disparity between the old conditions and the new +manners. Make our manners, we moderns, as good as we can, there is still +no getting over it that they are not good enough for many of the great +places. This was one of those scenes, and its greatness came out to the +full into the hot Florentine evening, in which the pink and golden +fires of the pyrotechnics arranged on Ponte Carraja--the occasion of our +assembly--lighted up the large issue. The "good people" beneath were a +huge, hot, gentle, happy family; the fireworks on the bridge, kindling +river as well as sky, were delicate and charming; the terrace connected +the two wings that give bravery to the front of the palace, and the +close-hung pictures in the rooms, open in a long series, offered to a +lover of quiet perambulation an alternative hard to resist. + +Wherever he stood--on the broad loggia, in the cluster of company, among +bland ejaculations and liquefied ices, or in the presence of the mixed +masters that led him from wall to wall--such a seeker for the spirit of +each occasion could only turn it over that in the first place this was +an intenser, finer little Florence than ever, and that in the second +the testimony was again wonderful to former fashions and ideas. What +did they do, in the other time, the time of so much smaller a society, +smaller and fewer fortunes, more taste perhaps as to some particulars, +but fewer tastes, at any rate, and fewer habits and wants--what did they +do with chambers so multitudinous and so vast? Put their "state" at its +highest--and we know of many ways in which it must have broken down--how +did they live in them without the aid of variety? How did they, in +minor communities in which every one knew every one, and every one's +impression and effect had been long, as we say, discounted, find +representation and emulation sufficiently amusing? Much of the charm of +thinking of it, however, is doubtless that we are not able to say. +This leaves us with the conviction that does them most honour: the old +generations built and arranged greatly for the simple reason that they +liked it, and they could bore themselves--to say nothing of each other, +when it came to that--better in noble conditions than in mean ones. + +It was not, I must add, of the far-away Florentine age that I most +thought, but of periods more recent and of which the sound and beautiful +house more directly spoke. If one had always been homesick for the +Arno-side of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, here was a +chance, and a better one than ever, to taste again of the cup. Many of +the pictures--there was a charming quarter of an hour when I had them +to myself--were bad enough to have passed for good in those delightful +years. Shades of Grand-Dukes encompassed me--Dukes of the pleasant later +sort who weren't really grand. There was still the sense of having come +too late--yet not too late, after all, for this glimpse and this dream. +My business was to people the place--its own business had never been to +save us the trouble of understanding it. And then the deepest spell of +all was perhaps that just here I was supremely out of the way of the so +terribly actual Florentine question. This, as all the world knows, is +a battle-ground, to-day, in many journals, with all Italy practically +pulling on one side and all England, America and Germany pulling on the +other: I speak of course of the more or less articulate opinion. The +"improvement," the rectification of Florence is in the air, and the +problem of the particular ways in which, given such desperately delicate +cases, these matters should be understood. The little treasure-city is, +if there ever was one, a delicate case--more delicate perhaps than any +other in the world save that of our taking on ourselves to persuade +the Italians that they mayn't do as they like with their own. They so +absolutely may that I profess I see no happy issue from the fight. It +will take more tact than our combined tactful genius may at all probably +muster to convince them that their own is, by an ingenious logic, much +rather _ours_. It will take more subtlety still to muster for them that +dazzling show of examples from which they may learn that what in general +is "ours" shall appear to them as a rule a sacrifice to beauty and a +triumph of taste. The situation, to the truly analytic mind, offers in +short, to perfection, all the elements of despair; and I am afraid that +if I hung back, at the Corsini palace, to woo illusions and invoke +the irrelevant, it was because I could think, in the conditions, of no +better way to meet the acute responsibility of the critic than just to +shirk it. + +{1899.} + + + + + +CASA ALVISI + + +Invited to "introduce" certain pages of cordial and faithful +reminiscence from another hand, {1} + +{1} "Browning in Venice," being Recollections of the late Katharine +De Kay Bronson, with a Prefatory Note by H. J. (_Cornhill Magazine_, +February, 1902).} + +in which a frankly predominant presence seems to live again, I undertook +that office with an interest inevitably somewhat sad--so passed and gone +to-day is so much of the life suggested. Those who fortunately knew Mrs. +Bronson will read into her notes still more of it--more of her subject, +more of herself too, and of many things--than she gives, and some may +well even feel tempted to do for her what she has done here for +her distinguished friend. In Venice, during a long period, for many +pilgrims, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, originally of New York, was, so far as +society, hospitality, a charming personal welcome were concerned, almost +in sole possession; she had become there, with time, quite the prime +representative of those private amenities which the Anglo-Saxon abroad +is apt to miss just in proportion as the place visited is publicly +wonderful, and in which he therefore finds a value twice as great as at +home. Mrs. Bronson really earned in this way the gratitude of mingled +generations and races. She sat for twenty years at the wide mouth, as +it were, of the Grand Canal, holding out her hand, with endless +good-nature, patience, charity, to all decently accredited petitioners, +the incessant troop of those either bewilderedly making or fondly +renewing acquaintance with the dazzling city. + +{Illustration: CASA ALVISI, VENICE} + +Casa Alvisi is directly opposite the high, broad-based florid church +of S. Maria della Salute--so directly that from the balcony over the +water-entrance your eye, crossing the canal, seems to find the key-hole +of the great door right in a line with it; and there was something in +this position that for the time made all Venice-lovers think of the +genial _padrona_ as thus levying in the most convenient way the toll of +curiosity and sympathy. Every one passed, every one was seen to pass, +and few were those not seen to stop and to return. The most generous of +hostesses died a year ago at Florence; her house knows her no more--it +had ceased to do so for some time before her death; and the long, +pleased procession--the charmed arrivals, the happy sojourns at anchor, +the reluctant departures that made Ca' Alvisi, as was currently said, +a social _porto di mare_--is, for remembrance and regret, already a +possession of ghosts; so that, on the spot, at present, the attention +ruefully averts itself from the dear little old faded but once +familiarly bright facade, overtaken at last by the comparatively vulgar +uses that are doing their best to "paint out" in Venice, right and +left, by staring signs and other vulgarities, the immemorial note of +distinction. The house, in a city of palaces, was small, but the tenant +clung to her perfect, her inclusive position--the one right place that +gave her a better command, as it were, than a better house obtained by +a harder compromise; not being fond, moreover, of spacious halls and +massive treasures, but of compact and familiar rooms, in which her +remarkable accumulation of minute and delicate Venetian objects could +show. She adored--in the way of the Venetian, to which all her taste +addressed itself--the small, the domestic and the exquisite; so that she +would have given a Tintoretto or two, I think, without difficulty, for +a cabinet of tiny gilded glasses or a dinner-service of the right old +silver. + +The general receptacle of these multiplied treasures played at any rate, +through the years, the part of a friendly private-box at the constant +operatic show, a box at the best point of the best tier, with the +cushioned ledge of its front raking the whole scene and with its +withdrawing rooms behind for more detached conversation; for easy--when +not indeed slightly difficult--polyglot talk, artful _bibite_, artful +cigarettes too, straight from the hand of the hostess, who could do all +that belonged to a hostess, place people in relation and keep them so, +take up and put down the topic, cause delicate tobacco and little +gilded glasses to circulate, without ever leaving her sofa-cushions or +intermitting her good-nature. She exercised in these conditions, with +never a block, as we say in London, in the traffic, with never an +admission, an acceptance of the least social complication, her positive +genius for easy interest, easy sympathy, easy friendship. It was as if, +at last, she had taken the human race at large, quite irrespective of +geography, for her neighbours, with neighbourly relations as a matter +of course. These things, on her part, had at all events the greater +appearance of ease from their having found to their purpose--and as if +the very air of Venice produced them--a cluster of forms so light and +immediate, so pre-established by picturesque custom. The old bright +tradition, the wonderful Venetian legend had appealed to her from the +first, closing round her house and her well-plashed water-steps, where +the waiting gondolas were thick, quite as if, actually, the ghost of +the defunct Carnival--since I have spoken of ghosts--still played some +haunting part. + +Let me add, at the same time, that Mrs. Bronson's social facility, which +was really her great refuge from importunity, a defence with serious +thought and serious feeling quietly cherished behind it, had its +discriminations as well as its inveteracies, and that the most marked +of all these, perhaps, was her attachment to Robert Browning. Nothing in +all her beneficent life had probably made her happier than to have found +herself able to minister, each year, with the returning autumn, to his +pleasure and comfort. Attached to Ca' Alvisi, on the land side, is a +somewhat melancholy old section of a Giustiniani palace, which she had +annexed to her own premises mainly for the purpose of placing it, in +comfortable guise, at the service of her friends. She liked, as she +professed, when they were the real thing, to have them under her hand; +and here succeeded each other, through the years, the company of the +privileged and the more closely domesticated, who liked, harmlessly, to +distinguish between themselves and outsiders. Among visitors partaking +of this pleasant provision Mr. Browning was of course easily first. But +I must leave her own pen to show him as her best years knew him. +The point was, meanwhile, that if her charity was great even for the +outsider, this was by reason of the inner essence of it--her perfect +tenderness for Venice, which she always recognised as a link. That was +the true principle of fusion, the key to communication. She communicated +in proportion--little or much, measuring it as she felt people more +responsive or less so; and she expressed herself, or in other words her +full affection for the place, only to those who had most of the same +sentiment. The rich and interesting form in which she found it in +Browning may well be imagined--together with the quite independent +quantity of the genial at large that she also found; but I am not sure +that his favour was not primarily based on his paid tribute of such +things as "Two in a Gondola" and "A Toccata of Galuppi." He had more +ineffaceably than anyone recorded his initiation from of old. + +She was thus, all round, supremely faithful; yet it was perhaps after +all with the very small folk, those to the manner born, that she made +the easiest terms. She loved, she had from the first enthusiastically +adopted, the engaging Venetian people, whose virtues she found touching +and their infirmities but such as appeal mainly to the sense of humour +and the love of anecdote; and she befriended and admired, she studied +and spoiled them. There must have been a multitude of whom it would +scarce be too much to say that her long residence among them was their +settled golden age. When I consider that they have lost her now I fairly +wonder to what shifts they have been put and how long they may not have +to wait for such another messenger of Providence. She cultivated their +dialect, she renewed their boats, she piously relighted--at the top of +the tide-washed _pali_ of traghetto or lagoon--the neglected lamp of the +tutelary Madonnetta; she took cognisance of the wives, the children, the +accidents, the troubles, as to which she became, perceptibly, the most +prompt, the established remedy. On lines where the amusement was happily +less one-sided she put together in dialect many short comedies, dramatic +proverbs, which, with one of her drawing-rooms permanently arranged as +a charming diminutive theatre, she caused to be performed by the +young persons of her circle--often, when the case lent itself, by the +wonderful small offspring of humbler friends, children of the Venetian +lower class, whose aptitude, teachability, drollery, were her constant +delight. It was certainly true that an impression of Venice as humanly +sweet might easily found itself on the frankness and quickness and +amiability of these little people. They were at least so much to +the good; for the philosophy of their patroness was as Venetian as +everything else; helping her to accept experience without bitterness +and to remain fresh, even in the fatigue which finally overtook her, for +pleasant surprises and proved sincerities. She was herself sincere to +the last for the place of her predilection; inasmuch as though she had +arranged herself, in the later time--and largely for the love of "Pippa +Passes"--an alternative refuge at Asolo, she absented herself from +Venice with continuity only under coercion of illness. + +At Asolo, periodically, the link with Browning was more confirmed than +weakened, and there, in old Venetian territory, and with the invasion +of visitors comparatively checked, her preferentially small house became +again a setting for the pleasure of talk and the sense of Italy. It +contained again its own small treasures, all in the pleasant key of the +homelier Venetian spirit. The plain beneath it stretched away like a +purple sea from the lower cliffs of the hills, and the white _campanili_ +of the villages, as one was perpetually saying, showed on the expanse +like scattered sails of ships. The rumbling carriage, the old-time, +rattling, red-velveted carriage of provincial, rural Italy, delightful +and quaint, did the office of the gondola; to Bassano, to Treviso, +to high-walled Castelfranco, all pink and gold, the home of the great +Giorgione. Here also memories cluster; but it is in Venice again that +her vanished presence is most felt, for there, in the real, or certainly +the finer, the more sifted Cosmopolis, it falls into its place among +the others evoked, those of the past seekers of poetry and dispensers +of romance. It is a fact that almost every one interesting, appealing, +melancholy, memorable, odd, seems at one time or another, after many +days and much life, to have gravitated to Venice by a happy instinct, +settling in it and treating it, cherishing it, as a sort of repository +of consolations; all of which to-day, for the conscious mind, is mixed +with its air and constitutes its unwritten history. The deposed, the +defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded, or even only the bored, have +seemed to find there something that no other place could give. But +such people came for themselves, as we seem to see them--only with +the egotism of their grievances and the vanity of their hopes. Mrs. +Bronson's case was beautifully different--she had come altogether for +others. + + + + + +FROM CHAMBERY TO MILAN + + +Your truly sentimental tourist will never take it from any occasion that +there is absolutely nothing for him, and it was at Chambery--but four +hours from Geneva--that I accepted the situation and decided there +might be mysterious delights in entering Italy by a whizz through an +eight-mile tunnel, even as a bullet through the bore of a gun. I found +my reward in the Savoyard landscape, which greets you betimes with the +smile of anticipation. If it is not so Italian as Italy it is at least +more Italian than anything _but_ Italy--more Italian, too, I should +think, than can seem natural and proper to the swarming red-legged +soldiery who so publicly proclaim it of the empire of M. Thiers. The +light and the complexion of things had to my eyes not a little of that +mollified depth last loved by them rather further on. It was simply +perhaps that the weather was hot and the mountains drowsing in that +iridescent haze that I have seen nearer home than at Chambery. But the +vegetation, assuredly, had an all but Transalpine twist and curl, and +the classic wayside tangle of corn and vines left nothing to be desired +in the line of careless grace. Chambery as a town, however, constitutes +no foretaste of the monumental cities. There is shabbiness and +shabbiness, the fond critic of such things will tell you; and that of +the ancient capital of Savoy lacks style. I found a better pastime, +however, than strolling through the dark dull streets in quest of +effects that were not forthcoming. The first urchin you meet will +show you the way to Les Charmettes and the Maison Jean-Jacques. A +very pleasant way it becomes as soon as it leaves the town--a winding, +climbing by-road, bordered with such a tall and sturdy hedge as to +give it the air of an English lane--if you can fancy an English lane +introducing you to the haunts of a Madame de Warens. + +The house that formerly sheltered this lady's singular menage stands on +a hillside above the road, which a rapid path connects with the little +grass-grown terrace before it. It is a small shabby, homely dwelling, +with a certain reputable solidity, however, and more of internal +spaciousness than of outside promise. The place is shown by an elderly +competent dame who points out the very few surviving objects which you +may touch with the reflection--complacent in whatsoever degree suits +you--that they have known the familiarity of Rousseau's hand. It was +presumably a meagrely-appointed house, and I wondered that on such +scanty features so much expression should linger. But the structure has +an ancient ponderosity, and the dust of the eighteenth century seems +to lie on its worm-eaten floors, to cling to the faded old _papiers a +ramages_ on the walls and to lodge in the crevices of the brown wooden +ceilings. Madame de Warens's bed remains, with the narrow couch of +Jean-Jacques as well, his little warped and cracked yellow spinet, and +a battered, turnip-shaped silver timepiece, engraved with its master's +name--its primitive tick as extinct as his passionate heart-beats. It +cost me, I confess, a somewhat pitying acceleration of my own to see +this intimately personal relic of the _genius loci_--for it had dwelt; +in his waistcoat-pocket, than which there is hardly a material point +in space nearer to a man's consciousness--tossed so the dog's-eared +visitors' record or _livre de cuisine_ recently denounced by Madame +George Sand. In fact the place generally, in so far as some faint +ghostly presence of its famous inmates seems to linger there, is by no +means exhilarating. Coppet and Ferney tell, if not of pure happiness, at +least of prosperity and, honour, wealth and success. But Les Charmettes +is haunted by ghosts unclean and forlorn. The place tells of poverty, +perversity, distress. A good deal of clever modern talent in France has +been employed in touching up the episode of which it was the scene and +tricking it out in idyllic love-knots. But as I stood on the charming +terrace I have mentioned--a little jewel of a terrace, with grassy flags +and a mossy parapet, and an admirable view of great swelling violet +hills--stood there reminded how much sweeter Nature is than man, the +story looked rather wan and unlovely beneath these literary decorations, +and I could pay it no livelier homage than is implied in perfect pity. +Hero and heroine have become too much creatures of history to take up +attitudes as part of any poetry. But, not to moralise too sternly for +a tourist between trains, I should add that, as an illustration, to be +inserted mentally in the text of the "Confessions," a glimpse of Les +Charmettes is pleasant enough. It completes the rare charm of good +autobiography to behold with one's eyes the faded and battered +background of the story; and Rousseau's narrative is so incomparably +vivid and forcible that the sordid little house at Chambery seems of +a hardly deeper shade of reality than so many other passages of his +projected truth. + +If I spent an hour at Les Charmettes, fumbling thus helplessly with +the past, I recognised on the morrow how strongly the Mont Cenis Tunnel +smells of the time to come. As I passed along the Saint-Gothard highway +a couple of months since, I perceived, half up the Swiss ascent, a group +of navvies at work in a gorge beneath the road. They had laid bare a +broad surface of granite and had punched in the centre of it a round +black cavity, of about the dimensions, as it seemed to me, of a +soup-plate. This was to attain its perfect development some eight years +hence. The Mont Cenis may therefore be held to have set a fashion which +will be followed till the highest Himalaya is but the ornamental apex or +snow-capped gable-tip of some resounding fuliginous corridor. The tunnel +differs but in length from other tunnels; you spend half an hour in it. +But you whirl out into the blest peninsula, and as you look back seem to +see the mighty mass shrug its shoulders over the line, the mere turn +of a dreaming giant in his sleep. The tunnel is certainly not a poetic +object, out there is no perfection without its beauty; and as you +measure the long rugged outline of the pyramid of which it forms the +base you accept it as the perfection of a short cut. Twenty-four hours +from Paris to Turin is speed for the times--speed which may content us, +at any rate, until expansive Berlin has succeeded in placing itself at +thirty-six from Milan. + +To enter Turin then of a lovely August afternoon was to find a city of +arcades, of pink and yellow stucco, of innumerable cafes, of blue-legged +officers, of ladies draped in the North-Italian mantilla. An old friend +of Italy coming back to her finds an easy waking for dormant memories. +Every object is a reminder and every reminder a thrill. Half an hour +after my arrival, as I stood at my window, which overhung the great +square, I found the scene, within and without, a rough epitome of every +pleasure and every impression I had formerly gathered from Italy: the +balcony and the Venetian-blind, the cool floor of speckled concrete, the +lavish delusions of frescoed wall and ceiling, the broad divan framed +for the noonday siesta, the massive medieval Castello in mid-piazza, +with its shabby rear and its pompous Palladian front, the brick +campaniles beyond, the milder, yellower light, the range of colour, the +suggestion of sound. Later, beneath the arcades, I found many an +old acquaintance: beautiful officers, resplendent, slow-strolling, +contemplative of female beauty; civil and peaceful dandies, hardly less +gorgeous, with that religious faith in moustache and shirt-front which +distinguishes the _belle jeunesse of Italy_; ladies with heads artfully +shawled in Spanish-looking lace, but with too little art--or too much +nature at least--in the region of the bodice; well-conditioned young +_abbati_ with neatly drawn stockings. These indeed are not objects of +first-rate interest, and with such Turin is rather meagrely furnished. +It has no architecture, no churches, no monuments, no romantic +street-scenery. It has the great votive temple of the Superga, which +stands on a high hilltop above the city, gazing across at Monte Rosa and +lifting its own fine dome against the sky with no contemptible art. But +when you have seen the Superga from the quay beside the Po, a skein of a +few yellow threads in August, despite its frequent habit of rising high +and running wild, and said to yourself that in architecture position +is half the battle, you have nothing left to visit but the Museum of +pictures. The Turin Gallery, which is large and well arranged, is the +fortunate owner of three or four masterpieces: a couple of magnificent +Vandycks and a couple of Paul Veroneses; the latter a Queen of Sheba +and a Feast of the House of Levi--the usual splendid combination of +brocades, grandees and marble colonnades dividing those skies _de +turquoise malade_ to which Theophile Gautier is fond of alluding. The +Veroneses are fine, but with Venice in prospect the traveller feels at +liberty to keep his best attention in reserve. If, however, he has the +proper relish for Vandyck, let him linger long and fondly here; for +that admiration will never be more potently stirred than by the adorable +group of the three little royal highnesses, sons and the daughter +of Charles I. All the purity of childhood is here, and all its soft +solidity of structure, rounded tenderly beneath the spangled satin and +contrasted charmingly with the pompous rigidity. Clad respectively in +crimson, white and blue, these small scions stand up in their ruffs and +fardingales in dimpled serenity, squaring their infantine stomachers at +the spectator with an innocence, a dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, +which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine +decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice +before pinching their cheeks--provocative as they are of this tribute of +admiration--and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off +the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily +planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal +gallantry with which the painter has touched off the young lady. She was +a princess, yet she was a baby, and he has contrived, we let ourselves +fancy, to interweave an intimation that she was a creature whom, in her +teens, the lucklessly smitten--even as he was prematurely--must vainly +sigh for. Though the work is a masterpiece of execution its merits under +this head may be emulated, at a distance; the lovely modulations of +colour in the three contrasted and harmonised little satin petticoats, +the solidity of the little heads, in spite of all their prettiness, the +happy, unexaggerated squareness and maturity of _pose_, are, severally, +points to study, to imitate, and to reproduce with profit. But the taste +of such a consummate thing is its great secret as well as its great +merit--a taste which seems one of the lost instincts of mankind. Go and +enjoy this supreme expression of Vandyck's fine sense, and admit that +never was a politer production. + +Milan speaks to us of a burden of felt life of which Turin is innocent, +but in its general aspect still lingers a northern reserve which makes +the place rather perhaps the last of the prose capitals than the first +of the poetic. The long Austrian occupation perhaps did something +to Germanise its physiognomy; though indeed this is an indifferent +explanation when one remembers how well, temperamentally speaking, Italy +held her own in Venetia. Milan, at any rate, if not bristling with the +aesthetic impulse, opens to us frankly enough the thick volume of her +past. Of that volume the Cathedral is the fairest and fullest page--a +structure not supremely interesting, not logical, not even, to some +minds, commandingly beautiful, but grandly curious and superbly rich. I +hope, for my own part, never to grow too particular to admire it. If +it had no other distinction it would still have that of impressive, +immeasurable achievement. As I strolled beside its vast indented base +one evening, and felt it, above me, rear its grey mysteries into the +starlight while the restless human tide on which I floated rose no +higher than the first few layers of street-soiled marble, I was tempted +to believe that beauty in great architecture is almost a secondary +merit, and that the main point is mass--such mass as may make it a +supreme embodiment of vigorous effort. Viewed in this way a great +building is the greatest conceivable work of art. More than any other +it represents difficulties mastered, resources combined, labour, courage +and patience. And there are people who tell us that art has nothing to +do with morality! Little enough, doubtless, when it is concerned, +even ever so little, in painting the roof of Milan Cathedral within +to represent carved stone-work. Of this famous roof every one has +heard--how good it is, how bad, how perfect a delusion, how transparent +an artifice. It is the first thing your cicerone shows you on entering +the church. The occasionally accommodating art-lover may accept it +philosophically, I think; for the interior, though admirably effective +as a whole, has no great sublimity, nor even purity, of pitch. It +is splendidly vast and dim; the altarlamps twinkle afar through the +incense-thickened air like foglights at sea, and the great columns rise +straight to the roof, which hardly curves to meet them, with the girth +and altitude of oaks of a thousand years; but there is little refinement +of design--few of those felicities of proportion which the eye caresses, +when it finds them, very much as the memory retains and repeats some +happy lines of poetry or some haunting musical phrase. Consistently +brave, none the less, is the result produced, and nothing braver than a +certain exhibition that I privately enjoyed of the relics of St. +Charles Borromeus. This holy man lies at his eternal rest in a small but +gorgeous sepulchral chapel, beneath the boundless pavement and before +the high altar; and for the modest sum of five francs you may have his +shrivelled mortality unveiled and gaze at it with whatever reserves +occur to you. The Catholic Church never renounces a chance of the +sublime for fear of a chance of the ridiculous--especially when the +chance of the sublime may be the very excellent chance of five francs. +The performance in question, of which the good San Carlo paid in the +first instance the cost, was impressive certainly, but as a monstrous +matter or a grim comedy may still be. The little sacristan, having +secured his audience, whipped on a white tunic over his frock, lighted a +couple of extra candles and proceeded to remove from above the altar, +by means of a crank, a sort of sliding shutter, just as you may see +a shop-boy do of a morning at his master's window. In this case too a +large sheet of plate-glass was uncovered, and to form an idea of the +_etalage_ you must imagine that a jeweller, for reasons of his own, has +struck an unnatural partnership with an undertaker. The black mummified +corpse of the saint is stretched out in a glass coffin, clad in his +mouldering canonicals, mitred, crosiered and gloved, glittering with +votive jewels. It is an extraordinary mixture of death and life; the +desiccated clay, the ashen rags, the hideous little black mask and +skull, and the living, glowing, twinkling splendour of diamonds, +emeralds and sapphires. The collection is really fine, and many great +historic names are attached to the different offerings. Whatever may be +the better opinion as to the future of the Church, I can't help thinking +she will make a figure in the world so long as she retains this +great fund of precious "properties," this prodigious capital +decoratively invested and scintillating throughout Christendom at +effectively-scattered points. You see I am forced to agree after all, in +spite of the sliding shutter and the profane swagger of the sacristan, +that a certain pastoral majesty saved the situation, or at least made +irony gape. Yet it was from a natural desire to breathe a sweeter air +that I immediately afterwards undertook the interminable climb to the +roof of the cathedral. This is another world of wonders, and one which +enjoys due renown, every square inch of wall on the winding stairways +being bescribbled with a traveller's name. There is a great glare from +the far-stretching slopes of marble, a confusion (like the masts of a +navy or the spears of an army) of image-capped pinnacles, biting the +impalpable blue, and, better than either, the goodliest view of level +Lombardy sleeping in its rich transalpine light and resembling, with its +white-walled dwellings and the spires on its horizon, a vast green sea +spotted with ships. After two months of Switzerland the Lombard plain is +a rich rest to the eye, and the yellow, liquid, free-flowing light--as +if on favoured Italy the vessels of heaven were more widely opened--had +for mine a charm which made me think of a great opaque mountain as a +blasphemous invasion of the atmospheric spaces. + +{Illustration: THE SIMPLON GATE, MILAN} + +I have mentioned the cathedral first, but the prime treasure of Milan at +the present hour is the beautiful, tragical Leonardo. The cathedral is +good for another thousand years, but we ask whether our children will +find in the most majestic and most luckless of frescoes much more than +the shadow of a shadow. Its fame has been for a century or two that, as +one may say, of an illustrious invalid whom people visit to see how +he lasts, with leave-taking sighs and almost death-bed or tiptoe +precautions. The picture needs not another scar or stain, now, to be the +saddest work of art in the world; and battered, defaced, ruined as it +is, it remains one of the greatest. We may really compare its anguish +of decay to the slow conscious ebb of life in a human organism. The +production of the prodigy was a breath from the infinite, and the +painter's conception not immeasurably less complex than the scheme, say, +of his own mortal constitution. There has been much talk lately of the +irony of fate, but I suspect fate was never more ironical than when she +led the most scientific, the most calculating of all painters to spend +fifteen long years in building his goodly house upon the sand. And yet, +after all, may not the playing of that trick represent but a deeper +wisdom, since if the thing enjoyed the immortal health and bloom of a +first-rate Titian we should have lost one of the most pertinent lessons +in the history of art? We know it as hearsay, but here is the plain +proof, that there is no limit to the amount of "stuff" an artist may put +into his work. Every painter ought once in his life to stand before the +Cenacolo and decipher its moral. Mix with your colours and mess on your +palette every particle of the very substance of your soul, and this lest +perchance your "prepared surface" shall play you a trick! Then, and then +only, it will fight to the last--it will resist even in death. Raphael +was a happier genius; you look at his lovely "Marriage of the Virgin" at +the Brera, beautiful as some first deep smile of conscious inspiration, +but to feel that he foresaw no complaint against fate, and that he knew +the world he wanted to know and charmed it into never giving him away. +But I have left no space to speak of the Brera, nor of that paradise +of book-worms with an eye for their background--if such creatures +exist--the Ambrosian Library; nor of that mighty basilica of St. +Ambrose, with its spacious atrium and its crudely solemn mosaics, in +which it is surely your own fault if you don't forget Dr. Strauss and M. +Renan and worship as grimly as a Christian of the ninth century. + +It is part of the sordid prose of the Mont Cenis road that, unlike those +fine old unimproved passes, the Simplon, the Spluegen and--yet awhile +longer--the Saint-Gothard, it denies you a glimpse of that paradise +adorned by the four lakes even as that of uncommented Scripture by +the rivers of Eden. I made, however, an excursion to the Lake of Como, +which, though brief, lasted long enough to suggest to me that I too was +a hero of romance with leisure for a love-affair, and not a hurrying +tourist with a Bradshaw in his pocket. The Lake of Como has figured +largely in novels of "immoral" tendency--being commonly the spot to +which inflamed young gentlemen invite the wives of other gentlemen to +fly with them and ignore the restrictions of public opinion. But even +the Lake of Como has been revised and improved; the fondest prejudices +yield to time; it gives one somehow a sense of an aspiringly high tone. +I should pay a poor compliment at least to the swarming inmates of the +hotels which now alternate attractively by the water-side with villas +old and new were I to read the appearances more cynically. But if it is +lost to florid fiction it still presents its blue bosom to most other +refined uses, and the unsophisticated tourist, the American at least, +may do any amount of private romancing there. The pretty hotel at +Cadenabbia offers him, for instance, in the most elegant and assured +form, the so often precarious adventure of what he calls at home summer +board. It is all so unreal, so fictitious, so elegant and idle, so +framed to undermine a rigid sense of the chief end of man not being to +float for ever in an ornamental boat, beneath an awning tasselled like +a circus-horse, impelled by an affable Giovanni or Antonio from one +stately stretch of lake-laved villa steps to another, that departure +seems as harsh and unnatural as the dream-dispelling note of some +punctual voice at your bedside on a dusky winter morning. Yet I +wondered, for my own part, where I had seen it all before--the +pink-walled villas gleaming through their shrubberies of orange and +oleander, the mountains shimmering in the hazy light like so many +breasts of doves, the constant presence of the melodious Italian voice. +Where indeed but at the Opera when the manager has been more than +usually regardless of expense? Here in the foreground was the palace of +the nefarious barytone, with its banqueting-hall opening as freely on +the stage as a railway buffet on the platform; beyond, the delightful +back scene, with its operatic gamut of colouring; in the middle the +scarlet-sashed _barcaiuoli_, grouped like a chorus, hat in hand, +awaiting the conductor's signal. It was better even than being in a +novel--this being, this fairly wallowing, in a libretto. + + + + + +THE OLD SAINT-GOTHARD LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK + + +Berne, _September_, 1873.--In Berne again, some eleven weeks after +having left it in July. I have never been in Switzerland so late, and +I came hither innocently supposing the last Cook's tourist to have paid +out his last coupon and departed. But I was lucky, it seems, to discover +an empty cot in an attic and a very tight place at a table d'hote. +People are all flocking out of Switzerland, as in July they were +flocking in, and the main channels of egress are terribly choked. I +have been here several days, watching them come and go; it is like +the march-past of an army. It gives one, for an occasional change +from darker thoughts, a lively impression of the numbers of people now +living, and above all now moving, at extreme ease in the world. Here +is little Switzerland disgorging its tens of thousands of honest folk, +chiefly English, and rarely, to judge by their faces and talk, children +of light in any eminent degree; for whom snow-peaks and glaciers +and passes and lakes and chalets and sunsets and a _cafe complet_, +"including honey," as the coupon says, have become prime necessities +for six weeks every year. It's not so long ago that lords and +nabobs monopolised these pleasures; but nowadays in a month's tour in +Switzerland is no more a _jeu de prince_ than a Sunday excursion. To +watch this huge Anglo-Saxon wave ebbing through Berne suggests, no doubt +most fallaciously, that the common lot of mankind isn't after all so +very hard and that the masses have reached a high standard of comfort. +The view of the Oberland chain, as you see it from the garden of the +hotel, really butters one's bread most handsomely; and here are I don't +know how many hundred Cook's tourists a day looking at it through the +smoke of their pipes. Is it really the "masses," however, that I see +every day at the table d'hote? They have rather too few h's to the +dozen, but their good-nature is great. Some people complain that they +"vulgarise" Switzerland; but as far as I am concerned I freely give +it up to them and offer them a personal welcome and take a peculiar +satisfaction in seeing them here. Switzerland is a "show country"--I am +more and more struck with the bearings of that truth; and its use in the +world is to reassure persons of a benevolent imagination when they +begin to wish for the drudging millions a greater supply of elevating +amusement. Here is amusement for a thousand years, and as elevating +certainly as mountains three miles high can make it. I expect to live +to see the summit of Monte Rosa heated by steam-tubes and adorned with a +hotel setting three tables d'hote a day. + +{Illustration: THE CLOCK TOWER, BERNE} + +I have been walking about the arcades, which used to bestow a grateful +shade in July, but which seem rather dusky and chilly in these +shortening autumn days. I am struck with the way the English always +speak of them--with a shudder, as gloomy, as dirty, as evil-smelling, +as suffocating, as freezing, as anything and everything but admirably +picturesque. I take us Americans for the only people who, in travelling, +judge things on the first impulse--when we do judge them at all--not +from the standpoint of simple comfort. Most of us, strolling forth into +these bustling basements, are, I imagine, too much amused, too much +diverted from the sense of an alienable right to public ease, to be +conscious of heat or cold, of thick air, or even of the universal smell +of strong _charcuterie_. If the visible romantic were banished from the +face of the earth I am sure the idea of it would still survive in some +typical American heart.... + +_Lucerne, September_.--Berne, I find, has been filling with tourists at +the expense of Lucerne, which I have been having almost to myself. There +are six people at the table d'hote; the excellent dinner denotes on the +part of the _chef_ the easy leisure in which true artists love to work. +The waiters have nothing to do but lounge about the hall and chink in +their pockets the fees of the past season. The day has been lovely +in itself, and pervaded, to my sense, by the gentle glow of a natural +satisfaction at my finding myself again on the threshold of Italy. I am +lodged _en prince_, in a room with a balcony hanging over the lake--a +balcony on which I spent a long time this morning at dawn, thanking the +mountain-tops, from the depths of a landscape-lover's heart, for their +promise of superbly fair weather. There were a great many mountain-tops +to thank, for the crags and peaks and pinnacles tumbled away through the +morning mist in an endless confusion of grandeur. I have been all day +in better humour with Lucerne than ever before--a forecast reflection of +Italian moods. If Switzerland, as I wrote the other day, is so furiously +a show-place, Lucerne is certainly one of the biggest booths at the +fair. The little quay, under the trees, squeezed in between the decks +of the steamboats and the doors of the hotels, is a terrible medley +of Saxon dialects--a jumble of pilgrims in all the phases of devotion, +equipped with book and staff, alpenstock and Baedeker. There are so +many hotels and trinket-shops, so many omnibuses and steamers, so many +Saint-Gothard _vetturini_, so many ragged urchins poking photographs, +minerals and Lucernese English at you, that you feel as if lake and +mountains themselves, in all their loveliness, were but a part of the +"enterprise" of landlords and pedlars, and half expect to see the Righi +and Pilatus and the fine weather figure as items on your hotel-bill +between the _bougie_ and the _siphon_. Nature herself assists you +to this conceit; there is something so operatic and suggestive of +footlights and scene-shifters in the view on which Lucerne looks out. +You are one of five thousand--fifty thousand--"accommodated" spectators; +you have taken your season-ticket and there is a responsible impresario +somewhere behind the scenes. There is such a luxury of beauty in the +prospect--such a redundancy of composition and effect--so many more +peaks and pinnacles than are needed to make one heart happy or regale +the vision of one quiet observer, that you finally accept the little +Babel on the quay and the looming masses in the clouds as equal parts of +a perfect system, and feel as if the mountains had been waiting so many +ages for the hotels to come and balance the colossal group, that +they show a right, after all, to have them big and numerous. +The scene-shifters have been at work all day long, composing and +discomposing the beautiful background of the prospect--massing the +clouds and scattering the light, effacing and reviving, making play +with their wonderful machinery of mist and haze. The mountains rise, one +behind the other, in an enchanting gradation of distances and of melting +blues and greys; you think each successive tone the loveliest and +haziest possible till you see another loom dimly behind it. I couldn't +enjoy even _The Swiss Times_, over my breakfast, till I had marched +forth to the office of the Saint-Gothard service of coaches and demanded +the banquette for to-morrow. The one place at the disposal of the office +was taken, but I might possibly _m'entendre_ with the conductor for his +own seat--the conductor being generally visible, in the intervals of +business, at the post-office. To the post-office, after breakfast, I +repaired, over the fine new bridge which now spans the green Reuss and +gives such a woeful air of country-cousinship to the crooked old wooden +structure which did sole service when I was here four years ago. The +old bridge is covered with a running hood of shingles and adorned with +a series of very quaint and vivid little paintings of the "Dance of +Death," quite in the Holbein manner; the new sends up a painful glare +from its white limestone, and is ornamented with candelabra in a +meretricious imitation of platinum. As an almost professional cherisher +of the quaint I ought to have chosen to return at least by the dark and +narrow way; but mark how luxury unmans us. I was already demoralised. +I crossed the threshold of the timbered portal, took a few steps, and +retreated. It _smelt badly!_ So I marched back, counting the lamps in +their fine falsity. But the other, the crooked and covered way, smelt +very badly indeed; and no good American is without a fund of accumulated +sensibility to the odour of stale timber. + +Meanwhile I had spent an hour in the great yard of the postoffice, +waiting for my conductor to turn up and seeing the yellow malles-postes +pushed to and fro. At last, being told my man was at my service, I was +brought to speech of a huge, jovial, bearded, delightful Italian, clad +in the blue coat and waistcoat, with close, round silver buttons, which +are a heritage of the old postilions. No, it was not he; it was a friend +of his; and finally the friend was produced, _en costume de ville_, but +equally jovial, and Italian enough--a brave Lucernese, who had spent half +of his life between Bellinzona and Camerlata. For ten francs this worthy +man's perch behind the luggage was made mine as far as Bellinzona, and +we separated with reciprocal wishes for good weather on the morrow. +To-morrow is so manifestly determined to be as fine as any other 30th +of September since the weather became on this planet a topic of +conversation that I have had nothing to do but stroll about Lucerne, +staring, loafing and vaguely intent on regarding the fact that, whatever +happens, my place is paid to Milan. I loafed into the immense new Hotel +National and read the _New York Tribune_ on a blue satin divan; after +which I was rather surprised, on coming out, to find myself staring at +a green Swiss lake and not at the Broadway omnibuses. The Hotel +National is adorned with a perfectly appointed Broadway bar--one of the +"prohibited" ones seeking hospitality in foreign lands after the manner +of an old-fashioned French or Italian refugee. + +_Milan, October_.--My journey hither was such a pleasant piece of +traveller's luck that I feel a delicacy for taking it to pieces to see +what it was made of. Do what we will, however, there remains in all +deeply agreeable impressions a charming something we can't analyse. I +found it agreeable even, given the rest of my case, to turn out of +bed, at Lucerne, by four o'clock, into the chilly autumn darkness. The +thick-starred sky was cloudless, and there was as yet no flush of dawn; +but the lake was wrapped in a ghostly white mist which crept halfway up +the mountains and made them look as if they too had been lying down +for the night and were casting away the vaporous tissues of their +bedclothes. Into this fantastic fog the little steamer went creaking +away, and I hung about the deck with the two or three travellers who +had known better than to believe it would save them francs or midnight +sighs--over those debts you "pay with your person"--to go and wait for +the diligence at the Poste at Fliielen, or yet at the Guillaume +Tell. The dawn came sailing up over the mountain-tops, flushed but +unperturbed, and blew out the little stars and then the big ones, as a +thrifty matron after a party blows out her candles and lamps; the mist +went melting and wandering away into the duskier hollows and recesses of +the mountains, and the summits defined their profiles against the cool +soft light. + +At Flueelen, before the landing, the big yellow coaches were actively +making themselves bigger, and piling up boxes and bags on their roofs +in a way to turn nervous people's thoughts to the sharp corners of the +downward twists of the great road. I climbed into my own banquette, and +stood eating peaches--half-a-dozen women were hawking them about under +the horses' legs--with an air of security that might have been offensive +to the people scrambling and protesting below between coupe and +interieur. They were all English and all had false alarms about the +claim of somebody else to their place, the place for which they produced +their ticket, with a declaration in three or four different tongues of +the inalienable right to it given them by the expenditure of British +gold. They were all serenely confuted by the stout, purple-faced, +many-buttoned conductors, patted on the backs, assured that their +bath-tubs had every advantage of position on the top, and stowed away +according to their dues. When once one has fairly started on a journey +and has but to go and go by the impetus received, it is surprising what +entertainment one finds in very small things. We surrender to the gaping +traveller's mood, which surely isn't the unwisest the heart knows. I +don't envy people, at any rate, who have outlived or outworn the simple +sweetness of feeling settled to go somewhere with bag and umbrella. If +we are settled on the top of a coach, and the "somewhere" contains an +element of the new and strange, the case is at its best. In this matter +wise people are content to become children again. We don't turn about on +our knees to look out of the omnibus-window, but we indulge in very much +the same round-eyed contemplation of accessible objects. Responsibility +is left at home or at the worst packed away in the valise, relegated +to quite another part of the diligence with the clean shirts and the +writing-case. I sucked in the gladness of gaping, for this occasion, +with the somewhat acrid juice of my indifferent peaches; it made me +think them very good. This was the first of a series of kindly services +it rendered me. It made me agree next, as we started, that the gentleman +at the booking-office at Lucerne had but played a harmless joke when he +told me the regular seat in the banquette was taken. No one appeared +to claim it; so the conductor and I reversed positions, and I found him +quite as conversible as the usual Anglo-Saxon. + +He was trolling snatches of melody and showing his great yellow teeth in +a jovial grin all the way to Bellinzona--and this in face of the sombre +fact that the Saint-Gothard tunnel is scraping away into the +mountain, all the while, under his nose, and numbering the days of the +many-buttoned brotherhood. But he hopes, for long service's sake, to be +taken into the employ of the railway; _he_ at least is no cherisher of +quaintness and has no romantic perversity. I found the railway coming +on, however, in a manner very shocking to mine. About an hour short of +Andermatt they have pierced a huge black cavity in the mountain, around +which has grown up a swarming, digging, hammering, smoke-compelling +colony. There are great barracks, with tall chimneys, down in the gorge +that bristled the other day but with natural graces, and a wonderful +increase of wine-shops in the little village of Goeschenen above. Along +the breast of the mountain, beside the road, come wandering several +miles of very handsome iron pipes, of a stupendous girth--a conduit for +the water-power with which some of the machinery is worked. It lies at +its mighty length among the rocks like an immense black serpent, +and serves, as a mere detail, to give one the measure of the central +enterprise. When at the end of our long day's journey, well down in warm +Italy, we came upon the other aperture of the tunnel, I could but uncap +with a grim reverence. Truly Nature is great, but she seems to me to +stand in very much the shoes of my poor friend the conductor. She is +being superseded at her strongest points, successively, and nothing +remains but for her to take humble service with her master. If she can +hear herself think amid that din of blasting and hammering she must be +reckoning up the years to elapse before the cleverest of Ober-Ingenieurs +decides that mountains are mere obstructive matter and has the Jungfrau +melted down and the residuum carried away in balloons and dumped upon +another planet. + +The Devil's Bridge, with the same failing apparently as the good Homer, +was decidedly nodding. The volume of water in the torrent was shrunken, +and I missed the thunderous uproar and far-leaping spray that have kept +up a miniature tempest in the neighbourhood on my other passages. +It suddenly occurs to me that the fault is not in the good Homer's +inspiration, but simply in the big black pipes above-mentioned. They +dip into the rushing stream higher up, presumably, and pervert its +fine frenzy to their prosaic uses. There could hardly be a more vivid +reminder of the standing quarrel between use and beauty, and of the +hard time poor beauty is having. I looked wistfully, as we rattled into +dreary Andermatt, at the great white zigzags of the Oberalp road which +climbed away to the left. Even on one's way to Italy one may spare a +throb of desire for the beautiful vision of the castled Grisons. Dear +to me the memory of my day's drive last summer through that long blue +avenue of mountains, to queer little mouldering Ilanz, visited before +supper in the ghostly dusk. At Andermatt a sign over a little black +doorway flanked by two dung-hills seemed to me tolerably comical: +_Mineraux_, _Quadrupedes_, _Oiseaux_, _OEufs_, _Tableaux Antiques_. We +bundled in to dinner and the American gentleman in the banquette made +the acquaintance of the Irish lady in the coupe, who talked of the +weather as _foine_ and wore a Persian scarf twisted about her head. At +the other end of the table sat an Englishman, out of the interieur, who +bore an extraordinary resemblance to the portraits of Edward VI's and +Mary's reigns. He walking, a convincing Holbein. The impression was +of value to a cherisher of quaintness, and he must have wondered--not +knowing me for such a character--why I stared at him. It wasn't him I +was staring at, but some handsome Seymour or Dudley or Digby with a ruff +and a round cap and plume. + +From Andermatt, through its high, cold, sunny valley, we passed into +rugged little Hospenthal, and then up the last stages of the ascent. +From here the road was all new to me. Among the summits of the various +Alpine passes there is little to choose. You wind and double slowly into +keener cold and deeper stillness; you put on your overcoat and turn up +the collar; you count the nestling snow-patches and then you cease to +count them; you pause, as you trudge before the lumbering coach, and +listen to the last-heard cow-bell tinkling away below you in kindlier +herbage. The sky was tremendously blue, and the little stunted bushes +on the snow-streaked slopes were all dyed with autumnal purples and +crimsons. It was a great display of colour. Purple and crimson too, +though not so fine, were the faces thrust out at us from the greasy +little double casements of a barrack beside the road, where the horses +paused before the last pull. There was one little girl in particular, +beginning to _lisser_ her hair, as civilisation approached, in a manner +not to be described, with her poor little blue-black hands. At the +summit are the two usual grim little stone taverns, the steel-blue tarn, +the snow-white peaks, the pause in the cold sunshine. Then we begin to +rattle down with two horses. In five minutes we are swinging along the +famous zigzags. Engineer, driver, horses--it's very handsomely done by +all of them. The road curves and curls and twists and plunges like the +tail of a kite; sitting perched in the banquette, you see it making +below you and in mid-air certain bold gyrations which bring you as near +as possible, short of the actual experience, to the philosophy of that +immortal Irishman who wished that his fall from the house-top would only +last. But the zigzags last no more than Paddy's fall, and in due time we +were all coming to our senses over _cafe au lait_ in the little inn +at Faido. After Faido the valley, plunging deeper, began to take thick +afternoon shadows from the hills, and at Airolo we were fairly in the +twilight. But the pink and yellow houses shimmered through the gentle +gloom, and Italy began in broken syllables to whisper that she was at +hand. For the rest of the way to Bellinzona her voice was muffled in the +grey of evening, and I was half vexed to lose the charming sight of the +changing vegetation. But only half vexed, for the moon was climbing all +the while nearer the edge of the crags that overshadowed us, and a thin +magical light came trickling down into the winding, murmuring gorges. It +was a most enchanting business. The chestnut-trees loomed up with double +their daylight stature; the vines began to swing their low festoons like +nets to trip up the fairies. At last the ruined towers of Bellinzona +stood gleaming in the moonshine, and we rattled into the great +post-yard. It was eleven o'clock and I had risen at four; moonshine +apart I wasn't sorry. + +All that was very well; but the drive next day from Bellinzona to Como +is to my mind what gives its supreme beauty to this great pass. One +can't describe the beauty of the Italian lakes, nor would one try if +one could; the floweriest rhetoric can recall it only as a picture on +a fireboard recalls a Claude. But it lay spread before me for a whole +perfect day: in the long gleam of the Major, from whose head the +diligence swerves away and begins to climb the bosky hills that divide +it from Lugano; in the shimmering, melting azure of the southern slopes +and masses; in the luxurious tangle of nature and the familiar amenity +of man; in the lawn-like inclinations, where the great grouped chestnuts +make so cool a shadow in so warm a light; in the rusty vineyards, the +littered cornfields and the tawdry wayside shrines. But most of all it's +the deep yellow light that enchants you and tells you where you are. +See it come filtering down through a vine-covered trellis on the red +handkerchief with which a ragged contadina has bound her hair, and all +the magic of Italy, to the eye, makes an aureole about the poor girl's +head. Look at a brown-breasted reaper eating his chunk of black bread +under a spreading chestnut; nowhere is shadow so charming, nowhere is +colour so charged, nowhere has accident such grace. The whole drive +to Lugano was one long loveliness, and the town itself is admirably +Italian. There was a great unlading of the coach, during which I +wandered under certain brown old arcades and bought for six sous, from +a young woman in a gold necklace, a hatful of peaches and figs. When +I came back I found the young man holding open the door of the second +diligence, which had lately come up, and beckoning to me with a +despairing smile. The young man, I must note, was the most amiable of +Ticinese; though he wore no buttons he was attached to the diligence +in some amateurish capacity, and had an eye to the mail-bags and other +valuables in the boot. I grumbled at Berne over the want of soft curves +in the Swiss temperament; but the children of the tangled Tessin are +cast in the Italian mould. My friend had as many quips and cranks as a +Neapolitan; we walked together for an hour under the chestnuts, while +the coach was plodding up from Bellinzona, and he never stopped singing +till we reached a little wine-house where he got his mouth full of bread +and cheese. I looked into his open door, a la Sterne, and saw the young +woman sitting rigid and grim, staring over his head and with a great +pile of bread and butter in her lap. He had only informed her most +politely that she was to be transferred to another diligence and must do +him the favour to descend; but she evidently knew of but one way for +a respectable young insulary of her sex to receive the politeness of a +foreign adventurer guilty of an eye betraying latent pleasantry. Heaven +only knew what he was saying! I told her, and she gathered up her +parcels and emerged. A part of the day's great pleasure perhaps was my +grave sense of being an instrument in the hands of the powers toward the +safe consignment of this young woman and her boxes. When once you have +really bent to the helpless you are caught; there is no such steel trap, +and it holds you fast. My rather grim Abigail was a neophyte in foreign +travel, though doubtless cunning enough at her trade, which I inferred +to be that of making up those prodigious chignons worn mainly by +English ladies. Her mistress had gone on a mule over the mountains to +Cadenabbia, and she herself was coming up with the wardrobe, two +big boxes and a bath-tub. I had played my part, under the powers, +at Bellinzona, and had interposed between the poor girl's frightened +English and the dreadful Ticinese French of the functionaries in the +post-yard. At the custom-house on the Italian frontier I was of peculiar +service; there was a kind of fateful fascination in it. The wardrobe +was voluminous; I exchanged a paternal glance with my charge as +the _douanier_ plunged his brown fists into it. Who was the lady at +Cadenabbia? What was she to me or I to her? She wouldn't know, when she +rustled down to dinner next day, that it was I who had guided the frail +skiff of her public basis of vanity to port. So unseen but not unfelt do +we cross each other's orbits. The skiff however may have foundered that +evening in sight of land. I disengaged the young woman from among her +fellow-travellers and placed her boxes on a hand-cart in the picturesque +streets of Como, within a stone's throw of that lovely striped and toned +cathedral which has the facade of cameo medallions. I could only make +the _facchino_ swear to take her to the steamboat. He too was a jovial +dog, but I hope he was polite with precautions. + +1873. + + + + + +ITALY REVISITED + + +I + +I waited in Paris until after the elections for the new Chamber (they +took place on the 14th of October); as only after one had learned that +the famous attempt of Marshal MacMahon and his ministers to drive the +French nation to the polls like a flock of huddling sheep, each with the +white ticket of an official candidate round his neck, had not achieved +the success which the energy of the process might have promised--only +then it was possible to draw a long breath and deprive the republican +party of such support as might have been conveyed in one's sympathetic +presence. Seriously speaking too, the weather had been enchanting--there +were Italian fancies to be gathered without leaving the banks of the +Seine. Day after day the air was filled with golden light, and even +those chalkish vistas of the Parisian _beaux quartiers_ assumed the +iridescent tints of autumn. Autumn weather in Europe is often such +a very sorry affair that a fair-minded American will have it on his +conscience to call attention to a rainless and radiant October. + +The echoes of the electoral strife kept me company for a while after +starting upon that abbreviated journey to Turin which, as you leave +Paris at night, in a train unprovided with encouragements to slumber, is +a singular mixture of the odious and the charming. The charming indeed +I think prevails; for the dark half of the journey is the least +interesting. The morning light ushers you into the romantic gorges +of the Jura, and after a big bowl of _cafe au lait_ at Culoz you may +compose yourself comfortably for the climax of your spectacle. The day +before leaving Paris I met a French friend who had just returned from a +visit to a Tuscan country-seat where he had been watching the vintage. +"Italy," he said, "is more lovely than words can tell, and France, +steeped in this electoral turmoil, seems no better than a bear-garden." +The part of the bear-garden through which you travel as you approach the +Mont Cenis seemed to me that day very beautiful. The autumn colouring, +thanks to the absence of rain, had been vivid and crisp, and the +vines that swung their low garlands between the mulberries round about +Chambery looked like long festoons of coral and amber. The frontier +station of Modane, on the further side of the Mont Cenis Tunnel, is +a very ill-regulated place; but even the most irritable of tourists, +meeting it on his way southward, will be disposed to consider it +good-naturedly. There is far too much bustling and scrambling, and the +facilities afforded you for the obligatory process of ripping open +your luggage before the officers of the Italian custom-house are +much scantier than should be; but for myself there is something that +deprecates irritation in the shabby green and grey uniforms of all the +Italian officials who stand loafing about and watching the northern +invaders scramble back into marching order. Wearing an administrative +uniform doesn't necessarily spoil a man's temper, as in France one is +sometimes led to believe; for these excellent under-paid Italians carry +theirs as lightly as possible, and their answers to your inquiries don't +in the least bristle with rapiers, buttons and cockades. After leaving +Modane you slide straight downhill into the Italy of your desire; from +which point the road edges, after the grand manner, along those +It precipices that stand shoulder to shoulder, in a prodigious +perpendicular file, till they finally admit you to a distant glimpse he +ancient capital of Piedmont. + +Turin is no city of a name to conjure with, and I pay an extravagant +tribute to subjective emotion in speaking of it as ancient, if the place +is less bravely peninsular than Florence and Rome, at least it is more +in the scenic tradition than New York Paris; and while I paced the great +arcades and looked at the fourth-rate shop windows I didn't scruple to +cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively speaking, Turin touches +a chord; but there is after all no reason in a large collection of +shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly rectangular manner, for +passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only reason, I am afraid, is +the old superstition of Italy--that property in the very look of the +written word, the evocation of a myriad images, that makes any lover of +the arts take Italian satisfactions on easier terms than any others. The +written word stands for something that eternally tricks us; we juggle +to our credulity even with such inferior apparatus as is offered to +our hand at Turin. I roamed all the morning under the tall porticoes, +thinking it sufficient joy to take note of the soft, warm air, of that +local colour of things that is at once so broken and so harmonious, and +of the comings and goings, the physiognomy and manners, of the excellent +Turinese. I had opened the old book again; the old charm was in the +style; I was in a more delightful world. I saw nothing surpassingly +beautiful or curious; but your true taster of the most seasoned of +dishes finds well-nigh the whole mixture in any mouthful. Above all on +the threshold of Italy he knows again the solid and perfectly definable +pleasure of finding himself among the traditions of the grand style in +architecture. It must be said that we have still to go there to +recover the sense of the domiciliary mass. In northern cities there are +beautiful houses, picturesque and curious houses; sculptured gables that +hang over the street, charming bay-windows, hooded doorways, elegant +proportions, a profusion of delicate ornament; but a good specimen of +an old Italian palazzo has a nobleness that is all its own. We laugh +at Italian "palaces," at their peeling paint, their nudity, their +dreariness; but they have the great palatial quality--elevation and +extent. They make of smaller things the apparent abode of pigmies; they +round their great arches and interspace their huge windows with a proud +indifference to the cost of materials. These grand proportions--the +colossal basements, the doorways that seem meant for cathedrals, the far +away cornices--impart by contrast a humble and _bourgeois_ expression +to interiors founded on the sacrifice of the whole to the part, and +in which the air of grandeur depends largely on the help of the +upholsterer. At Turin my first feeling was really one of renewed shame +for our meaner architectural manners. If the Italians at bottom despise +the rest of mankind and regard them as barbarians, disinherited of the +tradition of form, the idea proceeds largely, no doubt, from our +living in comparative mole-hills. They alone were really to build their +civilisation. + +{Illustration: UNDER THE ARCADES, TURIN.