Some few years ago it became known that the government of Great Britain
were thinking of renewing the experiment of transporting convicts to
Australia with the object of affording them a chance of reformation. This
time, however, it was its western shore which was to be tried, and that,
too, on a scale not inferior in magnitude to that on which the attempt had
been so unsuccessfully made in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. The
bare suggestion of such a proposal sufficed to kindle a flame of
indignation throughout the whole Australian continent—for such must an
island be called which is as large as Europe. To judge from a letter which
we shall have occasion to quote further on, the system as pursued in
Eastern Australia, although upon so insignificant a scale, is fraught with
evils similar to those which so signally characterized its more important
precursor in the west. Yet were the eastern colonists, or an influential
and active portion of them, ready to risk the reproduction of the baneful
curse which for nearly half a century blighted the prosperity and checked
the growth of their western rivals, and from the consequences of which the
latter are suffering to this day. So bitter, however, was the remembrance
of this system amongst the western colonists, so keen their sense of the
dire mischiefs still resulting from its action, that they went the length
of avowing their fixed determination to separate from the mother‐country,
if the experiment were attempted, although some thousands of miles
intervened between them and the spot where the experiment was proposed to
be renewed.
What were the causes of a failure so disastrous? The objects proposed in
the original undertaking were of the noblest. To colonize a newly‐
discovered country of great extent and promise, to develop its resources,
and to bring it under the sway of a benign and noble civilization, was a
worthy object of ambition. To unite with this a scheme for the reformation
of criminals, in a land where they would be entirely removed from old
associations, where they might enter upon a new career without being ever
dogged by the spectre of the past, was a great and beneficent design. How
was it that the proposed reformatory became a horrible curse alike to the
convicts and the colony, and that no prospect of progress in any form
could be reasonably entertained until the original scheme was utterly
swept away, and the local administration taken altogether out of the hands
of the home government, and placed upon its present independent footing?
The question of the reformation of criminals is not only of pressing
importance, but one that appeals to our higher feelings; and it has of
late become a subject of special investigation to the somewhat interested
philanthropy and eminently shallow psychology of the day. It is impossible
to say that any solution of the question was seriously attempted in the
original transportation project to Botany Bay. It was the one object,
nevertheless, which assumed a prominent place in the experiment; and to
the history of its failure we propose to devote our chief attention. The
colonization of the country was distinctly announced as forming part of
the scheme; nor, indeed, is it easy to see how it could very well have
been dissociated from it. On this subject, therefore, we will offer a few
remarks by way of introduction.
The recolonization of Southern Europe by the Northern tribes in the Vth
and VIth centuries of the present era offers a striking contrast to the
colonization of Australia by a nation calling itself Christian. Anything
but prepossessing is the description given us by the historians of those
Northern invaders, whose deeds but too faithfully bear out the
description. Over depopulated provinces, cities in ashes, and the ruins of
the noblest monuments of religion and art, they swarmed into their new
settlements. Vandals, Franks, Goths, and Huns, all alike were
distinguished for an unpitying cruelty, although the Huns surpassed the
rest in licentious profligacy and crime. Yet amidst the ruin they had
made, and the prodigious havoc with which they had desolated the fairest
countries of Europe, the winning accents of Christian civilization stole
into their ears and subdued their untutored souls. In one respect they had
the advantage of the first English settlers in Australia. They had not
been flung out of their own country like garbage. They came under no ban
of law. They bore not with them the consciences of convicted criminals.
They marched to the spoil under the (to them) legitimate banners of
ambition, or to satisfy their greed of gain. The untutored instincts of
humanity, grand even in their lawlessness and ferocity, urged them on.
Deformed, as might have been expected, with many of the gross vices of the
savage, they were not wanting in some of the more attractive features of
the nobility of nature. Their ears had never listened to the loving voice
of the Virgin Daughter of Sion. Their hearts had never been disciplined
nor their minds formed by the revelation from heaven committed to her
keeping. Theirs was not the guilt, as it has been of some of the nations
of this XIXth century, to have _apostatized_ to the barbarous maxim that
“might makes right.” They knew no better. No sooner, however, did the
majestic vision of the Spouse of Christ—the Catholic Church—meet their
gaze, than, far from treating her with insult and outrage, they threw
themselves with loving veneration at her feet, bowed their necks with the
truthful docility of children to her discipline, and arose to prove
themselves her most faithful defenders.
But whilst the men‐eating aborigines of Australia had no civilization to
communicate, the first invaders of its shores from Great Britain were,
some of them, of the worst class of barbarians—the barbarians of
civilization. They were of those whose untamable souls law, civilization,
and religion had failed to subdue. They were the offscouring of the
criminal class of the three kingdoms. The society they had outraged had
cast them out from itself upon the coasts of Australia. They stepped on
shore convicted as felons. They had forfeited the citizenship of their own
country; and, although still undergoing their respective sentences, it was
understood that they were to have the opportunity of making a fresh start
in their new country, should their conduct correspond with the clemency of
the executive. On a career that, more than any other, requires a spirit of
enterprise, light‐heartedness, and courage, they had set out under the ban
of expatriation, the burden of shame, and all the depressing influences of
detected guilt. Of such were the first settlers of Australia.
