ONE summer we lived in a villa a short distance outside the gates
of Florence. For Florence had gates in those days, and was a walled
city, kept by Austrian sentinels. That was the time of the Austrian
occupation. Since then, Solferino and Magenta have been fought, and the
treaty of Villa-franca has been signed, and now, “Italy’s one, from
mountain to sea!”—
“King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
And his flag takes all heaven with its white, green and red.”
But then the Florentines bowed their necks under a hated foreign yoke,
scowling when they dared at a retreating “maledetto Tedesco” (cursed
German).
The phrase “white, green and red” recalls to me the fire-balloons we
used to send up from our villa garden, on the summer nights of long
ago. We had, for our Italian tutor, an enthusiastic patriot, who had
fought in the Italian ranks in ’48, and who was looking forward to
shouldering a musket soon again. It afforded him intense gratification
to send the national colors floating out over Florence. Our villa was
built on a hill-side, commanding a fine view of the Val d’Arno, and
of the City of Flowers herself, domed, campaniled, spired. The longer
the voyages made by our balloons, the higher rose the spirits of our
Signor Vicenzo. He regarded these airy nothings, made by his own hands,
of tissue paper and alcohol, as omens of good or ill to his beloved
country.
I suppose he was a fair type of his countrymen, intensely dramatic,
with a native facility of expression. One notices this facility
of expression among all classes. The Italians have an eloquent
sign-language of their own, in which they are as proficient as in
the language of spoken words. It is charming to see two neighbors
communicating with each other across the street, without uttering
a syllable, by the means of animated gestures. It seems a natural
sequence that they should be a people of artists.
Such long rambles as my sisters and I and our maid Assunta took,
starting from the villa! Assunta was the daughter of a neighboring
countryman of the better sort, who cultivated a grape vineyard and an
olive field, besides keeping a dairy. We had a way of happening by in
the evening in time for a glass of warm milk. Assunta’s mother supplied
our table with milk and butter daily, moreover; butter made into tiny
pats and done up daintily in grape leaves, never salted, by the way;
milk put up in flasks cased in straw, such as are also used for the
native wine. Was it the unfailing appetite of childhood, or was that
milk and butter really superior to any I have ever tasted since? What
charming breakfasts recur to me! _Semele_, as we called our baker’s
rolls; a golden circle of butter on its own leaf; great figs bursting
with juicy sweetness; milk.
How good those figs used to taste for lunch, too, when we would pay a
few _crazis_ for the privilege of helping ourselves to them off the
fig-trees in some _podere_ (orchard, vineyard), inclosed in its own
stone wall, on which scarlet poppies waved in the golden sunlight,
beneath the blue, blue skies. Am I waxing descriptive and dull?
Well, dear girls, I wish you could have shared those days with me.
Roaming about those hill-sides, my sisters and I peopled them with the
creatures of our own imaginations, as well as those of other people’s
imaginations, to say nothing of veritable historical characters. We
read and re-read Roger’s _Italy_. Do you know that enchanting book? Can
you say by heart, as Millie, Eva and I could, “Ginevra,” and “Luigi,”
and “The Brides of Venice”? I wonder if I should like that poetry
now? I _loved_ it then. Also, I date my knowledge of Byron to that
same epoch. We children devoured the descriptions in “Childe Harold,”
and absorbed “The Two Foscari,” which otherwise we would perhaps have
never read. Byron was the poet of our fathers and mothers; but in these
early days dramatic and narrative poetry was more intelligible than the
mysticism of Tennyson and the Brownings, so enchanting to me now.
One evening, some friends who occupied a neighboring villa invited
mamma to be present at the reading of a manuscript poem by an American
poet, Buchanan Read. I was permitted to go, too, and was fully alive to
the dignity of the occasion. Mr. Read was making a reputation rapidly;
there was no telling what might be in store for him. The generous
hand of brother artists in Florence all cheered him on his way, and
accorded to him precisely that kind of sympathetic encouragement which
his peculiar nature required. The group of interested, friendly faces
in the _salon_ at Villa Allori rises up before me as I write, on the
evening when Mr. Read, occupying a central position, read aloud, in his
charming, trained voice.
