Several steps lead down into the little, sombre church, which is only

lighted by two small windows. There are some old frescos on the wall,

a few votive offerings falling to pieces, tarnished wooden

candlesticks on the altars, and faded flowers, as if fresh ones would

be out of keeping. In an oratory at the right is a miraculous

crucifix, carved out of wood by a Franciscan friar in the sixteenth

century. The head is said to have been finished by an angel while the

artist slept, and, in fact, has a wonderful expression, which changes

with different points of view. On the steps of the altar beneath sat a

child with olive complexion and coal-black eyes, eating a crust. She

looked as if she might have been left behind by the Saracens. Not

another soul was in the church. She had doubtless strayed in from a

neighboring house with the usual liberty of the free-and-easy

Italians, who have nothing of the awe of northern nations in the house

of God.

On the left side of the church are several objects that belonged to

St. Clare—a bell with too sharp a sound for so sweet a saint, her

breviary, and the ivory ciborium, curiously carved, with which she

repulsed the infidel host.

Going through the chancel, we came to the choir of the first Clarists,

precisely as it was in the thirteenth century—small, dim, and of

extreme simplicity. The pavement is of brick. The stalls are plain

wooden seats, now worm-eaten, which turn back on wooden pivots. There

is only one narrow window with little panes set in lead. The decayed

door turns on a wooden bar inserted in grooves. Old lecterns stand in

the centre, and the list of St. Clare’s first companions, who sang

here the divine praises, hangs on the wall. In one corner is the

recess where the wall gave way to hide St. Francis from the fury of

his father. The saint is here painted in the red Tuscan vest of the

time, such as we see in pictures of Dante.

By this time the guardian of the church had arrived, and he took us

into the refectory, which is gloomy and time-stained, with low Gothic

arches, once frescoed. There are two windows with leaded panes, and

worm-eaten tables around the blackened walls, with the place in one

corner occupied by St. Clare. At one end is painted the miracle of the

loaves, now half effaced; for it was here Pope Innocent IV., who had

come to visit the saint, commanded her to bless the frugal repast.

Confused, she knelt down and made the sign of the cross over the

table, which was miraculously imprinted on each of the loaves.

Then we went up the brick stairs, through narrow passages, past the

small cell of Sister Agnes, with its one little window looking down

into an old cloister with a well in the centre, and came to St.

Clare’s oratory, where she performed her devotions when too infirm to

descend to the choir. Close by is the room where she died, poor and

simple, unpainted beams overhead, and the pavement of brick. The lover

of art finds nothing here to please the eye, but to the religious soul

there is a world of moral beauty. Here Pope Innocent IV. came to see

her on her death-bed. “Know, O my soul!” she exclaimed as she was

dying, “thou hast a good viaticum to go with thee, an excellent guide

to show thee the way. Fear not. Be tranquil, for He who created thee,

and has always watched over thee with the tender love of a mother for

her child, now comes with his sanctifying grace. Blessed be thou, O

Lord! because thou hast created me.”

One of the nuns asked to whom she was speaking so lovingly. “Dear

daughter,” replied she, “I am talking to my blessed soul.” Then

turning to another sister, she said: “Seest thou not, my daughter, the

King of Glory whom I behold?” And their eyes being opened, they saw a

great company of celestial virgins clothed in white coming down out of

heaven with the Queen of all saints at their head. And her soul at

once departed to join them.

The death of St. Clare is the subject of one of Murillo’s

masterpieces, a picture that resumes, as M. Nettement says, all the

hopes and fears of Italy. The earth is wrapped in darkness. The

sick-chamber, with its inmates, is veiled in obscurity. But the

heavenly Jerusalem opens, dispersing the gloom and lighting up with

its splendor the face of the dying nun, which beams like a star on

everything around her. Such is the church, threatened on the one hand

by the thick darkness of the world, but cheered on the other by a

never-failing light from heaven like a great hope.

Ave, Mater humilis,

Ancilla Crucifixi,

Clara, virgo nobilis,

Discipula Francisci,

Ad cœlestem gloriam

Fac nos proficisci. Amen

A steep mountain-path through the woods leads north of Assisi to the

_Eremo delle Carcere_, composed of a cluster of houses among the

ilex-trees, and five or six cells hollowed in the cliffs, to which St.

Francis and his first disciples used to retire when they wished to

give themselves up to the bliss of uninterrupted contemplation. No

place could be more favorable for such a purpose. The wooded mountain,

the wild ravine, the profound silence, the solitary paths, the sky of

Italy—and God. What more did they need? There is the cave of St.