} + +An impression which on coming back to Italy I find even stronger than +when it was first received is that of the contrast between the fecundity +of the great artistic period and the vulgarity there of the genius of +to-day. The first few hours spent on Italian soil are sufficient to +renew it, and the question I allude to is, historically speaking, one of +the oddest. That the people who but three hundred years ago had the best +taste in the world should now have the worst; that having produced the +noblest, loveliest, costliest works, they should now be given up to the +manufacture of objects at once ugly and paltry; that the race of which +Michael Angelo and Raphael, Leonardo and Titian were characteristic +should have no other title to distinction than third-rate _genre_ +pictures and catchpenny statues--all this is a frequent perplexity to +the observer of actual Italian life. The flower of "great" art in these +latter years ceased to bloom very powerfully anywhere; but nowhere +does it seem so drooping and withered as in the shadow of the immortal +embodiments of the old Italian genius. You go into a church or a gallery +and feast your fancy upon a splendid picture or an exquisite piece of +sculpture, and on issuing from the door that has admitted you to the +beautiful past are confronted with something that has the effect of a +very bad joke. The aspect of your lodging--the carpets, the curtains, +the upholstery in general, with their crude and violent colouring and +their vulgar material--the trumpery things in the shops, the extreme +bad taste of the dress of the women, the cheapness and baseness of every +attempt at decoration in the cafes and railway-stations, the hopeless +frivolity of everything that pretends to be a work of art--all this +modern crudity runs riot over the relics of the great period. + +We can do a thing for the first time but once; it is but once for all +that we can have a pleasure in its freshness. This is a law not on the +whole, I think, to be regretted, for we sometimes learn to know things +better by not enjoying them too much. It is certain, however, at the +same time, that a visitor who has worked off the immediate ferment for +this inexhaustibly interesting country has by no means entirely drained +the cup. After thinking of Italy as historical and artistic it will +do him no great harm to think of her for a while as panting both for +a future and for a balance at the bank; aspirations supposedly much +at variance with the Byronic, the Ruskinian, the artistic, poetic, +aesthetic manner of considering our eternally attaching peninsula. +He may grant--I don't say it is absolutely necessary--that its actual +aspects and economics are ugly, prosaic, provokingly out of relation +to the diary and the album; it is nevertheless true that, at the point +things have come to, modern Italy in a manner imposes herself. I hadn't +been many hours in the country before that truth assailed me; and I may +add that, the first irritation past, I found myself able to accept it. +For, if we think, nothing is more easy to understand than an honest ire +on the part of the young Italy of to-day at being looked at by all the +world as a kind of soluble pigment. Young Italy, preoccupied with its +economical and political future, must be heartily tired of being admired +for its eyelashes and its pose. In one of Thackeray's novels occurs +a mention of a young artist who sent to the Royal Academy a picture +representing "A Contadino dancing with a Trasteverina at the door of a +Locanda, to the music of a Pifferaro." It is in this attitude and with +these conventional accessories that the world has hitherto seen fit to +represent young Italy, and one doesn't wonder that if the youth has +any spirit he should at last begin to resent our insufferable aesthetic +patronage. He has established a line of tram-cars in Rome, from +the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and it is on one of these +democratic vehicles that I seem to see him taking his triumphant course +down the vista of the future. I won't pretend to rejoice with him any +more than I really do; I won't pretend, as the sentimental tourists say +about it all, as if it were the setting of an intaglio or the border of +a Roman scarf, to "like" it. Like it or not, as we may, it is evidently +destined to be; I see a new Italy in the future which in many important +respects will equal, if not surpass, the most enterprising sections of +our native land. Perhaps by that time Chicago and San Francisco will +have acquired a pose, and their sons and daughters will dance at the +doors of _locande_. + +However this may be, the accomplished schism between the old order and +the new is the promptest moral of a fresh visit to this ever-suggestive +part of the world. The old has become more and more a museum, preserved +and perpetuated in the midst of the new, but without any further +relation to it--it must be admitted indeed that such a relation is +considerable--than that of the stock on his shelves to the shopkeeper, +or of the Siren of the South to the showman who stands before his booth. +More than once, as we move about nowadays in the Italian cities, +there seems to pass before our eyes a vision of the coming years. It +represents to our satisfaction an Italy united and prosperous, +but altogether scientific and commercial. The Italy indeed that we +sentimentalise and romance about was an ardently mercantile country; +though I suppose it loved not its ledgers less, but its frescoes +and altar-pieces more. Scattered through this paradise regained of +trade--this country of a thousand ports--we see a large number of +beautiful buildings in which an endless series of dusky pictures are +darkening, dampening, fading, failing, through the years. By the doors +of the beautiful buildings are little turnstiles at which there sit +a great many uniformed men to whom the visitor pays a tenpenny fee. +Inside, in the vaulted and frescoed chambers, the art of Italy lies +buried as in a thousand mausoleums. It is well taken care of; it is +constantly copied; sometimes it is "restored"--as in the case of that +beautiful boy-figure of Andrea del Sarto at Florence, which may be seen +at the gallery of the Uffizi with its honourable duskiness quite peeled +off and heaven knows what raw, bleeding cuticle laid bare. One evening +lately, near the same Florence, in the soft twilight, I took a stroll +among those encircling hills on which the massive villas are mingled +with the vaporous olives. Presently I arrived where three roads met at a +wayside shrine, in which, before some pious daub of an old-time Madonna, +a little votive lamp glimmered through the evening air. The hour, +the atmosphere, the place, the twinkling taper, the sentiment of the +observer, the thought that some one had been rescued here from an +assassin or from some other peril and had set up a little grateful altar +in consequence, against the yellow-plastered wall of a tangled _podere_; +all this led me to approach the shrine with a reverent, an emotional +step. I drew near it, but after a few steps I paused. I became aware of +an incongruous odour; it seemed to me that the evening air was charged +with a perfume which, although to a certain extent familiar, had not +hitherto associated itself with rustic frescoes and wayside altars. I +wondered, I gently sniffed, and the question so put left me no doubt. +The odour was that of petroleum; the votive taper was nourished with +the essence of Pennsylvania. I confess that I burst out laughing, and a +picturesque contadino, wending his homeward way in the dusk, stared at +me as if I were an iconoclast. He noticed the petroleum only, I imagine, +to snuff it fondly up; but to me the thing served as a symbol of the +Italy of the future. There is a horse-car from the Porta del Popolo to +the Ponte Molle, and the Tuscan shrines are fed with kerosene. + + +II + +If it's very well meanwhile to come to Turin first it's better still to +go to Genoa afterwards. Genoa is the tightest topographic tangle in the +world, which even a second visit helps you little to straighten out. In +the wonderful crooked, twisting, climbing, soaring, burrowing Genoese +alleys the traveller is really up to his neck in the old Italian +sketchability. The pride of the place, I believe, is a port of great +capacity, and the bequest of the late Duke of Galliera, who left four +millions of dollars for the purpose of improving and enlarging it, will +doubtless do much toward converting it into one of the great commercial +stations of Europe. But as, after leaving my hotel the afternoon I +arrived, I wandered for a long time at hazard through the tortuous +by-ways of the city, I said to myself, not without an accent of private +triumph, that here at last was something it would be almost impossible +to modernise. I had found my hotel, in the first place, extremely +entertaining--the Croce di Malta, as it is called, established in a +gigantic palace on the edge of the swarming and not over-clean harbour. +It was the biggest house I had ever entered--the basement alone would +have contained a dozen American caravansaries. I met an American +gentleman in the vestibule who (as he had indeed a perfect right to be) +was annoyed by its troublesome dimensions--one was a quarter of an hour +ascending out of the basement--and desired to know if it were a "fair +sample" of the Genoese inns. It appeared an excellent specimen of +Genoese architecture generally; so far as I observed there were few +houses perceptibly smaller than this Titanic tavern. I lunched in a +dusky ballroom whose ceiling was vaulted, frescoed and gilded with the +fatal facility of a couple of centuries ago, and which looked out upon +another ancient housefront, equally huge and equally battered, separated +from it only by a little wedge of dusky space--one of the principal +streets, I believe, of Genoa--whence out of dim abysses the population +sent up to the windows (I had to crane out very far to see it) a +perpetual clattering, shuffling, chaffering sound. Issuing forth +presently into this crevice of a street I found myself up to my neck +in that element of the rich and strange--as to visible and reproducible +"effect," I mean--for the love of which one revisits Italy. It offered +itself indeed in a variety of colours, some of which were not remarkable +for their freshness or purity. But their combined charm was not to be +resisted, and the picture glowed with the rankly human side of southern +lowlife. + +Genoa, as I have hinted, is the crookedest and most incoherent of +cities; tossed about on the sides and crests of a dozen hills, it is +seamed with gullies and ravines that bristle with those innumerable +palaces for which we have heard from our earliest years that the place +is celebrated. These great structures, with their mottled and faded +complexions, lift their big ornamental cornices to a tremendous height +in the air, where, in a certain indescribably forlorn and desolate +fashion, overtopping each other, they seem to reflect the twinkle and +glitter of the warm Mediterranean. Down about the basements, in the +close crepuscular alleys, the people are for ever moving to and fro or +standing in their cavernous doorways and their dusky, crowded shops, +calling, chattering, laughing, lamenting, living their lives in the +conversational Italian fashion. I had for a long time had no such +vision of possible social pressure. I hadn't for a long time seen people +elbowing each other so closely or swarming so thickly out of populous +hives. A traveller is often moved to ask himself whether it has been +worth while to leave his home--whatever his home may have been--only to +encounter new forms of human suffering, only to be reminded that toil +and privation, hunger and sorrow and sordid effort, are the portion of +the mass of mankind. To travel is, as it were, to go to the play, to +attend a spectacle; and there is something heartless in stepping forth +into foreign streets to feast on "character" when character consists +simply of the slightly different costume in which labour and want +present themselves. These reflections were forced upon me as I strolled +as through a twilight patched with colour and charged with stale smells; +but after a time they ceased to bear me company. The reason of this, I +think, is because--at least to foreign eyes--the sum of Italian misery +is, on the whole, less than the sum of the Italian knowledge of life. +That people should thank you, with a smile of striking sweetness, for +the gift of twopence, is a proof, certainly, of extreme and constant +destitution; but (keeping in mind the sweetness) it also attests an +enviable ability not to be depressed by circumstances. I know that this +may possibly be great nonsense; that half the time we are acclaiming +the fine quality of the Italian smile the creature so constituted for +physiognomic radiance may be in a sullen frenzy of impatience and pain. +Our observation in any foreign land is extremely superficial, and our +remarks are happily not addressed to the inhabitants themselves, who +would be sure to exclaim upon the impudence of the fancy-picture. + +The other day I visited a very picturesque old city upon a mountain-top, +where, in the course of my wanderings, I arrived at an old disused gate +in the ancient town-wall. The gate hadn't been absolutely forfeited; +but the recent completion of a modern road down the mountain led most +vehicles away to another egress. The grass-grown pavement, which wound +into the plain by a hundred graceful twists and plunges, was now given +up to ragged contadini and their donkeys, and to such wayfarers as were +not alarmed at the disrepair into which it had fallen. I stood in the +shadow of the tall old gateway admiring the scene, looking to right and +left at the wonderful walls of the little town, perched on the edge of +a shaggy precipice; at the circling mountains over against them; at the +road dipping downward among the chestnuts and olives. There was no one +within sight but a young man who slowly trudged upward with his coat +slung over his shoulder and his hat upon his ear in the manner of a +cavalier in an opera. Like an operatic performer too he sang as he came; +the spectacle, generally, was operatic, and as his vocal flourishes +reached my ear I said to myself that in Italy accident was always +romantic and that such a figure had been exactly what was wanted to set +off the landscape. It suggested in a high degree that knowledge of life +for which I just now commended the Italians. I was turning back under +the old gateway when the young man overtook me and, suspending his song, +asked me if I could favour him with a match to light the hoarded remnant +of a cigar. This request led, as I took my way again to the inn, to my +falling into talk with him. He was a native of the ancient city, and +answered freely all my inquiries as to its manners and customs and +its note of public opinion. But the point of my anecdote is that he +presently acknowledged himself a brooding young radical and communist, +filled with hatred of the present Italian government, raging with +discontent and crude political passion, professing a ridiculous hope +that Italy would soon have, as France had had, her "'89," and declaring +that he for his part would willingly lend a hand to chop off the +heads of the king and the royal family. He was an unhappy, underfed, +unemployed young man, who took a hard, grim view of everything and was +operatic only quite in spite of himself. This made it very absurd of me +to have looked at him simply as a graceful ornament to the prospect, +an harmonious little figure in the middle distance. "Damn the prospect, +damn the middle distance!" would have been all _his_ philosophy. Yet but +for the accident of my having gossipped with him I should have made him +do service, in memory, as an example of sensuous optimism! + +I am bound to say however that I believe a great deal of the sensuous +optimism observable in the Genoese alleys and beneath the low, crowded +arcades along the port was very real. Here every one was magnificently +sunburnt, and there were plenty of those queer types, mahogany-coloured, +bare-chested mariners with earrings and crimson girdles, that seem to +people a southern seaport with the chorus of "Masaniello." But it is not +fair to speak as if at Genoa there were nothing but low-life to be seen, +for the place is the residence of some of the grandest people in the +world. Nor are all the palaces ranged upon dusky alleys; the handsomest +and most impressive form a splendid series on each side of a couple +of very proper streets, in which there is plenty of room for a +coach-and-four to approach the big doorways. Many of these doorways +are open, revealing great marble staircases with couchant lions for +balustrades and ceremonious courts surrounded by walls of sun-softened +yellow. One of the great piles in the array is coloured a goodly red and +contains in particular the grand people I just now spoke of. They +live indeed on the third floor; but here they have suites of wonderful +painted and gilded chambers, in which foreshortened frescoes also cover +the vaulted ceilings and florid mouldings emboss the ample walls. These +distinguished tenants bear the name of Vandyck, though they are members +of the noble family of Brignole-Sale, one of whose children--the Duchess +of Galliera--has lately given proof of nobleness in presenting the +gallery of the red palace to the city of Genoa. + + +III + +On leaving Genoa I repaired to Spezia, chiefly with a view of +accomplishing a sentimental pilgrimage, which I in fact achieved in the +most agreeable conditions. The Gulf of Spezia is now the headquarters +of the Italian fleet, and there were several big iron-plated frigates +riding at anchor in front of the town. The streets were filled with lads +in blue flannel, who were receiving instruction at a schoolship in the +harbour, and in the evening--there was a brilliant moon--the little +breakwater which stretched out into the Mediterranean offered a scene of +recreation to innumerable such persons. But this fact is from the point +of view of the cherisher of quaintness of little account, for since it +has become prosperous Spezia has grown ugly. The place is filled with +long, dull stretches of dead wall and great raw expanses of artificial +land. It wears that look of monstrous, of more than far-western newness +which distinguishes all the creations of the young Italian State. Nor +did I find any great compensation in an immense inn of recent birth, +an establishment seated on the edge of the sea in anticipation of a +_passeggiata_ which is to come that way some five years hence, the +region being in the meantime of the most primitive formation. The inn +was filled with grave English people who looked respectable and +bored, and there was of course a Church of England service in the +gaudily-frescoed parlour. Neither was it the drive to Porto Venere that +chiefly pleased me--a drive among vines and olives, over the hills +and beside the Mediterranean, to a queer little crumbling village on a +headland, as sweetly desolate and superannuated as the name it bears. +There is a ruined church near the village, which occupies the site +(according to tradition) of an ancient temple of Venus; and if Venus ever +revisits her desecrated shrines she must sometimes pause a moment in +that sunny stillness and listen to the murmur of the tideless sea at +the base of the narrow promontory. If Venus sometimes comes there Apollo +surely does as much; for close to the temple is a gateway surmounted by +an inscription in Italian and English, which admits you to a curious, +and it must be confessed rather cockneyfied, cave among the rocks. It +was here, says the inscription, that the great Byron, swimmer and poet, +"defied the waves of the Ligurian sea." The fact is interesting, though +not supremely so; for Byron was always defying something, and if a slab +had been put up wherever this performance came off these commemorative +tablets would be in many parts of Europe as thick as milestones. + +No; the great merit of Spezia, to my eye, is that I engaged a boat there +of a lovely October afternoon and had myself rowed across the gulf--it +took about an hour and a half--to the little bay of Lerici, which opens +out of it. This bay of Lerici is charming; the bosky grey-green hills +close it in, and on either side of the entrance, perched on a bold +headland, a wonderful old crumbling castle keeps ineffectual guard. The +place is classic to all English travellers, for in the middle of the +curving shore is the now desolate little villa in which Shelley spent +the last months of his short life. He was living at Lerici when he +started on that short southern cruise from which he never returned. The +house he occupied is strangely shabby and as sad as you may choose to +find it. It stands directly upon the beach, with scarred and battered +walls and a loggia of several arches opening to a little terrace with +a rugged parapet, which, when the wind blows, must be drenched with +the salt spray. The place is very lonely--all overwearied with sun and +breeze and brine--very close to nature, as it was Shelley's passion +to be. I can fancy a great lyric poet sitting on the terrace of a warm +evening and feeling very far from England in the early years of the +century. In that place, and with his genius, he would as a matter of +course have heard in the voice of nature a sweetness which only the +lyric movement could translate. It is a place where an English-speaking +pilgrim himself may very honestly think thoughts and feel moved to lyric +utterance. But I must content myself with saying in halting prose that +I remember few episodes of Italian travel more sympathetic, as they have +it here, than that perfect autumn afternoon; the half-hour's station on +the little battered terrace of the villa; the climb to the singularly +felicitous old castle that hangs above Lerici; the meditative lounge, in +the fading light, on the vine-decked platform that looked out toward the +sunset and the darkening mountains and, far below, upon the quiet sea, +beyond which the pale-faced tragic villa stared up at the brightening +moon. + + +IV + +I had never known Florence more herself, or in other words more +attaching, than I found her for a week in that brilliant October. +She sat in the sunshine beside her yellow river like the little +treasure-city she has always seemed, without commerce, without other +industry than the manufacture of mosaic paper-weights and alabaster +Cupids, without actuality or energy or earnestness or any of those +rugged virtues which in most cases are deemed indispensable for civic +cohesion; with nothing but the little unaugmented stock of her mediaeval +memories, her tender-coloured mountains, her churches and palaces, +pictures and statues. There were very few strangers; one's detested +fellow-pilgrim was infrequent; the native population itself seemed +scanty; the sound of wheels in the streets was but occasional; by eight +o'clock at night, apparently, every one had gone to bed, and the +musing wanderer, still wandering and still musing, had the place to +himself--had the thick shadow-masses of the great palaces, and the +shafts of moonlight striking the polygonal paving-stones, and the empty +bridges, and the silvered yellow of the Arno, and the stillness broken +only by a homeward step, a step accompanied by a snatch of song from a +warm Italian voice. My room at the inn looked out on the river and was +flooded all day with sunshine. There was an absurd orange-coloured +paper on the walls; the Arno, of a hue not altogether different, flowed +beneath; and on the other side of it rose a line of sallow houses, of +extreme antiquity, crumbling and mouldering, bulging and protruding over +the stream. (I seem to speak of their fronts; but what I saw was their +shabby backs, which were exposed to the cheerful flicker of the river, +while the fronts stood for ever in the deep damp shadow of a narrow +mediaeval street.) All this brightness and yellowness was a perpetual +delight; it was a part of that indefinably charming colour which +Florence always seems to wear as you look up and down at it from +the river, and from the bridges and quays. This is a kind of grave +radiance--a harmony of high tints--which I scarce know how to describe. +There are yellow walls and green blinds and red roofs, there are +intervals of brilliant brown and natural-looking blue; but the picture +is not spotty nor gaudy, thanks to the distribution of the colours in +large and comfortable masses, and to the washing-over of the scene by +some happy softness of sunshine. The river-front of Florence is in short +a delightful composition. Part of its charm comes of course from the +generous aspect of those high-based Tuscan palaces which a renewal of +acquaintance with them has again commended to me as the most dignified +dwellings in the world. Nothing can be finer than that look of giving +up the whole immense ground-floor to simple purposes of vestibule and +staircase, of court and high-arched entrance; as if this were all but +a massive pedestal for the real habitation and people weren't properly +housed unless, to begin with, they should be lifted fifty feet above +the pavement. The great blocks of the basement; the great intervals, +horizontally and vertically, from window to window (telling of the +height and breadth of the rooms within); the armorial shield hung +forward at one of the angles; the wide-brimmed roof, overshadowing +the narrow street; the rich old browns and yellows of the walls: these +definite elements put themselves together with admirable art. + +{Illustration: ROMAN GATEWAY, RIMINI.} + +Take a Tuscan pile of this type out of its oblique situation in the +town; call it no longer a palace, but a villa; set it down by a terrace +on one of the hills that encircle Florence, place a row of high-waisted +cypresses beside it, give it a grassy court-yard and a view of the +Florentine towers and the valley of the Arno, and you will think it +perhaps even more worthy of your esteem. It was a Sunday noon, and +brilliantly warm, when I again arrived; and after I had looked from my +windows a while at that quietly-basking river-front I have spoken of +I took my way across one of the bridges and then out of one of the +gates--that immensely tall Roman Gate in which the space from the top of +the arch to the cornice (except that there is scarcely a cornice, it is +all a plain massive piece of wall) is as great, or seems to be, as that +from the ground to the former point. Then I climbed a steep and winding +way--much of it a little dull if one likes, being bounded by mottled, +mossy garden-walls--to a villa on a hill-top, where I found various +things that touched me with almost too fine a point. Seeing them again, +often, for a week, both by sunlight and moonshine, I never quite learned +not to covet them; not to feel that not being a part of them was somehow +to miss an exquisite chance. What a tranquil, contented life it seemed, +with romantic beauty as a part of its daily texture!--the sunny terrace, +with its tangled _podere_ beneath it; the bright grey olives against +the bright blue sky; the long, serene, horizontal lines of other villas, +flanked by their upward cypresses, disposed upon the neighbouring hills; +the richest little city in the world in a softly-scooped hollow at one's +feet, and beyond it the most appealing of views, the most majestic, +yet the most familiar. Within the villa was a great love of art and +a painting-room full of felicitous work, so that if human life there +confessed to quietness, the quietness was mostly but that of the intent +act. A beautiful occupation in that beautiful position, what could +possibly be better? That is what I spoke just now of envying--a way +of life that doesn't wince at such refinements of peace and ease. When +labour self-charmed presents itself in a dull or an ugly place we esteem +it, we admire it, but we scarce feel it to be the ideal of good fortune. +When, however, its votaries move as figures in an ancient, noble +landscape, and their walks and contemplations are like a turning of the +leaves of history, we seem to have before us an admirable case of virtue +made easy; meaning here by virtue contentment and concentration, a real +appreciation of the rare, the exquisite though composite, medium of +life. You needn't want a rush or a crush when the scene itself, the mere +scene, shares with you such a wealth of consciousness. + +It is true indeed that I might after a certain time grow weary of a +regular afternoon stroll among the Florentine lanes; of sitting on low +parapets, in intervals of flower-topped wall, and looking across at +Fiesole or down the rich-hued valley of the Arno; of pausing at the open +gates of villas and wondering at the height of cypresses and the depth +of loggias; of walking home in the fading light and noting on a dozen +westward-looking surfaces the glow of the opposite sunset. But for a +week or so all this was delightful. The villas are innumerable, and if +you're an aching alien half the talk is about villas. This one has a +story; that one has another; they all look as if they had stories--none +in truth predominantly gay. Most of them are offered to rent (many of +them for sale) at prices unnaturally low; you may have a tower and a +garden, a chapel and an expanse of thirty windows, for five hundred +dollars a year. In imagination you hire three or four; you take +possession and settle and stay. Your sense of the fineness of the finest +is of something very grave and stately; your sense of the bravery of two +or three of the best something quite tragic and sinister. From what does +this latter impression come? You gather it as you stand there in the +early dusk, with your eyes on the long, pale-brown facade, the enormous +windows, the iron cages fastened to the lower ones. Part of the brooding +expression of these great houses comes, even when they have not fallen +into decay, from their look of having outlived their original use. Their +extraordinary largeness and massiveness are a satire on their present +fate. They weren't built with such a thickness of wall and depth of +embrasure, such a solidity of staircase and superfluity of stone, +simply to afford an economical winter residence to English and American +families. I don't know whether it was the appearance of these stony old +villas, which seemed so dumbly conscious of a change of manners, that +threw a tinge of melancholy over the general prospect; certain it is +that, having always found this note as of a myriad old sadnesses in +solution in the view of Florence, it seemed to me now particularly +strong. "Lovely, lovely, but it makes me 'blue,'" the sensitive stranger +couldn't but murmur to himself as, in the late afternoon, he looked +at the landscape from over one of the low parapets, and then, with his +hands in his pockets, turned away indoors to candles and dinner. + + +V + +Below, in the city, through all frequentation of streets and churches +and museums, it was impossible not to have a good deal of the same +feeling; but here the impression was more easy to analyse. It came from +a sense of the perfect separateness of all the great productions of +the Renaissance from the present and the future of the place, from the +actual life and manners, the native ideal. I have already spoken of +the way in which the vast aggregation of beautiful works of art in the +Italian cities strikes the visitor nowadays--so far as present Italy +is concerned--as the mere stock-in-trade of an impecunious but thrifty +people. It is this spiritual solitude, this conscious disconnection of +the great works of architecture and sculpture that deposits a certain +weight upon the heart; when we see a great tradition broken we feel +something of the pain with which we hear a stifled cry. But regret +is one thing and resentment is another. Seeing one morning, in a +shop-window, the series of _Mornings in Florence_ published a few years +since by Mr. Ruskin, I made haste to enter and purchase these amusing +little books, some passages of which I remembered formerly to have +read. I couldn't turn over many pages without observing that the +"separateness" of the new and old which I just mentioned had produced +in their author the liveliest irritation. With the more acute phases of +this condition it was difficult to sympathise, for the simple reason, it +seems to me, that it savours of arrogance to demand of any people, as +a right of one's own, that they shall be artistic. "Be artistic +yourselves!" is the very natural reply that young Italy has at hand for +English critics and censors. When a people produces beautiful statues +and pictures it gives us something more than is set down in the bond, +and we must thank it for its generosity; and when it stops producing +them or caring for them we may cease thanking, but we hardly have a +right to begin and rail. The wreck of Florence, says Mr. Ruskin, "is now +too ghastly and heart-breaking to any human soul that remembers the days +of old"; and these desperate words are an allusion to the fact that the +little square in front of the cathedral, at the foot of Giotto's Tower, +with the grand Baptistery on the other side, is now the resort of +a number of hackney-coaches and omnibuses. This fact is doubtless +lamentable, and it would be a hundred times more agreeable to see among +people who have been made the heirs of so priceless a work of art as the +sublime campanile some such feeling about it as would keep it free even +from the danger of defilement. A cab-stand is a very ugly and dirty +thing, and Giotto's Tower should have nothing in common with such +conveniences. But there is more than one way of taking such things, and +the sensitive stranger who has been walking about for a week with his +mind full of the sweetness and suggestiveness of a hundred Florentine +places may feel at last in looking into Mr. Ruskin's little tracts that, +discord for discord, there isn't much to choose between the importunity +of the author's personal ill-humour and the incongruity of horse-pails +and bundles of hay. And one may say this without being at all a partisan +of the doctrine of the inevitableness of new desecrations. For my own +part, I believe there are few things in this line that the new Italian +spirit isn't capable of, and not many indeed that we aren't destined to +see. Pictures and buildings won't be completely destroyed, because in +that case the _forestieri_, scatterers of cash, would cease to arrive +and the turn-stiles at the doors of the old palaces and convents, with +the little patented slit for absorbing your half-franc, would grow quite +rusty, would stiffen with disuse. But it's safe to say that the +new Italy growing into an old Italy again will continue to take her +elbow-room wherever she may find it. + +{Illustration: SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE} + +I am almost ashamed to say what I did with Mr. Ruskin's little books. I +put them into my pocket and betook myself to Santa Maria Novella. There +I sat down and, after I had looked about for a while at the beautiful +church, drew them forth one by one and read the greater part of them. +Occupying one's self with light literature in a great religious edifice +is perhaps as bad a piece of profanation as any of those rude dealings +which Mr. Ruskin justly deplores; but a traveller has to make the most +of odd moments, and I was waiting for a friend in whose company I was +to go and look at Giotto's beautiful frescoes in the cloister of the +church. My friend was a long time coming, so that I had an hour with Mr. +Ruskin, whom I called just now a light _litterateur_ because in these +little Mornings in Florence he is for ever making his readers laugh. +I remembered of course where I was, and in spite of my latent hilarity +felt I had rarely got such a snubbing. I had really been enjoying the +good old city of Florence, but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that this +was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an +imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I +had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio in the choir +of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books that +these frescoes were as naught. I had much admired Santa Croce and had +thought the Duomo a very noble affair; but I had now the most positive +assurance I knew nothing about them. After a while, if it was only +ill-humour that was needed for doing honour to the city of the Medici, +I felt that I had risen to a proper level; only now it was Mr. Ruskin +himself I had lost patience with, not the stupid Brunelleschi, not the +vulgar Ghirlandaio. Indeed I lost patience altogether, and asked myself +by what right this informal votary of form pretended to run riot through +a poor charmed _flaneur's_ quiet contemplations, his attachment to the +noblest of pleasures, his enjoyment of the loveliest of cities. The +little books seemed invidious and insane, and it was only when I +remembered that I had been under no obligation to buy them that I +checked myself in repenting of having done so. + +Then at last my friend arrived and we passed together out of the church, +and, through the first cloister beside it, into a smaller enclosure +where we stood a while to look at the tomb of the Marchesa +Strozzi-Ridolfi, upon which the great Giotto has painted four superb +little pictures. It was easy to see the pictures were superb; but I drew +forth one of my little books again, for I had observed that Mr. Ruskin +spoke of them. Hereupon I recovered my tolerance; for what could be +better in this case, I asked myself, than Mr. Ruskin's remarks? They +are in fact excellent and charming--full of appreciation of the deep +and simple beauty of the great painter's work. I read them aloud to my +companion; but my companion was rather, as the phrase is, "put off" +by them. One of the frescoes--it is a picture of the birth of the +Virgin--contains a figure coming through a door. "Of ornament," I quote, +"there is only the entirely simple outline of the vase which the servant +carries; of colour two or three masses of sober red and pure white, +with brown and grey. That is all," Mr. Ruskin continues. "And if you are +pleased with this you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse +yourself there, if you find it amusing, as long as you like; you +can never see it." _You can never see it._ This seemed to my friend +insufferable, and I had to shuffle away the book again, so that we might +look at the fresco with the unruffled geniality it deserves. We agreed +afterwards, when in a more convenient place I read aloud a good many +more passages from the precious tracts, that there are a great many +ways of seeing Florence, as there are of seeing most beautiful and +interesting things, and that it is very dry and pedantic to say that +the happy vision depends upon our squaring our toes with a certain +particular chalk-mark. We see Florence wherever and whenever we enjoy +it, and for enjoying it we find a great many more pretexts than Mr. +Ruskin seems inclined to allow. My friend and I convinced ourselves +also, however, that the little books were an excellent purchase, on +account of the great charm and felicity of much of their incidental +criticism; to say nothing, as I hinted just now, of their being +extremely amusing. Nothing in fact is more comical than the familiar +asperity of the author's style and the pedagogic fashion in which he +pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads toward +this, rapping their knuckles for that, sending them to stand in +corners and giving them Scripture texts to copy. But it is neither the +felicities nor the aberrations of detail, in Mr. Ruskin's writings, that +are the main affair for most readers; it is the general tone that, as +I have said, puts them off or draws them on. For many persons he will +never bear the test of being read in this rich old Italy, where art, so +long as it really lived at all, was spontaneous, joyous, irresponsible. +If the reader is in daily contact with those beautiful Florentine +works which do still, in away, force themselves into notice through the +vulgarity and cruelty of modern profanation, it will seem to him that +this commentator's comment is pitched in the strangest falsetto key. +"One may read a hundred pages of this sort of thing," said my friend, +"without ever dreaming that he is talking about _art_. You can say +nothing worse about him than that." Which is perfectly true. Art is the +one corner of human life in which we may take our ease. To justify our +presence there the only thing demanded of us is that we shall have felt +the representational impulse. In other connections our impulses are +conditioned and embarrassed; we are allowed to have only so many as +are consistent with those of our neighbours; with their convenience +and well-being, with their convictions and prejudices, their rules and +regulations. Art means an escape from all this. Wherever her shining +standard floats the need for apology and compromise is over; there it +is enough simply that we please or are pleased. There the tree is judged +only by its fruits. If these are sweet the tree is justified--and not +less so the consumer. + +One may read a great many pages of Mr. Ruskin without getting a hint of +this delightful truth; a hint of the not unimportant fact that art after +all is made for us and not we for art. This idea that the value of +a work is in the amount of illusion it yields is conspicuous by its +absence. And as for Mr. Ruskin's world's being a place--his world of +art--where we may take life easily, woe to the luckless mortal who +enters it with any such disposition. Instead of a garden of delight, he +finds a sort of assize court in perpetual session. Instead of a place +in which human responsibilities are lightened and suspended, he finds a +region governed by a kind of Draconic legislation. His responsibilities +indeed are tenfold increased; the gulf between truth and error is for +ever yawning at his feet; the pains and penalties of this same error are +advertised, in apocalyptic terminology, upon a thousand sign-posts; and +the rash intruder soon begins to look back with infinite longing to the +lost paradise of the artless. There can be no greater want of tact in +dealing with those things with which men attempt to ornament life than +to be perpetually talking about "error." A truce to all rigidities is +the law of the place; the only thing absolute there is that some force +and some charm have worked. The grim old bearer of the scales excuses +herself; she feels this not to be her province. Differences here are not +iniquity and righteousness; they are simply variations of temperament, +kinds of curiosity. We are not under theological government. + + +VI + +It was very charming, in the bright, warm days, to wander from one +corner of Florence to another, paying one's respects again to remembered +masterpieces. It was pleasant also to find that memory had played no +tricks and that the rarest things of an earlier year were as rare as +ever. To enumerate these felicities would take a great deal of space; +for I never had been more struck with the mere quantity of brilliant +Florentine work. Even giving up the Duomo and Santa Croce to Mr. Ruskin +as very ill-arranged edifices, the list of the Florentine treasures is +almost inexhaustible. Those long outer galleries of the Uffizi had +never beguiled me more; sometimes there were not more than two or +three figures standing there, Baedeker in hand, to break the charming +perspective. One side of this upstairs portico, it will be remembered, +is entirely composed of glass; a continuity of old-fashioned windows, +draped with white curtains of rather primitive fashion, which hang there +till they acquire a perceptible tone. The light, passing through +them, is softly filtered and diffused; it rests mildly upon the +old marbles--chiefly antique Roman busts--which stand in the narrow +intervals of the casements. It is projected upon the numerous pictures +that cover the opposite wall and that are not by any means, as a general +thing, the gems of the great collection; it imparts a faded brightness +to the old ornamental arabesques upon the painted wooden ceiling, and it +makes a great soft shining upon the marble floor, in which, as you look +up and down, you see the strolling tourists and the motionless copyists +almost reflected. I don't know why I should find all this very pleasant, +but in fact, I have seldom gone into the Uffizi without walking the +length of this third-story cloister, between the (for the most part) +third-rate canvases and panels and the faded cotton curtains. Why is +it that in Italy we see a charm in things in regard to which in other +countries we always take vulgarity for granted? If in the city of +New York a great museum of the arts were to be provided, by way of +decoration, with a species of verandah enclosed on one side by a series +of small-paned windows draped in dirty linen, and furnished on the other +with an array of pictorial feebleness, the place being surmounted by +a thinly-painted wooden roof, strongly suggestive of summer heat, +of winter cold, of frequent leakage, those amateurs who had had the +advantage of foreign travel would be at small pains to conceal their +contempt. Contemptible or respectable, to the judicial mind, this quaint +old loggia of the Uffizi admitted me into twenty chambers where I found +as great a number of ancient favourites. I don't know that I had a +warmer greeting for any old friend than for Andrea del Sarto, that most +touching of painters who is not one of the first. But it was on the +other side of the Arno that I found him in force, in those dusky +drawing-rooms of the Pitti Palace to which you take your way along +the tortuous tunnel that wanders through the houses of Florence and is +supported by the little goldsmiths' booths on the Ponte Vecchio. In the +rich insufficient light of these beautiful rooms, where, to look at the +pictures, you sit in damask chairs and rest your elbows on tables of +malachite, the elegant Andrea becomes deeply effective. Before long he +has drawn you close. But the great pleasure, after all, was to revisit +the earlier masters, in those specimens of them chiefly that bloom +so unfadingly on the big plain walls of the Academy. Fra Angelico and +Filippo Lippi, Botticelli and Lorenzo di Credi are the clearest, +the sweetest and best of all painters; as I sat for an hour in +their company, in the cold great hall of the institution I have +mentioned--there are shabby rafters above and an immense expanse of +brick tiles below, and many bad pictures as well as good--it seemed +to me more than ever that if one really had to choose one couldn't do +better than choose here. You may rest at your ease at the Academy, in +this big first room--at the upper end especially, on the left--because +more than many other places it savours of old Florence. More for +instance, in reality, than the Bargello, though the Bargello makes great +pretensions. Beautiful and masterful though the Bargello is, it smells +too strongly of restoration, and, much of old Italy as still lurks in +its furbished and renovated chambers, it speaks even more distinctly +of the ill-mannered young kingdom that has--as "unavoidably" as you +please--lifted down a hundred delicate works of sculpture from the +convent-walls where their pious authors placed them. If the early Tuscan +painters are exquisite I can think of no praise pure enough for the +sculptors of the same period, Donatello and Luca della Robbia, Matteo +Civitale and Mina da Fiesole, who, as I refreshed my memory of them, +seemed to me to leave absolutely nothing to be desired in the way of +straightness of inspiration and grace of invention. The Bargello is full +of early Tuscan sculpture, most of the pieces of which have come from +suppressed religious houses; and even if the visitor be an ardent +liberal he is uncomfortably conscious of the rather brutal process by +which it has been collected. One can hardly envy young Italy the number +of odious things she has had to do. + +The railway journey from Florence to Rome has been altered both for the +better and for the worse; for the better in that it has been shortened +by a couple of hours; for the worse inasmuch as when about half the +distance has been traversed the train deflects to the west and leaves +the beautiful old cities of Assisi, Perugia, Terni, Narni, unvisited. +Of old it was possible to call at these places, in a manner, from the +window of the train; even if you didn't stop, as you probably couldn't, +every time you passed, the immensely interesting way in which, like a +loosened belt on an aged and shrunken person, their ample walls held +them easily together was something well worth noting. Now, however, +for compensation, the express train to Rome stops at Orvieto, and in +consequence... In consequence what? What is the result of the stop of +an express train at Orvieto? As I glibly wrote that sentence I suddenly +paused, aware of the queer stuff I was uttering. That an express train +would graze the base of the horrid purple mountain from the apex of +which this dark old Catholic city uplifts the glittering front of +its cathedral--that might have been foretold by a keen observer of +contemporary manners. But that it would really have the grossness to +hang about is a fact over which, as he records it, an inveterate, a +perverse cherisher of the sense of the past order, the order still +largely prevailing at the time of his first visit to Italy, may well +make what is vulgarly called an ado. The train does stop at Orvieto, +not very long, it is true, but long enough to let you out. The same +phenomenon takes place on the following day, when, having visited the +city, you get in again. I availed myself without scruple of both of +these occasions, having formerly neglected to drive to the place in a +post-chaise. But frankly, the railway-station being in the plain and the +town on the summit of an extraordinary hill, you have time to forget +the puffing indiscretion while you wind upwards to the city-gate. The +position of Orvieto is superb--worthy of the "middle distance" of an +eighteenth-century landscape. But, as every one knows, the splendid +Cathedral is the proper attraction of the spot, which, indeed, save +for this fine monument and for its craggy and crumbling ramparts, is a +meanly arranged and, as Italian cities go, not particularly impressive +little town. I spent a beautiful Sunday there and took in the charming +church. I gave it my best attention, though on the whole I fear I found +it inferior to its fame. A high concert of colour, however, is the +densely carved front, richly covered with radiant mosaics. The old white +marble of the sculptured portions is as softly yellow as ancient ivory; +the large exceedingly bright pictures above them flashed and twinkled +in the glorious weather. Very striking and interesting the theological +frescoes of Luca Signorelli, though I have seen compositions of this +general order that appealed to me more. Characteristically fresh, +finally, the clear-faced saints and seraphs, in robes of pink and azure, +whom Fra Angelico has painted upon the ceiling of the great chapel, +along with a noble sitting figure--more expressive of movement than most +of the creations of this pictorial peace-maker--of Christ in judgment. +Yet the interest of the cathedral of Orvieto is mainly not the visible +result, but the historical process that lies behind it; those three +hundred years of the applied devotion of a people of which an American +scholar has written an admirable account.{1} + +1877. + +{1} Charles Eliot Norton, _Notes of Travel and Study in Italy_. + + + + + +A ROMAN HOLIDAY + + +It is certainly sweet to be merry at the right moment; but the right +moment hardly seems to me the ten days of the Roman Carnival. It was +my rather cynical suspicion perhaps that they wouldn't keep to my +imagination the brilliant promise of legend; but I have been justified +by the event and have been decidedly less conscious of the festal +influences of the season than of the inalienable gravity of the place. +There was a time when the Carnival was a serious matter--that is a +heartily joyous one; but, thanks to the seven-league boots the kingdom +of Italy has lately donned for the march of progress in quite other +directions, the fashion of public revelry has fallen woefully out of +step. The state of mind and manners under which the Carnival was kept in +generous good faith I doubt if an American can exactly conceive: he can +only say to himself that for a month in the year there must have been +things--things considerably of humiliation--it was comfortable to +forget. But now that Italy is made the Carnival is unmade; and we are +not especially tempted to envy the attitude of a population who have +lost their relish for play and not yet acquired to any striking extent +an enthusiasm for work. The spectacle on the Corso has seemed to me, on +the whole, an illustration of that great breach with the past of which +Catholic Christendom felt the somewhat muffled shock in September, 1870. +A traveller acquainted with the fully papal Rome, coming back any time +during the past winter, must have immediately noticed that something +momentous had happened--something hostile to the elements of picture +and colour and "style." My first warning was that ten minutes after +my arrival I found myself face to face with a newspaper stand. The +impossibility in the other days of having anything in the journalistic +line but the _Osservatore Romano_ and the _Voce della Verita_ used to +seem to me much connected with the extraordinary leisure of thought and +stillness of mind to which the place admitted you. But now the slender +piping of the Voice of Truth is stifled by the raucous note of eventide +vendors of the _Capitale_, the _Liberta_ and the _Fanfulla_; and Rome +reading unexpurgated news is another Rome indeed. For every subscriber +to the _Liberta_ there may well be an antique masker and reveller less. +As striking a sign of the new regime is the extraordinary increase of +population. The Corso was always a well-filled street, but now it's +a perpetual crush. I never cease to wonder where the new-comers are +lodged, and how such spotless flowers of fashion as the gentlemen who +stare at the carriages can bloom in the atmosphere of those _camere +mobiliate_ of which I have had glimpses. This, however, is their own +question, and bravely enough they meet it. They proclaimed somehow, to +the first freshness of my wonder, as I say, that by force of numbers +Rome had been secularised. An Italian dandy is a figure visually +to reckon with, but these goodly throngs of them scarce offered +compensation for the absent monsignori, treading the streets in their +purple stockings and followed by the solemn servants who returned on +their behalf the bows of the meaner sort; for the mourning gear of the +cardinals' coaches that formerly glittered with scarlet and swung with +the weight of the footmen clinging behind; for the certainty that you'll +not, by the best of traveller's luck, meet the Pope sitting deep in the +shadow of his great chariot with uplifted fingers like some inaccessible +idol in his shrine. You may meet the King indeed, who is as ugly, as +imposingly ugly, as some idols, though not so inaccessible. The other +day as I passed the Quirinal he drove up in a low carriage with a single +attendant; and a group of men and women who had been waiting near +the gate rushed at him with a number of folded papers. The carriage +slackened pace and he pocketed their offerings with a business-like +air--hat of a good-natured man accepting handbills at a street-corner. +Here was a monarch at his palace gate receiving petitions from his +subjects--being adjured to right their wrongs. The scene ought to have +thrilled me, but somehow it had no more intensity than a woodcut in an +illustrated newspaper. Homely I should call it at most; admirably so, +certainly, for there were lately few sovereigns standing, I believe, +with whom their people enjoyed these filial hand-to-hand relations. The +King this year, however, has had as little to do with the Carnival as +the Pope, and the innkeepers and Americans have marked it for their own. + +It was advertised to begin at half-past two o'clock of a certain +Saturday, and punctually at the stroke of the hour, from my room across +a wide court, I heard a sudden multiplication of sounds and confusion +of tongues in the Corso. I was writing to a friend for whom I cared +more than for any mere romp; but as the minutes elapsed and the hubbub +deepened curiosity got the better of affection, and I remembered that I +was really within eye-shot of an affair the fame of which had ministered +to the daydreams of my infancy. I used to have a scrap-book with a +coloured print of the starting of the bedizened wild horses, and the use +of a library rich in keepsakes and annuals with a frontispiece commonly +of a masked lady in a balcony, the heroine of a delightful tale further +on. Agitated by these tender memories I descended into the street; but +I confess I looked in vain for a masked lady who might serve as a +frontispiece, in vain for any object whatever that might adorn a tale. +Masked and muffled ladies there were in abundance; but their masks were +of ugly wire, perfectly resembling the little covers placed upon strong +cheese in German hotels, and their drapery was a shabby water-proof +with the hood pulled over their chignons. They were armed with great tin +scoops or funnels, with which they solemnly shovelled lime and flour +out of bushel-baskets and down on the heads of the people in the street. +They were packed into balconies all the way along the straight vista of +the Corso, in which their calcareous shower maintained a dense, gritty, +unpalatable fog. The crowd was compact in the street, and the Americans +in it were tossing back confetti out of great satchels hung round their +necks. It was quite the "you're another" sort of repartee, and less +seasoned than I had hoped with the airy mockery tradition hangs about +this festival. The scene was striking, in a word; but somehow not as +I had dreamed of its being. I stood regardful, I suppose, but with a +peculiarly tempting blankness of visage, for in a moment I received +half a bushel of flour on my too-philosophic head. Decidedly it was an +ignoble form of humour. I shook my ears like an emergent diver, and had +a sudden vision of how still and sunny and solemn, how peculiarly and +undisturbedly themselves, how secure from any intrusion less sympathetic +than one's own, certain outlying parts of Rome must just then be. The +Carnival had received its deathblow in my imagination; and it has been +ever since but a thin and dusky ghost of pleasure that has flitted at +intervals in and out of my consciousness. + +I turned my back accordingly on the Corso and wandered away to the +grass-grown quarters delightfully free even from the possibility of +a fellow-countryman. And so having set myself an example I have been +keeping Carnival by strolling perversely along the silent circumference +of Rome. I have doubtless lost a great deal. The Princess Margaret has +occupied a balcony opposite the open space which leads into Via Condotti +and, I believe, like the discreet princess she is, has dealt in no +missiles but bonbons, bouquets and white doves. I would have waited +half an hour any day to see the Princess Margaret hold a dove on her +forefinger; but I never chanced to notice any preparation for that +effect. And yet do what you will you can't really elude the Carnival. As +the days elapse it filters down into the manners of the common people, +and before the week is over the very beggars at the church-doors seem to +have gone to the expense of a domino. When you meet these specimens of +dingy drollery capering about in dusky back-streets at all hours of +the day and night, meet them flitting out of black doorways between the +greasy groups that cluster about Roman thresholds, you feel that a love +of "pranks," the more vivid the better, must from far back have +been implanted in the Roman temperament with a strong hand. An +unsophisticated American is wonderstruck at the number of persons, of +every age and various conditions, whom it costs nothing in the nature of +an ingenuous blush to walk up and down the streets in the costume of a +theatrical supernumerary. Fathers of families do it at the head of an +admiring progeniture; aunts and uncles and grandmothers do it; all +the family does it, with varying splendour but with the same good +conscience. "A pack of babies!" the doubtless too self-conscious alien +pronounces it for its pains, and tries to imagine himself strutting +along Broadway in a battered tin helmet and a pair of yellow tights. Our +vices are certainly different; it takes those of the innocent sort to be +so ridiculous. A self-consciousness lapsing so easily, in fine, strikes +me as so near a relation to amenity, urbanity and general gracefulness +that, for myself, I should be sorry to lay a tax on it, lest these other +commodities should also cease to come to market. + +I was rewarded, when I had turned away with my ears full of flour, by +a glimpse of an intenser life than the dingy foolery of the Corso. +I walked down by the back streets to the steps mounting to the +Capitol--that long inclined plane, rather, broken at every two paces, +which is the unfailing disappointment, I believe, of tourists primed for +retrospective raptures. Certainly the Capitol seen from this side isn't +commanding. The hill is so low, the ascent so narrow, Michael Angelo's +architecture in the quadrangle at the top so meagre, the whole place +somehow so much more of a mole-hill than a mountain, that for the first +ten minutes of your standing there Roman history seems suddenly to have +sunk through a trap-door. It emerges however on the other side, in the +Forum; and here meanwhile, if you get no sense of the sublime, you get +gradually a sense of exquisite composition. Nowhere in Rome is more +colour, more charm, more sport for the eye. The mild incline, during +the winter months, is always covered with lounging sun-seekers, and +especially with those more constantly obvious members of the Roman +population--beggars, soldiers, monks and tourists. The beggars and +peasants lie kicking their heels along that grandest of loafing-places +the great steps of the Ara Coeli. The dwarfish look of the Capitol is +intensified, I think, by the neighbourhood of this huge blank staircase, +mouldering away in disuse, the weeds thick in its crevices, and climbing +to the rudely solemn facade of the church. The sunshine glares on this +great unfinished wall only to light up its featureless despair, its +expression of conscious, irremediable incompleteness. Sometimes, massing +its rusty screen against the deep blue sky, with the little cross and +the sculptured porch casting a clear-cut shadow on the bricks, it seems +to have even more than a Roman desolation, it confusedly suggests Spain +and Africa--lands with no latent _risorgimenti_, with absolutely +nothing but a fatal past. The legendary wolf of Rome has lately been +accommodated with a little artificial grotto, among the cacti and the +palms, in the fantastic triangular garden squeezed between the steps of +the church and the ascent to the Capitol, where she holds a perpetual +levee and "draws" apparently as powerfully as the Pope himself. Above, +in the piazzetta before the stuccoed palace which rises so jauntily on a +basement of thrice its magnitude, are more loungers and knitters in the +sun, seated round the massively inscribed base of the statue of Marcus +Aurelius. Hawthorne has perfectly expressed the attitude of this +admirable figure in saying that it extends its arm with "a command which +is in itself a benediction." I doubt if any statue of king or captain +in the public places of the world has more to commend it to the general +heart. Irrecoverable simplicity--residing so in irrecoverable Style--has +no sturdier representative. Here is an impression that the sculptors of +the last three hundred years have been laboriously trying to reproduce; +but contrasted with this mild old monarch their prancing horsemen +suggest a succession of riding-masters taking out young ladies' +schools. The admirably human character of the figure survives the rusty +decomposition of the bronze and the slight "debasement" of the art; and +one may call it singular that in the capital of Christendom the portrait +most suggestive of a Christian conscience is that of a pagan emperor. + +You recover in some degree your stifled hopes of sublimity as you +pass beyond the palace and take your choice of either curving slope to +descend into the Forum. Then you see that the little stuccoed edifice +is but a modern excrescence on the mighty cliff of a primitive +construction, whose great squares of porous tufa, as they underlie each +other, seem to resolve themselves back into the colossal cohesion of +unhewn rock. There are prodigious strangenesses in the union of +this airy and comparatively fresh-faced superstructure and these +deep-plunging, hoary foundations; and few things in Rome are more +entertaining to the eye than to measure the long plumb-line which drops +from the inhabited windows of the palace, with their little over-peeping +balconies, their muslin curtains and their bird-cages, down to the +rugged constructional work of the Republic. In the Forum proper the +sublime is eclipsed again, though the late extension of the excavations +gives a chance for it. + +Nothing in Rome helps your fancy to a more vigorous backward flight than +to lounge on a sunny day over the railing which guards the great central +researches. It "says" more things to you than you can repeat to see the +past, the ancient world, as you stand there, bodily turned up with the +spade and transformed from an immaterial, inaccessible fact of time into +a matter of soils and surfaces. The pleasure is the same--in kind--as +what you enjoy of Pompeii, and the pain the same. It wasn't here, +however, that I found my compensation for forfeiting the spectacle on +the Corso, but in a little church at the end of the narrow byway which +diverges up the Palatine from just beside the Arch of Titus. This byway +leads you between high walls, then takes a bend and introduces you to a +long row of rusty, dusty little pictures of the stations of the cross. +Beyond these stands a small church with a front so modest that you +hardly recognise it till you see the leather curtain. I never see a +leather curtain without lifting it; it is sure to cover a constituted +_scene_ of some sort--good, bad or indifferent. The scene this time was +meagre--whitewash and tarnished candlesticks and mouldy muslin flowers +being its principal features. I shouldn't have remained if I hadn't +been struck with the attitude of the single worshipper--a young priest +kneeling before one of the sidealtars, who, as I entered, lifted his +head and gave me a sidelong look so charged with the languor of devotion +that he immediately became an object of interest. He was visiting each +of the altars in turn and kissing the balustrade beneath them. He was +alone in the church, and indeed in the whole region. There were no +beggars even at the door; they were plying their trade on the skirts +of the Carnival. In the entirely deserted place he alone knelt for +religion, and as I sat respectfully by it seemed to me I could hear in +the perfect silence the far-away uproar of the maskers. It was my +late impression of these frivolous people, I suppose, joined with the +extraordinary gravity of the young priest's face--his pious fatigue, +his droning prayer and his isolation--that gave me just then and there a +supreme vision of the religious passion, its privations and resignations +and exhaustions and its terribly small share of amusement. He was +young and strong and evidently of not too refined a fibre to enjoy the +Carnival; but, planted there with his face pale with fasting and his +knees stiff with praying, he seemed so stern a satire on it and on +the crazy thousands who were preferring it to _his_ way, that I half +expected to see some heavenly portent out of a monastic legend come down +and confirm his choice. Yet I confess that though I wasn't enamoured of +the Carnival myself, his seemed a grim preference and this forswearing +of the world a terrible game--a gaining one only if your zeal never +falters; a hard fight when it does. In such an hour, to a stout young +fellow like the hero of my anecdote, the smell of incense must seem +horribly stale and the muslin flowers and gilt candlesticks to figure no +great bribe. And it wouldn't have helped him much to think that not so +very far away, just beyond the Forum, in the Corso, there was sport for +the million, and for nothing. I doubt on the other hand whether my young +priest had thought of this. He had made himself a temple out of the very +elements of his innocence, and his prayers followed each other too +fast for the tempter to slip in a whisper. And so, as I say, I found a +solider fact of human nature than the love of _coriandoli_. + +One of course never passes the Colosseum without paying it one's +respects--without going in under one of the hundred portals and crossing +the long oval and sitting down a while, generally at the foot of the +cross in the centre. I always feel, as I do so, as if I were seated in +the depths of some Alpine valley. The upper portions of the side toward +the Esquiline look as remote and lonely as an Alpine ridge, and you +raise your eyes to their rugged sky-line, drinking in the sun and +silvered by the blue air, with much the same feeling with which you +would take in a grey cliff on which an eagle might lodge. This roughly +mountainous quality of the great ruin is its chief interest; beauty +of detail has pretty well vanished, especially since the high-growing +wild-flowers have been plucked away by the new government, whose +functionaries, surely, at certain points of their task, must have felt +as if they shared the dreadful trade of those who gather samphire. +Even if you are on your way to the Lateran you won't grudge the twenty +minutes it will take you, on leaving the Colosseum, to turn away under +the Arch of Constantine, whose noble battered bas-reliefs, with the +chain of tragic statues--fettered, drooping barbarians--round its +summit, I assume you to have profoundly admired, toward the piazzetta of +the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, on the slope of Caelian. No spot in +Rome can show a cluster of more charming accidents. The ancient brick +apse of the church peeps down into the trees of the little wooded walk +before the neighbouring church of San Gregorio, intensely venerable +beneath its excessive modernisation; and a series of heavy brick +buttresses, flying across to an opposite wall, overarches the short, +steep, paved passage which leads into the small square. This is flanked +on one side by the long mediaeval portico of the church of the two +saints, sustained by eight time-blackened columns of granite and marble. +On another rise the great scarce-windowed walls of a Passionist convent, +and on the third the portals of a grand villa, whose tall porter, +with his cockade and silver-topped staff, standing sublime behind his +grating, seems a kind of mundane St. Peter, I suppose, to the beggars +who sit at the church door or lie in the sun along the farther slope +which leads to the gate of the convent. The place always seems to me the +perfection of an out-of-the-way corner--a place you would think twice +before telling people about, lest you should find them there the next +time you were to go. It is such a group of objects, singly and in their +happy combination, as one must come to Rome to find at one's house +door; but what makes it peculiarly a picture is the beautiful dark +red campanile of the church, which stands embedded in the mass of +the convent. It begins, as so many things in Rome begin, with a stout +foundation of antique travertine, and rises high, in delicately quaint +mediaeval brickwork--little tiers and apertures sustained on miniature +columns and adorned with small cracked slabs of green and yellow marble, +inserted almost at random. When there are three or four brown-breasted +contadini sleeping in the sun before the convent doors, and a departing +monk leading his shadow down over them, I think you will not find +anything in Rome more _sketchable_. + +If you stop, however, to observe everything worthy of your water-colours +you will never reach St. John Lateran. My business was much less with +the interior of that vast and empty, that cold clean temple, which I +have never found peculiarly interesting, than with certain charming +features of its surrounding precinct--the crooked old court beside it, +which admits you to the Baptistery and to a delightful rear-view of +the queer architectural odds and ends that may in Rome compose a florid +ecclesiastical facade. There are more of these, a stranger jumble +of chance detail, of lurking recesses and wanton projections and +inexplicable windows, than I have memory or phrase for; but the gem +of the collection is the oddly perched peaked turret, with its yellow +travertine welded upon the rusty brickwork, which was not meant to be +suspected, and the brickwork retreating beneath and leaving it in the +odd position of a tower _under_ which you may see the sky. As to the +great front of the church overlooking the Porta San Giovanni, you are +not admitted behind the scenes; the term is quite in keeping, for the +architecture has a vastly theatrical air. It is extremely imposing--that +of St. Peter's alone is more so; and when from far off on the Campagna +you see the colossal images of the mitred saints along the top standing +distinct against the sky, you forget their coarse construction and their +inflated draperies. The view from the great space which stretches from +the church steps to the city wall is the very prince of views. Just +beside you, beyond the great alcove of mosaic, is the Scala Santa, the +marble staircase which (says the legend) Christ descended under the +weight of Pilate's judgment, and which all Christians must for ever +ascend on their knees; before you is the city gate which opens upon the +Via Appia Nuova, the long gaunt file of arches of the Claudian aqueduct, +their jagged ridge stretching away like the vertebral column of some +monstrous mouldering skeleton, and upon the blooming brown and purple +flats and dells of the Campagna and the glowing blue of the Alban +Mountains, spotted with their white, high-nestling towns; while to your +left is the great grassy space, lined with dwarfish mulberry-trees, +which stretches across to the damp little sister-basilica of Santa Croce +in Gerusalemme. During a former visit to Rome I lost my heart to this +idle tract,{1} + +{1} Utterly overbuilt and gone--1909. + +and wasted much time in sitting on the steps of the church and watching +certain white-cowled friars who were sure to be passing there for the +delight of my eyes. There are fewer friars now, and there are a great +many of the king's recruits, who inhabit the ex-conventual barracks +adjoining Santa Croce and are led forward to practise their goose-step +on the sunny turf. Here too the poor old cardinals who are no longer +to be seen on the Pincio descend from their mourning-coaches and +relax their venerable knees. These members alone still testify to the +traditional splendour of the princes of the Church; for as they advance +the lifted black petticoat reveals a flash of scarlet stockings and +makes you groan at the victory of civilisation over colour. + +{Illustration: THE FACADE OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, ROME.