On the evening of the 26th of January, 1788, the English dominion over
what has been called the fifth division of the globe was inaugurated by
the solemnity of pledging the king’s health round a flag‐pole. His
majesty’s subjects in New Holland, at the period of this imposing
function, numbered one thousand and thirty souls. Of these seven hundred
and seventy‐eight were convicts. The remaining two hundred and fifty
consisted of the soldiers who formed the garrison of the new settlement,
and their officers, together with a few civil functionaries. In this rude
germ of future commonwealths the elements neither of agriculture nor of
commerce as yet existed. An encampment of huts was its first abiding‐
place. For food it depended on the stores brought with it from the mother‐
country; amongst which was neither seed nor other provision for future
crops. At the moment at which we write, after a lapse of eighty‐six years,
the flocks and herds of a wealthy agricultural population range over an
area as large as that of Europe; five splendid provinces, each with its
own court and parliament, can boast of cities equal in size to many
European capitals, and constituting commercial marts second to none on the
face of the globe.
Of the prodigious strides they have made in material prosperity, Mr.
Therry, in his interesting _Reminiscences_, gives the following striking
illustration:
“It has been ascertained that our South Pacific colonies take from
us in imports for every man, woman, and child of their respective
populations, on the average, from £8 to £10 per head per annum,
while the United States were only customers to us in 1859 (before
the war began), at the rate of 17s. per head. The amount of
imports received by Canada, which comes nearest to Australia, is
£5 per head; that of New South Wales alone is £21 3s. 4d. per
head; of Victoria, £25” (p. 9).
The commerce of these colonies with all parts of the world is nearly three
times larger in money value than was the whole export commerce of England
less than a century ago; and they receive from the United Kingdom upwards
of twenty times the value of exports which the North American colonies
were receiving at the time of their separation from the mother‐country. To
crown the social edifice, a contented people live and prosper under the
shadow of the freest institutions, in many respects surpassing, in this
particular, the much‐vaunted model on which they have been framed.
It is certain that the prevailing motive of the English government in
despatching a penal colony to Botany Bay was to supply the place of her
lost American colonies. No doubt the idea of colonizing the country was
present to their minds. But it never went beyond words. Not a single
provision was made for colonial development. On the contrary, the whole
constitution of the exiled community was fatal to such an object. For
nearly half a century the inherent vices of the system struggled against
and forcibly restrained any efforts to profit by the advantages of a
country of such wonderful promise; nor was it before the original
government scheme had been quite abandoned that the colony rose from its
inaction, like an unfettered giant, and, as it were, almost at a stride,
arrived at a pitch of prosperity unexampled, in so short a period of time,
in the annals of the world, with the single exception of the American
colonies after they had disembarrassed themselves of the yoke of the
mother country.
The defection of those colonies had stopped an important outlet for the
criminal population of the three kingdoms. We are told by Bancroft, in his
_History of the United States_, that
“The prisoners condemned [in England] to transportation were a
salable commodity. Such was the demand for labor in America that
convicts and laborers were regularly purchased and shipped to the
colonies, where they were sold as indented servants.”
The Irish malcontents, moreover—of whom, owing to the long misgovernment
of the kingdom, Ireland was full, and whose disaffection had been
stimulated by the revolt of the North American colonies—threatened to
increase the convict population by a large and particularly unmanageable
element. It was only a year or two before that a country happened to be
explored and taken possession of in the name of England so happily fitted
for colonization, and of which such admirable use has since been made. The
discovery was the result of sheer accident, so far as the British
government was concerned. The expedition to which it owes it was sent out
by the Royal Society for scientific purposes; the object being to make
accurate observations of the transit of Venus from the island of Otaheite.
The islands of New Zealand and the east coast of New Holland were explored
on the way home. The astronomical expedition returned to England in the
midsummer of 1771.
In 1786, the government decided on establishing permanent settlements on
the coast lately explored by Captain Cook, accompanied by Messrs. Green
and Banks and Dr. Solander. The colony consisted exclusively of the
convicts and the military in charge; of prisoners and their jailers. Any
class out of which a free civil community might be formed could only arise
out of chance settlers, or of those among the convicts whose position was
the result rather of untoward circumstances than of any irreclaimable
criminality of disposition, and who were prepared to re‐commence in those
distant lands a career from which their misfortune or their fault had shut
them out at home.
The constitution of the expedition was as follows: A governor, lieutenant‐
governor, judge‐advocate, commissary, and chaplain; a surgeon and two
assistant surgeons; an agent for the transports; two hundred and twelve
soldiers and mariners, including officers; their wives, numbering forty,
and their children; five hundred and forty‐eight male convicts, and two
hundred and thirty female.
The neighborhood of Botany Bay having been judged unsuitable for the new
settlement, the expedition landed at a spot situated at the head of one of
the coves of Port Jackson Harbor, which had been judiciously selected by
the governor as the site of the future capital. The 26th of January, 1788,
was the day of disembarkation, and it was on the evening of that day that
the inaugural rite, to which we have before alluded, was solemnized. After
a lapse of eleven days, consumed in putting up the public and private
structures needful for the new colony, the ceremony of inauguration was
supplemented by one of a yet more imposing character. On the seventh of
February was held a formal assembly of all the members of the new
commonwealth. An occasion of greater interest could not be imagined. Upon
no band of colonists was ever lavished a greater wealth of hope and
fortune. No guilt of diplomatic fraud or commercial overreaching marred
their title to the new territory. Through no bloodshed, no violence, but
quite unopposed, they had entered on its peaceable possession. No foreign
power, to whom the new state might be calculated to give umbrage,
threatened its future welfare. A magnificent harbor sheltered its ships
and transports; and it was only one of many such with which a coast of
vast extent was indented. A whole continent of virgin soil stretched out
before them, which, under the influence of the finest climate under
heaven, waited only the bidding of man to quicken within itself an
exhaustless luxuriance of vegetable life. A mighty Empire of the South
offered itself to any hands that were willing and able to grasp it. It was
only reasonable to expect that England, having just lost her supremacy in
the New World, would have devoted her utmost resources of civilization and
statesmanship to laying deep and wide the foundations of her new dominion.
