1885
STILL IN ROME--PRESENTED TO POPE LEO XIII--STORY, THE POET
SCULPTOR--RANDOLPH ROGERS--TILTON--ELIHU VEDDER--ASTOR
RESIGNS--SECRETARY OF LEGATION DIES WITH ROMAN FEVER--I AM
PUT IN CHARGE OF LEGATION--CAPRI--GOVERNOR PIERPONT--THINGS
SUPERNATURAL--TALK AGAINST GLADSTONE--SHAKESPEARE WOOD--
SENATOR MOLESCHOTT, A REMARKABLE MAN--INTERESTING LETTERS FROM
GENERAL SHERMAN--PARTY STRONGER THAN PATRIOTISM; MY RECALL--
MONEY LENDING AND TAXES--KEEP OUT OF DEBT.
_February, 1885._--On Sunday morning we (myself, wife and son)
together with others, were presented to the Pope, Leo XIII. The card
of notification told us how we should dress. Full evening suit, with
black cravat and black gloves for the gentlemen; black silk dress for
the ladies, with black lace veils over the head, instead of bonnets.
Our carriage entered the court yard at a private entrance, where
dismounting we entered at a side door and went up the Bernini stairway.
The Swiss guards, glad to hear their own tongue spoken, were very
polite to us. Colonel Schmidt, their commander, is also a personal
friend, who had visited us in Switzerland. He soon turned us over to
the Pope’s personal body guard. These are young Roman nobles. We were
led through a labyrinth of apartments, and put in charge of some of the
court officers at the reception room.
[Illustration: Pope Leo XIII.--_Page 261._]
“The reception will take place in just thirty minutes,” said one of the
officials, and this gave us time to look out of the window, and wonder
what part of the enormous pile called the Vatican, we were in.
Outside, the four thousand room building, with its two hundred
stairways, looks like an ugly collection of big yellow factories.
Inside, it is all magnificence. We were standing in rooms where the
Popes ruled Rome, at a time when Rome ruled the world. The history of a
thousand years was made and written under this roof. The genius of many
ages found a resting place here. Here for centuries God, himself, was
supposed to have his only agent on earth.
Just as we were meditating on all this, a rustle of officers entering
the room is heard. We are placed in a line, single file, around the
walls of the apartment. “You will all kneel,” whispers an official, “as
his Holiness enters.” That moment the door opened, and Leo XIII, robed
in scarlet, entered the room. Everybody knelt. As he passes the door an
attendant draws the scarlet robe away, and he stands before us in white
and gold. He is a very old man, tall and thin, colorless in face, and
with silvery hair; there is a soft, sad smile on his lips; his clear,
steady eyes look out of a kindly face. He motions us all to rise, and
then slowly walks around the room, speaking a gracious word to each as
presented. An official walks with him carrying a list of our names.
The Pope’s half-gloved hand with the signet ring, is held forward for
us to kiss. His words are kindness itself. I never saw so saintly a
face before. I do not wonder that many in the room are weeping. They
are faithful Catholics and this moment is the event of their lives.
Some have traveled ten thousand miles to have that white hand placed on
their heads with a blessing. To them, the doors of paradise are this
moment visibly opening.
Everybody, Catholic or not, was affected. Shortly the kindly voice
comes to us, “And you are from America--America--good, far off
America,” he says in English, and then changes to French, and Italian.
He placed his hand on our heads and blessed us--and, believing or
disbelieving--a feeling of a holy presence moved us.
Shortly, a signal indicated that all should come to the center of the
room and kneel, and then a blessing was asked on the lands from which
we came. It was an impressive moment. Numbers kneel down and kiss the
gold cross on his embroidered slipper. An attendant enters, throws the
scarlet robe gently over his shoulders again. There are some kindly
smiles, a bow, and the Pope leaves the room. Our reception at the
Vatican was over.
* * * * *
Last evening visited Mrs. Greenough, wife of the celebrated sculptor.
They have lived here many years. She is an interesting woman, but
delicate as a lily. She talked much of Margaret Fuller, whom she had
known well for many years.