} + +If St. John Lateran disappoints you internally, you have an easy +compensation in pacing the long lane which connects it with Santa +Maria Maggiore and entering the singularly perfect nave of that most +delightful of churches. The first day of my stay in Rome under the +old dispensation I spent in wandering at random through the city, +with accident for my _valet-de-place_. It served me to perfection and +introduced me to the best things; among others to an immediate happy +relation with Santa Maria Maggiore. First impressions, memorable +impressions, are generally irrecoverable; they often leave one the +wiser, but they rarely return in the same form. I remember, of my coming +uninformed and unprepared into the place of worship and of curiosity +that I have named, only that I sat for half an hour on the edge of the +base of one of the marble columns of the beautiful nave and enjoyed a +perfect revel of--what shall I call it?--taste, intelligence, fancy, +perceptive emotion? The place proved so endlessly suggestive that +perception became a throbbing confusion of images, and I departed with +a sense of knowing a good deal that is not set down in Murray. I have +seated myself more than once again at the base of the same column; +but you live your life only once, the parts as well as the whole. The +obvious charm of the church is the elegant grandeur of the nave--its +perfect shapeliness and its rich simplicity, its long double row of +white marble columns and its high flat roof, embossed with intricate +gildings and mouldings. It opens into a choir of an extraordinary +splendour of effect, which I recommend you to look out for of a fine +afternoon. At such a time the glowing western light, entering the high +windows of the tribune, kindles the scattered masses of colour into +sombre bright-ness, scintillates on the great solemn mosaic of the +vault, touches the porphyry columns of the superb baldachino with ruby +lights, and buries its shining shafts in the deep-toned shadows that +hang about frescoes and sculptures and mouldings. The deeper charm even +than in such things, however, is the social or historic note or tone or +atmosphere of the church--I fumble, you see, for my right expression; +the sense it gives you, in common with most of the Roman churches, and +more than any of them, of having been prayed in for several centuries by +an endlessly curious and complex society. It takes no great attention to +let it come to you that the authority of Italian Catholicism has lapsed +not a little in these days; not less also perhaps than to feel that, as +they stand, these deserted temples were the fruit of a society leavened +through and through by ecclesiastical manners, and that they formed for +ages the constant background of the human drama. They are, as one +may say, the _churchiest_ churches in Europe--the fullest of gathered +memories, of the experience of their office. There's not a figure one +has read of in old-world annals that isn't to be imagined on proper +occasion kneeling before the lamp-decked Confession beneath the altar of +Santa Maria Maggiore. One sees after all, however, even among the +most palpable realities, very much what the play of one's imagination +projects there; and I present my remarks simply as a reminder that one's +constant excursions into these places are not the least interesting +episodes of one's walks in Rome. + +I had meant to give a simple illustration of the church-habit, so to +speak, but I have given it at such a length as leaves scant space to +touch on the innumerable topics brushed by the pen that begins to take +Roman notes. It is by the aimless _flanerie_ which leaves you free to +follow capriciously every hint of entertainment that you get to know +Rome. The greater part of the life about you goes on in the streets; +and for an observer fresh from a country in which town scenery is at the +least monotonous incident and character and picture seem to abound. I +become conscious with compunction, let me hasten to add, that I have +launched myself thus on the subject of Roman churches and Roman walks +without so much as a preliminary allusion to St. Peter's. One is apt to +proceed thither on rainy days with intentions of exercise--to put the +case only at that--and to carry these out body and mind. Taken as a walk +not less than as a church, St. Peter's of course reigns alone. Even +for the profane "constitutional" it serves where the Boulevards, where +Piccadilly and Broadway, fall short, and if it didn't offer to our use +the grandest area in the world it would still offer the most diverting. +Few great works of art last longer to the curiosity, to the perpetually +transcended attention. You think you have taken the whole thing in, but +it expands, it rises sublime again, and leaves your measure itself poor. +You never let the ponderous leather curtain bang down behind you--your +weak lift of a scant edge of whose padded vastness resembles the +liberty taken in folding back the parchment corner of some mighty folio +page--without feeling all former visits to have been but missed attempts +at apprehension and the actual to achieve your first real possession. +The conventional question is ever as to whether one hasn't been +"disappointed in the size," but a few honest folk here and there, I +hope, will never cease to say no. The place struck me from the first as +the hugest thing conceivable--a real exaltation of one's idea of space; +so that one's entrance, even from the great empty square which either +glares beneath the deep blue sky or makes of the cool far-cast shadow of +the immense front something that resembles a big slate-coloured country +on a map, seems not so much a going in somewhere as a going out. The +mere man of pleasure in quest of new sensations might well not know +where to better his encounter there of the sublime shock that brings +him, within the threshold, to an immediate gasping pause. There are +days when the vast nave looks mysteriously vaster than on others and +the gorgeous baldachino a longer journey beyond the far-spreading +tessellated plain of the pavement, and when the light has yet a quality +which lets things loom their largest, while the scattered figures--I +mean the human, for there are plenty of others--mark happily the scale +of items and parts. Then you have only to stroll and stroll and gaze and +gaze; to watch the glorious altar-canopy lift its bronze architecture, +its colossal embroidered contortions, like a temple within a temple, and +feel yourself, at the bottom of the abysmal shaft of the dome, dwindle +to a crawling dot. + +Much of the constituted beauty resides in the fact that it is all +general beauty, that you are appealed to by no specific details, or that +these at least, practically never importunate, are as taken for granted +as the lieutenants and captains are taken for granted in a great +standing army--among whom indeed individual aspects may figure here +the rather shifting range of decorative dignity in which details, when +observed, often prove poor (though never not massive and substantially +precious) and sometimes prove ridiculous. The sculptures, with the sole +exception of Michael Angelo's ineffable "Pieta," which lurks obscurely +in a side-chapel--this indeed to my sense the rarest artistic +_combination_ of the greatest things the hand of man has produced--are +either bad or indifferent; and the universal incrustation of marble, +though sumptuous enough, has a less brilliant effect than much later +work of the same sort, that for instance of St. Paul's without the +Walls. The supreme beauty is the splendidly sustained simplicity of the +whole. The thing represents a prodigious imagination extraordinarily +strained, yet strained, at its happiest pitch, without breaking. Its +happiest pitch I say, because this is the only creation of its strenuous +author in presence of which you are in presence of serenity. You +may invoke the idea of ease at St. Peter's without a sense of +sacrilege--which you can hardly do, if you are at all spiritually +nervous, in Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame. The vast enclosed clearness +has much to do with the idea. There are no shadows to speak of, no +marked effects of shade; only effects of light innumerably--points at +which this element seems to mass itself in airy density and scatter +itself in enchanting gradations and cadences. It performs the office of +gloom or of mystery in Gothic churches; hangs like a rolling mist along +the gilded vault of the nave, melts into bright interfusion the mosaic +scintillations of the dome, clings and clusters and lingers, animates +the whole huge and otherwise empty shell. A good Catholic, I suppose, is +the same Catholic anywhere, before the grandest as well as the humblest +altars; but to a visitor not formally enrolled St. Peter's speaks less +of aspiration than of full and convenient assurance. The soul infinitely +expands there, if one will, but all on its quite human level. It marvels +at the reach of our dreams and the immensity of our resources. To be so +impressed and put in our place, we say, is to be sufficiently "saved"; +we can't be more than the heaven itself; and what specifically celestial +beauty such a show or such a substitute may lack it makes up for in +certainty and tangibility. And yet if one's hours on the scene are not +actually spent in praying, the spirit seeks it again as for the finer +comfort, for the blessing, exactly, of its example, its protection and +its exclusion. When you are weary of the swarming democracy of your +fellow-tourists, of the unremunerative aspects of human nature on Corso +and Pincio, of the oppressively frequent combination of coronets on +carriage panels and stupid faces in carriages, of addled brains and +lacquered boots, of ruin and dirt and decay, of priests and beggars and +takers of advantage, of the myriad tokens of a halting civilisation, the +image of the great temple depresses the balance of your doubts, seems to +rise above even the highest tide of vulgarity and make you still believe +in the heroic will and the heroic act. It's a relief, in other words, to +feel that there's nothing but a cab-fare between your pessimism and one +of the greatest of human achievements. + +{Illustration: THE COLONNADE OF ST. PETER, ROME.} + +This might serve as a Lenten peroration to these remarks of mine which +have strayed so woefully from their jovial text, save that I ought +fairly to confess that my last impression of the Carnival was altogether +Carnivalesque.. The merry-making of Shrove Tuesday had life and +felicity; the dead letter of tradition broke out into nature and grace. +I pocketed my scepticism and spent a long afternoon on the Corso. Almost +every one was a masker, but you had no need to conform; the pelting rain +of confetti effectually disguised you. I can't say I found it all +very exhilarating; but here and there I noticed a brighter episode--a +capering clown inflamed with contagious jollity, some finer humourist +forming a circle every thirty yards to crow at his indefatigable +sallies. One clever performer so especially pleased me that I should +have been glad to catch a glimpse of the natural man. You imagined for +him that he was taking a prodigious intellectual holiday and that +his gaiety was in inverse ratio to his daily mood. Dressed as a needy +scholar, in an ancient evening-coat and with a rusty black hat and +gloves fantastically patched, he carried a little volume carefully +under his arm. His humours were in excellent taste, his whole manner the +perfection of genteel comedy. The crowd seemed to relish him vastly, +and he at once commanded a glee-fully attentive audience. Many of his +sallies I lost; those I caught were excellent. His trick was often +to begin by taking some one urbanely and caressingly by the chin and +complimenting him on the _intelligenza della sua fisionomia_. I kept +near him as long as I could; for he struck me as a real ironic artist, +cherishing a disinterested, and yet at the same time a motived and +a moral, passion for the grotesque. I should have liked, however--if +indeed I shouldn't have feared--to see him the next morning, or when he +unmasked that night over his hard-earned supper in a smoky _trattoria_. +As the evening went on the crowd thickened and became a motley press of +shouting, pushing, scrambling, everything but squabbling, revellers. The +rain of missiles ceased at dusk, but the universal deposit of chalk and +flour was trampled into a cloud made lurid by flaring pyramids of the +gas-lamps that replaced for the occasion the stingy Roman luminaries. +Early in the evening came off the classic exhibition of the +_moccoletti_, which I but half saw, like a languid reporter resigned +beforehand to be cashiered for want of enterprise. From the mouth of +a side-street, over a thousand heads, I caught a huge slow-moving +illuminated car, from which blue-lights and rockets and Roman candles +were in course of discharge, meeting all in a dim fuliginous glare +far above the house-tops. It was like a glimpse of some public orgy in +ancient Babylon. In the small hours of the morning, walking homeward +from a private entertainment, I found Ash Wednesday still kept at bay. +The Corso, flaring with light, smelt like a circus. Every one was taking +friendly liberties with every one else and using up the dregs of his +festive energy in convulsive hootings and gymnastics. Here and there +certain indefatigable spirits, clad all in red after the manner of +devils and leaping furiously about with torches, were supposed to +affright you. But they shared the universal geniality and bequeathed +me no midnight fears as a pretext for keeping Lent, the _carnevale dei +preti_, as I read in that profanely radical sheet the _Capitale_. Of +this too I have been having glimpses. Going lately into Santa Francesca +Romana, the picturesque church near the Temple of Peace, I found a feast +for the eyes--a dim crimson-toned light through curtained windows, +a great festoon of tapers round the altar, a bulging girdle of lamps +before the sunken shrine beneath, and a dozen white-robed Dominicans +scattered in the happiest composition on the pavement. It was better +than the _moccoletti_. + +1873. + + + + + +ROMAN RIDES + + +I shall always remember the first I took: out of the Porta del Popolo, +to where the Ponte Molle, whose single arch sustains a weight of +historic tradition, compels the sallow Tiber to flow between its four +great-mannered ecclesiastical statues, over the crest of the hill and +along the old posting-road to Florence. It was mild midwinter, the +season peculiarly of colour on the Roman Campagna; and the light was +full of that mellow purple glow, that tempered intensity, which haunts +the after-visions of those who have known Rome like the memory of some +supremely irresponsible pleasure. An hour away I pulled up and at the +edge of a meadow gazed away for some time into remoter distances. Then +and there, it seemed to me, I measured the deep delight of knowing +the Campagna. But I saw more things in it than I can easily tell. The +country rolled away around me into slopes and dells of long-drawn +grace, chequered with purple and blue and blooming brown. The lights and +shadows were at play on the Sabine Mountains--an alternation of tones +so exquisite as to be conveyed only by some fantastic comparison to +sapphire and amber. In the foreground a contadino in his cloak and +peaked hat jogged solitary on his ass; and here and there in the +distance, among blue undulations, some white village, some grey tower, +helped deliciously to make the picture the typical "Italian landscape" +of old-fashioned art. It was so bright and yet so sad, so still and yet +so charged, to the supersensuous ear, with the murmur of an extinguished +life, that you could only say it was intensely and adorably strange, +could only impute to the whole overarched scene an unsurpassed +secret for bringing tears of appreciation to no matter how +ignorant--archaeologically ignorant--eyes. To ride once, in these +conditions, is of course to ride again and to allot to the Campagna a +generous share of the time one spends in Rome. + +It is a pleasure that doubles one's horizon, and one can scarcely say +whether it enlarges or limits one's impression of the city proper. It +certainly makes St. Peter's seem a trifle smaller and blunts the edge of +one's curiosity in the Forum. It must be the effect of the experience, +at all extended, that when you think of Rome afterwards you will think +still respectfully and regretfully enough of the Vatican and the Pincio, +the streets and the picture-making street life; but will even more +wonder, with an irrepressible contraction of the heart, when again you +shall feel yourself bounding over the flower-smothered turf, or pass +from one framed picture to another beside the open arches of the +crumbling aqueducts. You look back at the City so often from some grassy +hill-top--hugely compact within its walls, with St. Peter's overtopping +all things and yet seeming small, and the vast girdle of marsh and +meadow receding on all sides to the mountains and the sea--that you come +to remember it at last as hardly more than a respectable parenthesis in +a great sweep of generalisation. Within the walls, on the other hand, +you think of your intended ride as the most romantic of all your +possibilities; of the Campagna generally as an illimitable experience. +One's rides certainly give Rome an inordinate scope for the +reflective--by which I suppose I mean after all the aesthetic and the +"esoteric"--life. To dwell in a city which, much as you grumble at +it, is after all very fairly a modern city; with crowds and shops and +theatres and cafes and balls and receptions and dinner-parties, and all +the modern confusion of social pleasures and pains; to have at your +door the good and evil of it all; and yet to be able in half an hour to +gallop away and leave it a hundred miles, a hundred years, behind, and +to look at the tufted broom glowing on a lonely tower-top in the still +blue air, and the pale pink asphodels trembling none the less for the +stillness, and the shaggy-legged shepherds leaning on their sticks in +motionless brotherhood with the heaps of ruin, and the scrambling goats +and staggering little kids treading out wild desert smells from the +top of hollow-sounding mounds; and then to come back through one of the +great gates and a couple of hours later find yourself in the "world," +dressed, introduced, entertained, inquiring, talking about "Middlemarch" +to a young English lady or listening to Neapolitan songs from a +gentleman in a very low-cut shirt--all this is to lead in a manner a +double life and to gather from the hurrying hours more impressions than +a mind of modest capacity quite knows how to dispose of. + +I touched lately upon this theme with a friend who, I fancied, would +understand me, and who immediately assured me that he had just spent a +day that this mingled diversity of sensation made to the days one spends +elsewhere what an uncommonly good novel may be to the daily paper. +"There was an air of idleness about it, if you will," he said, "and it +was certainly pleasant enough to have been wrong. Perhaps, being after +all unused to long stretches of dissipation, this was why I had a +half-feeling that I was reading an odd chapter in the history of a +person very much more of a _heros de roman_ than myself." Then he +proceeded to relate how he had taken a long ride with a lady whom he +extremely admired. "We turned off from the Tor di Quinto Road to that +castellated farm-house you know of--once a Ghibelline fortress--whither +Claude Lorraine used to come to paint pictures of which the surrounding +landscape is still so artistically, so compositionally, suggestive. We +went into the inner court, a cloister almost, with the carven capitals +of its loggia columns, and looked at a handsome child swinging shyly +against the half-opened door of a room whose impenetrable shadow, behind +her, made her, as it were, a sketch in bituminous water-colours. We +talked with the farmer, a handsome, pale, fever-tainted fellow with a +well-to-do air that didn't in the least deter his affability from a turn +compatible with the acceptance of small coin; and then we galloped away +and away over the meadows which stretch with hardly a break to Veii. The +day was strangely delicious, with a cool grey sky and just a touch of +moisture in the air stirred by our rapid motion. The Campagna, in the +colourless even light, was more solemn and romantic than ever; and a +ragged shepherd, driving a meagre straggling flock, whom we stopped to +ask our way of, was a perfect type of pastoral, weather-beaten misery. +He was precisely the shepherd for the foreground of a scratchy etching. +There were faint odours of spring in the air, and the grass here and +there was streaked with great patches of daisies; but it was spring +with a foreknowledge of autumn, a day to be enjoyed with a substrain of +sadness, the foreboding of regret, a day somehow to make one feel as if +one had seen and felt a great deal--quite, as I say, like a _heros +de roman_. Touching such characters, it was the illustrious Pelham, +I think, who, on being asked if he rode, replied that he left those +violent exercises to the ladies. But under such a sky, in such an +air, over acres of daisied turf, a long, long gallop is certainly +a supersubtle joy. The elastic bound of your horse is the poetry +of motion; and if you are so happy as to add to it not the prose of +companionship riding comes almost to affect you as a spiritual exercise. +My gallop, at any rate," said my friend, "threw me into a mood which +gave an extraordinary zest to the rest of the day." He was to go to a +dinner-party at a villa on the edge of Rome, and Madam X--, who was also +going, called for him in her carriage. "It was a long drive," he went +on, "through the Forum, past the Colosseum. She told me a long story +about a most interesting person. Toward the end my eyes caught through +the carriage window a slab of rugged sculptures. We were passing under +the Arch of Constantine. In the hall pavement of the villa is a rare +antique mosaic--one of the largest and most perfect; the ladies on their +way to the drawing-room trail over it the flounces of Worth. We drove +home late, and there's my day." + +On your exit from most of the gates of Rome you have generally +half-an-hour's progress through winding lanes, many of which are hardly +less charming than the open meadows. On foot the walls and high hedges +would vex you and spoil your walk; but in the saddle you generally +overtop them, to an endless peopling of the minor vision. Yet a Roman +wall in the springtime is for that matter almost as interesting as +anything it conceals. Crumbling grain by grain, coloured and mottled +to a hundred tones by sun and storm, with its rugged structure of brick +extruding through its coarse complexion of peeling stucco, its creeping +lacework of wandering ivy starred with miniature violets, and its wild +fringe of stouter flowers against the sky--it is as little as possible a +blank partition; it is practically a luxury of landscape. At the moment +at which I write, in mid-April, all the ledges and cornices are wreathed +with flaming poppies, nodding there as if they knew so well what faded +greys and yellows are an offset to their scarlet. But the best point in +a dilapidated enclosing surface of vineyard or villa is of course the +gateway, lifting its great arch of cheap rococo scroll-work, its balls +and shields and mossy dish-covers--as they always perversely figure +to me--and flanked with its dusky cypresses. I never pass one without +taking out my mental sketch-book and jotting it down as a vignette in +the insubstantial record of my ride. They are as sad and dreary as if +they led to the moated grange where Mariana waited in desperation for +something to happen; and it's easy to take the usual inscription over +the porch as a recommendation to those who enter to renounce all hope of +anything but a glass of more or less agreeably acrid _vino romano_. For +what you chiefly see over the walls and at the end of the straight short +avenue of rusty cypresses are the appurtenances of a _vigna_--a couple +of acres of little upright sticks blackening in the sun, and a vast +sallow-faced, scantily windowed mansion, whose expression denotes +little of the life of the mind beyond what goes to the driving of a hard +bargain over the tasted hogsheads. If Mariana is there she certainly has +no pile of old magazines to beguile her leisure. The life of the mind, +if the term be in any application here not ridiculous, appears to any +asker of curious questions, as he wanders about Rome, the very thinnest +deposit of the past. Within the rococo gateway, which itself has a +vaguely esthetic self-consciousness, at the end of the cypress walk, +you will probably see a mythological group in rusty marble--a Cupid and +Psyche, a Venus and Paris, an Apollo and Daphne--the relic of an age +when a Roman proprietor thought it fine to patronise the arts. But I +imagine you are safe in supposing it to constitute the only allusion +savouring of culture that has been made on the premises for three or +four generations. + +There is a franker cheerfulness--though certainly a proper amount of +that forlornness which lurks about every object to which the Campagna +forms a background--in the primitive little taverns where, on the +homeward stretch, in the waning light, you are often glad to rein up and +demand a bottle of their best. Their best and their worst are indeed +the same, though with a shifting price, and plain _vino bianco_ or _vino +rosso_ (rarely both) is the sole article of refreshment in which they +deal. There is a ragged bush over the door, and within, under a dusky +vault, on crooked cobble-stones, sit half-a-dozen contadini in their +indigo jackets and goatskin breeches and with their elbows on the table. +There is generally a rabble of infantile beggars at the door, pretty +enough in their dusty rags, with their fine eyes and intense Italian +smile, to make you forget your private vow of doing your individual best +I to make these people, whom you like so much, unlearn their old vices. +Was Porta Pia bombarded three years ago that Peppino should still grow +up to whine for a copper? But the Italian shells had no direct message +for Peppino's stomach--and you are going to a dinner-party at a villa. +So Peppino "points" an instant for the copper in the dust and grows up a +Roman beggar. The whole little place represents the most primitive form +of hostelry; but along any of the roads leading out of the city you may +find establishments of a higher type, with Garibaldi, superbly mounted +and foreshortened, painted on the wall, or a lady in a low-necked dress +opening a fictive lattice with irresistible hospitality, and a yard with +the classic vine-wreathed arbour casting thin shadows upon benches and +tables draped and cushioned with the white dust from which the highways +from the gates borrow most of their local colour. None the less, I +say, you avoid the highroads, and, if you are a person of taste, don't +grumble at the occasional need of following the walls of the city. City +walls, to a properly constituted American, can never be an object of +indifference; and it is emphatically "no end of a sensation" to pace in +the shadow of this massive cincture of Rome. I have found myself, as I +skirted its base, talking of trivial things, but never without a sudden +reflection on the deplorable impermanence of first impressions. A +twelvemonth ago the raw plank fences of a Boston suburb, inscribed with +the virtues of healing drugs, bristled along my horizon: now I glance +with idle eyes at a compacted antiquity in which a more learned sense +may read portentous dates and signs--Servius, Aurelius, Honorius. But +even to idle eyes the prodigious, the continuous thing bristles with +eloquent passages. In some places, where the huge brickwork is black +with time and certain strange square towers look down at you with still +blue eyes, the Roman sky peering through lidless loopholes, and there is +nothing but white dust in the road and solitude in the air, I might take +myself for a wandering Tartar touching on the confines of the Celestial +Empire. The wall of China must have very much such a gaunt robustness. +The colour of the Roman ramparts is everywhere fine, and their rugged +patchwork has been subdued by time and weather into a mellow harmony +that the brush only asks to catch up. On the northern side of the city, +behind the Vatican, St. Peter's and the Trastevere, I have seen them +glowing in the late afternoon with the tones of ancient bronze and rusty +gold. Here at various points they are embossed with the Papal insignia, +the tiara with its flying bands and crossed keys; to the high style +of which the grace that attaches to almost any lost cause--even if not +quite the "tender" grace of a day that is dead--considerably adds a +style. With the dome of St. Peter's resting on their cornice and the +hugely clustered architecture of the Vatican rising from them as from a +terrace, they seem indeed the valid bulwark of an ecclesiastical city. +Vain bulwark, alas! sighs the sentimental tourist, fresh from the meagre +entertainment of this latter Holy Week. But he may find monumental +consolation in this neighbourhood at a source where, as I pass, I never +fail to apply for it. At half-an-hour's walk beyond Porta San Pancrazio, +beneath the wall of the Villa Doria, is a delightfully pompous +ecclesiastical gateway of the seventeenth century, erected by Paul V to +commemorate his restoration of the aqueducts through which the stream +bearing his name flows towards the fine florid portico protecting its +clear-sheeted outgush on the crest of the Janiculan. It arches across +the road in the most ornamental manner of the period, and one can hardly +pause before it without seeming to assist at a ten minutes' revival of +old Italy--without feeling as if one were in a cocked hat and sword and +were coming up to Rome, in another mood than Luther's, with a letter of +recommendation to the mistress of a cardinal. + +The Campagna differs greatly on the two sides of the Tiber; and it is +hard to say which, for the rider, has the greater charm. The half-dozen +rides you may take from Porta San Giovanni possess the perfection of +traditional Roman interest and lead you through a far-strewn wilderness +of ruins--a scattered maze of tombs and towers and nameless fragments of +antique masonry. The landscape here has two great features; close before +you on one side is the long, gentle swell of the Alban Hills, deeply, +fantastically blue in most weathers, and marbled with the vague white +masses of their scattered towns and villas. It would be difficult to +draw the hard figure to a softer curve than that with which the heights +sweep from Albano to the plain; this a perfect example of the classic +beauty of line in the Italian landscape--that beauty which, when it +fills the background of a picture, makes us look in the foreground for +a broken column couched upon flowers and a shepherd piping to dancing +nymphs. At your side, constantly, you have the broken line of the +Claudian Aqueduct, carrying its broad arches far away into the plain. +The meadows along which it lies are not the smoothest in the world for +a gallop, but there is no pleasure greater than to wander near it. It +stands knee-deep in the flower-strewn grass, and its rugged piers are +hung with ivy as the columns of a church are draped for a festa. Every +archway is a picture, massively framed, of the distance beyond--of the +snow-tipped Sabines and lonely Soracte. As the spring advances the whole +Campagna smiles and waves with flowers; but I think they are nowhere +more rank and lovely than in the shifting shadow of the aqueducts, where +they muffle the feet of the columns and smother the half-dozen brooks +which wander in and out like silver meshes between the legs of a file +of giants. They make a niche for themselves too in every crevice and +tremble on the vault of the empty conduits. The ivy hereabouts in the +springtime is peculiarly brilliant and delicate; and though it cloaks +and muffles these Roman fragments far less closely than the castles +and abbeys of England it hangs with the light elegance of all Italian +vegetation. It is partly doubtless because their mighty outlines are +still unsoftened that the aqueducts are so impressive. They seem +the very source of the solitude in which they stand; they look like +architectural spectres and loom through the light mists of their grassy +desert, as you recede along the line, with the same insubstantial +vastness as if they rose out of Egyptian sands. It is a great +neighbourhood of ruins, many of which, it must be confessed, you have +applauded in many an album. But station a peasant with sheepskin +coat and bandaged legs in the shadow of a tomb or tower best known to +drawing-room art, and scatter a dozen goats on the mound above him, and +the picture has a charm which has not yet been sketched away. + +The other quarter of the Campagna has wider fields and smoother turf and +perhaps a greater number of delightful rides; the earth is sounder, and +there are fewer pitfalls and ditches. The land for the most part lies +higher and catches more wind, and the grass is here and there for great +stretches as smooth and level as a carpet. You have no Alban Mountains +before you, but you have in the distance the waving ridge of the nearer +Apennines, and west of them, along the course of the Tiber, the long +seaward level of deep-coloured fields, deepening as they recede to the +blue and purple of the sea itself. Beyond them, of a very clear day, +you may see the glitter of the Mediterranean. These are the occasions +perhaps to remember most fondly, for they lead you to enchanting nooks, +and the landscape has details of the highest refinement. Indeed when my +sense reverts to the lingering impressions of so blest a time, it seems +a fool's errand to have attempted to express them, and a waste of words +to do more than recommend the reader to go citywards at twilight of the +end of March, making for Porta Cavalleggieri, and note what he sees. At +this hour the Campagna is to the last point its melancholy self, and +I remember roadside "effects" of a strange and intense suggestiveness. +Certain mean, mouldering villas behind grass-grown courts have an +indefinably sinister look; there was one in especial of which it was +impossible not to argue that a despairing creature must have once +committed suicide there, behind bolted door and barred window, and that +no one has since had the pluck to go in and see why he never came out. +Every wayside mark of manners, of history, every stamp of the past in +the country about Rome, touches my sense to a thrill, and I may thus +exaggerate the appeal of very common things. This is the more likely +because the appeal seems ever to rise out of heaven knows what depths +of ancient trouble. To delight in the aspects of _sentient_ ruin might +appear a heartless pastime, and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note +of perversity. The sombre and the hard are as common an influence from +southern things as the soft and the bright, I think; sadness rarely +fails to assault a northern observer when he misses what he takes for +comfort. Beauty is no compensation for the loss, only making it more +poignant. Enough beauty of climate hangs over these Roman cottages and +farm-houses--beauty of light, of atmosphere and of vegetation; but their +charm for the maker-out of the stories in things is the way the golden +air shows off their desolation. Man lives more with Nature in Italy than +in New or than in Old England; she does more work for him and gives +him more holidays than in our short-summered climes, and his home is +therefore much more bare of devices for helping him to do without her, +forget her and forgive her. These reflections are perhaps the source of +the character you find in a moss-coated stone stairway climbing outside +of a wall; in a queer inner court, befouled with rubbish and drearily +bare of convenience; in an ancient quaintly carven well, worked with +infinite labour from an overhanging window; in an arbour of time-twisted +vines under which you may sit with your feet in the dirt and remember +as a dim fable that there are races for which the type of domestic +allurement is the parlour hearth-rug. For reasons apparent or otherwise +these things amuse me beyond expression, and I am never weary of staring +into gateways, of lingering by dreary, shabby, half-barbaric farm-yards, +of feasting a foolish gaze on sun-cracked plaster and unctuous indoor +shadows. I mustn't forget, however, that it's not for wayside effects +that one rides away behind St. Peter's, but for the strong sense +of wandering over boundless space, of seeing great classic lines of +landscape, of watching them dispose themselves into pictures so full of +"style" that you can think of no painter who deserves to have you admit +that they suggest him--hardly knowing whether it is better pleasure +to gallop far and drink deep of air and grassy distance and the whole +delicious opportunity, or to walk and pause and linger, and try and +grasp some ineffaceable memory of sky and colour and outline. Your +pace can hardly help falling into a contemplative measure at the time, +everywhere so wonderful, but in Rome so persuasively divine, when the +winter begins palpably to soften and quicken. Far out on the Campagna, +early in February, you feel the first vague earthly emanations, which +in a few weeks come wandering into the heart of the city and throbbing +through the close, dark streets. Springtime in Rome is an immensely +poetic affair; but you must stand often far out in the ancient waste, +between grass and sky, to measure its deep, full, steadily accelerated +rhythm. The winter has an incontestable beauty, and is pre-eminently the +time of colour--the time when it is no affectation, but homely verity, +to talk about the "purple" tone of the atmosphere. As February comes and +goes your purple is streaked with green and the rich, dark bloom of the +distance begins to lose its intensity. But your loss is made up by other +gains; none more precious than that inestimable gain to the ear--the +disembodied voice of the lark. It comes with the early flowers, the +white narcissus and the cyclamen, the half-buried violets and the pale +anemones, and makes the whole atmosphere ring like a vault of tinkling +glass. You never see the source of the sound, and are utterly unable to +localise his note, which seems to come from everywhere at once, to be +some hundred-throated voice of the air. Sometimes you fancy you just +catch him, a mere vague spot against the blue, an intenser throb in the +universal pulsation of light. As the weeks go on the flowers multiply +and the deep blues and purples of the hills, turning to azure and +violet, creep higher toward the narrowing snow-line of the Sabines. The +temperature rises, the first hour of your ride you feel the heat, but +you beguile it with brushing the hawthorn-blossoms as you pass along the +hedges, and catching at the wild rose and honeysuckle; and when you get +into the meadows there is stir enough in the air to lighten the dead +weight of the sun. The Roman air, however, is not a tonic medicine, and +it seldom suffers exercise to be all exhilarating. It has always +seemed to me indeed part of the charm of the latter that your keenest +consciousness is haunted with a vague languor. Occasionally when the +sirocco blows that sensation becomes strange and exquisite. Then, under +the grey sky, before the dim distances which the south-wind mostly +brings with it, you seem to ride forth into a world from which all +hope has departed and in which, in spite of the flowers that make your +horse's footfalls soundless, nothing is left save some queer probability +that your imagination is unable to measure, but from which it hardly +shrinks. This quality in the Roman element may now and then "relax" +you almost to ecstasy; but a season of sirocco would be an overdose of +morbid pleasure. You may at any rate best feel the peculiar beauty of +the Campagna on those mild days of winter when the mere quality and +temper of the sunshine suffice to move the landscape to joy, and you +pause on the brown grass in the sunny stillness and, by listening long +enough, almost fancy you hear the shrill of the midsummer cricket. It +is detail and ornament that vary from month to month, from week to +week even, and make your returns to the same places a constant feast +of unexpectedness; but the great essential features of the prospect +preserve throughout the year the same impressive serenity. Soracte, be +it January or May, rises from its blue horizon like an island from the +sea and with an elegance of contour which no mood of the year can deepen +or diminish. You know it well; you have seen it often in the mellow +backgrounds of Claude; and it has such an irresistibly classic, academic +air that while you look at it you begin to take your saddle for a +faded old arm-chair in a palace gallery. A month's rides in different +directions will show you a dozen prime Claudes. After I had seen them +all I went piously to the Doria gallery to refresh my memory of its +two famous specimens and to enjoy to the utmost their delightful air of +reference to something that had become a part of my personal experience. +Delightful it certainly is to feel the common element in one's own +sensibility and those of a genius whom that element has helped to do +great things. Claude must have haunted the very places of one's personal +preference and adjusted their divine undulations to his splendid scheme +of romance, his view of the poetry of life. He was familiar with aspects +in which there wasn't a single uncompromising line. I saw a few days ago +a small finished sketch from his hand, in the possession of an American +artist, which was almost startling in its clear reflection of forms +unaltered by the two centuries that have dimmed and cracked the paint +and canvas. + +This unbroken continuity of the impressions I have tried to indicate is +an excellent example of the intellectual background of all enjoyment in +Rome. It effectually prevents pleasure from becoming vulgar, for your +sensation rarely begins and ends with itself; it reverberates--it +recalls, commemorates, resuscitates something else. At least half the +merit of everything you enjoy must be that it suits you absolutely; but +the larger half here is generally that it has suited some one else and +that you can never flatter yourself you have discovered it. It has been +addressed to some use a million miles out of your range, and has had +great adventures before ever condescending to please you. It was in +admission of this truth that my discriminating friend who showed me the +Claudes found it impossible to designate a certain delightful region +which you enter at the end of an hour's riding from Porta Cavalleggieri +as anything but Arcadia. The exquisite correspondence of the term in +this case altogether revived its faded bloom; here veritably the oaten +pipe must have stirred the windless air and the satyrs have laughed +among the brookside reeds. Three or four long grassy dells stretch away +in a chain between low hills over which delicate trees are so discreetly +scattered that each one is a resting place for a shepherd. The elements +of the scene are simple enough, but the composition has extraordinary +refinement. By one of those happy chances which keep observation in +Italy always in her best humour a shepherd had thrown himself down under +one of the trees in the very attitude of Meliboeus. He had been washing +his feet, I suppose, in the neighbouring brook, and had found it +pleasant afterwards to roll his short breeches well up on his thighs. +Lying thus in the shade, on his elbow, with his naked legs stretched out +on the turf and his soft peaked hat over his long hair crushed back +like the veritable bonnet of Arcady, he was exactly the figure of the +background of this happy valley. The poor fellow, lying there in +rustic weariness and ignorance, little fancied that he was a symbol of +old-world meanings to new-world eyes. + +Such eyes may find as great a store of picturesque meanings in the +cork-woods of Monte Mario, tenderly loved of all equestrians. These are +less severely pastoral than our Arcadia, and you might more properly +lodge there a damosel of Ariosto than a nymph of Theocritus. Among them +is strewn a lovely wilderness of flowers and shrubs, and the whole place +has such a charming woodland air, that, casting about me the other day +for a compliment, I declared that it reminded me of New Hampshire. My +compliment had a double edge, and I had no sooner uttered it than I +smiled--or sighed--to perceive in all the undiscriminated botany about +me the wealth of detail, the idle elegance and grace of Italy alone, the +natural stamp of the land which has the singular privilege of making one +love her unsanctified beauty all but as well as those features of one's +own country toward which nature's small allowance doubles that of one's +own affection. For this effect of casting a spell no rides have more +value than those you take in Villa Doria or Villa Borghese; or don't +take, possibly, if you prefer to reserve these particular regions--the +latter in especial--for your walking hours. People do ride, however, +in both villas, which deserve honourable mention in this regard. Villa +Doria, with its noble site, its splendid views, its great groups of +stone-pines, so clustered and yet so individual, its lawns and flowers +and fountains, its altogether princely disposition, is a place where one +may pace, well mounted, of a brilliant day, with an agreeable sense of +its being rather a more elegant pastime to balance in one's stirrups +than to trudge on even the smoothest gravel. But at Villa Borghese +the walkers have the best of it; for they are free of those adorable +outlying corners and bosky byways which the rumble of barouches never +reaches. In March the place becomes a perfect epitome of the spring. +You cease to care much for the melancholy greenness of the disfeatured +statues which has been your chief winter's intimation of verdure; and +before you are quite conscious of the tender streaks and patches in the +great quaint grassy arena round which the Propaganda students, in their +long skirts, wander slowly, like dusky seraphs revolving the gossip of +Paradise, you spy the brave little violets uncapping their azure brows +beneath the high-stemmed pines. One's walks here would take us too far, +and one's pauses detain us too long, when in the quiet parts under +the wall one comes across a group of charming small school-boys in +full-dress suits and white cravats, shouting over their play in clear +Italian, while a grave young priest, beneath a tree, watches them over +the top of his book. It sounds like nothing, but the force behind it and +the frame round it, the setting, the air, the chord struck, make it a +hundred wonderful things. + +1873. + + + + + +ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS + + +I made a note after my first stroll at Albano to the effect that I had +been talking of the "picturesque" all my life, but that now for a change +I beheld it. I had been looking all winter across the Campagna at the +free-flowing outline of the Alban Mount, with its half-dozen towns +shining on its purple side even as vague sun-spots in the shadow of +a cloud, and thinking it simply an agreeable incident in the varied +background of Rome. But now that during the last few days I have been +treating it as a foreground, have been suffering St. Peter's to play +the part of a small mountain on the horizon, with the Campagna swimming +mistily through the ambiguous lights and shadows of the interval, I find +the interest as great as in the best of the by-play of Rome. The walk +I speak of was just out of the village, to the south, toward the +neighbouring town of L'Ariccia, neighbouring these twenty years, since +the Pope (the late Pope, I was on the point of calling him) threw his +superb viaduct across the deep ravine which divides it from Albano. At +the risk of seeming to fantasticate I confess that the Pope's having +built the viaduct--in this very recent antiquity--made me linger there +in a pensive posture and marvel at the march of history and at Pius the +Ninth's beginning already to profit by the sentimental allowances we +make to vanished powers. An ardent _nero_ then would have had his own +way with me and obtained a frank admission that the Pope was indeed a +father to his people. Far down into the charming valley which slopes out +of the ancestral woods of the Chigis into the level Campagna winds the +steep stone-paved road at the bottom of which, in the good old days, +tourists in no great hurry saw the mules and oxen tackled to their +carriage for the opposite ascent. And indeed even an impatient tourist +might have been content to lounge back in his jolting chaise and look +out at the mouldy foundations of the little city plunging into the +verdurous flank of the gorge. Questioned, as a cherisher of quaintness, +as to the best "bit" hereabouts, I should certainly name the way in +which the crumbling black houses of these ponderous villages plant their +weary feet on the flowery edges of all the steepest chasms. Before you +enter one of them you invariably find yourself lingering outside its +pretentious old gateway to see it clutched and stitched to the stony +hillside by this rank embroidery of the wildest and bravest things that +grow. Just at this moment nothing is prettier than the contrast between +their dusky ruggedness and the tender, the yellow and pink and violet +fringe of that mantle. All this you may observe from the viaduct at +the Ariccia; but you must wander below to feel the full force of the +eloquence of our imaginary _papalino_. The pillars and arches of +pale grey peperino arise in huge tiers with a magnificent spring and +solidity. The older Romans built no better; and the work has a deceptive +air of being one of their sturdy bequests which help one to drop +another sigh over the antecedents the Italians of to-day are so eager to +repudiate. Will those _they_ give their descendants be as good? + +At the Ariccia, in any case, I found a little square with a couple of +mossy fountains, occupied on one side by a vast dusky-faced Palazzo +Chigi and on the other by a goodly church with an imposing dome. +The dome, within, covers the whole edifice and is adorned with some +extremely elegant stucco-work of the seventeenth century. It gave a +great value to this fine old decoration that preparations were going +forward for a local festival and that the village carpenter was hanging +certain mouldy strips of crimson damask against the piers of the vaults. +The damask might have been of the seventeenth century too, and a group +of peasant-women were seeing it unfurled with evident awe. I regarded +it myself with interest--it seemed so the tattered remnant of a fashion +that had gone out for ever. I thought again of the poor disinherited +Pope, wondering whether, when such venerable frippery will no longer +bear the carpenter's nails, any more will be provided. It was hard to +fancy anything but shreds and patches in that musty tabernacle. Wherever +you go in Italy you receive some such intimation as this of the shrunken +proportions of Catholicism, and every church I have glanced into on my +walks hereabouts has given me an almost pitying sense of it. One finds +one's self at last--without fatuity, I hope--feeling sorry for the +solitude of the remaining faithful. It's as if the churches had been +made so for the world, in its social sense, and the world had so +irrevocably moved away. They are in size out of all modern proportion to +the local needs, and the only thing at all alive in the melancholy waste +they collectively form is the smell of stale incense. There are pictures +on all the altars by respectable third-rate painters; pictures which I +suppose once were ordered and paid for and criticised by worshippers who +united taste with piety. At Genzano, beyond the Ariccia, rises on the +grey village street a pompous Renaissance temple whose imposing nave +and aisles would contain the population of a capital. But where is the +_taste_ of the Ariccia and Genzano? Where are the choice spirits for +whom Antonio Raggi modelled the garlands of his dome and a hundred +clever craftsmen imitated Guido and Caravaggio? Here and there, from the +pavement, as you pass, a dusky crone interlards her devotions with more +profane importunities, or a grizzled peasant on rusty-jointed knees, +tilted forward with his elbows on a bench, reveals the dimensions of +the patch in his blue breeches. But where is the connecting link between +Guido and Caravaggio and those poor souls for whom an undoubted original +is only a something behind a row of candlesticks, of no very clear +meaning save that you must bow to it? You find a vague memory of it at +best in the useless grandeurs about you, and you seem to be looking at a +structure of which the stubborn earth-scented foundations alone remain, +with the carved and painted shell that bends above them, while the +central substance has utterly crumbled away. + +I shall seem to have adopted a more meditative pace than befits a brisk +constitutional if I say that I also fell a-thinking before the shabby +facade of the old Chigi Palace. But it seemed somehow in its grey +forlornness to respond to the sadly superannuated expression of the +opposite church; and indeed in any condition what self-respecting +cherisher of quaintness can forbear to do a little romancing in the +shadow of a provincial palazzo? On the face of the matter, I know, +there is often no very salient peg to hang a romance on. A sort of dusky +blankness invests the establishment, which has often a rather imbecile +old age. But a hundred brooding secrets lurk in this inexpressive mask, +and the Chigi Palace did duty for me in the suggestive twilight as +the most haunted of houses. Its basement walls sloped outward like the +beginning of a pyramid, and its lower windows were covered with massive +iron cages. Within the doorway, across the court, I saw the pale glimmer +of flowers on a terrace, and I made much, for the effect of the roof, of +a great covered loggia or belvedere with a dozen window-panes missing +or mended with paper. Nothing gives one a stronger impression of old +manners than an ancestral palace towering in this haughty fashion over +a shabby little town; you hardly stretch a point when you call it an +impression of feudalism. The scene may pass for feudal to American eyes, +for which a hundred windows on a facade mean nothing more exclusive than +a hotel kept (at the most invidious) on the European plan. The mouldy +grey houses on the steep crooked street, with their black cavernous +archways pervaded by bad smells, by the braying of asses and by human +intonations hardly more musical, the haggard and tattered peasantry +staring at you with hungry-heavy eyes, the brutish-looking monks +(there are still enough to point a moral), the soldiers, the mounted +constables, the dirt, the dreariness, the misery, and the dark +over-grown palace frowning over it all from barred window and guarded +gateway--what more than all this do we dimly descry in a mental image of +the dark ages? For all his desire to keep the peace with the vivid image +of things if it be only vivid enough, the votary of this ideal may well +occasionally turn over such values with the wonder of what one takes +them as paying for. They pay sometimes for such sorry "facts of life." +At Genzano, out of the very midst of the village squalor, rises the +Palazzo Cesarini, separated from its gardens by a dirty lane. Between +peasant and prince, the contact is unbroken, and one would suppose +Italian good-nature sorely taxed by their mutual allowances; that the +prince in especial must cultivate a firm impervious shell. There are +no comfortable townsfolk about him to remind him of the blessings of a +happy mediocrity of fortune. When he looks out of his window he sees a +battered old peasant against a sunny wall sawing off his dinner from a +hunch of black bread. + +I must confess, however, that "feudal" as it amused me to find the +little piazza of the Ariccia, it appeared to threaten in no manner an +exasperated rising. On the contrary, the afternoon being cool, many of +the villagers were contentedly muffled in those ancient cloaks, lined +with green baize, which, when tossed over the shoulder and surmounted +with a peaked hat, form one of the few lingering remnants of "costume" +in Italy; others were tossing wooden balls light-heartedly enough on the +grass outside the town. The egress on this side is under a great stone +archway thrown out from the palace and surmounted with the family arms. +Nothing could better confirm your theory that the townsfolk are groaning +serfs. The road leads away through the woods, like many of the roads +hereabouts, among trees less remarkable for their size than for their +picturesque contortions and posturings. The woods, at the moment at +which I write, are full of the raw green light of early spring, a _jour_ +vastly becoming to the various complexions of the wild flowers that +cover the waysides. I have never seen these untended parterres in such +lovely exuberance; the sturdiest pedestrian becomes a lingering idler if +he allows them to catch his eye. The pale purple cyclamen, with its hood +thrown back, stands up in masses as dense as tulip-beds; and here and +there in the duskier places great sheets of forget-me-not seem to exhale +a faint blue mist. These are the commonest plants; there are dozens +more I know no name for--a rich profusion in especial of a beautiful +five-petalled flower whose white texture is pencilled with hair-strokes +certain fair copyists I know of would have to hold their breath to +imitate. An Italian oak has neither the girth nor the height of its +English brothers, but it contrives in proportion to be perhaps even +more effective. It crooks its back and twists its arms and clinches its +hundred fists with the queerest extravagance, and wrinkles its bark +into strange rugosities from which its first scattered sprouts of yellow +green seem to break out like a morbid fungus. But the tree which has the +greatest charm to northern eyes is the cold grey-green ilex, whose clear +crepuscular shade drops against a Roman sun a veil impenetrable, yet not +oppressive. The ilex has even less colour than the cypress, but it is +much less funereal, and a landscape in which it is frequent may still +be said to smile faintly, though by no means to laugh. It abounds in +old Italian gardens, where the boughs are trimmed and interlocked into +vaulted corridors in which, from point to point, as in the niches of +some dimly frescoed hall, you see mildewed busts stare at you with a +solemnity which the even grey light makes strangely intense. A +humbler relative of the ilex, though it does better things than help +broken-nosed emperors to look dignified, is the olive, which covers many +of the neighbouring hillsides with its little smoky puffs of foliage. A +stroke of composition I never weary of is that long blue stretch of the +Campagna which makes a high horizon and rests on this vaporous base of +olive-tops. A reporter intent upon a simile might liken it to the ocean +seen above the smoke of watch-fires kindled on the strand. + +To do perfect justice to the wood-walk away from the Ariccia I ought +to touch upon the birds that were singing vespers as I passed. But the +reader would find my rhapsody as poor entertainment as the programme of +a concert he had been unable to attend. I have no more learning about +bird-music than would help me to guess that a dull dissyllabic refrain +in the heart of the wood came from the cuckoo; and when at moments I +heard a twitter of fuller tone, with a more suggestive modulation, +I could only _hope_ it was the nightingale. I have listened for the +nightingale more than once in places so charming that his song would +have seemed but the articulate expression of their beauty, and have +never heard much beyond a provoking snatch or two--a prelude that came +to nothing. In spite of a natural grudge, however, I generously believe +him a great artist or at least a great genius--a creature who despises +any prompting short of absolute inspiration. For the rich, the +multitudinous melody around me seemed but the offering to my ear of the +prodigal spirit of tradition. The wood was ringing with sound because it +was twilight, spring and Italy. It was also because of these good things +and various others besides that I relished so keenly my visit to the +Capuchin convent upon which I emerged after half-an-hour in the wood. +It stands above the town on the slope of the Alban Mount, and its wild +garden climbs away behind it and extends its melancholy influence. +Before it is a small stiff avenue of trimmed live-oaks which conducts +you to a grotesque little shrine beneath the staircase ascending to the +church. Just here, if you are apt to grow timorous at twilight, you may +take a very pretty fright; for as you draw near you catch behind the +grating of the shrine the startling semblance of a gaunt and livid monk. +A sickly lamplight plays down upon his face, and he stares at you from +cavernous eyes with a dreadful air of death in life. Horror of horrors, +you murmur, is this a Capuchin penance? You discover of course in a +moment that it is only a Capuchin joke, that the monk is a pious dummy +and his spectral visage a matter of the paint-brush. You resent his +intrusion on the surrounding loveliness; and as you proceed to demand +entertainment at their convent you pronounce the Capuchins very foolish +fellows. This declaration, as I made it, was supported by the conduct of +the simple brother who opened the door of the cloister in obedience to +my knock and, on learning my errand, demurred about admitting me at +so late an hour. If I would return on the morrow morning he'd be most +happy. He broke into a blank grin when I assured him that this was the +very hour of my desire and that the garish morning light would do no +justice to the view. These were mysteries beyond his ken, and it was +only his good-nature (of which he had plenty) and not his imagination +that was moved. So that when, passing through the narrow cloister and +out upon the grassy terrace, I saw another cowled brother standing with +folded hands profiled against the sky, in admirable harmony with the +scene, I questioned his knowing the uses for which he is still most +precious. This, however, was surely too much to ask of him, and it was +cause enough for gratitude that, though he was there before me, he was +not a fellow-tourist with an opera-glass slung over his shoulder. There +was support to my idea of the convent in the expiring light, for the +scene was in its way unsurpassable. Directly below the terrace lay the +deep-set circle of the Alban Lake, shining softly through the light +mists of evening. This beautiful pool--it is hardly more--occupies the +crater of a prehistoric volcano, a perfect cup, shaped and smelted by +furnace-fires. The rim of the cup, rising high and densely wooded round +the placid stone-blue water, has a sort of natural artificiality. The +sweep and contour of the long circle are admirable; never was a lake so +charmingly lodged. It is said to be of extraordinary depth; and though +stone-blue water seems at first a very innocent substitute for boiling +lava, it has a sinister look which betrays its dangerous antecedents. +The winds never reach it and its surface is never ruffled; but its +deep-bosomed placidity seems to cover guilty secrets, and you fancy it +in communication with the capricious and treacherous forces of nature. +Its very colour is of a joyless beauty, a blue as cold and opaque as a +solidified sheet of lava. Streaked and wrinkled by a mysterious motion +of its own, it affects the very type of a legendary pool, and I could +easily have believed that I had only to sit long enough into the evening +to see the ghosts of classic nymphs and naiads cleave its sullen flood +and beckon me with irresistible arms. Is it because its shores are +haunted with these vague Pagan influences that two convents have risen +there to purge the atmosphere? From the Capuchin terrace you look +across at the grey Franciscan monastery of Palazzuola, which is not less +romantic certainly than the most obstinate myth it may have exorcised. +The Capuchin garden is a wild tangle of great trees and shrubs and +clinging, trembling vines which in these hard days are left to take care +of themselves; a weedy garden, if there ever was one, but none the less +charming for that, in the deepening dusk, with its steep grassy vistas +struggling away into impenetrable shadow. I braved the shadow for the +sake of climbing upon certain little flat-roofed crumbling pavilions +that rise from the corners of the further wall and give you a wider and +lovelier view of lake and hills and sky. + +I have perhaps justified to the reader the mild proposition with which I +started--convinced him, that is, that Albano is worth a walk. It may be +a different walk each day, moreover, and not resemble its predecessors +save by its keeping in the shade. "Galleries" the roads are prettily +called, and with the justice that they are vaulted and draped overhead +and hung with an immense succession of pictures. As you follow the few +miles from Genzano to Frascati you have perpetual views of the Campagna +framed by clusters of trees; the vast iridescent expanse of which +completes the charm and comfort of your verdurous dusk. I compared it +just now to the sea, and with a good deal of truth, for it has the same +incalculable lights and shades, the same confusion of glitter and gloom. +But I have seen it at moments--chiefly in the misty twilight--when it +resembled less the waste of waters than something more portentous, the +land itself in fatal dissolution. I could believe the fields to be dimly +surging and tossing and melting away into quicksands, and that one's +very last chance of an impression was taking place. A view, however, +which has the merit of being really as interesting as it seems, is that +of the Lake of Nemi; which the enterprising traveller hastens to compare +with its sister sheet of Albano. Comparison in this case is particularly +odious, for in order to prefer one lake to the other you have to +discover faults where there are none. Nemi is a smaller circle, but lies +in a deeper cup, and if with no grey Franciscan pile to guard its woody +shores, at least, in the same position, the little high-perched black +town to which it gives its name and which looks across at Genzano on the +opposite shore as Palazzuola regards Castel Gandolfo. The walk from the +Ariccia to Genzano is charming, most of all when it reaches a certain +grassy piazza from which three public avenues stretch away under a +double row of stunted and twisted elms. The Duke Cesarini has a villa at +Genzano--I mentioned it just now--whose gardens overhang the lake; but +he has also a porter in a faded rakish-looking livery who shakes his +head at your proffered franc unless you can reinforce it with a permit +countersigned at Rome. For this annoying complication of dignities he is +justly to be denounced; but I forgive him for the sake of that ancestor +who in the seventeenth century planted this shady walk. Never was a +prettier approach to a town than by these low-roofed light-chequered +corridors. Their only defect is that they prepare you for a town of +rather more rustic coquetry than Genzano exhibits. It has quite the +usual allowance, the common cynicism, of accepted decay, and looks +dismally as if its best families had all fallen into penury together and +lost the means of keeping anything better than donkeys in their great +dark, vaulted basements and mending their broken window-panes with +anything better than paper. It was on the occasion of this drear Genzano +that I had a difference of opinion with a friend who maintained that +there was nothing in the same line so pretty in Europe as a pretty New +England village. The proposition seemed to a cherisher of quaintness on +the face of it inacceptable; but calmly considered it has a measure of +truth. I am not fond of chalk-white painted planks, certainly; I vastly +prefer the dusky tones of ancient stucco and peperino; but I succumb +on occasion to the charms of a vine-shaded porch, of tulips and dahlias +glowing in the shade of high-arching elms, of heavy-scented lilacs +bending over a white paling to brush your cheek. + +"I prefer Siena to Lowell," said my friend; "but I prefer Farmington to +such a thing as this." In fact an Italian village is simply a miniature +Italian city, and its various parts imply a town of fifty times the +size. At Genzano are neither dahlias nor lilacs, and no odours but +foul ones. Flowers and other graces are all confined to the high-walled +precincts of Duke Cesarini, to which you must obtain admission twenty +miles away. The houses on the other hand would generally lodge a New +England cottage, porch and garden and high-arching elms included, in +one of their cavernous basements. These vast grey dwellings are all of +a fashion denoting more generous social needs than any they serve +nowadays. They speak of better days and of a fabulous time when Italy +was either not shabby or could at least "carry off" her shabbiness. For +what follies are they doing penance? Through what melancholy stages have +their fortunes ebbed? You ask these questions as you choose the shady +side of the long blank street and watch the hot sun glare upon the +dust-coloured walls and pause before the fetid gloom of open doors. + +I should like to spare a word for mouldy little Nemi, perched upon a +cliff high above the lake, at the opposite side; but after all, when I +had climbed up into it from the water-side, passing beneath a great arch +which I suppose once topped a gateway, and counted its twenty or thirty +apparent inhabitants peeping at me from black doorways, and looked at +the old round tower at whose base the village clusters, and declared +that it was all queer, queer, desperately queer, I had said all that is +worth saying about it. Nemi has a much better appreciation of its +lovely position than Genzano, where your only view of the lake is from a +dunghill behind one of the houses. At the foot of the round tower is +an overhanging terrace, from which you may feast your eyes on the only +freshness they find in these dusky human hives--the blooming seam, as +one may call it, of strong wild flowers which binds the crumbling walls +to the face of the cliff. Of Rocca di Papa I must say as little, It +consorted generally with the bravery of its name; but the only object +I made a note of as I passed through it on my way to Monte Cavo, which +rises directly above it, was a little black house with a tablet in its +face setting forth that Massimo d' Azeglio had dwelt there. The story +of his sojourn is not the least attaching episode in his delightful +_Ricordi_. From the summit of Monte Cavo is a prodigious view, which you +may enjoy with whatever good-nature is left you by the reflection that +the modern Passionist convent occupying this admirable site was erected +by the Cardinal of York (grandson of James II) on the demolished ruins +of an immemorial temple of Jupiter: the last foolish act of a foolish +race. For me I confess this folly spoiled the convent, and the convent +all but spoiled the view; for I kept thinking how fine it would have +been to emerge upon the old pillars and sculptures from the lava +pavement of the Via Triumphalis, which wanders grass-grown and untrodden +through the woods. A convent, however, which nothing spoils is that of +Palazzuola, to which I paid my respects on this same occasion. It rises +on a lower spur of Monte Cavo, on the edge, as we have seen, of the +Alban Lake, and though it occupies a classic site, that of early Alba +Longa, it displaced nothing more precious than memories and legends so +dim that the antiquarians are still quarrelling about them. It has a +meagre little church and the usual sham Perugino with a couple of tinsel +crowns for the Madonna and the Infant inserted into the canvas; and it +has also a musty old room hung about with faded portraits and charts and +queer ecclesiastical knick-knacks, which borrowed a mysterious +interest from the sudden assurance of the simple Franciscan brother who +accompanied me that it was the room of the Son of the King of Portugal. +But my peculiar pleasure was the little thick-shaded garden which +adjoins the convent and commands from its massive artificial foundations +an enchanting view of the lake. Part of it is laid out in cabbages and +lettuce, over which a rubicund brother, with his frock tucked up, was +bending with a solicitude which he interrupted to remove his skullcap +and greet me with the unsophisticated sweet-humoured smile that every +now and then in Italy does so much to make you forget the ambiguities of +monachism. The rest is occupied by cypresses and other funereal +umbrage, making a dank circle round an old cracked fountain black with +water-moss. The parapet of the terrace is furnished with good stone +seats where you may lean on your elbows to gaze away a sunny half-hour +and, feeling the general charm of the scene, declare that the best +mission of such a country in the world has been simply to produce, in +the way of prospect and picture, these masterpieces of mildness. Mild +here as a dream the whole attained effect, mild as resignation, mild +as one's thoughts of another life. Such a session wasn't surely an +experience of the irritable flesh; it was the deep degustation, on a +summer's day, of something immortally expressed by a man of genius. + +{Illustration: CASTEL GANDOLFO.