If none of the members of an aristocracy enjoying more advantages and more
power than were ever possessed by the most privileged class of any the
most privileged nation, were willing to leave the home of their ancestral
traditions, the softness of hereditary ease, and an absolute independence
of fortune’s caprice, in order to join in the struggling life of a young
community, we should at least have expected that the mother‐country would
despatch a contribution from each of the other classes of her citizens to
assist in the formation of the new settlement. Her system of
jurisprudence, admirable in spite of the inextricable jumble of statutes
and precedents amidst which it has been reared, would be represented, one
would have thought, by a sufficient number of lawyers of character; her
merchant princes would be encouraged to carry their spirit of enterprise
to so rich and promising a field; still more, that which forms the only
true and solid basis of material prosperity—agriculture—would be
abundantly cared for in the shape of a due supply of competent masters and
sturdy laborers; last, though not least, some provision would be made, not
only for the moral and religious training of the people, but for such
mental cultivation as was compatible with the condition of an infant
community. What no one in his senses could have anticipated was that the
government of a great and ancient nation should have sent out as the
founders of a new colonial empire a contingent of malefactors, guarded by
a few marines. Upon the occasion of the formal inauguration ceremony the
whole colony were assembled around the governor. Nearest to himself were
the lieutenant‐governor, the judge‐advocate, provost‐marshal, commissary,
adjutant, doctor, and chaplain. The two hundred and twelve marines,
including no less than fifteen commissioned officers, were drawn up in
battle array. Apart from the rest, as under the ban of crime, stood the
bulk of the community—namely, the convicts. To this assemblage the judge‐
advocate read the royal commission and the act of Parliament which
constituted the court of judicature. After the reading of which documents
the one hundred and ninety‐seven marines shouldered old “Brown Bess,” made
ready, presented, and fired three times.
The ceremony was not imposing, but it was on a par with the rest of the
proceedings. The governor, Capt. Phillip, wound it up with a speech in
which, in spite of grammatical errors which may be pardoned in a sailor,
he displayed considerable ability and eloquence, but a marvellous absence
of common sense. In the course of a somewhat inflated panegyric on England
and her fortunes, his excellency went on to portray his native country as
the peculiar favorite of heaven, and to ascribe her successful
colonization of New Holland—a matter considered by anticipation as already
accomplished, and that, too, in the teeth of the recent defection of her
most splendid colonies on the plea of tyrannical misgovernment—to a
prolonged special intervention of Divine Providence.
“Nor did our good genius desert us,” continued the governor, “when
we reached our destination. On the contrary, it was then that
her(?) crowning favor was bestowed. Witness the magnificent harbor
which before us extends its hundred beautiful bays. Witness the
beautiful landscape, the islands, capes, and headlands, covered
with waving foliage, rich and varied beyond compare. Witness every
surrounding object which, as regards a situation for our future
homes, our necessities could demand or our tastes desire. Happy
the nation whose enterprises are thus favored by the elements and
by fortune! Happy the men engaged in an enterprise so favored!
Happy the state to whose founding such propitious omens are
granted!”
It is clear from the following passage, incredible as it may appear, that
the government of the day did really contemplate founding a new state
beyond the seas out of the criminal population, the moral refuse of
society. Gov. Phillip even challenges for the scheme the praise of
magnanimity.
“The American colonies,” he said in his inaugural address, “smarting under
what they considered a sense of injustice, had recourse to the sword, and
the ancient state and the young dependency met in deadly conflict. The
victory belonged to the American people, and Britain, resigning the North
America continent (?) to the dominion of her full‐grown offspring,
magnanimously seeks in other parts of the earth a region where she may lay
the foundations of another colonial empire, which one day will rival in
strength, but we hope not in disobedience, that which she has so recently
lost” (_Flanagan_, vol. i. p. 30).
It is, however, remarkable that Mr. Flanagan grounds his own attribution
of magnanimity on the absence of those very features of the new territory
on whose conspicuous presence the governor, standing on the spot,
congratulates his fellow‐colonists, as one of the signs of a special
interposition of Providence in their favor.
“To incur vast expense,” writes the author of the _History of New
South Wales_, “encounter great dangers, and overcome great
difficulties, in order to possess and colonize a country more
remote than any hitherto brought under subjection by Europeans—a
country presenting _no pre‐eminent attractions in soil, destitute,
so far as was then known, of the precious metals_, and inhabited
by a people in the greatest degree barbarous and devoid of all
riches—while countries possessing all those attractions which New
Holland wanted were within her reach, is the best evidence which
can possibly be afforded of national magnanimity” (_Flanagan_,
vol. i. p. 2).
