Hotel d'Italie, Florence, Wednesday.
My dear Bob,--Here we are going it, and in about the very "fastest"
place I ever set foot in. In any other city society seems to reserve
itself for evening and lamplight; but here, Bob, you make "running from
the start," and keep up the pace till you come in. In the morning there
's the club, with plenty of whist; all the gossip of the town,--and such
gossip too,--the real article, by Jove!--no shadowy innuendoes, no
vague and half-mystified hints of a flaw here or a crack there, but home
blows, my boy, with a smashed character or a ruined reputation at every
stroke. This is, however, only a breathing canter for what awaits you at
the Cascini,--a sort of "promenade," where all the people meet in
their carriages, and exchange confidences in scandal and invitations
to tea,--the Cascini being to the club what the ballet is to the opera.
After this, you have barely time to dress for dinner; which over, the
opera begins. There you pay visits from box to box; learn all that is
going on for the evening; hear where the prettiest women are going, and
where the smartest play will be found. Midnight arrives, and then--but
not before--the real life of Florence begins. The dear Contessa, that
never showed by daylight, at last appears in her _salon_; the charming
Marchesa, whose very head-dress is a study from Titian, and whose
dark-fringed eyes you think you recognize from the picture in "the
Pitti," at length sails in, to receive the humble homage of--what,
think you? a score of devoted worshippers, a band of chivalrous adorers?
Nothing of the kind, Bob: a dozen or so of young fellows, in all manner
of costumes, and all shapes of beards and moustaches; all smoking cigars
or cigarettes, talking, singing, laughing, thumping the piano, shouting
choruses, playing tricks with cards,--all manner of tomfoolery, in fact;
with a dash of enthusiasm in the nonsense that carries you along in
spite of yourself. The conversation--if one can dare to call it such--is
a wild chaos of turf-talk, politics, scandal, literature, buffoonery,
and the ballet. There is abundance of wit,--plenty of real smartness on
every side. The fellows who have just described the cut of a tucker can
tell you accurately the contents of a treaty; and they who did not seem
to have a thought above the depth of a flounce or the width of a sandal,
are thoroughly well versed in the politics of every State of Europe.
There is no touch of sarcasm in their gayety,--none of that refined,
subtle ridicule that runs through a Frenchman's talk; these fellows are
eminently good-natured: the code of morals is not severe, and hence the
secret of the merciful judgments you hear pronounced on every one.
As to breeding, we English should certainly say there was an excess of
familiarity. Everybody puts his arm on your shoulder, pats you on the
back, and calls you by your Christian name. I am "Giacomo" to a host of
fellows I don't know by name; and "Gemess" to a select few, who
pride themselves on speaking English. At all events, Bob, there is no
constraint,--no reserve amongst them. You are at your ease at once, and
good fellowship is the order of the day.
As to the women, they have a half-shy, half-confident look, that puzzles
one sadly. They 'll stand a stare from you most unblushingly; they think
it's all very right and very reasonable that you should look at them as
long and as fixedly as you would do at a Baffaelle in the Gallery: but
with all that, there is a great real delicacy of deportment, and those
coram-publico preferences which are occasionally exhibited in England,
and even in France, are never seen in Italian society. As to good looks,
there is an abundance, but of a character which an Englishman at first
will scarcely accept as beauty. They are rarely handsome by feature,
but frequently beautiful by expression. There is, besides, a graceful
languor, a tender Cleopatra-like voluptuousness in their air that
distinguishes them from other women; and I have no doubt that any
one who has lived long in Italy would pronounce French smartness
and coquetry the very essence of vulgarity. They cannot dress like a
Parisian, nor waltz like a Wienerin; but, to my thinking, they are far
more captivating than either. I am already in love with four, and I have
just heard of a fifth, that I am sure will set me downright distracted.
There 's one thing I like especially in them; and I own to you, Bob, it
would compensate to me for any amount of defects, which I believe do not
pertain to them. It is this: they have no accomplishments,--they neither
murder Rossini, nor mar Salvator Rosa; they are not educated to torment
society, poison social intercourse, and push politeness to its last
entrenchment. You are not called on for silence while they scream, nor
for praise when they paint. They do not convert a drawing-room into a
boarding-school on examination-day, and they are satisfied to charm you
by fascinations that cost you no compromise to admire.
After all, I believe we English are the only people that adopt the other
plan. We take a commercial view of the matter, and having invested so
much of our money in accomplishment, we like to show our friends that we
have made a good speculation. For myself, I 'd as soon be married to a
musical snuff-box or a daguerreotype machine as to a "well-brought-up
English girl," who had always the benefit of the best masters in music
and drawing. The fourth-rate artist in anything is better than the
first-rate amateur; and I 'd just as soon wear home-made shoes as listen
to home-made music.
I have not been presented in any of the English houses here as yet.
There is some wonderful controversy going forward as to whether we are
to call first, or to wait to be called on; and I begin to fear that the
Carnival will open before it can be settled. The governor, too, has got
into a hot controversy with our Minister here, about our presentation at
Court. It would appear that the rule is, you should have been presented
at home, in order to be eligible for presentation abroad. Now, we have
been at the Castle, but never at St James's. The Minister, however, will
not recognize reflected royalty; and here we are, suffering under a real
Irish grievance O'Connell would have given his eye for. The fun of it is
that the Court--at least, I hear so--is crammed with English, who never
even saw a Viceroy, nor perhaps partook of the high festivities of a
Lord Mayor's Ball. How they got there is not for me to inquire, but I
suppose that a vow to a chamberlain is like a customhouse oath, and can
always be reconciled to an easy conscience.