} + +From Albano you may take your way through several ancient little cities +to Frascati, a rival centre of _villeggiatura_, the road following the +hillside for a long morning's walk and passing through alternations +of denser and clearer shade--the dark vaulted alleys of ilex and the +brilliant corridors of fresh-sprouting oak. The Campagna is beneath you +continually, with the sea beyond Ostia receiving the silver arrows of +the sun upon its chased and burnished shield, and mighty Rome, to the +north, lying at no great length in the idle immensity around it. +The highway passes below Castel Gandolfo, which stands perched on an +eminence behind a couple of gateways surmounted with the Papal tiara and +twisted cordon; and I have more than once chosen the roundabout road for +the sake of passing beneath these pompous insignia. Castel Gandolfo is +indeed an ecclesiastical village and under the peculiar protection of +the Popes, whose huge summer-palace rises in the midst of it like a +rural Vatican. In speaking of the road to Frascati I necessarily revert +to my first impressions, gathered on the occasion of the feast of the +Annunziata, which falls on the 25th of March and is celebrated by +a peasants' fair. As Murray strongly recommends you to visit this +spectacle, at which you are promised a brilliant exhibition of all +the costumes of modern Latium, I took an early train to Frascati and +measured, in company with a prodigious stream of humble pedestrians, the +half-hour's interval to Grotta Ferrata, where the fair is held. The road +winds along the hillside, among the silver-sprinkled olives and through +a charming wood where the ivy seemed tacked upon the oaks by women's +fingers and the birds were singing to the late anemones. It was +covered with a very jolly crowd of vulgar pleasure-takers, and the only +creatures not in a state of manifest hilarity were the pitiful +little overladen, overbeaten donkeys (who surely deserve a chapter to +themselves in any description of these neighbourhoods) and the horrible +beggars who were thrusting their sores and stumps at you from under +every tree. Every one was shouting, singing, scrambling, making light of +dust and distance and filling the air with that childlike jollity which +the blessed Italian temperament never goes roundabout to conceal. There +is no crowd surely at once so jovial and so gentle as an Italian crowd, +and I doubt if in any other country the tightly packed third-class +car in which I went out from Rome would have introduced me to so much +smiling and so little swearing. Grotta Ferrata is a very dirty little +village, with a number of raw new houses baking on the hot hillside and +nothing to charm the fond gazer but its situation and its old fortified +abbey. After pushing about among the shabby little booths and declining +a number of fabulous bargains in tinware, shoes and pork, I was glad +to retire to a comparatively uninvaded corner of the abbey and +divert myself with the view. This grey ecclesiastical stronghold is +a thoroughly scenic affair, hanging over the hillside on plunging +foundations which bury themselves among the dense olives. It has massive +round towers at the corners and a grass-grown moat, enclosing a church +and a monastery. The fore-court, within the abbatial gateway, now serves +as the public square of the village and in fair-time of course witnesses +the best of the fun. The best of the fun was to be found in certain +great vaults and cellars of the abbey, where wine was in free flow +from gigantic hogsheads. At the exit of these trickling grottos shady +trellises of bamboo and gathered twigs had been improvised, and under +them a grand guzzling proceeded. All of which was so in the fine old +style that I was roughly reminded of the wedding-feast of Gamacho. The +banquet was far less substantial of course, but it had a note as of +immemorial manners that couldn't fail to suggest romantic analogies to a +pilgrim from the land of no cooks. There was a feast of reason close +at hand, however, and I was careful to visit the famous frescoes of +Domenichino in the adjoining church. It sounds rather brutal perhaps to +say that, when I came back into the clamorous little piazza, the sight +of the peasants swilling down their sour wine appealed to me more than +the masterpieces--Murray calls them so--of the famous Bolognese. It +amounts after all to saying that I prefer Teniers to Domenichino; which +I am willing to let pass for the truth. The scene under the rickety +trellises was the more suggestive of Teniers that there were no costumes +to make it too Italian. Murray's attractive statement on this point was, +like many of his statements, much truer twenty years ago than to-day. +Costume is gone or fast going; I saw among the women not a single +crimson bodice and not a couple of classic head-cloths. The poorer sort, +dressed in vulgar rags of no fashion and colour, and the smarter ones +in calico gowns and printed shawls of the vilest modern fabric, had +honoured their dusky tresses but with rich applications of grease. The +men are still in jackets and breeches, and, with their slouched and +pointed hats and open-breasted shirts and rattling leather leggings, +may remind one sufficiently of the Italian peasant as he figured in the +woodcuts familiar to our infancy. After coming out of the church I found +a delightful nook--a queer little terrace before a more retired and +tranquil drinking-shop--where I called for a bottle of wine to help me +to guess why I "drew the line" at Domenichino. + +This little terrace was a capricious excrescence at the end of +the piazza, itself simply a greater terrace; and one reached it, +picturesquely, by ascending a short inclined plane of grass-grown +cobble-stones and passing across a little dusky kitchen through whose +narrow windows the light of the mighty landscape beyond touched up old +earthen pots. The terrace was oblong and so narrow that it held but a +single small table, placed lengthwise; yet nothing could be pleasanter +than to place one's bottle on the polished parapet. Here you seemed +by the time you had emptied it to be swinging forward into +immensity--hanging poised above the Campagna. A beautiful gorge with +a twinkling stream wandered down the hill far below you, beyond which +Marino and Castel Gandolfo peeped above the trees. In front you could +count the towers of Rome and the tombs of the Appian Way. I don't know +that I came to any very distinct conclusion about Domenichino; but it +was perhaps because the view was perfection that he struck me as more +than ever mediocrity. And yet I don't think it was one's bottle of wine, +either, that made one after all maudlin about him; it was the sense of +the foolishly usurped in his tenure of fame, of the derisive in his ever +having been put forward. To say so indeed savours of flogging a dead +horse, but it is surely an unkind stroke of fate for him that Murray +assures ten thousand Britons every winter in the most emphatic manner +that his Communion of St. Jerome is the second finest picture in the +world. If this were so one would certainly here in Rome, where such +institutions are convenient, retire into the very nearest convent; with +such a world one would have a standing quarrel. And yet this sport +of destiny is an interesting case, in default of being an interesting +painter, and I would take a moderate walk, in most moods, to see one of +his pictures. He is so supremely good an example of effort detached from +inspiration and school-merit divorced from spontaneity, that one of his +fine frigid performances ought to hang in a conspicuous place in every +academy of design. Few things of the sort contain more urgent lessons +or point a more precious moral; and I would have the head-master in the +drawing-school take each ingenuous pupil by the hand and lead him up +to the Triumph of David or the Chase of Diana or the red-nosed Persian +Sibyl and make him some such little speech as the following: "This great +picture, my son, was hung here to show you how you must _never_ paint; +to give you a perfect specimen of what in its boundless generosity the +providence of nature created for our fuller knowledge--an artist whose +development was a negation. The great thing in art is charm, and the +great thing in charm is spontaneity. Domenichino, having talent, is here +and there an excellent model--he was devoted, conscientious, observant, +industrious; but now that we've seen pretty well what can simply be +learned do its best, these things help him little with us, because his +imagination was cold. It loved nothing, it lost itself in nothing, its +efforts never gave it the heartache. It went about trying this and +that, concocting cold pictures after cold receipts, dealing in the +second-hand, in the ready-made, and putting into its performances +a little of everything but itself. When you see so many things in a +composition you might suppose that among them all some charm might be +born; yet they're really but the hundred mouths through which you may +hear the unhappy thing murmur 'I'm dead!' It's by the simplest thing it +has that a picture lives--by its temper. Look at all the great talents, +Domenichino as well as at Titian; but think less of dogma than of plain +nature, and I can almost promise you that yours will remain true." This +is very little to what the aesthetic sage I have imagined _might_ say; +and we are after all unwilling to let our last verdict be an unkind one +on any great bequest of human effort. The faded frescoes in the chapel +at Grotta Ferrata leave us a memory the more of man's effort to dream +beautifully; and they thus mingle harmoniously enough with our multifold +impressions of Italy, where dreams and realities have both kept such +pace and so strangely diverged. It was absurd--that was the truth--to +be critical at all among the appealing old Italianisms round me and to +treat the poor exploded Bolognese more harshly than, when I walked +back to Frascati, I treated the charming old water-works of the Villa +Aldobrandini. I confound these various products of antiquated art in a +genial absolution, and should like especially to tell how fine it was to +watch this prodigious fountain come tumbling down its channel of mouldy +rock-work, through its magnificent vista of ilex, to the fantastic old +hemicycle where a dozen tritons and naiads sit posturing to receive it. +The sky above the ilexes was incredibly blue and the ilexes themselves +incredibly black; and to see the young white moon peeping above the +trees you could easily have fancied it was midnight. I should like +furthermore to expatiate on Villa Mondragone, the most grandly +impressive hereabouts, of all such domestic monuments. The Casino in the +midst is as big as the Vatican, which it strikingly resembles, and +it stands perched on a terrace as vast as the parvise of St. Peter's, +looking straight away over black cypress-tops into the shining vastness +of the Campagna. Everything somehow seemed immense and solemn; there +was nothing small but certain little nestling blue shadows on the Sabine +Mountains, to which the terrace seems to carry you wonderfully near. +The place been for some time lost to private uses, since it figures +fantastically in a novel of George Sand--_La Daniella_--and now, in +quite another way, as a Jesuit college for boys. The afternoon was +perfect, and as it waned it filled the dark alleys with a wonderful +golden haze. Into this came leaping and shouting a herd of little +collegians with a couple of long-skirted Jesuits striding at their +heels. We all know--I make the point for my antithesis--the monstrous +practices of these people; yet as I watched the group I verily believe +I declared that if I had a little son he should go to Mondragone and +receive their crooked teachings for the sake of the other memories, the +avenues of cypress and ilex, the view of the Campagna, the atmosphere +of antiquity. But doubtless when a sense of "mere character," shameless +incomparable character, has brought one to this it is time one should +pause. + + + + + +THE AFTER-SEASON IN ROME + + +One may at the blest end of May say without injustice to anybody that +the state of mind of many a _forestiero_ in Rome is one of intense +impatience for the moment when all other _forestieri_ shall have +taken themselves off. One may confess to this state of mind and be no +misanthrope. The place has passed so completely for the winter months +into the hands of the barbarians that that estimable character the +passionate pilgrim finds it constantly harder to keep his passion clear. +He has a rueful sense of impressions perverted and adulterated; the +all-venerable visage disconcerts us by a vain eagerness to see itself +mirrored in English, American, German eyes. It isn't simply that you are +never first or never alone at the classic or historic spots where +you have dreamt of persuading the shy _genius loci_ into confidential +utterance; it isn't simply that St. Peter's, the Vatican, the Palatine, +are for ever ringing with the false note of the languages without style: +it is the general oppressive feeling that the city of the soul +has become for the time a monstrous mixture of watering-place and +curiosity-shop and that its most ardent life is that of the tourists who +haggle over false intaglios and yawn through palaces and temples. But +you are told of a happy time when these abuses begin to pass away, when +Rome becomes Rome again and you may have her all to yourself. "You may +like her more or less now," I was assured at the height of the season; +"but you must wait till the month of May, when she'll give you _all_ she +has, to love her. Then the foreigners, or the excess of them, are gone; +the galleries and ruins are empty, and the place," said my informant, +who was a happy Frenchman of the Academie de France, _"renait a +ellememe."_ Indeed I was haunted all winter by an irresistible prevision +of what Rome _must_ be in declared spring. Certain charming places +seemed to murmur: "Ah, this is nothing! Come back at the right weeks and +see the sky above us almost black with its excess of blue, and the +new grass already deep, but still vivid, and the white roses tumble in +odorous spray and the warm radiant air distil gold for the smelting-pot +that the _genius loci_ then dips his brush into before making play with +it, in his inimitable way, for the general effect of complexion." + +A month ago I spent a week in the country, and on my return, the first +time I approached the Corso, became conscious of a change. Something +delightful had happened, to which at first I couldn't give a name, but +which presently shone out as the fact that there were but half as +many people present and that these were chiefly the natural or the +naturalised. We had been docked of half our irrelevance, our motley +excess, and now physically, morally, aeesthetically there was elbow-room. +In the afternoon I went to the Pincio, and the Pincio was almost dull. +The band was playing to a dozen ladies who lay in landaus poising their +lace-fringed parasols; but they had scarce more than a light-gloved +dandy apiece hanging over their carriage doors. By the parapet to the +great terrace that sweeps the city stood but three or four interlopers +looking at the sunset and with their Baedekers only just showing in +their pockets--the sunsets not being down among the tariffed articles +in these precious volumes. I went so far as to hope for them that, +like myself, they were, under every precaution, taking some amorous +intellectual liberty with the scene. + +Practically I violate thus the instinct of monopoly, since it's a +shame not to publish that Rome in May is indeed exquisitely worth your +patience. I have just been so gratified at finding myself in undisturbed +possession for a couple of hours of the Museum of the Lateran that I can +afford to be magnanimous. It's almost as if the old all-papal paradise +had come back. The weather for a month has been perfect, the sky an +extravagance of blue, the air lively enough, the nights cool, nippingly +cool, and the whole ancient greyness lighted with an irresistible smile. +Rome, which in some moods, especially to new-comers, seems a place of +almost sinister gloom, has an occasional art, as one knows her better, +of brushing away care by the grand gesture with which some splendid +impatient mourning matron--just the Niobe of Nations, surviving, +emerging and looking about her again--might pull off and cast aside an +oppression of muffling crape. This admirable power still temperamentally +to react and take notice lurks in all her darkness and dirt and decay--a +something more careless and hopeless than our thrifty northern cheer, +and yet more genial and urbane than the Parisian spirit of _blague_. +The collective Roman nature is a healthy and hearty one, and you feel it +abroad in the streets even when the sirocco blows and the medium of life +seems to proceed more or less from the mouth of a furnace. But who shall +analyse even the simplest Roman impression? It is compounded of so +many things, it says so much, it involves so much, it so quickens the +intelligence and so flatters the heart, that before we fairly grasp +the case the imagination has marked it for her own and exposed us to a +perilous likelihood of talking nonsense about it. + +The smile of Rome, as I have called it, and its insidious message to +those who incline to ramble irresponsibly and take things as they come, +is ushered in with the first breath of spring, and then grows and grows +with the advancing season till it wraps the whole place in its tenfold +charm. As the process develops you can do few better things than +go often to Villa Borghese and sit on the grass--on a stout bit of +drapery--and watch its exquisite stages. It has a frankness and a +sweetness beyond any relenting of _our_ clumsy climates even when ours +leave off their damnable faces and begin. Nature departs from every +reserve with a confidence that leaves one at a loss where, as it were, +to look--leaves one, as I say, nothing to do but to lay one's head among +the anemones at the base of a high-stemmed pine and gaze up crestward +and sky-ward along its slanting silvery column. You may watch the whole +business from a dozen of these choice standpoints and have a different +villa for it every day in the week. The Doria, the Ludovisi, the Medici, +the Albani, the Wolkonski, the Chigi, the Mellini, the Massimo--there +are more of them, with all their sights and sounds and odours and +memories, than you have senses for. But I prefer none of them to the +Borghese, which is free to all the world at all times and yet never +crowded; for when the whirl of carriages is great in the middle regions +you may find a hundred untrodden spots and silent corners, tenanted at +the worst by a group of those long-skirted young Propagandists who +stalk about with solemn angularity, each with a book under his arm, like +silhouettes from a medieval missal, and "compose" so extremely well +with the still more processional cypresses and with stretches of +golden-russet wall overtopped by ultramarine. And yet if the Borghese is +good the Medici is strangely charming, and you may stand in the little +belvedere which rises with such surpassing oddity out of the dusky heart +of the Boschetto at the latter establishment--a miniature presentation +of the wood of the Sleeping Beauty--and look across at the Ludovisi +pines lifting their crooked parasols into a sky of what a painter would +call the most morbid blue, and declare that the place where _they_ grow +is the most delightful in the world. Villa Ludovisi has been all winter +the residence of the lady familiarly known in Roman society as "Rosina," +Victor Emmanuel's morganatic wife, the only familiarity it would +seem, that she allows, for the grounds were rigidly closed, to the +inconsolable regret of old Roman sojourners. Just as the nightingales +began to sing, however, the quasi-august _padrona_ departed, and the +public, with certain restrictions, have been admitted to hear them. +The place takes, where it lies, a princely ease, and there could be no +better example of the expansive tendencies of ancient privilege than the +fact that its whole vast extent is contained by the city walls. It has +in this respect very much the same enviable air of having got up early +that marks the great intramural demesne of Magdalen College at Oxford. +The stern old ramparts of Rome form the outer enclosure of the villa, +and hence a series of "striking scenic effects" which it would be +unscrupulous flattery to say you can imagine. The grounds are laid out +in the formal last-century manner; but nowhere do the straight black +cypresses lead off the gaze into vistas of a melancholy more charged +with associations--poetic, romantic, historic; nowhere are there +grander, smoother walls of laurel and myrtle. + +I recently spent an afternoon hour at the little Protestant cemetery +close to St. Paul's Gate, where the ancient and the modern world are +insidiously contrasted. They make between them one of the solemn places +of Rome--although indeed when funereal things are so interfused it seems +ungrateful to call them sad. Here is a mixture of tears and smiles, of +stones and flowers, of mourning cypresses and radiant sky, which gives +us the impression of our looking back at death from the brighter side +of the grave. The cemetery nestles in an angle of the city wall, and the +older graves are sheltered by a mass of ancient brickwork, through whose +narrow loopholes you peep at the wide purple of the Campagna. Shelley's +grave is here, buried in roses--a happy grave every way for the very +type and figure of the Poet. Nothing could be more impenetrably tranquil +than this little corner in the bend of the protecting rampart, where a +cluster of modern ashes is held tenderly in the rugged hand of the Past. +The past is tremendously embodied in the hoary pyramid of Caius Cestius, +which rises hard by, half within the wall and half without, cutting +solidly into the solid blue of the sky and casting its pagan shadow upon +the grass of English graves--that of Keats, among them--with an effect +of poetic justice. It is a wonderful confusion of mortality and a grim +enough admonition of our helpless promiscuity in the crucible of time. +But the most touching element of all is the appeal of the pious English +inscriptions among all these Roman memories; touching because of their +universal expression of that trouble within trouble, misfortune in +a foreign land. Something special stirs the heart through the fine +Scriptural language in which everything is recorded. The echoes of +massive Latinity with which the atmosphere is charged suggest nothing +more majestic and monumental. I may seem unduly to refine, but the +injunction to the reader in the monument to Miss Bathurst, drowned in +the Tiber in 1824, "If thou art young and lovely, build not thereon, +for she who lies beneath thy feet in death was the loveliest flower ever +cropt in its bloom," affects us irresistibly as a case for tears on the +spot. The whole elaborate inscription indeed says something over and +beyond all it does say. The English have the reputation of being the +most reticent people in the world, and as there is no smoke without fire +I suppose they have done something to deserve it; yet who can say that +one doesn't constantly meet the most startling examples of the insular +faculty to "gush"? In this instance the mother of the deceased takes +the public into her confidence with surprising frankness and omits +no detail, seizing the opportunity to mention by the way that she had +already lost her husband by a most mysterious visitation. The appeal +to one's attention and the confidence in it are withal most moving. The +whole record has an old-fashioned gentility that makes its frankness +tragic. You seem to hear the garrulity of passionate grief. + +To be choosing these positive commonplaces of the Roman tone for a theme +when there are matters of modern moment going on may seem none the +less to require an apology. But I make no claim to your special +correspondent's faculty for getting an "inside" view of things, and I +have hardly more than a pictorial impression of the Pope's illness and +of the discussion of the Law of the Convents. Indeed I am afraid +to speak of the Pope's illness at all, lest I should say something +egregiously heartless about it, recalling too forcibly that unnatural +husband who was heard to wish that his wife would "either" get well--! +He had his reasons, and Roman tourists have theirs in the shape of a +vague longing for something spectacular at St. Peter's. If it takes the +sacrifice of somebody to produce it let somebody then be sacrificed. +Meanwhile we have been having a glimpse of the spectacular side of the +Religious Corporations Bill. Hearing one morning a great hubbub in the +Corso I stepped forth upon my balcony. A couple of hundred men were +strolling slowly down the street with their hands in their pockets, +shouting in unison "Abbasso il ministero!" and huzzaing in chorus. Just +beneath my window they stopped and began to murmur "Al Quirinale, al +Quirinale!" The crowd surged a moment gently and then drifted to the +Quirinal, where it scuffled harmlessly with half-a-dozen of the king's +soldiers. It ought to have been impressive, for what was it, strictly, +unless the seeds of revolution? But its carriage was too gentle and +its cries too musical to send the most timorous tourist to packing +his trunk. As I began with saying: in Rome, in May, everything has an +amiable side, even popular uprisings. + + + + + +FROM A ROMAN NOTE-BOOK + + +December 28, 1872.--In Rome again for the last three days--that second +visit which, when the first isn't followed by a fatal illness in +Florence, the story goes that one is doomed to pay. I didn't drink of +the Fountain of Trevi on the eve of departure the other time; but I feel +as if I had drunk of the Tiber itself. Nevertheless as I drove from +the station in the evening I wondered what I should think of it at this +first glimpse hadn't I already known it. All manner of evil perhaps. +Paris, as I passed along the Boulevards three evenings before to take +the train, was swarming and glittering as befits a great capital. Here, +in the black, narrow, crooked, empty streets, I saw nothing I would +fain regard as eternal. But there were new gas-lamps round the spouting +Triton in Piazza Barberini and a newspaper stall on the corner of the +Condotti and the Corso--salient signs of the emancipated state. An hour +later I walked up to Via Gregoriana by Piazza di Spagna. It was all +silent and deserted, and the great flight of steps looked surprisingly +small. Everything seemed meagre, dusky, provincial. Could Rome after all +really _be_ a world-city? That queer old rococo garden gateway at +the top of the Gregoriana stirred a dormant memory; it awoke into a +consciousness of the delicious mildness of the air, and very soon, in +a little crimson drawing-room, I was reconciled and re-initiated.... +Everything is dear (in the way of lodgings), but it hardly matters, as +everything is taken and some one else paying for it. I must make up my +mind to a bare perch. But it seems poorly perverse here to aspire to +an "interior" or to be conscious of the economic side of life. The +aeesthetic is so intense that you feel you should live on the taste +of it, should extract the nutritive essence of the atmosphere. For +positively it's _such_ an atmosphere! The weather is perfect, the sky as +blue as the most exploded tradition fames it, the whole air glowing +and throbbing with lovely colour.... The glitter of Paris is now all +gaslight. And oh the monotonous miles of rain-washed asphalte! + +_December 30th_.--I have had nothing to do with the "ceremonies." In +fact I believe there have hardly been any--no midnight mass at the +Sistine chapel, no silver trumpets at St. Peter's. Everything is +remorselessly clipped and curtailed--the Vatican in deepest mourning. +But I saw it in its superbest scarlet in '69.... I went yesterday with +L. to the Colonna gardens--an adventure that would have reconverted me +to Rome if the thing weren't already done. It's a rare old place--rising +in mouldy bosky terraces and mossy stairways and winding walks from the +back of the palace to the top of the Quirinal. It's the grand style +of gardening, and resembles the present natural manner as a chapter of +Johnsonian rhetoric resembles a piece of clever contemporary journalism. +But it's a better style in horticulture than in literature; I prefer +one of the long-drawn blue-green Colonna vistas, with a maimed and +mossy-coated garden goddess at the end, to the finest possible quotation +from a last-century classic. Perhaps the best thing there is the +old orangery with its trees in fantastic terra-cotta tubs. The late +afternoon light was gilding the monstrous jars and suspending golden +chequers among the golden-fruited leaves. Or perhaps the best thing is +the broad terrace with its mossy balustrade and its benches; also its +view of the great naked Torre di Nerone (I think), which might look +stupid if the rosy brickwork didn't take such a colour in the blue +air. Delightful, at any rate, to stroll and talk there in the afternoon +sunshine. + +_January 2nd,_ 1873.--Two or three drives with A.--one to St. Paul's +without the Walls and back by a couple of old churches on the Aventine. +I was freshly struck with the rare distinction of the little Protestant +cemetery at the Gate, lying in the shadow of the black sepulchral +Pyramid and the thick-growing black cypresses. Bathed in the clear Roman +light the place is heartbreaking for what it asks you--in such a world +as _this_--to renounce. If it should "make one in love with death to lie +there," that's only if death should be conscious. As the case stands, +the weight of a tremendous past presses upon the flowery sod, and the +sleeper's mortality feels the contact of all the mortality with which +the brilliant air is tainted.... The restored Basilica is incredibly +splendid. It seems a last pompous effort of formal Catholicism, and +there are few more striking emblems of later Rome--the Rome foredoomed +to see Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal, the Rome of abortive councils +and unheeded anathemas. It rises there, gorgeous and useless, on its +miasmatic site, with an air of conscious bravado--a florid advertisement +of the superabundance of faith. Within it's magnificent, and its +magnificence has no shabby spots--a rare thing in Rome. Marble and +mosaic, alabaster and malachite, lapis and porphyry, incrust it from +pavement to cornice and flash back their polished lights at each other +with such a splendour of effect that you seem to stand at the heart of +some immense prismatic crystal. One has to come to Italy to know marbles +and love them. I remember the fascination of the first great show of +them I met in Venice--at the Scalzi and Gesuiti. Colour has in no other +form so cool and unfading a purity and lustre. Softness of tone and +hardness of substance--isn't that the sum of the artist's desire? G., +with his beautiful caressing, open-lipped Roman utterance, so easy to +understand and, to my ear, so finely suggestive of genuine Latin, not +our horrible Anglo-Saxon and Protestant kind, urged upon us the charms +of a return by the Aventine and the sight of a couple of old churches. +The best is Santa Sabina, a very fine old structure of the fifth +century, mouldering in its dusky solitude and consuming its own +antiquity. What a massive heritage Christianity and Catholicism are +leaving here! What a substantial fact, in all its decay, this memorial +Christian temple outliving its uses among the sunny gardens and +vineyards! It has a noble nave, filled with a stale smell which +(like that of the onion) brought tears to my eyes, and bordered with +twenty-four fluted marble columns of Pagan origin. The crudely primitive +little mosaics along the entablature are extremely curious. A Dominican +monk, still young, who showed us the church, seemed a creature generated +from its musty shadows I odours. His physiognomy was wonderfully _de +l'emploi_, and his voice, most agreeable, had the strangest jaded +humility. His lugubrious salute and sanctimonious impersonal +appropriation of my departing franc would have been a master-touch on +the stage. While we were still in the church a bell rang that he had to +go and answer, and as he came back and approached us along the nave he +made with his white gown and hood and his cadaverous face, against the +dark church background, one of those pictures which, thank the Muses, +have not yet been reformed out of Italy. It was the exact illustration, +for insertion in a text, of heaven knows how many old romantic and +conventional literary Italianisms--plays, poems, mysteries of Udolpho. +We got back into the carriage and talked of profane things and went home +to dinner--drifting recklessly, it seemed to me, from aesthetic luxury +to social. + +On the 31st we went to the musical vesper-service at the Gesu--hitherto +done so splendidly before the Pope and the cardinals. The manner of it +was eloquent of change--no Pope, no cardinals, and indifferent music; +but a great _mise-en-scene_ nevertheless. The church is gorgeous; late +Renaissance, of great proportions, and full, like so many others, but in +a pre-eminent degree, of seventeenth and eighteenth century Romanism. +It doesn't impress the imagination, but richly feeds the curiosity, +by which I mean one's sense of the curious; suggests no legends, but +innumerable anecdotes a la Stendhal. There is a vast dome, filled with a +florid concave fresco of tumbling foreshortened angels, and all over +the ceilings and cornices a wonderful outlay of dusky gildings +and mouldings. There are various Bernini saints and seraphs in +stucco-sculpture, astride of the tablets and door-tops, backing against +their rusty machinery of coppery _nimbi_ and egg-shaped cloudlets. +Marble, damask and tapers in gorgeous profusion. The high altar a great +screen of twinkling chandeliers. The choir perched in a little loft high +up in the right transept, like a balcony in a side-scene at the opera, +and indulging in surprising roulades and flourishes.... Near me sat a +handsome, opulent-looking nun--possibly an abbess or prioress of noble +lineage. Can a holy woman of such a complexion listen to a fine operatic +barytone in a sumptuous temple and receive none but ascetic impressions? +What a cross-fire of influences does Catholicism provide! + +_January 4th._--A drive with A. out of Porta San Giovanni and along Via +Appia Nuova. More and more beautiful as you get well away from the walls +and the great view opens out before you--the rolling green-brown dells +and flats of the Campagna, the long, disjointed arcade of the aqueducts, +the deep-shadowed blue of the Alban Hills, touched into pale lights by +their scattered towns. We stopped at the ruined basilica of San Stefano, +an affair of the fifth century, rather meaningless without a learned +companion. But the perfect little sepulchral chambers of the Pancratii, +disinterred beneath the church, tell their own tale--in their hardly +dimmed frescoes, their beautiful sculptured coffin and great sepulchral +slab. Better still the tomb of the Valerii adjoining it--a single +chamber with an arched roof, covered with stucco mouldings perfectly +intact, exquisite figures and arabesques as sharp and delicate as if the +plasterer's scaffold had just been taken from under them. Strange enough +to think of these things--so many of them as there are--surviving their +immemorial eclipse in this perfect shape and coming up like long-lost +divers on the sea of time. + +_January 16th._--A delightful walk last Sunday with F. to Monte Mario. +We drove to Porta Angelica, the little gate hidden behind the right wing +of Bernini's colonnade, and strolled thence up the winding road to the +Villa Mellini, where one of the greasy peasants huddled under the wall +in the sun admits you for half franc into the finest old ilex-walk in +Italy. It is all vaulted grey-green shade with blue Campagna stretches +in the interstices. The day was perfect; the still sunshine, as we sat +at the twisted base of the old trees, seemed to have the drowsy hum of +mid-summer--with that charm of Italian vegetation that comes to us as +its confession of having scenically served, to weariness at last, for +some pastoral these many centuries a classic. In a certain cheapness +and thinness of substance--as compared with the English stoutness, never +left athirst--it reminds me of our own, and it is relatively dry enough +and pale enough to explain the contempt of many unimaginative Britons. +But it has an idle abundance and wantonness, a romantic shabbiness +and dishevelment. At the Villa Mellini is the famous lonely pine which +"tells" so in the landscape from other points, bought off from the axe +by (I believe) Sir George Beaumont, commemorated in a like connection in +Wordsworth's great sonnet. He at least was not an unimaginative Briton. +As you stand under it, its far-away shallow dome, supported on a single +column almost white enough to be marble, seems to dwell in the dizziest +depths of the blue. Its pale grey-blue boughs and its silvery stem make +a wonderful harmony with the ambient air. The Villa Mellini is full +of the elder Italy of one's imagination--the Italy of Boccaccio and +Ariosto. There are twenty places where the Florentine story-tellers +might have sat round on the grass. Outside the villa walls, beneath the +over-crowding orange-boughs, straggled old Italy as well--but not in +Boccaccio's velvet: a row of ragged and livid contadini, some simply +stupid in their squalor, but some downright brigands of romance, or of +reality, with matted locks and terribly sullen eyes. + +A couple of days later I walked for old acquaintance' sake over to San +Onofrio on the Janiculan. The approach is one of the dirtiest adventures +in Rome, and though the view is fine from the little terrace, the church +and convent are of a meagre and musty pattern. Yet here--almost like +pearls in a dunghill--are hidden mementos of two of the most exquisite +of Italian minds. Torquato Tasso spent the last months of his life here, +and you may visit his room and various warped and faded relics. The most +interesting is a cast of his face taken after death--looking, like all +such casts, almost more than mortally gallant and distinguished. But +who should look all ideally so if not he? In a little shabby, chilly +corridor adjoining is a fresco of Leonardo, a Virgin and Child with +the _donatorio_. It is very small, simple and faded, but it has all the +artist's magic, that mocking, illusive refinement and hint of a vague +_arriere-pensee_ which mark every stroke of Leonardo's brush. Is it the +perfection of irony or the perfection of tenderness? What does he mean, +what does he affirm, what does he deny? Magic wouldn't be magic, nor the +author of such things stand so absolutely alone, if we were ready with +an explanation. As I glanced from the picture to the poor stupid little +red-faced brother at my side I wondered if the thing mightn't pass for +an elegant epigram on monasticism. Certainly, at any rate, there is more +intellect in it than under all the monkish tonsures it has seen coming +and going these three hundred years. + +_January 21st._--The last three or four days I have regularly spent a +couple of hours from noon baking myself in the sun of the Pincio to get +rid of a cold. The weather perfect and the crowd (especially to-day) +amazing. Such a staring, lounging, dandified, amiable crowd! Who does +the vulgar stay-at-home work of Rome? All the grandees and half the +foreigners are there in their carriages, the _bourgeoisie_ on foot +staring at them and the beggars lining all the approaches. The great +difference between public places in America and Europe is in the number +of unoccupied people of every age and condition sitting about early and +late on benches and gazing at you, from your hat to your boots, as you +pass. Europe is certainly the continent of the practised stare. The +ladies on the Pincio have to run the gauntlet; but they seem to do so +complacently enough. The European woman is brought up to the sense +of having a definite part in the way of manners or manner to play in +public. To lie back in a barouche alone, balancing a parasol and seeming +to ignore the extremely immediate gaze of two serried ranks of male +creatures on each side of her path, save here and there to recognise +one of them with an imperceptible nod, is one of her daily duties. +The number of young men here who, like the coenobites of old, lead the +purely contemplative life is enormous. They muster in especial force +on the Pincio, but the Corso all day is thronged with them. They are +well-dressed, good-humoured, good-looking, polite; but they seem never +to do a harder stroke of work than to stroll from the Piazza Colonna to +the Hotel de Rome or _vice versa_. Some of them don't even stroll, but +stand leaning by the hour against the doorways, sucking the knobs of +their canes, feeling their back hair and settling their shirt-cuffs. At +my cafe in the morning several stroll in already (at nine o'clock) in +light, in "evening" gloves. But they order nothing, turn on their heels, +glance at the mirrors and stroll out again. When it rains they herd +under the _portes-cocheres_ and in the smaller cafes.... Yesterday +Prince Humbert's little _primogenito_ was on the Pincio in an open +landau with his governess. He's a sturdy blond little man and the image +of the King. They had stopped to listen to the music, and the crowd was +planted about the carriage-wheels, staring and criticising under the +child's snub little nose. It appeared bold cynical curiosity, without +the slightest manifestation of "loyalty," and it gave me a singular +sense of the vulgarisation of Rome under the new regime. When the Pope +drove abroad it was a solemn spectacle; even if you neither kneeled nor +uncovered you were irresistibly impressed. But the Pope never stopped to +listen to opera tunes, and he had no little popelings, under the charge +of superior nurse-maids, whom you might take liberties with. The family +at the Quirinal make something of a merit, I believe, of their +modest and inexpensive way of life. The merit is great; yet, +representationally, what a change for the worse from an order which +proclaimed stateliness a part of its essence! The divinity that doth +hedge a king must be pretty well on the wane. But how many more fine old +traditions will the extremely sentimental traveller miss in the Italians +over whom that little jostled prince in the landau will have come +into his kinghood? ... The Pincio continues to beguile; it's a great +resource. I am for ever being reminded of the "aesthetic luxury," as I +called it above, of living in Rome. To be able to choose of an afternoon +for a lounge (respectfully speaking) between St. Peter's and the high +precinct you approach by the gate just beyond Villa Medici--counting +nothing else--is a proof that if in Rome you may suffer from ennui, at +least your ennui has a throbbing soul in it. It is something to say for +the Pincio that you don't always choose St. Peter's. Sometimes I lose +patience with its parade of eternal idleness, but at others this very +idleness is balm to one's conscience. Life on just these terms seems so +easy, so monotonously sweet, that you feel it would be unwise, would be +really unsafe, to change. The Roman air is charged with an elixir, the +Roman cup seasoned with some insidious drop, of which the action is +fatally, yet none the less agreeably, "lowering." + +_January 26th._--With S. to the Villa Medici--perhaps on the whole +the most enchanting place in Rome. The part of the garden called the +Boschetto has an incredible, impossible charm; an upper terrace, behind +locked gates, covered with a little dusky forest of evergreen oaks. +Such a dim light as of a fabled, haunted place, such a soft suffusion +of tender grey-green tones, such a company of gnarled and twisted little +miniature trunks--dwarfs playing with each other at being giants--and +such a shower of golden sparkles drifting in from the vivid west! At +the end of the wood is a steep, circular mound, up which the short trees +scramble amain, with a long mossy staircase climbing up to a belvedere. +This staircase, rising suddenly out of the leafy dusk to you don't see +where, is delightfully fantastic. You expect to see an old woman in a +crimson petticoat and with a distaff come hobbling down and turn into +a fairy and offer you three wishes. I should name for my own first wish +that one didn't have to be a Frenchman to come and live and dream and +work at the Academie de France. Can there be for a while a happier +destiny than that of a young artist conscious of talent and of no errand +but to educate, polish and perfect it, transplanted to these sacred +shades? One has fancied Plato's Academy--his gleaming colonnades, his +blooming gardens and Athenian sky; but was it as good as this one, where +Monsieur Hebert does the Platonic? The blessing in Rome is not that this +or that or the other isolated object is so very unsurpassable; but that +the general air so contributes to interest, to impressions that are not +as any other impressions anywhere in the world. And from this general +air the Villa Medici has distilled an essence of its own--walled it in +and made it delightfully private. The great facade on the gardens +is like an enormous rococo clock-face all incrusted with images and +arabesques and tablets. What mornings and afternoons one might +spend there, brush in hand, unpreoccupied, untormented, pensioned, +satisfied--either persuading one's self that one would be "doing +something" in consequence or not caring if one shouldn't be. + +_At a later date--middle of March_.--A ride with S. W. out of the Porta +Pia to the meadows beyond the Ponte Nomentana--close to the site of +Phaon's villa where Nero in hiding had himself stabbed. It all spoke as +things here only speak, touching more chords than one can _now_ really +know or say. For these are predestined memories and the stuff that +regrets are made of; the mild divine efflorescence of spring, the +wonderful landscape, the talk suspended for another gallop.... +Returning, we dismounted at the gate of the Villa Medici and walked +through the twilight of the vaguely perfumed, bird-haunted alleys to +H.'s studio, hidden in the wood like a cottage in a fairy tale. I spent +there a charming half-hour in the fading light, looking at the pictures +while my companion discoursed of her errand. The studio is small and +more like a little salon; the painting refined, imaginative, somewhat +morbid, full of consummate French ability. A portrait, idealised and +etherealised, but a likeness of Mme. de---(from last year's Salon) +in white satin, quantities of lace, a coronet, diamonds and pearls; a +striking combination of brilliant silvery tones. A "Femme Sauvage," +a naked dusky girl in a wood, with a wonderfully clever pair of shy, +passionate eyes. The author is different enough from any of the numerous +American artists. They may be producers, but he's a product as well--a +product of influences of a sort of which we have as yet no +general command. One of them is his charmed lapse of life in that +unprofessional-looking little studio, with his enchanted wood on one +side and the plunging wall of Rome on the other. + +_January 30th._--A drive the other day with a friend to Villa Madama, +on the side of Monte Mario; a place like a page out of one of Browning's +richest evocations of this clime and civilisation. Wondrous in its +haunting melancholy, it might have inspired half "The Ring and the Book" +at a stroke. What a grim commentary on history such a scene--what an +irony of the past! The road up to it through the outer enclosure is +almost impassable with mud and stones. At the end, on a terrace, rises +the once elegant Casino, with hardly a whole pane of glass in its +facade, reduced to its sallow stucco and degraded ornaments. The front +away from Rome has in the basement a great loggia, now walled in from +the weather, preceded by a grassy be littered platform with an immense +sweeping view of the Campagna; the sad-looking, more than sad-looking, +evil-looking, Tiber beneath (the colour of gold, the sentimentalists +say, the colour of mustard, the realists); a great vague stretch beyond, +of various complexions and uses; and on the horizon the ever-iridescent +mountains. The place has become the shabbiest farm-house, with muddy +water in the old _pieces d'eau_ and dunghills on the old parterres. +The "feature" is the contents of the loggia: a vaulted roof and walls +decorated by Giulio Romano; exquisite stucco-work and still brilliant +frescoes; arabesques and figurini, nymphs and fauns, animals and +flowers--gracefully lavish designs of every sort. Much of the +colour--especially the blues--still almost vivid, and all the work +wonderfully ingenious, elegant and charming. Apartments so decorated can +have been meant only for the recreation of people greater than any +we know, people for whom life was impudent ease and success. Margaret +Farnese was the lady of the house, but where she trailed her cloth of +gold the chickens now scamper between your legs over rotten straw. It is +all inexpressibly dreary. A stupid peasant scratching his head, a +couple of critical Americans picking their steps, the walls tattered and +befouled breast-high, dampness and decay striking in on your heart, and +the scene overbowed by these heavenly frescoes, moulering there in their +airy artistry! It's poignant; it provokes tears; it tells so of the +waste of effort. Something human seems to pant beneath the grey pall +of time and to implore you to rescue it, to pity it, to stand by it +somehow. But you leave it to its lingering death without compunction, +almost with pleasure; for the place seems vaguely crime-haunted--paying +at least the penalty of some hard immorality. The end of a Renaissance +pleasure-house. Endless for the didactic observer the moral, abysmal for +the storyseeker the tale. + +_February 12th_.--Yesterday to the Villa Albani. Over-formal and (as my +companion says) too much like a tea-garden; but with beautiful stairs +and splendid geometrical lines of immense box-hedge, intersected +with high pedestals supporting little antique busts. The light to-day +magnificent; the Alban Hills of an intenser broken purple than I had +yet seen them--their white towns blooming upon it like vague projected +lights. It was like a piece of very modern painting, and a good example +of how Nature has at times a sort of mannerism which ought to make +us careful how we condemn out of hand the more refined and affected +artists. The collection of marbles in the Casino (Winckelmann's) +admirable and to be seen again. The famous Antinous crowned with lotus +a strangely beautiful and impressive thing. The "Greek manner," on the +showing of something now and again encountered here, moves one to feel +that even for purely romantic and imaginative effects it surpasses any +since invented. If there be not imagination, even in our comparatively +modern sense of the word, in the baleful beauty of that perfect young +profile there is none in "Hamlet" or in "Lycidas." There is five hundred +times as much as in "The Transfiguration." With this at any rate to +point to it's not for sculpture not professedly to produce any emotion +producible by painting. There are numbers of small and delicate +fragments of bas-reliefs of exquisite grace, and a huge piece (two +combatants--one, on horseback, beating down another--murder made eternal +and beautiful) attributed to the Parthenon and certainly as grandly +impressive as anything in the Elgin marbles. S. W. suggested again the +Roman villas as a "subject." Excellent if one could find a feast of +facts a la Stendhal. A lot of vague ecstatic descriptions and anecdotes +wouldn't at all pay. There have been too many already. Enough facts are +recorded, I suppose; one should discover them and soak in them for +a twelvemonth. And yet a Roman villa, in spite of statues, ideas and +atmosphere, affects me as of a scanter human and social _portee_, a +shorter, thinner reverberation, than an old English country-house, +round which experience seems piled so thick. But this perhaps is either +hair-splitting or "racial" prejudice. + +{Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE VATICAN, ROME} + +_March 9th._--The Vatican is still deadly cold; a couple of hours there +yesterday with R. W. E. Yet he, illustrious and enviable man, fresh from +the East, had no overcoat and wanted none. Perfect bliss, I think, would +be to live in Rome without thinking of overcoats. The Vatican seems +very familiar, but strangely smaller than of old. I never lost the sense +before of confusing vastness. _Sancta simplicitas!_ All my old friends +however stand there in undimmed radiance, keeping most of them their +old pledges. I am perhaps more struck now with the enormous amount of +padding--the number of third-rate, fourth-rate things that weary the eye +desirous to approach freshly the twenty and thirty best. In spite of the +padding there are dozens of treasures that one passes regretfully; but +the impression of the whole place is the great thing--the feeling that +through these solemn vistas flows the source of an incalculable part of +our present conception of Beauty. + +_April 10th._--Last night, in the rain, to the Teatro Valle to see a +comedy of Goldoni in Venetian dialect--"I Quattro Rustighi." I could but +half follow it; enough, however, to be sure that, for all its humanity +of irony, it wasn't so good as Moliere. The acting was capital--broad, +free and natural; the play of talk easier even than life itself; but, +like all the Italian acting I have seen, it was wanting in _finesse_, +that shade of the shade by which, and by which alone, one really knows +art. I contrasted the affair with the evening in December last that I +walked over (also in the rain) to the Odeon and saw the "Plaideurs" and +the "Malade lmaginaire." There, too, was hardly more than a handful of +spectators; but what rich, ripe, fully representational and above +all intellectual comedy, and what polished, educated playing! These +Venetians in particular, however, have a marvellous _entrain_ of their +own; they seem even less than the French to recite. In some of the +women--ugly, with red hands and shabby dresses--an extraordinary gift of +natural utterance, of seeming to invent joyously as they go. + +_Later_.--Last evening in H.'s box at the Apollo to hear Ernesto Rossi +in "Othello." He shares supremacy with Salvini in Italian tragedy. +Beautiful great theatre with boxes you can walk about in; brilliant +audience. The Princess Margaret was there--I have never been to +the theatre that she was not--and a number of other princesses in +neighbouring boxes. G. G. came in and instructed us that they were the +M., the L., the P., &c. Rossi is both very bad and very fine; bad where +anything like taste and discretion is required, but "all there," and +more than there, in violent passion. The last act reduced too much, +however, to mere exhibitional sensibility. The interesting thing to me +was to observe the Italian conception of the part--to see how crude +it was, how little it expressed the hero's moral side, his depth, +his dignity--anything more than his being a creature terrible in mere +tantrums. The great point was his seizing Iago's head and whacking it +half-a-dozen times on the floor, and then flinging him twenty yards +away. It was wonderfully done, but in the doing of it and in the evident +relish for it in the house there was I scarce knew what force of easy +and thereby rather cheap expression. + +_April 27th_.--A morning with L. B. at Villa Ludovisi, which we agreed +that we shouldn't soon forget. The villa now belongs to the King, who +has lodged his morganatic wife there. There is nothing so blissfully +_right_ in Rome, nothing more consummately consecrated to style. The +grounds and gardens are immense, and the great rusty-red city wall +stretches away behind them and makes the burden of the seven hills +seem vast without making _them_ seem small. There is everything--dusky +avenues trimmed by the clippings of centuries, groves and dells and +glades and glowing pastures and reedy fountains and great flowering +meadows studded with enormous slanting pines. The day was delicious, +the trees all one melody, the whole place a revelation of what Italy +and hereditary pomp can do together. Nothing could be more in the +grand manner than this garden view of the city ramparts, lifting +their fantastic battlements above the trees and flowers. They are all +tapestried with vines and made to serve as sunny fruit-walls--grim old +defence as they once were; now giving nothing but a splendid buttressed +privacy. The sculptures in the little Casino are few, but there are two +great ones--the beautiful sitting Mars and the head of the great Juno, +the latter thrust into a corner behind a shutter. These things it's +almost impossible to praise; we can only mark them well and keep them +clear, as we insist on silence to hear great music.... If I don't praise +Guercino's Aurora in the greater Casino, it's for another reason; this +is certainly a very muddy masterpiece. It figures on the ceiling of +a small low hall; the painting is coarse and the ceiling too near. +Besides, it's unfair to pass straight from the Greek mythology to the +Bolognese. We were left to roam at will through the house; the custode +shut us in and went to walk in the park. The apartments were all open, +and I had an opportunity to reconstruct, from its _milieu_ at least, the +character of a morganatic queen. I saw nothing to indicate that it +was not amiable; but I should have thought more highly of the lady's +discrimination if she had had the Juno removed from behind her shutter. +In such a house, girdled about with such a park, me thinks I could be +amiable--and perhaps discriminating too. The Ludovisi Casino is small, +but the perfection of the life of ease might surely be led there. There +are English houses enough in wondrous parks, but they expose you to too +many small needs and observances--to say nothing of a red-faced butler +dropping his h's. You are oppressed with the detail of accommodation. +Here the billiard-table is old-fashioned, perhaps a trifle crooked; but +you have Guercino above your head, and Guercino, after all, is almost +as good as Guido. The rooms, I noticed, all pleased by their shape, by +a lovely proportion, by a mass of delicate ornamentation on the high +concave ceilings. One might live over again in them some deliciously +benighted life of a forgotten type--with graceful old _sale_, and +immensely thick walls, and a winding stone staircase, and a view from +the loggia at the top; a view of twisted parasol-pines balanced, high +above a wooden horizon, against a sky of faded sapphire. + +_May 17th._--It was wonderful yesterday at St. John Lateran. The spring +now has turned to perfect summer; there are cascades of verdure over +all the walls; the early flowers are a fading memory, and the new grass +knee-deep in the Villa Borghese. The winter aspect of the region about +the Lateran is one of the best things in Rome; the sunshine is nowhere +so golden and the lean shadows nowhere so purple as on the long grassy +walk to Santa Croce. But yesterday I seemed to see nothing but green +and blue. The expanse before Santa Croce was vivid green; the Campagna +rolled away in great green billows, which seemed to break high about the +gaunt aqueducts; and the Alban Hills, which in January and February +keep shifting and melting along the whole scale of azure, were almost +monotonously fresh, and had lost some of their finer modelling. But the +sky was ultramarine and everything radiant with light and warmth--warmth +which a soft steady breeze kept from excess. I strolled some time about +the church, which has a grand air enough, though I don't seize the point +of view of Miss----, who told me the other day how vastly finer she +thought it than St. Peter's. But on Miss----'s lips this seemed a very +pretty paradox. The choir and transepts have a sombre splendour, and +I like the old vaulted passage with its slabs and monuments behind +the choir. The charm of charms at St. John Lateran is the admirable +twelfth-century cloister, which was never more charming than yesterday. +The shrubs and flowers about the ancient well were blooming away in the +intense light, and the twisted pillars and chiselled capitals of the +perfect little colonnade seemed to enclose them like the sculptured rim +of a precious vase. Standing out among the flowers you may look up and +see a section of the summit of the great facade of the church. The robed +and mitred apostles, bleached and rain-washed by the ages, rose into the +blue air like huge snow figures. I spent at the incorporated museum a +subsequent hour of fond vague attention, having it quite to myself. +It is rather scantily stocked, but the great cool halls open out +impressively one after the other, and the wide spaces between the +statues seem to suggest at first that each is a masterpiece. I was in +the loving mood of one's last days in Rome, and when I had nothing else +to admire I admired the magnificent thickness of the embrasures of the +doors and windows. If there were no objects of interest at all in the +Lateran the palace would be worth walking through every now and then, +to keep up one's idea of solid architecture. I went over to the +Scala Santa, where was no one but a very shabby priest sitting like a +ticket-taker at the door. But he let me pass, and I ascended one of the +profane lateral stairways and treated myself to a glimpse of the Sanctum +Sanctorum. Its threshold is crossed but once or twice a year, I believe, +by three or four of the most exalted divines, but you may look into it +freely enough through a couple of gilded lattices. It is very sombre +and splendid, and conveys the impression of a very holy place. And yet +somehow it suggested irreverent thoughts; it had to my fancy--perhaps on +account of the lattice--an Oriental, a Mahometan note. I expected every +moment to see a sultana appear in a silver veil and silken trousers and +sit down on the crimson carpet. + +Farewell, packing, the sharp pang of going. One would like to be able +after five months in Rome to sum up for tribute and homage, one's +experience, one's gains, the whole adventure of one's sensibility. But +one has really vibrated too much--the addition of so many items isn't +easy. What is simply clear is the sense of an acquired passion for the +place and of an incalculable number of gathered impressions. Many +of these have been intense and momentous, but one has trodden on the +other--there are always the big fish that swallow up the little--and +one can hardly say what has become of them. They store themselves +noiselessly away, I suppose, in the dim but safe places of memory and +"taste," and we live in a quiet faith that they will emerge into vivid +relief if life or art should demand them. As for the passion we needn't +perhaps trouble ourselves about that. Fifty swallowed palmfuls of the +Fountain of Trevi couldn't make us more ardently sure that we shall at +any cost come back. + +1873. + + + + + +A FEW OTHER ROMAN NEIGHBOURHOODS + + +If I find my old notes, in all these Roman connections, inevitably +bristle with the spirit of the postscript, so I give way to this +prompting to the extent of my scant space and with the sense of +other occasions awaiting me on which I shall have to do no less. The +impression of Rome was repeatedly to renew itself for the author of +these now rather antique and artless accents; was to overlay itself +again and again with almost heavy thicknesses of experience, the last of +which is, as I write, quite fresh to memory; and he has thus felt almost +ashamed to drop his subject (though it be one that tends so easily to +turn to the infinite) as if the law of change had in all the years had +nothing to say to his case. It's of course but of his case alone that he +speaks--wondering little what he may make of it for the profit of others +by an attempt, however brief, to point the moral of the matter, or in +other words compare the musing _mature_ visitor's "feeling about Rome" +with that of the extremely agitated, even if though extremely inexpert, +consciousness reflected in the previous pages. The actual, the current +Rome affects him as a world governed by new conditions altogether and +ruefully pleading that sorry fact in the ear of the antique wanderer +wherever he may yet mournfully turn for some re-capture of what he +misses. The city of his first unpremeditated rapture shines to memory, +on the other hand, in the manner of a lost paradise the rustle of whose +gardens is still just audible enough in the air to make him wonder if +some sudden turn, some recovered vista, mayn't lead him back to the +thing itself. My genial, my helpful tag, at this point, would doubtless +properly resolve itself, for the reader, into a clue toward some such +successful ingenuity of quest; a remark I make, I may add, even while +reflecting that the Paradise isn't apparently at all "lost" to visitors +not of my generation. It is the seekers of _that_ remote and romantic +tradition who have seen it, from one period of ten, or even of five, +years to another, systematically and remorselessly built out from their +view. Their helpless plaint, their sense of the generally irrecoverable +and unspeakable, is not, however, what I desire here most to express; +I should like, on the contrary, with ampler opportunity, positively to +enumerate the cases, the cases of contact, impression, experience, +in which the cold ashes of a long-chilled passion may fairly feel +themselves made to glow again. No one who has ever loved Rome as Rome +could be loved in youth and before her poised basketful of the finer +appeals to fond fancy was actually upset, wants to stop loving her; +so that our bleeding and wounded, though perhaps not wholly moribund, +loyalty attends us as a hovering admonitory, anticipatory ghost, one +of those magnanimous life-companions who before complete extinction +designate to the other member of the union their approved successor. So +it is at any rate that I conceive the pilgrim old enough to have become +aware in all these later years of what he misses to be counselled and +pacified in the interest of recognitions that shall a little make up for +it. + +It was this wisdom I was putting into practice, no doubt, for instance, +when I lately resigned myself to motoring of a splendid June day "out +to" Subiaco; as a substitute for a resignation that had anciently taken, +alas, but the form of my never getting there at all. Everything that +day, moreover, seemed right, surely; everything on certain other days +that were like it through their large indebtedness, at this, that and +the other point, to the last new thing, seemed so right that they come +back to me now, after a moderate interval, in the full light of +that unchallenged felicity. I couldn't at all gloriously recall, for +instance, as I floated to Subiaco on vast brave wings, how on the +occasion of my first visit to Rome, thirty-eight years before, I had +devoted certain evenings, evenings of artless "preparation" in my room +at the inn, to the perusal of Alphonse Dantier's admirable _Monasteres +Benedictins d'ltalie_, taking piously for granted that I should get +myself somehow conveyed to Monte Cassino and to Subiaco at least: such +an affront to the passion of curiosity, the generally infatuated +state then kindled, would any suspicion of my foredoomed, my all +but interminable, privation during visits to come have seemed to me. +Fortune, in the event, had never favoured my going, but I was to give +myself up at last to the sense of her quite taking me by the hand, and +that is how I now think of our splendid June day at Subiaco. The note +of the wondrous place itself is conventional "wild" Italy raised to the +highest intensity, the ideally, the sublimely conventional and wild, +complete and supreme in itself, without a disparity or a flaw; which +character of perfect picturesque orthodoxy seemed more particularly +to begin for me, I remember, as we passed, on our way, through that +indescribable and indestructible Tivoli, where the jumble of the +elements of the familiarly and exploitedly, the all too notoriously +fair and queer, was more violent and vociferous than ever--so the whole +spectacle there seemed at once to rejoice in cockneyfication and to +resist it. There at least I had old memories to renew--including that +in especial, from a few years back, of one of the longest, hottest, +dustiest return-drives to Rome that the Campagna on a sirocco day was +ever to have treated me to. + +{Illustration: VILLA D'ESTE, TIVOLI} + +That was to be more than made up on this later occasion by an hour of +early evening, snatched on the run back to Rome, that remains with me as +one of those felicities we are wise to leave for ever, just as they are, +just, that is, where they fell, never attempting to renew or improve +them. So happy a chance was it that ensured me at the afternoon's end +a solitary stroll through the Villa d' Este, where the day's invasion, +whatever it might have been, had left no traces and where I met nobody +in the great rococo passages and chambers, and in the prodigious alleys +and on the repeated flights of tortuous steps, but the haunting Genius +of Style, into whose noble battered old face, as if it had come out +clearer in the golden twilight and on recognition of response so deeply +moved, I seemed to exhale my sympathy. This was truly, amid a conception +and order of things all mossed