“How grand is the prospect which lies before the youthful nation!”
exclaimed the enthusiastic governor to the new colony in his
inaugurative speech. “Enough of honor for any state would it be to
occupy the first position, both in regard to time and influence,
in a country so vast, so beautiful, _so fertile_, so blessed in
climate, so rich in all those bounties which nature can confer;
... _its fertile plains tempting only the slightest labor of the
husbandman to produce in abundance the fairest and the richest
fruits_; its interminable pastures, the future home of flocks and
herds innumerable; _its mineral wealth, already known to be so
great as to promise that it may yet rival those treasures which
fiction loves to describe_—enough for any nation, I say, would it
be to enjoy those honors and those advantages; but others not less
advantageous, but perhaps more honorable, await the people of the
state of which we are the founders.”
“To these,” continued the governor, addressing that engaging instalment of
British civilization which the imperial government had sent forth from the
shores of their country to take possession, in its name, of this new land,
and develop its abundant resources, “will belong the surpassing honor of
having introduced permanently the Christian religion and European
civilization into the southern hemisphere. At no distant date it will be
theirs to plant the standard of the cross and the ensign of their country
in the centre of numerous populous nations to whom both these have
hitherto been but little known. Such are the objects which will arouse the
enterprise and stimulate the energies of the people of this young
country—enterprise and energy, directed not toward conquest or rapine,
chiefly because Australia, rich beyond measure in her own possessions,
cannot desire those of others, but towards the extension of commerce, the
spread of the English language, the promotion of the arts and sciences,
and the extension of the true faith. Such are the circumstances and
conditions which lead to the conviction that this state, of which to‐day
we lay the foundation, will, ere many generations have passed away, become
the centre of the southern hemisphere—the brightest gem of the Southern
Ocean” (_Flanagan_, vol. i. pp. 32, 33).
Were these, then, whom Capt. Phillip addressed the men to introduce the
Christian religion and European civilization in a newly‐discovered
continent? Were a detachment of jail‐birds and their keepers to “develop
commerce, spread the English language, promote the arts and sciences, and
extend the true faith?” Were such as these the missionaries to plant the
standard of the cross, or even that of their own country, amidst
populations alien to both alike? Did the English government seriously
propose to make a missionary college out of a reformatory, if such it
could be called? Were the Barabbases of England to be the pioneers of
civilization, the Artful Dodgers of the metropolis the heralds of the
Christian faith?
The truth is that the only object directly provided for by the government
to which England was indebted for this “magnanimous” deed of colonization
was the establishment of a secure and distant depot for the worst
criminals of the country.
The noble object to which the exhaustless resources of the continent they
had just taken possession of were to be devoted was left to the chapter of
accidents. A picture of the future greatness of the equivocal colony was,
it is true, dashed off, in glowing colors, by Commodore Phillip, but no
provision of any kind was made for its realization.
There was nothing whatever to hinder the attainment of both these objects,
or at least an attempt to attain them. On the contrary, never was a fairer
opportunity for an experiment of the kind offered to a people. Before them
lay the wide, almost limitless landscape in all its exuberant beauty and
unexhausted fertility. There it lay, as a kind of treasure‐trove, at their
feet, with no one to dispute its possession. Their first object ought
assuredly to have been to bring a large portion of the soil under
cultivation; agriculture being that on which more than on anything else
the prosperity of a country, and especially of a young country, depends.
Not one shilling did these original and eccentric colonists invest in the
soil of that vast island continent, every acre of which was theirs, with
all its latent wealth, whether that wealth consisted in its as yet untried
productive powers, or in the hoard of precious metals which might be
locked up in its secret depths.
The home government thus had it in their power to offer to a superior
class of yeomen inducements of the most persuasive kind to try their
fortunes in the new colony. Sufficient area being left for the development
of a splendid capital, they should have been planted in middling‐sized
farms as closely around the reserved area as seemed desirable, and
stretching out into the continent in gradually‐encroaching circles. A
small contingent of married men, of good reputation amongst their
neighbors, and of superior capacity and attainments, should have been
encouraged to throw their fortunes into the colony. To these a greater
extent of land should have been granted. These settlers would have formed
the nucleus of a class from which could have been selected men fitted for
holding the most responsible positions. The young colony could very well
dispense with hereditary titles of honor. But it could not so well
dispense with a class such as we refer to, if it was to become a country
to which men of character and position would not hesitate to resort. A
class was wanted other than the emancipists—the very worst that could have
been chosen—to supply persons of standing, acquirements, and, above all,
of reputable experience for the magistracy, and for other national, so to
speak, as well as local, offices of trust and administration. Such a class
of yeomen having been thus provided, the staff of government officials,
the military and naval forces, and the continually increasing influx of
convict laborers, added to the population of those classes themselves,
would have supplied a considerable population, ready to hand, of customers
and consumers. The mercantile and professional classes would soon have
sent their contributions from the overstocked mother‐country, not in
arrear, at all events, of the ordinary course of supply and demand. A
manufacturing class would have developed of itself quite as soon as the
interests of the colony required it. And, lastly and most imperatively of
all, had the mother‐country been Catholic, the interests of religion would
have been the very first consideration. Priests and a nucleus of one or
more religious orders would have been despatched with the expedition.
Churches would have been the first structures raised. Land would have been
set apart for their support, and for the appropriate splendor of Christian
worship. And hospitals, attended by religious of both sexes, would have
been erected, and endowed with sufficient land for their perpetual
support.