We have arrived here at an opportune moment,--time to see all the
notorieties of the place at the races, which began to-day. So far as I
can learn, the foreigners have adopted the English taste, with the true
spirit of imitators; that is, they have given little attention to any
improvement in the breed of cattle, but have devoted considerable energy
to all the rogueries of the ring, and with such success that Newmarket
and Doncaster might still learn something from the "Legs" of the
Continent.
Tiverton, who is completely behind the scenes, has told me some strange
stories about their doings; and, at the very moment I am writing,
horses are being withdrawn, names scratched, forfeits declared, and bets
pronounced "off," with a degree of precipitation and haste that shows
how little confidence exists amongst the members of the ring. As for
myself, not knowing either the course, the horses, nor the colors of
the riders, I take my amusement in observing--what is really most
laughable--the absurd effort made by certain small folk here to resemble
the habits and ways of certain big ones in England. Now it is a retired
coach-maker, or a pensioned-off clerk in a Crown office, that jogs down
the course, betting-book in hand, trying to look--in the quaintness of
his cob, and the trim smugness of his groom--like some old county squire
of fifteen thousand a year. Now it is some bluff, middle-aged gent, who,
with coat thrown back and thumbs in his waistcoat, insists upon being
thought Lord George Bentinck. There are Massy Stanleys, George Paynes,
Lord Wiltons, and Colonel Peels by dozens; "gentlemen jocks" swathed in
drab paletots, to hide the brighter rays of costume beneath, gallop at
full speed across the grass on ponies of most diminutive size; smartly
got-up fellows stand under the judge's box, and slang the authorities
above, or stare at the ladies in front. There are cold luncheons,
sandwiches, champagne, and soda-water; bets, beauties, and bitter
beer,--everything, in short, that constitutes races, but horses! The
system is that every great man gives a cup, and wins it himself; the
only possible interest attending such a process being whether, in some
paroxysm of anger at this, or some frump at that, he may not withdraw
his horse at the last moment,--an event on which a small knot of
gentlemen with dark eyes, thick lips, and aquiline noses seem to
speculate as a race chance, and only second in point of interest to a
whist party at the Casino with a couple of newly come "Bulls." A more
stupid proceeding, therefore, than these races--bating always the fun
derived from watching the "snobocracy".
I have mentioned--cannot be conceived. Now it was a walk over; now a
"sell;" now two horses of the same owner; now one horse that was owned
by three. The private history of the rogueries might possibly amuse, but
all that met the public eye was of the very slowest imaginable.
I begin to think, Bob, that horse-racing is only a sport that can be
maintained by a great nation abounding in wealth, and with all the
appliances of state and splendor. You ought to have gorgeous equipages,
magnificent horses, thousands of spectators, stands crowded to the roof
by a class such as only exists in great countries. Royalty itself, in
all its pomp, should be there; and all that represents the pride and
circumstance of a mighty people. To try these things on a small scale
is ridiculous,--just as a little navy of one sloop and a steamer! With
great proportions and ample verge, the detracting elements are hidden
from view. The minor rascalities do not intrude themselves on a scene of
such grandeur; and though cheating, knavery, and fraud are there,
they are not foreground figures. Now, on a little "race-course," it is
exactly the reverse: just as on board of a three-decker you know nothing
of the rats, but in a Nile boat they are your bedfellows and your guests
at dinner.
To-morrow we are to have a match with gentlemen riders, and if anything
worth recording occurs I 'll keep a corner for it Mother is in the grand
stand, with any amount of duchesses and marchionesses around her.
The governor is wandering about the field, peeping at the cattle, and
wondering how the riders are to get round a sharp turn at the end of
the course. The girls are on horseback with Tiverton; and, in the long
intervals between the matches, I jot down these rough notes for you. The
scene itself is beautiful. The field, flanked on one side by the wood of
the Cascini, is open on t' other to the mountains: Fiezole, from base to
summit, is dotted over with villas half buried in groves of orange and
olive trees. The Val d'Arno opens on one side, and the high mountain
of Vallombrosa on the other. The gayly dressed and bright-costumed
Florentine population throng the ground itself, and over their heads
are seen the glorious domes and towers and spires of beautiful Florence,
under a broad sky of cloudless blue, and in an atmosphere of rarest
purity.
Thursday.
Tiverton has won his match, and with the worst horse too. Of his
competitors one fell off; another never got up at all; a third bolted;
and a fourth took so much out of his horse in a breathing canter before
the race, that the animal was dead beat before he came to the start. And
now the knowing ones are going about muttering angry denunciations on
the treachery of grooms and trainers, and vowing that "Gli gentlemen
riders son grandi bricconi."
I am glad it is over. The whole scene was one of quarrelling, row, and
animosity from beginning to end. These people neither know how to
win money nor to lose it; and as to the English who figure on such
occasions, take my word for it, Bob, the national character gains little
by their alliance. It is too soon for me, perhaps, to pronounce in
this fashion, but Tiverton has told me so many little private
histories--revealed so much of the secret memoirs of these folk--that I
believe I am speaking what subsequent experience will amply confirm. For
the present, good-bye, and believe me,
Ever yours,
James Dodd.