WINIFRED: You could take notes!
LADY OLDLACE: It seems a device for missing the quintessential.
SWITHIN: Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can allow
that our friend performed good menial service.
WINIFRED: I could not have done the thing.
SWITHIN: In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage.
LADY OLDLACE: One hardly felt one breathed.
VIRGINIA: I confess it moved me to tears.
SWITHIN: There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such
subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us.
WINIFRED: Surely there were passages of a distinct and most exquisite
pathos.
LADY OLDLACE: As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos.
VIRGINIA: In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it
by the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My
tears were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument.
SWITHIN: I must make confession. He played on me too.
OSIER: We shall be sensible for long of that vibration from the touch of
a master hand.
ARDEN: An accomplished player can make a toy-shop fiddle sound you a
Stradivarius.
DAME DRESDEN: Have you a right to a remark, Mr. Arden? What could have
detained you?
ARDEN: Ah, Dame. It may have been a warning that I am a discordant
instrument. I do not readily vibrate.
DAME DRESDEN: A discordant instrument is out of place in any civil
society. You have lost what cannot be recovered.
ARDEN: There are the notes.
OSIER: Yes, the notes.
SWITHIN: You can be satisfied with the dog’s feast at the table, Mr.
Arden!
OSIER: Ha!
VIRGINIA: Never have I seen Astraea look sublimer in her beauty than
with her eyes uplifted to the impassioned speaker, reflecting every
variation of his tones.
ARDEN: Astraea!
LADY OLDLACE: She was entranced when he spoke of woman descending from
her ideal to the gross reality of man.
OSIER: Yes, yes. I have the words [reads]: ‘Woman is to the front of
man, holding the vestal flower of a purer civilization. I see,’ he says,
‘the little taper in her hands transparent round the light, against
rough winds.’
DAME DRESDEN: And of Astraea herself, what were the words? ‘Nature’s
dedicated widow.’
SWITHIN: Vestal widow, was it not?
VIRGINIA: Maiden widow, I think.
DAME DRESDEN: We decide for ‘dedicated.’
WINIFRED: Spiral paid his most happy tribute to the memory of her late
husband, the renowned Professor Towers.
VIRGINIA: But his look was at dear Astraea.
ARDEN: At Astraea? Why?
VIRGINIA: For her sanction doubtless.
ARDEN: Ha!
WINIFRED: He said his pride would ever be in his being received as the
successor of Professor Towers.
ARDEN: Successor!
SWITHIN: Guardian was it not?
OSIER: Tutor. I think he said.
(The three gentlemen consult Osier’s notes uneasily.)
DAME DRESDEN: Our professor must by this time have received in full
Astraea’s congratulations, and Lyra is hearing from her what it is to
be too late. You will join us at the luncheon table, if you do not feel
yourself a discordant instrument there, Mr. Arden?
ARDEN (going to her): The allusion to knife and fork tunes my strings
instantly, Dame.
DAME DRESDEN: You must help me to-day, for the professor will be tired,
though we dare not hint at it in his presence. No reference, ladies, to
the great speech we have been privileged to hear; we have expressed our
appreciation and he could hardly bear it.
ARDEN: Nothing is more distasteful to the orator!
VIRGINIA: As with every true genius, he is driven to feel humbly human
by the exultation of him.
SWITHIN: He breathes in a rarified air.
OSIER: I was thrilled, I caught at passing beauties. I see that here and
there I have jotted down incoherencies, lines have seduced me, so that
I missed the sequence--the precious part. Ladies, permit me to rank him
with Plato as to the equality of women and men.
WINIFRED: It is nobly said.
OSIER: And with the Stoics, in regard to celibacy.
(By this time all the ladies have gone into the house.)
ARDEN: Successor! Was the word successor?
(ARDEN, SWITHIN, and OSIER are excitedly searching the notes
when SPIRAL passes and strolls into the house. His air of
self-satisfaction increases their uneasiness they follow him.
ASTRAEA and LYRA come down the path.)
SCENE V
ASTRAEA, LYRA
LYRA: Oh! Pluriel, ask me of him! I wish I were less sure he would not
be at the next corner I turn.
ASTRAEA: You speak of your husband strangely, Lyra.
LYRA: My head is out of a sack. I managed my escape from him this
morning by renouncing bath and breakfast; and what a relief, to be in
the railway carriage alone! that is, when the engine snorted. And if
I set eyes on him within a week, he will hear some truths. His idea of
marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody. My hat is on, and on
goes Pluriel’s. My foot on the stairs; I hear his boot behind me. In
my boudoir I am alone one minute, and then the door opens to the
inevitable. I pay a visit, he is passing the house as I leave it. He
will not even affect surprise. I belong to him, I am cat’s mouse. And
he will look doating on me in public. And when I speak to anybody, he is
that fearful picture of all smirks. Fling off a kid glove after a round
of calls; feel your hand--there you have me now that I am out of him for
my half a day, if for as long.
ASTRAEA: This is one of the world’s happy marriages!
LYRA: This is one of the world’s choice dishes! And I have it planted
under my nostrils eternally. Spare me the mention of Pluriel until he
appears; that’s too certain this very day. Oh! good husband! good
kind of man! whatever you please; only some peace, I do pray, for the
husband-haunted wife. I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to
breathe. Why, an English boy perpetually bowled by a Christmas pudding
would come to loathe the mess.
ASTRAEA: His is surely the excess of a merit.
LYRA: Excess is a poison. Excess of a merit is a capital offence in
morality. It disgusts, us with virtue. And you are the cunningest of
fencers, tongue, or foils. You lead me to talk of myself, and I hate the
subject. By the way, you have practised with Mr. Arden.
ASTRAEA: A tiresome instructor, who lets you pass his guard to
compliment you on a hit.
LYRA: He rather wins me.
ASTRAEA: He does at first.
LYRA: Begins Plurielizing, without the law to back him, does he?
ASTRAEA: The fencing lessons are at an end.
LYRA: The duetts with Mr. Swithin’s violoncello continue?
ASTRAEA: He broke through the melody.
LYRA: There were readings in poetry with Mr. Osier, I recollect.
ASTRAEA: His own compositions became obtrusive.
LYRA: No fencing, no music, no poetry! no West Coast of Africa either, I
suppose.
ASTRAEA: Very well! I am on my defence. You at least shall not
misunderstand me, Lyra. One intense regret I have; that I did not
live in the time of the Amazons. They were free from this question of
marriage; this babble of love. Why am I so persecuted? He will not
take a refusal. There are sacred reasons. I am supported by every woman
having the sense of her dignity. I am perverted, burlesqued by the fury
of wrath I feel at their incessant pursuit. And I despise Mr. Osier and
Mr. Swithin because they have an air of pious agreement with the Dame,
and are conspirators behind their mask.
LYRA: False, false men!
ASTRAEA: They come to me. I am complimented on being the vulnerable
spot.
LYRA: The object desired is usually addressed by suitors, my poor
Astraea!
ASTRAEA: With the assumption, that as I am feminine I must necessarily
be in the folds of the horrible constrictor they call Love, and that I
leap to the thoughts of their debasing marriage.
LYRA: One of them goes to Mr. Homeware.
ASTRAEA: All are sent to him in turn. He can dispose of them.
LYRA: Now that is really masterly fun, my dear; most creditable to you!
Love, marriage, a troop of suitors, and uncle Homeware. No, it would
not have occurred to me, and--I am considered to have some humour.
Of course, he disposes of them. He seemed to have a fairly favourable
opinion of Mr. Arden.
ASTRAEA: I do not share it. He is the least respectful of the sentiments
entertained by me. Pray, spare me the mention of him, as you say of your
husband. He has that pitiful conceit in men, which sets them thinking
that a woman must needs be susceptible to the declaration of the mere
existence of their passion. He is past argument. Impossible for him
to conceive a woman’s having a mind above the conditions of her sex. A
woman, according to him, can have no ideal of life, except as a ball to
toss in the air and catch in a cup. Put him aside.... We creatures are
doomed to marriage, and if we shun it, we are a kind of cripple. He
is grossly earthy in his view of us. We are unable to move a step
in thought or act unless we submit to have a husband. That is his
reasoning. Nature! Nature! I have to hear of Nature! We must be above
Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below. He is ranked among
our clever young men; and he can be amusing. So far he passes muster;
and he has a pleasant voice. I dare say he is an uncle Homeware’s good
sort of boy. Girls like him. Why does he not fix his attention upon one
of them; Why upon me? We waste our time in talking of him.... The secret
of it is, that he has no reverence. The marriage he vaunts is a mere
convenient arrangement for two to live together under command of nature.
Reverence for the state of marriage is unknown to him. How explain my
feeling? I am driven into silence. Cease to speak of him.... He is the
dupe of his eloquence--his passion, he calls it. I have only to trust
myself to him, and--I shall be one of the world’s married women! Words
are useless. How am I to make him see that it is I who respect the state
of marriage by refusing; not he by perpetually soliciting. Once married,
married for ever. Widow is but a term. When women hold their own against
him, as I have done, they will be more esteemed. I have resisted and
conquered. I am sorry I do not share in the opinion of your favourite.
LYRA: Mine?
ASTRAEA: You spoke warmly of him.
LYRA: Warmly, was it?
ASTRAEA: You are not blamed, my dear: he has a winning manner.
LYRA: I take him to be a manly young fellow, smart enough; handsome too.
ASTRAEA: Oh, he has good looks.
LYRA: And a head, by repute.
ASTRAEA: For the world’s work, yes.
LYRA: Not romantic.
ASTRAEA: Romantic ideas are for dreamy simperers.
LYRA: Amazons repudiate them.
ASTRAEA: Laugh at me. Half my time I am laughing at myself. I should
regain my pride if I could be resolved on a step. I am strong to resist;
I have not strength to move.
LYRA: I see the sphinx of Egypt!
ASTRAEA: And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet
old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped
interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies:
the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things.
To them it is restful. It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and
beds and houses. I sleep hardly a couple of hours. Then into the early
morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure.
LYRA: Hospital work for a variation: civil or military. The former
involves the house-surgeon: the latter the grateful lieutenant.
ASTRAEA: Not if a woman can resist... I go to it proof-armoured.
LYRA: What does the Dame say?
ASTRAEA: Sighs over me! Just a little maddening to hear.
LYRA: When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to
sit and smile! You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden
oaths with her--‘Carnation! Dame!’ That used to make her dance on her
seat.--‘But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have
that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!’ We ran
through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations. I do believe our
misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the
right corrective. And you were the worst offender.
ASTRAEA: Was I? I could be now, though I am so changed a creature.
LYRA: You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come!
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here. He does
homage to my principles. I have never been troubled by him: no silly
hints or side-looks--you know, the dog at the forbidden bone.
LYRA: A grand orator.
ASTRAEA: He is. You fix on the smallest of his gifts. He is
intellectually and morally superior.
LYRA: Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his
inferiors. He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense. I coughed and
scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more.
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women
their due.
LYRA: And he is a bachelor too--or consequently.
ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our
maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you
here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you
beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request
from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character.
Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly
romp, and perform pirouettes and cry ‘Carnation!’ There is the bell. We
must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals.
LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor.
ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra.
LYRA: No Pluriel yet!
(They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same
day. The scene is still the garden.)
SCENE VI
ASTRAEA, ARDEN
ASTRAEA: Pardon me if I do not hear you well.
ARDEN: I will not even think you barbarous.
ASTRAEA: I am. I am the object of the chase.
ARDEN: The huntsman draws the wood, then, and not you.
ASTRAEA: At any instant I am forced to run,
Or turn in my defence: how can I be
Other than barbarous? You are the cause.
ARDEN: No: heaven that made you beautiful’s the cause.
ASTRAEA: Say, earth, that gave you instincts. Bring me down
To instincts! When by chance I speak awhile
With our professor, you appear in haste,
Full cry to sight again the missing hare.
