ITALIAN DAYS: II
Between our two winters in Rome we spent the summer in Florence, to
which we journeyed by carriage over a road that was hung like a rare
gallery with landscapes of the most picturesque description, and
bordered close at hand by many a blue or crimson or yellow Italian
anemone with its black centre. This experience was all sunshine, all
pastime. On the way, stopping at Lake Thrasymene, my mother wrote:--
May 29, 1858.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--I have just been watching the moon rise over the
lake, exactly opposite the window of our parlor. We thought to go out
and see the moonlight this evening, when I saw on the horizon what
seemed a mighty conflagration, which I immediately supposed must be
the moon, though I had never seen it look so red. The clouds were of
a fiery splendor, and then the flaming rim of the moon appeared above
the mountains, like the shield of some warrior of the great battle
between Flaminius and Hannibal on this spot, rising with its ghostly
invisible hero to see how it was now on the former field of blood.
The "peace supreme" that reigns here this evening distances all
thought of war and terror. We left Perugia this afternoon at three
o'clock, with the finest weather. Our drive was enchanting all the
way, along rich valleys and up mountains. And when climbing mountains
we have two milk-white steers which majestically draw us along. Their
eyes are deep wells of dark, peaceful light, that seem to express
broad levels of rich waving grain, pure lapsing streams, olives and
vines, and every other sign of plenty and quiet husbandry, with no end
of dawns, twilights, and cool thickets. The golden age of rural life
slumbers in their great orbs. Byron calls them "the purest gods of
gentle waters."
June 7. Here we are, then, in enchanting Florence! I shall try to send
you a journal by the Bryants, who are here now. The Brownings are
close by, and we are going to see them soon. The language has yet to
be made in which to describe beautiful, beautiful Florence, with its
air of nectar and sherbet and soft odors, its palaces, Arno, and
smooth streets, arched bridges, and all its other charms and
splendors. . . .
We were hot in the city of Florence. My only consolation was to eat
unnumbered cherries and apricots, for I did not as yet like the figs.
My brother and I sometimes had a lurid delight in cracking the cherry
and apricot stones and devouring the bitter contents, with the
dreadful expectation of soon dying from the effects. Altogether I
considered our sojourn in the town house, Casa del Bello, a morose
experience; but it was, fortunately, short. My mother had a different
feeling: she wrote home to America, "It is a delightful residence."
Without doubt it contained much engaging finery. Three parlors, giving
upon a garden, were absorbed into the "study" for my father alone; and
my mother was greatly pleased to find that fifteen easy-chairs were
within reach of any whim for momentary rest between the campaigns of
sight-seeing. To add to my own arbitrary shadow and regret of that
time, the garden at the rear of the house was to me clamp; full of
green things and gracefully drooping trees, doubtless, but never
embracing a ray of sunshine. Yet it was hot; all was relaxing; summer
prevailed in one of its ill-humored moods. To make matters worse, my
brother had caught in this Dantesque garden a brown bird, whether
because sick or lame I know not. But an imprisoned bird it certainly
was; and its prison consisted of a small, cell-like room, bare of
anything but the heart-broken glances of its occupant. My father
objected to the capture and caging of birds, and looked with cold
disapproval upon the hospitable endeavor of my brother to lengthen
the existence of a little creature that was really safer in the hands
of Dame Nature. Presently the bird from the sad garden died, and then
indeed Florence became intolerable to me! I wandered through the long,
darkish hall that penetrated our edifice from front to back, and I
sometimes emerged into the garden's bosky sullenness in my unsmiling
misery. Again my mother's testimony proves my mind to have been
strangely influenced by what to her was a garden full of roses,
jessamine, orange and lemon trees, and a large willow-tree drooping
over a fountain in its midst, with a row of marble busts along a
terrace: altogether a place that should have filled me with kittenish
glee. The "Note-Books," to be sure, suggest that it harbored malaria.
I looked with painful disappointment upon the unceasing dishes of
fresh purple figs, which everybody else seemed to enjoy. I saw pale
golden wine poured from poetic bottles braided with strands of straw,
like pretty girls' heads of flaxen hair; and I was surprised that my
father had the joyousness to smile, though sipping what he was later
to call "Monte Beni Sunshine."
That nothing of misery might be excluded from my dismal round of woe,
the only people whom I could go to see were the Powers family, living
opposite to us. Mr. Powers petrified me by the sang-froid with which
he turned out, and pointed out, his statues. Great artists are apt to
be like reflections from a greater light,--they know more about that
light, than about themselves; but Mr. Powers seemed to me to defy art
to lord it over his splendid mechanical genius, the self he managed so
well. To prove beyond a doubt that material could not resist him, he
would step from the studio into an adjoining apartment, and strike off
button-like bits of metal from an iron apparatus which he had
invented. It was either buttons or Venuses with him, indifferently, as
I supposed.
