The weather was fearfully hot the day of my departure from Rome. The sun
was staring down, without winking, upon that wonderful old city, as if
he loved the sight. The yellow current of old Father Tiber seemed
yellower than ever in the glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person
moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in the morning had seemed
like airs from heaven, before noon had become most uncomfortably like a
blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di Spagna was like Tadmor
in the wilderness. Not a single English tourist, with his well-read
Murray under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage driver broke
the stillness of the place with his polyglot solicitations to ride. The
great staircase of _Trinita de' Monti_ seemed an impossibility; to have
climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun would have been poor
entertainment for man or beast. The squares of the city were like
furnaces, and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless the
narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at the gates and in the
public places looked as if they couldn't help it. Now and then a
Capuchin monk, in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted cord,
toiled along on some errand of benevolence, and made one marvel at his
endurance. Occasionally a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking
as if he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his dignity and
power for a single day of virtuous liberty in linen pantaloons.
Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there were no buyers, and the
shopkeepers slumbered at their counters. The _cafes_ were shrouded in
their long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company by their
well-wet pavement. A few old Romans found energy enough to call for an
occasional ice or lemonade, and talked in the intervals about
_Pammerstone_, and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed down into the
Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred the foliage that clothes that
mighty ruin. Even the birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena
would have perilled life as surely as in those old days when the first
Roman Christians there confessed their faith. On such a day, one's
parting visits must necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre,
and walked along the dusty _Via Sacra_, pausing a moment to ponder on
the scene of Cicero's triumphs, and of so many centuries of thrilling
history, and coming to the conclusion that, if it were such a day as
that when Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter, the
blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in front of the Pantheon,
usually so thronged and lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright
vegetables had either all been sold, or had refused to grow in such a
heat. But the Pantheon itself was unchanged. There it stood, in all its
severe grandeur, majestic as in the days of the Caesars, the embodiment
of heathenism, the exponent of the worship of the old, inexorable
gods,--of justice without mercy, and power without love. Its interior
seemed cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that stupendous
pile of masonry,--and I gathered new strength from my short visit. It
was a fine thought in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism
to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested to our minds by
this practice are very striking. When we see that the images of the old
revengeful and impure divinities have given place to those of the humble
and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that the Saviour of the world
stretches out His arms upon the cross, in the place from which the
haughty Jupiter once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at once to a
conclusion more irresistible than any that the mere force of language
could produce. One of our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed
this same idea in graceful verse:--
"The goddess of the woods and fields,
The healthful huntress undefiled,
Now with her fabled brother yields
To sinless Mary and her Child."
But I must hurry on towards St. Peter's. There are three places in Rome
which every one visits as soon as possible after he arrives, and as
short a time as may be before his departure--the Coliseum, the Pantheon,
and St. Peter's. The narrow streets between the Pantheon and the Bridge
of St. Angelo were endurable, because they were shady. It was necessary
to be careful, however, and not trip over any of the numerous Roman legs
whose proprietors were stretched out upon the pavement in various
picturesque postures, sleeping away the long hours of that scorching
day. At last the bridge is reached Bernini's frightful statues, which
deform its balustrades, seem to be writhing under the influence of the
sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronica's napkin was curling with
the heat. The bronze archangel stood as usual upon the summit of the