Away ideas! All that’s divinest flies!
I have to bear in mind how young you are.
ARDEN: You have only to look up to me four years,
Instead of forty!
ASTRAEA: Sir?
ARDEN There’s my misfortune!
And worse that, young, I love as a young man.
Could I but quench the fire, I might conceal
The youthfulness offending you so much.
ASTRAEA: I wish you would. I wish it earnestly.
ARDEN: Impossible. I burn.
ASTRAEA: You should not burn.
ARDEN ‘Tis more than I. ‘Tis fire. It masters will.
You would not say I should not’ if you knew fire.
It seizes. It devours.
ASTRAEA: Dry wood.
ARDEN: Cold wit!
How cold you can be! But be cold, for sweet
You must be. And your eyes are mine: with them
I see myself: unworthy to usurp
The place I hold a moment. While I look
I have my happiness.
ASTRAEA: You should look higher.
ARDEN: Through you to the highest. Only through you!
Through you
The mark I may attain is visible,
And I have strength to dream of winning it.
You are the bow that speeds the arrow: you
The glass that brings the distance nigh. My world
Is luminous through you, pure heavenly,
But hangs upon the rose’s outer leaf,
Not next her heart. Astraea! my own beloved!
ASTRAEA: We may be excellent friends. And I have faults.
ARDEN: Name them: I am hungering for more to love.
ASTRAEA: I waver very constantly: I have
No fixity of feeling or of sight.
I have no courage: I can often dream
Of daring: when I wake I am in dread.
I am inconstant as a butterfly,
And shallow as a brook with little fish!
Strange little fish, that tempt the small boy’s net,
But at a touch straight dive! I am any one’s,
And no one’s! I am vain.
Praise of my beauty lodges in my ears.
The lark reels up with it; the nightingale
Sobs bleeding; the flowers nod; I could believe
A poet, though he praised me to my face.
ARDEN: Never had poet so divine a fount
To drink of!
ASTRAEA: Have I given you more to love
ARDEN: More! You have given me your inner mind,
Where conscience in the robes of Justice shoots
Light so serenely keen that in such light
Fair infants, I newly criminal of earth,’
As your friend Osier says, might show some blot.
Seraphs might! More to love? Oh! these dear faults
Lead you to me like troops of laughing girls
With garlands. All the fear is, that you trifle,
Feigning them.
ASTRAEA: For what purpose?
ARDEN: Can I guess?
ASTRAEA:
I think ‘tis you who have the trifler’s note.
My hearing is acute, and when you speak,
Two voices ring, though you speak fervidly.
Your Osier quotation jars. Beware!
Why were you absent from our meeting-place
This morning?
ARDEN: I was on the way, and met
Your uncle Homeware
ASTRAEA: Ah!
ARDEN: He loves you.
ASTRAEA: He loves me: he has never understood.
He loves me as a creature of the flock;
A little whiter than some others.
Yes; He loves me, as men love; not to uplift;
Not to have faith in; not to spiritualize.
For him I am a woman and a widow
One of the flock, unmarked save by a brand.
He said it!--You confess it! You have learnt
To share his error, erring fatally.
ARDEN: By whose advice went I to him?
ASTRAEA: By whose?
Pursuit that seemed incessant: persecution.
Besides, I have changed since then: I change; I change;
It is too true I change. I could esteem
You better did you change. And had you heard
The noble words this morning from the mouth
Of our professor, changed were you, or raised
Above love-thoughts, love-talk, and flame and flutter,
High as eternal snows. What said he else,
My uncle Homeware?
ARDEN: That you were not free:
And that he counselled us to use our wits.
ASTRAEA: But I am free I free to be ever free!
My freedom keeps me free! He counselled us?
I am not one in a conspiracy.
I scheme no discord with my present life.
Who does, I cannot look on as my friend.
Not free? You know me little. Were I chained,
For liberty I would sell liberty
To him who helped me to an hour’s release.
But having perfect freedom...
ARDEN: No.
ASTRAEA: Good sir,
You check me?
ARDEN: Perfect freedom?
ASTRAEA: Perfect!
ARDEN: No!
ASTRAEA: Am I awake? What blinds me?
ARDEN: Filaments
The slenderest ever woven about a brain
From the brain’s mists, by the little sprite called
Fancy.
A breath would scatter them; but that one breath
Must come of animation. When the heart
Is as, a frozen sea the brain spins webs.
ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular!
I understand.
You translate cleverly. I hear in verse
My uncle Homeware’s prose. He has these notions.
Old men presume to read us.
ARDEN: Young men may.
You gaze on an ideal reflecting you
Need I say beautiful? Yet it reflects
Less beauty than the lady whom I love
Breathes, radiates. Look on yourself in me.
What harm in gazing? You are this flower
You are that spirit. But the spirit fed
With substance of the flower takes all its bloom!
And where in spirits is the bloom of the flower?
ASTRAEA: ‘Tis very singular. You have a tone
Quite changed.
ARDEN: You wished a change. To show you, how
I read you...
ASTRAEA: Oh! no, no. It means dissection.
I never heard of reading character
That did not mean dissection. Spare me that.
I am wilful, violent, capricious, weak,
Wound in a web of my own spinning-wheel,
A star-gazer, a riband in the wind...
ARDEN: A banner in the wind! and me you lead,
And shall! At least, I follow till I win.
ASTRAEA: Forbear, I do beseech you.
ARDEN: I have had
Your hand in mine.
ASTRAEA: Once.
ARDEN: Once!
Once! ‘twas; once, was the heart alive,
Leaping to break the ice. Oh! once, was aye
That laughed at frosty May like spring’s return.
Say you are terrorized: you dare not melt.
You like me; you might love me; but to dare,
Tasks more than courage. Veneration, friends,
Self-worship, which is often self-distrust,
Bar the good way to you, and make a dream
A fortress and a prison.
ASTRAEA: Changed! you have changed
Indeed. When you so boldly seized my hand
It seemed a boyish freak, done boyishly.
I wondered at Professor Spiral’s choice
Of you for an example, and our hope.
Now you grow dangerous. You must have thought,
And some things true you speak-save ‘terrorized.’
It may be flattering to sweet self-love
To deem me terrorized.--‘Tis my own soul,
My heart, my mind, all that I hold most sacred,
Not fear of others, bids me walk aloof.
Who terrorizes me? Who could? Friends? Never!
The world? as little. Terrorized!
ARDEN: Forgive me.
ASTRAEA: I might reply, Respect me. If I loved,
If I could be so faithless as to love,
Think you I would not rather noise abroad
My shame for penitence than let friends dwell
Deluded by an image of one vowed
To superhuman, who the common mock
Of things too human has at heart become.
ARDEN: You would declare your love?
ASTRAEA: I said, my shame.
The woman that’s the widow is ensnared,
Caught in the toils! away with widows!--Oh!
I hear men shouting it.
ARDEN: But shame there’s none
For me in loving: therefore I may take
Your friends to witness? tell them that my pride
Is in the love of you?
ASTRAEA: ‘Twill soon bring
The silence that should be between us two,
And sooner give me peace.
ARDEN: And you consent?
ASTRAEA: For the sake of peace and silence I consent,
You should be warned that you will cruelly
Disturb them. But ‘tis best. You should be warned
Your pleading will be hopeless. But ‘tis best.
You have my full consent. Weigh well your acts,
You cannot rest where you have cast this bolt
Lay that to heart, and you are cherished, prized,
Among them: they are estimable ladies,
Warmest of friends; though you may think they soar
Too loftily for your measure of strict sense
(And as my uncle Homeware’s pupil, sir,
In worldliness, you do), just minds they have:
Once know them, and your banishment will fret.
I would not run such risks. You will offend,
Go near to outrage them; and perturbate
As they have not deserved of you. But I,
Considering I am nothing in the scales
You balance, quite and of necessity
Consent. When you have weighed it, let me hear.
My uncle Homeware steps this way in haste.
We have been talking long, and in full view!
SCENE VII
ASTRAEA, ARDEN, HOMEWARE
HOMEWARE: Astraea, child! You, Arden, stand aside.
Ay, if she were a maid you might speak first,
But being a widow she must find her tongue.
Astraea, they await you. State the fact
As soon as you are questioned, fearlessly.
Open the battle with artillery.
ASTRAEA: What is the matter, uncle Homeware?
HOMEWARE (playing fox): What?
Why, we have watched your nice preliminaries
From the windows half the evening. Now run in.
Their patience has run out, and, as I said,
Unlimber and deliver fire at once.
Your aunts Virginia and Winifred,
With Lady Oldlace, are the senators,
The Dame for Dogs. They wear terrific brows,
But be not you affrighted, my sweet chick,
And tell them uncle Homeware backs your choice,
By lawyer and by priests! by altar, fount,
And testament!
ASTRAEA: My choice! what have I chosen?
HOMEWARE: She asks? You hear her, Arden?--what and whom!
ARDEN: Surely, sir!... heavens! have you...
HOMEWARE: Surely the old fox,
In all I have read, is wiser than the young:
And if there is a game for fox to play,
Old fox plays cunningest.
ASTRAEA: Why fox? Oh! uncle,
You make my heart beat with your mystery;
I never did love riddles. Why sit they
Awaiting me, and looking terrible?
HOMEWARE: It is reported of an ancient folk
Which worshipped idols, that upon a day
Their idol pitched before them on the floor
ASTRAEA: Was ever so ridiculous a tale!
HOMEWARE To call the attendant fires to account
Their elders forthwith sat...
ASTRAEA: Is there no prayer
Will move you, uncle Homeware?
HOMEWARE: God-daughter,
This gentleman for you I have proposed
As husband.
ASTRAEA: Arden! we are lost.
ARDEN: Astraea!
Support him! Though I knew not his design,
It plants me in mid-heaven. Would it were
Not you, but I to bear the shock. My love!
We lost, you cry; you join me with you lost!
The truth leaps from your heart: and let it shine
To light us on our brilliant battle day
And victory
ASTRAEA: Who betrayed me!
HOMEWARE: Who betrayed?
Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork;
Your tenfold worship of your widowhood;
As he who sees he must yield up the flag,
Hugs it oath-swearingly! straw-drowningly.
To be reasonable: you sent this gentleman
Referring him to me....
ASTRAEA: And that is false.
All’s false. You have conspired. I am disgraced.
But you will learn you have judged erroneously.
I am not the frail creature you conceive.
Between your vision of life’s aim, and theirs
Who presently will question me, I cling
To theirs as light: and yours I deem a den
Where souls can have no growth.
HOMEWARE: But when we touched
The point of hand-pressings, ‘twas rightly time
To think of wedding ties?
ASTRAEA: Arden, adieu!
(She rushes into house.)
SCENE VIII
ARDEN, HOMEWARE
ARDEN: Adieu! she said. With her that word is final.
HOMEWARE: Strange! how young people blowing words like clouds
On winds, now fair, now foul, and as they please
Should still attach the Fates to them.
ARDEN: She’s wounded
Wounded to the quick!
HOMEWARE: The quicker our success: for short
Of that, these dames, who feel for everything,
Feel nothing.
ARDEN: Your intention has been kind,
Dear sir, but you have ruined me.
HOMEWARE: Good-night. (Going.)
ARDEN: Yet she said, we are lost, in her surprise.
HOMEWARE: Good morning. (Returning.)
ARDEN: I suppose that I am bound
(If I could see for what I should be glad!)
To thank you, sir.
HOMEWARE: Look hard but give no thanks.
I found my girl descending on the road
Of breakneck coquetry, and barred her way.
Either she leaps the bar, or she must back.
That means she marries you, or says good-bye.
(Going again.)
ARDEN: Now she’s among them. (Looking at window.)
HOMEWARE: Now she sees her mind.