Gray to me, though "bright" to my mother, were the galleries and
narrow halls of marble busts, where started back into this life old
Medicean barbarians, of imperial power and worm-like ugliness;
presided over, as I looked upon them in memory during my girlhood, by
that knightly form of Michel Angelo's seated Lorenzo de' Medici, whose
attitude and shadowed eyes seem to express a lofty disapproval of such
a world.
A morning dawned when the interest in living again became vigorous. A
delicate-looking, essentially dignified young gentleman, the Count da
Montauto, seeming considerably starved, but fascinatingly
blue-blooded, appeared in our tiresome house. I heard that we were to
remove to a villa at Bellosguardo, a hill distant fifteen minutes'
drive from the city, where the summer was reasonable; and as the count
owned this haunt of refreshment, I became enthusiastically tender in
my respect for him. For years afterwards my sensibilities were
exercised over the question as to where the count was put while we
enjoyed the space and loveliness of Montauto; I did not know that he
had a palace in town. His sad, sweetly resentful glance had conveyed
to me the idea, "Must I still live, if I live beneath my rank, and as
a leaser of villas?"
One day, happy day, we toiled by carriage, between light-colored
walls, sometimes too high for any view,--that once caused my mother a
three hours' walk, because of a misturn,--over little hot, dusty
roads, out and up to the villa. My father and brother had already
walked thither; and my brother's spirits, as he stood beside the high
iron gateway, in front of the gray tower which was the theme, or chief
outline, of the old country-seat, were pleasant to witness, and
illustrated my own pent-up feelings. He shouted and danced before the
iron bars of the gate like a humanized note of music, uncertain where
it belonged, and glad of it. Our very first knowledge of Montauto was
rich and varied, with the relief from pretentiousness which all
ancient things enjoy, and with the appealing sweetness of time-worn
shabbiness. The walls of the hall and staircase were of gray stone, as
were the steps which led echoingly up to the second story of the
house. My sister exclaims in delight concerning the whole scene: "This
villa,--you have no idea how delightful it is! I think there must be
pretty nearly a hundred rooms in it, of all shapes, sizes, and
heights. The walls are never less than five feet thick, and sometimes
more, so that it is perfectly cool. I should feel very happy to live
here always. I am sitting in the loggia, which is delightful in the
morning freshness. Oh, how I love every inch of that beautiful
landscape!" The tower and the adjacent loggia were the features that
preeminently sated our thirst for suggestive charm, and they became
our proud boast and the chief precincts of our daily life and social
intercourse. The ragged gray giant looked over the road-walls at its
foot, and beyond and below them over the Arno valley, rimmed atop with
azure distance, and touched with the delicate dark of trees.
Internally, the tower (crowned, like a rough old king of the days of
the Round Table, with a machicolated summit) was dusty, broken, and
somewhat dangerous of ascent. Owls that knew every wrinkle of despair
and hoot-toot of pessimism clung to narrow crevices in the deserted
rooms, where the skeleton-like prison frameworks at the unglazed
windows were in keeping with the dreadful spirits of these
unregenerate anchorites. The forlorn apartments were piled one above
the other until the historic cylinder of stone opened to the sky. In
contrast to the barrenness of the gray inclosures, through the squares
of the windows throbbed the blue and gold, green and lilac, of Italian
heavens and countryside.
At the dangers of the stairway my father laughed, with flashing
glances. He always laughed (it was a sound peculiarly passionate and
low, full, yet unobtrusive) at dangers in which he could share
himself, although so grave when, in the moral turmoil, he was obliged
to stand and watch uneven battle; not the less sorry for human nature
because weakness comes from our ignoring the weapons we might have
used. But on those trembling stairs he approved of the risk we ran,
while cautioning me not to drop through one of the holes, and then
stumbled within an inch of breaking his own neck, and laughed again.
"While gropingly descending these crazy steps one dusky evening, I
gratified Julian exceedingly by hitting my nose against the wall," he
admits in the "Note-Books." Who would not enjoy seeing a monarch come
to so humble a contact with the bulwarks of his tower? Especially if
he were royal enough not to take offense at one's mirth, as this one
never did. Reaching the topmost heights of the stone pile, shaggy with
yellow moss, we eagerly pressed to the battlements and drank in the
view, finding all Florence spread out before us, far down from the
breeze and light and prospect of our perch,--understanding the joy of
falcons that are long hooded, and then finally look.
On one side of the tower was the lawn, hemmed round by a somewhat high
semicircular stone wall. In front of it was Florence, pinnacled and
roof-crowded, across the gentle valley. Not far away rose Galileo's
rival tower, and the habitations of one or two friends. On another
side of the keep the valley clipped more decidedly; and in the
foreground clustered a collection of trees upon a grassy slope,
divided from the villa lawn by a low wall, over which my father and
mother sometimes bought grapes, figs, pomegranates, and peaches grown
upon the place, which were smilingly offered by the count's contadini.
