A CULTIVATED ITALIAN.
He cannot be a perfect man,
Not being tried and tutored in the world.--SHAKESPEARE.
But before we enter on the narrative of the excursion itself, which
will afterwards be uninterrupted throughout, I would ask leave to give
a short account of a meeting I had with a fellow wanderer at its first
step--while I was crossing the threshold to enter upon it. It was
one of those little incidents that are ever occurring in travel, and
contribute in no small degree to its pleasure.
_August 3._--At a little before 9 A.M. I was on board the boat for
Brienz. The morning was fresh and bright. Only here and there a streak
of thin white fleece flecked the clear, smooth, unfathomable blue. The
late storm had given to the atmosphere a transparency that to the eye
brought the mountains very near. I placed myself on a bench athwart
the vessel, that I might have the lake before me, and be able to look
on the mountains on each side. I had just taken this seat, when a
gentleman walked up to me, and asked, if I knew at what hour in the
evening the last train left Interlaken for Berne. My interrogator--for
we get into a habit of taking an inventory of people, under such
circumstances, at a glance--was not stout, but inclined to become
so; well-dressed, carefully, but quietly; middle-aged, but looking
young for his years; with light hair slightly silvered, the gray just
beginning to be perceptible; and of a fresh complexion. He had the
assured manner of one, who, from having mixed much in the world, has
acquired a facility in making his way, with, under the conditions of
the moment, the least amount of friction. I was able to give him the
information he wanted.
‘Excuse me,’ he replied, ‘but are you sure that that is the time?’
My authority, I said, was Bradshaw. It happened that I had been asked
the same question yesterday.
‘Again excuse me,’ he rejoined, ‘but is your Bradshaw that for this
month?’
Somewhat amused, I answered that it was not; and added that, if he
would allow me to say so, he was as exacting in his reception of
evidence as a lawyer.
‘But,’ said he, ‘I am not a lawyer.’
‘Perhaps then,’ I ventured with a smile, ‘a philosopher, who ought to
be not less exacting.’
‘Of that, perhaps, a little,’ was his answer, returning the smile, and
taking his seat beside me.
We remained in pleasant conversation, without leaving our seats, for
the hour that elapsed from the time we came on board till we reached
Giesbach, which was his destination. At first I had supposed from his
appearance and language that he was an Englishman. I soon, however,
found that he spoke French and German with equal ease; and that he was
an Italian.
When he had left the boat I tried to recall what we had been talking
about. As the subjects came back to mind, I was somewhat surprised at
their range and variety; not, too, without some sense of humiliation
on thinking how few Englishmen, notwithstanding our vaunted public
schools and universities, and the large proportion of us who are able
to devote their lives to culture, have the breadth of culture of this
Italian; and the power of so using their acquisitions as to make them
contribute, as he made his, to their own enjoyment, and that of others.
He appeared at home, as much so as if he had made a special study of
it, on every subject on which we conversed. He quoted readily, and
accurately, from the Greek and Latin Classics. For instance, on my
telling him, in reply to the question whether I had any particular
object in visiting Switzerland, that I was desirous of looking into the
history and existing state of the commonable land in some of the Swiss
Cantons, I found him well up on this subject. He repeated, _verbatim_,
what Tacitus says of the land customs of the ancient Germans, giving
his interpretation of the passage, and his reasons for so interpreting
it. He was familiar with the land system of England; and thought it
impossible that what had results so much at variance with the wants
and spirit of the age, could be maintained much longer. He approved
of the French system to the extent implied in the remark, that the
State, presumably, had a right to take care that parents, who can
provide for their children, should not leave any of them destitute,
or in a condition in which they are likely to become bad citizens, or
in any way a burden to the State. He knew how loudly the doctrine of
_laissez faire_ was proclaimed in England: but this was only what might
be expected from those, whom our system placed, and maintained, in
exceptionally favourable conditions.
Something having been said that led me to remark that, for many
centuries, in the pre-Homeric, almost prehistoric, period, Phœnicia had
been an autonomous dependency of Egypt, he was ready with the parallel
of the partial dependence of Genoa upon Spain: a position that was
not altogether disadvantageous for a commercial community that needed
protection against powerful and jealous neighbours.
We talked of the effects modern knowledge, and love of nature, are
producing in men’s ideas and opinions; of the causes, in literature and
art, of periods of brilliancy, and then of obscuration; of the present
state, and future of Europe; of the attitude and policy of the Papacy;
and of the prospects of religion.
The bearing and appearance of the representatives, on board the
steamer, of the fairer half of creation led us to notice the
rapid decay, in our time, of female grace. Women seem now hardly
to aim at it, men hardly to look for it. This indicates a great
revolution in ideas and sentiments. The loss may be accompanied with
counter-balancing advantages, still it is a loss very much to be
regretted; and, I think, we were quite in agreement both as to the
fact, and in a preference for what was being lost to what might be
gained.
He had reasons to give for the opinion he had formed upon the relation
of the Latin of Cicero, and of the Augustan, or rather, for that would
be too short, of the golden period of the language, to that of the rest
of Italy; and of that again to modern Italian; and upon the character
of the civilization of ancient Etruria; and upon the probability that
its upper governing class was not of the same race as the subject
population.
I do not know whether he was a scholar in our narrow sense of the word
scholarship, but he had made a higher and better use of the Classics,
for he had studied them as an indispensable introduction to the right
understanding of the modern world. Though very largely familiar with
books, there was nothing bookish about him. He spoke of books as a man
of affairs, and of the world, speaks of his experience and observation
of the world. He was clear and logical in thought. His knowledge was
full, and at the same time accurate. His judgments were balanced. He
looked at subjects from all sides. He took into consideration what
others thought and felt; and the way in which circumstances affect
opinion and conduct. His statements and conclusions gained much in
persuasiveness from the pleasing manner in which they were put. In him
everything appeared to have been cultivated--the tongue as well as the
mind and the tones of the voice as well as the ability to use the right
word in the right place.