ARDEN: It is my destiny she now decides!
HOMEWARE: There’s now suspense on earth and round the spheres.
ARDEN: She’s mine now: mine! or I am doomed to go.
HOMEWARE: The marriage ring, or the portmanteau now!
ARDEN: Laugh as you like, air! I am not ashamed
To love and own it.
HOMEWARE: So the symptoms show.
Rightly, young man, and proving a good breed.
To further it’s a duty to mankind
And I have lent my push, But recollect:
Old Ilion was not conquered in a day.
(He enters house.)
ARDEN: Ten years! If I may win her at the end!
CURTAIN
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A great oration may be a sedative
A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle
Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall be very much below
As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos
Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself
Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite
Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality
His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody
I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate
I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe
I who respect the state of marriage by refusing
Love and war have been compared--Both require strategy
Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife
Period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant
Pitiful conceit in men
Rejoicing they have in their common agreement
Self-worship, which is often self-distrust
Suspects all young men and most young women
Their idol pitched before them on the floor
Were I chained, For liberty I would sell liberty
Woman descending from her ideal to the gross reality of man
Your devotion craves an enormous exchange
MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY’S “THE FOUR GEORGES”
A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE.
CONCESSION TO THE CELT.
LESLIE STEPHEN.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE
‘MORNING POST’ FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY.
INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY’S “THE FOUR GEORGES”
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born at Calcutta, July 18, 1811, the
only child of Richmond and Anne Thackeray. He received the main part of
his education at the Charterhouse, as we know to our profit. Thence he
passed to Cambridge, remaining there from February 1829 to sometime
in 1830. To judge by quotations and allusions, his favourite of the
classics was Horace, the chosen of the eighteenth century, and generally
the voice of its philosophy in a prosperous country. His voyage from
India gave him sight of Napoleon on the rocky island. In his young
manhood he made his bow reverentially to Goethe of Weimar; which did not
check his hand from setting its mark on the sickliness of Werther.
He was built of an extremely impressionable nature and a commanding
good sense. He was in addition a calm observer, having ‘the harvest of a
quiet eye.’ Of this combination with the flood of subjects brought up
to judgement in his mind, came the prevalent humour, the enforced
disposition to satire, the singular critical drollery, notable in his
works. His parodies, even those pushed to burlesque, are an expression
of criticism and are more effective than the serious method, while they
rarely overstep the line of justness. The Novels by Eminent Hands do not
pervert the originals they exaggerate. ‘Sieyes an abbe, now a ferocious
lifeguardsman,’ stretches the face of the rollicking Irish novelist
without disfeaturing him; and the mysterious visitor to the palatial
mansion in Holywell Street indicates possibilities in the Oriental
imagination of the eminent statesman who stooped to conquer fact
through fiction. Thackeray’s attitude in his great novels is that of the
composedly urbane lecturer, on a level with a select audience, assured
of interesting, above requirements to excite. The slow movement of the
narrative has a grace of style to charm like the dance of the Minuet de
la Cour: it is the limpidity of Addison flavoured with salt of a racy
vernacular; and such is the veri-similitude and the dialogue that they
might seem to be heard from the mouths of living speakers. When in this
way the characters of Vanity Fair had come to growth, their author was
rightly appreciated as one of the creators in our literature, he took at
once the place he will retain. With this great book and with Esmond and
The Newcomes, he gave a name eminent, singular, and beloved to English
fiction.
Charges of cynicism are common against all satirists, Thackeray had to
bear with them. The social world he looked at did not show him heroes,
only here and there a plain good soul to whom he was affectionate in
the unhysterical way of an English father patting a son on the head.
He described his world as an accurate observer saw it, he could not be
dishonest. Not a page of his books reveals malevolence or a sneer at
humanity. He was driven to the satirical task by the scenes about him.
There must be the moralist in the satirist if satire is to strike. The
stroke is weakened and art violated when he comes to the front. But he
will always be pressing forward, and Thackeray restrained him as much as
could be done, in the manner of a good-humoured constable. Thackeray may
have appeared cynical to the devout by keeping him from a station in
the pulpit among congregations of the many convicted sinners. That the
moralist would have occupied it and thundered had he presented us with
the Fourth of the Georges we see when we read of his rejecting the
solicitations of so seductive a personage for the satiric rod.
Himself one of the manliest, the kindliest of human creatures, it was
the love of his art that exposed him to misinterpretation. He did stout
service in his day. If the bad manners he scourged are now lessened to
some degree we pay a debt in remembering that we owe much to him, and if
what appears incurable remains with us, a continued reading of his works
will at least help to combat it.
A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE--1886
Our ‘Eriniad,’ or ballad epic of the enfranchisement of the sister
island is closing its first fytte for the singer, and with such result
as those Englishmen who have some knowledge of their fellows foresaw.
There are sufficient reasons why the Tories should always be able
to keep together, but let them have the credit of cohesiveness and
subordination to control. Though working for their own ends, they won
the esteem of their allies, which will count for them in the struggles
to follow. Their leaders appear to have seen what has not been
distinctly perceptible to the opposite party--that the break up of the
Liberals means the defection of the old Whigs in permanence, heralding
the establishment of a powerful force against Radicalism, with a capital
cry to the country. They have tactical astuteness. If they seem rather
too proud of their victory, it is merely because, as becomes them, they
do not look ahead. To rejoice in the gaining of a day, without having
clear views of the morrow, is puerile enough. Any Tory victory, it may
be said, is little more than a pause in the strife, unless when the
Radical game is played ‘to dish the Whigs,’ and the Tories are now fast
bound down by their incorporation of the latter to abstain from the
violent springs and right-about-facings of the Derby-Disraeli period.
They are so heavily weighted by the new combination that their
Jack-in-the-box, Lord Randolph, will have to stand like an ordinary
sentinel on duty, and take the measurement of his natural size. They
must, on the supposition of their entry into office, even to satisfy
their own constituents, produce a scheme. Their majority in the House
will command it.
To this extent, then, Mr. Gladstone has not been defeated. The question
set on fire by him will never be extinguished until the combustible
matter has gone to ashes. But personally he meets a sharp rebuff. The
Tories may well raise hurrahs over that. Radicals have to admit it,
and point to the grounds of it. Between a man’s enemies and his friends
there comes out a rough painting of his character, not without a
resemblance to the final summary, albeit wanting in the justly delicate
historical touch to particular features. On the one side he is abused as
‘the one-man power’; lauded on the other for his marvellous intuition
of the popular will. One can believe that he scarcely wishes to march
dictatorially, and full surely his Egyptian policy was from step to step
a misreading of the will of the English people. He went forth on this
campaign, with the finger of Egypt not ineffectively levelled against
him a second time. Nevertheless he does read his English; he has, too,
the fatal tendency to the bringing forth of Bills in the manner of
Jove big with Minerva. He perceived the necessity, and the issue of the
necessity; clearly defined what must come, and, with a higher motive
than the vanity with which his enemies charge him, though not with such
high counsel as Wisdom at his ear, fell to work on it alone, produced
the whole Bill alone, and then handed it to his Cabinet to digest, too
much in love with the thing he had laid and incubated to permit of any
serious dismemberment of its frame. Hence the disruption. He worked
for the future, produced a Bill for the future, and is wrecked in the
present. Probably he can work in no other way than from the impulse of
his enthusiasm, solitarily. It is a way of making men overweeningly in
love with their creations. The consequence is likely to be that Ireland
will get her full measure of justice to appease her cravings earlier
than she would have had as much from the United Liberal Cabinet, but at
a cost both to her and to England. Meanwhile we are to have a House of
Commons incapable of conducting public business; the tradesmen to whom
the Times addressed pathetic condolences on the loss of their season
will lose more than one; and we shall be made sensible that we have an
enemy in our midst, until a people, slow to think, have taken counsel of
their native generosity to put trust in the most generous race on earth.
CONCESSION TO THE CELT--1886
Things are quiet outside an ant-hill until the stick has been thrust
into it. Mr. Gladstone’s Bill for helping to the wiser government
of Ireland has brought forth our busy citizens on the top-rubble in
traversing counterswarms, and whatever may be said against a Bill that
deals roughly with many sensitive interests, one asks whether anything
less violently impressive would have roused industrious England to take
this question at last into the mind, as a matter for settlement.
The Liberal leader has driven it home; and wantonly, in the way of a
pedestrian demagogue, some think; certainly to the discomposure of the
comfortable and the myopely busy, who prefer to live on with a disease
in the frame rather than at all be stirred. They can, we see, pronounce
a positive electoral negative; yet even they, after the eighty and odd
years of our domestic perplexity, in the presence of the eighty and
odd members pledged for Home Rule, have been moved to excited inquiries
regarding measures--short of the obnoxious Bill. How much we suffer
from sniffing the vain incense of that word practical, is contempt of
prevision! Many of the measures now being proposed responsively to the
fretful cry for them, as a better alternative to correction by force
of arms, are sound and just. Ten years back, or at a more recent period
before Mr. Parnell’s triumph in the number of his followers, they
would have formed a basis for the appeasement of the troubled land.
The institution of county boards, the abolition of the detested Castle,
something like the establishment of a Royal residence in Dublin, would
have begun the work well. Materially and sentimentally, they were the
right steps to take. They are now proposed too late. They are regarded
as petty concessions, insufficient and vexatious. The lower and the
higher elements in the population are fused by the enthusiasm of men who
find themselves marching in full body on a road, under a flag, at the
heels of a trusted leader; and they will no longer be fed with sops.
Petty concessions are signs of weakness to the unsatisfied; they prick
an appetite, they do not close breaches. If our object is, as we hear
it said, to appease the Irish, we shall have to give them the Parliament
their leader demands. It might once have been much less; it may be
worried into a raving, perhaps a desperate wrestling, for still more.
Nations pay Sibylline prices for want of forethought. Mr. Parnell’s
terms are embodied in Mr. Gladstone’s Bill, to which he and his band
have subscribed. The one point for him is the statutory Parliament, so
that Ireland may civilly govern herself; and standing before the world
as representative of his country, he addresses an applausive audience
when he cites the total failure of England to do that business of
government, as at least a logical reason for the claim. England has
confessedly failed; the world says it, the country admits it. We
have failed, and not because the so-called Saxon is incapable of
understanding the Celt, but owing to our system, suitable enough to us,
of rule by Party, which puts perpetually a shifting hand upon the reins,
and invites the clamour it has to allay. The Irish--the English too in
some degree--have been taught that roaring; in its various forms, is the
trick to open the ears of Ministers. We have encouraged by irritating
them to practise it, until it has become a habit, an hereditary
profession with them. Ministers in turn have defensively adopted the
arts of beguilement, varied by an exercise of the police. We grew
accustomed to periods of Irish fever. The exhaustion ensuing we named
tranquillity, and hoped that it would bear fruit. But we did not plant.
The Party in office directed its attention to what was uppermost and
urgent--to that which kicked them. Although we were living, by common
consent; with a disease in the frame, eruptive at intervals, a national
disfigurement always a danger, the Ministerial idea of arresting it
for the purpose of healing was confined, before the passing of Mr.