over from disuse, but still without +a form abandoned or a principle disowned, one of the hours that one +doesn't forget. The ruined fountains seemed strangely to _wait_, in the +stillness and under cover of the approaching dusk, not to begin ever +again to play, also, but just only to be tenderly imagined to do so; +quite as everything held its breath, at the mystic moment, for the drop +of the cruel and garish exposure, for the Spirit of the place to steal +forth and go his round. The vistas of the innumerable mighty cypresses +ranged themselves, in their files and companies, like beaten heroes +for their captain's, review; the great artificial "works" of every +description, cascades, hemicycles, all graded and grassed and +stone-seated as for floral games, mazes and bowers and alcoves and +grottos, brave indissoluble unions of the planted and the builded +symmetry, with the terraces and staircases that overhang and the arcades +and cloisters that underspread, made common cause together as for one's +taking up a little, in kindly lingering wonder, the "feeling" out of +which they have sprung. One didn't see it, under the actual influence, +one wouldn't for the world have seen it, as that they longed to be +justified, during a few minutes in the twenty-four hours, of their +absurdity of pomp and circumstance--but only that they asked for +company, once in a way, as they were so splendidly formed to give it, +and that the best company, in a changed world, at the end of time, +what could they hope it to be but just the lone, the dawdling person of +taste, the visitor with a flicker of fancy, not to speak of a pang of +pity, to spare for them? It was in the flicker of fancy, no doubt, that +as I hung about the great top-most terrace in especial, and then again +took my way through the high gaunt corridors and the square and bare +alcoved and recessed saloons, all overscored with such a dim waste +of those painted, those delicate and capricious decorations which the +loggie of the Vatican promptly borrowed from the ruins of the Palatine, +or from whatever other revealed and inspiring ancientries, and which +make ghostly confession here of that descent, I gave the rein to my +sense of the sinister too, of that vague after-taste as of evil things +that lurks so often, for a suspicious sensibility, wherever the terrible +game of the life of the Renaissance was played as the Italians played +it; wherever the huge tessellated chessboard seems to stretch about us; +swept bare, almost always violently swept bare, of its chiselled and +shifting figures, of every value and degree, but with this echoing +desolation itself representing the long gasp, as it were, of +overstrained time, the great after-hush that follows on things too +wonderful or dreadful. + +I am putting here, however, my cart before my horse, for the hour just +glanced at was but a final tag to a day of much brighter curiosity, +and which seemed to take its baptism, as we passed through prodigious +perched and huddled, adorably scattered and animated and even crowded +Tivoli, from the universal happy spray of the drumming Anio waterfalls, +all set in their permanent rainbows and Sibylline temples and classic +allusions and Byronic quotations; a wondrous romantic jumble of such +things and quite others--heterogeneous inns and clamorous _guingettes_ +and factories grabbing at the torrent, to say nothing of innumerable +guides and donkeys and white-tied, swallow-tailed waiters dashing out +of grottos and from under cataracts, and of the air, on the part of +the whole population, of standing about, in the most characteristic +_contadino_ manner, to pounce on you and take you somewhere, snatch you +from somebody else, shout something at you, the aqueous and other uproar +permitting, and then charge you for it, your innocence aiding. I'm +afraid our run the rest of the way to Subiaco remains with me but as +an after-sense of that exhilaration, in spite of our rising admirably +higher, all the while, and plunging constantly deeper into splendid +solitary gravities, supreme romantic solemnities and sublimities, of +landscape. The Benedictine convent, which clings to certain more or less +vertiginous ledges and slopes of a vast precipitous gorge, constitutes, +with the whole perfection of its setting, the very ideal of the +tradition of that _extraordinary in the romantic_ handed down to us, as +the most attaching and inviting spell of Italy, by all the old academic +literature of travel and art of the Salvator Rosas and Claudes. This is +the main tribute I may pay in a few words to an impression of which a +sort of divine rightness of oddity, a pictorial felicity that was almost +not of this world, but of a higher degree of distinction altogether, +affected me as the leading note; yet about the whole exquisite +complexity of which I can't pretend to be informing. + +All the elements of the scene melted for me together; even from the +pause for luncheon on a grassy wayside knoll, over heaven knows what +admirable preparatory headlong slopes and ravines and iridescent +distances, under spreading chestnuts and in the high air that was cool +and sweet, to the final pedestrian climb of sinuous mountain-paths that +the shining limestone and the strong green of shrub and herbage made as +white as silver. There the miraculous home of St. Benedict awaited us +in the form of a builded and pictured-over maze of chapels and shrines, +cells and corridors, stupefying rock-chambers and caves, places all +at an extraordinary variety of different levels and with labyrinthine +intercommunications; there the spirit of the centuries sat like some +invisible icy presence that only permits you to stare and wonder. I +stared, I wondered, I went up and down and in and out and lost myself +in the fantastic fable of the innumerable hard facts themselves; and +whenever I could, above all, I peeped out of small windows and hung over +chance terraces for the love of the general outer picture, the splendid +fashion in which the fretted mountains of marble, as they might have +been, round about, seemed to inlay themselves, for the effect of the +"distinction" I speak of, with vegetations of dark emerald. There above +all--or at least in what such aspects did further for the prodigy of the +Convent, whatever that prodigy might for do _them_--was, to a life-long +victim of Italy, almost verily as never before, the operation of the +old love-philtre; there were the inexhaustible sources of interest and +charm. + +{Illustration: SUBIACO} + +These mystic fountains broke out for me elsewhere, again and again, I +rejoice to say--and perhaps more particularly, to be frank about it, +where the ground about them was pressed with due emphasis of appeal by +the firm wheels of the great winged car. I motored, under invitation +and protection, repeatedly back into the sense of the other years, +that sense of the "old" and comparatively idle Rome of my particular +infatuated prime which I was living to see superseded, and this even +when the fond vista bristled with innumerable "signs of the times," +unmistakable features of the new era, that, by I scarce know what +perverse law, succeeded in ministering to a happy effect. Some of these +false notes proceed simply from the immense growth of every sort of +facilitation--so that people are much more free than of old to come and +go and do, to inquire and explore, to pervade and generally "infest"; +with a consequent loss, for the fastidious individual, of his +blest earlier sense, not infrequent, of having the occasion and the +impression, as he used complacently to say, all to himself. We none of +us had anything quite all to ourselves during an afternoon at Ostia, +on a beautiful June Sunday; it was a different affair, rather, from the +long, the comparatively slow and quite unpeopled drive that I was to +remember having last taken early in the autumn thirty years before, and +which occupied the day--with the aid of a hamper from once supreme old +Spillman, the provider for picnics to a vanished world (since I suspect +the antique ideal of "a picnic in the Campagna," the fondest conception +of a happy day, has lost generally much of its glamour). Our idyllic +afternoon, at any rate, left no chord of sensibility that could possibly +have been in question untouched--not even that of tea on the shore at +Fiumincino, after we had spent an hour among the ruins of Ostia and +seen our car ferried across the Tiber, almost saffron-coloured here and +swirling towards its mouth, on a boat that was little more than a big +rustic raft and that yet bravely resisted the prodigious weight. What +shall I say, in the way of the particular, of the general felicity +before me, for the sweetness of the hour to which the incident just +named, with its strange and amusing juxtapositions of the patriarchally +primitive and the insolently supersubtle, the earliest and the latest +efforts of restless science, were almost immediately to succeed? + +We had but skirted the old gold-and-brown walls of Castel Fusano, where +the massive Chigi tower and the immemorial stone-pines and the afternoon +sky and the desolate sweetness and concentrated rarity of the picture +all kept their appointment, to fond memory, with that especial form of +Roman faith, the fine aesthetic conscience in things, that is never, +never broken. We had wound through tangled lanes and met handsome sallow +country-folk lounging at leisure, as became the Sunday, and ever so +pleasantly and garishly clothed, if not quite consistently costumed, as +just on purpose to feed our wanton optimism; and then we had addressed +ourselves with a soft superficiality to the open, the exquisite little +Ostian reliquary, an exhibition of stony vaguenesses half straightened +out. The ruins of the ancient port of Rome, the still recoverable +identity of streets and habitations and other forms of civil life, are +a not inconsiderable handful, though making of the place at best a very +small sister to Pompeii; but a soft superficiality is ever the refuge of +my shy sense before any ghost of informed reconstitution, and I plead my +surrender to it with the less shame that I believe I "enjoy" such scenes +even on such futile pretexts as much as it can be appointed them by the +invidious spirit of History to _be_ enjoyed. It may be said, of course, +that enjoyment, question-begging term at best, isn't in these austere +connections designated--but rather some principle of appreciation that +can at least give a coherent account of itself. On that basis then--as +I could, I profess, _but_ revel in the looseness of my apprehension, +so wide it seemed to fling the gates of vision and divination--I won't +pretend to dot, as it were, too many of the i's of my incompetence. +I was competent only to have been abjectly interested. On reflection, +moreover, I see that no impression of over-much company invaded +the picture till the point was exactly reached for its contributing +thoroughly to character and amusement; across at Fiumincino, which the +age of the bicycle has made, in a small way, the handy Gravesend or +Coney Island of Rome, the cafes and _birrerie_ were at high pressure, +and the bustle all motley and friendly beside the melancholy river, +where the water-side life itself had twenty quaint and vivid notes and +where a few upstanding objects, ancient or modern, looked eminent and +interesting against the delicate Roman sky that dropped down and down +to the far-spreading marshes of malaria. Besides which "company" is ever +intensely gregarious, hanging heavily together and easily outwitted; +so that we had but to proceed a scant distance further and meet the +tideless Mediterranean, where it tumbled in a trifle breezily on the +sands, to be all to ourselves with our tea-basket, quite as in the good +old fashion--only in truth with the advantage that the contemporary +tea-basket is so much improved. + +I jumble my memories as a tribute to the whole idyll--I give the golden +light in which they come back to me for what it is worth; worth, I mean, +as allowing that the possibilities of charm of the Witch of the Seven +Hills, as we used to call her in magazines, haven't all been vulgarised +away. It was precisely there, on such an occasion and in such a place, +that this might seem signally to have happened; whereas in fact the mild +suburban riot, in which the so gay but so light potations before the +array of little houses of entertainment were what struck one as really +making most for mildness, was brushed over with a fabled grace, was +harmonious, felicitous, distinguished, quite after the fashion of some +thoroughly trained chorus or phalanx of opera or ballet. Bicycles were +stacked up by the hundred; the youth of Rome are ardent cyclists, with +a great taste for flashing about in more or less denuded or costumed +athletic and romantic bands and guilds, and on our return cityward, +toward evening, along the right bank of the river, the road swarmed with +the patient wheels and bent backs of these budding _cives Romani_ quite +to the effect of its finer interest. Such at least, I felt, could only +be one's acceptance of almost any feature of a scene bathed in that +extraordinarily august air that the waning Roman day is so insidiously +capable of taking on when any other element of style happens at all to +contribute. Weren't they present, these other elements, in the great +classic lines and folds, the fine academic or historic attitudes of +the darkening land itself as it hung about the old highway, varying +its vague accidents, but achieving always perfect "composition"? I +shamelessly add that cockneyfied impression, at all events, to what I +have called my jumble; Rome, to which we all swept on together in the +wondrous glowing medium, _saved_ everything, spreading afar her wide +wing and applying after all but her supposed grand gift of the secret +of salvation. We kept on and on into the great dim rather sordidly papal +streets that approach the quarter of St. Peter's; to the accompaniment, +finally, of that markedly felt provocation of fond wonder which had +never failed to lie in wait for me under any question of a renewed +glimpse of the huge unvisited rear of the basilica. There was no renewed +glimpse just then, in the gloaming; but the region I speak of had been +for me, in fact, during the previous weeks, less unvisited than ever +before, so that I had come to count an occasional walk round and about +it as quite of the essence of the convenient small change with which the +heterogeneous City may still keep paying you. These frequentations in +the company of a sculptor friend had been incidental to our reaching +a small artistic foundry of fine metal, an odd and interesting little +establishment placed, as who should say in the case of such a mere +left-over scrap of a large loose margin, nowhere: it lurked so +unsuspectedly, that is, among the various queer things that Rome +comprehensively refers to as "behind St. Peter's." + +We had passed then, on the occasion of our several pilgrimages, in +beneath the great flying, or at least straddling buttresses to the left +of the mighty facade, where you enter that great idle precinct of fine +dense pavement and averted and sacrificed grandeur, the reverse of the +monstrous medal of the front. Here the architectural monster rears its +back and shoulders on an equal scale and this whole unregarded world +of colossal consistent symmetry and hidden high finish gives you the +measure of the vast total treasure of items and features. The outward +face of all sorts of inward majesties of utility and ornament here +above all correspondingly reproduces itself; the expanses of golden +travertine--the freshness of tone, the cleanness of surface, in the +sunny air, being extraordinary--climb and soar and spread under the +crushing weight of a scheme carried out in every ponderous particular. +Never was such a show of _wasted_ art, of pomp for pomp's sake, as +where all the chapels bulge and all the windows, each one a separate +constructional masterpiece, tower above almost grassgrown vacancy; with +the full and immediate effect, of course, of reading us a lesson on +the value of lawful pride. The pride is the pride of indifference as to +whether a greatness so founded be gaped at in all its features or not. +My friend and I were alone to gape at them most often while, for the +unfailing impression of them, on our way to watch the casting of our +figure, we extended our circuit of the place. To which I may add, as +another example of that tentative, that appealing twitch of the garment +of Roman association of which one kept renewing one's consciousness, the +half-hour at the little foundry itself was all charming--with its quite +shabby and belittered and ramshackle recall of the old Roman "art-life" +of one's early dreams. Everything was somehow in the picture, the +rickety sheds, the loose paraphernalia, the sunny, grassy yard where a +goat was browsing; then the queer interior gloom of the pits, frilled +with little overlooking scaffoldings and bridges, for the sinking +fireward of the image that was to take on hardness; and all the +pleasantness and quickness, the beguiling refinement, of the three or +four light fine "hands" of whom the staff consisted and into whose type +and tone one liked to read, with whatever harmless extravagance, so many +signs that a lively sense of stiff processes, even in humble life, could +still leave untouched the traditional rare feeling for the artistic. +How delightful such an occupation in such a general setting--those of +my friend, I at such moments irrepressibly moralised; and how one might +after such a fashion endlessly go and come and ask nothing better; or if +better, only so to the extent of another impression I was to owe to him: +that of an evening meal spread, in the warm still darkness that made no +candle flicker, on the wide high space of an old loggia that overhung, +in one quarter, the great obelisked Square preceding one of the Gates, +and in the other the Tiber and the far Trastevere and more things than +I can say--above all, as it were, the whole backward past, the mild +confused romance of the Rome one had loved and of which one was exactly +taking leave under protection of the friendly lanterned and garlanded +feast and the commanding, all-embracing roof-garden. It was indeed a +reconciling, it was an altogether penetrating, last hour. + +1909. + + + + + +A CHAIN OF CITIES + +One day in midwinter, some years since, during a journey from Rome +to Florence perforce too rapid to allow much wayside sacrifice to +curiosity, I waited for the train at Narni. There was time to stroll +far enough from the station to have a look at the famous old bridge +of Augustus, broken short off in mid-Tiber. While I stood admiring the +measure of impression was made to overflow by the gratuitous grace of a +white-cowled monk who came trudging up the road that wound to the gate +of the town. Narni stood, in its own presented felicity, on a hill a +good space away, boxed in behind its perfect grey wall, and the monk, +to oblige me, crept slowly along and disappeared within the aperture. +Everything was distinct in the clear air, and the view exactly as like +the bit of background by an Umbrian master as it ideally should have +been. The winter is bare and brown enough in southern Italy and the +earth reduced to more of a mere anatomy than among ourselves, for whom +the very _cranerie_ of its exposed state, naked and unashamed, gives it +much of the robust serenity, not of a fleshless skeleton, but of a fine +nude statue. In these regions at any rate, the tone of the air, for +the eye, during the brief desolation, has often an extraordinary charm: +nature still smiles as with the deputed and provisional charity of +colour and light, the duty of not ceasing to cheer man's heart. Her +whole behaviour, at the time, cast such a spell on the broken bridge, +the little walled town and the trudging friar, that I turned away with +the impatient vow and the fond vision of how I would take the journey +again and pause to my heart's content at Narni, at Spoleto, at Assisi, +at Perugia, at Cortona, at Arezzo. But we have generally to clip our +vows a little when we come to fulfil them; and so it befell that when my +blest springtime arrived I had to begin as resignedly as possible, yet +with comparative meagreness, at Assisi. + +{Illustration: ASSISI.} + +I suppose enjoyment would have a simple zest which it often lacks if +we always did things at the moment we want to, for it's mostly when +we can't that we're thoroughly sure we _would_, and we can answer too +little for moods in the future conditional. Winter at least seemed to me +to have put something into these seats of antiquity that the May sun +had more or less melted away--a desirable strength of tone, a depth +upon depth of queerness and quaintness. Assisi had been in the January +twilight, after my mere snatch at Narni, a vignette out of some brown +old missal. But you'll have to be a fearless explorer now to find of a +fine spring day any such cluster of curious objects as doesn't seem made +to match before anything else Mr. Baedeker's polyglot estimate of its +chief recommendations. This great man was at Assisi in force, and a +brand-new inn for his accommodation has just been opened cheek by +jowl with the church of St. Francis. I don't know that even the dire +discomfort of this harbourage makes it seem less impertinent; but I +confess I sought its protection, and the great view seemed hardly less +beautiful from my window than from the gallery of the convent. This +view embraces the whole wide reach of Umbria, which becomes as twilight +deepens a purple counterfeit of the misty sea. The visitor's first +errand is with the church; and it's fair furthermore to admit that when +he has crossed that threshold the position and quality of his hotel +cease for the time to be matters of moment. This two-fold temple of St. +Francis is one of the very sacred places of Italy, and it would be +hard to breathe anywhere an air more heavy with holiness. Such seems +especially the case if you happen thus to have come from Rome, where +everything ecclesiastical is, in aspect, so very much of this world--so +florid, so elegant, so full of accommodations and excrescences. The mere +site here makes for authority, and they were brave builders who laid the +foundation-stones. The thing rises straight from a steep mountain-side +and plunges forward on its great substructure of arches even as a +crowned headland may frown over the main. Before it stretches a long, +grassy piazza, at the end of which you look up a small grey street, to +see it first climb a little way the rest of the hill and then pause +and leave a broad green slope, crested, high in the air, with a ruined +castle. When I say before it I mean before the upper church; for by +way of doing something supremely handsome and impressive the sturdy +architects of the thirteenth century piled temple upon temple and +bequeathed a double version of their idea. One may imagine them to have +intended perhaps an architectural image of the relation between heart +and head. Entering the lower church at the bottom of the great flight +of steps which leads from the upper door, you seem to push at least into +the very heart of Catholicism. + +For the first minutes after leaving the clearer gloom you catch nothing +but a vista of low black columns closed by the great fantastic cage +surrounding the altar, which is thus placed, by your impression, in +a sort of gorgeous cavern. Gradually you distinguish details, become +accustomed to the penetrating chill, and even manage to make out a +few frescoes; but the general effect remains splendidly sombre and +subterranean. The vaulted roof is very low and the pillars dwarfish, +though immense in girth, as befits pillars supporting substantially a +cathedral. The tone of the place is a triumph of mystery, the richest +harmony of lurking shadows and dusky corners, all relieved by scattered +images and scintillations. There was little light but what came through +the windows of the choir over which the red curtains had been dropped +and were beginning to glow with the downward sun. The choir was guarded +by a screen behind which a dozen venerable voices droned vespers; but +over the top of the screen came the heavy radiance and played among the +ornaments of the high fence round the shrine, casting the shadow of the +whole elaborate mass forward into the obscured nave. The darkness of +vaults and side-chapels is overwrought with vague frescoes, most of them +by Giotto and his school, out of which confused richness the terribly +distinct little faces characteristic of these artists stare at you with +a solemn formalism. Some are faded and injured, and many so ill-lighted +and ill-placed that you can only glance at them with decent conjecture; +the great group, however--four paintings by Giotto on the ceiling above +the altar--may be examined with some success. Like everything of that +grim and beautiful master they deserve examination; but with the effect +ever of carrying one's appreciation in and in, as it were, rather than +of carrying it out and out, off and off, as happens for us with those +artists who have been helped by the process of "evolution" to grow +wings. This one, "going in" for emphasis at any price, stamps hard, as +who should say, on the very spot of his idea--thanks to which fact +he has a concentration that has never been surpassed. He was in other +words, in proportion to his means, a genius supremely expressive; he +makes the very shade of an intended meaning or a represented attitude so +unmistakable that his figures affect us at moments as creatures all +too suddenly, too alarmingly, too menacingly met. Meagre, primitive, +undeveloped, he yet is immeasurably strong; he even suggests that if he +had lived the due span of years later Michael Angelo might have found +a rival. Not that he is given, however, to complicated postures or +superhuman flights. The something strange that troubles and haunts us in +his work springs rather from a kind of fierce familiarity. + +It is part of the wealth of the lower church that it contains an +admirable primitive fresco by an artist of genius rarely encountered, +Pietro Cavallini, pupil of Giotto. This represents the Crucifixion; the +three crosses rising into a sky spotted with the winged heads of angels +while a dense crowd presses below. You will nowhere see anything more +direfully lugubrious, or more approaching for direct force, though not +of course for amplitude of style, Tintoretto's great renderings of the +scene in Venice. The abject anguish of the crucified and the straddling +authority and brutality of the mounted guards in the foreground are +contrasted in a fashion worthy of a great dramatist. But the most +poignant touch is the tragic grimaces of the little angelic heads that +fall like hailstones through the dark air. It is genuine realistic +weeping, the act of irrepressible "crying," that the painter has +depicted, and the effect is pitiful at the same time as grotesque. There +are many more frescoes besides; all the chapels on one side are +lined with them, but these are chiefly interesting in their general +impressiveness--as they people the dim recesses with startling +presences, with apparitions out of scale. Before leaving the place I +lingered long near the door, for I was sure I shouldn't soon again enjoy +such a feast of scenic composition. The opposite end glowed with subdued +colour; the middle portion was vague and thick and brown, with two or +three scattered worshippers looming through the obscurity; while, all +the way down, the polished pavement, its uneven slabs glittering dimly +in the obstructed light, was of the very essence of expensive picture. +It is certainly desirable, if one takes the lower church of St. Francis +to represent the human heart, that one should find a few bright places +there. But if the general effect is of brightness terrorised and +smothered, is the symbol less valid? For the contracted, prejudiced, +passionate heart let it stand. + +One thing at all events we can say, that we should rejoice to boast as +capacious, symmetrical and well-ordered a head as the upper sanctuary. +Thanks to these merits, in spite of a brave array of Giottesque work +which has the advantage of being easily seen, it lacks the great +character of its counterpart. The frescoes, which are admirable, +represent certain leading events in the life of St. Francis, and +suddenly remind you, by one of those anomalies that are half the secret +of the consummate _mise-en-scene_ of Catholicism, that the apostle of +beggary, the saint whose only tenement in life was the ragged robe which +barely covered him, is the hero of this massive structure. Church upon +church, nothing less will adequately shroud his consecrated clay. The +great reality of Giotto's designs adds to the helpless wonderment with +which we feel the passionate pluck of the Hero, the sense of being +separated from it by an impassable gulf, the reflection on all that has +come and gone to make morality at that vertiginous pitch impossible. +There are no such high places of humility left to climb to. An observant +friend who has lived long in Italy lately declared to me, however, that +she detested the name of this moralist, deeming him chief propagator of +the Italian vice most trying to the would-be lover of the people, the +want of personal self-respect. There is a solidarity in the use of soap, +and every cringing beggar, idler, liar and pilferer flourished for her +under the shadow of the great Francisan indifference to it. She was +possibly right; at Rome, at Naples, I might have admitted she was right; +but at Assisi, face to face with Giotto's vivid chronicle, we admire too +much in its main subject the exquisite play of that subject's genius--we +don't remit to him, and this for very envy, a single throb of his +consciousness. It took in, that human, that divine embrace, everything +_but_ soap. + +I should find it hard to give an orderly account of my next adventures +or impressions at Assisi, which could n't well be anything more than +mere romantic _flanerie_. One may easily plead as the final result of +a meditation at the shrine of St. Francis a great and even an amused +charity. This state of mind led me slowly up and down for a couple of +hours through the steep little streets, and at last stretched itself +on the grass with me in the shadow of the great ruined castle that +decorates so grandly the eminence above the town. I remember edging +along the sunless side of the small mouldy houses and pausing very often +to look at nothing in particular. It was all very hot, very hushed, very +resignedly but very persistently old. A wheeled vehicle in such a place +is an event, and the _forestiero's_ interrogative tread in the blank +sonorous lanes has the privilege of bringing the inhabitants to their +doorways. Some of the better houses, however, achieve a sombre stillness +that protests against the least curiosity as to what may happen in any +such century as this. You wonder, as you pass, what lingering old-world +social types vegetate there, but you won't find out; albeit that in one +very silent little street I had a glimpse of an open door which I have +not forgotten. A long-haired peddler who must have been a Jew, and who +yet carried without prejudice a burden of mass-books and rosaries, was +offering his wares to a stout old priest. The priest had opened the +door rather stingily and appeared half-heartedly to dismiss him. But +the peddler held up something I couldn't see; the priest wavered with a +timorous concession to profane curiosity and then furtively pulled the +agent of sophistication, or whatever it might be, into the house. I +should have liked to enter with that worthy. + +I saw later some gentlemen of Assisi who also seemed bored enough to +have found entertainment in his tray. They were at the door of the cafe +on the Piazza, and were so thankful to me for asking them the way to the +cathedral that, answering all in chorus, they lighted up with smiles as +sympathetic as if I had done them a favour. Of that type were my mild, +my delicate adventures. The Piazza has a fine old portico of an ancient +Temple of Minerva--six fluted columns and a pediment, of beautiful +proportions, but sadly battered and decayed. Goethe, I believe, found it +much more interesting than the mighty mediaeval church, and Goethe, as a +cicerone, doubtless could have persuaded one that it was so; but in the +humble society of Murray we shall most of us find a richer sense in the +later monument. I found quaint old meanings enough in the dark yellow +facade of the small cathedral as I sat on a stone bench by the oblong +green stretched before it. This is a pleasing piece of Italian Gothic +and, like several of its companions at Assisi, has an elegant wheel +window and a number of grotesque little carvings of creatures human +and bestial. If with Goethe I were to balance anything against the +attractions of the double church I should choose the ruined castle +on the hill above the town. I had been having glimpses of it all the +afternoon at the end of steep street-vistas, and promising myself +half-an-hour beside its grey walls at sunset. The sun was very late +setting, and my half-hour became a long lounge in the lee of an abutment +which arrested the gentle uproar of the wind. The castle is a splendid +piece of ruin, perched on the summit of the mountain to whose slope +Assisi clings and dropping a pair of stony arms to enclose the little +town in its embrace. The city wall, in other words, straggles up the +steep green hill and meets the crumbling skeleton of the fortress. On +the side off from the town the mountain plunges into a deep ravine, the +opposite face of which is formed by the powerful undraped shoulder of +Monte Subasio, a fierce reflector of the sun. Gorge and mountain are +wild enough, but their frown expires in the teeming softness of the +great vale of Umbria. To lie aloft there on the grass, with silver-grey +ramparts at one's back and the warm rushing wind in one's ears, and +watch the beautiful plain mellow into the tones of twilight, was as +exquisite a form of repose as ever fell to a tired tourist's lot. + +{Illustration: PERUGIA.} + +Perugia too has an ancient stronghold, which one must speak of in +earnest as that unconscious humorist the classic American traveller +is supposed invariably to speak of the Colosseum: it will be a very +handsome building when it's finished. Even Perugia is going the way of +all Italy--straightening out her streets, preparing her ruins, laying +her venerable ghosts. The castle is being completely _remis a neuf_--a +Massachusetts schoolhouse could n't cultivate a "smarter" ideal. There +are shops in the basement and fresh putty on all the windows; so +that the only thing proper to a castle it has kept is its magnificent +position and range, which you may enjoy from the broad platform where +the Perugini assemble at eventide. Perugia is chiefly known to fame as +the city of Raphael's master; but it has a still higher claim to renown +and ought to figure in the gazetteer of fond memory as the little City +of the infinite View. The small dusky, crooked place tries by a hundred +prompt pretensions, immediate contortions, rich mantling flushes and +other ingenuities, to waylay your attention and keep it at home; but +your consciousness, alert and uneasy from the first moment, is all +abroad even when your back is turned to the vast alternative or when +fifty house-walls conceal it, and you are for ever rushing up by-streets +and peeping round corners in the hope of another glimpse or reach of it. +As it stretches away before you in that eminent indifference to limits +which is at the same time at every step an eminent homage to style, it +is altogether too free and fair for compasses and terms. You can only +say, and rest upon it, that you prefer it to any other visible fruit of +position or claimed empire of the eye that you are anywhere likely to +enjoy. + +For it is such a wondrous mixture of blooming plain and gleaming river +and wavily-multitudinous mountain vaguely dotted with pale grey cities, +that, placed as you are, roughly speaking, in the centre of Italy, you +all but span the divine peninsula from sea to sea. Up the long vista +of the Tiber you look--almost to Rome; past Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Spoleto, all perched on their respective heights and shining through the +violet haze. To the north, to the east, to the west, you see a hundred +variations of the prospect, of which I have kept no record. Two +notes only I have made: one--though who hasn't made it over and over +again?--on the exquisite elegance of mountain forms in this endless play +of the excrescence, it being exactly as if there were variation of sex +in the upheaved mass, with the effect here mainly of contour and curve +and complexion determined in the feminine sense. It further came home to +me that the command of such an outlook on the world goes far, surely, to +give authority and centrality and experience, those of the great seats +of dominion, even to so scant a cluster of attesting objects as here. It +must deepen the civic consciousness and take off the edge of ennui. +It performs this kindly office, at any rate, for the traveller who +may overstay his curiosity as to Perugino and the Etruscan relics. It +continually solicits his wonder and praise--it reinforces the historic +page. I spent a week in the place, and when it was gone I had had enough +of Perugino, but had n't had enough of the View. + +I should perhaps do the reader a service by telling him just how a week +at Perugia may be spent. His first care must be to ignore the very dream +of haste, walking everywhere very slowly and very much at random, and +to impute an esoteric sense to almost anything his eye may happen to +encounter. Almost everything in fact lends itself to the historic, +the romantic, the aesthetic fallacy--almost everything has an antique +queerness and richness that ekes out the reduced state; that of a grim +and battered old adventuress, the heroine of many shames and scandals, +surviving to an extraordinary age and a considerable penury, but with +ancient gifts of princes and other forms of the wages of sin to show, +and the most beautiful garden of all the world to sit and doze and count +her beads in and remember. He must hang a great deal about the huge +Palazzo Pubblico, which indeed is very well worth any acquaintance you +may scrape with it. It masses itself gloomily above the narrow street to +an immense elevation, and leads up the eye along a cliff-like surface +of rugged wall, mottled with old scars and new repairs, to the loggia +dizzily perched on its cornice. He must repeat his visit to the Etruscan +Gate, by whose immemorial composition he must indeed linger long to +resolve it back into the elements originally attending it. He must uncap +to the irrecoverable, the inimitable style of the statue of Pope Julius +III before the cathedral, remembering that Hawthorne fabled his Miriam, +in an air of romance from which we are well-nigh as far to-day as from +the building of Etruscan gates, to have given rendezvous to Kenyon at +its base. Its material is a vivid green bronze, and the mantle and tiara +are covered with a delicate embroidery worthy of a silver-smith. + +Then our leisurely friend must bestow on Perugino's frescoes in +the Exchange, and on his pictures in the University, all the placid +contemplation they deserve. He must go to the theatre every evening, +in an orchestra-chair at twenty-two soldi, and enjoy the curious +didacticism of "Amore senza Stima," "Severita e Debolezza," "La Societa +Equivoca," and other popular specimens of contemporaneous Italian +comedy--unless indeed the last-named be not the edifying title applied, +for peninsular use, to "Le Demi-Monde" of the younger Dumas. I shall +be very much surprised if, at the end of a week of this varied +entertainment, he hasn't learnt how to live, not exactly in, but with, +Perugia. His strolls will abound in small accidents and mercies of +vision, but of which a dozen pencil-strokes would be a better memento +than this poor word-sketching. From the hill on which the town is +planted radiate a dozen ravines, down whose sides the houses slide and +scramble with an alarming indifference to the cohesion of their little +rugged blocks of flinty red stone. You ramble really nowhither without +emerging on some small court or terrace that throws your view across a +gulf of tangled gardens or vineyards and over to a cluster of serried +black dwellings which have to hollow in their backs to keep their +balance on the opposite ledge. On archways and street-staircases and +dark alleys that bore through a density of massive basements, and curve +and climb and plunge as they go, all to the truest mediaeval tune, +you may feast your fill. These are the local, the architectural, +the compositional commonplaces.. Some of the little streets in +out-of-the-way corners are so rugged and brown and silent that you may +imagine them passages long since hewn by the pick-axe in a deserted +stone-quarry. The battered black houses, of the colour of buried +things--things buried, that is, in accumulations of time, closer packed, +even as such are, than spadefuls of earth--resemble exposed sections of +natural rock; none the less so when, beyond some narrow gap, you catch +the blue and silver of the sublime circle of landscape. + +{Illustration: ETRUSCAN GATEWAY, PERUGIA.} + +But I ought n't to talk of mouldy alleys, or yet of azure distances, +as if they formed the main appeal to taste in this accomplished little +city. In the Sala del Cambio, where in ancient days the money-changers +rattled their embossed coin and figured up their profits, you may enjoy +one of the serenest aesthetic pleasures that the golden age of art +anywhere offers us. Bank parlours, I believe, are always handsomely +appointed, but are even those of Messrs. Rothschild such models of mural +bravery as this little counting-house of a bygone fashion? The bravery +is Perugino's own; for, invited clearly to do his best, he left it as +a lesson to the ages, covering the four low walls and the vault with +scriptural and mythological figures of extraordinary beauty. They +are ranged in artless attitudes round the upper half of the +room--the sibyls, the prophets, the philosophers, the Greek and Roman +heroes--looking down with broad serene faces, with small mild eyes and +sweet mouths that commit them to nothing in particular unless to being +comfortably and charmingly alive, at the incongruous proceedings of a +Board of Brokers. Had finance a very high tone in those days, or were +genius and faith then simply as frequent as capital and enterprise are +among ourselves? The great distinction of the Sala del Cambio is that +it has a friendly Yes for both these questions. There was a rigid +transactional probity, it seems to say; there was also a high tide of +inspiration. About the artist himself many things come up for us--more +than I can attempt in their order; for he was not, I think, to an +attentive observer, the mere smooth and entire and devout spirit we at +first are inclined to take him for. He has that about him which leads +us to wonder if he may not, after all, play a proper part enough here +as the patron of the money-changers. He is the delight of a million of +young ladies; but who knows whether we should n't find in his works, +might we "go into" them a little, a trifle more of manner than of +conviction, and of system than of deep sincerity? + +This, I allow, would put no great affront on them, and one speculates +thus partly but because it's a pleasure to hang about him on any +pretext, and partly because his immediate effect is to make us quite +inordinately embrace the pretext of his lovely soul. His portrait, +painted on the wall of the Sala (you may see it also in Rome +and Florence) might at any rate serve for the likeness of Mr. +Worldly-Wiseman in Bunyan's allegory. He was fond of his glass, I +believe, and he made his art lucrative. This tradition is not refuted +by his preserved face, and after some experience--or rather after a good +deal, since you can't have a _little_ of Perugino, who abounds wherever +old masters congregate, so that one has constantly the sense of being +"in" for all there is--you may find an echo of it in the uniform type of +his creatures, their monotonous grace, their prodigious invariability. +He may very well have wanted to produce figures of a substantial, yet at +the same time of an impeccable innocence; but we feel that he had taught +himself _how_ even beyond his own belief in them, and had arrived at +a process that acted at last mechanically. I confess at the same time +that, so interpreted, the painter affects me as hardly less interesting, +and one can't but become conscious of one's style when one's style +has become, as it were, so conscious of one's, or at least of its own, +fortune. If he was the inventor of a remarkably calculable _facture_, a +calculation that never fails is in its way a grace of the first order, +and there are things in this special appearance of perfection of +practice that make him the forerunner of a mighty and more modern race. +More than any of the early painters who strongly charm, you may take all +his measure from a single specimen. The other samples infallibly match, +reproduce unerringly the one type he had mastered, but which had the +good fortune to be adorably fair, to seem to have dawned on a vision +unsullied by the shadows of earth. Which truth, moreover, leaves +Perugino all delightful as composer and draughtsman; he has in each of +these characters a sort of spacious neatness which suggests that the +whole conception has been washed clean by some spiritual chemistry the +last thing before reaching the canvas; after which it has been applied +to that surface with a rare economy of time and means. Giotto and Fra +Angelico, beside him, are full of interesting waste and irrelevant +passion. In the sacristy of the charming church of San Pietro--a museum +of pictures and carvings--is a row of small heads of saints formerly +covering the frame of the artist's Ascension, carried off by the French. +It is almost miniature work, and here at least Perugino triumphs in +sincerity, in apparent candour, as well as in touch. Two of the holy +men are reading their breviaries, but with an air of infantine innocence +quite consistent with their holding the book upside down. + +Between Perugia and Cortona lies the large weedy water of Lake +Thrasymene, turned into a witching word for ever by Hannibal's recorded +victory over Rome. Dim as such records have become to us and remote such +realities, he is yet a passionless pilgrim who does n't, as he passes, +of a heavy summer's day, feel the air and the light and the very +faintness of the breeze all charged and haunted with them, all +interfused as with the wasted ache of experience and with the vague +historic gaze. Processions of indistinguishable ghosts bore me company +to Cortona itself, most sturdily ancient of Italian towns. It must have +been a seat of ancient knowledge even when Hannibal and Flaminius came +to the shock of battle, and have looked down afar from its grey ramparts +on the contending swarm with something of the philosophic composure +suitable to a survivor of Pelasgic and Etruscan revolutions. These grey +ramparts are in great part still visible, and form the chief attraction +of Cortona. It is perched on the very pinnacle of a mountain, and I +wound and doubled interminably over the face of the great hill, while +the jumbled roofs and towers of the arrogant little city still seemed +nearer to the sky than to the railway-station. "Rather rough," Murray +pronounces the local inn; and rough indeed it was; there was scarce a +square foot of it that you would have cared to stroke with your hand. +The landlord himself, however, was all smoothness and the best fellow in +the world; he took me up into a rickety old loggia on the tip-top of his +establishment and played showman as to half the kingdoms of the earth. +I was free to decide at the same time whether my loss or my gain was the +greater for my seeing Cortona through the medium of a festa. On the +one hand the museum was closed (and in a certain sense the smaller +and obscurer the town the more I like the museum); the churches--an +interesting note of manners and morals--were impenetrably crowded, +though, for that matter, so was the cafe, where I found neither an empty +stool nor the edge of a table. I missed a sight of the famous painted +Muse, the art-treasure of Cortona and supposedly the most precious, as +it falls little short of being the only, sample of the Greek painted +picture that has come down to us. On the other hand, I saw--but this is +what I saw. + +{Illustration: A STREET, CORTONA.} + +A part of the mountain-top is occupied by the church of St. Margaret, +and this was St. Margaret's day. The houses pause roundabout it and +leave a grassy slope, planted here and there with lean black cypresses. +The contadini from near and far had congregated in force and were +crowding into the church or winding up the slope. When I arrived they +were all kneeling or uncovered; a bedizened procession, with banners +and censers, bearing abroad, I believe, the relics of the saint, was +re-entering the church. The scene made one of those pictures that +Italy still brushes in for you with an incomparable hand and from +an inexhaustible palette when you find her in the mood. The day was +superb--the sky blazed overhead like a vault of deepest sapphire. The +grave brown peasantry, with no great accent of costume, but with +sundry small ones--decked, that is, in cheap fineries of scarlet and +yellow--made a mass of motley colour in the high wind-stirred light. +The procession halted in the pious hush, and the lovely land around and +beneath us melted away, almost to either sea, in tones of azure scarcely +less intense than the sky. Behind the church was an empty crumbling +citadel, with half-a-dozen old women keeping the gate for coppers. +Here were views and breezes and sun and shade and grassy corners to the +heart's content, together with one could n't say what huge seated mystic +melancholy presence, the after-taste of everything the still open maw +of time had consumed. I chose a spot that fairly combined all these +advantages, a spot from which I seemed to look, as who should say, +straight down the throat of the monster, no dark passage now, but with +all the glorious day playing into it, and spent a good part of my stay +at Cortona lying there at my length and observing the situation over +the top of a volume that I must have brought in my pocket just for that +especial wanton luxury of the resource provided and slighted. In the +afternoon I came down and hustled a while through the crowded little +streets, and then strolled forth under the scorching sun and made the +outer circuit of the wall. There I found tremendous uncemented blocks; +they glared and twinkled in the powerful light, and I had to put on a +blue eye-glass in order to throw into its proper perspective the vague +Etruscan past, obtruded and magnified in such masses quite as with the +effect of inadequately-withdrawn hands and feet in photographs. + +I spent the next day at Arezzo, but I confess in very much the same +uninvestigating fashion--taking in the "general impression," I dare say, +at every pore, but rather systematically leaving the dust of the ages +unfingered on the stored records: I should doubtless, in the poor time +at my command, have fingered it to so little purpose. The seeker for +the story of things has moreover, if he be worth his salt, a hundred +insidious arts; and in that case indeed--by which I mean when his +sensibility has come duly to adjust itself--the story assaults him but +from too many sides. He even feels at moments that he must sneak along +on tiptoe in order not to have too much of it. Besides which the case +all depends on the kind of use, the range of application, his tangled +consciousness, or his intelligible genius, say, may come to recognize +for it. At Arezzo, however this might be, one was far from Rome, one +was well within genial Tuscany, and the historic, the romantic decoction +seemed to reach one's lips in less stiff doses. There at once was the +"general impression"--the exquisite sense of the scarce expressible +Tuscan quality, which makes immediately, for the whole pitch of one's +perception, a grateful, a not at all strenuous difference, attaches to +almost any coherent group of objects, to any happy aspect of the scene, +for a main note, some mild recall, through pleasant friendly colour, +through settled ample form, through something homely and economic too at +the very heart of "style," of an identity of temperament and habit with +those of the divine little Florence that one originally knew. Adorable +Italy in which, for the constant renewal of interest, of attention, of +affection, these refinements of variety, these so harmoniously-grouped +and individually-seasoned fruits of the great garden of history, keep +presenting themselves! It seemed to fall in with the cheerful Tuscan +mildness for instance--sticking as I do to that ineffectual expression +of the Tuscan charm, of the yellow-brown Tuscan dignity at large--that +the ruined castle on the hill (with which agreeable feature Arezzo is no +less furnished than Assisi and Cortona) had been converted into a great +blooming, and I hope all profitable, podere or market-garden. I lounged +away the half-hours there under a spell as potent as the "wildest" +forecast of propriety--propriety to all the particular conditions--could +have figured it. I had seen Santa Maria della Pieve and its campanile +of quaint colonnades, the stately, dusky cathedral--grass-plotted and +residenced about almost after the fashion of an English "close"--and +John of Pisa's elaborate marble shrine; I had seen the museum and its +Etruscan vases and majolica platters. These were very well, but the old +pacified citadel somehow, through a day of soft saturation, placed me +most in relation. Beautiful hills surrounded it, cypresses cast straight +shadows at its corners, while in the middle grew a wondrous Italian +tangle of wheat and corn, vines and figs, peaches and cabbages, memories +and images, anything and everything. + +1873. + + + + + +SIENA EARLY AND LATE + + +I + + +Florence being oppressively hot and delivered over to the mosquitoes, +the occasion seemed to favour that visit to Siena which I had more than +once planned and missed. I arrived late in the evening, by the light +of a magnificent moon, and while a couple of benignantly-mumbling old +crones were making up my bed at the inn strolled forth in quest of a +first impression. Five minutes brought me to where I might gather it +unhindered as it bloomed in the white moonshine. The great Piazza of +Siena is famous, and though in this day of multiplied photographs and +blunted surprises and profaned revelations none of the world's wonders +can pretend, like Wordsworth's phantom of delight, really to "startle +and waylay," yet as I stepped upon the waiting scene from under a dark +archway I was conscious of no loss of the edge of a precious presented +sensibility. The waiting scene, as I have called it, was in the shape of +a shallow horse-shoe--as the untravelled reader who has turned over his +travelled friends' portfolios will respectfully remember; or, better, of +a bow in which the high wide face of the Palazzo Pubblico forms the +cord and everything else the arc. It was void of any human presence that +could figure to me the current year; so that, the moonshine assisting, +I had half-an-hour's infinite vision of mediaeval Italy. The Piazza being +built on the side of a hill--or rather, as I believe science affirms, in +the cup of a volcanic crater--the vast pavement converges downwards in +slanting radiations of stone, the spokes of a great wheel, to a point +directly before the Palazzo, which may mark the hub, though it is +nothing more ornamental than the mouth of a drain. The great monument +stands on the lower side and might seem, in spite of its goodly mass and +its embattled cornice, to be rather defiantly out-countenanced by vast +private constructions occupying the opposite eminence. This might be, +without the extraordinary dignity of the architectural gesture with +which the huge high-shouldered pile asserts itself. + +On the firm edge of the palace, from bracketed base to grey-capped +summit against the sky, where grows a tall slim tower which soars and +soars till it has given notice of the city's greatness over the blue +mountains that mark the horizon. It rises as slender and straight as a +pennoned lance planted on the steel-shod toe of a mounted knight, and +keeps all to itself in the blue air, far above the changing fashions of +the market, the proud consciousness or rare arrogance once built into +it. This beautiful tower, the finest thing in Siena and, in its rigid +fashion, as permanently fine thus as a really handsome nose on a face of +no matter what accumulated age, figures there still as a Declaration +of Independence beside which such an affair as ours, thrown off at +Philadelphia, appears to have scarce done more than helplessly give way +to time. Our Independence has become a dependence on a thousand such +dreadful things as the incorrupt declaration of Siena strikes us as +looking for ever straight over the level of. As it stood silvered by +the moonlight, while my greeting lasted, it seemed to speak, all as from +soul to soul, very much indeed as some ancient worthy of a lower order, +buttonholing one on the coveted chance and at the quiet hour, might +have done, of a state of things long and vulgarly superseded, but to the +pride and power, the once prodigious vitality, of which who could expect +any one effect to testify more incomparably, more indestructibly, quite, +as it were, more immortally? The gigantic houses enclosing the rest of +the Piazza took up the tale and mingled with it their burden. "We are +very old and a trifle weary, but we were built strong and piled high, +and we shall last for many an age. The present is cold and heedless, but +we keep ourselves in heart by brooding over our store of memories and +traditions. We are haunted houses in every creaking timber and aching +stone." Such were the gossiping connections I established with Siena +before I went to bed. + +Since that night I have had a week's daylight knowledge of the surface +of the subject at least, and don't know how I can better present it than +simply as another and a vivider page of the lesson that the ever-hungry +artist has only to _trust_ old Italy for her to feed him at every single +step from her hand--and if not with one sort of sweetly-stale grain from +that wondrous mill of history which during so many ages ground finer +than any other on earth, why then always with something else. Siena has +at any rate "preserved appearances"--kept the greatest number of them, +that is, unaltered for the eye--about as consistently as one can imagine +the thing done. Other places perhaps may treat you to as drowsy an odour +of antiquity, but few exhale it from so large an area. Lying massed +within her walls on a dozen clustered hill-tops, she shows you at every +turn in how much greater a way she once lived; and if so much of the +grand manner is extinct, the receptacle of the ashes still solidly +rounds itself. This heavy general stress of all her emphasis on the past +is what she constantly keeps in your eyes and your ears, and if you be +but a casual observer and admirer the generalised response is mainly +what you give her. The casual observer, however beguiled, is mostly +not very learned, not over-equipped in advance with data; he hasn't +specialised, his notions are necessarily vague, the chords of his +imagination, for all his good-will, are inevitably muffled and weak. But +such as it is, his received, his welcome impression serves his turn so +far as the life of sensibility goes, and reminds him from time to time +that even the lore of German doctors is but the shadow of satisfied +curiosity. I have been living at the inn, walking about the streets, +sitting in the Piazza; these are the simple terms of my experience. But +streets and inns in Italy are the vehicles of half one's knowledge; +if one has no fancy for their lessons one may burn one's note-book. +In Siena everything is Sienese. The inn has an English sign over the +door--a little battered plate with a rusty representation of the lion +and the unicorn; but advance hopefully into the mouldy stone alley which +serves as vestibule and you will find local colour enough. The landlord, +I was told, had been servant in an English family, and I was curious to +see how he met the probable argument of the casual Anglo-Saxon after the +latter's first twelve hours in his establishment. As he failed to appear +I asked the waiter if he, weren't at home. "Oh," said the latter, "he's +a _piccolo grasso vecchiotto_ who doesn't like to move." I'm afraid this +little fat old man has simply a bad conscience. It's no small burden for +one who likes the Italians--as who doesn't, under this restriction?--to +have so much indifference even to rudimentary purifying processes to +dispose of. What is the real philosophy of dirty habits, and are foul +surfaces merely superficial? If unclean manners have in truth the +moral meaning which I suspect in them we must love Italy better than +consistency. This a number of us are prepared to do, but while we are +making the sacrifice it is as well we should be aware. + +We may plead moreover for these impecunious heirs of the past that even +if it were easy to be clean in the midst of their mouldering heritage +it would be difficult to appear so. At the risk of seeming to flaunt the +silly superstition of restless renovation for the sake of renovation, +which is but the challenge of the infinitely precious principle of +duration, one is still moved to say that the prime result of one's +contemplative strolls in the dusky alleys of such a place is an +ineffable sense of disrepair. Everything is cracking, peeling, fading, +crumbling, rotting. No young Sienese eyes rest upon anything youthful; +they open into a world battered and befouled with long use. Everything +has passed its meridian except the brilliant facade of the cathedral, +which is being diligently retouched and restored, and a few private +palaces whose broad fronts seem to have been lately furbished and +polished. Siena was long ago mellowed to the pictorial tone; the +operation of time is now to deposit shabbiness upon shabbiness. But +it's for the most part a patient, sturdy, sympathetic shabbiness, +which soothes rather than irritates the nerves, and has in many cases +doubtless as long a career to run as most of our pert and shallow +freshnesses. It projects at all events a deeper shadow into the constant +twilight of the narrow streets--that vague historic dusk, as I may call +it, in which one walks and wonders. These streets are hardly more than +sinuous flagged alleys, into which the huge black houses, between their +almost meeting cornices, suffer a meagre light to filter down over +rough-hewn stone, past windows often of graceful Gothic form, and great +pendent iron rings and twisted sockets for torches. Scattered over +their many-headed hill, they suffer the roadway often to incline to the +perpendicular, becoming so impracticable for vehicles that the sound of +wheels is only a trifle less anomalous than it would be in Venice. But +all day long there comes up to my window an incessant shuffling of feet +and clangour of voices. The weather is very warm for the season, all the +world is out of doors, and the Tuscan tongue (which in Siena is reputed +to have a classic purity) wags in every imaginable key. It doesn't +rest even at night, and I am often an uninvited guest at concerts +and _conversazioni_ at two o'clock in the morning. The concerts are +sometimes charming. I not only don't curse my wakefulness, but go to my +window to listen. Three men come carolling by, trolling and quavering +with voices of delightful sweetness, or a lonely troubadour in his +shirt-sleeves draws such artful love-notes from his clear, fresh +tenor, that I seem for the moment to be behind the scenes at the opera, +watching some Rubini or Mario go "on" and waiting for the round of +applause. In the intervals a couple of friends or enemies stop--Italians +always make their points in conversation by pulling up, letting you walk +on a few paces, to turn and find them standing with finger on nose +and engaging your interrogative eye--they pause, by a happy instinct, +directly under my window, and dispute their point or tell their story +or make their confidence. One scarce is sure which it may be; everything +has such an explosive promptness, such a redundancy of inflection and +action. But everything for that matter takes on such dramatic life +as our lame colloquies never know--so that almost any uttered +communications here become an acted play, improvised, mimicked, +proportioned and rounded, carried bravely to its _denoument_. The +speaker seems actually to establish his stage and face his foot-lights, +to create by a gesture a little scenic circumscription about him; he +rushes to and fro and shouts and stamps and postures, he ranges through +every phase of his inspiration. I noted the other evening a striking +instance of the spontaneity of the Italian gesture, in the person of a +small Sienese of I hardly know what exact age--the age of inarticulate +sounds and the experimental use of a spoon. It was a Sunday evening, and +this little man had accompanied his parents to the cafe. The Caffe +Greco at Siena is a most delightful institution; you get a capital +_demi-tasse_ for three sous, and an excellent ice for eight, and while +you consume these easy luxuries you may buy from a little hunchback the +local weekly periodical, the _Vita Nuova_, for three centimes (the two +centimes left from your sou, if you are under the spell of this magical +frugality, will do to give the waiter). My young friend was sitting on +his father's knee and helping himself to the half of a strawberry-ice +with which his mamma had presented him. He had so many misadventures +with his spoon that this lady at length confiscated it, there being +nothing left of the ice but a little crimson liquid which he might +dispose of by the common instinct of childhood. But he was no friend, +it appeared, to such freedoms; he was a perfect little gentleman and he +resented it being expected of him that he should drink down his remnant. +He protested therefore, and it was the manner of his protest that struck +me. He didn't cry audibly, though he made a very wry face. It was no +stupid squall, and yet he was too young to speak. It was a penetrating +concord of inarticulately pleading, accusing sounds, accompanied by +gestures of the most exquisite propriety. These were perfectly mature; +he did everything that a man of forty would have done if he had been +pouring out a flood of sonorous eloquence. He shrugged his shoulders +and wrinkled his eyebrows, tossed out his hands and folded his arms, +obtruded his chin and bobbed about his head--and at last, I am happy to +say, recovered his spoon. If I had had a solid little silver one I would +have presented it to him as a testimonial to a perfect, though as yet +unconscious, artist. + +My actual tribute to him, however, has diverted me from what I had in +mind--a much weightier matter--the great private palaces which are the +massive majestic syllables, sentences, periods, of the strange message +the place addresses to us. They are extraordinarily spacious and +numerous, and one wonders what part they can play in the meagre economy +of the actual city. The Siena of to-day is a mere shrunken semblance +of the rabid little republic which in the thirteenth century waged +triumphant war with Florence, cultivated the arts with splendour, +planned a cathedral (though it had ultimately to curtail the design) of +proportions almost unequalled, and contained a population of two hundred +thousand souls. Many of these dusky piles still bear the names of the +old mediaeval magnates the vague mild occupancy of whose descendants has +the effect of armour of proof worn over "pot" hats and tweed jackets and +trousers. Half-a-dozen of them are as high as the Strozzi and Riccardi +palaces in Florence; they couldn't well be higher. The very essence of +the romantic and the scenic is in the way these colossal dwellings are +packed together in their steep streets, in the depths of their little +enclosed, agglomerated city. When we, in our day and country, raise a +structure of half the mass and dignity, we leave a great space about +it in the manner of a pause after a showy speech. But when a Sienese +countess, as things are here, is doing her hair near the window, she +is a wonderfully near neighbour to the cavalier opposite, who is being +shaved by his valet. Possibly the countess doesn't object to a certain +chosen publicity at her toilet; what does an Italian gentleman assure +me but that the aristocracy make very free with each other? Some of the +palaces are shown, but only when the occupants are at home, and now they +are in _villeggiatura_. Their villeggiatura lasts eight months of the +year, the waiter at the inn informs me, and they spend little more than +the carnival in the city. The gossip of an inn-waiter ought perhaps to +be beneath the dignity of even such thin history as this; but I confess +that when, as a story-seeker always and ever, I have come in from my +strolls with an irritated sense of the dumbness of stones and mortar, +it has been to listen with avidity, over my dinner, to the proffered +confidences of the worthy man who stands by with a napkin. His talk is +really very fine, and he prides himself greatly on his cultivated tone, +to which he calls my attention. He has very little good to say about the +Sienese nobility. They are "proprio d'origine egoista"--whatever that +may be--and there are many who can't write their names. This may be +calumny; but I doubt whether the most blameless of them all could have +spoken more delicately of a lady of peculiar personal appearance who had +been dining near me. "She's too fat," I grossly said on her leaving +the room. The waiter shook his head with a little sniff: "E troppo +materiale." This lady and her companion were the party whom, thinking +I might relish a little company--I had been dining alone for a week--he +gleefully announced to me as newly arrived Americans. They were +Americans, I found, who wore, pinned to their heads in permanence, the +black lace veil or mantilla, conveyed their beans to their mouth with +a knife, and spoke a strange raucous Spanish. They were in fine +compatriots from Montevideo. + +{Illustration: THE RED PALACE, SIENA.