Nothing of the sort was so much as attempted. Thirty years after the
memorable inauguration day, a period of time embracing nearly one‐half of
the entire age of the colony, the then governor, Macquarie, we are told by
Mr. Therry, “_considered the colony was selected as a depot for convicts;
that the land properly belonged to them, as they emerged from their
condition of servitude; and that emigrants were intruders on the soil._”
Ten years afterwards, little more than seventy years ago, the state of
“the brightest gem of the Southern Ocean,” in spite of the encouragement
given to emigration by Macquarie’s successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, during
the three years of his administration, is thus described by the very
competent authority just quoted: “_The majority of the community he_ (Sir
Thomas Brisbane) _ruled over were of the convict class, who were not
respectable nor right‐minded. It consisted of very inflammable materials,
composing two‐thirds of the whole community, which it required the
exercise of a stern authority to repress._”
Natural advantages have triumphed over the obstacles offered by human
folly. The present condition of the Australian colonies more than realizes
the glowing expectations of the head‐jailer of the first convict gang that
landed on their shores. Indeed, if those utterances of Commander Phillip
were to be judged by the results, we might be tempted to ascribe them to
the inspiration of even prophetical sagacity. One merit, at all events,
may be accorded to the enthusiastic sailor. He did not overestimate the
boundless resources and advantageous position of the noble country of
which he and his prisoners were assuming the proprietorship “on behalf of
the British people,” utterly incapable as they were of taking advantage of
them.
To Be Concluded Next Month.
A Summer In Rome.
By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”
Of course all our friends exclaimed, when we intimated the possibility of
our remaining in Rome for the summer:
We would suffocate with heat.
We would be poisoned with malaria.
We would have chills, and consequently fevers.
The fruit would make us sick, the wine would turn sour while we were
pouring it out, and we would be kept awake all night by people in the
street.
We would have no one to speak to, for everybody would be gone out of town.
Besides, and above all, it was not the proper thing to do.
I do not believe that either of us was serious in first making the
proposal, unless Bianca cherished such a wish under her pensive silence;
but so much opposition led us to look at the project, and we did not find
it so bad as might have been expected. Besides, no one with a particle of
spirit likes to be scouted and talked down; and all of us had spirit
enough to feel a little vexed at the storm of opposition we had brought
about our ears—all except Mr. Varney. He was too indolent to resent
anything.
“I do not believe that there is the least necessity for having a fever in
Rome,” said Isabel. (It was nearly always Isabel who spoke.) “One has but
to select a cool apartment and use a little prudence. If we were to do as
I have seen people do here—go from the oven to the refrigerator—we should
know what to expect. To walk in a sunny street till you are in a
perspiration, then sit on a shady stone to cool off, is not only inviting
a fever, but sending a _gendarme_ to fetch it. As for heat, New York is
ten times hotter; and I once passed a whole summer in New York, and was
quite comfortable; wasn’t I, papa? Then, how any one can say that we shall
have no one to speak to I cannot imagine. Here are four of us; and I take
perfect delight in talking to myself. The most interesting conversations I
ever had in my life were with Miss Isabel Varney.”
“Besides,” said a clear voice from the window, “what we came to Rome to
see doesn’t go away in the summer.”
We all looked at Bianca, who had turned her head toward us to speak, and
was gazing out the window again, the lace curtain wrapped about her like a
bridal veil, and the _persienne_ half closed to shield her from the many
eyes in the piazza.
“May I ask what you came to see?” inquired a visitor, who always tried to
make this silent one talk.
She only half turned to answer.
“The Holy Father; the shrines and homes of the saints; all the holy, and
all the beautiful, and all the famous places here; and the skies that are
above them. And, again, the Holy Father. He is the Christian Prometheus,
bound to the Vatican as to a rock, and we are a little chorus of American
Oceanides who are come to bewail him, and who have no mind to go away for
pleasure.”
“Brava!” said papa.
“And as for the ‘proper thing,’ ” said another member of the family, “we
have bored ourselves to death all winter trying to do that.”
“Besides,” struck in Isabel, with a bright thought, “we want to learn the
language; and that we never could do going about from place to place. Here
we can sit down quietly, and study the four or five hundred irregular
verbs at our leisure, and settle the genders of things, and learn to
pronounce properly all their undulating and circuitous strings of vowels
and the little curly tails to their ridiculous words.”
“Don’t include me in your class, if you please,” Mr. Varney said. “I would
as soon shave off my hair and wear a wig as drop my own language and speak
another. I shall speak English when I say anything; and if people do not
understand me, it will not be my fault. We can always find interpreters;
and I do not approve of—of—er—of deserting your own tongue for another,”
he concluded rather weakly, not having measured his strength before
commencing this speech.
The truth was that he never did approve of anything which cost him the
least effort; but we listened as gravely as if we believed him to be
actuated by the most heroic patriotism.
“You are quite right, papa,” Isabel said emphatically. “Still, since
interpreters may not always be honest, you know, it is better that some of
us should understand and be able to protect the family.”
“You will not find the verbs so difficult as you may imagine,” remarked an
Italian. “The irregularities are chiefly in the preterite. Preterites are
always ragged. They are never a part of the original language, I think,
but were interpolated when it was discovered that a nicer expression of
thought was needed; and then the grammarians had to accommodate themselves
to circumstances, and use what was left. You will take pleasure in
learning so musical a language, Miss Isabel.”