Gladstone’s well-meant Land Bill, to the occasional despatch of
commissions; and, in fine, we behold through History the Irish malady
treated as a form of British constitutional gout. Parliament touched
on the Irish only when the Irish were active as a virus. Our later
alternations of cajolery and repression bear painful resemblance to the
nervous fit of rickety riders compounding with their destinations that
they may keep their seats. The cajolery was foolish, if an end was in
view; the repression inefficient. To repress efficiently we have to
stifle a conscience accusing us of old injustice, and forget that we are
sworn to freedom. The cries that we have been hearing for Cromwell or
for Bismarck prove the existence of an impatient faction in our midst
fitter to wear the collars of those masters whom they invoke than to
drop a vote into the ballot-box. As for the prominent politicians
who have displaced their rivals partly on the strength of an implied
approbation of those cries, we shall see how they illumine the councils
of a governing people. They are wiser than the barking dogs. Cromwell
and Bismarck are great names; but the harrying of Ireland did not settle
it, and to Germanize a Posen and call it peace will find echo only in
the German tongue. Posen is the error of a master-mind too much given to
hammer at obstacles. He has, however, the hammer. Can it be imagined
in English hands? The braver exemplar for grappling with monstrous
political tasks is Cavour, and he would not have hinted at the iron
method or the bayonet for a pacification. Cavour challenged debate; he
had faith in the active intellect, and that is the thing to be prayed
for by statesmen who would register permanent successes. The Irish,
it is true, do not conduct an argument coolly. Mr. Parnell and his
eighty-five have not met the Conservative leader and his following in
the Commons with the gravity of platonic disputants. But they have
a logical position, equivalent to the best of arguments. They are
representatives, they would say, of a country admittedly ill-governed by
us; and they have accepted the Bill of the defeated Minister as final.
Its provisions are their terms of peace. They offer in return for that
boon to take the burden we have groaned under off our hands. If we
answer that we think them insincere, we accuse these thrice accredited
representatives of the Irish people of being hypocrites and crafty
conspirators; and numbers in England, affected by the weapons they have
used to get to their present strength, do think it; forgetful that
our obtuseness to their constant appeals forced them into the extremer
shifts of agitation. Yet it will hardly be denied that these men love
Ireland; and they have not shown themselves by their acts to be insane.
To suppose them conspiring for separation indicates a suspicion that
they have neither hearts nor heads. For Ireland, separation is immediate
ruin. It would prove a very short sail for these conspirators before the
ship went down. The vital necessity of the Union for both, countries,
obviously for the weaker of the two, is known to them; and unless we
resume our exasperation of the wild fellow the Celt can be made by such
a process, we have not rational grounds for treating him, or treating
with him, as a Bedlamite. He has besides his passions shrewd sense; and
his passions may be rightly directed by benevolent attraction. This is
language derided by the victorious enemy; it speaks nevertheless what
the world, and even troubled America, thinks of the Irish Celt. More of
it now on our side of the Channel would be serviceable. The notion that
he hates the English comes of his fevered chafing against the harness of
England, and when subject to his fevers, he is unrestrained in his cries
and deeds. That pertains to the nature of him. Of course, if we have no
belief in the virtues of friendliness and confidence--none in regard to
the Irishman--we show him his footing, and we challenge the issue.
For the sole alternative is distinct antagonism, a form of war. Mr.
Gladstone’s Bill has brought us to that definite line. Ireland having
given her adhesion to it, swearing that she does so in good faith,
and will not accept a smaller quantity, peace is only to be had by our
placing trust in the Irish; we trust them or we crush them. Intermediate
ways are but the prosecution of our ugly flounderings in Bogland; and
dubious as we see the choice on either side, a decisive step to right or
left will not show us to the world so bemired, to ourselves so miserably
inefficient, as we appear in this session of a new Parliament. With his
eighty-five, apart from external operations lawful or not, Mr. Parnell
can act as a sort of lumbricus in the House. Let journalists watch and
chronicle events: if Mr. Gladstone has humour, they will yet note a
peculiar smile on his closed mouth from time to time when the alien body
within the House, from which, for the sake of its dignity and ability to
conduct its affairs, he would have relieved it till the day of a
warmer intelligence between Irish and English, paralyzes our machinery
business. An ably-handled coherent body in the midst of the liquid
groups will make it felt that Ireland is a nation, naturally dependent
though she must be. We have to do with forces in politics, and the great
majority of the Irish Nationalists in Ireland has made them a force.
No doubt Mr. Matthew Arnold is correct in his apprehensions of the
dangers we may fear from a Dublin House of Commons. The declarations
and novel or ultra theories might almost be written down beforehand.
I should, for my part, anticipate a greater danger in the familiar
attitude of the English metropolitan Press and public toward an
experiment they dislike and incline to dread:--the cynical comments, the
quotations between inverted commas, the commiserating shrug, cold irony,
raw banter, growl of menace, sharp snap, rounds of laughter. Frenchmen
of the Young Republic, not presently appreciated as offensive, have had
some of these careless trifles translated for them, and have been stung.
We favoured Germany with them now and then, before Germany became the
first power in Europe. Before America had displayed herself as greatest
among the giants that do not go to pieces, she had, as Americans
forgivingly remember, without mentioning, a series of flicks of the
whip. It is well to learn manners without having them imposed on us.
There are various ways for tripping the experiment. Nevertheless, when
the experiment is tried, considering that our welfare is involved in its
not failing, as we have failed, we should prepare to start it cordially,
cordially assist it. Thoughtful political minds regard the measure as a
backward step; yet conceiving but a prospect that a measure accepted by
Home Rulers will possibly enable the Irish and English to step
together, it seems better worth the venture than to pursue a course of
prospectless discord! Whatever we do or abstain from doing has now its
evident dangers, and this being imminent may appear the larger of
them; but if a weighing of the conditions dictates it, and conscience
approves, the wiser proceeding is to make trial of the untried. Our
outlook was preternaturally black, with enormous increase of dangers
when the originator of our species venturesomely arose from the posture
of the ‘quatre pattes’. We consider that we have not lost by his
temerity. In states of dubitation under impelling elements, the instinct
pointing to courageous action is, besides the manlier, conjecturably the
right one.
LESLIE STEPHEN--1904
When that noble body of scholarly and cheerful pedestrians, the Sunday
Tramps, were on the march, with Leslie Stephen to lead them, there was
conversation which would have made the presence of a shorthand writer a
benefaction to the country. A pause to it came at the examination of
the leader’s watch and Ordnance map under the western sun, and void
was given for the strike across country to catch the tail of a train
offering dinner in London, at the cost of a run through hedges, over
ditches and fellows, past proclamation against trespassers, under
suspicion of being taken for more serious depredators in flight. The
chief of the Tramps had a wonderful calculating eye in the observation
of distances and the nature of the land, as he proved by his discovery
of untried passes in the higher Alps, and he had no mercy for pursy
followers. I have often said of this life-long student and philosophical
head that he had in him the making of a great military captain. He would
not have been opposed to the profession of arms if he had been captured
early for the service, notwithstanding his abomination of bloodshed.
He had a high, calm courage, was unperturbed in a dubious position, and
would confidently take the way out of it which he conceived to be the
better. We have not to deplore that he was diverted from the ways of
a soldier, though England, as the country has been learning of late,
cannot boast of many in uniform who have capacity for leadership. His
work in literature will be reviewed by his lieutenant of Tramps, one
of the ablest of writers!--[Frederic W. Maitland.]--The memory of it
remains with us, as being the profoundest and the most sober criticism
we have had in our time. The only sting in it was an inoffensive
humorous irony that now and then stole out for a roll over, like a furry
cub, or the occasional ripple on a lake in grey weather. We have nothing
left that is like it.
One might easily fall into the pit of panegyric by an enumeration of his
qualities, personal and literary. It would not be out of harmony with
the temper and characteristics of a mind so equable. He, the equable,
whether in condemnation or eulogy. Our loss of such a man is great, for
work was in his brain, and the hand was active till close upon the time
when his breathing ceased. The loss to his friends can be replaced only
by an imagination that conjures him up beside them. That will be no task
to those who have known him well enough to see his view of things
as they are, and revive his expression of it. With them he will live
despite the word farewell.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY
LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE MORNING POST FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY FROM
OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
FERRARA, June 22, 1866.
Before this letter reaches London the guns will have awakened both the
echo of the old river Po and the classical Mincio. The whole of the
troops, about 110,000 men, with which Cialdini intends to force the
passage of the first-named river are already massed along the right
bank of the Po, anxiously waiting that the last hour of to-morrow should
strike, and that the order for action should be given. The telegraph
will have already informed your readers that, according to the
intimation sent by General Lamarmora on Tuesday evening to the Austrian
headquarters, the three days fixed by the general’s message before
beginning hostilities will expire at twelve p.m. of the 23rd of June.
Cialdini’s headquarters have been established in this city since
Wednesday morning, and the famous general, in whom the fourth corps
he commands, and the whole of the nation, has so much confidence, has
concentrated the whole of his forces within a comparatively narrow
compass, and is ready for action. I believe therefore that by to-morrow
the right bank of the Po will be connected with the mainland of the
Polesine by several pontoon bridges, which will enable Cialdini’s corps
d’armee to cross the river, and, as everybody here hopes, to cross it in
spite of any defence the Austrians may make.
On my way to this ancient city last evening I met General Cadogan and
two superior Prussian officers, who by this time must have joined Victor
Emmanuel’s headquarters at Cremona; if not, they have been by this
time transferred elsewhere, more on the front, towards the line of the
Mincio, on which, according to appearance, the first, second, and third
Italian corps d’armee seem destined to operate. The English general
and the two Prussian officers above mentioned are to follow the king’s
staff, the first as English commissioner, the superior in rank of the
two others in the same capacity.
I have been told here that, before leaving Bologna, Cialdini held a
general council of the commanders of the seven divisions of which his
powerful corps d’armee is formed, and that he told them that, in spite
of the forces the enemy has massed on the left bank of the Po, between
the point which faces Stellata and Rovigo, the river must be crossed
by his troops, whatever might be the sacrifice this important operation
requires. Cialdini is a man who knows how to keep his word, and, for
this reason, I have no doubt he will do what he has already made up his
mind to accomplish. I am therefore confident that before two or three
days have elapsed, these 110,000 Italian troops, or a great part of
them, will have trod, for the Italians, the sacred land of Venetia.
Once the river Po crossed by Cialdini’s corps d’armee, he will boldly
enter the Polesine and make himself master of the road which leads
by Rovigo towards Este and Padua. A glance at the map will show your
readers how, at about twenty or thirty miles from the first-mentioned
town, a chain of hills, called the Colli Euganei, stretches itself from
the last spur of the Julian Alps, in the vicinity of Vicenza, gently
sloping down towards the sea. As this line affords good positions for
contesting the advance of an army crossing the Po at Lago Scuro, or at
any other point not far from it, it is to be supposed that the Austrians
will make a stand there, and I should not be surprised at all that
Cialdini’s first battle, if accepted by the enemy, should take place
within that comparatively narrow ground which is within Montagnana,
Este, Terradura, Abano, and Padua. It is impossible to suppose that
Cialdini’s corps d’armee, being so large, is destined to cross the Po
only at one point of the river below its course: it is extremely likely
that part of it should cross it at some point above, between Revere and
Stellata, where the river is in two or three instances only 450 metres
wide. Were the Italian general to be successful--protected as he will
be by the tremendous fire of the powerful artillery he disposes of--in
these twofold operations, the Austrians defending the line of the Colli
Euganei could be easily outflanked by the Italian troops, who would
have crossed the river below Lago Scuro. Of course these are mere
suppositions, for nobody, as you may imagine, except the king, Cialdini
himself, Lamarmora, Pettiti, and Menabrea, is acquainted with the
plan of the forthcoming campaign. There was a rumour at Cialdini’s
headquarters to-day that the Austrians had gathered in great numbers
in the Polesine, and especially at Rovigo, a small town which they
have strongly fortified of late, with an apparent design to oppose the
crossing of the Po, were Cialdini to attempt it at or near Lago Scuro.
There are about Rovigo large tracts of marshes and fields cut by ditches
and brooks, which, though owing to the dryness of the season [they]
cannot be, as it was generally believed two weeks ago, easily inundated,
yet might well aid the operations the Austrians may undertake in order
to check the advance of the Italian fourth corps d’armee. The resistance
to the undertaking of Cialdini may be, on the part of the Austrians,
very stout, but I am almost certain that it will be overcome by the
ardour of Italian troops, and by the skill of their illustrious leader.