} + +The genius of old Siena, however, would make little of any stress of +such distinctions; one representative of a far-off social platitude +being about as much in order as another as he stands before the great +loggia of the Casino di Nobili, the club of the best society. The +nobility, which is very numerous and very rich, is still, says the +apparently competent native I began by quoting, perfectly feudal and +uplifted and separate. Morally and intellectually, behind the walls of +its palaces, the fourteenth century, it's thrilling to think, hasn't +ceased to hang on. There is no bourgeoisie to speak of; immediately +after the aristocracy come the poor people, who are very poor indeed. +My friend's account of these matters made me wish more than ever, as +a lover of the preserved social specimen, of type at almost any price, +that one weren't, a helpless victim of the historic sense, reduced +simply to staring at black stones and peeping up stately staircases; +and that when one had examined the street-face of the palace, Murray in +hand, one might walk up to the great drawing-room, make one's bow to the +master and mistress, the old abbe and the young count, and invite +them to favour one with a sketch of their social philosophy or a few +first-hand family anecdotes. + +The dusky labyrinth of the streets, we must in default of such +initiations content ourselves with noting, is interrupted by two great +candid spaces: the fan-shaped piazza, of which I just now said a word, +and the smaller square in which the cathedral erects its walls of +many-coloured marble. Of course since paying the great piazza my +compliments by moonlight I have strolled through it often at sunnier and +shadier hours. The market is held there, and wherever Italians buy and +sell, wherever they count and chaffer--as indeed you hear them do right +and left, at almost any moment, as you take your way among them--the +pulse of life beats fast. It has been doing so on the spot just named, I +suppose, for the last five hundred years, and during that time the cost +of eggs and earthen pots has been gradually but inexorably increasing. +The buyers nevertheless wrestle over their purchases as lustily as so +many fourteenth-century burghers suddenly waking up in horror to current +prices. You have but to walk aside, however, into the Palazzo Pubblico +really to feel yourself a thrifty old medievalist. The state affairs of +the Republic were formerly transacted here, but it now gives shelter +to modern law-courts and other prosy business. I was marched through +a number of vaulted halls and chambers, which, in the intervals of the +administrative sessions held in them, are peopled only by the great +mouldering archaic frescoes--anything but inanimate these even in their +present ruin--that cover the walls and ceiling. The chief painters of +the Sienese school lent a hand in producing the works I name, and you +may complete there the connoisseurship in which, possibly, you will have +embarked at the Academy. I say "possibly" to be very judicial, my own +observation having led me no great length. I have rather than otherwise +cherished the thought that the Sienese school suffers one's eagerness +peacefully to slumber--benignantly abstains in fact from whipping up +a languid curiosity and a tepid faith. "A formidable rival to the +Florentine," says some book--I forget which--into which I recently +glanced. Not a bit of it thereupon boldly say I; the Florentines may +rest on their laurels and the lounger on his lounge. The early painters +of the two groups have indeed much in common; but the Florentines had +the good fortune to see their efforts gathered up and applied by a few +pre-eminent spirits, such as never came to the rescue of the groping +Sienese. Fra Angelico and Ghirlandaio said all their feebler _confreres_ +dreamt of and a great deal more beside, but the inspiration of Simone +Memmi and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Sano di Pietro has a painful air of +never efflorescing into a maximum. Sodoma and Beccafumi are to my taste +a rather abortive maximum. But one should speak of them all gently--and +I do, from my soul; for their labour, by their lights, has wrought a +precious heritage of still-living colour and rich figure-peopled shadow +for the echoing chambers of their old civic fortress. The faded frescoes +cover the walls like quaintly-storied tapestries; in one way or another +they cast their spell. If one owes a large debt of pleasure to pictorial +art one comes to think tenderly and easily of its whole evolution, as +of the conscious experience of a single mysterious, striving spirit, and +one shrinks from saying rude things about any particular phase of it, +just as one would from referring without precautions to some error or +lapse in the life of a person one esteemed. You don't care to remind a +grizzled veteran of his defeats, and why should we linger in Siena to +talk about Beccafumi? I by no means go so far as to say, with an amateur +with whom I have just been discussing the matter, that "Sodoma is a +precious poor painter and Beccafumi no painter at all"; but, opportunity +being limited, I am willing to let the remark about Beccafumi pass for +true. With regard to Sodoma, I remember seeing four years ago in the +choir of the Cathedral of Pisa a certain small dusky specimen of the +painter--an Abraham and Isaac, if I am not mistaken--which was charged +with a gloomy grace. One rarely meets him in general collections, and I +had never done so till the other day. He was not prolific, apparently; +he had however his own elegance, and his rarity is a part of it. + +Here in Siena are a couple of dozen scattered frescoes and three or four +canvases; his masterpiece, among others, an harmonious Descent from the +Cross. I wouldn't give a fig for the equilibrium of the figures or +the ladders; but while it lasts the scene is all intensely solemn and +graceful and sweet--too sweet for so bitter a subject. Sodoma's +women are strangely sweet; an imaginative sense of morbid appealing +attitude--as notably in the sentimental, the pathetic, but the none the +less pleasant, "Swooning of St. Catherine," the great Sienese heroine, +at San Domenico--seems to me the author's finest accomplishment. His +frescoes have all the same almost appealing evasion of difficulty, and a +kind of mild melancholy which I am inclined to think the sincerest +part of them, for it strikes me as practically the artist's depressed +suspicion of his own want of force. Once he determined, however, that if +he couldn't be strong he would make capital of his weakness, and painted +the Christ bound to the Column, of the Academy. Here he got much nearer +and I have no doubt mixed his colours with his tears; but the result +can't be better described than by saying that it is, pictorially, the +first of the modern Christs. Unfortunately it hasn't been the last. + +{Illustration: SAN DOMINICO, SIENA} + +The main strength of Sienese art went possibly into the erection of the +Cathedral, and yet even here the strength is not of the greatest strain. +If, however, there are more interesting temples in Italy, there are +few more richly and variously scenic and splendid, the comparative +meagreness of the architectural idea being overlaid by a marvellous +wealth of ingenious detail. Opposite the church--with the dull old +archbishop's palace on one side and a dismantled residence of the late +Grand Duke of Tuscany on the other--is an ancient hospital with a big +stone bench running all along its front. Here I have sat a while every +morning for a week, like a philosophic convalescent, watching the florid +facade of the cathedral glitter against the deep blue sky. It has been +lavishly restored of late years, and the fresh white marble of the +densely clustered pinnacles and statues and beasts and flowers +flashes in the sunshine like a mosaic of jewels. There is more of this +goldsmith's work in stone than I can remember or describe; it is piled +up over three great doors with immense margins of exquisite decorative +sculpture--still in the ancient cream-coloured marble--and beneath three +sharp pediments embossed with images relieved against red marble and +tipped with golden mosaics. It is in the highest degree fantastic and +luxuriant--it is on the whole very lovely. As a triumph of the many-hued +it prepares you for the interior, where the same parti-coloured +splendour is endlessly at play--a confident complication of harmonies +and contrasts and of the minor structural refinements and braveries. +The internal surface is mainly wrought in alternate courses of black and +white marble; but as the latter has been dimmed by the centuries to a +fine mild brown the place is all a concert of relieved and dispersed +glooms. Save for Pinturicchio's brilliant frescoes in the Sacristy +there are no pictures to speak of; but the pavement is covered with many +elaborate designs in black and white mosaic after cartoons by Beccafumi. +The patient skill of these compositions makes them a rare piece of +decoration; yet even here the friend whom I lately quoted rejects this +over-ripe fruit of the Sienese school. The designs are nonsensical, he +declares, and all his admiration is for the cunning artisans who have +imitated the hatchings and shadings and hair-strokes of the pencil +by the finest curves of inserted black stone. But the true romance of +handiwork at Siena is to be seen in the wondrous stalls of the choir, +under the coloured light of the great wheel-window. Wood-carving has +ever been a cherished craft of the place, and the best masters of the +art during the fifteenth century lavished themselves on this prodigious +task. It is the frost-work on one's window-panes interpreted in polished +oak. It would be hard to find, doubtless, a more moving illustration of +the peculiar patience, the sacred candour, of the great time. Into such +artistry as this the author seems to put more of his personal substance +than into any other; he has to wrestle not only with his subject, +but with his material. He is richly fortunate when his subject is +charming--when his devices, inventions and fantasies spring lightly to +his hand; for in the material itself, after age and use have ripened +and polished and darkened it to the richness of ebony and to a greater +warmth there is something surpassingly delectable and venerable. Wander +behind the altar at Siena when the chanting is over and the incense has +faded, and look well at the stalls of the Barili. + +1873. + + +II + + +I leave the impression noted in the foregoing pages to tell its own +small story, but have it on my conscience to wonder, in this connection, +quite candidly and publicly and by way of due penance, at the scantness +of such first-fruits of my sensibility. I was to see Siena repeatedly +in the years to follow, I was to know her better, and I would say that +I was to do her an ampler justice didn't that remark seem to reflect a +little on my earlier poor judgment. This judgment strikes me to-day as +having fallen short--true as it may be that I find ever a value, or +at least an interest, even in the moods and humours and lapses of any +brooding, musing or fantasticating observer to whom the finer sense +of things is _on the whole_ not closed. If he has on a given occasion +nodded or stumbled or strayed, this fact by itself speaks to me of +him--speaks to me, that is, of his faculty and his idiosyncrasies, and +I care nothing for the application of his faculty unless it be, first of +all, in itself interesting. Which may serve as my reply to any objection +here breaking out--on the ground that if a spectator's languors are +evidence, of a sort, about that personage, they are scarce evident about +the case before him, at least if the case be important. I let my perhaps +rather weak expression of the sense of Siena stand, at any rate--for the +sake of what I myself read into it; but I should like to amplify it by +other memories, and would do so eagerly if I might here enjoy the space. +The difficulty for these rectifications is that if the early vision has +failed of competence or of full felicity, if initiation has thus been +slow, so, with renewals and extensions, so, with the larger experience, +one hindrance is exchanged for another. There is quite such a +possibility as having lived into a relation too much to be able to make +a statement of it. + +I remember on one occasion arriving very late of a summer night, after +an almost unbroken run from London, and the note of that approach--I +was the only person alighting at the station below the great hill of +the little fortress city, under whose at once frowning and gaping gate I +must have passed, in the warm darkness and the absolute stillness, +very much after the felt fashion of a person of importance about to be +enormously incarcerated--gives me, for preservation thus belated, the +pitch, as I may call it, at various times, though always at one season, +of an almost systematised esthetic use of the place. It wasn't to be +denied that the immensely better "accommodations" instituted by the +multiplying, though alas more bustling, years had to be recognised as +supplying a basis, comparatively prosaic if one would, to that luxury. +No sooner have I written which words, however, than I find myself adding +that one "wouldn't," that one doesn't--doesn't, that is, consent now to +regard the then "new" hotel (pretty old indeed by this time) as anything +but an aid to a free play of perception. The strong and rank old Arme +d'Inghilterra, in the darker street, has passed away; but its ancient +rival the Aquila Nera put forth claims to modernisation, and the Grand +Hotel, the still fresher flower of modernity near the gate by which you +enter from the station, takes on to my present remembrance a mellowness +as of all sorts of comfort, cleanliness and kindness. The particular +facts, those of the visit I began here by alluding to and those of still +others, at all events, inveterately made in June or early in July, enter +together in a fusion as of hot golden-brown objects seen through the +practicable crevices of shutters drawn upon high, cool, darkened rooms +where the scheme of the scene involved longish days of quiet work, with +late afternoon emergence and contemplation waiting on the better or the +worse conscience. I thus associate the compact world of the admirable +hill-top, the world of a predominant golden-brown, with a general +invocation of sensibility and fancy, and think of myself as going forth +into the lingering light of summer evenings all attuned to intensity of +the idea of compositional beauty, or in other words, freely speaking, +to the question of colour, to intensity of picture. To communicate with +Siena in this charming way was thus, I admit, to have no great margin +for the prosecution of inquiries, but I am not sure that it wasn't, +little by little, to feel the whole combination of elements better than +by a more exemplary method, and this from beginning to end of the scale. + +More of the elements indeed, for memory, hang about the days that were +ushered in by that straight flight from the north than about any other +series--if partly, doubtless, but because of my having then stayed +longest. I specify it at all events for fond reminiscence as the year, +the only year, at which I was present at the Palio, the earlier one, +the series of furious horse-races between elected representatives of +different quarters of the town taking place toward the end of June, as +the second and still more characteristic exhibition of the same sort +is appointed to the month of August; a spectacle that I am far from +speaking of as the finest flower of my old and perhaps even a little +faded cluster of impressions, but which smudges that special sojourn as +with the big thumb--mark of a slightly soiled and decidedly ensanguined +hand. For really, after all, the great loud gaudy romp or heated frolic, +simulating ferocity if not achieving it, that is the annual pride of the +town, was not intrinsically, to my-view, extraordinarily impressive--in +spite of its bristling with all due testimony to the passionate Italian +clutch of any pretext for costume and attitude and utterance, for +mumming and masquerading and raucously representing; the vast cheap +vividness rather somehow refines itself, and the swarm and hubbub of the +immense square melt, to the uplifted sense of a very high-placed balcony +of the overhanging Chigi palace, where everything was superseded but the +intenser passage, across the ages, of the great Renaissance tradition +of architecture and the infinite sweetness of the waning golden day. +The Palio, indubitably, was _criard_--and the more so for quite +monopolising, at Siena, the note of crudity; and much of it demanded +doubtless of one's patience a due respect for the long local continuity +of such things; it drops into its humoured position, however, in any +retrospective command of the many brave aspects of the prodigious place. +Not that I am pretending here, even for rectification, to take these at +all in turn; I only go on a little with my rueful glance at the marked +gaps left in my original report of sympathies entertained. + +I bow my head for instance to the mystery of my not having mentioned +that the coolest and freshest flower of the day was ever that of one's +constant renewal of a charmed homage to Pinturicchio, coolest and +freshest and signally youngest and most matutinal (as distinguished from +merely primitive or crepuscular) of painters, in the library or +sacristy of the Cathedral. Did I _always_ find time before work to spend +half-an-hour of immersion, under that splendid roof, in the clearest +and tenderest, the very cleanest and "straightest," as it masters +our envious credulity, of all storied fresco-worlds? This wondrous +apartment, a monument in itself to the ancient pride and power of +the Church, and which contains an unsurpassed treasure of gloriously +illuminated missals, psalters and other vast parchment folios, almost +each of whose successive leaves gives the impression of rubies, +sapphires and emeralds set in gold and practically embedded in the page, +offers thus to view, after a fashion splendidly sustained, a pictorial +record of the career of Pope Pius II, Aeneas Sylvius of the Siena +Piccolomini (who gave him for an immediate successor a second of +their name), most profanely literary of Pontiffs and last of would-be +Crusaders, whose adventures and achievements under Pinturicchio's brush +smooth themselves out for us very much to the tune of the "stories" told +by some fine old man of the world, at the restful end of his life, to +the cluster of his grandchildren. The end of AEneas Sylvius was not +restful; he died at Ancona in troublous times, preaching war, and +attempting to make it, against the then terrific Turk; but over no great +worldly personal legend, among those of men of arduous affairs, arches a +fairer, lighter or more pacific memorial vault than the shining Libreria +of Siena. I seem to remember having it and its unfrequented enclosing +precinct so often all to myself that I must indeed mostly have resorted +to it for a prompt benediction on the day. Like no other strong +solicitation, among artistic appeals to which one may compare it up and +down the whole wonderful country, is the felt neighbouring presence of +the overwrought Cathedral in its little proud possessive town: you may +so often feel by the week at a time that it stands there really for your +own personal enjoyment, your romantic convenience, your small wanton +aesthetic use. In such a light shines for me, at all events, under such +an accumulation and complication of tone flushes and darkens and richly +recedes for me, across the years, the treasure-house of many-coloured +marbles in the untrodden, the drowsy, empty Sienese square. One +could positively do, in the free exercise of any responsible fancy or +luxurious taste, what one would with it. + +But that proposition holds true, after all, for almost any mild pastime +of the incurable student of loose meanings and stray relics and odd +references and dim analogies in an Italian hill-city bronzed and +seasoned by the ages. I ought perhaps, for justification of the right to +talk, to have plunged into the Siena archives of which, on one occasion, +a kindly custodian gave me, in rather dusty and stuffy conditions, +as the incident vaguely comes back to me, a glimpse that was like a +moment's stand at the mouth of a deep, dark mine. I didn't descend into +the pit; I did, instead of this, a much idler and easier thing: I simply +went every afternoon, my stint of work over, I like to recall, for a +musing stroll upon the Lizza--the Lizza which had its own unpretentious +but quite insidious art of meeting the lover of old stories halfway. The +great and subtle thing, if you are not a strenuous specialist, in places +of a heavily charged historic consciousness, is to profit by the sense +of that consciousness--or in other words to cultivate a relation with +the oracle--after the fashion that suits yourself; so that if the +general after-taste of experience, experience at large, the fine +distilled essence of the matter, seems to breathe, in such a case, from +the very stones and to make a thick strong liquor of the very air, you +may thus gather as you pass what is most to your purpose; which is +more the indestructible mixture of lived things, with its concentrated +lingering odour, than any interminable list of numbered chapters and +verses. Chapters and verses, literally scanned, refuse coincidence, +mostly, with the divisional proprieties of your own pile of +manuscript--which is but another way of saying, in short, that if the +Lizza is a mere fortified promontory of the great Sienese hill, serving +at once as a stronghold for the present military garrison and as a +planted and benched and band-standed walk and recreation-ground for the +citizens, so I could never, toward close of day, either have enough of +it or yet feel the vaguest saunterings there to be vain. They were vague +with the qualification always of that finer massing, as one wandered +off, of the bronzed and seasoned element, the huge rock pedestal, the +bravery of walls and gates and towers and palaces and loudly asserted +dominion; and then of that pervaded or mildly infested air in which +one feels the experience of the ages, of which I just spoke, to be +exquisitely in solution; and lastly of the wide, strange, sad, beautiful +horizon, a rim of far mountains that always pictured, for the leaner +on old rubbed and smoothed parapets at the sunset hour, a country not +exactly blighted or deserted, but that had had its life, on an immense +scale, and had gone, with all its memories and relics, into rather +austere, in fact into almost grim and misanthropic, retirement. This was +a manner and a mood, at any rate, in all the land, that favoured in the +late afternoons the divinest landscape blues and purples--not to speak +of its favouring still more my practical contention that the whole +guarded headland in question, with the immense ramparts of golden brown +and red that dropped into vineyards and orchards and cornfields and all +the rustic elegance of the Tuscan _podere_, was knitting for me a +chain of unforgettable hours; to the justice of which claim let these +divagations testify. + +It wasn't, however, that one mightn't without disloyalty to that scheme +of profit seek impressions further afield--though indeed I may best say +of such a matter as the long pilgrimage to the pictured convent of Monte +Oliveto that it but played on the same fine chords as the overhanging, +the far-gazing Lizza. What it came to was that one simply put to the +friendly test, as it were, the mood and manner of the country. This +remembrance is precious, but the demonstration of that sense as of +a great heaving region stilled by some final shock and returning +thoughtfully, in fact tragically, on itself, couldn't have been more +pointed. The long-drawn rural road I refer to, stretching over hill and +dale and to which I devoted the whole of the longest day of the year--I +was in a small single-horse conveyance, of which I had already made +appreciative use, and with a driver as disposed as myself ever to +sacrifice speed to contemplation--is doubtless familiar now with the +rush of the motor-car; the thought of whose free dealings with the +solitude of Monte Oliveto makes me a little ruefully reconsider, I +confess, the spirit in which I have elsewhere in these pages, on behalf +of the lust, the landscape lust, of the eyes, acknowledged our general +increasing debt to that vehicle. For that we met nothing whatever, as +I seem at this distance of time to recall, while we gently trotted and +trotted through the splendid summer hours and a dry desolation that yet +somehow smiled and smiled, was part of the charm and the intimacy of +the whole impression--the impression that culminated at last, before +the great cloistered square, lonely, bleak and stricken, in the almost +aching vision, more frequent in the Italy of to-day than anywhere in the +world, of the uncalculated waste of a myriad forms of piety, forces of +labour, beautiful fruits of genius. However, one gaped above all things +for the impression, and what one mainly asked was that it should be +strong of its kind. That was the case, I think I couldn't but feel, at +every moment of the couple of hours I spent in the vast, cold, empty +shell, out of which the Benedictine brotherhood sheltered there for ages +had lately been turned by the strong arm of a secular State. There was +but one good brother left, a very lean and tough survivor, a dusky, +elderly, friendly Abbate, of an indescribable type and a perfect manner, +of whom I think I felt immediately thereafter that I should have +liked to say much, but as to whom I must have yielded to the fact +that ingenious and vivid commemoration was even then in store for him. +Literary portraiture had marked him for its own, and in the short +story of _Un Saint_, one of the most finished of contemporary French +_nouvelles_, the art and the sympathy of Monsieur Paul Bourget preserve +his interesting image. He figures in the beautiful tale, the Abbate +of the desolate cloister and of those comparatively quiet years, as a +clean, clear type of sainthood; a circumstance this in itself to cause a +fond analyst of other than "Latin" race (model and painter in this +case having their Latinism so strongly in common) almost endlessly to +meditate. Oh, the unutterable differences in any scheme or estimate +of physiognomic values, in any range of sensibility to expressional +association, among observers of different, of inevitably more or +less opposed, traditional and "racial" points of view! One had heard +convinced Latins--or at least I had!--speak of situations of trust and +intimacy in which they couldn't have endured near them a Protestant or, +as who should say for instance, an Anglo-Saxon; but I was to remember +my own private attempt to measure such a change of sensibility as +might have permitted the prolonged close approach of the dear dingy, +half-starved, very possibly all heroic, and quite ideally urbane Abbate. +The depth upon depth of things, the cloud upon cloud of associations, on +one side and the other, that would have had to change first! + +To which I may add nevertheless that since one ever supremely invoked +intensity of impression and abundance of character, I feasted my fill +of it at Monte Oliveto, and that for that matter this would have +constituted my sole refreshment in the vast icy void of the blighted +refectory if I hadn't bethought myself of bringing with me a scrap of +food, too scantly apportioned, I recollect--very scantly indeed, since +my _cocchiere_ was to share with me--by my purveyor at Siena. Our +tragic--even if so tenderly tragic--entertainer had nothing to give us; +but the immemorial cold of the enormous monastic interior in which we +smilingly fasted would doubtless not have had for me without that such +a wealth of reference. I was to have "liked" the whole adventure, so +I must somehow have liked that; by which remark I am recalled to the +special treasure of the desecrated temple, those extraordinarily +strong and brave frescoes of Luca Signorelli and Sodoma that adorn, in +admirable condition, several stretches of cloister wall. These creations +in a manner took care of themselves; aided by the blue of the sky above +the cloister-court they glowed, they insistently lived; I remember the +frigid prowl through all the rest of the bareness, including that of the +big dishonoured church and that even of the Abbate's abysmally resigned +testimony to his mere human and personal situation; and then, with such +a force of contrast and effect of relief, the great sheltered sun-flares +and colour-patches of scenic composition and design where a couple of +hands centuries ago turned to dust had so wrought the defiant miracle +of life and beauty that the effect is of a garden blooming among ruins. +Discredited somehow, since they all would, the destroyers themselves, +the ancient piety, the general spirit and intention, but still bright +and assured and sublime--practically, enviably immortal--the other, the +still subtler, the all aesthetic good faith. + +1909. + + + + + +THE AUTUMN IN FLORENCE + + +Florence too has its "season," not less than Rome, and I have been +rejoicing for the past six weeks in the fact that this comparatively +crowded parenthesis hasn't yet been opened. Coming here in the first +days of October I found the summer still in almost unmenaced possession, +and ever since, till within a day or two, the weight of its hand has +been sensible. Properly enough, as the city of flowers, Florence mingles +the elements most artfully in the spring--during the divine crescendo of +March and April, the weeks when six months of steady shiver have still +not shaken New York and Boston free of the long Polar reach. But the +very quality of the decline of the year as we at present here feel it +suits peculiarly the mood in which an undiscourageable gatherer of the +sense of things, or taster at least of "charm," moves through these +many-memoried streets and galleries and churches. Old things, old +places, old people, or at least old races, ever strike us as giving out +their secrets most freely in such moist, grey, melancholy days as have +formed the complexion of the past fortnight. With Christmas arrives the +opera, the only opera worth speaking of--which indeed often means in +Florence the only opera worth talking through; the gaiety, the gossip, +the reminders in fine of the cosmopolite and watering-place character to +which the city of the Medici long ago began to bend her antique temper. +Meanwhile it is pleasant enough for the tasters of charm, as I say, and +for the makers of invidious distinctions, that the Americans haven't all +arrived, however many may be on their way, and that the weather has a +monotonous overcast softness in which, apparently, aimless contemplation +grows less and less ashamed. There is no crush along the Cascine, as +on the sunny days of winter, and the Arno, wandering away toward the +mountains in the haze, seems as shy of being looked at as a good picture +in a bad light. No light, to my eyes, nevertheless, could be better +than this, which reaches us, all strained and filtered and refined, +exquisitely coloured and even a bit conspicuously sophisticated, through +the heavy air of the past that hangs about the place for ever. + +I first knew Florence early enough, I am happy to say, to have heard the +change for the worse, the taint of the modern order, bitterly lamented +by old haunters, admirers, lovers--those qualified to present a picture +of the conditions prevailing under the good old Grand-Dukes, the two +last of their line in especial, that, for its blest reflection of +sweetness and mildness and cheapness and ease, of every immediate boon +in life to be enjoyed quite for nothing, could but draw tears from +belated listeners. Some of these survivors from the golden age--just the +beauty of which indeed was in the gold, of sorts, that it poured into +your lap, and not in the least in its own importunity on that head--have +needfully lingered on, have seen the ancient walls pulled down and +the compact and belted mass of which the Piazza della Signoria was the +immemorial centre expand, under the treatment of enterprising syndics, +into an ungirdled organism of the type, as they viciously say, of +Chicago; one of those places of which, as their grace of a circumference +is nowhere, the dignity of a centre can no longer be predicated. +Florence loses itself to-day in dusty boulevards and smart _beaux +quartiers_, such as Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann were to set the +fashion of to a too mediaeval Europe--with the effect of some precious +page of antique text swallowed up in a marginal commentary that smacks +of the style of the newspaper. So much for what has happened on this +side of that line of demarcation which, by an odd law, makes us, with +our preference for what we are pleased to call the picturesque, object +to such occurrences even _as_ occurrences. The real truth is that +objections are too vain, and that he would be too rude a critic here, +just now, who shouldn't be in the humour to take the thick with the +thin and to try at least to read something of the old soul into the new +forms. + +There is something to be said moreover for your liking a city (once it's +a question of your actively circulating) to pretend to comfort you more +by its extent than by its limits; in addition to which Florence was +anciently, was in her palmy days peculiarly, a daughter of change and +movement and variety, of shifting moods, policies and regimes--just +as the Florentine character, as we have it to-day, is a character that +takes all things easily for having seen so many come and go. It saw the +national capital, a few years since, arrive and sit down by the Arno, +and took no further thought than sufficed for the day; then it saw, the +odd visitor depart and whistled her cheerfully on her way to Rome. The +new boulevards of the Sindaco Peruzzi come, it may be said, but they +don't go; which, after all, it isn't from the aesthetic point of view +strictly necessary they should. A part of the essential amiability of +Florence, of her genius for making you take to your favour on easy terms +everything that in any way belongs to her, is that she has already flung +an element of her grace over all their undried mortar and plaster. Such +modern arrangements as the Piazza d' Azeglio and the _viale_ or Avenue +of the Princess Margaret please not a little, I think--for what they +are!--and do so even in a degree, by some fine local privilege just +because they are Florentine. The afternoon lights rest on them as if to +thank them for not being worse, and their vistas are liberal where +they look toward the hills. They carry you close to these admirable +elevations, which hang over Florence on all sides, and if in the +foreground your sense is a trifle perplexed by the white pavements +dotted here and there with a policeman or a nursemaid, you have only to +reach beyond and see Fiesole turn to violet, on its ample eminence, from +the effect of the opposite sunset. + +Facing again then to Florence proper you have local colour enough and +to spare--which you enjoy the more, doubtless, from standing off to get +your light and your point of view. The elder streets abutting on all +this newness bore away into the heart of the city in narrow, dusky +perspectives that quite refine, in certain places, by an art of their +own, on the romantic appeal. There are temporal and other accidents +thanks to which, as you pause to look down them and to penetrate the +deepening shadows that accompany their retreat, they resemble little +corridors leading out from the past, mystical like the ladder in Jacob's +dream; so that when you see a single figure advance and draw nearer +you are half afraid to wait till it arrives--it must be too much of the +nature of a ghost, a messenger from an underworld. However this may be, +a place paved with such great mosaics of slabs and lined with palaces of +so massive a tradition, structures which, in their large dependence +on pure proportion for interest and beauty, reproduce more than other +modern styles the simple nobleness of Greek architecture, must ever have +placed dignity first in the scale of invoked effect and laid up no great +treasure of that ragged picturesqueness--the picturesqueness of large +poverty--on which we feast our idle eyes at Rome and Naples. Except in +the unfinished fronts of the churches, which, however, unfortunately, +are mere ugly blankness, one finds less of the poetry of ancient +over-use, or in other words less romantic southern shabbiness, than +in most Italian cities. At two or three points, none the less, this +sinister grace exists in perfection--just such perfection as so often +proves that what is literally hideous may be constructively delightful +and what is intrinsically tragic play on the finest chords of +appreciation. On the north side of the Arno, between Ponte Vecchio and +Ponte Santa Trinita, is a row of immemorial houses that back on the +river, in whose yellow flood they bathe their sore old feet. Anything +more battered and befouled, more cracked and disjointed, dirtier, +drearier, poorer, it would be impossible to conceive. They look as if +fifty years ago the liquid mud had risen over their chimneys and then +subsided again and left them coated for ever with its unsightly slime. +And yet forsooth, because the river is yellow, and the light is yellow, +and here and there, elsewhere, some mellow mouldering surface, some hint +of colour, some accident of atmosphere, takes up the foolish tale and +repeats the note--because, in short, it is Florence, it is Italy, and +the fond appraiser, the infatuated alien, may have had in his eyes, at +birth and afterwards, the micaceous sparkle of brown-stone fronts no +more interesting than so much sand-paper, these miserable dwellings, +instead of suggesting mental invocations to an enterprising board of +health, simply create their own standard of felicity and shamelessly +live in it. Lately, during the misty autumn nights, the moon has +shone on them faintly and refined their shabbiness away into something +ineffably strange and spectral. The turbid stream sweeps along without +a sound, and the pale tenements hang above it like a vague miasmatic +exhalation. The dimmest back-scene at the opera, when the tenor is +singing his sweetest, seems hardly to belong to a world more detached +from responsibility. + +{Illustration: ON THE ARNO, FLORENCE.} + +What it is that infuses so rich an interest into the general charm is +difficult to say in a few words; yet as we wander hither and thither in +quest of sacred canvas and immortal bronze and stone we still feel the +genius of the place hang about. Two industrious English ladies, the +Misses Horner, have lately published a couple of volumes of "Walks" by +the Arno-side, and their work is a long enumeration of great artistic +deeds. These things remain for the most part in sound preservation, and, +as the weeks go by and you spend a constant portion of your days among +them the sense of one of the happiest periods of human Taste--to put it +only at that--settles upon your spirit. It was not long; it lasted, in +its splendour, for less than a century; but it has stored away in the +palaces and churches of Florence a heritage of beauty that these three +enjoying centuries since haven't yet exhausted. This forms a clear +intellectual atmosphere into which you may turn aside from the modern +world and fill your lungs as with the breath of a forgotten creed. The +memorials of the past here address us moreover with a friendliness, win +us by we scarcely know what sociability, what equal amenity, that we +scarce find matched in other great esthetically endowed communities and +periods. Venice, with her old palaces cracking under the weight of their +treasures, is, in her influence, insupportably sad; Athens, with her +maimed marbles and dishonoured memories, transmutes the consciousness of +sensitive observers, I am told, into a chronic heartache; but in one's +impression of old Florence the abiding felicity, the sense of saving +sanity, of something sound and human, predominates, offering you a +medium still conceivable for life. The reason of this is partly, no +doubt, the "sympathetic" nature, the temperate joy, of Florentine art +in general--putting the sole Dante, greatest of literary artists, aside; +partly the tenderness of time, in its lapse, which, save in a few cases, +has been as sparing of injury as if it knew that when it should have +dimmed and corroded these charming things it would have nothing so sweet +again for its tooth to feed on. If the beautiful Ghirlandaios and Lippis +are fading, this generation will never know it. The large Fra Angelico +in the Academy is as clear and keen as if the good old monk stood +there wiping his brushes; the colours seem to _sing_, as it were, like +new-fledged birds in June. Nothing is more characteristic of early +Tuscan art than the high-reliefs of Luca della Robbia; yet there isn't +one of them that, except for the unique mixture of freshness with its +wisdom, of candour with its expertness, mightn't have been modelled +yesterday. + +But perhaps the best image of the absence of stale melancholy or wasted +splendour, of the positive presence of what I have called temperate joy, +in the Florentine impression and genius, is the bell-tower of Giotto, +which rises beside the cathedral. No beholder of it will have forgotten +how straight and slender it stands there, how strangely rich in the +common street, plated with coloured marble patterns, and yet so far from +simple or severe in design that we easily wonder how its author, the +painter of exclusively and portentously grave little pictures, should +have fashioned a building which in the way of elaborate elegance, of the +true play of taste, leaves a jealous modern criticism nothing to +miss. Nothing can be imagined at once more lightly and more pointedly +fanciful; it might have been handed over to the city, as it stands, +by some Oriental genie tired of too much detail. Yet for all that +suggestion it seems of no particular time--not grey and hoary like +a Gothic steeple, not cracked and despoiled like a Greek temple; +its marbles shining so little less freshly than when they were laid +together, and the sunset lighting up its cornice with such a friendly +radiance, that you come at last to regard it simply as the graceful, +indestructible soul of the place made visible. The Cathedral, +externally, for all its solemn hugeness, strikes the same note of +would-be reasoned elegance and cheer; it has conventional grandeur, of +course, but a grandeur so frank and ingenuous even in its _parti-pris_. +It has seen so much, and outlived so much, and served so many sad +purposes, and yet remains in aspect so full of the fine Tuscan +geniality, the feeling for life, one may almost say the feeling for +amusement, that inspired it. Its vast many-coloured marble walls become +at any rate, with this, the friendliest note of all Florence; there +is an unfailing charm in walking past them while they lift their great +acres of geometrical mosaic higher in the air than you have time or +other occasion to look. You greet them from the deep street as you greet +the side of a mountain when you move in the gorge--not twisting back +your head to keep looking at the top, but content with the minor +accidents, the nestling hollows and soft cloud-shadows, the general +protection of the valley. + +Florence is richer in pictures than we really know till we have begun to +look for them in outlying corners. Then, here and there, one comes upon +lurking values and hidden gems that it quite seems one might as a good +New Yorker quietly "bag" for the so aspiring Museum of that city without +their being missed. The Pitti Palace is of course a collection of +masterpieces; they jostle each other in their splendour, they perhaps +even, in their merciless multitude, rather fatigue our admiration. The +Uffizi is almost as fine a show, and together with that long serpentine +artery which crosses the Arno and connects them, making you ask +yourself, whichever way you take it, what goal can be grand enough to +crown such a journey, they form the great central treasure-chamber +of the town. But I have been neglecting them of late for love of the +Academy, where there are fewer copyists and tourists, above all fewer +pictorial lions, those whose roar is heard from afar and who strike +us as expecting overmuch to have it their own way in the jungle. The +pictures at the Academy are all, rather, doves--the whole impression is +less pompously tropical. Selection still leaves one too much to say, but +I noted here, on my last occasion, an enchanting Botticelli so obscurely +hung, in one of the smaller rooms, that I scarce knew whether most to +enjoy or to resent its relegation. Placed, in a mean black frame, where +you wouldn't have looked for a masterpiece, it yet gave out to a good +glass every characteristic of one. Representing as it does the walk of +Tobias with the angel, there are really parts of it that an angel might +have painted; but I doubt whether it is observed by half-a-dozen persons +a year. That was my excuse for my wanting to know, on the spot, though +doubtless all sophistically, what dishonour, could the transfer be +artfully accomplished, a strong American light and a brave gilded frame +would, comparatively speaking, do it. There and then it would, shine +with the intense authority that we claim for the fairest things--would +exhale its wondrous beauty as a sovereign example. What it comes to +is that this master is the most interesting of a great band--the only +Florentine save Leonardo and Michael in whom the impulse was original +and the invention rare. His imagination is of things strange, subtle and +complicated--things it at first strikes us that we moderns have reason +to know, and that it has taken us all the ages to learn; so that we +permit ourselves to wonder how a "primitive" could come by them. We soon +enough reflect, however, that we ourselves have come by them almost only +_through_ him, exquisite spirit that he was, and that when we enjoy, or +at least when we encounter, in our William Morrises, in our +Rossettis and Burne-Joneses, the note of the haunted or over-charged +consciousness, we are but treated, with other matters, to repeated doses +of diluted Botticelli. He practically set with his own hand almost all +the copies to almost all our so-called pre-Raphaelites, earlier and +later, near and remote. + +Let us at the same time, none the less, never fail of response to +the great Florentine geniality at large. Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, +Ghirlandaio, were not "subtly" imaginative, were not even riotously so; +but what other three were ever more gladly observant, more vividly and +richly true? If there should some time be a weeding out of the world's +possessions the best works of the early Florentines will certainly +be counted among the flowers. With the ripest performances of the +Venetians--by which I don't mean the over-ripe--we can but take them for +the most valuable things in the history of art. Heaven forbid we should +be narrowed down to a cruel choice; but if it came to a question of +keeping or losing between half-a-dozen Raphaels and half-a-dozen things +it would be a joy to pick out at the Academy, I fear that, for myself, +the memory of the Transfiguration, or indeed of the other Roman relics +of the painter, wouldn't save the Raphaels. And yet this was so far from +the opinion of a patient artist whom I saw the other day copying the +finest of Ghirlandaios--a beautiful Adoration of the Kings at the +Hospital of the Innocenti. Here was another sample of the buried +art-wealth of Florence. It hangs in an obscure chapel, far aloft, behind +an altar, and though now and then a stray tourist wanders in and puzzles +a while over the vaguely-glowing forms, the picture is never really +seen and enjoyed. I found an aged Frenchman of modest mien perched on a +little platform beneath it, behind a great hedge of altar-candlesticks, +with an admirable copy all completed. The difficulties of his task had +been well-nigh insuperable, and his performance seemed to me a real feat +of magic. He could scarcely move or turn, and could find room for his +canvas but by rolling it together and painting a small piece at a time, +so that he never enjoyed a view of his _ensemble_. The original is +gorgeous with colour and bewildering with decorative detail, but not +a gleam of the painter's crimson was wanting, not a curl in his gold +arabesques. It seemed to me that if I had copied a Ghirlandaio in such +conditions I would at least maintain for my own credit that he was the +first painter in the world. "Very good of its kind," said the weary old +man with a shrug of reply for my raptures; "but oh, how far short of +Raphael!" However that may be, if the reader chances to observe this +consummate copy in the so commendable Museum devoted in Paris to such +works, let him stop before it with a due reverence; it is one of the +patient things of art. Seeing it wrought there, in its dusky nook, under +such scant convenience, I found no bar in the painter's foreignness to +a thrilled sense that the old art-life of Florence isn't yet extinct. It +still at least works spells and almost miracles. + +1873. + + + + + +FLORENTINE NOTES + + +I + + +Yesterday that languid organism known as the Florentine Carnival put on +a momentary semblance of vigour, and decreed a general _corso_ through +the town. The spectacle was not brilliant, but it suggested some natural +reflections. I encountered the line of carriages in the square before +Santa Croce, of which they were making the circuit. They rolled solemnly +by, with their inmates frowning forth at each other in apparent wrath +at not finding each other more worth while. There were no masks, no +costumes, no decorations, no throwing of flowers or sweetmeats. It was +as if each carriageful had privately and not very heroically resolved +not to be at costs, and was rather discomfited at finding that it was +getting no better entertainment than it gave. The middle of the piazza +was filled with little tables, with shouting mountebanks, mostly +disguised in battered bonnets and crinolines, offering chances in +raffles for plucked fowls and kerosene lamps. I have never thought the +huge marble statue of Dante, which overlooks the scene, a work of the +last refinement; but, as it stood there on its high pedestal, chin in +hand, frowning down on all this cheap foolery, it seemed to have a great +moral intention. The carriages followed a prescribed course--through Via +Ghibellina, Via del Proconsolo, past the Badia and the Bargello, beneath +the great tessellated cliffs of the Cathedral, through Via Tornabuoni +and out into ten minutes' sunshine beside the Arno. Much of all this +is the gravest and stateliest part of Florence, a quarter of supreme +dignity, and there was an almost ludicrous incongruity in seeing +Pleasure leading her train through these dusky historic streets. It was +most uncomfortably cold, and in the absence of masks many a fair +nose was fantastically tipped with purple. But as the carriages crept +solemnly along they seemed to keep a funeral march--to follow an antique +custom, an exploded faith, to its tomb. The Carnival is dead, and these +good people who had come abroad to make merry were funeral mutes and +grave-diggers. Last winter in Rome it showed but a galvanised life, yet +compared with this humble exhibition it was operatic. At Rome indeed +it was too operatic. The knights on horseback there were a bevy of +circus-riders, and I'm sure half the mad revellers repaired every night +to the Capitol for their twelve sous a day. + +I have just been reading over the Letters of the President de Brosses. +A hundred years ago, in Venice, the Carnival lasted six months; and at +Rome for many weeks each year one was free, under cover of a mask, +to perpetrate the most fantastic follies and cultivate the most +remunerative vices. It's very well to read the President's notes, which +have indeed a singular interest; but they make us ask ourselves why we +should expect the Italians to persist in manners and practices which +we ourselves, if we had responsibilities in the matter, should find +intolerable. The Florentines at any rate spend no more money nor faith +on the carnivalesque. And yet this truth has a qualification; for +what struck me in the whole spectacle yesterday, and prompted these +observations, was not at all the more or less of costume of the +occupants of the carriages, but the obstinate survival of the +merrymaking instinct in the people at large. There could be no better +example of it than that so dim a shadow of entertainment should keep all +Florence standing and strolling, densely packed for hours, in the cold +streets. There was nothing to see that mightn't be seen on the Cascine +any fine day in the year--nothing but a name, a tradition, a pretext for +sweet staring idleness. The faculty of making much of common things +and converting small occasions into great pleasures is, to a son +of communities strenuous as ours are strenuous, the most salient +characteristic of the so-called Latin civilisations. It charms him and +vexes him, according to his mood; and for the most part it represents a +moral gulf between his own temperamental and indeed spiritual sense +of race, and that of Frenchmen and Italians, far wider than the watery +leagues that a steamer may annihilate. But I think his mood is wisest +when he accepts the "foreign" easy surrender to _all_ the senses as the +sign of an unconscious philosophy of life, instilled by the experience +of centuries--the philosophy of people who have lived long and much, +who have discovered no short cuts to happiness and no effective +circumvention of effort, and so have come to regard the average lot as a +ponderous fact that absolutely calls for a certain amount of sitting on +the lighter tray of the scales. Florence yesterday then took its holiday +in a natural, placid fashion that seemed to make its own temper an +affair quite independent of the splendour of the compensation decreed on +a higher line to the weariness of its legs. That the _corso_ was stupid +or lively was the shame or the glory of the powers "above"--the fates, +the gods, the _forestieri_, the town-councilmen, the rich or the stingy. +Common Florence, on the narrow footways, pressed against the houses, +obeyed a natural need in looking about complacently, patiently, gently, +and never pushing, nor trampling, nor swearing, nor staggering. This +liberal margin for festivals in Italy gives the masses a more than +man-of-the-world urbanity in taking their pleasure. + +Meanwhile it occurs to me that by a remote New England fireside an +unsophisticated young person of either sex is reading in an old volume +of travels or an old romantic tale some account of these anniversaries +and appointed revels as old Catholic lands offer them to view. Across +the page swims a vision of sculptured palace-fronts draped in crimson +and gold and shining in a southern sun; of a motley train of maskers +sweeping on in voluptuous confusion and pelting each other with nosegays +and love-letters. Into the quiet room, quenching the rhythm of the +Connecticut clock, floats an uproar of delighted voices, a medley of +stirring foreign sounds, an echo of far-heard music of a strangely alien +cadence. But the dusk is falling, and the unsophisticated young person +closes the book wearily and wanders to the window. The dusk is falling +on the beaten snow. Down the road is a white wooden meeting-house, +looking grey among the drifts. The young person surveys the prospect +a while, and then wanders back and stares at the fire. The Carnival of +Venice, of Florence, of Rome; colour and costume, romance and rapture! +The young person gazes in the firelight at the flickering chiaroscuro +of the future, discerns at last the glowing phantasm of opportunity, +and determines with a wild heart-beat to go and see it all--twenty years +hence! + + +II + + +A couple of days since, driving to Fiesole, we came back by the castle +of Vincigliata. The afternoon was lovely; and, though there is as yet +(February 10th) no visible revival of vegetation, the air was full of a +vague vernal perfume, and the warm colours of the hills and the yellow +western sunlight flooding the plain seemed to contain the promise of +Nature's return to grace. It's true that above the distant pale blue +gorge of Vallombrosa the mountain-line was tipped with snow; but the +liberated soul of Spring was nevertheless at large. The view from +Fiesole seems vaster and richer with each visit. The hollow in which +Florence lies, and which from below seems deep and contracted, opens +out into an immense and generous valley and leads away the eye into +a hundred gradations of distance. The place itself showed, amid its +chequered fields and gardens, with as many towers and spires as a +chess-board half cleared. The domes and towers were washed over with +a faint blue mist. The scattered columns of smoke, interfused with the +sinking sunlight, hung over them like streamers and pennons of silver +gauze; and the Arno, twisting and curling and glittering here and there, +was a serpent cross-striped with silver. + +Vincigliata is a product of the millions, the leisure and the +eccentricity, I suppose people say, of an English gentleman--Mr. Temple +Leader, whose name should be commemorated. You reach the castle from +Fiesole by a narrow road, returning toward Florence by a romantic twist +through the hills and passing nothing on its way save thin plantations +of cypress and cedar. Upward of twenty years ago, I believe, this +gentleman took a fancy to the crumbling shell of a mediaeval fortress on +a breezy hill-top overlooking the Val d' Arno and forthwith bought it +and began to "restore" it. I know nothing of what the original ruin may +have cost; but in the dusky courts and chambers of the present elaborate +structure this impassioned archaeologist must have buried a fortune. He +has, however, the compensation of feeling that he has erected a monument +which, if it is never to stand a feudal siege, may encounter at least +some critical over-hauling. It is a disinterested work of art and really +a triumph of aesthetic culture. The author has reproduced with minute +accuracy a sturdy home-fortress of the fourteenth century, and has kept +throughout such rigid terms with his model that the result is literally +uninhabitable to degenerate moderns. It is simply a massive facsimile, +an elegant museum of archaic images, mainly but most amusingly +counterfeit, perched on a spur of the Apennines. The place is most +politely shown. There is a charming cloister, painted with extremely +clever "quaint" frescoes, celebrating the deeds of the founders of the +castle--a cloister that is everything delightful a cloister should +be except truly venerable and employable. There is a beautiful castle +court, with the embattled tower climbing into the blue far above it, +and a spacious loggia with rugged medallions and mild-hued Luca della +Robbias fastened unevenly into the walls. But the apartments are the +great success, and each of them as good a "reconstruction" as a tale +of Walter Scott; or, to speak frankly, a much better one. They are all +low-beamed and vaulted, stone-paved, decorated in grave colours +and lighted, from narrow, deeply recessed windows, through small +leaden-ringed plates of opaque glass. + +The details are infinitely ingenious and elaborately grim, and the +indoor atmosphere of mediaevalism most forcibly revived. No compromising +fact of domiciliary darkness and cold is spared us, no producing +condition of mediaeval manners not glanced at. There are oaken benches +round the room, of about six inches in depth, and gaunt fauteuils of +wrought leather, illustrating the suppressed transitions which, as +George Eliot says, unite all contrasts--offering a visible link between +the modern conceptions of torture and of luxury. There are fireplaces +nowhere but in the kitchen, where a couple of sentry-boxes are inserted +on either side of the great hooded chimney-piece, into which people +might creep and take their turn at being toasted and smoked. One may +doubt whether this dearth of the hearthstone could have raged on such +a scale, but it's a happy stroke in the representation of an Italian +dwelling of any period. It shows how the graceful fiction that Italy +is all "meridional" flourished for some time before being refuted +by grumbling tourists. And yet amid this cold comfort you feel the +incongruous presence of a constant intuitive regard for beauty. The +shapely spring of the vaulted ceilings; the richly figured walls, coarse +and hard in substance as they are; the charming shapes of the great +platters and flagons in the deep recesses of the quaintly carved black +dressers; the wandering hand of ornament, as it were, playing here and +there for its own diversion in unlighted corners--such things redress, +to our fond credulity, with all sorts of grace, the balance of the +picture. + +And yet, somehow, with what dim, unillumined vision one fancies even +such inmates as those conscious of finer needs than the mere supply of +blows and beef and beer would meet passing their heavy eyes over +such slender household beguilements! These crepuscular chambers +at Vincigliata are a mystery and a challenge; they seem the mere +propounding of an answerless riddle. You long, as you wander through +them, turning up your coat-collar and wondering whether ghosts can catch +bronchitis, to answer it with some positive notion of what people so +encaged and situated "did," how they looked and talked and carried +themselves, how they took their pains and pleasures, how they counted +off the hours. Deadly ennui seems to ooze out of the stones and hang in +clouds in the brown corners. No wonder men relished a fight and panted +for a fray. "Skull-smashers" were sweet, ears ringing with pain and +ribs cracking in a tussle were soothing music, compared with the cruel +quietude of the dim-windowed castle. When they came back they could only +have slept a good deal and eased their dislocated bones on those meagre +oaken ledges. Then they woke up and turned about to the table and ate +their portion of roasted sheep. They shouted at each other across the +board and flung the wooden plates at the servingmen. They jostled and +hustled and hooted and bragged; and then, after gorging and boozing +and easing their doublets, they squared their elbows one by one on the +greasy table and buried their scarred foreheads and dreamed of a good +gallop after flying foes. And the women? They must have been strangely +simple--simpler far than any moral archraeologist can show us in a +learned restoration. Of course, their simplicity had its graces and +devices; but one thinks with a sigh that, as the poor things turned away +with patient looks from the viewless windows to the same, same looming +figures on the dusky walls, they hadn't even the consolation of knowing +that just this attitude and movement, set off by their peaked coifs, +their falling sleeves and heavily-twisted trains, would sow the seed of +yearning envy--of sorts--on the part of later generations. + +There are moods in which one feels the impulse to enter a tacit protest +against too gross an appetite for pure aesthetics in this starving and +sinning world. One turns half away, musingly, from certain beautiful +useless things. But the healthier state of mind surely is to lay no tax +on any really intelligent manifestation of the curious, and exquisite. +Intelligence hangs together essentially, all along the line; it only +needs time to make, as we say, its connections. The massive _pastiche_ +of Vincigliata has no superficial use; but, even if it were less +complete, less successful, less brilliant, I should feel a reflective +kindness for it. So disinterested and expensive a toy is its own +justification; it belongs to the heroics of dilettantism. + + +III + + +One grows to feel the collection of pictures at the Pitti Palace +splendid rather than interesting. After walking through it once or twice +you catch the key in which it is pitched--you know what you are +likely not to find on closer examination; none of the works of the +uncompromising period, nothing from the half-groping geniuses of the +early time, those whose colouring was sometimes harsh and their outlines +sometimes angular. Vague to me the principle on which the pictures +were originally gathered and of the aesthetic creed of the princes who +chiefly selected them. A princely creed I should roughly call it--the +creed of people who believed in things presenting a fine face to +society; who esteemed showy results rather than curious processes, and +would have hardly cared more to admit into their collection a work by +one of the laborious precursors of the full efflorescence than to see a +bucket and broom left standing in a state saloon. The gallery contains +in literal fact some eight or ten paintings of the early Tuscan +School--notably two admirable specimens of Filippo Lippi and one of the +frequent circular pictures of the great Botticelli--a Madonna, chilled +with tragic prescience, laying a pale cheek against that of a blighted +Infant. Such a melancholy mother as this of Botticelli would have +strangled her baby in its cradle to rescue it from the future. But of +Botticelli there is much to say. One of the Filippo Lippis is perhaps +his masterpiece--a Madonna in a small rose-garden (such a "flowery +close" as Mr. William Morris loves to haunt), leaning over an Infant who +kicks his little human heels on the grass while half-a-dozen curly-pated +angels gather about him, looking back over their shoulders with the +candour of children in _tableaux vivants_, and one of them drops an +armful of gathered roses one by one upon the baby. The delightful +earthly innocence of these winged youngsters is quite inexpressible. +Their heads are twisted about toward the spectator as if they were +playing at leap-frog and were expecting a companion to come and take +a jump. Never did "young" art, never did subjective freshness, attempt +with greater success to represent those phases. But these three fine +works are hung over the tops of doors in a dark back room--the bucket +and broom are thrust behind a curtain. It seems to me, nevertheless, +that a fine Filippo Lippi is good enough company for an Allori or a +Cigoli, and that that too deeply sentient Virgin of Botticelli might +happily balance the flower-like irresponsibility of Raphael's "Madonna +of the Chair." + +Taking the Pitti collection, however, simply for what it pretends to +be, it gives us the very flower of the sumptuous, the courtly, the +grand-ducal. It is chiefly official art, as one may say, but it presents +the fine side of the type--the brilliancy, the facility, the amplitude, +the sovereignty of good taste. I agree on the whole with a nameless +companion and with what he lately remarked about his own humour on +these matters; that, having been on his first acquaintance with +pictures nothing if not critical, and held the lesson incomplete and +the opportunity slighted if he left a gallery without a headache, he +had come, as he grew older, to regard them more as the grandest of +all pleasantries and less as the most strenuous of all lessons, and to +remind himself that, after all, it is the privilege of art to make us +friendly to the human mind and not to make us suspicious of it. We do +in fact as we grow older unstring the critical bow a little and strike +a truce with invidious comparisons. We work off the juvenile impulse +to heated partisanship and discover that one spontaneous producer isn't +different enough from another to keep the all-knowing Fates from smiling +over our loves and our aversions. We perceive a certain human solidarity +in all cultivated effort, and are conscious of a growing accommodation +of judgment--an easier disposition, the fruit of experience, to take +the joke for what it is worth as it passes. We have in short less of a +quarrel with the masters we don't delight in, and less of an impulse +to pin all our faith on those in whom, in more zealous days, we fancied +that we made our peculiar meanings. The meanings no longer seem quite so +peculiar. Since then we have arrived at a few in the depths of our own +genius that are not sensibly less striking. + +And yet it must be added that all this depends vastly on one's mood--as +a traveller's impressions do, generally, to a degree which those who +give them to the world would do well more explicitly to declare. We have +our hours of expansion and those of contraction, and yet while we follow +the traveller's trade we go about gazing and judging with unadjusted +confidence. We can't suspend judgment; we must take our notes, and the +notes are florid or crabbed, as the case may be. A short time ago I +spent a week in an ancient city on a hill-top, in the humour, for which +I was not to blame, which produces crabbed notes. I knew it at the +time, but couldn't help it. I went through all the motions of liberal +appreciation; I uncapped in all the churches and on the massive ramparts +stared all the views fairly out of countenance; but my imagination, +which I suppose at bottom had very good reasons of its own and knew +perfectly what it was about, refused to project into the dark old town +and upon the yellow hills that sympathetic glow which forms half the +substance of our genial impressions. So it is that in museums and +palaces we are alternate radicals and conservatives. On some days we ask +but to be somewhat sensibly affected; on others, Ruskin-haunted, to be +spiritually steadied. After a long absence from the Pitti Palace I went +back there the other morning and transferred myself from chair to +chair in the great golden-roofed saloons--the chairs are all gilded and +covered with faded silk--in the humour to be diverted at any price. I +needn't mention the things that diverted me; I yawn now when I think of +some of them. But an artist, for instance, to whom my kindlier judgment +has made permanent concessions is that charming Andrea del Sarto. When +I first knew him, in my cold youth, I used to say without mincing that +I didn't like him. _Cet age est sans pitie_. The fine sympathetic, +melancholy, pleasing painter! He has a dozen faults, and if you insist +pedantically on your rights the conclusive word you use about him will +be the word weak. But if you are a generous soul you will utter it +low--low as the mild grave tone of his own sought harmonies. He is +monotonous, narrow, incomplete; he has but a dozen different figures and +but two or three ways of distributing them; he seems able to utter but +half his thought, and his canvases lack apparently some final return on +the whole matter--some process which his impulse failed him before he +could bestow. And yet in spite of these limitations his genius is both +itself of the great pattern and lighted by the air of a great period. +Three gifts he had largely: an instinctive, unaffected, unerring grace; +a large and rich, and yet a sort of withdrawn and indifferent sobriety; +and best of all, as well as rarest of all, an indescribable property +of relatedness as to the moral world. Whether he was aware of the +connection or not, or in what measure, I cannot say; but he gives, so to +speak, the taste of it. Before his handsome vague-browed Madonnas; the +mild, robust young saints who kneel in his foregrounds and look round +at you with a conscious anxiety which seems to say that, though in the +picture, they are not of it, but of your own sentient life of commingled +love and weariness; the stately apostles, with comely heads and +harmonious draperies, who gaze up at the high-seated Virgin like early +astronomers at a newly seen star--there comes to you the brush of the +dark wing of an inward life. A shadow falls for the moment, and in it +you feel the chill of moral suffering. Did the Lippis suffer, father +or son? Did Raphael suffer? Did Titian? Did Rubens suffer? Perish +the thought--it wouldn't be fair to _us_ that they should have had +everything. And I note in our poor second-rate Andrea an element of +interest lacking to a number of stronger talents. + +Interspersed with him at the Pitti hang the stronger and the weaker +in splendid abundance. Raphael is there, strong in portraiture--easy, +various, bountiful genius that he was--and (strong here isn't the word, +but) happy beyond the common dream in his beautiful "Madonna of the +Chair." The general instinct of posterity seems to have been to +treat this lovely picture as a semi-sacred, an almost miraculous, +manifestation. People stand in a worshipful silence before it, as they +would before a taper-studded shrine. If we suspend in imagination on the +right of it the solid, realistic, unidealised portrait of Leo the Tenth +(which hangs in another room) and transport to the left the fresco of +the School of Athens from the Vatican, and then reflect that these were +three separate fancies of a single youthful, amiable genius we recognise +that such a producing consciousness must have been a "treat." My +companion already quoted has a phrase that he "doesn't care for +Raphael," but confesses, when pressed, that he was a most remarkable +young man. Titian has a dozen portraits of unequal interest. I never +particularly noticed till lately--it is very ill hung--that portentous +image of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. He was a burlier, more imposing +personage than his usual legend figures, and in his great puffed sleeves +and gold chains and full-skirted over-dress he seems to tell of a +tread that might sometimes have been inconveniently resonant. But the +_purpose_ to have his way and work his will is there--the great stomach +for divine right, the old monarchical temperament. The great Titian, in +portraiture, however, remains that formidable young man in black, with +the small compact head, the delicate nose and the irascible blue eye. +Who was he? What was he? "_Ritratto virile_" is all the catalogue is +able to call the picture. "Virile!" Rather! you vulgarly exclaim. You +may weave what romance you please about