“Oh! I think English quite as musical as Italian,” replied the young woman
with composure.
“When you speak it, _signorina_,” said the Italian, after a momentary
pause of astonishment.
“I find the phrases and words I learned in music very useful,” she
continued. “The other day I said ‘_allegro, ma non troppo_,’ to the
coachman, and he drove perfectly. That is on millions of pieces of music,
you know, papa. It quite pleased me to talk to a coachman as if he were a
fugue. And when I said ‘_andante_,’ he actually put down the brake.”
“But you know we were going down‐hill then, Bella,” remarked her sister.
“I can make the servants understand perfectly well,” continued Isabel.
“But in churches and galleries, and catacombs, and such places, the people
are very stupid.”
This is the way in which Miss Isabel Varney made the servants understand
perfectly:
“Angelina,” she would say to the _donna_, in English, “I want you to black
my thick walking‐boots. The dust has made them look dingy. But first bring
me another pitcher of water. It is strange that in a city that would be a
lake if all its aqueducts were to burst at once one cannot get more than a
quart of water at a time. Make haste, now, for I wish to go out
immediately.”
Angelina stood immovable, a picture of distressful doubt. The time had
gone past when she would have ventured to remind her mistress that English
had not been included in her education.
“Oh! to be sure,” says Isabel. “What a bother it is when one is in a
hurry! What is the Italian for water, Bianca? _Acqua?_ Well, Angelina,
bring me some _acqua_.”
The _donna_ began to lift her apron toward her eyes.
“_Apportez moi_ some _acqua!_” said her mistress distinctly and
authoritatively.
The _donna_ shrank back. “Signorina mia,” she began pitifully.
“Don’t talk!” cried the young lady. “What is the use of your talking to me
when I cannot understand a word you say? It is too absurd. Besides, it is
the servant’s place to obey without speaking. Bianca, do look in the
dictionary for the Italian for wish or will, the strongest word you can
get; then in the grammar for the first person, singular, indicative of
it—or, no, the imperative. And be quick, or I never shall get out.
_Voglio?_ Angelina, I _voglio_ a pitcher of _acqua_—what is the word for
quickly? _Vitement?_ No. That isn’t Italian. It must be _vita_. That is an
Italian word, I know, and it sounds as if it meant quickly. Angelina, I
_voglio acqua vita_.”
“_Si, si, signorina!_” exclaimed the poor little _donna_, and ran off,
glad to get out of the room.
“And, after all, she hasn’t taken the pitcher,” said Isabel. “But may be
she will bring a pailful. She knew quite well that I was finding fault
because we have so little. They understand what we say, I’m sure they do.
Their ignorance is all a pretence.”
Five minutes passed, and ten minutes; and when the young lady had
exhausted herself in impatient exclamations, Angelina entered the chamber,
all out of breath, but smiling in confident triumph, and placed in her
hand a bottle on which was an apothecary’s label with _acquavite_ neatly
inscribed on it.
There was a _bersagliere_ passing the house at that moment; and I have
always thought I would like to know if he ever suspected that the hand of
a _papalina_ flung that bottle which alighted safely on the great tuft of
flying feathers in his hat. I am sure that if the bottle had contained
anything but _acquavite_, the military would have been called out.
This feat accomplished, Miss Isabel seized the empty water‐pitcher, and
thrust it into the hands of the frightened girl with one word, “_Acqua!_”
uttered in a tone which proved her to have tragical abilities.
Angelina returned in a trice with the water, and found her mistress
standing in the middle of the room, with a stern countenance, and a
dictionary in her hand.
“Now, _nero_ my _guadagno_.”
The girl lifted her eyes to the ceiling.
“_Profitto_, I mean,” was the hasty correction.
Tears rolled down Angelina’s cheeks.
“It couldn’t be that boot is _stivale!_” said the young woman in a low
tone to a third person in the room. “That sounds as if it meant something
three‐cornered.”
“You might try,” was the suggestion.
“_Stivale?_” demanded the young woman of the _donna_.
“_Si, signorina_,” said the girl eagerly, glancing at the articles in
question.
“Well, _nero_ my _stivale_,” ordered the mistress haughtily.
“_O Dio mio!_” sobbed Angelina.
Isabel lost all patience and dignity. She flew at the boots and caught
them in one hand, flew at the toilet‐table and snatched her tooth‐brush in
the other, then, rushing at the terrified _donna_, performed before her
face a furious pantomime of polishing her boots with the tooth‐brush.
“_Capisco!_” cried Angelina joyfully.
“It is worse than Robinson Crusoe with his man Friday,” sighed Isabel,
sinking, exhausted, into a chair. “These scenes are positively ruining my
disposition. You know, Bianca, I used to have a very good temper, and the
servants at home were always fond of me. But here I am becoming a scold
and a fury. We must get settled in another apartment, and have a teacher
right away.”
A cool summer apartment was found near the Esquiline, a teacher engaged,
and our parting friends went their several ways, taking doleful leave of
us.
And here it may not be amiss to make the reader better acquainted with the
family who desire the pleasure of his acquaintance and company for a time.
Mr. Varney, the son of a Boston merchant, had, when he was young and
venturesome, made a voyage to Spain in one of his father’s ships. The ship
came back without him; but, after six months’ absence, he returned,
bringing with him a young Spanish wife, whom he had wooed and won during
that brief visit. She lived only ten years, pining ever for the sunny land
of her birth, and dropped away finally before they had begun to fear that
she was dying, leaving two daughters, Bianca and Isabel.