As I told you above, the declaration of war was handed over to an
Austrian major for transmission to Count Stancowick, the Austrian
governor of Mantua, on the evening of the 19th, by Colonel Bariola,
sous-chef of the general staff, who was accompanied by the Duke Luigi
of Sant’ Arpino, the husband of the amiable widow of Lord Burghersh.
The duke is the eldest son of Prince San Teodoro, one of the wealthiest
noblemen of Naples. In spite of his high position and of his family
ties, the Duke of Sant’ Arpino, who is well known in London fashionable
society, entered as a volunteer in the Italian army, and was appointed
orderly officer to General Lamarmora. The choice of such a gentleman
for the mission I am speaking of was apparently made with intention,
in order to show the Austrians, that the Neapolitan nobility is as much
interested in the national movement as the middle and lower classes of
the Kingdom, once so fearfully misruled by the Bourbons. The Duke of
Sant’ Arpino is not the only Neapolitan nobleman who has enlisted in the
Italian army since the war with Austria broke out. In order to show
you the importance which must be given to this pronunciamiento of the
Neapolitan noblemen, allow me to give you here a short list of the names
of those of them who have enlisted as private soldiers in the cavalry
regiments of the regular army: The Duke of Policastro; the Count of
Savignano Guevara, the eldest son of the Duke of Bovino; the Duke d’Ozia
d’Angri, who had emigrated in 1860, and returned to Naples six months
ago; Marquis Rivadebro Serra; Marquis Pisicelli, whose family had left
Naples in 1860 out of devotion to Francis II.; two Carraciolos, of the
historical family from which sprung the unfortunate Neapolitan admiral
of this name, whose head Lord Nelson would have done better not to
have sacrificed to the cruelty of Queen Caroline; Prince Carini, the
representative of an illustrious family of Sicily, a nephew of the
Marquis del Vasto; and Pescara, a descendant of that great general
of Charles V., to whom the proud Francis I. of France was obliged to
surrender and give up his sword at the battle of Pavia. Besides these
Neapolitan noblemen who have enlisted of late as privates, the Italian
army now encamped on the banks of the Po and of the Mincio may boast of
two Colonnas, a prince of Somma, two Barons Renzi, an Acquaviva, of the
Duke of Atri, two Capece, two Princes Buttera, etc. To return to the
mission of Colonel Bariola and the Duke of Sant’ Arpino, I will add some
details which were told me this morning by a gentleman who left
Cremona yesterday evening, and who had them from a reliable source. The
messenger of General Lamarmora had been directed to proceed from Cremona
to the small village of Le Grazie, which, on the line of the Mincio,
marks the Austrian and Italian frontier.
On the right bank of the Lake of Mantua, in the year 1340, stood a small
chapel containing a miraculous painting of the Madonna, called by the
people of the locality ‘Santa Maria delle Grazie.’ The boatmen and
fishermen of the Mincio, who had been, as they said, often saved from
certain death by the Madonna--as famous in those days as the modern
Lady of Rimini, celebrated for the startling feat of winking her
eyes--determined to erect for her a more worthy abode.
Hence arose the Santuario delle Grazie. Here, as at Loretto and other
holy localities of Italy, a fair is held, in which, amongst a great
number of worldly things, rosaries, holy images, and other miraculous
objects are sold, and astounding boons are said to be secured at the
most trifling expense. The Santuario della Madonna delle Grazie enjoying
a far-spread reputation, the dumb, deaf, blind, and halt-in short,
people afflicted with all sorts of infirmities--flock thither during the
fair, and are not wanting even on the other days of the year. The church
of Le Grazie is one of the most curious of Italy. Not that there is
anything remarkable in its architecture, for it is an Italian Gothic
structure of the simplest style. But the ornamental part of the interior
is most peculiar. The walls of the building are covered with a double
row of wax statues, of life size, representing a host of warriors,
cardinals, bishops, kings, and popes, who--as the story runs--pretended
to have received some wonderful grace during their earthly existence.
Amongst the grand array of illustrious personages, there are not a few
humbler individuals whose history is faithfully told (if you choose to
credit it) by the painted inscriptions below. There is even a convict,
who, at the moment of being hanged, implored succour of the all-powerful
Madonna, whereupon the beam of the gibbet instantly broke, and the
worthy individual was restored to society--a very doubtful benefit after
all. On Colonel Bariola and the Duke of Sant’ Arpino arriving at this
place, which is only five miles distant from Mantua, their carriage was
naturally stopped by the commissaire of the Austrian police, whose duty
was to watch the frontier. Having told him that they had a despatch to
deliver either to the military governor of Mantua or to some officer
sent by him to receive it, the commissaire at once despatched a mounted
gendarme to Mantua. Two hours had scarcely elapsed when a carriage drove
into the village of Le Grazie, from which an Austrian major of infantry
alighted and hastened to a wooden hut where the two Italian officers
were waiting. Colonel Bariola, who was trained in the Austrian military
school of Viller Nashstad, and regularly left the Austrian service in
1848, acquainted the newly-arrived major with his mission, which was
that of delivering the sealed despatch to the general in command
of Mantua and receiving for it a regular receipt. The despatch was
addressed to the Archduke Albert, commander-in-chief of the Austrian
army of the South, care of the governor of Mantua. After the major had
delivered the receipt, the three messengers entered into a courteous
conversation, during which Colonel Bariola seized an opportunity
of presenting the duke, purposely laying stress on the fact of his
belonging to one of the most illustrious families of Naples. It happened
that the Austrian major had also been trained in the same school where
Colonel Bariola was brought up--a circumstance of which he was reminded
by the Austrian officer himself. Three hours had scarcely elapsed from
the arrival of the two Italian messengers of war at Le Grazie, on the
Austrian frontier, when they were already on their way back to the
headquarters of Cremona, where during the night the rumour was current
that a telegram had been received by Lamarmora from Verona, in which
Archduke Albert accepted the challenge. Victor Emmanuel, whom I saw at
Bologna yesterday, arrived at Cremona in the morning at two o’clock, but
by this time his Majesty’s headquarters must have removed more towards
the front, in the direction of the Oglio. I should not be at all
surprised were the Italian headquarters to be established by to-morrow
either at Piubega or Gazzoldo, if not actually at Goito, a village, as
you know, which marks the Italian-Austrian frontier on the Mincio. The
whole of the first, second, and third Italian corps d’armee are by this
time concentrated within that comparatively narrow space which lies
between the position of Castiglione, Delle Stiviere, Lorrato, and
Desenzano, on the Lake of Garda, and Solferino on one side; Piubega,
Gazzoldo, Sacca, Goito, and Castellucchio on the other. Are these three
corps d’armee to attack when they hear the roar of Cialdini’s artillery
on the right bank of the Po? Are they destined to force the passage
of the Mincio either at Goito or at Borghetto? or are they destined to
invest Verona, storm Peschiera, and lay siege to Mantua? This is more
than I can tell you, for, I repeat it, the intentions of the
Italian leaders are enveloped in a veil which nobody--the Austrians
included--has as yet been able to penetrate. One thing, however, is
certain, and it is this, that as the clock of Victor Emmanuel marks
the last minute of the seventy-second hour fixed by the declaration
delivered at Le Grazie on Wednesday by Colonel Bariola to the Austrian
major, the fair land where Virgil was born and Tasso was imprisoned will
be enveloped by a thick cloud of the smoke of hundreds and hundreds of
cannon. Let us hope that God will be in favour of right and justice,
which, in this imminent and fierce struggle, is undoubtedly on the
Italian side.
CREMONA, June 30, 1866.
The telegraph will have already informed you of the concentration of the
Italian army, whose headquarters have since Tuesday been removed from
Redondesco to Piadena, the king having chosen the adjacent villa of
Cigognolo for his residence. The concentrating movements of the royal
army began on the morning of the 27th, i.e., three days after the bloody
fait d’armes of the 24th, which, narrated and commented on in different
manners according to the interests and passions of the narrators, still
remains for many people a mystery. At the end of this letter you will
see that I quote a short phrase with which an Austrian major, now
prisoner of war, portrayed the results of the fierce struggle fought
beyond the Mincio. This officer is one of the few survivors of a
regiment of Austrian volunteers, uhlans, two squadrons of which he
himself commanded. The declaration made by this officer was thoroughly
explicit, and conveys the exact idea of the valour displayed by the
Italians in that terrible fight. Those who incline to overrate the
advantages obtained by the Austrians on Sunday last must not forget that
if Lamarmora had thought proper to persist in holding the positions of
Valeggio, Volta, and Goito, the Austrians could not have prevented him.
It seems the Austrian general-in-chief shared this opinion, for, after
his army had carried with terrible sacrifices the positions of Monte
Vento and Custozza, it did not appear, nor indeed did the Austrians
then give any signs, that they intended to adopt a more active system of
warfare. It is the business of a commander to see that after a victory
the fruit of it should not be lost, and for this reason the enemy is
pursued and molested, and time is not left him for reorganization.
Nothing of this happened after the 24th--nothing has been done by the
Austrians to secure such results. The frontier which separates the two
dominions is now the same as it was on the eve of the declaration of
war. At Goito, at Monzambano, and in the other villages of the extreme
frontier, the Italian authorities are still discharging their duties.
Nothing is changed in those places, were we to except that now and then
an Austrian cavalry party suddenly makes its appearance, with the only
object of watching the movements of the Italian army. One of these
parties, formed by four squadrons of the Wurtemberg hussar regiment,
having advanced at six o’clock this morning on the right bank of the
Mincio, met the fourth squadron of the Italian lancers of Foggia and
were beaten back, and compelled to retire in disorder towards Goito and
Rivolta. In this unequal encounter the Italian lancers distinguished
themselves very much, made some Austrian hussars prisoners, and killed a
few more, amongst whom was an officer. The same state of thing, prevails
at Rivottella, a small village on the shores of the Lake of Garda, about
four miles distant from the most advanced fortifications of Peschiera.
There, as elsewhere, some Austrian parties advanced with the object of
watching the movements of the Garibaldians, who occupy the hilly ground,
which from Castiglione, Eseuta, and Cartel Venzago stretches to Lonato,
Salo, and Desenzano, and to the mountain passes of Caffaro. In the
last-named place the Garibaldians came to blows with the Austrians on
the morning of the 28th, and the former got the best of the fray. Had
the fait d’armes of the 24th, or the battle of Custozza, as Archduke
Albrecht calls it, been a great victory for the Austrians, why should
the imperial army remain in such inaction? The only conclusion we must
come to is simply this, that the Austrian losses have been such as
to induce the commander-in-chief of the army to act prudently on the
defensive. We are now informed that the charges of cavalry which
the Austrian lancers and the Hungarian hussars had to sustain near
Villafranca on the 24th with the Italian horsemen of the Aorta and
Alessandria regiments have been so fatal to the former that a whole
division of the Kaiser cavalry must be reorganised before it can be
brought into the field main.
The regiment of Haller hussars and two of volunteer uhlans were almost
destroyed in that terrible charge. To give you an idea of this cavalry
encounter, it is sufficient to say that Colonel Vandoni, at the head of
the Aorta regiment he commands, charged fourteen times during the short
period of four hours. The volunteer uhlans of the Kaiser regiment had
already given up the idea of breaking through the square formed by the
battalion, in the centre of which stood Prince Humbert of Savoy,
when they were suddenly charged and literally cut to pieces by the
Alessandria light cavalry, in spite of the long lances they carried.