I remember that, in the pauses of the reading, Mr. Powers, who was
present, amused one or two children about him by drawing odd little
caricatures on a stray bit of note paper, which is, by the way, still
in my possession. Doubtless Mr. Powers’ reputation rests upon his
statues, not his caricatures; yet these particular ones have an immense
value for me, dashed off with a twinkle in the artist’s beautiful dark
eyes.
There was also present on this occasion a beautiful young lady, for
whom Mr. Read had just written some birthday verses, which he read to
us, after having completed the reading of the larger manuscript. Those
birthday verses have haunted me ever since, and this, although I cannot
recall a word of the more ambitious poem.
Mr. Powers had lived for so many years in Florence that he was by
right of that, if by no other right, the patriarch of the American
colony there. He and his large family were most intensely American,
in spite of their long expatriation. His was emphatically an American
_home_, as completely so as though the Arno and the Appenines had been,
instead, the Mississippi and the Alleghanies. This was no doubt due
to the fact that Mrs. Powers was preëminently an American wife and
mother, large-hearted and warm-hearted. She never forgot the household
traditions of her youth. She baked mince-pies and pumpkin-pies
at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and dispensed these bounties to her
countrymen with a lavish hand. Then, too, the Powers lived in a
_house_, and not in an _apartment_, or, as we say, on a flat. The
children ran up and down-stairs, and in and out their own yard, which
lay between the dwelling-house and the studio, just as American
children do. And in this genial, wholesome home an artist grew up in
the second generation. A son of Mr. Powers is now making name and fame
for himself in his father’s profession.
[Illustration: GOING TO THE PARTY.]
It has been said that the beautiful face of the eldest daughter of this
family is suggested in her father’s “Greek Slave.” I looked up to her
then with the respect which a child feels for an elder girl, “a young
lady in society.” I can appreciate now and admire, even more than I did
then, the extreme simplicity and unconsciousness which so well accorded
with her grand, classic beauty. She was the good fairy at a Christmas
Tree Festival, to which all the American girls and boys in Florence
were bidden, on the twenty-fifth of December. We were all presented
with most exquisitely made _bonbonnieres_, chiefly of home manufacture.
We were feasted on doughnuts which brought tears to some of our eyes;
dear American doughnuts, that _might_ have been fried in the land
of the free. We had French candy _ad libitum_; but there was also on
exhibition a pound or so of genuine American stick candy, such as we
see by the bushel in this country, and which had been brought over from
the United States by a friend recently arrived, at Mrs. Powers’ special
request. We examined this stick candy with patriotic enthusiasm. We ate
little bits of it, and thought it infinitely better than our candied
fruits and chocolate creams. Doubtless this little incident here
recalled will account for the fact that I always associate peppermint
stick candy with the flag of the Union. It is an unfortunate caprice
of mind; but, nevertheless, the national stripes always rise before me
when I see these red and white sticks.
I am inclined to the belief that exiles make the best patriots. We
American children stood up fiercely for our own native land, whenever
the question as to national superiority arose between ourselves and
English, French, or Italian children,—especially the English. With
these we fought the Revolutionary war all over again, hotly, if
injudiciously. And I am confident that we had a personal and individual
sense of superiority over them. No doubt we were endowed, even at that
early age, with the proverbial national conceit. Some one had told
me that every American was a sovereign, and that I was consequently a
princess in my own right. This became a conviction with me, and greatly
increased my self-importance. How glorious to be the citizen of a
country of such magnificent gifts of citizenship!
[Illustration: AT THE PARTY.]
But to return to Mr. Powers. His statue of California was on exhibition
at this time. This is, to my mind, the most noble and impressive of
his works. The strong, resolute face, of classic outlines, and of the
sterner type of beauty, bears a distinct resemblance to the sculptor’s
second daughter, although by no means a portrait. It has been told me
that one of the fathers of our American church, traveling in Italy,
suggested an important alteration in this statue. California originally
carried in her hand a bar, supposed to represent a bar of solid gold.