We find many self-expatriated Americans here, first-class snobs, mostly
a rich and terribly stuck-up gentry, hanging around the edge of Italian
society, watching opportunity to pick up an alliance with somebody with
some sort of a title. They are usually ashamed of their own countrymen,
even those of them who are here, and regard themselves entirely too
good to be Americans. It is a great pity in their minds that they
were born in the United States at all, where, likely as anyway, their
fathers made their fortunes selling hides and hominy.
* * * * *
_March 21._--Spent last evening till very late, sitting on the steps
of Frank Simmons’ studio, talking with W. W. Story, sculptor and poet.
He is the finest talker I ever heard. Of course, he knows everything
about Italy; he has lived here most of his life, and his “Roba di Roma”
tells more worth knowing about Rome than any similar book ever written.
We talked, too, of America. He lamented that he had never achieved
distinction in the United States as a poet. That, not sculpture, had
been his first ambition. I told him he did not know how many loved his
name at home for the poetry he had written. On my last trip over the
sea, a young and discriminating newspaper man had envied me that I was
going where I would know Story, the _poet_. He had committed “Antony
and Cleopatra” to memory, repeated it to me walking on the ship deck
one evening, and said it was the “best American poem.” The incident
gratified Mr. Story very much, as it should.
We spoke of the Washington monument at the capital. “It is nothing
but a great, high smoke stack,” he said. “There was a design offered,
for a monument, that had some taste, art, grandeur about it, but the
mullet-headed politicians, knowing nothing, and thinking they knew
everything, naturally threw that aside.”
There was but little outlook, he said, for any immediate realization of
true art in America. “There was but one god there--money getting.”
I liked Mr. Story’s generosity of speech concerning other sculptors
less famous than himself, and for poets with less renown than he
believed he had. He is altogether one of the most agreeable men I ever
knew. His studio is full of fine work that brings great prices, but it
does not seem to me greater than the work of Frank Simmons, or even
some of the statues of Ives and Rogers. There is a sea nymph at Ives’
studio more beautiful than anything else I ever saw in marble.
We often go to the studio and the home of Randolph Rogers. He is an
invalid, has been paralyzed, and sits most of his time in his chair;
but he has a great, big, joyous heart, and is happy at seeing his
friends. His fame is very wide. His “Blind Nydia” is one of the great
things in marble. Very many copies of it have been made. They are
everywhere. “Nydia” and his bronze doors at the Capitol in Washington,
more than all else, made his reputation.
I have met no one in Rome who seemed to retain his real, joyous,
bluff Americanism as Mr. Rogers does. He knows his art, but he has not
forgotten his country.
His home is one of the most delightful here. He is justly proud of his
wife, as she is proud of his art. “She must have been very beautiful in
her youth,” said an American innocently. “Yes,” replied Mr. Rogers, “my
wife is beautiful now.”
The other morning occurred the wedding of his daughter to a worthy and
handsome officer of the Italian army. Every hour he is expecting orders
to go to Africa to help avenge the massacre of a lot of his countrymen.
Mr. Tilton, the American painter, showed us a Venetian scene yesterday
of supreme loveliness, as most of his water scenes are. I never saw so
much delicious coloring as is always in his pictures of the Adriatic.
He sells mostly to the English, and at great prices. He showed me his
selling book, and I was astounded at what he got. It was pounds, where
others of our artist friends got dollars.
Went to Elihu Vedder’s studio. He received me very coolly at first,
because he thought I mispronounced his name; a very important matter.
Afterward, he took some pains to show me his work. It is certainly
characteristic, at least, and original, and nobody ever misses guessing
whose picture it is, if it should be from his brush.
_March 25._--Mr. Pierpont, the Secretary of Legation, is down with the
Roman fever. Strong and young and handsome as he was, constant late
hours and cold stone floors were too much for him. He may never recover.
His coming here was almost a sensation, and no one ever got into “good
society” in Rome so promptly. His handsome face, genial ways, good
family and fine talents have made him welcome everywhere. He is a son
of Attorney General Edwards Pierpont, of New York, once Minister to
England.
They have taken him to the German hospital up by the Capitol. What
makes his illness worse just now is that Mr. Astor, the Minister, has
sent in his resignation and will go home at once.