These from their numbers were unrecognizable, while their prices for
the exquisite fruit were so small that it was a pleasure to be
cheated. Behind the tower stretched lengthily the house, its large
arched doorway looking upon all comers with a frown of shadow. Still
further behind basked a bevy of fruit gardens and olive-tree dotted
hill-sides with their vines of the grape. We used to sit on the lawn
in the evenings, and sometimes received guests there; looking at the
sky, moon, comet, and stars ("flowers of light," my mother called
them) as if they were new. Any mortal might have been forgiven for so
regarding them, in the sapphire glory of an Italian night. My mother's
untiring voice of melodious enthusiasm echoed about the group in
ejaculations of praise.
In connection with the comet my elders spoke of war and misery, of
which it was accused of being the messenger. My child's heart already
knew the iron truth, and was not astonished at the intrusion of such a
thought, that beauty and peace must always entertain the herald of the
other country--the dark one. There was a sadness about Italy, although
it lay under "the smile of God," as my father calls its sunshine. He
and my mother often mention this shadow, as before remarked, in their
records. At times the cause seems to them to come from the "incubus"
of the Catholic religion, although they both believed it capable of
being wholly perfect. Glorious scenes were constantly soothing this
sense of human sorrow, scenes such as cannot be found in regions
outside the Church. In the Basilica of San Spirito my mother came
upon several visible lovelinesses of elaborate devotion, which with
her limpid purity of justice she enthusiastically notes down. She
entered the church one day for coolness and rest, and, recognizing its
"noble" beauties, she described, in her journal already printed, "a
function going on before one of the side-chapels--the burial service
of a child. The coffin was covered with a white satin pall,
embroidered with purple and gold. The officiating priests were in
robes of white satin and gold, and the altar was alight with candles,
besides those borne by young boys in white tunics. This scene in the
aisle was a splendid picture in the soft gloom of the church; and when
the organ burst forth in a kind of tender rapture, rolling pearly
waves of harmony along the large spaces, and filling the dome with the
foam and spray of interlacing measures, it seemed as if angels were
welcoming the young child to heaven." The pettiness of a brief burial
service in a private parlor or in a meagre meeting-house would not
have touched her heart so profoundly, because it would not have
recalled heaven so impressively in all its grandeur and tenderness.
She evidently perceived here the sweet and even cheering veracity of a
devotion that is glad to remember all the possibilities of reverent
observance, each motion and aspect of which have a reference to God
and to religious history. Again San Spirito gave her an insight into
the dignity of painstaking worship. "While we were walking about, the
priests and monks of the Order of St. Augustine, who have a convent
attached, came in a procession from the sacristy, and knelt down in
their sweeping black robes upon the marble pavement, in two lines, one
behind the other, and chanted aloud their Ave Maria. It was a
wonderful picture." She still clung to the Puritanical idea that in
religion itself, "What looks so wondrous, wondrous fair, His
providence has taught us to fear. . . . Angels only are fit to live as
monks pretend to live." But she contradicts this theory. No one was
more adapted than she to perceive the godliness of the monastic
sacrifice, when she realized the object of it. Among her dearest
friends and verified ideals were Mr. George Bradford, who always
reminded me of a priest of the true type; and Miss Hoar, whose vestal
soul, celebrating constant rites over the memory of her dead
betrothed, made her the image of a nun. This welcome delicacy and
loftiness of self-consecration my mother also observed in the ranks of
the sometimes harshly criticised friars. At Fiesole, "A young monk
unveiled the picture for us. He was very courteous, and had an air of
unusual goodness and sincerity. He is one of those who 'bear
witness.' As a matter of course I offered him a fee for his trouble,
but he made a sad and decided gesture of refusal, that was very
surprising and remarkable; for it was impossible to gainsay him, and I
felt embarrassed that I had thought of the gold that perishes in the
presence of the heavenly picture and the holy youth. I wish I knew his
history." I also wish she had known it, for it would have unveiled for
her the most beautiful facts about other holy youths of our own day,
as well as similar facts of earlier days,--truths whose purity would
have rapt her thought even more deeply than Fra Angelico's purity in
art, uncurtained by brave and humble hands for her sight. It is to be
observed that her views and tacit beliefs and my father's are
identical. They did not really believe that Italy was under an
"incubus;" they felt the physical weight of Catholicity, or the Cross,
and half guessed its spiritual spring.