Francis with the crucifix, carved with skill and expression, which he

used to carry with him in his evangelical rounds, and the couch of

stone on which he took his slight repose. Near by is the evergreen oak

where the birds, who once received his blessing, still sing the

praises of God. A place is pointed out where the demon who had tempted

him cast himself despairingly into the abyss; and below is the _Fosco

delle Carcere_, where flowed the turbulent stream which so disturbed

the hermits in their devotions that St. Francis prayed its course

might be stayed; and for six hundred years it has only flowed before

some special disaster to the land. As may be supposed, it has not

failed, as we were assured, to flow in abundance ever since the day

Victor Emanuel set his foot in the Pontifical States.

Every branch of the Franciscan Order has a house at Assisi, but most

of these communities have been dispersed by the Italian government.

People are at liberty to dress in purple and fine linen, and indulge

in every earthly pleasure; but to do penance, to put on sandals and a

brown habit, and “clothe one’s self in good St. Francis’ girdle,” is

quite another affair. Besides, the Franciscans are traditionally the

friends of the people, and the influence they once exerted against the

German emperors who oppressed Italy may not be forgotten. Frederick

the Second’s ministers said the Minor Friars were a more formidable

obstacle to encounter than a large army. The tertiaries of the middle

ages exercised great influence in the moral and political world. They

created institutions of mutual credit in the thirteenth century. At

the voice of St. Rose, who belonged to the third order, Viterbo rose

up against Frederick II.

This branch of the seraphic order embraced all classes of society. One

hundred and thirty-four emperors, queens, and princesses are said to

have belonged to it, among whom were Louis IX. of France, the Emperor

Charles V. of Germany, Maria Theresa of Austria, etc. Christopher

Columbus, Raphael, and Michael Angelo were also tertiaries. Princes

assumed the cord on their arms, like Francis I., Duke of Brittany, who

added the motto: _Plus qu’autre_, as if he, more than any one, revered

the saint whose name he bore. Giotto has painted a Franciscan

ascending to heaven by means of his girdle, and Lope de Vega makes use

of the same image in his ode to St. Francis:

“Vuestra cordon es la escala

De Jacob, pues hemos visto

Por los nudos de sus passos

Subir sobre el cielo empireo

No gigantes, sino humildes.”[198]

[192] The upper church is of the Gothic style; the lower

one, Lombard; and the crypt, Grecian.

[193] Ozanam.

[194] Dante’s actual words:

“With Christ she mounted on the cross,

When Mary stayed beneath.”

[195] In this allegory we have followed, in part the

interpretation of M. Ozanam.

[196] This is carved.

[197] Several other saints have had the happiness of being

born in a stable, as St. Joseph de Copertino and St.

Camillo de Lellis; the latter from a pious wish of his

mother that he might come into the world like the Son of

God.

[198] Your cord is the ladder of Jacob; we have seen not

the mighty, but the lowly of heart, mount up by its knots

to the empyreal heaven.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.

CHAPTER III.

A LITTLE PLOT.

The next morning the girls set their possessions in order, brought out

the few books they had thought worth while to take with them, and the

little ornaments they had bought by the way, and scattered them about

the rooms.

Among these objects was a large and populous photograph-book, which

Isabel displayed to the Signora, introducing the strangers to her, and

recalling to her memory the friends whose faces had changed beyond her

recognition.

“This is Louis Marion,” she said; “and I shouldn’t be surprised if we

were to see him here before long. We must introduce him to you—that

is, if he should call on us. He used to be a great friend of ours,

but, for some reason or other, he grew a little cool before we left,

and didn’t even come to say good-by. I never could understand what was

the matter. May be it wasn’t anything; and we were in such a bustle of

preparation and taking leave of everybody that there was no chance to

ask for explanations.”

The Signora looked with interest at this picture; for the person,

though a stranger, had been much in her mind of late. His looks

pleased her. It was a good face, not too handsome, but with fine eyes,

and an appearance of strength softened here and there by some delicate

finish. She had hoped most decidedly that he would come, and a letter

which she had received that morning made her desire his coming more

than before.