Castle of St. Angelo. I stopped a few moments, thinking that he might
see the expediency of sheathing his sword and retreating, before he
should be compelled, in the _confusion_ of such a blaze as that, to
_run_ away; but it was useless. I moved on towards St. Peter's, and he
still kept guard there as brazen-faced as ever. The great square in
front of the basilica seemed to have scooped up its fill of heat, and
every body knows that it is capable of containing a great deal. The few
persons whom devotion or love of art had tempted out in such a day,
approached it under the shade of its beautiful colonnades. I was obliged
to content myself with the music of one of those superb fountains only,
for the workmen were making a new basin for the other. St. Peter's never
seemed to me so wonderful, never filled me up so completely, as it did
then. The contrast of the heat I had been in with that atmosphere of
unchangeable coolness, the quiet of the vast area, the fewness of people
moving about, all conspired to impress me with a new sense of the
majesty and holiness of the place. The quiet, unflickering blaze of the
numerous lamps that burn unceasingly around the tomb of the Prince of
the Apostles seemed a beacon of immortality. To one who could at that
hour recall the bustle and turmoil of the Boulevards of Paris, or of the
Strand, or of Broadway, the vast basilica itself seemed to be an island
of peace in the tempestuous ocean of the world. I am not so blind a
lover of Gothic architecture that I can find no beauty nor religious
feeling in the Italian churches. I prefer, it is true, the "long-drawn
aisle and fretted vault," and the "storied windows richly dight"; but I
cannot for that reason sneer at the gracefully turned arches, the mosaic
walls and domes rich in frescoes and precious marbles, that delight
one's eyes in Italy. Both styles are good in their proper places. The
Gothic and Norman, with their high-pitched roofs, are the natural growth
of the snowy north, and to attempt to transplant them to a land where
heat is to be guarded against, were as absurd as to expect the pine and
fir to take the place of the fig tree and the palm. Talk as eloquently
as we may about being superior to external impressions, I defy any man
to breathe the quiet atmosphere of any of these old continental churches
for a few moments, without feeling that he has gathered new strength
therefrom to tread the thorns of life. Lamartine has spoken eloquently
on this theme: "Ye columns who veil the sacred asylums where my eyes
dare not penetrate, at the foot of your immovable trunks I come to sigh!
Cast over me your deep shades, render the darkness more obscure, and the
silence more profound! Forests of porphyry and marble! the air which the
soul breathes under your arches is full of mystery and of peace! Let
love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude under the green shelter
of groves, to soothe their secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary!
the eye of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs!
Nothing changes thy foliage; thy still shade is the image of motionless
eternity!"
There was not time to linger long. The pressure of worldly engagements
was felt even at the shrine of the apostles. I walked about, and tried
to recall the many splendid religious pageants I had there witnessed,
and wondered sorrowfully whether I should ever again listen to that
matchless choir, or have my heart stirred to its depths by the silver
trumpets that reecho under that sonorous vault in the most solemn moment
of religion's holiest rite. Once more out in the clear hot atmosphere
which seemed hotter than before. The Supreme Pontiff was absent from his
capital, and the Vatican was comparatively empty. The Swiss guards, in
their fantastic but picturesque uniform, were loitering about the foot
of the grand staircase, and sighing for a breath of the cool air of
their Alpine home. I took a last long gaze at that grand old pile of
buildings,--the home of all that is most wonderful in art, the abode of
that power which overthrew the old Roman empire, inaugurated the
civilization of Europe, and planted Christianity in every quarter of the
globe,--and then turned my unwilling feet homewards. In my course I
passed the foot of the Janiculum Hill: it was too hot, however, to think
of climbing up to the convent of Sant' Onofrio--though I would gladly
have paid a final visit to that lovely spot where the munificence of
Pius IX. has just completed a superb sepulchre for the repose of Tasso.
So I crossed the Tiber in one of those little ferry boats which are
attached to a cable stretched over the river, and thus are swung across
by the movement of the current,--a labour-saving arrangement
preeminently Roman in its character,--and soon found myself in my
lodgings However warm the weather may be in Rome, one can keep tolerably
comfortable so long as he does not move about,--thanks to the thick
walls and heavy wooden window shutters of the houses,--so I found my
room a cool asylum after my morning of laborious pleasure.