it, but a romance your dream +must be. Handsome, clever, defiant, passionate, dangerous, it was not +his own fault if he hadn't adventures and to spare. He was a gentleman +and a warrior, and his adventures balanced between camp and court. +I imagine him the young orphan of a noble house, about to come into +mortgaged estates. One wouldn't have cared to be his guardian, bound to +paternal admonitions once a month over his precocious transactions with +the Jews or his scandalous abduction from her convent of such and such a +noble maiden. + +The Pitti Gallery contains none of Titian's golden-toned groups; but +it boasts a lovely composition by Paul Veronese, the dealer in silver +hues--a Baptism of Christ. W---- named it to me the other day as the +picture he most enjoyed, and surely painting seems here to have proposed +to itself to discredit and annihilate--and even on the occasion of such +a subject--everything but the loveliness of life. The picture bedims and +enfeebles its neighbours. We ask ourselves whether painting as such can +go further. It is simply that here at last the art stands complete. +The early Tuscans, as well as Leonardo, as Raphael, as Michael, saw the +great spectacle that surrounded them in beautiful sharp-edged elements +and parts. The great Venetians felt its indissoluble unity and +recognised that form and colour and earth and air were equal members +of every possible subject; and beneath their magical touch the hard +outlines melted together and the blank intervals bloomed with meaning. +In this beautiful Paul Veronese of the Pitti everything is part of +the charm--the atmosphere as well as the figures, the look of radiant +morning in the white-streaked sky as well as the living human limbs, the +cloth of Venetian purple about the loins of the Christ as well as the +noble humility of his attitude. The relation to Nature of the other +Italian schools differs from that of the Venetian as courtship--even +ardent courtship--differs from marriage. + + +IV + + +I went the other day to the secularised Convent of San Marco, paid my +franc at the profane little wicket which creaks away at the door--no +less than six custodians, apparently, are needed to turn it, as if it +may have a recusant conscience--passed along the bright, still cloister +and paid my respects to Fra Angelico's Crucifixion, in that dusky +chamber in the basement. I looked long; one can hardly do otherwise. The +fresco deals with the pathetic on the grand scale, and after taking +in its beauty you feel as little at liberty to go away abruptly as +you would to leave church during the sermon. You may be as little of +a formal Christian as Fra Angelico was much of one; you yet feel +admonished by spiritual decency to let so yearning a view of the +Christian story work its utmost will on you. The three crosses rise high +against a strange completely crimson sky, which deepens mysteriously +the tragic expression of the scene, though I remain perforce vague as to +whether this lurid background be a fine intended piece of symbolism or +an effective accident of time. In the first case the extravagance quite +triumphs. Between the crosses, under no great rigour of composition, +are scattered the most exemplary saints--kneeling, praying, weeping, +pitying, worshipping. The swoon of the Madonna is depicted at the left, +and this gives the holy presences, in respect to the case, the strangest +historical or actual air. Everything is so real that you feel a vague +impatience and almost ask yourself how it was that amid the army of his +consecrated servants our Lord was permitted to suffer. On reflection you +see that the painter's design, so far as coherent, has been simply to +offer an immense representation of Pity, and all with such concentrated +truth that his colours here seem dissolved in tears that drop and drop, +however softly, through all time. Of this single yearning consciousness +the figures are admirably expressive. No later painter learned to render +with deeper force than Fra Angelico the one state of the spirit he could +conceive--a passionate pious tenderness. Immured in his quiet convent, +he apparently never received an intelligible impression of evil; and his +conception of human life was a perpetual sense of sacredly loving +and being loved. But how, immured in his quiet convent, away from the +streets and the studios, did he become that genuine, finished, perfectly +professional painter? No one is less of a mere mawkish amateur. His +range was broad, from this really heroic fresco to the little trumpeting +seraphs, in their opaline robes, enamelled, as it were, on the gold +margins of his pictures. + +I sat out the sermon and departed, I hope, with the gentle preacher's +blessing. I went into the smaller refectory, near by, to refresh my +memory of the beautiful Last Supper of Domenico Ghirlandaio. It would be +putting things coarsely to say that I adjourned thus from a sernlon to +a comedy, though Ghirlandaio's theme, as contrasted with the blessed +Angelico's, was the dramatic spectacular side of human life. How keenly +he observed it and how richly he rendered it, the world about him of +colour and costume, of handsome heads and pictorial groupings! In his +admirable school there is no painter one enjoys--_pace_ Ruskin--more +sociably and irresponsibly. Lippo Lippi is simpler, quainter, +more frankly expressive; but we retain before him a remnant of the +sympathetic discomfort provoked by the masters whose conceptions were +still a trifle too large for their means. The pictorial vision in their +minds seems to stretch and strain their undeveloped skill almost to a +sense of pain. In Ghirlandaio the skill and the imagination are equal, +and he gives us a delightful impression of enjoying his own resources. +Of all the painters of his time he affects us least as positively not +of ours. He enjoyed a crimson mantle spreading and tumbling in curious +folds and embroidered with needlework of gold, just as he enjoyed a +handsome well-rounded head, with vigorous dusky locks, profiled in +courteous adoration. He enjoyed in short the various reality of things, +and had the good fortune to live in an age when reality flowered into a +thousand amusing graces--to speak only of those. He was not especially +addicted to giving spiritual hints; and yet how hard and meagre they +seem, the professed and finished realists of our own day, with the +spiritual _bonhomie_ or candour that makes half Ghirlandaio's richness +left out! The Last Supper at San Marco is an excellent example of the +natural reverence of an artist of that time with whom reverence was +not, as one may say, a specialty. The main idea with him has been the +variety, the material bravery and positively social charm of the +scene, which finds expression, with irrepressible generosity, in the +accessories of the background. Instinctively he imagines an opulent +garden--imagines it with a good faith which quite tides him over the +reflection that Christ and his disciples were poor men and unused to sit +at meat in palaces. Great full-fruited orange-trees peep over the wall +before which the table is spread, strange birds fly through the air, +while a peacock perches on the edge of the partition and looks down +on the sacred repast. It is striking that, without any at all intense +religious purpose, the figures, in their varied naturalness, have a +dignity and sweetness of attitude that admits of numberless reverential +constructions. I should call all this the happy tact of a robust faith. + +On the staircase leading up to the little painted cells of the Beato +Angelico, however, I suddenly faltered and paused. Somehow I had grown +averse to the intenser zeal of the Monk of Fiesole. I wanted no more of +him that day. I wanted no more macerated friars and spear-gashed sides. +Ghirlandaio's elegant way of telling his story had put me in the humour +for something more largely intelligent, more profanely pleasing. +I departed, walked across the square, and found it in the Academy, +standing in a particular spot and looking up at a particular high-hung +picture. It is difficult to speak adequately, perhaps even intelligibly, +of Sandro Botticelli. An accomplished critic--Mr. Pater, in his _Studies +on the History of the Renaissance_--has lately paid him the tribute +of an exquisite, a supreme, curiosity. He was rarity and distinction +incarnate, and of all the multitudinous masters of his group +incomparably the most interesting, the one who detains and perplexes +and fascinates us most. Exquisitely fine his imagination--infinitely +audacious and adventurous his fancy. Alone among the painters of his +time he strikes us as having invention. The glow and thrill of expanding +observation--this was the feeling that sent his comrades to their +easels; but Botticelli's moved him to reactions and emotions of which +they knew nothing, caused his faculty to sport and wander and explore +on its own account. These impulses have fruits often so ingenious and so +lovely that it would be easy to talk nonsense about them. I hope it is +not nonsense, however, to say that the picture to which I just alluded +(the "Coronation of the Virgin," with a group of life-sized saints +below and a garland of miniature angels above) is one of the supremely +beautiful productions of the human mind. It is hung so high that +you need a good glass to see it; to say nothing of the unprecedented +delicacy of the work. The lower half is of moderate interest; but the +dance of hand-clasped angels round the heavenly couple above has a +beauty newly exhaled from the deepest sources of inspiration. Their +perfect little hands are locked with ineffable elegance; their blowing +robes are tossed into folds of which each line is a study; their +charming feet have the relief of the most delicate sculpture. But, as +I have already noted, of Botticelli there is much, too much to +say--besides which Mr. Pater has said all. Only add thus to his +inimitable grace of design that the exquisite pictorial force driving +him goes a-Maying not on wanton errands of its own, but on those of some +mystic superstition which trembles for ever in his heart. + +{Illustration: THE GREAT EAVES, FLORENCE} + + +V + + +The more I look at the old Florentine domestic architecture the more I +like it--that of the great examples at least; and if I ever am able to +build myself a lordly pleasure-house I don't see how in conscience I can +build it different from these. They are sombre and frowning, and look +a trifle more as if they were meant to keep people out than to let +them in; but what equally "important" type--if there be an equally +important--is more expressive of domiciliary dignity and security and +yet attests them with a finer aeesthetic economy? They are impressively +"handsome," and yet contrive to be so by the simplest means. I don't say +at the smallest pecuniary cost--that's another matter. There is money +buried in the thick walls and diffused through the echoing excess of +space. The merchant nobles of the fifteenth century had deep and full +pockets, I suppose, though the present bearers of their names are glad +to let out their palaces in suites of apartments which are occupied by +the commercial aristocracy of another republic. One is told of fine old +mouldering chambers of which possession is to be enjoyed for a sum not +worth mentioning. I am afraid that behind these so gravely harmonious +fronts there is a good deal of dusky discomfort, and I speak now simply +of the large serious faces themselves as you can see them from the +street; see them ranged cheek to cheek, in the grey historic light of +Via dei Bardi, Via Maggio, Via degli Albizzi. The force of character, +the familiar severity and majesty, depend on a few simple features: on +the great iron-caged windows of the rough-hewn basement; on the noble +stretch of space between the summit of one high, round-topped window +and the bottom of that above; on the high-hung sculptured shield at the +angle of the house; on the flat far-projecting roof; and, finally, on +the magnificent tallness of the whole building, which so dwarfs our +modern attempts at size. The finest of these Florentine palaces are, I +imagine, the tallest habitations in Europe that are frankly and +amply habitations--not mere shafts for machinery of the American +grain-elevator pattern. Some of the creations of M. Haussmann in Paris +may climb very nearly as high; but there is all the difference in the +world between the impressiveness of a building which takes breath, as +it were, some six or seven times, from storey to storey, and of one that +erects itself to an equal height in three long-drawn pulsations. When +a house is ten windows wide and the drawing-room floor is as high as a +chapel it can afford but three floors. The spaciousness of some of those +ancient drawing-rooms is that of a Russian steppe. The "family circle," +gathered anywhere within speaking distance, must resemble a group of +pilgrims encamped in the desert on a little oasis of carpet. Madame +Gryzanowska, living at the top of a house in that dusky, tortuous old +Borgo Pinti, initiated me the other evening most good-naturedly, lamp in +hand, into the far-spreading mysteries of her apartment. Such quarters +seem a translation into space of the old-fashioned idea of leisure. +Leisure and "room" have been passing out of our manners together, but +here and there, being of stouter structure, the latter lingers and +survives. + +Here and there, indeed, in this blessed Italy, reluctantly modern in +spite alike of boasts and lamentations, it seems to have been preserved +for curiosity's and fancy's sake, with a vague, sweet odour of the +embalmer's spices about it. I went the other morning to the Corsini +Palace. The proprietors obviously are great people. One of the ornaments +of Rome is their great white-faced palace in the dark Trastevere and +its voluminous gallery, none the less delectable for the poorness of +the pictures. Here they have a palace on the Arno, with another large, +handsome, respectable and mainly uninteresting collection. It contains +indeed three or four fine examples of early Florentines. It was not +especially for the pictures that I went, however; and certainly not for +the pictures that I stayed. I was under the same spell as the inveterate +companion with whom I walked the other day through the beautiful private +apartments of the Pitti Palace and who said: "I suppose I care for +nature, and I know there have been times when I have thought it the +greatest pleasure in life to lie under a tree and gaze away at blue +hills. But just now I had rather lie on that faded sea-green satin sofa +and gaze down through the open door at that retreating vista of gilded, +deserted, haunted chambers. In other words I prefer a good 'interior' +to a good landscape. The impression has a greater intensity--the thing +itself a more complex animation. I like fine old rooms that have been +occupied in a fine old way. I like the musty upholstery, the antiquated +knick-knacks, the view out of the tall deep-embrasured windows at garden +cypresses rocking against a grey sky. If you don't know why, I'm afraid +I can't tell you." It seemed to me at the Palazzo Corsini that I did +know why. In places that have been lived in so long and so much and in +such a fine old way, as my friend said--that is under social conditions +so multifold and to a comparatively starved and democratic sense so +curious--the past seems to have left a sensible deposit, an aroma, an +atmosphere. This ghostly presence tells you no secrets, but it prompts +you to try and guess a few. What has been done and said here through so +many years, what has been ventured or suffered, what has been dreamed or +despaired of? Guess the riddle if you can, or if you think it worth +your ingenuity. The rooms at Palazzo Corsini suggest indeed, and seem +to recall, but a monotony of peace and plenty. One of them imaged such +a noble perfection of a home-scene that I dawdled there until the old +custodian came shuffling back to see whether possibly I was trying +to conceal a Caravaggio about my person: a great crimson-draped +drawing-room of the amplest and yet most charming proportions; walls +hung with large dark pictures, a great concave ceiling frescoed and +moulded with dusky richness, and half-a-dozen south windows looking out +on the Arno, whose swift yellow tide sends up the light in a cheerful +flicker. I fear that in my appreciation of the particular effect so +achieved I uttered a monstrous folly--some momentary willingness to be +maimed or crippled all my days if I might pass them in such a place. In +fact half the pleasure of inhabiting this spacious saloon would be that +of using one's legs, of strolling up and down past the windows, one by +one, and making desultory journeys from station to station and corner +to corner. Near by is a colossal ball-room, domed and pilastered like +a Renaissance cathedral, and super-abundantly decorated with marble +effigies, all yellow and grey with the years. + + +VI + + +In the Carthusian Monastery outside the Roman Gate, mutilated and +profaned though it is, one may still snuff up a strong if stale +redolence of old Catholicism and old Italy. The road to it is ugly, +being encumbered with vulgar waggons and fringed with tenements +suggestive of an Irish-American suburb. Your interest begins as you +come in sight of the convent perched on its little mountain and lifting +against the sky, around the bell-tower of its gorgeous chapel, a coronet +of clustered cells. You make your way into the lower gate, through a +clamouring press of deformed beggars who thrust at you their stumps +of limbs, and you climb the steep hillside through a shabby plantation +which it is proper to fancy was better tended in the monkish time. The +monks are not totally abolished, the government having the grace to +await the natural extinction of the half-dozen old brothers who remain, +and who shuffle doggedly about the cloisters, looking, with their white +robes and their pale blank old faces, quite anticipatory ghosts of their +future selves. A prosaic, profane old man in a coat and trousers serves +you, however, as custodian. The melancholy friars have not even the +privilege of doing you the honours of their dishonour. One must imagine +the pathetic effect of their former silent pointings to this and that +conventual treasure under stress of the feeling that such pointings were +narrowly numbered. The convent is vast and irregular--it bristles with +those picture-making arts and accidents which one notes as one lingers +and passes, but which in Italy the overburdened memory learns to resolve +into broadly general images. I rather deplore its position at the gates +of a bustling city--it ought rather to be lodged in some lonely fold of +the Apennines. And yet to look out from the shady porch of one of the +quiet cells upon the teeming vale of the Arno and the clustered towers +of Florence must have deepened the sense of monastic quietude. + +The chapel, or rather the church, which is of great proportions and +designed by Andrea Orcagna, the primitive painter, refines upon the +consecrated type or even quite glorifies it. The massive cincture +of black sculptured stalls, the dusky Gothic roof, the high-hung, +deep-toned pictures and the superb pavement of verd-antique and dark red +marble, polished into glassy lights, must throw the white-robed figures +of the gathered friars into the highest romantic relief. All this luxury +of worship has nowhere such value as in the chapels of monasteries, +where we find it contrasted with the otherwise so ascetic economy of the +worshippers. The paintings and gildings of their church, the gem-bright +marbles and fantastic carvings, are really but the monastic tribute to +sensuous delight--an imperious need for which the fond imagination of +Rome has officiously opened the door. One smiles when one thinks how +largely a fine starved sense for the forbidden things of earth, if it +makes the most of its opportunities, may gratify this need under +cover of devotion. Nothing is too base, too hard, too sordid for real +humility, but nothing too elegant, too amiable, too caressing, caressed, +caressable, for the exaltation of faith. The meaner the convent cell the +richer the convent chapel. Out of poverty and solitude, inanition and +cold, your honest friar may rise at his will into a Mahomet's Paradise +of luxurious analogies. + +There are further various dusky subterranean oratories where a number +of bad pictures contend faintly with the friendly gloom. Two or three of +these funereal vaults, however, deserve mention. In one of them, side +by side, sculptured by Donatello in low relief, lie the white marble +effigies of the three members of the Accaiuoli family who founded the +convent in the thirteenth century. In another, on his back, on the +pavement, rests a grim old bishop of the same stout race by the same +honest craftsman. Terribly grim he is, and scowling as if in his stony +sleep he still dreamed of his hates and his hard ambitions. Last and +best, in another low chapel, with the trodden pavement for its bed, +shines dimly a grand image of a later bishop--Leonardo Buonafede, who, +dying in 1545, owes his monument to Francesco di San Gallo. I have seen +little from this artist's hand, but it was clearly of the cunningest. +His model here was a very sturdy old prelate, though I should say a very +genial old man. The sculptor has respected his monumental ugliness, +but has suffused it with a singular homely charm--a look of confessed +physical comfort in the privilege of paradise. All these figures have +an inimitable reality, and their lifelike marble seems such an +incorruptible incarnation of the genius of the place that you begin to +think of it as even more reckless than cruel on the part of the present +public powers to have begun to pull the establishment down, morally +speaking, about their ears. They are lying quiet yet a while; but when +the last old friar dies and the convent formally lapses, won't they rise +on their stiff old legs and hobble out to the gates and thunder forth +anathemas before which even a future and more enterprising regime may be +disposed to pause? + +Out of the great central cloister open the snug little detached +dwellings of the absent fathers. When I said just now that the Certosa +in Val d'Ema gives you a glimpse of old Italy I was thinking of this +great pillared quadrangle, lying half in sun and half in shade, of its +tangled garden-growth in the centre, surrounding the ancient customary +well, and of the intense blue sky bending above it, to say nothing of +the indispensable old white-robed monk who pokes about among the lettuce +and parsley. We have seen such places before; we have visited them in +that divinatory glance which strays away into space for a moment over +the top of a suggestive book. I don't quite know whether it's more or +less as one's fancy would have it that the monkish cells are no cells +at all, but very tidy little _appartements complets_, consisting of a +couple of chambers, a sitting-room and a spacious loggia, projecting out +into space from the cliff-like wall of the monastery and sweeping from +pole to pole the loveliest view in the world. It's poor work, however, +taking notes on views, and I will let this one pass. The little chambers +are terribly cold and musty now. Their odour and atmosphere are such +as one used, as a child, to imagine those of the school-room during +Saturday and Sunday. + + +VII + + +In the Roman streets, wherever you turn, the facade of a church in more +or less degenerate flamboyance is the principal feature of the scene; +and if, in the absence of purer motives, you are weary of aesthetic +trudging over the corrugated surface of the Seven Hills, a system of +pavement in which small cobble-stones anomalously endowed with angles +and edges are alone employed, you may turn aside at your pleasure and +take a reviving sniff at the pungency of incense. In Florence, one soon +observes, the churches are relatively few and the dusky house-fronts +more rarely interrupted by specimens of that extraordinary architecture +which in Rome passes for sacred. In Florence, in other words, +ecclesiasticism is less cheap a commodity and not dispensed in the same +abundance at the street-corners. Heaven forbid, at the same time, that +I should undervalue the Roman churches, which are for the most +part treasure-houses of history, of curiosity, of promiscuous and +associational interest. It is a fact, nevertheless, that, after St. +Peter's, I know but one really beautiful church by the Tiber, the +enchanting basilica of St. Mary Major. Many have structural character, +some a great _allure_, but as a rule they all lack the dignity of +the best of the Florentine temples. Here, the list being immeasurably +shorter and the seed less scattered, the principal churches are all +beautiful. And yet I went into the Annunziata the other day and sat +there for half-an-hour because, forsooth, the gildings and the marbles +and the frescoed dome and the great rococo shrine near the door, with +its little black jewelled fetish, reminded me so poignantly of Rome. +Such is the city properly styled eternal--since it is eternal, at least, +as regards the consciousness of the individual. One loves it in its +sophistications--though for that matter isn't it all rich and precious +sophistication?--better than other places in their purity. + +Coming out of the Annunziata you look past the bronze statue of the +Grand Duke Ferdinand I (whom Mr. Browning's heroine used to watch +for--in the poem of "The Statue and the Bust"--from the red palace near +by), and down a street vista of enchanting picturesqueness. The street +is narrow and dusky and filled with misty shadows, and at its opposite +end rises the vast bright-coloured side of the Cathedral. It stands up +in very much the same mountainous fashion as the far-shining mass of the +bigger prodigy at Milan, of which your first glimpse as you leave your +hotel is generally through another such dark avenue; only that, if we +talk of mountains, the white walls of Milan must be likened to snow and +ice from their base, while those of the Duomo of Florence may be the +image of some mighty hillside enamelled with blooming flowers. The big +bleak interior here has a naked majesty which, though it may fail of +its effect at first, becomes after a while extraordinarily touching. +Originally disconcerting, it soon inspired me with a passion. +Externally, at any rate, it is one of the loveliest works of man's +hands, and an overwhelming proof into the bargain that when elegance +belittles grandeur you have simply had a bungling artist. + +Santa Croce within not only triumphs here, but would triumph anywhere. +"A trifle naked if you like," said my irrepressible companion, "but +that's what I call architecture, just as I don't call bronze or marble +clothes (save under urgent stress of portraiture) statuary." And indeed +we are far enough away from the clustering odds and ends borrowed from +every art and every province without which the ritually builded thing +doesn't trust its spell to work in Rome. The vastness, the lightness, +the open spring of the arches at Santa Croce, the beautiful shape of the +high and narrow choir, the impression made as of mass without weight and +the gravity yet reigning without gloom--these are my frequent delight, +and the interest grows with acquaintance. The place is the great +Florentine Valhalla, the final home or memorial harbour of the native +illustrious dead, but that consideration of it would take me far. It +must be confessed moreover that, between his coarsely-imagined statue +out in front and his horrible monument in one of the aisles, the author +of _The Divine Comedy_, for instance, is just hereabouts rather an +extravagant figure. "Ungrateful Florence," declaims Byron. Ungrateful +indeed--would she were more so! the susceptible spirit of the great +exile may be still aware enough to exclaim; in common, that is, with +most of the other immortals sacrificed on so very large a scale to +current Florentine "plastic" facility. In explanation of which remark, +however, I must confine myself to noting that, as almost all the old +monuments at Santa Croce are small, comparatively small, and interesting +and exquisite, so the modern, well nigh without exception, are +disproportionately vast and pompous, or in other words distressingly +vague and vain. The aptitude of hand, the compositional assurance, with +which such things are nevertheless turned out, constitutes an anomaly +replete with suggestion for an observer of the present state of the arts +on the soil and in the air that once befriended them, taking them all +together, as even the soil and the air of Greece scarce availed to do. +But on this head, I repeat, there would be too much to say; and I find +myself checked by the same warning at the threshold of the church in +Florence really interesting beyond Santa Croce, beyond all others. Such, +of course, easily, is Santa Maria Novella, where the chapels are lined +and plated with wonderful figured and peopled fresco-work even as most +of those in Rome with precious inanimate substances. These overscored +retreats of devotion, as dusky, some of them, as eremitic caves swarming +with importunate visions, have kept me divided all winter between the +love of Ghirlandaio and the fear of those seeds of catarrh to which +their mortal chill seems propitious till far on into the spring. So +I pause here just on the praise of that delightful painter--as to +the spirit of whose work the reflections I have already made are but +confirmed by these examples. In the choir at Santa Maria Novella, where +the incense swings and the great chants resound, between the gorgeous +coloured window and the florid grand altar, he still "goes in," with +all his might, for the wicked, the amusing world, the world of faces and +forms and characters, of every sort of curious human and rare material +thing. + +{Illustration: BOBOLI GARDEN, FLORENCE.} + + +VIII + + +I had always felt the Boboli Gardens charming enough for me to "haunt" +them; and yet such is the interest of Florence in every quarter that it +took another _corso_ of the same cheap pattern as the last to cause me +yesterday to flee the crowded streets, passing under that archway of the +Pitti Palace which might almost be the gate of an Etruscan city, so that +I might spend the afternoon among the mouldy statues that compose with +their screens of cypress, looking down at our clustered towers and our +background of pale blue hills vaguely freckled with white villas. These +pleasure-grounds of the austere Pitti pile, with its inconsequent charm +of being so rough-hewn and yet somehow so elegantly balanced, plead with +a voice all their own the general cause of the ample enclosed, planted, +cultivated private preserve--preserve of tranquillity and beauty and +immunity--in the heart of a city; a cause, I allow, for that matter, +easy to plead anywhere, once the pretext is found, the large, quiet, +distributed town-garden, with the vague hum of big grudging boundaries +all about it, but with everything worse excluded, being of course the +most insolently-pleasant thing in the world. In addition to which, when +the garden is in the Italian manner, with flowers rather remarkably +omitted, as too flimsy and easy and cheap, and without lawns that +are too smart, paths that are too often swept and shrubs that are too +closely trimmed, though with a fanciful formalism giving style to its +shabbiness, and here and there a dusky ilex-walk, and here and there a +dried-up fountain, and everywhere a piece of mildewed sculpture staring +at you from a green alcove, and just in the right place, above all, a +grassy amphitheatre curtained behind with black cypresses and sloping +downward in mossy marble steps--when, I say, the place possesses these +attractions, and you lounge there of a soft Sunday afternoon, the racier +spectacle of the streets having made your fellow-loungers few and left +you to the deep stillness and the shady vistas that lead you wonder +where, left you to the insidious irresistible mixture of nature and art, +nothing too much of either, only a supreme happy resultant, a divine +_tertium quid_: under these conditions, it need scarce be said the +revelation invoked descends upon you. + +The Boboli Gardens are not large--you wonder how compact little Florence +finds room for them within her walls. But they are scattered, to their +extreme, their all-romantic advantage and felicity, over a group +of steep undulations between the rugged and terraced palace and a +still-surviving stretch of city wall, where the unevenness of the ground +much adds to their apparent size. You may cultivate in them the fancy of +their solemn and haunted character, of something faint and dim and even, +if you like, tragic, in their prescribed, their functional smile; as if +they borrowed from the huge monument that overhangs them certain of its +ponderous memories and regrets. This course is open to you, I mention, +but it isn't enjoined, and will doubtless indeed not come up for you +at all if it isn't your habit, cherished beyond any other, to spin your +impressions to the last tenuity of fineness. Now that I bethink myself I +must always have happened to wander here on grey and melancholy days. It +remains none the less true that the place contains, thank goodness--or +at least thank the grave, the infinitely-distinguished traditional +_taste_ of Florence--no cheerful, trivial object, neither parterres, nor +pagodas, nor peacocks, nor swans. They have their famous amphitheatre +already referred to, with its degrees or stone benches of a thoroughly +aged and mottled complexion and its circular wall of evergreens behind, +in which small cracked images and vases, things that, according to +association, and with the law of the same quite indefinable, may make as +much on one occasion for exquisite dignity as they may make on another +for (to express it kindly) nothing at all. Something was once done in +this charmed and forsaken circle--done or meant to be done; what was it, +dumb statues, who saw it with your blank eyes? Opposite stands the +huge flat-roofed palace, putting forward two great rectangular arms and +looking, with its closed windows and its foundations of almost unreduced +rock, like some ghost of a sample of a ruder Babylon. In the wide +court-like space between the wings is a fine old white marble fountain +that never plays. Its dusty idleness completes the general air of +abandonment. Chancing on such a cluster of objects in Italy--glancing at +them in a certain light and a certain mood--I get (perhaps on too easy +terms, you may think) a sense of _history_ that takes away my breath. +Generations of Medici have stood at these closed windows, embroidered +and brocaded according to their period, and held _fetes champetres_ and +floral games on the greensward, beneath the mouldering hemicycle. And +the Medici were great people! But what remains of it all now is a mere +tone in the air, a faint sigh in the breeze, a vague expression in +things, a passive--or call it rather, perhaps, to be fair, a shyly, +pathetically responsive--accessibility to the yearning guess. Call +it much or call it little, the ineffaceability of this deep stain +of experience, it is the interest of old places and the bribe to the +brooding analyst. Time has devoured the doers and their doings, but +there still hangs about some effect of their passage. We can "layout" +parks on virgin soil, and cause them to bristle with the most expensive +importations, but we unfortunately can't scatter abroad again this seed +of the eventual human soul of a place--that comes but in its time and +takes too long to grow. There is nothing like it when it _has_ come. + + + + + +TUSCAN CITIES + + +The cities I refer to are Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia, among which +I have been spending the last few days. The most striking fact as to +Leghorn, it must be conceded at the outset, is that, being in Tuscany, +it should be so scantily Tuscan. The traveller curious in local colour +must content himself with the deep blue expanse of the Mediterranean. +The streets, away from the docks, are modern, genteel and rectangular; +Liverpool might acknowledge them if it weren't for their clean-coloured, +sun-bleached stucco. They are the offspring of the new industry which is +death to the old idleness. Of interesting architecture, fruit of the +old idleness or at least of the old leisure, Leghorn is singularly +destitute. It has neither a church worth one's attention, nor a +municipal palace, nor a museum, and it may claim the distinction, unique +in Italy, of being the city of no pictures. In a shabby corner near +the docks stands a statue of one of the elder Grand Dukes of Tuscany, +appealing to posterity on grounds now vague--chiefly that of having +placed certain Moors under tribute. Four colossal negroes, in very bad +bronze, are chained to the base of the monument, which forms with their +assistance a sufficiently fantastic group; but to patronise the arts is +not the line of the Livornese, and for want of the slender annuity +which would keep its precinct sacred this curious memorial is buried +in dockyard rubbish. I must add that on the other hand there is a very +well-conditioned and, in attitude and gesture, extremely natural and +familiar statue of Cavour in one of the city squares, and in another a +couple of effigies of recent Grand Dukes, represented, that is dressed, +or rather undressed, in the character of heroes of Plutarch. Leghorn +is a city of magnificent spaces, and it was so long a journey from the +sidewalk to the pedestal of these images that I never took the time +to go and read the inscriptions. And in truth, vaguely, I bore the +originals a grudge, and wished to know as little about them as possible; +for it seemed to me that as _patres patrae_, in their degree, they might +have decreed that the great blank, ochre-faced piazza should be a trifle +less ugly. There is a distinct amenity, however, in any experience of +Italy almost anywhere, and I shall probably in the future not be above +sparing a light regret to several of the hours of which the one I speak +of was composed. I shall remember a large cool bourgeois villa in the +garden of a noiseless suburb--a middle-aged Villa Franco (I owe it as a +genial pleasant _pension_ the tribute of recognition), roomy and stony, +as an Italian villa should be. I shall remember that, as I sat in the +garden, and, looking up from my book, saw through a gap in the shrubbery +the red house-tiles against the deep blue sky and the grey underside of +the ilex-leaves turned up by the Mediterranean breeze, it was all still +quite Tuscany, if Tuscany in the minor key. + +If you should naturally desire, in such conditions, a higher intensity, +you have but to proceed, by a very short journey, to Pisa--where, for +that matter, you will seem to yourself to have hung about a good deal +already, and from an early age. Few of us can have had a childhood +so unblessed by contact with the arts as that one of its occasional +diversions shan't have been a puzzled scrutiny of some alabaster model +of the Leaning Tower under a glass cover in a back-parlour. Pisa and its +monuments have, in other words, been industriously vulgarised, but it +is astonishing how well they have survived the process. The charm of the +place is in fact of a high order and but partially foreshadowed by the +famous crookedness of its campanile. I felt it irresistibly and yet +almost inexpressibly the other afternoon, as I made my way to the +classic corner of the city through the warm drowsy air which nervous +people come to inhale as a sedative. I was with an invalid companion who +had had no sleep to speak of for a fortnight. "Ah! stop the carriage," +she sighed, or yawned, as I could feel, deliciously, "in the shadow of +this old slumbering palazzo, and let me sit here and close my eyes, and +taste for an hour of oblivion." Once strolling over the grass, however, +out of which the quartette of marble monuments rises, we awaked +responsively enough to the present hour. Most people remember the happy +remark of tasteful, old-fashioned Forsyth (who touched a hundred other +points in his "Italy" scarce less happily) as to the fact that the +four famous objects are "fortunate alike in their society and their +solitude." It must be admitted that they are more fortunate in their +society than we felt ourselves to be in ours; for the scene presented +the animated appearance for which, on any fine spring day, all the +choicest haunts of ancient quietude in Italy are becoming yearly more +remarkable. There were clamorous beggars at all the sculptured portals, +and bait for beggars, in abundance, trailing in and out of them under +convoy of loquacious ciceroni. I forget just how I apportioned the +responsibility, of intrusion, for it was not long before fellow-tourists +and fellow-countrymen became a vague, deadened, muffled presence, that +of the dentist's last words when he is giving you ether. They suffered +mystic disintegration in the dense, bright, tranquil air, so charged +with its own messages. The Cathedral and its companions are fortunate +indeed in everything--fortunate in the spacious angle of the grey old +city-wall which folds about them in their sculptured elegance like a +strong protecting arm; fortunate in the broad greensward which stretches +from the marble base of Cathedral and cemetery to the rugged foot of the +rampart; fortunate in the little vagabonds who dot the grass, plucking +daisies and exchanging Italian cries; fortunate in the pale-gold tone to +which time and the soft sea-damp have mellowed and darkened their marble +plates; fortunate, above all, in an indescribable grace of grouping, +half hazard, half design, which insures them, in one's memory of things +admired, very much the same isolated corner that they occupy in the +charming city. + +Of the smaller cathedrals of Italy I know none I prefer to that of Pisa; +none that, on a moderate scale, produces more the impression of a great +church. It has without so modest a measurability, represents so clean +and compact a mass, that you are startled when you cross the threshold +at the apparent space it encloses. An architect of genius, for all that +he works with colossal blocks and cumbrous pillars, is certainly the +most cunning of conjurors. The front of the Duomo is a small pyramidal +screen, covered with delicate carvings and chasings, distributed over +a series of short columns upholding narrow arches. It might be a +sought imitation of goldsmith's work in stone, and the area covered is +apparently so small that extreme fineness has been prescribed. How it is +therefore that on the inner side of this facade the wall should appear +to rise to a splendid height and to support one end of a ceiling as +remote in its gilded grandeur, one could almost fancy, as that of St. +Peter's; how it is that the nave should stretch away in such solemn +vastness, the shallow transepts emphasise the grand impression and the +apse of the choir hollow itself out like a dusky cavern fretted +with golden stalactites, is all matter for exposition by a keener +architectural analyst than I. To sit somewhere against a pillar where +the vista is large and the incidents cluster richly, and vaguely revolve +these mysteries without answering them, is the best of one's usual +enjoyment of a great church. It takes no deep sounding to conclude +indeed that a gigantic Byzantine Christ in mosaic, on the concave roof +of the choir, contributes largely to the particular impression here as +of very old and choice and original and individual things. It has even +more of stiff solemnity than is common to works of its school, and +prompts to more wonder than ever on the nature of the human mind at a +time when such unlovely shapes could satisfy its conception of holiness. +Truly pathetic is the fate of these huge mosaic idols, thanks to the +change that has overtaken our manner of acceptance of them. Strong the +contrast between the original sublimity of their pretensions and the way +in which they flatter that free sense of the grotesque which the modern +imagination has smuggled even into the appreciation of religious forms. +They were meant to yield scarcely to the Deity itself in grandeur, but +the only part they play now is to stare helplessly at our critical, our +aesthetic patronage of them. The spiritual refinement marking the hither +end of a progress had n't, however, to wait for us to signalise it; it +found expression three centuries ago in the beautiful specimen of the +painter Sodoma on the wall of the choir. This latter, a small Sacrifice +of Isaac, is one of the best examples of its exquisite author, and +perhaps, as chance has it, the most perfect opposition that could +be found in the way of the range of taste to the effect of the great +mosaic. There are many painters more powerful than Sodoma--painters who, +like the author of the mosaic, attempted and compassed grandeur; but +none has a more persuasive grace, none more than he was to sift and +chasten a conception till it should affect one with the sweetness of a +perfectly distilled perfume. + +Of the patient successive efforts of painting to arrive at the supreme +refinement of such a work as the Sodoma the Campo Santo hard by offers a +most interesting memorial. It presents a long, blank marble wall to the +relative profaneness of the Cathedral close, but within it is a perfect +treasure-house of art. This quadrangular defence surrounds an open court +where weeds and wild roses are tangled together and a sunny stillness +seems to rest consentingly, as if Nature had been won to consciousness +of the precious relics committed to her. Something in the quality of the +place recalls the collegiate cloisters of Oxford, but it must be added +that this is the handsomest compliment to that seat of learning. The +open arches of the quadrangles of Magdalen and Christ Church are not +of mellow Carrara marble, nor do they offer to sight columns, slim and +elegant, that seem to frame the unglazed windows of a cathedral. To be +buried in the Campo Santo of Pisa, I may however further qualify, you +need only be, or to have more or less anciently been, illustrious, and +there is a liberal allowance both as to the character and degree of +your fame. The most obtrusive object in one of the long vistas is a most +complicated monument to Madame Catalani, the singer, recently erected +by her possibly too-appreciative heirs. The wide pavement is a mosaic of +sepulchral slabs, and the walls, below the base of the paling frescoes, +are incrusted with inscriptions and encumbered with urns and antique +sarcophagi. The place is at once a cemetery and a museum, and its +especial charm is its strange mixture of the active and the passive, +of art and rest, of life and death. Originally its walls were one vast +continuity of closely pressed frescoes; but now the great capricious +scars and stains have come to outnumber the pictures, and the cemetery +has grown to be a burial-place of pulverised masterpieces as well as of +finished lives. The fragments of painting that remain are fortunately +the best; for one is safe in believing that a host of undimmed +neighbours would distract but little from the two great works of +Orcagna. Most people know the "Triumph of Death" and the "Last Judgment" +from descriptions and engravings; but to measure the possible good faith +of imitative art one must stand there and see the painter's howling +potentates dragged into hell in all the vividness of his bright hard +colouring; see his feudal courtiers, on their palfreys, hold their noses +at what they are so fast coming to; see his great Christ, in judgment, +refuse forgiveness with a gesture commanding enough, really inhuman +enough, to make virtue merciless for ever. The charge that Michael +Angelo borrowed his cursing Saviour from this great figure of Orcagna is +more valid than most accusations of plagiarism; but of the two figures +one at least could be spared. For direct, triumphant expressiveness +these two superb frescoes have probably never been surpassed. The +painter aims at no very delicate meanings, but he drives certain gross +ones home so effectively that for a parallel to his process one must +look to the art of the actor, the emphasising "point"-making mime. +Some of his female figures are superb--they represent creatures of a +formidable temperament. + +There are charming women, however, on the other side of the cloister--in +the beautiful frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli. If Orcagna's work was +appointed to survive the ravage of time it is a happy chance that +it should be balanced by a group of performances of such a different +temper. The contrast is the more striking that in subject the +inspiration of both painters is strictly, even though superficially, +theological. But Benozzo cares, in his theology, for nothing but the +story, the scene and the drama--the chance to pile up palaces and spires +in his backgrounds against pale blue skies cross-barred with pearly, +fleecy clouds, and to scatter sculptured arches and shady trellises over +the front, with every incident of human life going forward lightly and +gracefully beneath them. Lightness and grace are the painter's great +qualities, marking the hithermost limit of unconscious elegance, after +which "style" and science and the wisdom of the serpent set in. +His charm is natural fineness; a little more and we should have +refinement--which is a very different thing. Like all _les delicats_ of +this world, as M. Renan calls them, Benozzo has suffered greatly. The +space on the walls he originally covered with his Old Testament stories +is immense; but his exquisite handiwork has peeled off by the acre, +as one may almost say, and the latter compartments of the series are +swallowed up in huge white scars, out of which a helpless head or hand +peeps forth like those of creatures sinking into a quicksand. As +for Pisa at large, although it is not exactly what one would call +a mouldering city--for it has a certain well-aired cleanness and +brightness, even in its supreme tranquillity--it affects the imagination +very much in the same way as the Campo Santo. And, in truth, a city +so ancient and deeply historic as Pisa is at every step but the +burial-ground of a larger life than its present one. The wide empty +streets, the goodly Tuscan palaces--which look as if about all of them +there were a genteel private understanding, independent of placards, +that they are to be let extremely cheap--the delicious relaxing air, +the full-flowing yellow river, the lounging Pisani, smelling, +metaphorically, their poppy-flowers, seemed to me all so many +admonitions to resignation and oblivion. And this is what I mean by +saying that the charm of Pisa (apart from its cluster of monuments) is +a charm of a high order. The architecture has but a modest dignity; the +lions are few; there are no fixed points for stopping and gaping. And +yet the impression is profound; the charm is a moral charm. If I were +ever to be incurably disappointed in life, if I had lost my health, +my money, or my friends, if I were resigned forevermore to pitching my +expectations in a minor key, I should go and invoke the Pisan peace. Its +quietude would seem something more than a stillness--a hush. Pisa may be +a dull place to live in, but it's an ideal place to wait for death. + +Nothing could be more charming than the country between Pisa and +Lucca--unless possibly the country between Lucca and Pistoia. If Pisa is +dead Tuscany, Lucca is Tuscany still living and enjoying, desiring and +intending. The town is a charming mixture of antique "character" and +modern inconsequence; and! not only the town, but the country--the +blooming romantic country which you admire from the famous promenade +on the city-wall. The wall is of superbly solid and intensely "toned" +brickwork and of extraordinary breadth, and its summit, planted with +goodly trees and swelling here and there into bastions and outworks and +little open gardens, surrounds the city with a circular lounging-place +of a splendid dignity. This well-kept, shady, ivy-grown rampart reminded +me of certain mossy corners of England; but it looks away to a prospect +of more than English loveliness--a broad green plain where the summer +yields a double crop of grain, and a circle of bright blue mountains +speckled with high-hung convents and profiled castles and nestling +villas, and traversed by valleys of a deeper and duskier blue. In one of +the deepest and shadiest of these recesses one of the most "sympathetic" +of small watering-places is hidden away yet a while longer from +easy invasion--the Baths to which Lucca has lent its name. Lucca is +pre-eminently a city of churches; ecclesiastical architecture being +indeed the only one of the arts to which it seems to have given +attention. There are curious bits of domestic architecture, but no +great palaces, and no importunate frequency of pictures. The Cathedral, +however, sums up the merits of its companions and is a singularly noble +and interesting church. Its peculiar boast is a wonderful inlaid front, +on which horses and hounds and hunted beasts are lavishly figured in +black marble over a white ground. What I chiefly appreciated in the grey +solemnity of the nave and transepts was the superb effect of certain +second-storey Gothic arches--those which rest on the pavement being +Lombard. These arches are delicate and slender, like those of the +cloister at Pisa, and they play their part in the dusky upper air with +real sublimity. + +At Pistoia there is of course a Cathedral, and there is nothing +unexpected in its being, externally at least, highly impressive; in its +having a grand campanile at its door, a gaudy baptistery, in alternate +layers of black and white marble, across the way, and a stately civic +palace on either side. But even had I the space to do otherwise I should +prefer to speak less of the particular objects of interest in the place +than of the pleasure I found it to lounge away in the empty streets the +quiet hours of a warm afternoon. To say where I lingered longest would +be to tell of a little square before the hospital, out of which you +look up at the beautiful frieze in coloured earthernware by the brothers +Della Robbia, which runs across the front of the building. It represents +the seven orthodox offices of charity and, with its brilliant blues and +yellows and its tender expressiveness, brightens up amazingly, to the +sense and soul, this little grey corner of the mediaeval city. Pi stoia +is still mediaeval. How grass-grown it seemed, how drowsy, how full of +idle vistas and melancholy nooks! If nothing was supremely wonderful, +everything was delicious. + +{Illustration: THE HOSPITAL, PISTOIA.} + +1874. + + + + + +OTHER TUSCAN CITIES + + +I + + +I had scanted charming Pisa even as I had scanted great Siena in my +original small report of it, my scarce more than stammering notes of +years before; but even if there had been meagreness of mere gaping +vision--which there in fact hadn't been--as well as insufficiency of +public tribute, the indignity would soon have ceased to weigh on my +conscience. For to this affection I was to return again still oftener +than to the strong call of Siena my eventual frequentations of Pisa, all +merely impressionistic and amateurish as they might be--and I pretended, +up and down the length of the land, to none other--leave me at the +hither end of time with little more than a confused consciousness of +exquisite _quality_ on the part of the small sweet scrap of a place of +ancient glory; a consciousness so pleadingly content to be general and +vague that I shrink from pulling it to pieces. The Republic of Pisa +fought with the Republic of Florence, through the ages so ferociously +and all but invincibly that what is so pale and languid in her to-day +may well be the aspect of any civil or, still more, military creature +bled and bled and bled at the "critical" time of its life. She has +verily a just languor and is touchingly anaemic; the past history, or +at any rate the present perfect acceptedness, of which condition hangs +about her with the last grace of weakness, making her state in this +particular the very secret of her irresistible appeal. I was to find the +appeal, again and again, one of the sweetest, tenderest, even if not +one of the fullest and richest impressions possible; and if I went back +whenever I could it was very much as one doesn't indecently neglect a +gentle invalid friend. The couch of the invalid friend, beautifully, +appealingly resigned, has been wheeled, say, for the case, into the warm +still garden, and your visit but consists of your sitting beside it with +kind, discreet, testifying silences. Such is the figurative form under +which the once rugged enemy of Florence, stretched at her length by the +rarely troubled Arno, to-day presents herself; and I find my analogy +complete even to my sense of the mere mild _seance_, the inevitably +tacit communion or rather blank interchange, between motionless cripple +and hardly more incurable admirer. + +The terms of my enjoyment of Pisa scarce departed from that ideal--slow +contemplative perambulations, rather late in the day and after work done +mostly in the particular decent inn-room that was repeatedly my portion; +where the sunny flicker of the river played up from below to the very +ceiling, which, by the same sign, anciently and curiously raftered and +hanging over my table at a great height, had been colour-pencilled into +ornament as fine (for all practical purposes) as the page of a missal. +I add to this, for remembrance, an inveteracy of evening idleness and of +reiterated ices in front of one of the quiet cafes--quiet as everything +at Pisa is quiet, or will certainly but in these latest days have ceased +to be; one in especial so beautifully, so mysteriously void of bustle +that almost always the neighbouring presence and admirable chatter of +some group of the local University students would fall upon my ear, by +the half-hour at a time, not less as a privilege, frankly, than as a +clear-cut image of the young Italian mind and life, by which I lost +nothing. I use such terms as "admirable" and "privilege," in this last +most casual of connections--which was moreover no connection at all but +what my attention made it--simply as an acknowledgment of the interest +that might play there through some inevitable thoughts. These were, for +that matter, intensely in keeping with the ancient scene and air: +they dealt with the exquisite difference between that tone and type of +ingenuous adolescence--in the mere relation of charmed _audition_--and +other forms of juvenility of whose mental and material accent one had +elsewhere met the assault. Civilised, charmingly civilised, were my +loquacious neighbours--as how had n't they to be, one asked one's self, +through the use of a medium of speech that is in itself a sovereign +saturation? _There_ was the beautiful congruity of the happily-caught +impression; the fact of my young men's general Tuscanism of tongue, +which related them so on the spot to the whole historic consensus +of things. It wasn't dialect--as it of course easily might have been +elsewhere, at Milan, at Turin, at Bologna, at Naples; it was the clear +Italian in which all the rest of the surrounding story was told, all +the rest of the result of time recorded; and it made them delightful, +prattling, unconscious men of the particular little constituted and +bequeathed world which everything else that was charged with old +meanings and old beauty referred to--all the more that their talk was +never by any chance of romping games or deeds of violence, but kept +flowering, charmingly and incredibly, into eager ideas and literary +opinions and philosophic discussions and, upon my honour, vital +questions. + +They have taken me too far, for so light a reminiscence; but I claim +for the loose web of my impressions at no point a heavier texture. Which +comes back to what I was a moment ago saying--that just in proportion +as you "feel" the morbid charm of Pisa you press on it gently, and this +somehow even under stress of whatever respectful attention. I found +this last impulse, at all events, so far as I was concerned, quite +contentedly spend itself in a renewed sense of the simple large pacified +felicity of such an afternoon aspect as that of the Lung' Arno, taken up +or down its course; whether to within sight of small Santa Maria della +Spina, the tiny, the delicate, the exquisite Gothic chapel perched where +the quay drops straight, or, in the other direction, toward the melting +perspective of the narrow local pleasure-ground, the rather thin and +careless bosky grace of which recedes, beside the stream whose very +turbidity pleases, to a middle distance of hot and tangled and exuberant +rural industry and a proper blue horizon of Carrara mountains. The Pisan +Lung' Arno is shorter and less featured and framed than the Florentine, +but it has the fine accent of a marked curve and is quite as bravely +Tuscan; witness the type of river-fronting palace which, in half-a-dozen +massive specimens, the last word of the anciently "handsome," are of +the essence of the physiognomy of the place. In the glow of which +retrospective admission I ask myself how I came, under my first flush, +reflected in other pages, to fail of justice to so much proud domestic +architecture--in the very teeth moreover of the fact that I was for ever +paying my compliments, in a wistful, wondering way, to the fine Palazzo +Lanfranchi, occupied in 1822 by the migratory Byron, and whither Leigh +Hunt, as commemorated in the latter's Autobiography, came out to join +him in an odd journalistic scheme. + +Of course, however, I need scarcely add, the centre of my daily +revolution--quite thereby on the circumference--was the great Company of +Four in their sequestered corner; objects of regularly recurrent pious +pilgrimage, if for no other purpose than to see whether each would +each time again so inimitably carry itself as one of a group of +wonderfully-worked old ivories. Their charm of relation to each other +and to everything else that concerns them, that of the quartette of +monuments, is more or less inexpressible all round; but not the least of +it, ever, is in their beautiful secret for taking at different hours +and seasons, in different states of the light, the sky, the wind, the +weather--in different states, even, it used verily to seem to me, of +an admirer's imagination or temper or nerves--different complexional +appearances, different shades and pallors, different glows and chills. +I have seen them look almost viciously black, and I have seen them as +clear and fair as pale gold. And these things, for the most part, off on +the large grassy carpet spread for them, and with the elbow of the old +city-wall, not elsewhere erect, respectfully but protectingly crooked +about, to the tune of a usual unanimity save perhaps in the case of +the Leaning Tower--so abnormal a member of any respectable family this +structure at best that I always somehow fancied its three companions, +the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Campo Santo, capable of quiet +common understandings, for the major or the minor effect, into which +their odd fellow, no hint thrown out to him, was left to enter as he +might. If one haunted the place, one ended by yielding to the conceit +that, beautifully though the others of the group may be said to behave +about him, one sometimes caught them in the act of tacitly combining to +ignore him--as if he had, after so long, begun to give on their nerves. +Or is that absurdity but my shamefaced form of admission that, for all +the wonder of him, he finally gave on mine? Frankly--I would put it at +such moments--he becomes at last an optical bore or _betise_. + +{Illustration: THE LOGGIA, LUCCA.