This weapon and the loose uniform they wear makes them resemble the
Cossacks of the Don. There is one circumstance, which, if I am not
mistaken, has not as yet been published by the newspapers, and it
is this. There was a fight on the 25th on a place at the north of
Roverbella, between the Italian regiment of Novara cavalry and a
regiment of Hungarian hussars, whose name is not known. This regiment
was so thoroughly routed by the Italians that it was pursued as far as
Villafranca, and had two squadrons put hors de combat, whilst the Novara
regiment only lost twenty-four mounted men. I think it right to mention
this, for it proves that, the day after the bloody affair of the
24th, the Italian army had still a regiment of cavalry operating at
Villafranca, a village which lay at a distance of fifteen kilometres
from the Italian frontier. A report, which is much accredited here,
explains how the Italian army did not derive the advantages it might
have derived from the action of the 24th. It appears that the orders
issued from the Italian headquarters during the previous night, and
especially the verbal instructions given by Lamarmora and Pettiti to
the staff officers of the different army corps, were either forgotten or
misunderstood by those officers. Those sent to Durando, the commander
of the first corps, seem to have been as follows: That he should have
marched in the direction of Castelnuovo, without, however, taking part
in the action. Durando, it is generally stated, had strictly adhered to
the orders sent from the headquarters, but it seems that General
Cerale understood them too literally. Having been ordered to march on
Castelnuovo, and finding the village strongly held by the Austrians, who
received his division with a tremendous fire, he at once engaged in the
action instead of falling back on the reserve of the first corps and
waiting new instructions. If such was really the case, it is evident
that Cerale thought that the order to march which he had received
implied that he was to attack and get possession of Castelnuovo, had
this village, as it really was, already been occupied by the enemy. In
mentioning this fact I feel bound to observe that I write it under the
most complete reserve, for I should be sorry indeed to charge General
Cerale with having misunderstood such an important order.
I see that one of your leading contemporaries believes that it would be
impossible for the king or Lamarmora to say what result they expected
from their ill-conceived and worse-executed attempt. The result they
expected is, I think, clear enough; they wanted to break through the
quadrilateral and make their junction with Cialdini, who was ready
to cross the Po during the night of the 24th. That the attempt was
ill-conceived and worse-executed, neither your contemporary nor the
public at large has, for the present, the right to conclude, for no one
knows as yet but imperfectly the details of the terrible fight. What is
certain, however, is that General Durando, perceiving that the Cerale
division was lost, did all that he could to help it. Failing in this he
turned to his two aides-de-camp and coolly said to them:
‘Now, gentlemen, it is time for you to retire, for I have a duty to
perform which is a strictly personal one--the duty of dying.’ On saying
these words he galloped to the front and placed himself at about twenty
paces from a battalion of Austrian sharp-shooters which were ascending
the hill. In less than five minutes his horse was killed under him,
and he was wounded in the right hand. I scarcely need add that his
aides-de-camp did not flinch from sharing Durando’s fate. They bravely
followed their general, and one, the Marquis Corbetta, was wounded in
the leg; the other, Count Esengrini, had his horse shot under him. I
called on Durando, who is now at Milan, the day before yesterday. Though
a stranger to him, he received me at once, and, speaking of the action
of the 24th, he only said: ‘I have the satisfaction of having done my
duty. I wait tranquilly the judgement of history.’
Assuming, for argument’s sake, that General Cerale misunderstood the
orders he had received, and that, by precipitating his movement, he
dragged into the same mistake the whole of Durando’s corps--assuming, I
say, this to be the right version, you can easily explain the fact that
neither of the two contending parties are as yet in a position clearly
to describe the action of the 24th. Why did neither the one nor the
other display and bring into action the whole forces they could have had
at their disposal? Why so many partial engagements at a great distance
one from the other? In a word, why that want of unity, which, in
my opinion, constituted the paramount characteristic of that bloody
struggle? I may be greatly mistaken, but I am of opinion that neither
the Italian general-in-chief nor the Austrian Archduke entertained
on the night of the 23rd the idea of delivering a battle on the 24th.
There, and only there, lies the whole mystery of the affair. The total
want of unity of action on the part of the Italians assured to the
Austrians, not the victory, but the chance of rendering impossible
Lamarmora’s attempt to break through the quadrilateral. This no one can
deny; but, on the other hand, if the Italian army failed in attaining
its object, the failure-owing to the bravery displayed both by the
soldiers and by the generals-was far from being a disastrous or
irreparable one. The Italians fought from three o’clock in the morning
until nine in the evening like lions, showing to their enemies and to
Europe that they know how to defend their country, and that they are
worthy of the noble enterprise they have undertaken.
But let me now register one of the striking episodes of that memorable
day. It was five o’clock p.m. when General Bixio, whose division held an
elevated position not far from Villafranca, was attacked by three strong
Austrian brigades, which had debouched at the same time from three
different roads, supported with numerous artillery. An officer of the
Austrian staff, waving a white handkerchief, was seen galloping towards
the front of Bixio’s position, and, once in the presence of this
general, bade him surrender. Those who are not personally acquainted
with Bixio cannot form an idea of the impression this bold demand
must have made on him. I have been told that, on hearing the word
‘surrender,’ his face turned suddenly pale, then flushed like purple,
and darting at the Austrian messenger, said, ‘Major, if you dare to
pronounce once more the word surrender in my presence, I tell you--and
Bixio always keeps his word--that I will have you shot at once.’ The
Austrian officer had scarcely reached the general who had sent him, than
Bixio, rapidly moving his division, fell with such impetuosity on the
Austrian column, which were ascending the hill, that they were thrown
pellmell in the valley, causing the greatest confusion amongst their
reserve. Bixio himself led his men, and with his aides-de-camp,
Cavaliere Filippo Fermi, Count Martini, and Colonel Malenchini, all
Tuscans, actually charged the enemy. I have been told that, on hearing
this episode, Garibaldi said, ‘I am not at all surprised, for Bixio is
the best general I have made.’ Once the enemy was repulsed, Bixio was
ordered to manoeuvre so as to cover the backward movement of the army,
which was orderly and slowly retiring on the Mincio. Assisted by the
co-operation of the heavy cavalry, commanded by General Count de Sonnaz,
Bixio covered the retreat, and during the night occupied Goito, a
position which he held till the evening of the 27th.
In consequence of the concentrating movement of the Italian army which
I have mentioned at the beginning of this letter, the fourth army corps
(Cialdini’s) still holds the line of the Po. If I am rightly informed,
the decree for the formation of the fourth army corps was signed by the
king yesterday. This corps is that of Garibaldi, and is about 40,000
strong. An officer who has just returned from Milan told me this morning
that he had had an opportunity of speaking with the Austrian prisoners
sent from Milan to the fortress of Finestrelle in Piedmont. Amongst
them was an officer of a uhlan regiment, who had all the appearance of
belonging to some aristocratic family of Austrian Poland. Having been
asked if he thought Austria had really gained the battle on the 24th, he
answered: ‘I do not know if the illusions of the Austrian army go so far
as to induce it to believe it has obtained a victory--I do not believe
it. He who loves Austria cannot, however, wish she should obtain such
victories, for they are the victories of Pyrrhus!
There is at Verona some element in the Austrian councils of war which
we don’t understand, but which gives to their operations in this present
phase of the campaign just as uncertain and as vacillating a character
as it possessed during the campaign of 1859. On Friday they are still
beyond the Mincio, and on Saturday their small fleet on the Lake of
Garda steams up to Desenzano, and opens fire against this defenceless
city and her railway station, whilst two battalions of Tyrolese
sharp-shooters occupy the building. On Sunday they retire, but early
yesterday they cross the Mincio, at Goito and Monzambano, and begin to
throw two bridges over the same river, between the last-named place
and the mills of Volta. At the same time they erect batteries at Goito,
Torrione, and Valeggio, pushing their reconnoitring parties of hussars
as far as Medole, Castiglione delle Stiviere, and Montechiara, this
last-named place being only at a distance of twenty miles from Brescia.
Before this news reached me here this morning I was rather inclined to
believe that they were playing at hide-and-seek, in the hope that the
leaders of the Italian army should be tempted by the game and repeat,
for the second time, the too hasty attack on the quadrilateral. This
news, which I have from a reliable source, has, however, changed my
former opinion, and I begin to believe that the Austrian Archduke
has really made up his mind to come out from the strongholds of
the quadrilateral, and intends actually to begin war on the very
battlefields where his imperial cousin was beaten on the 24th June 1859.
It may be that the partial disasters sustained by Benedek in Germany
have determined the Austrian Government to order a more active system
of war against Italy, or, as is generally believed here, that the
organisation of the commissariat was not perfect enough with the army
Archduke Albert commands to afford a more active and offensive action.
Be that as it may, the fact is that the news received here from several
parts of Upper Lombardy seems to indicate, on the part of the Austrians,
the intention of attacking their adversaries.
Yesterday whilst the peaceable village of Gazzoldo--five Italian miles
from Goito--was still buried in the silence of night it was occupied by
400 hussars, to the great consternation of the people who were roused
from their sleep by the galloping of their unexpected visitors. The
sindaco, or mayor of the village, who is the chemist of the place,
was, I hear, forcibly taken from his house and compelled to escort the
Austrians on the road leading to Piubega and Redondesco. This worthy
magistrate, who was not apparently endowed with sufficient courage to
make at least half a hero, was so much frightened that he was taken
ill, and still is in a very precarious condition. These inroads are
not always accomplished with impunity, for last night, not far from
Guidizzuolo, two squadrons of Italian light cavalry--Cavalleggieri di
Lucca, if I am rightly informed--at a sudden turn of the road leading
from the last-named village to Cerlongo, found themselves almost face
to face with four squadrons of uhlans. The Italians, without numbering
their foes, set spurs to their horses and fell like thunder on the
Austrians, who, after a fight which lasted more than half an hour, were
put to flight, leaving on the ground fifteen men hors de combat, besides
twelve prisoners.
Whilst skirmishing of this kind is going on in the flat ground of
Lombardy which lies between the Mincio and the Chiese, a more decisive
action has been adopted by the Austrian corps which is quartered in the
Italian Tyrol and Valtellina. A few days ago it was generally believed
that the mission of this corps was only to oppose Garibaldi should he
try to force those Alpine passes. But now we suddenly hear that the
Austrians are already masters of Caffaro, Bagolino, Riccomassino, and
Turano, which points they are fortifying. This fact explains the last
movements made by Garibaldi towards that direction. But whilst the
Austrians are massing their troops on the Tyrolese Alps the revolution
is spreading fast in the more southern mountains of the Friuli and
Cadorre, thus threatening the flank and rear of their army in
Venetia. This revolutionary movement may not have as yet assumed great
proportions, but as it is the effect of a plan proposed beforehand it
might become really imposing, more so as the ranks of those Italian
patriots are daily swollen by numerous deserters and refractory men of
the Venetian regiments of the Austrian army.
Although the main body of the Austrians seems to be still concentrated
between Peschiera and Verona, I should not wonder if they crossed the
Mincio either to-day or to-morrow, with the object of occupying the
heights of Volta, Cavriana, and Solferino, which, both by their position
and by the nature of the ground, are in themselves so many fortresses.
Supposing that the Italian army should decide for action--and there is
every reason to believe that such will be the case--it is not unlikely
that, as we had already a second battle at Custozza, we may have a
second one at Solferino.
That at the Italian headquarters something has been decided upon which
may hasten the forward movement of the army, I infer from the fact that
the foreign military commissioners at the Italian headquarters, who,
after the 24th June had gone to pass the leisure of their camp life
at Cremona, have suddenly made their appearance at Torre Malamberti,
a villa belonging to the Marquis Araldi, where Lamarmora’s staff
is quartered. A still more important event is the presence of Baron
Ricasoli, whom I met yesterday evening on coming here. The President of
the Council was coming from Florence, and, after stopping a few hours
at the villa of Cicognolo, where Victor Emmanuel and the royal household
are staying, he drove to Torre Malamberti to confer with General
Lamarmora and Count Pettiti. The presence of the baron at headquarters
is too important an incident to be overlooked by people whose business
is that of watching the course of events in this country. And it should
be borne in mind that on his way to headquarters Baron Ricasoli stopped
a few hours at Bologna, where he had a long interview with Cialdini.