“I have no patience with Isabel Vane,” the writer declared

energetically. “She is so wrapped up in herself, and so insensitive,

that delicacy is quite thrown away on her. She is one of those persons

who think no one can talk except those who will interrupt and talk

loudly, and so, with the greatest apparent unconsciousness, she

monopolizes all the attention of their friends, and sets Bianca aside

as if she were a nobody. It never occurs to her that a gentleman may

admire her sister; and yet Bianca is very much admired, in an odd,

provoking kind of way. Most people, you know, attend to the loudest

talker; and in the presence of Isabel her sister was sometimes almost

neglected, even by those who were constantly thinking of her. Anybody

with two eyes could see that Louis Marion liked her, and I am sure she

thought he did, and that there was a sort of tacit understanding

between them. They didn’t talk much together, but I’ve seen them

manage to be near each other, and where they could hear each other’s

voices, and one of them never left the company without glancing back

and receiving a glance in return. At length, I don’t know how it came

about, but Isabel seemed to take his attentions to herself, and may be

she said something about him to Bianca. Then a coldness grew up

between her and Marion, and a thousand little complications helped it

on, and he began to absent himself from the house, and Bianca

pretended not to see him unless he came to speak to her, and so they

separated, and all in consequence of the stupid conceit of a girl whom

I could shake with a good will.”

We need not quote the letter further, though the writer, in the

fulness of her heart, added several pages of amplifications on the

theme, all which the Signora had read and re-read.

Bianca was arranging books on the table when the photograph-book was

opened. She continued her employment a few minutes; but when they

approached the page where Louis Marion’s picture was she turned away,

and when his name was mentioned she was leaning out of the window,

much interested apparently, in something going on in the street.

“Whose photographs are these?” the Signora asked.

“Oh! they are all family friends,” was the reply. “I might say they

are mine, for I asked for the most of them. Neither papa nor Bianca

would have thought of it. But they belong to the firm.”

The Signora prided herself on being a rather exceptionally honest and

straightforward woman; but at this moment a very complicated little

plot was forming itself in her mind. She could guess with how tender

an interest Bianca might regard this photograph, but how impossible it

might be for her to show anything but the utmost indifference to it,

and how, sometimes, it might be a pleasure to contemplate it when she

would not venture to do so. She could guess that it had been really

given for her sake, though she had not been the one to ask for it, and

what faint bloom of a downcast smile the gentleman might have seen in

her face when it was put in its place.

“It is a darkish face, and the least in the world too small for the

place,” the Signora said; “and so is this one next it.”

A word of cool depreciation is enough to take the lustre from a star

with most people, and Miss Isabel Vane was no exception. If one abuses

a person’s friends or ridicules their possessions, they may be stirred

to anger; but that dispassionate, slighting way gives the deadliest of

shocks to friendship.

“It scarcely does him justice,” the young lady owned; “and, as you

say, the photographs are a little too small for their places. I must

ask Marion for another when he comes, if he should come. The other I

do not care about. He was simply put in to fill up. I must buy four

more to put in these vacant places.”

“Stay!” the Signora said. “I have some which are worth more than

merely to fill the vacant places; they will adorn the book.”

She brought from her room a little box of card-photographs, and began

to select from them. “Here is the Holy Father on his knees before what

seems to be the statue of St. Joseph holding the Child; and here are

four cardinals and a patriarch. See how well they fit in! Do you mind

my taking these two out?”

“Oh! no.” Isabel was too much pleased with these notable additions to

her gallery to care for the two indifferent acquaintances who made

room for them. But as the Signora carelessly, and quite as a matter of

course, tossed the two cards into the box where their substitutes had

been, she saw that Bianca had turned from the window and was regarding

them. Even in the half glance she cast she could know that the turning

had been sudden, and that the girl’s head was held very high.

The Signora rose. “Well, children, if we are going to _Santa Croce_ we

must start in an hour. It is a great _festa_ there, and I think there

will be a crowd. Didn’t Bianca promise to braid my hair in a wonderful

new way? I remembered it this morning, and have only given my locks a

twist about the comb, and they are on the point of falling about my

shoulders in the most romantic manner.”

She would not seem to see the faint shade of disturbance with which

Bianca followed her from the room. She well knew that in seeming to

slight the one that tender heart held dear she had chilled the heart

toward herself; but that was not to last long, neither the pain nor

the displeasure. She slipped a white dressing-sack on, seated herself

before the long mirror, and shook her hair down. “Now, my dear, make

me as beautiful as you like,” she said; and, taking the box of

photographs she had brought with her on her lap, began to turn them

over. “You had better take charge of these,” she remarked, laying the

two at the top aside before beginning her survey of the others.

Bianca said nothing, but her hands, combing out the long, fair locks,

were a little unsteady, and her face blushed in the mirror, a swift,

startled blush.