Some of the rooms at Montauto I studiously avoided. The forlorn cavern
of a parlor, or ball-room, I remember to have seen only once. There
was a painful vacuum where good spirits ought to have been. Along the
walls were fixed seats, like those in the apse of some morally fallen
cathedral, and they were covered with blue threadbare magnificence
that told the secrets of vanity. Heavy tables crowded down the centre
of the room. I came, saw, and fled. The oratory was the most thrilling
place of all. It opened out of my sister's room, which was a large,
sombre apartment. It was said to attract a frequently seen ghost by
the force of its profound twilight and historic sorrows; and my
sister, who was courageous enough to startle a ghost, highly approved
of this corner of her domain. But she suddenly lost her buoyant taste
for disembodied spirits, and a rumor floated mistily about that Una
had seen the wretched woman who could not forget her woes in death.
In "Monte Beni" this oratory is minutely pictured, where "beneath the
crucifix . . . lay a human skull . . . carved in gray alabaster, most
skillfully done . . . with accurate imitation of the teeth, the
sutures, the empty eye-caverns." Everywhere the intense
picturesqueness gave material, at Montauto, for my father's romance.
Stella, whom he invited into the story without changing her name, was
a sympathetic object in my now somewhat alarmed and lonely days. I
call her an "object," because I could not understand a word she said,
and she soon gave up opening her lips when we were together. She
looked kind, in spite of her rocky hardness of Italian feature, and
she fed me on dried melon-seeds when I was at the lowest tide of
depression. Sometimes she was to be found at the well, close to the
entrance-arch. There the faithful servant let down a bucket by its
heavy chain with a doomsday clank. The sunlight revealed the smallness
and brilliancy and number of her black braids and the infinite
multitude of her wrinkles, as well as the yellowness of her dangling
gold earrings and the texture of her parchment-like arms, which were
the color of glossy brown leaves. Sometimes she would awaken me from
soporific melancholy by allowing herself to be found upon her knees in
her bedroom, a bare and colorless abode, her great black crucifix
hanging in majestic solitude upon the wall above her handsome old
head. I thought her temporarily insane to pray so much, and at all to
an audience; but I recognized the gentleness of the attacks, and I
somehow loved her for them. Even to the ignorance of error truth can
be beautiful. An extremely attractive little Italian maid, of sixteen
or less, used also to be found on her knees before the crucifix.
Stella was obliged to drive this dark-eyed butterfly to her devotions.
If I discovered her, I had no reverence, and tried unmercifully to
interrupt her soft whispers. Stella's loving revenge for my wickedness
was to give me a tiny wax sleeping Bambino, surrounded by flowers
under a convex glass, whose minute face had a heaven of smiling
forgiveness in it. Often I surreptitiously studied the smile on the
sleeping face. I felt that He loved us even during His sleep; and I
cherished the gaze of shining gladness with which Stella herself had
placed this treasure in my hand, which could so simply quicken
sluggish thought.
To give a clearer glimpse of the villa, which with our life there
became one of the most precious of our memories, and a glimpse also of
one or two people and events, I will insert this letter from my
mother:--
August 14, 1858.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--Una and Rose were getting pale for the first time
in their lives, and Mr. Hawthorne was languid and weary of the city
life, and an English lady, a friend of the Brownings, told us of this
villa, which the Count da Montauto wished to let this summer, though
never before, and so we tried for it and got it. It is a most
enchanting situation, and the villa is immensely large and very nice.
We have an old mediaeval tower at the oldest end, in which Savonarola
was confined, and from its summit we have a view which one might dream
of, but seldom see. We are so high, however, that from the first
floor we have a sweeping view, and look down on the most sumptuous
valley of the Arno from our western windows,--a level plain,
cultivated every inch with grapes and olives and other fruits; and all
round rise up soft hills, and the Apennines afar off where the sun
sets. We see the noble white steers slowly moving in the valley, among
the trees, ploughing as in the days of Cincinnatus. An infinite peace
and quiet reign. We hear birds, and in the evening the cue owl utters
his melodious, melancholy one note. The world does not disturb us. The
air is as pure and fresh as air can possibly be, blowing from the
sweet, carefully tended plain, and sweeping down from the mountains.
Near us is the villa and tower of Aurora Leigh, just at the end of our
estate, and farther off is Galileo's tower, where he studied the
heavens. Northeast from us lies the beautiful Florence, burning in
the bottom of the cup of hills, with all its domes and campaniles,
palaces and churches. Fiesole, the cradle of Florence, is visible
among the heights at the east, and San Miniato, with its grove of
cypresses, is farther off to the south. There is no end of beauty and
interest, and the view becomes ideal and poetic the moment the sun
begins its decline; for then the rose and purple mists drape the
hills, and mountains--the common earth--turn to amethysts, topazes,
and sapphires, and words can never convey an idea of the opaline
heavens, which seem to have illimitable abysses of a penetrable
substance, made up of the light of pearls.