Nor is this all; for the most important fact I have to report to-day is,
that whilst I am writing (five o’clock a.m.) three corps of the Italian
army are crossing the Oglio at different points--all three acting
together and ready for any occurrence. This reconnaissance en force may,
as you see, be turned into a regular battle should the Austrians have
crossed the Mincio with the main body of their army during the course
of last night. You see that the air around me smells enough of powder to
justify the expectation of events which are likely to exercise a great
influence over the cause of right and justice--the cause of Italy.
MARCARIA, July 3, Evening.
Murray’s guide will save me the trouble of telling you what this little
and dirty hole of Marcaria is like. The river Oglio runs due south,
not far from the village, and cuts the road which from Bozzolo leads to
Mantua. It is about seven miles from Castellucchio, a town which, since
the peace of Villafranca, marked the Italian frontier in Lower Lombardy.
Towards this last-named place marched this morning the eleventh division
of the Italians under the command of General Angioletti, only a month
ago Minister of the Marine in Lamarmora’s Cabinet. Angioletti’s division
of the second corps was, in the case of an attack, to be supported by
the fourth and eighth, which had crossed the Oglio at Gazzuolo four
hours before the eleventh had started from the place from which I am
now writing. Two other divisions also moved in an oblique line from
the upper course of the above-mentioned river, crossed it on a pontoon
bridge, and were directed to maintain their communications with
Angioletti’s on the left, whilst the eighth and fourth would have formed
its right. These five divisions were the avant garde of the main body of
the Italian army. I am not in a position to tell you the exact line the
army thus advancing from the Oglio has followed, but I have been told
that, in order to avoid the possibility of repeating the errors which
occurred in the action of the 24th, the three corps d’armee have been
directed to march in such a manner as to enable them to present a
compact mass should they meet the enemy. Contrary to all expectations,
Angioletti’s division was allowed to enter and occupy Castellucchio
without firing a shot. As its vanguard reached the hamlet of Ospedaletto
it was informed that the Austrians had left Castellucchio during the
night, leaving a few hussars, who, in their turn, retired on Mantua as
soon as they saw the cavalry Angioletti had sent to reconnoitre both the
country and the borough of Castellucchio.
News has just arrived here that General Angioletti has been able to push
his outposts as far as Rivolta on his left, and still farther forward on
his front towards Curtalone. Although the distance from Rivolta to Goito
is only five miles, Angioletti, I have been told, could not ascertain
whether the Austrians had crossed the Mincio in force.
What part both Cialdini and Garibaldi will play in the great struggle
nobody can tell. It is certain, however, that these two popular
leaders will not be idle, and that a battle, if fought, will assume the
proportions of an almost unheard of slaughter.
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY, TORRE MALIMBERTI, July 7,
1866.
Whilst the Austrian emperor throws himself at the feet of the ruler of
France--I was almost going to write the arbiter of Europe--Italy and its
brave army seem to reject disdainfully the idea of getting Venetia as a
gift of a neutral power. There cannot be any doubt as to the feeling
in existence since the announcement of the Austrian proposal by the
Moniteur being one of astonishment, and even indignation so far as Italy
herself is concerned. One hears nothing but expressions of this kind
in whatever Italian town he may be, and the Italian army is naturally
anxious that she should not be said to relinquish her task when
Austrians speak of having beaten her, without proving that she can beat
them too. There are high considerations of honour which no soldier or
general would ever think of putting aside for humanitarian or political
reasons, and with these considerations the Italian army is fully in
accord since the 24th June. The way, too, in which the Kaiser chose
to give up the long-contested point, by ignoring Italy and recognising
France as a party to the Venetian question, created great indignation
amongst the Italians, whose papers declare, one and all, that a fresh
insult has been offered to the country. This is the state of public
opinion here, and unless the greatest advantages are obtained by a
premature armistice and a hurried treaty of peace, it is likely to
continue the same, not to the entire security of public order in Italy.
As a matter of course, all eyes are turned towards Villa Pallavicini,
two miles from here, where the king is to decide upon either accepting
or rejecting the French emperor’s advice, both of which decisions are
fraught with considerable difficulties and no little danger. The king
will have sought the advice of his ministers, besides which that of
Prussia will have been asked and probably given. The matter may be
decided one way or the other in a very short time, or may linger on for
days to give time for public anxiety and fears to be allayed and to calm
down. In the meantime, it looks as if the king and his generals had
made up their mind not to accept the gift. An attack on the Borgoforte
tete-de-pont on the right side of the Po, began on 5th at half-past
three in the morning, under the immediate direction of General Cialdini.
The attacking corps was the Duke of Mignano’s. All the day yesterday the
gun was heard at Torre Malamberti, as it was also this morning between
ten and eleven o’clock. Borgoforte is a fortress on the left side of
the Po, throwing a bridge across this river, the right end of which is
headed by a strong tete-de-pont, the object of the present attack.
This work may be said to belong to the quadrilateral, as it is only an
advanced part of the fortress of Mantua, which, resting upon its rear,
is connected to Borgoforte by a military road supported on the Mantua
side by the Pietolo fortress. The distance between Mantua and Borgoforte
is only eleven kilometres. The fete-de-poet is thrown upon the Po; its
structure is of recent date, and it consists of a central part and of
two wings, called Rocchetta and Bocca di Ganda respectively. The lock
here existing is enclosed in the Rocchetta work.
Since I wrote you my last letter Garibaldi has been obliged to desist
from the idea of getting possession of Bagolino, Sant’ Antonio, and
Monte Suello, after a fight which lasted four hours, seeing that he
had to deal with an entire Austrian brigade, supported by uhlans,
sharp-shooters (almost a battalion) and twelve pieces of artillery.
These positions were subsequently abandoned by the enemy, and occupied
by Garibaldi’s volunteers. In this affair the general received a
slight wound in his left leg, the nature of which, however, is so very
trifling, that a few days will be enough to enable him to resume active
duties. It seems that the arms of the Austrians proved to be much
superior to those of the Garibaldians, whose guns did very bad service.
The loss of the latter amounted to about 100 killed and 200 wounded,
figures in which the officers appear in great proportion, owing to their
having been always at the head of their men, fighting, charging, and
encouraging their comrades throughout. Captain Adjutant-Major Battino,
formerly of the regular army, died, struck by three bullets, while
rushing on the Austrians with the first regiment. On abandoning the
Caffaro line, which they had reoccupied after the Lodrone encounter--in
consequence of which the Garibaldians had to fall back because of the
concentration following the battle of Custozza--the Austrians have
retired to the Lardara fortress, between the Stabolfes and Tenara
mountains, covering the route to Tione and Trento, in the Italian
Tyrol. The third regiment of volunteers suffered most, as two of their
companies had to bear the brunt of the terrible Austrian fire kept up
from formidable positions. Another fight was taking place almost at the
same time in the Val Camonico, i.e., north of the Caffaro, and of Rocca
d’Anfo, Garibaldi’s point d’appui. This encounter was sustained in the
same proportions, the Italians losing one of their bravest and best
officers in the person of Major Castellini, a Milanese, commander of
the second battalion of Lombardian bersaglieri. Although these and Major
Caldesi’s battalion had to fall back from Vezza, a strong position was
taken near Edalo, while in the rear a regiment kept Breno safe.
Although still at headquarters only two days ago, Baron Ricasoli has
been suddenly summoned by telegram from Florence, and, as I hear,
has just arrived. This is undoubtedly brought about by the new
complications, especially as, at a council of ministers presided over by
the baron, a vote, the nature of which is as yet unknown, was taken on
the present state of affairs. As you know very well in England, Italy
has great confidence in Ricasoli, whose conduct, always far from
obsequious to the French emperor, has pleased the nation. He is thought
to be at this moment the right man in the right place, and with the
great acquaintance he possesses of Italy and the Italians, and with the
co-operation of such an honest man as General Lamarmora, Italy may be
pronounced safe, both against friends and enemies.
From what I saw this morning, coming back from the front, I presume that
something, and that something new perhaps, will be attempted to-morrow.
So far, the proposed armistice has had no effect upon the dispositions
at general headquarters, and did not stay the cannon’s voice. In the
middle of rumours, of hopes and fears, Italy’s wish to push on with the
war has as yet been adhered to by her trusted leaders.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE FIRST ARMY CORPS,
PIADENA, July 8, 1866.
As I begin writing you, no doubt can be entertained that some movement
is not only in contemplation at headquarters, but is actually provided
to take place to-day, and that it will probably prove to be against the
Austrian positions at Borgoforte, on the left bank of the Po. Up to
this time the tete-de-pout on the right side of the river had only been
attacked by General the Duke of Mignano’s guns. It would now, on the
contrary, be a matter of cutting the communications between Borgoforte
and Mantua, by occupying the lower part of the country around the latter
fortress, advancing upon the Valli Veronesi, and getting round the
quadrilateral into Venetia. While, then, waiting for further news to
tell us whether this plan has been carried into execution, and whether
it will be pursued, mindless of the existence of Mantua and Borgoforte
on its flanks, one great fact is already ascertained, that the armistice
proposed by the Emperor Napoleon has not been accepted, and that the
war is to be continued. The Austrians may shut themselves up in their
strongholds, or may even be so obliging as to leave the king the
uncontested possession of them by retreating in the same line as their
opponents advance; the pursuit, if not the struggle, the war, if not the
battle, will be carried on by the Italians. At Torre Malamberti, where
the general headquarters are, no end of general officers were to be seen
yesterday hurrying in all directions. I met the king, Generals Brignone,
Gavone, Valfre, and Menabrea within a few minutes of one another, and
Prince Amadeus, who has entirely recovered from his wound, had
been telegraphed for, and will arrive in Cremona to-day. No precise
information is to be obtained respecting the intentions of the
Austrians, but it is to be hoped for the Italian army, and for the
credit of its generals, that more will be known about them now than was
known on the eve of the famous 24th of June, and on its very morning.
The heroism of the Italians on that memorable day surpasses any possible
idea that can be formed, as it did also surpass all expectations of the
country. Let me relate you a few out of many heroic facts which only
come to light when an occasion is had of speaking with those who
have been eyewitnesses of them, as they are no object of magnified
regimental--orders or, as yet, of well-deserved honours. Italian
soldiers seem to think that the army only did its duty, and that,
wherever Italians may fight, they will always show equal valour and
firmness. Captain Biraghi, of Milan, belonging to the general staff,
having in the midst of the battle received an order from General
Lamarmora for General Durando, was proceeding with all possible speed
towards the first army corps, which was slowly retreating before the
superior forces of the enemy and before the greatly superior number of
his guns, when, while under a perfect shower of grape and canister, he
was all of a sudden confronted by, an Austrian officer of cavalry who
had been lying in wait for the Italian orderly. The Austrian fires his
revolver at Biraghi; and wounds him in the arm. Nothing daunted,
Biraghi assails him and makes him turn tail; then, following in pursuit,
unsaddles him, but has his own horse shot down under him. Biraghi
disentangles himself, kills his antagonist, and jumps upon the latter’s
horse. This, however, is thrown down also in a moment by a cannon ball,
so that the gallant captain has to go back on foot, bleeding, and
almost unable to walk. Talking of heroism, of inimitable endurance, and
strength of soul, what do you think of a man who has his arm entirely
carried away by a grenade, and yet keeps on his horse, firm as a
rock, and still directs his battery until hemorrhage--and hemorrhage
alone--strikes him down at last, dead! Such was the case with a
Neapolitan--Major Abate, of the artillery--and his name is worth the
glory of a whole army, of a whole war; and may only find a fit companion
in that of an officer of the eighteenth battalion of bersaglieri, who,
dashing at an Austrian flag-bearer, wrenches the standard out of his
hands with his left one, has it clean cut away by an Austrian officer
standing near, and immediately grapples it with his right, until his own
soldiers carry him away with his trophy! Does not this sound like Greek
history repeated--does it not look as if the brave men of old had
been born again, and the old facts renewed to tell of Italian heroism?