The idea occurred to the bishop that were this smooth bar—which might
mean anything—made to represent a nugget of gold in the rough, the
point of the story would be far more effectively told; and on this idea
the bishop spoke. The sculptor was impressed directly, and with all
the unaffected simplicity of real genius he thanked his critic for the
hint. California now displays her symbolic nugget; and, moreover, about
her head is designed a fillet of bits of ore in the rough.
The America of Powers is another impressive and beautiful female form.
A vision of the sculptor comes before my eyes, standing in front of
this statue, and talking it over with a party of visitors. Such a
beautiful, simple-mannered man—with his mild dark eyes and serene face!
He wore the usual blouse and linen apron, and the cap of the sculptor.
He held his chisel in his hand as he conversed. Some of his audience
did not agree with him in the peculiar political views he held. But Mr.
Powers would not argue, and what need? Had he not preached his sermon
in stone, and eloquently?
CHEERFUL WORDS.[B]
In the whole range of English literature we can call
to mind the works of no single author to which the
title, “Cheerful Words,” can more properly apply than
to those of George Macdonald. It exactly expresses
the element which permeates everything from his pen,
whether sermon, essay, story or poem—an element which
strengthens while it cheers, which instills new light
and life into the doubting or discouraged soul, and
incites it to fresh effort.
In the volume before us the editor has brought
together, with a careful and judicious hand, some of
the choicest passages from Macdonald’s works, written
in various keys and upon various subjects, but all
marked by healthy sentiment and sunshiny feeling. In
quoting what a late critic has said of the “electrical
consciousness” which characterizes his writings, the
editor remarks: “The breadth and manliness of tone and
sentiment, the deep perceptions of human nature, the
originality, fancy and pathos, the fresh, out-of-door
atmosphere everywhere apparent; above all, the earnest,
wholesome, but always unobtrusive religious teaching
that underlies all his writings, give to the works
of George Macdonald a certain magnetic power that is
indescribable.” And in the selections here made that
power is singularly apparent. By turns they touch the
heart, fire the imagination, moisten the eyes, arouse
the sympathies, and bring into active exercise the
better feelings and instincts of mind and heart.
The introduction to the volume is from the pen of James
T. Fields, a personal friend and ardent admirer of the
author. He regards Macdonald as a master of his art,
and believes in holding up for admiration those like
him, who have borne witness to the eternal beauty and
cheerful capabilities of the universe around us, and
who are lovingly reminding us, whenever they write, of
the “holiness of helpfulness.”
FOOTNOTE:
[B] Cheerful Words. By George Macdonald. Introduction by James T.
Fields, and Biography by Emma E. Brown. Spare Minute Series. Boston D.
Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
_SEEING THE POPE:_
“Generalissmoi” changed to “Generalissimo” (Generalissimo to the Pope)
“Bacca” changed to “Bocca” (corner of Bocca di Leone)
“underpinnngs” changed to “underpinnings” (shaky in its underpinnings)
_THE CHILDREN OF THE KOPPENBERG:_
“Mindem” changed to “Minden” (to Hildesheim, or Minden, or Nienburg)
_SHETLAND PONIES:_
“mistess” changed to “mistress” (when the mistress sees)
_MARKET DAY AT PAU:_
“Pyrenees” changed to “Pyrénées” (of France, the Basses-Pyrénées)
_IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO:_
“Tiberias” changed to “Tiberius” (steps where Tiberius Gracchus)
“loñg” changed to “long” (that for a long time, annually)
_THE JEWELLED TOMB:_
“Kohi-noor” changed to “Koh-i-noor” (owner of the Koh-i-noor)
_THE BOY KING OF EGYPT:_
“Urœus” changed to “Uræus” (having the Uræus, or Asp)
“momuments” changed to “monuments” (time the monuments give)