The charred remains of _le petit_ Paul are being carried to the cemetery.
The G. L. M. heads the procession in a white veil. In a prominent place
among the mourners is “_le pauvre petit_ Charles,” so bowed with grief
and remorse that he can scarcely be recognized.
* * * * *
It was a telling sermon! If I had been a child I should never have
looked at a match again; and old as I was, I could not, for days
afterwards, regard a box of them without a shudder. I thought that
probably Yverdon had been visited in the olden time by a series of
disastrous holocausts, all set by small boys, and that this was the
powerful antidote presented; so I asked the teacher whether incendiarism
was a popular failing in that vicinity and whether the chart was one of a
series inculcating various moral lessons. I don’t know whether she
understood me or not, but she said no, it was “_la méthode de
Pestalozzi_.”
Just at this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a
brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called
downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went
hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was taking notes.
“Salemina,” said I, “here is an opportunity of a lifetime! We ought to
address these children in their native tongue. It will be something to
talk about in educational pow-wows. They do not know that we are
distinguished visitors, but we know it. A female member of a School
Board and the Honorary President of a Froebel Society owe a duty to their
constituents. You go in and tell them who and what I am and make a
speech in French. Then I’ll tell them who and what you are and make
another speech.”
Salemina assumed a modest violet attitude, declined the honour
absolutely, and intimated that there were persons who would prefer
talking in a language they didn’t know rather than to remain sensibly
silent.
However the plan struck me as being so fascinating that I went back
alone, looked all ways to see if any one were coming, mounted the
platform, cleared my throat, and addressed the awe-struck youngsters in
the following words. I will spare you the French, but you will perceive
by the construction of the sentences, that I uttered only those
sentiments possible in an early stage of language-study.
“My dear children,” I began, “I live many thousand miles across the ocean
in America. You do not know me and I do not know you, but I do know all
about your good Pestalozzi and I love him.”
“_Il est mort_!” interpolated one offensive little girl in the front row.
Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room and
closed the door. I think the children expected me to put the key in my
pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the stove.
“I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child,” I replied
winningly,—“it is his life, his memory that I love.—And once upon a time,
long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to Yverdon and
studied with your great Pestalozzi. It was he who made kindergartens for
little children, _jardins des enfants_, you know. Some of your
grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?”
Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I
did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience
I took to be, “My grandmother doesn’t!” “My grandmother doesn’t!”
Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, “It is
because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to see
your beautiful new monument. I have just bought a photograph taken on
that day last year when it was first uncovered. It shows the flags and
the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever so many children
standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and singing hymns of praise.
You are all in the picture, I am sure!”
This was a happy stroke. The children crowded about me and showed me
where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on the august
occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a certain
_malheureuse_ Henriette couldn’t go to the festival because she was ill.
I could understand very little of their magpie chatter, but it was a
proud moment. Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained
the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue. Oh, if I
had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this
triumph! But hearing steps in the distance, I said hastily,
“_Asseyez-vous_, _mes enfants_, _tout-de-suite_!” My tone was so
authoritative that they obeyed instantly, and when the teacher entered it
was as calm as the millennium.
We rambled through the village for another hour, dined at a quaint little
inn, gave a last look at the monument, and left for Geneva at seven
o’clock in the pleasant September twilight. Arriving a trifle after ten,
somewhat weary in body and slightly anxious in mind, I followed Salemina
into the tiny cake-shop across the street from the station. She returned
the tumbler, and the man, who seemed to consider it an unexpected
courtesy, thanked us volubly. I held out my hand and reminded him
timidly of the one franc fifty centimes.
He inquired what I meant. I explained. He laughed scornfully. I
remonstrated. He asked me if I thought him an imbecile. I answered no,
and wished that I knew the French for several other terms nearer the
truth, but equally offensive. Then we retired, having done our part, as
good Americans, to swell the French revenues, and that was the end of our
day in Pestalozzi-town; not the end, however, of the lemonade glass
episode, which was always a favourite story in Salemina’s repertory.