_April, 1884._--Went to the Island of Capri, only a couple of hours’
sail from the most beautiful bay in the world. This is the spot where
the Garden of Eden ought to have been.
Went to the Blue Grotto--wonderful! While floating about there in a
little boat, I thought of T. Buchanan Read’s lines:
Oh, happy ship to rise and dip
With the blue crystal at your lip
Just mere common existence ought to be a delight on Capri. The
combination of romantic scene, delicious air, blue sky, and almost
bluer sea, make it adorable.
One should need little to live on here, and I think the peasants indeed
have little aside from fruits and olive oil and wine. The young women
are strikingly beautiful.
Tiberius, when he built his palace up on top of this wonderful Isle of
the Sea, at least knew where to find the beautiful.
Ischia, even more beautiful, if possible, is close by, and we look over
and think of the terrible fate of its people only a few months ago.
In front of us is Naples, and, in sight, Vesuvius sullenly smokes away
as if to remind us of the eternal peril to all who stay among these
loveliest scenes of earth.
[Illustration: Naples.--_Page 266._]
We visited Pompeii, with its lifted mantle of ashes and cinder, that
have helped mankind to patch out history. I was impressed by the
extreme smallness of the Pompeiian houses. They look like little stone
kitchens. Everything in the excavated city seems in miniature. One
could think of a toy town built of stone, but supplied with everything
wonderful of art and luxury.
I fail to see anything wonderful in unearthing Pompeii. It was easy to
dig it out of its ashes. There is no lava there. And it would seem a
question if two dozen people ever lost their lives in the disaster. It
simply snowed ashes for a day or so, and why should people deliberately
sit there and smother!
[Illustration: Paestum.--_Page 267._]
From the top of Capri we fancied we could almost see the temples of
Paestum by the other bay, those temples without a history--those
grandest ruins on the earth.
They want no history--their’s a voice
Forever speaking to the heart of man.
And we thought of the Paestum roses, too, of indescribable fragrance,
that bloom twice a year, and that have flourished there on the sickly
desert a thousand years. No story like this in all the floral world.
* * * * *
One time lately my wife admired very much a little water color of Mr.
Tilton’s. This morning he carried it up to her as a present from the
artist. It will long be treasured as a remembrance of one of the most
genial men in Rome, and of a delightful artist.
_April 19._--Young Mr. Pierpont died two days ago, and that before his
father and mother could reach him. They are still at sea. Yesterday
afternoon he was buried from St. Paul’s church in the Via Nazionale.
The sorrow for his premature death was very sincere. Dr. Nevin read the
service, assisted by the Master of Rugby School, and the pall bearers
were the ambassadors of Austria, Germany and Belgium, with myself
representing the United States. King Humbert was represented by the
Duke of Fiano. The Italian Foreign Minister was also a pall bearer.
There were many beautiful flowers by the casket. It was a sad burial,
this putting into the grave a youth to whom the future had beckoned
with such golden hand.
* * * * *
Mr. Pierpont’s death, and the resignation of Mr. Astor, put the affairs
of the Legation into my care. The archives have been moved to the
Consulate General, on Via Venti Settembre.
* * * * *
_April 25._--Governor and Mrs. Pierpont came yesterday, and I took them
out to the Protestant Cemetery to look at the casket containing their
son. It stood in a receiving vault covered with roses. It was a sad day!
This afternoon Governor Pierpont talked with me about supernatural
things. He doubted them himself, and yet, he said that when he was
Minister to London he rarely was at a dinner in England when some one
at the table did not relate of something supernatural that had occurred
to himself or else to some trustworthy friend. This fact must put
people to thinking. Possibly there was something in it after all. Get
it out of the hands of charlatans, and possibly we could lift the veil
a little more than we imagine. If there is another world, spiritual, it
need not be very far away.
* * * * *
_April 20._--The parties and the receptions and the balls go on this
winter, just as if all Rome had nothing to do but have a good time.
The Journalists’ ball the other night was most striking for its
elegance, its diamonds, gowns, and its beautiful bejeweled women.
The German artists’ masquerade ball was also beautiful. We went to both
the same night.
The Roman theater is good, and spectacular opera is given this winter
with great effect. “Excelsior” is the most gorgeously gotten up
spectacle of dance and scenery I ever beheld. Its ballet possibly has
never been approached.