“Three strands, my dear,” the Signora said. “I never fancied a braid

of any other sort for the hair. More than three strands always seems

to me like a market-basket on the head of a market-woman. I always

thought very elaborate hair-dressing vulgar and unbecoming. I like the

way yours is done this morning.”

Bianca’s hair was in a few large satin-smooth curls tied back with a

ribbon of so fresh a green as to be almost gold, and the Signora knew

that, after a careful brushing, five minutes had accomplished all the

rest. There were no curl-papers nor hot irons; it was only to brush

the tress about the pretty fore-finger, and it dropped in glossy coil

on coil.

“Many people do not like curls,” Bianca said. “But it seems a pity to

straighten out and braid curly hair. I think nature meant such hair to

have its own way, just like vine tendrils, though the use may not be

so evident.”

She spoke with a certain quietness, not cold, yet not cordial, and

kept her eyes fixed on the braid her skilful fingers were weaving

rapidly.

The Signora took up the photographs she had laid aside, glanced at

one, and dropped it, then looked at the other for some time in

silence. “What fine, earnest eyes he has!” she said at length. “There

is even something reproachful in their expression, as if he were

looking at one who had doubted him. I do not doubt you, sir. On the

contrary, I am disposed to have the utmost confidence in you.

Moreover, I shall be happy to see you in Rome.”

She laid the photograph carefully on the other, and, closing her eyes,

resigned herself entirely to the care of her pretty handmaiden. There

was silence for a few minutes while the braids were being finished;

then she felt a soft hand slip down each cheek with a caressing touch.

“Open your eyes, _carissima mia_,” said a voice as soft, “and tell me

how these are to be arranged. Will you have them looped or in a

crown?”

The thin ice was quite melted; and when the hair-dressing was

finished, Bianca went off to her own room, bearing the treasure that

had been put into her possession in such an artful manner. “It makes

me feel very twisted to act in such a crooked way; but if it is a

crooked it isn’t a dark way. And the dear child is so happy!” the

Signora thought.

A shower was passing to the south when our party came out of the

church at noon, and the sun was so veiled that they sent their

carriage on, and walked from _Santa Croce_ to St. John Lateran. They

could see a pearly stream of water pouring down far away from a dark

spot in the sky to a dark spot on the earth; but the clouds over their

heads were as tender and delicate as the shadows of maidenhair ferns

about a fountain. They lingered till every one had passed them, and,

when they came to the last mulberry-tree of the beautiful avenue,

there was left only a _contadino_ lounging on the stone bench there.

He was a spectacle of faded rags and superb contentment, and seemed to

have neither desire nor intention to leave the place for hours; but

when he saw them look longingly at the seat, he rose, saluted them

with an indescribably shabby hat, in which were stuck three fresh

roses, and relinquished the bench to them.

Bianca sighed with delight as she glanced about, but said nothing. The

others seemed disposed to talk.

“I heard this morning, Signora, what made me understand your

admiration for the Italian language,” Mr. Vane said. “While you three

were in the church I went outside the door, and presently, as I stood

there, I heard two men talking behind me. Of course I did not

understand a word they said, but I listened attentively. I never heard

such exquisite spoken sounds in my life. The questions and replies

made me think of the beautiful incised wreaths and sprigs on your

candelabra. There wasn’t a syllable blurred, as we constantly hear in

our own language; but I am sure every word was pronounced perfectly.

When the two seemed to be going, I looked round and saw two Capuchin

monks with bare ankles, and robes faded out to a dull brick-color.”

“Those same faded robes may cover very accomplished men,” the Signora

said. “Some of them are fine preachers. I wish we had more preaching

in Rome. One very seldom hears a sermon. The first one I heard made

the same impression on me, as to the language, that the talk of these

monks has made on you. I did not understand, but I was charmed. It

reminded me of—Landor, wasn’t it? writing of Porson:

“‘So voluble, so eloquent,

You little heeded what he meant.’

That was in St. Philip Neri’s Church.”

“Dulness is inexcusable in a Catholic preacher in any language,” Mr.

