c/o COOK & SON, PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ROME,
April 16th, 1900.
My dear Robbie,--I simply cannot write. It is too horrid, not of me, but
to me. It is a mode of paralysis--a _cacoethes tacendi_--the one form
that malady takes in me.
Well, all passed over very successfully. Palermo, where we stayed eight
days, was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world--it
dreams away its life in the _concha d'oro_, the exquisite valley that
lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were so
entirely perfect that I became quite a Pre-Raphaelite, and loathed the
ordinary impressionists whose muddly souls and blurred intelligences
would have rendered, but by mud and blur, those "golden lamps hung in a
green night" that filled me with such joy. The elaborate and exquisite
detail of the true Pre-Raphaelite is the compensation they offer us for
the absence of motion; literature and motion being the only arts that are
not immobile.
Then nowhere, not even at Ravenna, have I seen such mosaics as in the
Capella Palatine, which from pavement to domed ceiling is all gold: one
really feels as if one was sitting in the heart of a great honey-comb
looking at angels singing: and _looking_ at angels, or indeed at people,
singing, is much nicer than listening to them, for this reason: the great
artists always give to their angels lutes without strings, pipes without
vent-holes, and reeds through which no wind can wander or make
whistlings.
Monreale you have heard of--with its cloisters and cathedral: we often
drove there.
I also made great friends with a young seminarist, who lived in the
cathedral of Palermo--he and eleven others, in little rooms beneath the
roof, like birds.
Every day he showed me all over the cathedral, I knelt before the huge
porphyry sarcophagus in which Frederick the Second lies: it is a sublime
bare monstrous thing--blood-coloured, and held up by lions who have
caught some of the rage of the great Emperor's restless soul. At first
my young friend, Giuseppe Loverdi, gave me information; but on the third
day I gave information to him, and re-wrote history as usual, and told
him all about the supreme King and his Court of Poets, and the terrible
book that he never wrote. His reason for entering the church was
singularly mediaeval. I asked him why he thought of becoming a
_clerico_, and how. He answered: "My father is a cook and most poor; and
we are many at home, so it seemed to me a good thing that there should be
in so small a house as ours, one mouth less to feed; for though I am
slim, I eat much, too much, alas! I fear."
I told him to be comforted, because God used poverty often as a means of
bringing people to Him, and used riches never, or rarely; so Giuseppe was
comforted, and I gave him a little book of devotion, very pretty, and
with far more pictures than prayers in it--so of great service to
Giuseppe whose eyes are beautiful. I also gave him many _lire_, and
prophesied for him a Cardinal's hat, if he remained very good and never
forgot me.
At Naples we stopped three days: most of my friends are, as you know, in
prison, but I met some of nice memory.
We came to Rome on Holy Thursday. H--- left on Saturday for Gland--and
yesterday, to the terror of Grissell {5} and all the Papal Court, I
appeared in the front rank of the pilgrims in the Vatican, and got the
blessing of the Holy Father--a blessing they would have denied me.
He was wonderful as he was carried past me on his throne--not of flesh
and blood, but a white soul robed in white and an artist as well as a
saint--the only instance in history, if the newspapers are to be
believed. I have seen nothing like the extraordinary grace of his
gestures as he rose, from moment to moment, to bless--possibly the
pilgrims, but certainly me.
Tree should see him. It is his only chance.
I was deeply impressed, and my walking-stick showed signs of budding,
would have budded, indeed, only at the door of the Chapel it was taken
from me by the Knave of Spades. This strange prohibition is, of course,
in honour of Tannhauser.
How did I get the ticket? By a miracle, of course. I thought it was
hopeless and made no effort of any kind. On Saturday afternoon at five
o'clock H--- and I went to have tea at the Hotel de l'Europe. Suddenly,
as I was eating buttered toast, a man--or what seemed to be one--dressed
like a hotel porter entered and asked me would I like to see the Pope on
Easter Day. I bowed my head humbly and said "Non sum dignus," or words
to that effect. He at once produced a ticket!
When I tell you that his countenance was of supernatural ugliness, and
that the price of the ticket was thirty pieces of silver, I need say no
more.
An equally curious thing is that whenever I pass the hotel, which I do
constantly, I see the same man. Scientists call that phenomenon an
obsession of the visual nerve. You and I know better.
On the afternoon of Easter Day I heard Vespers at the Lateran: music
quite lovely. At the close, a Bishop in red, and with red gloves--such
as Pater talks of in _Gaston de Latour_--came out on the balcony and
showed us the Relics. He was swarthy, and wore a yellow mitre. A
sinister mediaeval man, but superbly Gothic, just like the bishops carved
on stalls or on portals: and when one thinks that once people mocked at
stained-glass attitudes! they are the only attitudes for the clothes. The
sight of the Bishop, whom I watched with fascination, filled me with the
great sense of the realism of Gothic art. Neither in Greek art nor in
Gothic art is there any pose. Posing was invented by bad
portrait-painters; and the first person who posed was a stock-broker, and
he has gone on posing ever since.
I send you a photograph I took on Palm Sunday at Palermo. Do send me
some of yours, and love me always, and try to read this letter.
Kindest regards to your dear mother.
Always,