Her death quite uprooted her husband from his accustomed life, and gave
him a shock from which he never recovered. He had always promised, and had
meant, to take her back to Spain; but, between the calls of business and a
habit of procrastination, had put off the visit from year to year till it
was too late. Then the New England which had killed her became distasteful
to him, and, after lingering a few years to settle up his business, he
went abroad for an indefinite time, taking his daughters with him. He
seemed to fancy that by this tardy journey he was proving to his wife his
regret and the sincerity of his promises.
They avoided Spain, however, unwilling to hasten at once to that land
which she had longed in vain to see. There was even an idea of self‐exile
and punishment in going so near without touching its beautiful shores.
They visited England and France, then came directly to Rome.
“I do not believe that we shall ever go away from Italy for any length of
time,” Bianca said. “It is the true land of the lotos, and we have eaten
of the charmed plant.”
“Would you like to live here always?” her father asked, looking earnestly
at her.
There was a certain pensive melancholy in her face and attitude which
constantly drew his anxious regards.
“Yes!” she answered slowly.
“I think Bianca is changed from what she used to be,” he said afterward to
one of the family. “It seems to me that I remember her gay and bright,
like Isabel; but she has grown quiet and gentle, little by little, and so
gradually that I do not know when the change began.”
The person whom he addressed tried to give him the comfort and reassurance
which his anxiety evidently pleaded for. She pointed out that one had but
to look at the two girls to see at once the difference in their
temperaments; that Isabel’s shorter and more compact form proved a
stronger and more aggressive vitality than her sister’s willowy
slenderness was capable of; that the very shape of their faces—a delicate
oval in the one and a full oval in the other—was another proof of
difference; and that, moreover, Bianca, being the elder, had been of an
age to be impressed by her mother’s death, while Isabel was still too
young.
“And I find yet another reason,” the comforter continued, turning mentor.
“Your frequently‐expressed regret for your wife, and the habit you have of
referring to her love for Spain and her home‐sickness, cannot fail to
sadden so sensitive a heart as Bianca’s, while Isabel thinks that it is
merely a ‘way you have got into,’ as she would express it.”
It was, perhaps, rather a severe speech; but when a person contracts a
habit of making a mournful luxury of his troubles, and of perpetually
setting up his mourning standard beside the red, white, and blue of those
who at least try to be cheerful, it does no harm to let him know that the
effect is not enlivening.
Well, we were settled in our summer quarters, and had just finished our
first dinner there, when the historian of the party made a prudent
suggestion.
“Since we are beginning a new life with new people, I think that we should
have a clear understanding about everything, so as to save trouble at the
end,” she said.
Her ears were still ringing with the din of battle which had accompanied
their exit from their former home—the loud voice of the _padrona_
demanding payment for broken chairs and tables that had dropped in pieces
the first time they were touched; the vociferous porter, who insisted on
having money because he had snatched Isabel’s reticule from her hand, in
spite of her, and carried it a dozen steps; the small but very shrill boy,
whom they had no recollection of ever having seen before, and who wanted
to be paid for they knew not what; the hysterical _donna_, who expected
that her heart, lacerated because her services had not been re‐engaged,
would be soothed by the gift of a few extra _lire_; and a half‐dozen
beggars crying for “_qualche cosa_.”
And so “it might be as well to have everything arranged at the beginning,”
remarked this prudent person.
“I settled about the furniture before you came in to dinner,” Isabel said.
“I had the whole family up, and before their eyes, with papa as witness, I
shook and leaned on every table and cabinet, and sat down in every chair
as hard as I could. Two chairs dropped, and are taken out for repair,
which will cost us nothing. And I have ordered out all the paper bouquets
with tall glass cases over them, and all the ornamental cups and saucers.
But I think we may as well tell them that if they send begging people up
to us, we will deduct what we give from the rent. Papa says he has made a
careful reckoning, and finds that if we give a _soldo_ to each ragged
beggar in the street, and half a _lira_ to each well‐dressed beggar who
comes up, we shall be ourselves reduced to beggary in six months.”
Bianca turned round on the piano‐stool, her face full of expostulation.
“Oh! but those dear Capuchins!” she exclaimed.
“It isn’t likely that I meant to refuse a Capuchin,” answered Isabel
indignantly. “They are an exception; and so are all religious. No one can
say that religion costs them much in Italy. I am ashamed to give so little
and receive so much.”
“Having an understanding at the beginning will make no sort of difference
at the end,” Mr. Varney said. “Every stranger here expects to have a fight
with the family he is leaving. It is a part of the play which cannot be
left out by particular request, like the Prince of Denmark out of
_Hamlet_. Let us put off explanations till they are forced on us. I would
like, though, to say a word or two to Giuseppe about the table.”
Giuseppe was a new servant, whom we considered ourselves very fortunate in
engaging, as he not only spoke English, but had lived in England several
months, and might therefore be supposed to know something of Anglo‐Saxon
ways. He came in immediately.
“There are two or three directions which I wish to give once for all,
Giuseppe,” Mr. Varney said in his slow, languid way. “I hope you will
remember them, for I do not like to repeat orders.”
“Yes, sir!” said Giuseppe, with a stiffness of bow and attitude oddly in
contrast with his sparkling Italian face.