II
PENELOPE IN VENICE
This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands, that I
should describe her also as well as the other cities I saw in my
journey, partly because she gave me most louing and kinde
entertainment for the sweetest time (I must needes confesse) that
euer I spent in my life; and partly for that she ministered vnto me
more variety of remarkable and delicious objects than mine eyes euer
suruayed in any citie before, or euer shall . . . the fairest Lady,
yet the richest Paragon and Queene of Christendome.
_Coryat’s Crudities_: 1611
I
VENICE, _May_ 12
HOTEL PAOLO ANAFESTO.
I HAVE always wished that I might have discovered Venice for myself. In
the midst of our mad acquisition and frenzied dissemination of knowledge,
these latter days, we miss how many fresh and exquisite sensations! Had
I a daughter, I should like to inform her mind on every other possible
point and keep her in absolute ignorance of Venice. Well do I realize
that it would be impracticable, although no more so, after all, than
Rousseau’s plan of educating Émile, which certainly obtained a wide
hearing and considerable support in its time. No, tempting as it would
be, it would be difficult to carry out such a theory in these days of
logic and common sense, and in some moment of weakness I might possibly
succumb and tell her all about it, for fear that some stranger, whom she
might meet at a ball, would have the pleasure of doing it first.
The next best woman-person in the world with whom to see Venice, barring
the lovely non-existent daughter, is Salemina.
It is our first visit, but, alas! we are, nevertheless, much better
informed than I could wish. Salemina’s mind is particularly well
furnished, but, luckily she cannot always remember the point wished for
at the precise moment of need; so that, taking her all in all, she is
nearly as agreeable as if she were ignorant. Her knowledge never bulks
heavily and insistently in the foreground or middle-distance, like that
of Miss Celia Van Tyck, but remains as it should, in the haze of a
melting and delicious perspective. She has plenty of enthusiasms, too,
and Miss Van Tyck has none. Imagine our plight at being accidentally
linked to that encyclopædic lady in Italy! She is an old acquaintance of
Salemina’s and joined us in Florence, where she had been staying for a
month, waiting for her niece Kitty Schuyler,—Kitty Copley now,—who is in
Spain with her husband.
Miss Van Tyck would be endurable in Sheffield, Glasgow, Lyons, Genoa,
Kansas City, Pompeii, or Pittsburg, but she should never have blighted
Venice with her presence. She insisted, however, on accompanying us, and
I can only hope that the climate and associations will have a relaxing
effect on her habits of thought and speech. When she was in Florence,
she was so busy in “reading up” Verona and Padua that she had no time for
the Uffizi Gallery. In Verona and Padua she was absorbed in Hare’s
“Venice,” vaccinating herself, so to speak, with information, that it
might not steal upon, and infect her, unawares. If there is anything
that Miss Van abhors, it is knowing a thing without knowing that she
knows it; while for me, the most charming knowledge is the sort that
comes by unconscious absorption, like the free grace of God.
We intended to enter Venice in orthodox fashion, by moonlight, and began
to consult about trains when we were in Milan. The porter said that
there was only one train between the eight and the twelve, and gave me a
pamphlet on the subject, but Salemina objects to an early start, and Miss
Van refuses to arrive anywhere after dusk, so it is fortunate that the
distances are not great.
They have a curious way of reckoning time in Italy, for I found that the
train leaving Milan at eight-thirty was scheduled to arrive at ten
minutes past eighteen.
“You could never sit up until then, Miss Van,” I said; “but, on the other
hand, if we leave later, to please Salemina, say at ten in the morning,
we do not arrive until eight minutes before twenty-one! I haven’t the
faintest idea what time that will really be, but it sounds too late for
three defenceless women—all of them unmarried—to be prowling about in a
strange city.”