At last, the good byes having all been said, behold me, with my old
portmanteau, (covered with its many-coloured coat of baggage labels,
those trophies of many a hard campaign of travel,) at the office of the
diligence for Civita Vecchia. The luggage and the passengers having been
successfully stowed away, the lumbering vehicle rolled down the narrow
streets, and we were soon outside the gate that opens upon the old
Aurelian Way. Here the passports were examined, the postilions cracked
their whips, and I felt indeed that I was "banished from Rome." It is a
sad thing to leave Rome. I have seen people who have made but a brief
stay there shed more tears on going away than they ever did on a
departure from home; but for one who has lived there long enough to feel
like a Roman citizen--to feel that the broken columns of the Forum have
become a part of his being--to feel as familiar with St. Peter's and the
Vatican as with the King's Chapel and the Tremont House--it is doubly
hard to go away. The old city, so "rich with the spoils of time," seems
invested with a personality that appeals most powerfully to every man,
and would fain hold him back from returning to the world. The lover of
art there finds its choicest treasures ever open to him; the artist
there finds an abundance of employment for his chisel or his brush; the
man of business there finds an asylum from the vexing cares of a
commercial career; the student of antiquity or of history can there take
his fill amid the "wrecks of a world whose ashes still are warm," and
listen to the centuries receding into the unalterable past with their
burdens of glory or of crime; the lover of practical benevolence will
there be delighted by the inspection of establishments for the relief of
every possible form of want and suffering; the enthusiast for education
finds there two universities and hundreds of public schools of every
grade, and all as free as the bright water that sparkles in Rome's
countless fountains; the devout can there rekindle their devotion at the
shrines of apostles and martyrs, and breathe the holy air of cloisters
in which saints have lived and died, or join their voices with those
that resound in old churches, whose pavements are furrowed by the knees
of pious generations; the admirer of pomp, and power, and historic
associations can there witness the more than regal magnificence of a
power, compared to which the houses of Bourbon or of Hapsburg are but of
yesterday; the lover of republican simplicity can there find subject for
admiration in the facility of access to the highest authorities, and in
the perfection of his favourite elective system by which the supreme
power is perpetuated. There is, in short, no class of men to whom Rome
does not attach itself. People may complain during their first week that
it is dull, or melancholy, or dirty; but you generally find them sorry
enough to go away, and looking back to their residence there as the
happiest period of their existence. Somebody has said,--and I wish that
I could recall the exact words, they are so true,--that when we leave
Paris, or Naples, or Florence, we feel a natural sorrow, as if we were
parting from a cherished friend; but on our departure from Rome we feel
a pang like that of separation from a woman whom we love!
At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk of evening, and the
discomforts of the journey began to make themselves obtrusive. The night
air in Italy is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the windows
of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb after the oyster pie, we were
"all full inside," and a pretty time we had of it. As to respiration,
you might as well have expected the performance of that function from a
mackerel occupying the centre of a well-packed barrel of his finny
comrades, as of any person inside that diligence. Of course there was a
baby in the company, and of course the baby cried. I could not blame it,
for even a fat old gentleman who sat opposite to me would have cried if
he had not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall the anguish
of that night: suffice it to say that for several hours the only air we
got was an occasional vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant.
At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast, where I heard "the wild
water lapping on the crag," and felt more keenly than before that I had
indeed left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey being along the
coast, we had the window open, though it was not much better on that
account, as we were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see the
cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is destined soon to
destroy those beastly diligences, and place Rome within two or three
hours of its seaport.
At five o'clock in the morning, after ten toilsome hours, I found
myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in Civita Vecchia, a city which has
probably been the cause of more profanity than any other part of the
world, including Flanders. I was determined not to be fleeced by any of
the hotel keepers; so I staggered about the streets until I found a
barber's shop open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding night, I
hove to in a neighbouring _cafe_ long enough to take in a little ballast
in the way of breakfast. Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of
considerable literary reputation, whom I had several times met in Rome.