Literally and carefully I speak of the light of pearls, with the
opaline changes. I am quite happy that I have seized the image. The
effect is of a roundness with the confused yet clear outline of a
pearl, an outline which also is not one, and the light looks living
and absorbing. One evening, after the sun went down, rays of blue and
rose came from it in a half-wheel shape, so ineffably delicate that if
we looked too pryingly they were not there, but if we glanced unawares
there they were. It was more like the thought of them than the
realities. This summer we have our first sight of Italian sunsets, for
we were assured we should have fever if we were out at the hour in
Rome. We began by watching them from the bridges over the Arno, which
are perhaps the finest points of view, because the river is added. It
flows east and west, and so we have all the glory by standing on
either of the bridges. The arches, the reflections in the waters, the
city's palaces and churches, the distant hills, all come in for a part
of the pomp and splendor,--all that man can do, all that God has done,
for this lovely land.
Una's chamber is in the tower [but approached from the house], a
large, lofty, vaulted chamber, with an oratory attached, full of
Madonnas, pyxes, "and all sorts," as Mr. Browning says. There is a
regular chapel besides. Mr. Hawthorne has a delightful suite of study,
saloon, dressing-room, and chamber, away from all the rest of the
family.
August 25. Last evening Miss Ada Shepard and I went to a neighboring
villa to see some table-turning, which I have never seen, nor anything
appertaining to spirits. Mr. Frank Boott was there and a Fleming,
Una's drawing-master. We tried patiently for two hours with the
table, but though it trembled and wavered, nothing came of it; so Miss
Shepard then took a pencil and paper for the spirits to write, if they
would. [The attempt on Miss Shepard's part was now, and always
afterwards, successful. My mother speaks of several somewhat vulgar
spirits who caused great merriment.] Then Ada felt quite a different
and new power seize her hand, rapidly writing: "Who?" "Mother." "Whose
mother?" "Mrs. Hawthorne's. My dear child, I am with you. I wish to
speak to you. My dearest child, I am near you. I am oftener with you
than with any one." Ada's hand was carried forcibly back to make a
strong underline beneath "near," and it was all written with the most
eager haste, so that it agitated the medium very much, and me too; for
I had kept aloof in mind, because Mr. Hawthorne has such a repugnance
to the whole thing. Mrs. Browning is a spiritualist. Mr. Browning
opposes and protests with all his might, but he says he is ready to be
convinced. Mrs. Browning is wonderfully interesting. She is the most
delicate sheath for a soul I ever saw. One evening at Casa Guidi
there was a conversation about spirits, and a marvelous story was told
of two hands that crowned Mrs. Browning with a wreath through the
mediumship of Mr. Hume. Mr. Browning declared that he believed the
two hands were made by Mr. Hume and fastened to Mr. Hume's toes, and
that he made them move by moving his feet. Mrs. Browning kept trying
to stem his flow of eager, funny talk with her slender voice, but,
like an arrowy river, he rushed and foamed and leaped over her slight
tones, and she could not succeed in explaining how she knew they were
spirit hands. She will certainly be in Rome next winter, unless she
goes to Egypt. You would be infinitely charmed with Mrs. Browning,
and with Mr. Browning as well. The latter is very mobile, and flings
himself about just as he flings his thoughts on paper, and his wife is
still and contemplative. Love, evidently, has saved her life. I think
with you that "'Aurora Leigh' overflows with well-considered thought;"
and I think all literature does not contain such a sweet baby, so
dewy, so soft, so tender, so fresh. Mr. Hawthorne read me the book in
Southport, but I have read it now again, sitting in our loggia, with
Aurora's tower full in view. . . .
This loggia opened widely to the air on two sides, so that the
opalescent views were framed in oblong borders of stone that rested
our rejoicing eyes. Under the stone shade, in the centre of the
Raphaelesque distances, many mornings were passed ideally. Visitors
often joined us here. Among them was Miss Elizabeth Boott, afterwards
Mrs. Duveneck, who came with her little sketch-book. She made a
water-color portrait of my father, which, as the young artist was then
but a girl, looked like a cherub of pug-nosed, pink good nature, with
its head loose. I can see that little sketch now, and I feel still a
wave of the dizziness of my indignation at its strange depiction of a
strong man reduced to dollhood. Miss Boott being a true artist in the
bud, there was, of course, the eerie likeness of some unlike
portraits. It became famous with us all as the most startling
semblance we had ever witnessed. I sincerely wish that the ardor with
which the young girl made her sketch could have been used later on a
portrait, which certainly would have been superbly honest and
vigorous, like all the work that has come from her wonderfully noble
nature and her skillful perception. Another young lady appeared
against the Raphaelesque landscape. She was very pretty in every way,
and my mother was delighted to have her present, and showered
endearing epithets upon her. Her large brown eyes were alluring beyond
words, and her features pathetically piquant and expressive. Her face
was rather round, pale, and emphatically saddened by the great
sculptor Regret. She sat in picturesque attitudes, her cheek leaning
against her hand, and her elbow somewhere on the back or arm of her
chair; yet her positions were never excessive, but eminently gentle.