“In the first place,” resumed his master, “when I say that I want
breakfast, or dinner, or the carriage at a certain hour, I mean that time
precisely, and not an hour or a half‐hour later, nor even five minutes
later.”
A second bow and “Yes, sir!” worthy of May Fair.
Mr. Varney went on argumentatively, bringing his fingers into play:
“Secondly, I want my wine brought in with the seals unbroken. If I find a
single bottle of the wine I have put up opened, I will”—he paused for a
suitable threat.
“Break the bottle over your head,” struck in Isabel. “Remember, papa, all
the watered wine we have paid for, and don’t be too mild. Remember the
horrible stuff for which we paid three times the market price all last
winter. Don’t be too mild. You may depend upon it, Giuseppe, we shall not
permit of any tampering with wine, or fruit, or candles, or anything. We
have had too much of that.”
“Yes, miss!” says Giuseppe.
“I hate to be called ‘miss,’ ” remarked the young lady. “Call me
_signorina_. Of all titles I think miss the most disagreeable. And Mrs.
and Mr. are not much better. The Italian language has that one advantage,
I will own.”
“Be careful about the fruit you give us,” Mr. Varney went on. “We want
ripe fruit. The figs to‐day were not quite perfect. Figs,” said Mr. Varney
with solemn deliberation—“figs should be just right, or they are good for
nothing. When they are just right, there is nothing better, and you can
give them to us three times a day. They must be ripe, but not too ripe;
fine‐grained, but not salvy; cool, crisp, intensely sweet, and on the
point of bursting open, but not quite broken.”
Giuseppe forgot his English training long enough to inquire, “Hadn’t you
better speak to the trees about it, sir?”
“That will do,” Mr. Varney concluded with dignity. “I have no more to say
now. You can go.”
The setting sun, shining on the new walls opposite, was reflected into our
drawing‐room, lighting it beautifully, touching Mr. Varney’s gray hair and
pleasant face, as he sat in a huge, yellow arm‐chair by the window and
diving into Isabel’s bright eyes, as she leaned on his shoulder, and
looked over with him the _Diario Romano_, trying to make out the holy‐
days.
“Here is the anniversary of the coronation of Pius IX.,” she said. “I
wonder if we shall be arrested if we wear yellow roses in our hats,
Bianca?”
Mr. Varney pored awhile over the book in his hand, and presently asked,
with a general inquiring glance about the room, “Does anybody know what
time of day or night twenty‐three o’clock is? Here is a function announced
to begin at twenty‐three o’clock. Do people go to church at that hour? I
should think it would be very late at night.”
“It might be some time the next day,” suggested a member of the family.
The gentleman arranged his glasses, and looked puzzled. “Then, when a
function is announced for twenty‐three o’clock on Wednesday, it takes
place at some hour on Thursday,” he said.
No one ventured either to acquiesce or to dissent, and it was concluded to
put this difficulty on the list of questions we were making out for our
Italian teacher to answer the next morning.
“He will be such a convenience to us!” Isabel said. “People assure me that
he knows everything, and is never at loss for an answer.”
Mr. Varney took a pinch of snuff. He had always shown an inclination
toward that indulgence, but had not dared to yield to it in America. Now,
however, with such eminent examples constantly before his eyes, he could
carry his snuff‐box, not only with impunity, but with a kind of pride.
“Have you reflected, my daughter,” he asked, “that your Italian teacher
knows not a word of English, and that, since you cannot very well fly at
him, as you could at Angelina, and extract his meaning at the sword’s
point, his explanations, however excellent they may be, are not likely to
profit you much for some time to come?”
“Oh! we will make out some way,” she replied carelessly. “One can always
understand a clever person. Besides, if worse comes to worse, I don’t know
why I shouldn’t fly at him, if necessary. He will be paid for his time;
and one can always scold a person whom one pays.”
The last sun‐ray faded away, and the golden globe of the new moon shone
out over Santa Maria Maggiore, shining so low and full in the transparent
sky that one almost feared it might strike the tower or domes of that
dearest of churches in passing, and break itself like a bubble.
We were silent a little while, then Mr. Varney said, “Sing us that song
you are humming, my darling.”
When he said “my darling,” he always meant Bianca.
She made a motion to put away the music‐sheet before her, and take
another, but replaced it; and presently we heard her low voice, which half
sang, half spoke, the words:
“Friend, the way is steep and lonely,
Thickly grows the rue;
All around are shadows only:
May I walk with you?
“Not too near; for, oh! your going
Is upon the heights,
Where the airs of heaven are blowing
Through the morning lights.
“Dare I brush the dews that glisten
All about your feet?
Can I listen where you listen?
Meet the sights you meet?
“Not too far—I faint at missing
You from out my way.
Vain is then the glory kissing
All the peaks of day;
“Vain are all the laughing showers
Leading in the spring;
All the summer green and flowers,
All the birds that sing.
“At your side my way is clearest:
Tell me I may stay!
Not too near—and yet, my dearest,
Not too far away!”
“What does it mean?” asked Mr. Varney. “It seems to me very obscure.”
“Oh! a song isn’t expected to mean anything but melody,” somebody answered
rather hastily. “All that is required of the lines is that they should be
of the proper length. Sing the other, Bianca—the one I looked over to‐
day.”
The speaker knew that nothing suited Mr. Varney so well as a genuine love‐
song.