A funny story is told here of Joaquin Miller. One afternoon he attended
a reception at Miss B.’s. Two old maids, Italians, asked to be seated
next the lion of the Sierras. They listened in utter astonishment,
but with perfect gullibility, while he wickedly regaled them with
immense stories of how he had galloped over the plains of his native
country on the backs of wild buffaloes, how he had fought prairie
fires, slain Indians and rescued maidens from captivity. The women were
amazed, and with grateful hearts thanked their hostess for introducing
them to so great a hero. The party over, all are gone, and Miss B.
looks about the house. To her astonishment, the wild-eyed poet is there
yet, standing alone by the dining-room table. She gently draws the
portiere aside to look. He holds a glass of wine in his hand, and, as
he balances it, and looks upon its color, he smiles and exclaims to
himself, but in tones heard behind the curtain, “Holy Moses, how I did
lie to those women.
* * * * *
_April 22._--Went to a party at Shakespeare Wood’s the other night. He
is correspondent of the London _Times_, and is an important man among
foreigners in Rome. They say his salary is as good as a Minister’s.
I fear that is a mistake. Saw many noted people at his house--Lord
Houghton, the poet and critic, the Trollopes and others.
Heard much talk against Gladstone. One English gentleman said, with
apparent approval of a little group of English listeners, “The man
ought to be shot for the good of England.” It seemed inexplicable,
impossible--so much hatred of the world’s best Christian statesman.
Lord Houghton is a good, gray, old man, full of vivacity and with
opinions of his own. He has renown in Italy, for he has been a
great friend in the country’s struggle for liberty, and his life of
literature has had great reward.
Shakespeare Wood knows more about Rome and Italy than half the Italians
themselves, and is besides an artist and an antiquarian.
Last evening I was invited to dine at the home of the celebrated
Professor Moleschott. He is a distinguished author and a Roman Senator,
though a born German. My invitation came as a result of a letter to
him from my friend Johannes Scherr, the German author. Moleschott had
once lived in Zurich.
This was an “evening” for certain delegates to a World’s Congress of
scientific and medical men. Dr. Sternberg, of Washington, was there.
Few of the guests understood Italian. Moleschott seemed able to speak
with each in his own tongue. Scherr’s letter caused him to pay me no
little attention, and he chatted with me considerably. He is the most
remarkable looking man I ever saw. Has a head like a lion. He is short,
stout, broad faced, and has big eyes, and low side whiskers. I asked
him how on earth he could learn so many languages in addition to his
enormous duties as a scientific writer, a constant lecturer, and an
Italian Senator. “I don’t learn them,” he said; “I must absorb them.
I have no time to learn them.” “But you must have studied _English_,”
I replied. “You are too much of a master there, to be merely an
absorber.” “Well, yes, a little bit,” he answered. “That is, I laid
your English grammar on my dressing case mornings for a few weeks, and
while I walked up and down the room putting on my clothes I got hold of
your language.”
He was one of the rare men we meet who seem to know everything.
Observation great, memory powerful. What would the world be, if all men
had Moleschott’s intellect. Like Goethe, he has universal knowledge.
He passes our door daily in an open cab, and is always sitting with an
open volume in his lap, and yet he sees and greets people and goes on
with his reading.
[Illustration: House of Gold, Venice.]
_May 1, 1885._--I have this entry in my diary: “This day I resigned my
post as Consul General of Italy and will soon leave the service, after
many years of constant and faithful duty. These last weeks I have also
had charge of the diplomatic affairs of our country here, and it is
gratifying to receive, by the same mail that brings a letter asking
my resignation, another letter expressing appreciation of some of my
recent services.”
On my arrival home in America, I found the following letter waiting me
from General Sherman:
“ST. LOUIS, MO., June 29, 1885.
“DEAR BYERS:--I have your letter written at sea, in which you
give me the first information I had received that you had been
displaced at Rome. I knew, of course, it was bound to come, for
party allegiance with us is stronger than patriotism, and the
pendulum of time was bound to swing against us, and we will be
lucky if we are not indicted for horse stealing and for the
murder of men who resorted to arms to destroy the very Government
of which now they are the main supporters. Of course, in due time
the pendulum will swing back, but meantime, we must lie low, else
history will record Jeff Davis the patriot, and Mr. Lincoln the
usurper.