She had been disappointed in love, and one was sure it was not in the
love of the young man. She was too pretty to die, but she could look
sad, and we all liked to have her with us, and preferred her charming
misery to any other mood.
The roads going to and fro between the cream-colored stone walls of
the surrounding country were unsparingly hot. I can feel now the flash
of sunbeams that made me expect to curl up and die like a bit of
vegetation in a flame. I tried to feel cooler when I saw the peasant
women approaching, bent under their loads of wheat or of brush. If
they had no shading load, it made me gasp to observe that their Tuscan
hats, as large as cart-wheels and ostensibly meant to shadow their
faces, were either dangling in their hands or flapping backward
uselessly. It seemed to be no end of a walk to Florence, and the drive
thither was also detestable,--all from the heat and dust, and probably
only at that time of year. The views of many-colored landscape, hazy
with steaming fields, were lovely if you could once muster the energy
to gaze across the high road-walls when the thoroughfare sank clown a
declivity. After a while there were cottages, outside of which ancient
crones sat knitting like the wind, or spinning as smoothly as
machines, by the aid of a distaff. Little girls, who were
full-fledged peasant women in everything but size, pecked away at
their knitting of blue socks, proud of their lately won skill and
patient of the undesired toil. They were so small and comely and
conformable, and yet conveyed such an idea of volcanic force ready to
rebel, that they entranced me. Further inside the heart of the city
upstarted the intoxications of sin and the terrible beggars with their
maimed children. I never lost the impressions of human wrong there
gathered into a telling argument. The crowded hurry and the dirty
creatures that attend commercial greed and selfish enjoyment in cities
everywhere weltered along the sidewalks and unhesitatingly plunged
into the mud of the streets. It seemed to me even then that something
should be done for the children maimed by inhuman fathers, and for
their weeping mothers too. My father did not forget in his art the
note he found in beautiful Florence, though it was too sad to
introduce by a definite exposition, and falls upon the ear, in "Monte
Beni," like a wordless minor chord.
I sometimes went with my mother when she called at Casa Guidi, where
the Brownings lived. I had a fixed idea that Galileo belonged to
their family circle; and I had a vision of him in my mind which was
quite as clear as Mrs. Browning ever was (although I sat upon her
lap), representing him as holding the sun captive in his back yard,
while he blinked down upon it from a high prison of his own. The
house, as I recall it, seemed to have a network of second-story
piazzas, and the rooms were very much shadowed and delightfully cool.
Mr. Browning was shining in the shadow, by the temperate brightness of
mind alone, and ever talking merrily. Cultivated English folk are
endowed with sounding gayety of voice, but he surpassed them all, as
the medley of his rushing thought and the glorious cheer of his
perception would suggest. Mrs. Browning was there: so you knew by her
heavy dark curls and white cheeks, but doubted, nevertheless, when you
came to meet her great eyes, so dreamy that you wondered which was
alive, you or she. Her hand, usually held up to her cheek, was
absolutely ghostlike. Her form was so small, and deeply imbedded in a
reclining-chair or couch-corner, that it amounted to nothing. The dead
Galileo could not possibly have had a wiser or more doubtfully
attested being as a neighbor. If the poor scientist had been there to
assert that Mrs. Browning breathed, he would probably have been
imprisoned forthwith by another incredulous generation. My mother
speaks, on her second visit to Rome, of the refreshment of Mr.
Browning's calls, and says that the sudden meetings with him gave her
weary nerves rest during the strain of my sister's illness. She could
not have rejoiced in his spirited loveliness more than the little girl
by her side, who sometimes languished for direct personal intercourse
in all the panorama of pictures and statues, and friends absorbed in
sight-seeing. I had learned to be grateful for art and ruins, if only
they were superlative of their kind. I put away a store of such in my
fancy. But Mr. Browning was a perfection which looked at me, and
moved vigorously! For many years he associated himself in my mind with
the blessed visions that had enriched my soul in Italy, and continued
to give it sustenance in the loneliness of my days when we again threw
ourselves upon the inartistic mercies of a New England village. He
grouped himself with a lovely Diana at the Vatican, with some of
Raphael's Madonnas and the statue of Perseus, with Beatrice Cenci and
the wildflowers of our journeys by vettura, besides a few other
faultless treasures deeply appreciated by me. We all noticed Mr.
Browning's capacity for springing through substances and covering
space without the assistance of time.
My mother says in her little diary of Rome, "I met Mr. Browning; or
rather, he rushed at me from a distance, and seemed to come through a
carriage in his way." It was as if he longed to teach people how to
follow his thoughts in poetry, as they flash electrically from one
spot to another, thinking nothing of leaping to a mountain-top from an
inspection of "callow nestlings," or any other tender fact of smallest
interest. Not one of all the cherubs of the great masters had a
sunnier face, more dancing curls, or a sweeter smile than he. The most
present personality was his; the most distant, even when near, was the
personality he married. I have wondered whether the Faun would have
sprung with such untainted jollity into the sorrows of to-day if Mr.