He was one of those men who seem to possess all sorts of sense except
common sense. He was full of details, and could tell exactly the height
of the dome of St. Peter's, or of the great pyramid,--could explain the
process of the manufacture of the Minie rifle or the boring of an
artesian well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or Secchi,--but
he could not pack a carpet-bag to save his life. That he should have
been able to travel so far from home alone is a fine commentary on the
honesty and good nature of the people of the continent. I could not help
thinking what a time he would have were he to attempt to travel in
America. He would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe in the
cabmen of New York. He had come down to Civita Vecchia in a most
promiscuous style, and when I discovered him he was trying to bring
about a union between some six or eight irreconcilable pieces of
luggage. I aided him successfully in the work, and his look of
perplexity and despair gave way to one of gratitude and admiration for
his deliverer. Delighted at this escape from the realities of his
situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation on the
philosophy of language and the formation of provincial dialects, and it
was some time before I could bring him down to the common and practical
business of securing his passage in the steamer for Marseilles. Ten
o'clock, however, found us on board one of the steamers of the
_Messageries Imperiales_, and we were very shortly after under way. We
were so unfortunate as to run aground on a little spit of land in
getting out of port, as we ran a little too near an English steamer that
was lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to us, and thus
established an alliance between their flag and the French, which drew
the latter out of the difficulty in which it had got by too close a
proximity to its English neighbour.
It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and reminded me of many halcyon days
I had spent on that blue Mediterranean in other times. It reminded me of
some of my childhood's days in the country in New England,--days
described by Emerson where he says that we "bask in the shining hours of
Florida and Cuba,"--when "the day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the
broad hills and warm, wide fields,"--when "the cattle, as they lie on
the ground, seem to have great and tranquil thoughts." It was on such a
day that I used to delight to pore over my Shakspeare, undisturbed by
any sound save the hum of the insect world, or the impatient switch of
the tail, or movement of the feet, of a horse who had sought the same
shade I was enjoying. To a man who has been rudely used by fortune, or
who has drunk deep of sorrow or disappointment, I can conceive of
nothing more grateful or consoling than a summer cruise in the
Mediterranean. "The sick heart often needs a warm climate as much as the
sick body."
My English friend, immediately on leaving port, took some five or six
prescriptions for the prevention of seasickness, and then went to bed,
so that I had some opportunity to look about among our ship's company.
There were two men, apparently companions, though they hardly spoke to
each other, who amused me very much One was a person of about four feet
and a half in height, who walked about on deck with that manner which so
many diminutive persons have, of wishing to be thought as tall as Mr.
George Barrett. He boasted a deportment that would have made the elder
Turveydrop envious, while it was evident that under that serene and
dignified exterior lay hidden all the warm-heartedness and geniality of
that eminent philanthropist who was obliged to play a concerto on the
violin to calm his grief at seeing the conflagration of his native city.
The other looked as if "he had not loved the world, nor the world him";
he was a thin, bilious-looking person, and seemed like a whole serious
family rolled into one individuality. I felt a great deal of curiosity
to know whether he was reduced to that pitiable condition by piety or
indigestion. I felt sure that he was meditating suicide as he gazed upon
the sea, and I stood by him for some time to prevent his accomplishing
any such purpose, until I became convinced that to let him take the
jump, if he pleased, would be far the more philanthropic course of
action. There was a French bishop, and a colonel of the French staff at
Rome, among the passengers, and by their genial urbanity they fairly
divided between them the affections of the whole company. Either of them
would have made a fog in the English Channel seem like the sunshine of
the Gulf of Egina. I picked up a pleasant companion in an Englishman who
had travelled much and read more, and spent the greater part of the day
with him. When he found that I was an American, he at once asked me if I
had ever been to Niagara, and had ever seen Longfellow and Emerson. I am
astonished to find so many cultivated English people who know little or
nothing about Tennyson; I am inclined to think he has ten readers in
America to one in England, while the English can repeat Longfellow by
pages.
After thirty hours of pleasant sailing along by Corsica and Elba, and
along the coast of France, until it seemed as if our cruise (like that
of the widow of whom we have all read) would never have an end, we came
to anchor in the midst of a vast fleet of steamers in the new port of
Marseilles. The bustle of commercial activity seemed any thing but
pleasant after the classical repose of Rome; but the landlady of the
hotel was most gracious, and when I opened the window of my room looking
out on the Place Royale, one of those peripatetic dispensers of melody,
whose life (like the late M. Mantalini's after he was reduced in
circumstances) must be "one demnition horrid grind," executed "Sweet
Home" in a manner that went entirely home to the heart of at least one
of his accidental audience.