Another bersagliere--a Tuscan, by name Orlandi Matteo, belonging to that
heroic fifth battalion which fought against entire brigades, regiments,
and battalions, losing 11 out of its 16 officers, and about 300 out of
its 600 men--Orlandi, was wounded already, when, perceiving an Austrian
flag, he makes a great effort, dashes at the officer, kills him, takes
the flag, and, almost dying, gives it over to his lieutenant. He is
now in a ward of the San Domenico Hospital in Brescia, and all who have
learnt of his bravery will earnestly hope that he may survive to be
pointed out as one of the many who covered themselves with fame on that
day. If it is sad to read of death encountered in the field by so many a
patriotic and brave soldiers, it is sadder still to learn that not a few
of them were barbarously killed by the enemy, and killed, too, when they
were harmless, for they lay wounded on the ground. The Sicilian colonel,
Stalella, a son-in-law of Senator Castagnetto, and a courageous man
amongst the most courageous of men; was struck in the leg by a bullet,
and thrown down from his horse while exciting his men to repulse the
Austrians, which in great masses were pressing on his thinned column.
Although retreating, the regiment sent some of his men to take him away,
but as soon as he had been put on a stretcher [he] had to be put down,
as ten or twelve uhlans were galloping down, obliging the men to hide
themselves in a bush. When the uhlans got near the colonel, and when
they had seen him lying down in agony, they all planted their lances in
his body.
Is not this wanton cruelty--cruelty even unheard of cruelty that no
savage possesses? Still these are facts, and no one will ever dare to
deny them from Verona and Vienna, for they are known as much as it was
known and seen that the uhlans and many of the Austrian soldiers were
drunk when they began fighting, and that alighting from the trains they
were provided with their rations and with rum, and that they fought
without their haversacks. This is the truth, and nothing beyond it has
to the honour of the Italians been asserted, whether to the disgrace
or credit of their enemies; so that while denying that they ill-treat
Austrian prisoners, they are ready to state that theirs are well treated
in Verona, without thinking of slandering and calumniating as the Vienna
papers have done.
This morning Prince Amadeus arrived in Cremona, where a most spontaneous
and hearty reception was given him by the population and the National
Guard. He proceeded at once by the shortest way to the headquarters, so
that his wish to be again at the front when something should be done has
been accomplished. This brave young man, and his worthy brother, Prince
Humbert, have won the applause of all Italy, which is justly proud of
counting her king and her princes amongst the foremost in the field.
I have just learned from a most reliable source that the Austrians have
mined the bridge of Borghetto on the Mincio, so that, should it be blown
up, the only two, those of Goito and Borghetto, would be destroyed, and
the Italians obliged to make provisional ones instead. I also hear that
the Venetian towns are without any garrison, and that most probably all
the forces are massed on two lines, one from Peschiera to Custozza and
the other behind the Adige.
You will probably know by this time that the garrison of Vienna had on
the 3rd been directed to Prague. The news we receive from Prussia is on
the whole encouraging, inasmuch as the greatly feared armistice has been
repulsed by King William. Some people here think that France will not
be too hard upon Italy for keeping her word with her ally, and that the
brunt of French anger or disapproval will have to be borne by Prussia.
This is the least she can expect, as you know!
It is probable that by to-morrow I shall be able to write you more about
the Italo-Austrian war of 1866.
GONZAGA, July 9, 1866.
I write you from a villa, only a mile distant from Gonzaga, belonging
to the family of the Counts Arrivabene of Mantua. The owners have never
reentered it since 1848, and it is only the fortune of war which has
brought them to see their beautiful seat of the Aldegatta, never, it is
to be hoped for them, to be abandoned again. It is, as you see, ‘Mutatum
ab illo.’ Onward have gone, then, the exiled patriots! onward will go
the nation that owns them! The wish of every one who is compelled to
remain behind is that the army, that the volunteers, that the fleet,
should all cooperate, and that they should, one and all, land on
Venetian ground, to seek for a great battle, to give the army back the
fame it deserves, and to the country the honour it possesses. The king
is called upon to maintain the word nobly given to avenge Novara, and
with it the new Austrian insulting proposal. All, it is said, is ready.
The army has been said to be numerous; if to be numerous and brave,
means to deserve victory, let the Italian generals prove what Italian
soldiers are worthy of. If they will fight, the country will support
them with the boldest of resolutions--the country will accept a
discussion whenever the Government, having dispersed all fears, will
proclaim that the war is to be continued till victory is inscribed on
Italy’s shield.
As I am not far from Borgoforte, I am able to learn more than the mere
cannon’s voice can tell me, and so will give you some details of the
action against the tete-de-pont, which began, as I told you in one of
my former letters, on the 4th. In Gorgoforte there were about 1500
Austrians, and, on the night from the 5th to the 6th, they kept up
from their four fortified works a sufficiently well-sustained fire, the
object of which was to prevent the enemy from posting his guns. This
fire, however, did not cause any damage, and the Italians were able to
plant their batteries. Early on the 6th, the firing began all along the
line, the Italian 16-pounders having been the first to open fire. The
Italian right was commanded by Colonel Mattei, the left by Colonel
Bangoni, who did excellent work, while the other wing was not so
successful. The heaviest guns had not yet arrived owing to one of
those incidents always sure to happen when least expected, so that the
40-pounders could not be brought to bear against the forts until later
in the day. The damage done to the works was not great for the moment,
but still the advantage had been gained of feeling the strength of
the enemy’s positions and finding the right way to attack them. The
artillerymen worked with great vigour, and were only obliged to desist
by an unexpected order which arrived about two p.m. from General
Cialdini. The attack was, however, resumed on the following day, and
the condition of the Monteggiana and Rochetta forts may be pronounced
precarious. As a sign of the times, and more especially of the just
impatience which prevails in Italy about the general direction of the
army movements, it may not be without importance to notice that the
Italian press has begun to cry out against the darkness in which
everything is enveloped, while the time already passed since the 24th
June tells plainly of inaction. It is remarked that the bitter gift
made by Austria of the Venetian provinces, and the suspicious offer
of mediation by France, ought to have found Italy in greatly different
condition, both as regards her political and military position. Italy
is, on the contrary, in exactly the same state as when the Archduke
Albert telegraphed to Vienna that a great success had been obtained over
the Italian army. These are facts, and, however strong and worthy of
respect may be the reasons, there is no doubt that an extraordinary
delay in the resumption of hostilities has occurred, and that at the
present moment operations projected are perfectly mysterious. Something
is let out from time to time which only serves to make the subsequent
absence of news more and more puzzling. For the present the first
official relation of the unhappy fight of the 24th June is published,
and is accordingly anxiously scanned and closely studied. It is a
matter of general remark that no great military knowledge is required to
perceive that too great a reliance was placed upon supposed facts, and
that the indulgence of speculations and ideas caused the waste of so
much precious blood. The prudence characterising the subsequent moves
of the Austrians may have been caused by the effects of their opponents’
arrangements, but the Italian commanders ought to have avoided the
responsibility of giving the enemy the option to move.
It is clear that to mend things the utterance of generous and patriotic
cries is not sufficient, and that it must be shown that the vigour of
the body is not at all surpassed by the vigour of the mind. It is also
clear that many lives might have been spared if there had been greater
proofs of intelligence on the part of those who directed the movement.
The situation is still very serious. Such an armistice as General von
Gablenz could humiliate himself enough to ask from the Prussians has
been refused, but another which the Emperor of the French has advised
them to accept might ultimately become a fact. For Italy, the purely
Venetian question could then also be settled, while the Italian, the
national question, the question of right and honour which the army
prizes so much, would still remain to be solved.
GONZAGA, July 12, 1866.
Travelling is generally said to be troublesome, but travelling with and
through brigades, divisions, and army corps, I can certify to be more
so than is usually agreeable. It is not that Italian officers or Italian
soldiers are in any way disposed to throw obstacles in your way; but
they, unhappily for you, have with them the inevitable cars with the
inevitable carmen, both of which are enough to make your blood freeze,
though the barometer stands very high. What with their indolence, what
with their number and the dust they made, I really thought they would
drive me mad before I should reach Casalmaggiore on my way from
Torre Malamberti. I started from the former place at three a.m., with
beautiful weather, which, true to tradition, accompanied me all
through my journey. Passing through San Giovanni in Croce, to which the
headquarters of General Pianell had been transferred, I turned to the
right in the direction of the Po, and began to have an idea of
the wearisome sort of journey which I would have to make up to
Casalmaggiore. On both sides of the way some regiments belonging to the
rear division were still camped, and as I passed it was most interesting
to see how busy they were cooking their ‘rancio,’ polishing their arms,
and making the best of their time. The officers stood leisurely about
gazing and staring at me, supposing, as I thought, that I was travelling
with some part in the destiny of their country. Here and there some
soldiers who had just left the hospitals of Brescia and Milan made their
way to their corps and shook hands with their comrades, from whom only
illness or the fortune of war had made them part. They seemed glad to
see their old tent, their old drum, their old colour-sergeant, and also
the flag they had carried to the battle and had not at any price allowed
to be taken. I may state here, en passant, that as many as six flags
were taken from the enemy in the first part of the day of Custozza, and
were subsequently abandoned in the retreat, while of the Italians
only one was lost to a regiment for a few minutes, when it was quickly
retaken. This fact ought to be sufficient by itself to establish the
bravery with which the soldiers fought on the 24th, and the bravery with
which they will fight if, as they ardently wish; a new occasion is given
to them.
As long as I had only met troops, either marching or camping on the
road, all went well, but I soon found myself mixed with an interminable
line of cars and the like, forming the military and the civil train of
the moving army. Then it was that it needed as much patience to keep
from jumping out of one’s carriage and from chastising the carrettieri,
as they would persist in not making room for one, and being as dumb to
one’s entreaties as a stone. When you had finished with one you had to
deal with another, and you find them all as obstinate and as egotistical
as they are from one end of the world to the other, whether it be on the
Casalmaggiore road or in High Holborn. From time to time things seemed
to proceed all right, and you thought yourself free from further
trouble, but you soon found out your mistake, as an enormous ammunition
car went smack into your path, as one wheel got entangled with another,
and as imperturbable Signor Carrettiere evidently took delight at a
fresh opportunity for stoppage, inaction, indolence, and sleep. I soon
came to the conclusion that Italy would not be free when the Austrians
had been driven away, for that another and a more formidable foe--an
enemy to society and comfort, to men and horses, to mankind in general
would have still to be beaten, expelled, annihilated, in the shape of
the carrettiere. If you employ him, he robs you fifty times over; if you
want him to drive quickly, he is sure to keep the animal from going
at all; if, worse than all, you never think of him, or have just been
plundered by him, he will not move an inch to oblige you. Surely the
cholera is not the only pestilence a country may be visited with; and,
should Cialdini ever go to Vienna, he might revenge Novara and the
Spielberg by taking with him the carrettieri of the whole army.
At last Casalmaggiore hove in sight, and, when good fortune and the
carmen permitted, I reached it. It was time! No iron-plated Jacob
could ever have resisted another two miles’ journey in such company. At
Casalmaggiore I branched off. There were, happily, two roads, and not
the slightest reason or smallest argument were needed to make me choose
that which my cauchemar had not chosen. They were passing the river at
Casalmaggiore. I went, of course, for the same purpose, somewhere else.
Any place was good enough--so I thought, at least, then. New adventures,
new miseries awaited me--some carrettiere, or other, guessing that I was
no friend of his, nor of the whole set of them, had thrown the jattatura
on me.