} + + +II + + +To Lucca I was not to return often--I was to return only once; when that +compact and admirable little city, the very model of a small _pays de +Cocagne_, overflowing with everything that makes for ease, for plenty, +for beauty, for interest and good example, renewed for me, in the +highest degree, its genial and robust appearance. The perfection of +this renewal must indeed have been, at bottom, the ground of my rather +hanging back from possible excess of acquaintance--with the instinct +that so right and rich and rounded a little impression had better be +left than endangered. I remember positively saying to myself the second +time that no brown-and-gold Tuscan city, even, could _be_ as happy as +Lucca looked--save always, exactly, Lucca; so that, on the chance of any +shade of human illusion in the case, I wouldn't, as a brooding analyst, +go within fifty miles of it again. Just so, I fear I must confess, it +was this mere face-value of the place that, when I went back, formed my +sufficiency; I spent all my scant time--or the greater part, for I took +a day to drive over to the Bagni--just gaping at its visible attitude. +This may be described as that of simply sitting there, through the +centuries, at the receipt of perfect felicity; on its splendid solid +seat of russet masonry, that is--for its great republican ramparts of +long ago still lock it tight--with its wide garden-land, its ancient +appanage or hereditary domain, teeming and blooming with everything that +is good and pleasant for man, all about, and with a ring of graceful and +noble, yet comparatively unbeneficed uplands and mountains watching +it, for very envy, across the plain, as a circle of bigger boys, in +the playground, may watch a privileged or pampered smaller one munch a +particularly fine apple. Half smothered thus in oil and wine and +corn and all the fruits of the earth, Lucca seems fairly to laugh for +good-humour, and it's as if one can't say more for her than that, thanks +to her putting forward for you a temperament somehow still richer than +her heritage, you forgive her at every turn her fortune. She smiles up +at you her greeting as you dip into her wide lap, out of which you may +select almost any rare morsel whatever. Looking back at my own choice +indeed I see it must have suffered a certain embarrassment--that of the +sense of too many things; for I scarce remember choosing at all, any +more than I recall having had to go hungry. I turned into all the +churches--taking care, however, to pause before one of them, though +before which I now irrecoverably forget, for verification of Ruskin's so +characteristically magnified rapture over the high and rather narrow +and obscure hunting-frieze on its front--and in the Cathedral paid my +respects at every turn to the greatest of Lucchesi, Matteo Civitale, +wisest, sanest, homeliest, kindest of _quattro-cento_ sculptors, to +whose works the Duomo serves almost as a museum. But my nearest approach +to anything so invidious as a discrimination or a preference, under the +spell of so felt an equilibrium, must have been the act of engaging a +carriage for the Baths. + +That inconsequence once perpetrated, let me add, the impression was as +right as any other--the impression of the drive through the huge general +tangled and fruited _podere_ of the countryside; that of the pair of +jogging hours that bring the visitor to where the wideish gate of the +valley of the Serchio opens. The question after this became quite other; +the narrowing, though always more or less smiling gorge that draws you +on and on is a different, a distinct proposition altogether, with its +own individual grace of appeal and association. It is the association, +exactly, that would even now, on this page, beckon me forward, or +perhaps I should rather say backward--weren't more than a glance at it +out of the question--to a view of that easier and not so inordinately +remote past when "people spent the summer" in these perhaps slightly +stuffy shades. I speak of that age, I think of it at least, as easier +than ours, in spite of the fact that even as I made my pilgrimage the +mark of modern change, the railway in construction, had begun to be +distinct, though the automobile was still pretty far in the future. The +relations and proportions of everything are of course now altered--I +indeed, I confess, wince at the vision of the cloud of motor-dust that +must in the fine season hang over the whole connection. That represents +greater promptness of approach to the bosky depths of Ponte-a-Serraglio +and the Bagni Caldi, but it throws back the other time, that of the +old jogging relation, of the Tuscan grand-ducal "season" and the small +cosmopolite sociability, into quite Arcadian air and the comparatively +primitive scale. The "easier" Italy of our infatuated precursors +there wears its glamour of facility not through any question of "the +development of communications," but through the very absence of the +dream of that boon, thanks to which every one (among the infatuated) +lived on terms of so much closer intercourse with the general object of +their passion. After we had crossed the Serchio that beautiful day we +passed into the charming, the amiably tortuous, the thickly umbrageous, +valley of the Lima, and then it was that I seemed fairly to remount the +stream of time; figuring to myself wistfully, at the small scattered +centres of entertainment--modest inns, pensions and other places of +convenience clustered where the friendly torrent is bridged or the +forested slopes adjust themselves--what the summer days and the summer +rambles and the summer dreams must have been, in the blest place, when +"people" (by which I mean the contingent of beguiled barbarians) didn't +know better, as we say, than to content themselves with such a mild +substitute, such a soft, sweet and essentially elegant apology, for +adventure. One wanted not simply to hang about a little, but really to +live back, as surely one might, have done by staying on, into the so +romantically strong, if mechanically weak, Italy of the associations of +one's youth. It was a pang to have to revert to the present even in the +form of Lucca--which says everything. + + +III + + +If undeveloped communications were to become enough for me at those +retrospective moments, I might have felt myself supplied to my taste, +let me go on to say, at the hour of my making, with great resolution, +an attempt on high-seated and quite grandly out-of-the-way Volterra: +a reminiscence associated with quite a different year and, I should +perhaps sooner have bethought myself, with my fond experience of +Pisa--inasmuch as it was during a pause under that bland and motionless +wing that I seem to have had to organise in the darkness of a summer +dawn my approach to the old Etruscan stronghold. The railway then +existed, but I rose in the dim small hours to take my train; moreover, +so far as that might too much savour of an incongruous facility, +the fault was in due course quite adequately repaired by an apparent +repudiation of any awareness of such false notes on the part of the +town. I may not invite the reader to penetrate with me by so much as a +step the boundless backward reach of history to which the more massive +of the Etruscan gates of Volterra, the Porta all' Arco, forms the +solidest of thresholds; since I perforce take no step myself, and am +even exceptionally condemned here to impressionism unashamed. My errand +was to spend a Sunday with an Italian friend, a native in fact of the +place, master of a house there in which he offered me hospitality; who, +also arriving from Florence the night before, had obligingly come on +with me from Pisa, and whose consciousness of a due urbanity, already +rather overstrained, and still well before noon, by the accumulation +of our matutinal vicissitudes and other grounds for patience, met +all ruefully at the station the supreme shock of an apparently great +desolate world of volcanic hills, of blank, though "engineered," +undulations, as the emergence of a road testified, unmitigated by the +smallest sign of a wheeled vehicle. The station, in other words, looked +out at that time (and I daresay the case hasn't strikingly altered) on a +mere bare huge hill-country, by some remote mighty shoulder of which +the goal of our pilgrimage, so questionably "served" by the railway, was +hidden from view. Served as well by a belated omnibus, a four-in-hand of +lame and lamentable quality, the place, I hasten to add, eventually +put forth some show of being; after a complete practical recognition of +which, let me at once further mention, all the other, the positive and +sublime, connections of Volterra established themselves for me without +my lifting a finger. + +The small shrunken, but still lordly prehistoric city is perched, when +once you have rather painfully zigzagged to within sight of it, very +much as an eagle's eyrie, oversweeping the land and the sea; and to +that type of position, the ideal of the airy peak of vantage, with all +accessories and minor features a drop, a slide and a giddiness, its +individual items and elements strike you at first as instinctively +conforming. This impression was doubtless after a little modified for +me; there were levels, there were small stony practicable streets, there +were walks and strolls, outside the gates and roundabout the cyclopean +wall, to the far end of downward-tending protrusions and promontories, +natural buttresses and pleasant terrene headlands, friendly suburban +spots (one would call them if the word had less detestable references) +where games of bowls and overtrellised wine-tables could put in their +note; in spite of which however my friend's little house of hospitality, +clean and charming and oh, so immemorially Tuscan, was as perpendicular +and ladder-like as so compact a residence could be; it kept up for me +beautifully--as regards posture and air, though humanly and socially +it rather cooed like a dovecote--the illusion of the vertiginously +"balanced" eagle's nest. The air, in truth, all the rest of that +splendid day, must have been the key to the promptly-produced intensity +of one's relation to every aspect of the charming episode; the light, +cool, keen air of those delightful high places, in Italy, that tonically +correct the ardours of July, and which at our actual altitude could but +affect me as the very breath of the grand local legend. I might have +"had" the little house, our particular eagle's nest, for the summer, +and even on such touching terms; and I well remember the force of the +temptation to take it, if only other complications had permitted; to +spend the series of weeks with that admirable _interesting_ freshness +in my lungs: interesting, I especially note, as the strong appropriate +medium in which a continuity with the irrecoverable but still effective +past had been so robustly preserved. I couldn't yield, alas, to the +conceived felicity, which had half-a-dozen appealing aspects; I could +only, while thus feeling how the atmospheric medium itself made for a +positively initiative exhilaration, enjoy my illusion till the morrow. +The exhilaration therefore supplies to memory the whole light in which, +for the too brief time, I went about "seeing" Volterra; so that my +glance at the seated splendour reduces itself, as I have said, to +the merest impressionism; nothing more was to be looked for, on the +stretched surface of consciousness, from one breezy wash of the brush. +I find there the clean strong image simplified to the three or four +unforgettable particulars of the vast rake of the view; with the +Maremma, of evil fame, more or less immediately below, but with those +islands of the sea, Corsica and Elba, the names of which are sharply +associational beyond any others, dressing the far horizon in the grand +manner, and the Ligurian coast-line melting northward into beauty and +history galore; with colossal uncemented blocks of Etruscan gates and +walls plunging you--and by their very interest--into a sweet surrender +of any privilege of appreciation more crushing than your general +synthetic stare; and with the rich and perfectly arranged museum, an +unsurpassed exhibition of monumental treasure from Etruscan tombs, +funereal urns mainly, reliquaries of an infinite power to move and charm +us still, contributing to this same so designed, but somehow at the same +time so inspired, collapse of the historic imagination under too heavy a +pressure, or abeyance of "private judgment" in too unequal a relation. + + +IV + + +I remember recovering private judgment indeed in the course of two or +three days following the excursion I have just noted; which must have +shaped themselves in some sort of consonance with the idea that as we +were hereabouts in the very middle of dim Etruria a common self-respect +prescribed our somehow profiting by the fact. This kindled in us the +spirit of exploration, but with results of which I here attempt to +record, so utterly does the whole impression swoon away, for present +memory, into vagueness, confusion and intolerable heat, Our self-respect +was of the common order, but the blaze of the July sun was, even for +Tuscany, of the uncommon; so that the project of a trudging quest for +Etruscan tombs in shadeless wastes yielded to its own temerity. +There comes back to me nevertheless at the same time, from the mild +misadventure, and quite as through this positive humility of failure, +the sense of a supremely intimate revelation of Italy in undress, so +to speak (the state, it seemed, in which one would most fondly, most +ideally, enjoy her); Italy no longer in winter starch and sobriety, with +winter manners and winter prices and winter excuses, all addressed to +the _forestieri_ and the philistines; but lolling at her length, with +her graces all relaxed, and thereby only the more natural; the brilliant +performer, in short, _en famille_, the curtain down and her salary +stopped for the season--thanks to which she is by so much more the easy +genius and the good creature as she is by so much less the advertised +_prima donna_. She received us nowhere more sympathetically, that is +with less ceremony or self-consciousness, I seem to recall, than at +Montepulciano, for instance--where it was indeed that the recovery of +private judgment I just referred to couldn't help taking place. What we +were doing, or what we expected to do, at Montepulciano I keep no other +trace of than is bound up in a present quite tender consciousness that I +wouldn't for the world not have been there. I think my reason must have +been largely just in the beauty of the name (for could any beauty be +greater?), reinforced no doubt by the fame of the local vintage and the +sense of how we should quaff it on the spot. Perhaps we quaffed it too +constantly; since the romantic picture reduces itself for me but to two +definite appearances; that of the more priggish discrimination so far +reasserting itself as to advise me that Montepulciano was dirty, even +remarkably dirty; and that of her being not much else besides but +perched and brown and queer and crooked, and noble withal (which is what +almost any Tuscan city more easily than not acquits herself of; all the +while she may on such occasions figure, when one looks off from her to +the end of dark street-vistas or catches glimpses through high arcades, +some big battered, blistered, overladen, overmasted ship, swimming in a +violet sea). + +If I have lost the sense of what we were doing, that could at all suffer +commemoration, at Montepulciano, so I sit helpless before the memory +of small stewing Torrita, which we must somehow have expected to yield, +under our confidence, a view of shy charms, but which did n't yield, to +my recollection, even anything that could fairly be called a breakfast +or a dinner. There may have been in the neighbourhood a rumour +of Etruscan tombs; the neighbourhood, however, was vast, and that +possibility not to be verified, in the conditions, save after due +refreshment. Then it was, doubtless, that the question of refreshment so +beckoned us, by a direct appeal, straight across country, from Perugia, +that, casting consistency, if not to the winds, since alas there were +none, but to the lifeless air, we made the sweltering best of our way +(and it took, for the distance, a terrible time) to the Grand Hotel of +that city. This course shines for me, in the retrospect, with a light +even more shameless than that in which my rueful conscience then saw it; +since we thus exchanged again, at a stroke, the tousled _bonne fille_ of +our vacational Tuscany for the formal and figged-out presence of Italy +on her good behaviour. We had never seen her conform more to all the +proprieties, we felt, than under this aspect of lavish hospitality to +that now apparently quite inveterate swarm of pampered _forestieri_, +English and Americans in especial, who, having had Roman palaces and +villas deliciously to linger in, break the northward journey, when once +they decide to take it, in the Umbrian paradise. They were, goodness +knows, within their rights, and we profited, as anyone may easily and +cannily profit at that time, by the sophistications paraded for them; +only I feel, as I pleasantly recover it all, that though we had arrived +perhaps at the most poetical of watering-places we had lost our finer +clue. (The difference from other days was immense, all the span of +evolution from the ancient malodorous inn which somehow did n't matter, +to that new type of polyglot caravanserai which everywhere insists on +mattering--mattering, even in places where other interests abound, so +much more than anything else.) That clue, the finer as I say, I would +fain at any rate to-day pick up for its close attachment to another +Tuscan city or two--for a felt pull from strange little San Gimignano +delle belle Torre in especial; by which I mean from the memory of a +summer Sunday spent there during a stay at Siena. But I have already +superabounded, for mere love of my general present rubric--the real +thickness of experience having a good deal evaporated, so that the Tiny +Town of the Many Towers hangs before me, not to say, rather, far +behind me, after the manner of an object directly meeting the wrong or +diminishing lens of one's telescope. + +It did everything, on the occasion of that pilgrimage, that it was +expected to do, presenting itself more or less in the guise of some rare +silvery shell, washed up by the sea of time, cracked and battered and +dishonoured, with its mutilated marks of adjustment to the extinct +type of creature it once harboured figuring against the sky as maimed +gesticulating arms flourished in protest against fate. If the centuries, +however, had pretty well cleaned out, vulgarly speaking, this amazing +little fortress-town, it wasn't that a mere aching void was bequeathed +us, I recognise as I consult a somewhat faded impression; the whole +scene and occasion come back to me as the exhibition, on the contrary, +of a stage rather crowded and agitated, of no small quantity of sound +and fury, of concussions, discussions, vociferations, hurryings to and +fro, that could scarce have reached a higher pitch in the old days of +the siege and the sortie. San Gimignano affected me, to a certainty, +as not dead, I mean, but as inspired with that strange and slightly +sinister new life that is now, in case after case, up and down the +peninsula, and even in presence of the dryest and most scattered bones, +producing the miracle of resurrection. The effect is often--and I find +it strikingly involved in this particular reminiscence--that of the +buried hero himself positively waking up to show you his bones for a +fee, and almost capering about in his appeal to your attention. What +has become of the soul of San Gimignano who shall say?--but, of a genial +modern Sunday, it is as if the heroic skeleton, risen from the dust, +were in high activity, officious for your entertainment and your +detention, clattering and changing plates at the informal friendly inn, +personally conducting you to a sight of the admirable Santa Fina of +Ghirlandaio, as I believe is supposed, in a dim chapel of the Collegiata +church; the poor young saint, on her low bed, in a state of ecstatic +vision (the angelic apparition is given), acconpanied by a few figures +and accessories of the most beautiful and touching truth. This image +is what has most vividly remained with me, of the day I thus so +ineffectually recover; the precious ill-set gem or domestic treasure of +Santa Fina, and then the wonderful drive, at eventide, back to Siena: +the progress through the darkening land that was like a dense fragrant +garden, all fireflies and warm emanations and dimly-seen motionless +festoons, extravagant vines and elegant branches intertwisted for miles, +with couples and companies of young countryfolk almost as fondly united +and raising their voices to the night as if superfluously to sing out at +you that they were happy, and above all were Tuscan. On reflection, and +to be just, I connect the slightly incongruous loudness that hung about +me under the Beautiful Towers with the really too coarse competition for +my favour among the young vetturini who lay in wait for my approach, +and with an eye to my subsequent departure, on my quitting, at some +unremembered spot, the morning train from Siena, from which point there +was then still a drive. That onset was of a fine mediaeval violence, but +the subsiding echoes of it alone must have afterwards borne me company; +mingled, at the worst, with certain reverberations of the animated +rather than concentrated presence of sundry young sketchers and copyists +of my own nationality, which element in the picture conveyed beyond +anything else how thoroughly it was all to sit again henceforth in the +eye of day. My final vision perhaps was of a sacred reliquary not so +much rudely as familiarly and "humorously" torn open. The note had, with +all its references, its own interest; but I never went again. + +{Illustration: TOWERS OF SAN GIMIGNANO.} + + + + + +RAVENNA + + +I write these lines on a cold Swiss mountain-top, shut in by an intense +white mist from any glimpse of the underworld of lovely Italy; but as +I jotted down the other day in the ancient capital of Honorius and +Theodoric the few notes of which they are composed, I let the original +date stand for local colour's sake. Its mere look, as I transcribe it, +emits a grateful glow in the midst of the Alpine rawness, and gives a +depressed imagination something tangible to grasp while awaiting the +return of fine weather. For Ravenna was glowing, less than a week since, +as I edged along the narrow strip of shadow binding one side of the +empty, white streets. After a long, chill spring the summer this year +descended upon Italy with a sudden jump and an ominous hot breath. I +stole away from Florence in the night, and even on top of the Apennines, +under the dull starlight and in the rushing train, one could but sit and +pant perspiringly. + +At Bologna I found a festa, or rather two festas, a civil and a +religious, going on in mutual mistrust and disparagement. The civil, +that of the Statuto, was the one fully national Italian holiday as by +law established--the day that signalises everywhere over the land at +once its achieved and hard-won unification; the religious was a jubilee +of certain local churches. The latter is observed by the Bolognese +parishes in couples, and comes round for each couple but once in ten +years--an arrangement by which the faithful at large insure themselves +a liberal recurrence of expensive processions. It was n't my business +to distinguish the sheep from the goats, the pious from the profane, the +prayers from the scoffers; it was enough that, melting together under +the scorching sun, they filled the admirably solid city with a flood +of spectacular life. The combination at one point was really dramatic. +While a long procession of priests and young virgins in white veils, +bearing tapers, marshalled itself in one of the streets, a review of +the King's troops went forward outside the town. On its return a large +detachment of cavalry passed across the space where the incense was +burning, the pictured banners swaying and the litany being droned, and +checked the advance of the little ecclesiastical troop. The long vista +of the street, between the porticoes, was festooned with garlands and +scarlet and tinsel; the robes and crosses and canopies of the priests, +the clouds of perfumed smoke and the white veils of the maidens, were +resolved by the hot bright air into a gorgeous medley of colour, across +which the mounted soldiers rattled and flashed as if it had been a +conquering army trampling on an embassy of propitiation. It was, to tell +the truth, the first time an' Italian festa had really exhibited to my +eyes the genial glow and the romantic particulars promised by song and +story; and I confess that those eyes found more pleasure in it than they +were to find an hour later in the picturesque on canvas as one observes +it in the Pinacoteca. I found myself scowling most unmercifully at Guido +and Domenichino. + +For Ravenna, however, I had nothing but smiles--grave, reflective, +philosophic smiles, I hasten to add, such as accord with the historic +dignity, not to say the mortal sunny sadness, of the place. I arrived +there in the evening, before, even at drowsy Ravenna, the festa of the +Statuto had altogether put itself to bed. I immediately strolled forth +from the inn, and found it sitting up a while longer on the piazza, +chiefly at the cafe door, listening to the band of the garrison by the +light of a dozen or so of feeble tapers, fastened along the front of +the palace of the Government. Before long, however, it had dispersed and +departed, and I was left alone with the grey illumination and with an +affable citizen whose testimony as to the manners and customs of +Ravenna I had aspired to obtain. I had, borrowing confidence from prompt +observation, suggested deferentially that it was n't the liveliest place +in the world, and my friend admitted that it was in fact not a seat of +ardent life. But had I seen the Corso? Without seeing the Corso one did +n't exhaust the possibilities. The Corso of Ravenna, of a hot summer +night, had an air of surprising seclusion and repose. Here and there in +an upper closed window glimmered a light; my companion's footsteps +and my own were the only sounds; not a creature was within sight. The +suffocating air helped me to believe for a moment that I walked in the +Italy of Boccaccio, hand-in-hand with the plague, through a city which +had lost half its population by pestilence and the other half by flight. +I turned back into my inn profoundly satisfied. This at last was the +old-world dulness of a prime distillation; this at last was antiquity, +history, repose. + +The impression was largely confirmed and enriched on the following day; +but it was obliged at an early stage of my visit to give precedence to +another--the lively perception, namely, of the thinness of my saturation +with Gibbon and the other sources of legend. At Ravenna the waiter at +the cafe and the coachman who drives you to the Pine-Forest allude to +Galla Placidia and Justinian as to any attractive topic of the hour; +wherever you turn you encounter some fond appeal to your historic +presence of mind. For myself I could only attune my spirit vaguely to +so ponderous a challenge, could only feel I was breathing an air of +prodigious records and relics. I conned my guide-book and looked up +at the great mosaics, and then fumbled at poor Murray again for some +intenser light on the court of Justinian; but I can imagine that to +a visitor more intimate with the originals of the various great +almond-eyed mosaic portraits in the vaults of the churches these +extremely curious works of art may have a really formidable interest. I +found in the place at large, by daylight, the look of a vast straggling +depopulated village. The streets with hardly an exception are +grass-grown, and though I walked about all day I failed to encounter a +single wheeled vehicle. I remember no shop but the little establishment +of an urbane photographer, whose views of the Pineta, the great +legendary pine-forest just without the town, gave me an irresistible +desire to seek that refuge. There was no architecture to speak of; and +though there are a great many large domiciles with aristocratic names +they stand cracking and baking in the sun in no very comfortable +fashion. The houses have for the most part an all but rustic rudeness; +they are low and featureless and shabby, as well as interspersed +with high garden walls over which the long arms of tangled vines +hang motionless into the stagnant streets. Here and there in all this +dreariness, in some particularly silent and grassy corner, rises an old +brick church with a front more or less spoiled, by cheap modernisation, +and a strange cylindrical campanile pierced with small arched windows +and extremely suggestive of the fifth century. These churches constitute +the palpable interest of Ravenna, and their own principal interest, +after thirteen centuries of well-intentioned spoliation, resides +in their unequalled collection of early Christian mosaics. It is an +interest simple, as who should say, almost to harshness, and leads one's +attention along a straight and narrow way. There are older churches in +Rome, and churches which, looked at as museums, are more variously and +richly informing; but in Rome you stumble at every step on some curious +pagan memorial, often beautiful enough to make your thoughts wander far +from the strange stiff primitive Christian forms. + +Ravenna, on the other hand, began with the Church, and all her monuments +and relics are harmoniously rigid. By the middle of the first century +she possessed an exemplary saint, Apollinaris, a disciple of Peter, to +whom her two finest places of worship are dedicated. It was to one of +these, jocosely entitled the "new," that I first directed my steps. +I lingered outside a while and looked at the great red, barrel-shaped +bell-towers, so rusty, so crumbling, so archaic, and yet so resolute to +ring in another century or two, and then went in to the coolness, the +shining marble columns, the queer old sculptured slabs and sarcophagi +and the long mosaics that scintillated, under the roof, along the wall +of the nave. San Apollinare Nuovo, like most of its companions, is a +magazine of early Christian odds and ends; fragments of yellow marble +incrusted with quaint sculptured emblems of primitive dogma; great rough +troughs, containing the bones of old bishops; episcopal chairs with the +marble worn narrow by centuries of pressure from the solid episcopal +person; slabs from the fronts of old pulpits, covered with carven +hierogylphics of an almost Egyptian abstruseness--lambs and stags and +fishes and beasts of theological affinities even less apparent. Upon all +these strange things the strange figures in the great mosaic panorama +look down, with coloured cheeks and staring eyes, lifelike enough to +speak to you and answer your wonderment and tell you in bad Latin of +the decadence that it was in such and such a fashion they believed and +worshipped. First, on each side, near the door, are houses and ships and +various old landmarks of Ravenna; then begins a long procession, on +one side, of twenty-two white-robed virgins and three obsequious magi, +terminating in a throne bearing the Madonna and Child, surrounded +by four angels; on the other side, of an equal number of male saints +(twenty-five, that is) holding crowns in their hands and leading to a +Saviour enthroned between angels of singular expressiveness. What it +is these long slim seraphs express I cannot quite say, but they have an +odd, knowing, sidelong look out of the narrow ovals of their eyes which, +though not without sweetness, would certainly make me murmur a defensive +prayer or so were I to find myself alone in the church towards dusk. +All this work is of the latter part of the sixth century and brilliantly +preserved. The gold backgrounds twinkle as if they had been inserted +yesterday, and here and there a figure is executed almost too much in +the modern manner to be interesting; for the charm of mosaic work is, +to my sense, confined altogether to the infancy of the art. The great +Christ, in the series of which I speak, is quite an elaborate picture, +and yet he retains enough of the orthodox stiffness to make him +impressive in the simpler, elder sense. He is clad in a purple robe, +even as an emperor, his hair and beard are artfully curled, his eyebrows +arched, his complexion brilliant, his whole aspect such a one as the +popular mind may have attributed to Honorius or Valentinian. It is all +very Byzantine, and yet I found in it much of that interest which is +inseparable, to a facile imagination, from all early representations of +our Lord. Practically they are no more authentic than the more or less +plausible inventions of Ary Scheffer and Holman Hunt; in spite of which +they borrow a certain value, factitious perhaps but irresistible, from +the mere fact that they are twelve or thirteen centuries less distant +from the original. It is something that this was the way the people in +the sixth century imagined Jesus to have looked; the image has suffered +by so many the fewer accretions. The great purple-robed monarch on the +wall of Ravenna is at least a very potent and positive Christ, and the +only objection I have to make to him is that though in this character he +must have had a full apportionment of divine foreknowledge he betrays no +apprehension of Dr. Channing and M. Renan. If one's preference lies, for +distinctness' sake, between the old plainness and the modern fantasy, +one must admit that the plainness has here a very grand outline. + +{Illustration: SANT APOLLINAR NUOVO, RAVENNA.} + +I spent the rest of the morning in charmed transition between the hot +yellow streets and the cool grey interiors of the churches. The +greyness everywhere was lighted up by the scintillation, on vault and +entablature, of mosaics more or less archaic, but always brilliant and +elaborate, and everywhere too by the same deep amaze of the fact that, +while centuries had worn themselves away and empires risen and fallen, +these little cubes of coloured glass had stuck in their allotted places +and kept their freshness. I have no space for a list of the various +shrines so distinguished, and, to tell the truth, my memory of them has +already become a very generalised and undiscriminated record. The total +aspect of the place, its sepulchral stillness, its absorbing perfume +of evanescence and decay and mortality, confounds the distinctions +and blurs the details. The Cathedral, which is vast and high, has +been excessively modernised, and was being still more so by a lavish +application of tinsel and cotton-velvet in preparation for the centenary +feast of St. Apollinaris, which befalls next month. Things on this +occasion are to be done handsomely, and a fair Ravennese informed me +that a single family had contributed three thousand francs towards a +month's vesper-music. It seemed to me hereupon that I should like in +the August twilight to wander into the quiet nave of San Apollinare, +and look up at the great mosaics through the resonance of some fine +chanting. I remember distinctly enough, however, the tall +basilica of San Vitale, of octagonal shape, like an exchange or +custom-house--modelled, I believe, upon St. Sophia at Constantinople. +It has a great span of height and a great solemnity, as well as a choir +densely pictured over on arch and apse with mosaics of the time of +Justinian. These are regular pictures, full of movement, gesture and +perspective, and just enough sobered in hue by time to bring home their +remoteness. In the middle of the church, under the great dome, sat an +artist whom I envied, making at an effective angle a study of the choir +and its broken lights, its decorated altar and its incrusted twinkling +walls. The picture, when finished, will hang, I suppose, on the library +wall of some person of taste; but even if it is much better than is +probable--I did n't look at it--all his taste won't tell the owner, +unless he has been there, in just what a soundless, mouldering, +out-of-the-way corner of old Italy it was painted. An even better place +for an artist fond of dusky architectural nooks, except that here the +dusk is excessive and he would hardly be able to tell his green from +his red, is the extraordinary little church of the Santi Nazaro e Celso, +otherwise known as the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. This is perhaps on +the whole the spot in Ravenna where the impression is of most sovereign +authority and most thrilling force. It consists of a narrow low-browed +cave, shaped like a Latin cross, every inch of which except the floor +is covered with dense symbolic mosaics. Before you and on each side, +through the thick brown light, loom three enormous barbaric sarcophagi, +containing the remains of potentates of the Lower Empire. It is as if +history had burrowed under ground to escape from research and you +had fairly run it to earth. On the right lie the ashes of the Emperor +Honorius, and in the middle those of his sister, Galla Placidia, a lady +who, I believe, had great adventures. On the other side rest the bones +of Constantius III. The place might be a small natural grotto lined with +glimmering mineral substances, and there is something quite tremendous +in being shut up so closely with these three imperial ghosts. The shadow +of the great Roman name broods upon the huge sepulchres and abides for +ever within the narrow walls. + +But still other memories hang about than those of primitive bishops and +degenerate emperors. Byron lived here and Dante died here, and the tomb +of the one poet and the dwelling of the other are among the advertised +appeals. The grave of Dante, it must be said, is anything but Dantesque, +and the whole precinct is disposed with that odd vulgarity of taste +which distinguishes most modern Italian tributes to greatness. The +author of _The Divine Comedy_ commemorated in stucco, even in a +slumbering corner of Ravenna, is not "sympathetic." Fortunately of all +poets he least needs a monument, as he was pre-eminently an architect in +diction and built himself his temple of fame in verses more solid +than Cyclopean blocks. If Dante's tomb is not Dantesque, so neither is +Byron's house Byronic, being a homely, shabby, two-storied dwelling, +directly on the street, with as little as possible of isolation and +mystery. In Byron's time it was an inn, and it is rather a curious +reflection that "Cain" and the "Vision of Judgment" should have been +written at an hotel. The fact supplies a commanding precedent for +self-abstraction to tourists at once sentimental and literary. I must +declare indeed that my acquaintance with Ravenna considerably increased +my esteem for Byron and helped to renew my faith in the sincerity of +his inspiration. A man so much _de son temps_ as the author of the +above-named and other pieces can have spent two long years in this +stagnant city only by the help of taking a great deal of disinterested +pleasure in his own genius. He had indeed a notable pastime--the various +churches are adorned with monuments of ancestral Guicciolis--but it is +none the less obvious that Ravenna, fifty years ago, would have been an +intolerably dull residence to a foreigner of distinction unequipped with +intellectual resources. The hour one spends with Byron's memory then +is almost compassionate. After all, one says to one's self as one turns +away from the grandiloquent little slab in front of his house and looks +down the deadly provincial vista of the empty, sunny street, the author +of so many superb stanzas asked less from the world than he gave it. One +of his diversions was to ride in the Pineta, which, beginning a couple +of miles from the city, extends some twenty-five miles along the sands +of the Adriatic. I drove out to it for Byron's sake, and Dante's, and +Boccaccio's, all of whom have interwoven it with their fictions, and for +that of a possible whiff of coolness from the sea. Between the city and +the forest, in the midst of malarious rice-swamps, stands the finest of +the Ravennese churches, the stately temple of San Apollinare in Classe. +The Emperor Augustus constructed hereabouts a harbour for fleets, which +the ages have choked up, and which survives only in the title of this +ancient church. Its extreme loneliness makes it doubly impressive. They +opened the great doors for me, and let a shaft of heated air go wander +up the beautiful nave between the twenty-four lustrous, pearly columns +of cipollino marble, and mount the wide staircase of the choir and spend +itself beneath the mosaics of the vault. I passed a memorable half-hour +sitting in this wave of tempered light, looking down the cool grey +avenue of the nave, out of the open door, at the vivid green swamps, and +listening to the melancholy stillness. I rambled for an hour in the Wood +of Associations, between the tall smooth, silvery stems of the pines, +and beside a creek which led me to the outer edge of the wood and a +view of white sails, gleaming and gliding behind the sand-hills. It +was infinitely, it was nobly "quaint," but, as the trees stand at wide +intervals and bear far aloft in the blue air but a little parasol of +foliage, I suppose that, of a glaring summer day, the forest itself +was only the more characteristic of its clime and country for being +perfectly shadeless. + +{Illustration: RAVENNA PINETA.} + +1873. + + + + + +THE SAINT'S AFTERNOON AND OTHERS + + +Before and above all was the sense that, with the narrow limits of past +adventure, I had never yet had such an impression of what the summer +could be in the south or the south in the summer; but I promptly found +it, for the occasion, a good fortune that my terms of comparison were +restricted. It was really something, at a time when the stride of the +traveller had become as long as it was easy, when the seven-league boots +positively hung, for frequent use, in the closet of the most sedentary, +to have kept one's self so innocent of strange horizons that the Bay of +Naples in June might still seem quite final. That picture struck me--a +particular corner of it at least, and for many reasons--as the last +word; and it is this last word that comes back to me, after a short +interval, in a green, grey northern nook, and offers me again its warm, +bright golden meaning before it also inevitably catches the chill. Too +precious, surely, for us not to suffer it to help us as it may is the +faculty of putting together again in an order the sharp minutes and +hours that the wave of time has been as ready to pass over as the salt +sea to wipe out the letters and words your stick has traced in the sand. +Let me, at any rate, recover a sufficient number of such signs to make a +sort of sense. + + +I + + +Far aloft on the great rock was pitched, as the first note, and indeed +the highest, of the wondrous concert, the amazing creation of the friend +who had offered me hospitality, and whom, more almost than I had ever +envied anyone anything, I envied the privilege of being able to reward +a heated, artless pilgrim with a revelation of effects so incalculable. +There was none but the loosest prefigurement as the creaking and puffing +little boat, which had conveyed me only from Sorrento, drew closer +beneath the prodigious island--beautiful, horrible and haunted--that +does most, of all the happy elements and accidents, towards making +the Bay of Naples, for the study of composition, a lesson in the grand +style. There was only, above and below, through the blue of the air and +sea, a great confused shining of hot cliffs and crags and buttresses, +a loss, from nearness, of the splendid couchant outline and the more +comprehensive mass, and an opportunity--oh, not lost, I assure you--to +sit and meditate, even moralise, on the empty deck, while a happy +brotherhood of American and German tourists, including, of course, many +sisters, scrambled down into little waiting, rocking tubs and, after a +few strokes, popped systematically into the small orifice of the Blue +Grotto. There was an appreciable moment when they were all lost to view +in that receptacle, the daily "psychological" moment during which it +must so often befall the recalcitrant observer on the deserted deck to +find himself aware of how delightful it might be if none of them +should come out again. The charm, the fascination of the idea is not a +little--though also not wholly--in the fact that, as the wave rises +over the aperture, there is the most encouraging appearance that they +perfectly may not. There it is. There is no more of them. It is a case +to which nature has, by the neatest stroke and with the best taste in +the world, just quietly attended. + +Beautiful, horrible, haunted: that is the essence of what, about itself, +Capri says to you--dip again into your Tacitus and see why; and yet, +while you roast a little under the awning and in the vaster shadow, it +is not because the trail of Tiberius is ineffaceable that you are most +uneasy. The trail of Germanicus in Italy to-day ramifies further and +bites perhaps even deeper; a proof of which is, precisely, that his +eclipse in the Blue Grotto is inexorably brief, that here he is popping +out again, bobbing enthusiastically back and scrambling triumphantly +back. The spirit, in truth, of his effective appropriation of Capri has +a broad-faced candour against which there is no standing up, supremely +expressive as it is of the well-known "love that kills," of Germanicus's +fatal susceptibility. If I were to let myself, however, incline to +_that_ aspect of the serious case of Capri I should embark on strange +depths. The straightness and simplicity, the classic, synthetic +directness of the German passion for Italy, make this passion probably +the sentiment in the world that is in the act of supplying enjoyment in +the largest, sweetest mouthfuls; and there is something unsurpassably +marked in the way that on this irresistible shore it has seated itself +to ruminate and digest. It keeps the record in its own loud accents; it +breaks out in the folds of the hills and on the crests of the crags into +every manner of symptom and warning. Huge advertisements and portents +stare across the bay; the acclivities bristle with breweries and +"restorations" and with great ugly Gothic names. I hasten, of course, to +add that some such general consciousness as this may well oppress, under +any sky, at the century's end, the brooding tourist who makes himself a +prey by staying anywhere, when the gong sounds, "behind." It is behind, +in the track and the reaction, that he least makes out the end of it +all, perceives that to visit anyone's country for anyone's sake is more +and more to find some one quite other in possession. No one, least of +all the brooder himself, is in his own. + + +II + + +I certainly, at any rate, felt the force of this truth when, on scaling +the general rock with the eye of apprehension, I made out at a point +much nearer its summit than its base the gleam of a dizzily-perched +white sea-gazing front which I knew for my particular landmark and which +promised so much that it would have been welcome to keep even no +more than half. Let me instantly say that it kept still more than it +promised, and by no means least in the way of leaving far below it the +worst of the outbreak of restorations and breweries. There is a road at +present to the upper village, with which till recently communication was +all by rude steps cut in the rock and diminutive donkeys scrambling on +the flints; one of those fine flights of construction which the +great road-making "Latin races" take, wherever they prevail, without +advertisement or bombast; and even while I followed along the face of +the cliff its climbing consolidated ledge, I asked myself how I could +think so well of it without consistently thinking better still of +the temples of beer so obviously destined to enrich its terminus. The +perfect answer to that was of course that the brooding tourist is never +bound to be consistent. What happier law for him than this very one, +precisely, when on at last alighting, high up in the blue air, to +stare and gasp and almost disbelieve, he embraced little by little the +beautiful truth particularly, on this occasion, reserved for himself, +and took in the stupendous picture? For here above all had the thought +and the hand come from far away--even from _ultima Thule_, and yet were +in possession triumphant and acclaimed. Well, all one could say was that +the way they had felt their opportunity, the divine conditions of the +place, spoke of the advantage of some such intellectual perspective as a +remote original standpoint alone perhaps can give. If what had finally, +with infinite patience, passion, labour, taste, got itself done there, +was like some supreme reward of an old dream of Italy, something perfect +after long delays, was it not verily in _ultima Thule_ that the vow +would have been piously enough made and the germ tenderly enough +nursed? For a certain art of asking of Italy all she can give, you must +doubtless either be a rare _raffine_ or a rare genius, a sophisticated +Norseman or just a Gabriele d' Annunzio. + +All she can give appeared to me, assuredly, for that day and the +following, gathered up and enrolled there: in the wondrous cluster and +dispersal of chambers, corners, courts, galleries, arbours, arcades, +long white ambulatories and vertiginous points of view. The greatest +charm of all perhaps was that, thanks to the particular conditions, she +seemed to abound, to overflow, in directions in which I had never yet +enjoyed the chance to find her so free. The indispensable thing was +therefore, in observation, in reflection, to press the opportunity hard, +to recognise that as the abundance was splendid, so, by the same stroke, +it was immensely suggestive. It dropped into one's lap, naturally, at +the end of an hour or two, the little white flower of its formula: the +brooding tourist, in other words, could only continue to brood till he +had made out in a measure, as I may say, what was so wonderfully the +matter with him. He was simply then in the presence, more than ever yet, +of the possible poetry of the personal and social life of the south, and +the fun would depend much--as occasions are fleeting--on his arriving +in time, in the interest of that imagination which is his only field +of sport, at adequate new notations of it. The sense of all this, his +obscure and special fun in the general bravery, mixed, on the morrow, +with the long, human hum of the bright, hot day and filled up the golden +cup with questions and answers. The feast of St. Antony, the patron of +the upper town, was the one thing in the air, and of the private beauty +of the place, there on the narrow shelf, in the shining, shaded loggias +and above the blue gulfs, all comers were to be made free. + + +III + + +The church-feast of its saint is of course for Anacapri, as for any +self-respecting Italian town, the great day of the year, and the +smaller the small "country," in native parlance, as well as the simpler, +accordingly, the life, the less the chance for leakage, on other +pretexts, of the stored wine of loyalty. This pure fluid, it was easy +to feel overnight, had not sensibly lowered its level; so that nothing +indeed, when the hour came, could well exceed the outpouring. All up and +down the Sorrentine promontory the early summer happens to be the time +of the saints, and I had just been witness there of a week on every day +of which one might have travelled, through kicked-up clouds and other +demonstrations, to a different hot holiday. There had been no bland +evening that, somewhere or other, in the hills or by the sea, the white +dust and the red glow didn't rise to the dim stars. Dust, perspiration, +illumination, conversation--these were the regular elements. "They're +very civilised," a friend who knows them as well as they can be known +had said to me of the people in general; "plenty of fireworks and plenty +of talk--that's all they ever want." That they were "civilised"--on the +side on which they were most to show--was therefore to be the word of +the whole business, and nothing could have, in fact, had more interest +than the meaning that for the thirty-six hours I read into it. + +Seen from below and diminished by distance, Anacapri makes scarce a +sign, and the road that leads to it is not traceable over the rock; but +it sits at its ease on its high, wide table, of which it covers--and +with picturesque southern culture as well--as much as it finds +convenient. As much of it as possible was squeezed all the morning, for +St. Antony, into the piazzetta before the church, and as much more into +that edifice as the robust odour mainly prevailing there allowed room +for. It was the odour that was in prime occupation, and one could only +wonder how so many men, women and children could cram themselves into so +much smell. It was surely the smell, thick and resisting, that was least +successfully to be elbowed. Meanwhile the good saint, before he could +move into the air, had, among the tapers and the tinsel, the opera-music +and the pulpit poundings, bravely to snuff it up. The shade outside was +hot, and the sun was hot; but we waited as densely for him to come out, +or rather to come "on," as the pit at the opera waits for the great +tenor. There were people from below and people from the mainland and +people from Pomerania and a brass band from Naples. There were other +figures at the end of longer strings--strings that, some of them indeed, +had pretty well given way and were now but little snippets trailing in +the dust. Oh, the queer sense of the good old Capri of artistic legend, +of which the name itself was, in the more benighted years--years of the +contadina and the pifferaro--a bright evocation! Oh, the echo, on the +spot, of each romantic tale! Oh, the loafing painters, so bad and so +happy, the conscious models, the vague personalities! The "beautiful +Capri girl" was of course not missed, though not perhaps so beautiful +as in her ancient glamour, which none the less didn't at all exclude +the probable presence--with _his_ legendary light quite undimmed--of +the English lord in disguise who will at no distant date marry her. The +whole thing was there; one held it in one's hand. + +The saint comes out at last, borne aloft in long procession and under a +high canopy: a rejoicing, staring, smiling saint, openly delighted +with the one happy hour in the year on which he may take his own walk. +Frocked and tonsured, but not at all macerated, he holds in his hand a +small wax puppet of an infant Jesus and shows him to all their friends, +to whom he nods and bows: to whom, in the dazzle of the sun he literally +seems to grin and wink, while his litter sways and his banners flap and +every one gaily greets him. The ribbons and draperies flutter, and the +white veils of the marching maidens, the music blares and the guns go +off and the chants resound, and it is all as holy and merry and noisy +as possible. The procession--down to the delightful little tinselled and +bare-bodied babies, miniature St. Antonys irrespective of sex, led or +carried by proud papas or brown grandsires--includes so much of the +population that you marvel there is such a muster to look on--like the +charades given in a family in which every one wants to act. But it +is all indeed in a manner one house, the little high-niched island +community, and nobody therefore, even in the presence of the head of it, +puts on an air of solemnity. Singular and suggestive before everything +else is the absence of any approach to our notion of the posture of +respect, and this among people whose manners in general struck one as so +good and, in particular, as so cultivated. The office of the saint--of +which the festa is but the annual reaffirmation--involves not the +faintest attribute of remoteness or mystery. + +While, with my friend, I waited for him, we went for coolness into the +second church of the place, a considerable and bedizened structure, +with the rare curiosity of a wondrous pictured pavement of majolica, +the garden of Eden done in large coloured tiles or squares, with every +beast, bird and river, and a brave _diminuendo_, in especial, from +portal to altar, of perspective, so that the animals and objects of the +foreground are big and those of the successive distances differ with +much propriety. Here in the sacred shade the old women were knitting, +gossipping, yawning, shuffling about; here the children were romping and +"larking"; here, in a manner, were the open parlour, the nursery, the +kindergarten and the _conversazione_ of the poor. This is everywhere the +case by the southern sea. I remember near Sorrento a wayside chapel that +seemed the scene of every function of domestic life, including cookery +and others. The odd thing is that it all appears to interfere so little +with that special civilised note--the note of manners--which is so +constantly touched. It is barbarous to expectorate in the temple of your +faith, but that doubtless is an extreme case. Is civilisation really +measured by the number of things people do respect? There would seem to +be much evidence against it. The oldest societies, the societies +with most traditions, are naturally not the least ironic, the least +_blasees_, and the African tribes who take so many things into account +that they fear to quit their huts at night are not the fine flower. + + +IV + + +Where, on the other hand, it was impossible not to feel to the full +all the charming _riguardi_--to use their own good word--in which our +friends _could_ abound, was, that afternoon, in the extraordinary temple +of art and hospitality that had been benignantly opened to me. Hither, +from three o'clock to seven, all the world, from the small in particular +to the smaller and the smallest, might freely flock, and here, from the +first hour to the last, the huge straw-bellied flasks of purple wine +were tilted for all the thirsty. They were many, the thirsty, they were +three hundred, they were unending; but the draughts they drank were +neither countable nor counted. This boon was dispensed in a long, +pillared portico, where everything was white and light save the blue +of the great bay as it played up from far below or as you took it in, +between shining columns, with your elbows on the parapet. Sorrento and +Vesuvius were over against you; Naples furthest off, melted, in the +middle of the picture, into shimmering vagueness and innocence; and the +long arm of Posilippo and the presence of the other islands, Procida, +the stricken Ischia, made themselves felt to the left. The grand air of +it all was in one's very nostrils and seemed to come from sources too +numerous and too complex to name. It was antiquity in solution, with +every brown, mild figure, every note of the old speech, every tilt of +the great flask, every shadow cast by every classic fragment, adding +its touch to the impression. What was the secret of the surprising +amenity?--to the essence of which one got no nearer than simply by +feeling afresh the old story of the deep interfusion of the present with +the past. You had felt that often before, and all that could, at the +most, help you now was that, more than ever yet, the present appeared +to become again really classic, to sigh with strange elusive sounds of +Virgil and Theocritus. Heaven only knows how little they would in truth +have had to say to it, but we yield to these visions as we must, and +when the imagination fairly turns in its pain almost any soft name is +good enough to soothe it. + +It threw such difficulties but a step back to say that the secret of +the amenity was "style"; for what in the world was the secret of style, +which you might have followed up and down the abysmal old Italy for so +many a year only to be still vainly calling for it? Everything, at any +rate, that happy afternoon, in that place of poetry, was bathed and +blessed with it. The castle of Barbarossa had been on the height behind; +the villa of black Tiberius had overhung the immensity from the right; +the white arcades and the cool chambers offered to every step some sweet +old "piece" of the past, some rounded porphyry pillar supporting a bust, +some shaft of pale alabaster upholding a trellis, some mutilated marble +image, some bronze that had roughly resisted. Our host, if we came to +that, had the secret; but he could only express it in grand practical +ways. One of them was precisely this wonderful "afternoon tea," in which +tea only--_that_, good as it is, has never the note of style--was not to +be found. The beauty and the poetry, at all events, were clear enough, +and the extraordinary uplifted distinction; but where, in all this, +it may be asked, was the element of "horror" that I have spoken of as +sensible?--what obsession that was not charming could find a place in +that splendid light, out of which the long summer squeezes every secret +and shadow? I'm afraid I'm driven to plead that these evils were exactly +in one's imagination, a predestined victim always of the cruel, the +fatal historic sense. To make so much distinction, how much history had +been needed!--so that the whole air still throbbed and ached with it, +as with an accumulation of ghosts to whom the very climate was pitiless, +condemning them to blanch for ever in the general glare and grandeur, +offering them no dusky northern nook, no place at the friendly fireside, +no shelter of legend or song. + + +V + + +My friend had, among many original relics, in one of his white +galleries--and how he understood the effect and the "value" of +whiteness!--two or three reproductions of the finest bronzes of the +Naples museum, the work of a small band of brothers whom he had found +himself justified in trusting to deal with their problem honourably +and to bring forth something as different as possible from the usual +compromise of commerce. They had brought forth, in especial, for him, a +copy of the young resting, slightly-panting Mercury which it was a pure +delight to live with, and they had come over from Naples on St. Antony's +eve, as they had done the year before, to report themselves to their +patron, to keep up good relations, to drink Capri wine and to join +in the tarantella. They arrived late, while we were at supper; they +received their welcome and their billet, and I am not sure it was not +the conversation and the beautiful manners of these obscure young men +that most fixed in my mind for the time the sense of the side of life +that, all around, was to come out strongest. It would be artless, +no doubt, to represent them as high types of innocence or even of +energy--at the same time that, weighing them against _some_ ruder folk +of our own race, we might perhaps have made bold to place their share +even of these qualities in the scale. It was an impression indeed never +infrequent in Italy, of which I might, in these days, first have felt +the force during a stay, just earlier, with a friend at Sorrento--a +friend who had good-naturedly "had in," on his wondrous terrace, after +dinner, for the pleasure of the gaping alien, the usual local quartette, +violins, guitar and flute, the musical barber, the musical tailor, +sadler, joiner, humblest sons of the people and exponents of Neapolitan +song. Neapolitan song, as we know, has been blown well about the world, +and it is late in the day to arrive with a ravished ear for it. That, +however, was scarcely at all, for me, the question: the question, on the +Sorrento terrace, so high up in the cool Capri night, was of the present +outlook, in the world, for the races with whom it has been a tradition, +in intercourse, positively to please. + +The personal civilisation, for intercourse, of the musical barber and +tailor, of the pleasant young craftsmen of my other friend's company, +was something that could be trusted to make the brooding tourist brood +afresh--to say more to him in fact, all the rest of the second occasion, +than everything else put together. The happy address, the charming +expression, the indistinctive discretion, the complete eclipse, in +short, of vulgarity and brutality--these things easily became among +these people the supremely suggestive note, begetting a hundred hopes +and fears as to the place that, with the present general turn of affairs +about the globe, is being kept for them. They are perhaps what the races +politically feeble have still most to contribute--but what appears to +be the happy prospect for the races politically feeble? And so the +afternoon waned, among the mellow marbles and the pleasant folk---the +purple wine flowed, the golden light faded, song and dance grew free and +circulation slightly embarrassed. But the great impression remained and +finally was exquisite. It was all purple wine, all art and song, and +nobody a grain the worse. It was fireworks and conversation--the former, +in the piazzetta, were to come later; it was civilisation and amenity. I +took in the greater picture, but I lost nothing else; and I talked with +the contadini about antique sculpture. No, nobody was a grain the worse; +and I had plenty to think of. So it was I was quickened to remember +that we others, we of my own country, as a race politically _not_ +weak, had--by what I had somewhere just heard--opened "three hundred +'saloons'" at Manila. + + +VI + + +The "other" afternoons I here pass on to--and I may include in them, +for that matter, various mornings scarce less charmingly sacred to +memory--were occasions of another and a later year; a brief but all +felicitous impression of Naples itself, and of the approach to it from +Rome, as well as of the return to Rome by a different wonderful way, +which I feel I shall be wise never to attempt to "improve on." Let +me muster assurance to confess that this comparatively recent and +superlatively rich reminiscence gives me for its first train of +ineffable images those of a motor-run that, beginning betimes of a +splendid June day, and seeing me, with my genial companions, blissfully +out of Porta San Paolo, hung over us thus its benediction till the +splendour had faded in the lamplit rest of the Chiaja. "We'll go by the +mountains," my friend, of the chariot of fire, had said, "and we'll come +back, after three days, by the sea"; which handsome promise flowered +into such flawless performance that I could but feel it to have closed +and rounded for me, beyond any further rehandling, the long-drawn rather +indeed than thick-studded chaplet of my visitations of Naples--from the +first, seasoned with the highest sensibility of youth, forty years ago, +to this last the other day. I find myself noting with interest--and just +to be able to emphasise it is what inspires me with these remarks--that, +in spite of the milder and smoother and perhaps, pictorially speaking, +considerably emptier, Neapolitan face of things, things in general, +of our later time, I recognised in my final impression a grateful, +a beguiling serenity. The place is at the best wild and weird and +sinister, and yet seemed on this occasion to be seated more at her ease +in her immense natural dignity. My disposition to feel that, I hasten to +add, was doubtless my own secret; my three beautiful days, at any rate, +filled themselves with the splendid harmony, several of the minor notes +of which ask for a place, such as it may be, just here. + +Wondrously, it was a clean and cool and, as who should say, quiet +and amply interspaced Naples--in tune with itself, no harsh jangle of +_forestieri_ vulgarising the concert. I seemed in fact, under the blaze +of summer, the only stranger--though the blaze of summer itself was, +for that matter, everywhere but a higher pitch of light and colour and +tradition, and a lower pitch of everything else; even, it struck me, +of sound and fury. The appeal in short was genial, and, faring out to +Pompeii of a Sunday afternoon, I enjoyed there, for the only time I +can recall, the sweet chance of a late hour or two, the hour of +the lengthening shadows, absolutely alone. The impression remains +ineffaceable--it was to supersede half-a-dozen other mixed memories, the +sense that had remained with me, from far back, of a pilgrimage always +here beset with traps and shocks and vulgar importunities, achieved +under fatal discouragements. Even Pompeii, in fine, haunt of _all_ the +cockneys of creation, burned itself, in the warm still eventide, as +clear as glass, or as the glow of a pale topaz, and the particular +cockney who roamed without a plan and at his ease, but with his feet on +Roman slabs, his hands on Roman stones, his eyes on the Roman void, his +consciousness really at last of some good to him, could open himself +as never before to the fond luxurious fallacy of a close communion, a +direct revelation. With which there were other moments for him not less +the fruit of the slow unfolding of time; the clearest of these again +being those enjoyed on the terrace of a small island-villa--the island +a rock and the villa a wondrous little rock-garden, unless a better term +would be perhaps rock-salon, just off the extreme point of Posilippo +and where, thanks to a friendliest hospitality, he was to hang ecstatic, +through another sublime afternoon, on the wave of a magical wand. Here, +as happened, were charming wise, original people even down to delightful +amphibious American children, enamelled by the sun of the Bay as for +figures of miniature Tritons and Nereids on a Renaissance plaque; and +above all, on the part of the general prospect, a demonstration of the +grand style of composition and effect that one was never to wish to see +bettered. The way in which the Italian scene on such occasions as +this seems to purify itself to the transcendent and perfect _idea_ +alone--idea of beauty, of dignity, of comprehensive grace, with all +accidents merged, all defects disowned, all experience outlived, and +to gather itself up into the mere mute eloquence of what has just +incalculably _been_, remains for ever the secret and the lesson of the +subtlest daughter of History. All one could do, at the heart of +the overarching crystal, and in presence of the relegated City, +the far-trailing Mount, the grand Sorrentine headland, the islands +incomparably stationed and related, was to wonder what may well become +of the so many other elements of any poor human and social complexus, +what might become of any successfully working or only struggling and +floundering civilisation at all, when high Natural Elegance proceeds to +take such exclusive charge and recklessly assume, as it were, _all_ the +responsibilities. + + +VII + + +This indeed had been quite the thing I was asking myself all the +wondrous way down from Rome, and was to ask myself afresh, on the +return, largely within sight of the sea, as our earlier course had +kept to the ineffably romantic inland valleys, the great decorated blue +vistas in which the breasts of the mountains shine vaguely with strange +high-lying city and castle and church and convent, even as shoulders of +no diviner line might be hung about with dim old jewels. It was odd, +at the end of time, long after those initiations, of comparative youth, +that had then struck one as extending the very field itself of felt +charm, as exhausting the possibilities of fond surrender, it was odd +to have positively a new basis of enjoyment, a new gate of triumphant +passage, thrust into one's consciousness and opening to one's use; just +as I confess I have to brace myself a little to call by such fine names +our latest, our ugliest and most monstrous aid to motion. It is true of +the monster, as we have known him up to now, that one can neither quite +praise him nor quite blame him without a blush--he reflects so the +nature of the company he's condemned to keep. His splendid easy power +addressed to noble aims makes him assuredly on occasion a purely +beneficent creature. I parenthesise at any rate that I know him in no +other light--counting out of course the acquaintance that consists of a +dismayed arrest in the road, with back flattened against wall or hedge, +for the dusty, smoky, stenchy shock of his passage. To no end is his +easy power more blest than to that of ministering to the ramifications, +as it were, of curiosity, or to that, in other words, of achieving for +us, among the kingdoms of the earth, the grander and more genial, the +comprehensive and _complete_ introduction. Much as was ever to be said +for our old forms of pilgrimage--and I am convinced that they are far +from wholly superseded--they left, they had to leave, dreadful gaps in +our yearning, dreadful lapses in our knowledge, dreadful failures in our +energy; there were always things off and beyond, goals of delight +and dreams of desire, that dropped as a matter of course into the +unattainable, and over to which our wonder-working agent now flings the +firm straight bridge. Curiosity has lost, under this amazing extension, +its salutary renouncements perhaps; contemplation has become one with +action and satisfaction one with desire--speaking always in the spirit +of the inordinate lover of an enlightened use of our eyes. That may +represent, for all I know, an insolence of advantage on which there will +be eventual heavy charges, as yet obscure and incalculable, to pay, and +I glance at the possibility only to avoid all thought of the lesson +of the long run, and to insist that I utter this dithyramb but in the +immediate flush and fever of the short. For such a beat of time as +our fine courteous and contemplative advance upon Naples, and for such +another as our retreat northward under the same fine law of observation +and homage, the bribed consciousness could only decline to question its +security. The sword of Damocles suspended over that presumption, the +skeleton at the banquet of extravagant ease, would have been that even +at our actual inordinate rate--leaving quite apart "improvements" to +come--such savings of trouble begin to use up the world; some hard +grain of difficulty being always a necessary part of the composition of +pleasure. The hard grain in our old comparatively pedestrian mixture, +before this business of our learning not so much even to fly (which +might indeed involve trouble) as to be mechanically and prodigiously +flown, quite another matter, was the element of uncertainty, effort +and patience; the handful of silver nails which, I admit, drove many an +impression home. The seated motorist misses the silver nails, I fully +acknowledge, save in so far as his aesthetic (let alone his moral) +conscience may supply him with some artful subjective substitute; in +which case the thing becomes a precious secret of his own. + +However, I wander wild--by which I mean I look too far ahead; my +intention having been only to let my sense of the merciless June beauty +of Naples Bay at the sunset hour and on the island terrace associate +itself with the whole inexpressible taste of our two motor-days' feast +of scenery. That queer question of the exquisite grand manner as the +most emphasised _all_ of things--of what it may, seated so predominant +in nature, insidiously, through the centuries, let generations and +populations "in for," hadn't in the least waited for the special +emphasis I speak of to hang about me. I must have found myself more or +less consciously entertaining it by the way--since how couldn't it be of +the very essence of the truth, constantly and intensely before us, that +Italy is really so much the most beautiful country in the world, taking +all things together, that others must stand off and be hushed while she +speaks? Seen thus in great comprehensive iridescent stretches, it is +the incomparable wrought _fusion_, fusion of human history and mortal +passion with the elements of earth and air, of colour, composition and +form, that constitutes her appeal and gives it the supreme heroic grace. +The chariot of fire favours fusion rather than promotes analysis, +and leaves much of that first June picture for me, doubtless, a great +accepted blur of violet and silver. The various hours and successive +aspects, the different strong passages of our reverse process, on +the other hand, still figure for me even as some series of sublime +landscape-frescoes--if the great Claude, say, had ever used that +medium--in the immense gallery of a palace; the homeward run by Capua, +Terracina, Gaeta and its storied headland fortress, across the deep, +strong, indescribable Pontine Marshes, white-cattled, strangely +pastoral, sleeping in the afternoon glow, yet stirred by the near +sea-breath. Thick somehow to the imagination as some full-bodied +sweetness of syrup is thick to the palate the atmosphere of that +region--thick with the sense of history and the very taste of time; as +if the haunt and home (which indeed it is) of some great fair bovine +aristocracy attended and guarded by halberdiers in the form of the +mounted and long-lanced herdsmen, admirably congruous with the whole +picture at every point, and never more so than in their manner of gaily +taking up, as with bell-voices of golden bronze, the offered wayside +greeting. + +{Illustration: TERRACINA} + +There had been this morning among the impressions of our first hour an +unforgettable specimen of that general type--the image of one of those +human figures on which our perception of the romantic so often pounces +in Italy as on the genius of the scene personified; with this advantage, +that as the scene there has, at its best, an unsurpassable distinction, +so the physiognomic representative, standing for it all, and with +an animation, a complexion, an expression, a fineness and fulness of +humanity that appear to have gathered it in and to sum it up, becomes +beautiful by the same simple process, very much, that makes the heir to +a great capitalist rich. Our early start, our roundabout descent from +Posilippo by shining Baire for avoidance of the city, had been an hour +of enchantment beyond any notation I can here recover; all lustre and +azure, yet all composition and classicism, the prospect developed and +spread, till after extraordinary upper reaches of radiance and horizons +of pearl we came at the turn of a descent upon a stalwart young +gamekeeper, or perhaps substantial young farmer, who, well-appointed and +blooming, had unslung his gun and, resting on it beside a hedge, just +lived for us, in the rare felicity of his whole look, during that +moment and while, in recognition, or almost, as we felt, in homage, we +instinctively checked our speed. He pointed, as it were, the lesson, +giving the supreme right accent or final exquisite turn to the immense +magnificent phrase; which from those moments on, and on and on, +resembled doubtless nothing so much as a page written, by a consummate +verbal economist and master of style, in the noblest of all tongues. Our +splendid human plant by the wayside had flowered thus into style--and +there wasn't to be, all day, a lapse of eloquence, a wasted word or a +cadence missed. + +These things are personal memories, however, with the logic of certain +insistences of that sort often difficult to seize. Why should I have +kept so sacredly uneffaced, for instance, our small afternoon wait at +tea-time or, as we made it, coffee-time, in the little brown piazzetta +of Velletri, just short of the final push on through the flushed +Castelli Romani and the drop and home-stretch across the darkening +Campagna? We had been dropped into the very lap of the ancient civic +family, after the inveterate fashion of one's sense of such stations in +small Italian towns. There was a narrow raised terrace, with steps, +in front of the best of the two or three local cafes, and in the soft +enclosed, the warm waning light of June various benign contemplative +worthies sat at disburdened tables and, while they smoked long black +weeds, enjoyed us under those probable workings of subtlety with +which we invest so many quite unimaginably blank (I dare say) Italian +simplicities. The charm was, as always in Italy, in the tone and the air +and the happy hazard of things, which made any positive pretension or +claimed importance a comparatively trifling question. We slid, in the +steep little place, more or less down hill; we wished, stomachically, we +had rather addressed ourselves to a tea-basket; we suffered importunity +from unchidden infants who swarmed about our chairs and romped about +our feet; we stayed no long time, and "went to see" nothing; yet we +communicated to intensity, we lay at our ease in the bosom of the past, +we practised intimacy, in short, an intimacy so much greater than +the mere accidental and ostensible: the difficulty for the right and +grateful expression of which makes the old, the familiar tax on the +luxury of loving Italy. + + +1900-1909. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Italian Hours, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALIAN HOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 6354.txt or 6354.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/5/6354/ + +Produced by Richard Farris and the online team at +Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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