Vane said. “If they should not have much talent of their own, they

have such a wealth to draw from—all the beautiful legends and customs,

and the grand old authors, and the lives of the saints. A dull

Protestant preacher has the Bible, it is true; but, as a rule, I find

that only the eloquent ones use that source of wealth freely, or know

how to use it. One of the most eloquent Catholic preachers I ever

heard used to make his strongest hits by simply refraining from

speech. I recollect one sermon of his where he spoke of St. Augustine,

whom I thought he was going to describe, but whom he made appear more

brilliant by not describing. ‘His genius,’ he began, then stopped,

seemed to search for words, at last threw his head back and clasped

his hands. ‘Oh! the genius of St. Augustine,’ he exclaimed. Of course

the tribute was more splendid than the most rolling period could have

been. Nearly all his effective climaxes were like that—noble words

breaking up into silence, like a Roman arch into a Gothic.”

“You will have to renounce your Gothic, Bianca,” the Signora said; “at

least, while you are in Rome. You won’t even want to see it here, and

you may lose your taste for it as church architecture. I sometimes

think I have, though I was once enthusiastic about it. Now the single

column or the massive pier, with the round arch above, seems to me the

perfect expression of a perfect and serene faith. It is a following of

the sky-shape. The complications and subtilty of the Gothic are more

like the searching for truth of an aspiring and dissatisfied soul.

When I go from under the noble arches and cupolas of _Santa Maria

Maggiore_ to the church of _St. Alphonsus Liguori_, just beyond it, I

receive an impression of fretfulness and unrest.”

“I should be sorry to give up _Notre Dame de Paris_ and the two

churches at Rouen,” Bianca murmured half absently, her soft, bright

eyes gathering in all the beauty within their ken.

Isabel was differently employed. She was busy noting facts in a little

plethoric book with yellow covers and an elastic strap that she always

carried in her pocket. “Do you know how long and how wide this open

space between the two basilicas is?” she asked of the Signora, holding

her lead-pencil suspended.

“Oh! it is long enough for a nice walk, you see, and broad enough to

see everything at the other side without bumping your eyes. That is

the city wall opposite, you know.”

“I’d like to know how many acres there are,” Isabel said to herself.

“I believe I could measure it by my eyes. Let me see! It’s a foot to

that stone. Five and a half feet make a rod, pole, or perch. Five and

a half that distance would go to the next tree. A rod, then, from me

to the tree. Now for a rood! Sixteen and a half—no! How I do forget!

Three barley-corns make one inch, twelve inches make a foot, five and

a half feet make a rod, pole, or perch, sixteen and a half rods,

poles, or—bah! that isn’t it. Signora, will you be so good as to tell

me how many rods make a rood?—that is, if it is rods that they make

roods of. I used to know it, but there’s a hitch somewhere.”

“How should I know, my dear?” asked the Signora with mild surprise.

“Oh! don’t measure things, Bell!” pleaded her sister. “Remember London

Tower.”

For Miss Vane had presumed to ask the superb “beef-eater” who escorted

them through the Tower how thick might be the walls, the solidity of

which he was enlarging upon, and the cool stare with which he drew the

eyes of the whole party upon her, and the gently sarcastic “I do not

know; I have never measured them,” with which he replied, had silenced

her for the whole afternoon. “That was because I had asked something

he could not answer,” she said, in telling the story. “And his manner

was so imposing that it was hours before I could rid myself of the

impression that I had put a very absurd and improper question. He

didn’t refuse sixpence, though, for a piece of ivy from Beauchamp

Tower,” she added, shrugging her shoulders.

“Bell,” whispered her sister, “I’ll tell you about the rods and roods,

if you won’t measure any more.” Then, having received the promise, she

explained the “hitch,” which has doubtless left its little tangle on

many a youthful memory.

A woman with a white handkerchief on her head came along, and beckoned

to the ragged man with the roses, who was still lounging near, and the

two went off together.

“Did you notice how she beckoned?” the Signora asked. “I always notice

that here. They beckon as if indicating the feet, the palm of the hand

being downward, the fingers toward the ground. We beckon with the palm

and fingers upward, indicating the head. It used to confuse me, and I

fancied myself sent away with a refusal when I was invited to enter.

You will have to learn their signs. A certain shrug and raising of the

eyebrows mean no. Another no—an odious one to me—is to wag to and fro

the uplifted forefinger of the right hand. This is nearly always

accompanied by a compression or puckering up of the mouth. But, my

dear friends, it is time for luncheon. Shall we go?”

They rose slowly, and slowly strolled across the open space where art

and nature lived peacefully together. No busy hands and spades

uprooted the plots of wild-flowers, infantile little pink convolvuli,

snowy daisies, and all their blue and yellow kin, that had sprung up

here and there in the gravelled plain, or the detached tiny plants

that make each its own solitude, spreading its small leaves out over

the pebbles, and raising its delicate head freely, as if to induce the

passer-by to pause and admire for once the exquisite grace of the

weeds he despised.