It proved on investigation, however, that twenty-one o’clock is only nine
in Christian language (that is, one’s mother tongue), so we united in
choosing that hour as being the most romantic possible, and there was a
full yellow moon as we arrived in the railway station. My heart beat
high with joy and excitement, for I succeeded in establishing Miss Van
with Salemina in one gondola, while I took all the luggage in another,
ridding myself thus cleverly of the disenchanting influence of Miss Van’s
company.
“Do come with us, Penelope,” she said, as we issued from the portico of
the station and heard, instead of the usual cab-drivers’ pandemonium,
only the soft lapping of waves against the marble steps—“Do come with us,
Penelope, and let us enter ‘dangerous and sweet-charmed Venice’ together.
It does, indeed, look a ‘veritable sea-bird’s nest.’”
She had informed me before, in Milan, that Cassiodorus, Theodoric’s
secretary, had thus styled Venice, but somehow her slightest remark is
out of key. I can always see it printed in small type in a footnote at
the bottom of the page, and I always wish to skip it, as I do other
footnotes, and annotations, and marginal notes and addenda. If Miss
Van’s mother had only thought of it, Addenda would have been a delightful
Christian name for her, and much more appropriate than Celia.
If I should be asked on bended knees, if I should be reminded that every
intelligent and sympathetic creature brings a pair of fresh eyes to the
study of the beautiful, if it should be affirmed that the new note is as
likely to be struck by the ’prentice as by the master hand, if I should
be assured that my diary would never be read, I should still refuse to
write my first impressions of Venice. My best successes in life have
been achieved by knowing what not to do, and I consider it the finest
common sense to step modestly along in beaten paths, not stirring up,
even there, any more dust than is necessary. If my friends and
acquaintances ever go to Venice, let them read their Ruskin, their
Goethe, their Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth, their Rogers, Gautier,
Michelet, their Symonds and Howells, not forgetting old “Coryat’s
Crudities,” and be thankful I spared them mine.
It was the eve of Ascension Day, and a yellow May moon was hanging in the
blue. I wished with all my heart that it were a little matter of seven
or eight hundred years earlier in the world’s history, for then the
people would have been keeping vigil and making ready for that nuptial
ceremony of Ascension-tide when the Doge married Venice to the sea. Why
can we not make pictures nowadays, as well as paint them? We are
banishing colour as fast as we can, clothing our buildings, our ships,
ourselves, in black and white and sober hues, and if it were not for
dear, gaudy Mother Nature, who never puts her palette away, but goes on
painting her reds and greens and blues and yellows with the same lavish
hand, we should have a sad and discreet universe indeed.
But so long as we have more or less stopped making pictures, is it not
fortunate that the great ones of the olden time have been eternally fixed
on the pages of the world’s history, there to glow and charm and burn for
ever and a day? To be able to recall those scenes of marvellous beauty
so vividly that one lives through them again in fancy, and reflect, that
since we have stopped being picturesque and fascinating, we have learned,
on the whole, to behave much better, is as delightful a trend of thought
as I can imagine, and it was mine as I floated toward the Piazza of San
Marco in my gondola.
I could see the Doge descend the Giant’s Stairs, and issue from the gate
of the Ducal Palace. I could picture the great Bucentaur as it reached
the open beyond the line of the tide. I could see the white-mitred
Patriarch walking from his convent on the now deserted isle of Sant’
Elena to the shore where his barge lay waiting to join the glittering
procession.
And then there floated before my entranced vision the princely figure of
the Doge taking the Pope-blessed ring, and, advancing to the little
gallery behind his throne on the Bucentaur, raising it high, and dropping
it into the sea. I could almost hear the faint splash as it sank in the
golden waves, and hear, too, the sonorous words of the old wedding
ceremony: “_Desponsamus te_, _Mare_, _in signum veri perpetuique
dominii_!”
Then when the shouts of mirth and music had died away and the Bucentaur
and its train had drifted back into the lagoon, the blue sea, new-wedded,
slept through the night with the May moon on her breast and the silent
stars for sentinels.