“I am glad to know that you propose to settle at Des Moines. It
is a beautiful and seemingly prosperous place, and if you can
engage in any business there, you will soon have reason to feel a
sense of security in not being the slave of the State Department.
“We are all here now, but in a short time Mrs. Sherman and all
the family will go to Lake Minnetonka for the summer. I have
some business which will detain me here a while, when I will
follow, but I have a positive engagement at Mansfield, Ohio,
August 15; New York, August 20, and Chicago, September 9 and 10.
So you see I am kept busy. I have long experience and declare
that it is harder for me to maintain a modern family with fifty
dependents and a thousand old soldiers claiming of right all I
possess, than to command a hundred thousand men in battle. Still
I expect to worry along a few years, till summoned to a final
rest. I now merely write to welcome you back to your native land,
and to express the hope that Mrs. Byers will soon regain her
wonted health, and that you, too, will settle down with as much
contentment as you can command, after your long sojourn abroad.
Hoping you will notify me of your arrival at Oskaloosa and Des
Moines, I venture to send you this to New Wilmington, Pa.
“Sincerely your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
Another letter of interest came from him:
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Sept. 30, 1885.
“DEAR BYERS:--Now I shall know where to find you. You are fully
competent to manage your own interests, and I shall not commit
the foolish mistake of proffering advice where it is not asked. I
remember when money was worth 3 per cent a month (in California).
It broke both lender and borrower, for the borrower simply gave
up the houses and land mortgaged, and the lenders themselves
became borrowers for the taxes. To-day money in the United States
is worth 3 per cent per annum, and all over that rate is ‘risk,’
_not_ interest. If I had money to lend, which I have not, I would
not lend it on an Iowa farm at 8 per cent, but on a Government
bond at 3 per cent, because I would conclude sooner or later I
would have to take the Iowa farm, which would be an elephant. A
farm is a good thing for a farmer, but a bad thing for an owner.
Still I have good faith in the ultimate value of good farm land,
because it yields annual crops, whereas mines and manufactories
play out. My heavy expenses still go on. In St. Louis, we pay
as taxes, full rent, and have to pay the objects of taxation
direct. Thus our taxes are $2.50 on a full valuation, and we
must in addition pay for watering the streets, for street-paving
and improvements, for special police, for the militia and for
schools. I can manage to make ends meet, but I wonder how a
man can, in business, make profit enough to cover his family
expenses. These economic questions will become the questions of
the future.
“Mrs. Sherman is absent at the East, to visit Elly and Minnie.
The rest of us are here. Love to all.
“Your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
In October he writes again:
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Oct 23, 1885.
“DEAR BYERS:--I feel easier on your account, since you tell me
that you find the business in which you were about to embark,
overdone. Nearly all the calamities which have overtaken families
in America, can be traced to the credit system, which necessarily
prevails. I had enough experience in it to put me on my guard,
and I am firm in my faith in Shakespeare’s ‘Neither a borrower
nor a lender be.’ And the consequence is that to-day I owe no
man a cent, and have no incidental obligations as indorser or
bondsman. All my children know this, and while I give them
liberally of what I have, they never dream of asking me to borrow
or indorse.
“There is a great deal of wisdom in Dickens’ character of
Micawber. ‘Income, £100; expenses, £99.19.6--result, happiness.
Income, £100; expenses, £101.4.3--result, misery.’ I quote from
memory.
“If you and Mrs. Byers will be content with what you have, and
live within your income, whether $1,800 or $6,000, your days
will be long in the land of the living. Now, surely, even in Des
Moines, you can supplement your income by the sale of occasional
articles from your pen, which will add to your frugal fund most
of the luxuries of life.
“In any and every event, I beg you will keep me advised of your
progress, so long as I travel in this world of woe and mystery.
“Mrs. Sherman is now back from her visit to our married children
at the East and I think we shall remain unchanged all winter. I
have numerous calls, but generally answer that I am entitled to
rest and mean to claim it.
“My best compliments to your good wife and son.
“Your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”