Browning had not leaped so blithely before my father's eyes.
"Browning's nonsense," he writes, "is of a very genuine and excellent
quality, the true babble and effervescence of a bright and powerful
mind; and he lets it play 'among his friends with the faith and
simplicity of a child."
I think I must be right in tracing one of the chief enchantments of
the story of Dr. Grimshawe to these months upon the hill of
Bellosguardo. For at Montauto one of the terrors was the cohort of
great spiders. There is no word in the dictionary so large or so
menacing as a large spider of the Dr. Grimshawe kind. Such appear,
like exclamations, all over the world. I saw one as huge and thrilling
as these Italian monsters on the Larch Path at the Wayside, a few
years later; but at Montauto they really swaggered and remained. We
perceive such things from a great distance, as all disaster may be
perceived if we are not more usefully employed. A presentiment
whispers, "There he is!" and looking unswervingly in the right
direction, there he is, to be sure. I could easily have written a poor
story, though not a good novel, upon the effectiveness of these
spiders, glaring in the chinks of bed-curtains, or moving like shadows
upon the chamber wall or around the windows, and I can guess my
father's amusement over them. They were as large as plums, with
numerous legs that spread and brought their personality out to the
verge of impossibility. I suppose they stopped there, but I am not
sure. No wonder the romancer humorously added a touch that made a
spider of the doctor himself, with his vast web of pipe-smoke!
The great romance of "Monte Beni" is thus referred to by Mr. Motley
and his wife; I give a few sentences written by the latter, a friend
of many years' standing, and I insert Mr. Motley's letter entire:--
WALTON-ON-THAMES, April 13, 1860.
DEAREST SOPHIA,--My pen continues to be the same instrument of torture
to me that you remember it always was in my youth, when I used to read
your letters with such wonder and delight. This spell is still upon
me, for I appreciate the magic of your mind now as much as I did then,
and have treasured up every little bit of a note that you wrote me in
Rome. I like your fresh feminine enthusiasm, and always feel better
and happier under its influence. . . . I am glad that you were so much
pleased with Lothrop's letter of praise and thanksgiving; a poor
return at best for the happiness we had derived from reading Mr.
Hawthorne's exquisite romance. . . . I shall not now attempt to add any
poor words of mine to his expressive ones, except to assure you of my
deep sympathy for the infinite content and joy you must feel in this
new expression of your husband's genius. We were so much pleased to
find that he was willing to come to us in London, which we hardly
dared to hope for. . . . At least I can promise to attend to him as
little as possible. . . . We have taken for the season a small house
in Hertford Street, 31, which belongs to Lady Byron, who has fitted it
up for her grand-daughter, Lady Annabella King. . . . The eldest
brother, Lord Ockham, is a mechanic, and is now working in a
machine-shop in Blackwall Island, where he lives. This eccentric
course is rather, I fear, the development of a propensity for low
company and pursuits than from anything Peter the Greatish there is
about him. His father, who is the quintessence of aristocracy, has
cast him off. . . . Lothrop was very much gratified by all the fine
things you said about him, and so was I; for praise from you means
something and is worth having, because it comes from the heart. There
is another volume written, . . . but another must be written before
either is published.
Ever your affectionate M. E. M.
The "letter of praise and thanksgiving" referred to above is as
follows:--
WALTON-ON-THAMES.
MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--I can't resist the impulse to write a line to you,
in order to thank you for the exquisite pleasure I have derived from
your new romance. Everything that you have ever written, I believe, I
have read many times; and I am particularly vain of having admired
"Lights from a Steeple," when I first read it in the "Boston Token,"
several hundred years ago, when we were both younger than we are now;
and of having detected and cherished, at a later day, an "Old Apple
Dealer," whom I believe that you have unhandsomely thrust out of your
presence, now you are grown so great. But the romance of "Monte Beni"
has the additional charm for me that it is the first book of yours
that I have read since I had the privilege of making your personal
acquaintance. My memory goes back at once to those (alas, not too
frequent, but that was never my fault) walks we used to take along the
Tiber or in the Campagna, during that dark period when your Una was
the cause of such anxiety to your household and to all your friends;
and it is delightful to get hold of the book now, and know that it is
impossible for you any longer, after waving your wand, as you
occasionally did then, indicating where the treasure was hidden, to
sink it again beyond the plummet's sound. I admire the book
exceedingly. I don't suppose that it is a matter of much consequence
to you whether I do or not, but I feel as much disposition to say so
as if it were quite an original and peculiar idea of my own, and as if
the whole world were not just now saying the same thing. I suppose
that your ears are somewhat stunned with your praises, appearing as
you do after so long an interval; but I hope that, amid the din, you
will not disdain the whisper from such sincere admirers as I am
myself, and my wife and daughter are. I don't know which of the trio
is the warmest one, and we have been fighting over the book, as it is
one which, for the first reading at least, I did not like to hear
aloud. I am only writing in a vague, maundering, uncritical way, to
express sincere sympathy and gratitude, not to exhibit any dissenting
powers, if I have any. If I were composing an article for a review, of
course I should feel obliged to show cause for my admiration, but I am
now only obeying an impulse. Permit me to say, however, that your
style seems, if possible, more perfect than ever. Where, oh where is
the godmother who gave you to talk pearls and diamonds? How easy it
seems till anybody else tries! Believe me, I don't say to you half
what I say behind your back; and I have said a dozen times that nobody
can write English but you. With regard to the story, which has been
slightly criticised, I can only say that to me it is quite
satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, fantastic, Hawthornesque
shapes flitting through the golden gloom which is the atmosphere of
the book. I like the misty way in which the story is indicated rather
than revealed. The outlines are quite definite enough, from the
beginning to the end, to those who have imagination enough to follow
you in your airy flights; and to those who complain, I suppose nothing
less than an illustrated edition, with a large gallows on the last
page, with Donatello in the most pensive of attitudes, his ears
revealed at last through a white nightcap, would be satisfactory.
I beg your pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen
that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your
romance to the level of an every-day novel. It is exactly the romantic
atmosphere of the book in which I revel. You who could cast a glamour
over the black scenery and personalities of ancient and of modern
Massachusetts could hardly fail to throw the tenderest and most
magical hues over Italy, and you have done so. I don't know that I am
especially in love with Miriam or Hilda, or that I care very much what
is the fate of Donatello; but what I do like is the air of unreality
with which you have clothed familiar scenes without making them less
familiar. The way in which the two victims dance through the Carnival
on the last day is very striking. It is like a Greek tragedy in its
effect, without being in the least Greek. As I said before, I can't
single out any special scene, description, or personage by which to
justify or illustrate my feeling about the book. That I could do
better after a second reading, when it would be easy to be coldly
critical. I write now just after having swallowed the three volumes
almost at a draught; and if my tone is one of undue exhilaration, I
can only say it was you gave me the wine. It is the book--as a
whole--that I admire, and I hope you will forgive my saying so in four
pages instead of four words.
Is there any chance of our seeing you this summer? We expect to be in
London next month. It will be very shabby of you not to let us have a
glimpse of you; but I know you to be capable of any meanness in that
line. At any rate, you can have little doubt how much pleasure it will
give us. Pray don't answer this if it is in the least a bore to you to
do so. I know that you are getting notes of admiration by the bushel,
and I have no right to expect to hear from you. At the same time it
would be a great pleasure to me to hear from you, for old (alas,
no,--new) acquaintance' sake.
I remain very sincerely yours,
J. L. MOTLEY.
Of the discussions about "Monte Beni" I remember hearing a good deal,
as my mother laughingly rehearsed passages in letters and reviews
which scolded about Hawthorne's tantalizing vagueness and
conscienceless Catholicity. My parents tried to be lenient towards
the public, whose excitement was so complimentary, if its usually
heavy inability to analyze its best intellectual wine was fatiguing.
My father never for a moment expected to be widely understood,
although he no doubt hoped to be so in certain cases. He must have
easily deduced something in the way of chances for appreciative
analysis from prevalent literature. He struck me as a good deal like
an innocent prisoner at the bar, and if I had not been a member of his
family I might have been sorry for him. As it was, I felt convinced
that he could afford to be silent, patient, indifferent, now that his
work was perfected. My mother put into words all that was necessary of
indignation at people's desire for a romance or a "penny dreadful"
that would have been temporary and ineffective. Meantime, such rewards
as Mr. Motley offered weighed down the already laden scales on the
side of artistic wealth.
Perhaps it will not be impertinent for me to remark, in reference to
this admirable and delightful letter, that its writer here exemplifies
the best feelings about Hawthorne's art without quite knowing it. We
see him bubbling glad ejaculations in the true style of an Omar
Khayyam who has drained the magic cup handed to him. It is delicious
to hear that he was not sure he cared about the personages of a story
that had clutched his imagination and heart, until he reeled a little
with responsive enchantment; though it is hard to say about what he
cared if not about the romancer's powerful allies, who carried his
meaning for him. Mr. Motley tries to attribute to the scenes he knew
so well in reality, under their new guise of dreamy vividness, the
spell which came, I believe, from the reality of moral grandeur, in
both its sin and its holiness, but which we so entirely ignore every
precious hour by sinking to the realities of bricks and common clay.
Miriam and Donatello may seem at first glance like visions; but I have
always been taught that their spell lay in our innate sense that they
were ourselves, as we really are. The wine of great truth is at first
the most heady of all, making its revelations shimmer.