“I wonder if any one but Ruskin ever stopped to look at weeds!” the

Signora said. “It was he, I think, taught me. I first thought of it on

seeing an illustration in _Modern Painters_. It was a bit of

weed-covered earth seen close, as one would see it when lying on the

ground—only a little tangle of leaves and grasses; but, touched by his

pen and pencil, its beauty was revealed.”

“I sometimes think,” Bianca said, “that it is a mercy we cannot see

all the beauty there is about us; for, if we did, we should do nothing

but stand and stare for ever.”

“One might do worse than stand and stare at beauty for ever,” her

father replied. “I’ve no great opinion of business.”

She slipped her hand in his arm before answering, knowing that

inaction was a subject that always found him a little sensitive. “That

depends, you know,” she said. “When the business is to make your tea

or hem your handkerchief, why it wouldn’t do for me to be going into

trances.”

Isabel took his other arm. “But when the business is measuring places

for the pleasure of knowing and telling how large they are, or when it

is taking the census, or any of those countings of units, then he

despises it.”

“When the business is poking a nose in other people’s business, I

certainly object to it,” he said.

Walking along, he drew the two fair hands that clung to him into his

own, and clasped them together against his breast, smiling down into

the girls’ upturned faces; and for a moment the three, in their mutual

affection and confidence, forgot the Signora. She walked on in front

of them, her eyes cast down, and seemed to desire to remain apart. A

silence fell upon them all—perhaps a sense of the silence about them,

or perhaps that silence that always follows an expression of deep and

tender affection, as when through the light and varied chat of a

company is heard the tone of a musical instrument, and all the talk

ceases for a moment; or, it may be, some touch from within or from

without had reminded them that it was the day of the Holy Cross.

The drive home was very quiet, the Signora pointing out now and then

some object of superlative interest as they passed it. “This is St.

Clement’s, an ancient church over a still more ancient church. Mustn’t

it be delightful to go digging under your house some day to repair a

drain, or do some such thing, and presently come across the arch of a

buried door, then, digging farther, find the whole door, then a mosaic

pavement and a column of verde-antique, and so on, till a whole temple

is revealed where you expected to find only earth and stones? Some

such thing happened here. There is the Roman Forum a little beyond.

Need I introduce this ruin to you?”

She pointed to the Colosseum, and then left them to their reflections.

“Drive through the _Via della Croce Bianca_,” she said to the

coachman, “and under the _Arco dei_ _Pontani_. Then pass _Santa Maria

in Monti_, and go up _Via de’ Santa Pudentiana_.”

She saw them look eagerly at the beautiful fragments of Pallas Minerva

and Mars Ultor she had chosen the route to show them; but they asked

no questions, and she volunteered no explanations.

When they reached home the windows were all closed, and the curtains

and _persiane_ half drawn for coolness, and there was such a fragrance

in the rooms that they all exclaimed. Every tall vase was crowded full

of roses pink and yellow, and every little one held a bunch of deep

purple violets.

“Could any one leave a prettier card?” the Signora asked, displaying

her treasures. “When I find heaps of violets and roses in the spring,

I always know who has been here during my absence. It is Mr. Coleman,”

naming her bachelor friend of the semi-weekly cup of tea. “I bespeak

for him a kind place in your regards. He is faithful, honest,

obliging, and refined. I am under obligations to him for many

kindnesses.”

“Marion says that violets are the Mayflowers of Italy,” Isabel

remarked; “that they come as plentifully at the same time, and are

sold as universally, as the trailing arbutus in New England.”

“And see what a deep blue they are!” the Signora said, leading the

conversation away from Marion. “These came from the Villa Borghese. I

know by the color. Oh! the fields are full of flowers now. You will,

perhaps, see some this evening. There are almost always a few people

come in this night of the week—people who never find me at any other

time. It isn’t a reception, you know. I don’t bind myself. Among them

will be your Italian teacher; so you can arrange when to begin

studying. I sent him a note this morning. And, stay! Apropos of

violets, I have something lovely to show you.”

She opened a little case that the servant had given her as she

entered. “These were left while we were out. I had ordered some

changes to be made in them. See! they are the Borghese violets set in

dew and petrified.”

The case contained a brooch, a pair of bracelets and sleeve-buttons,

all of plain and highly polished silver, in each of which was set a

large, deep-purple amethyst.

“Why did I never think of a silver setting?” Bianca exclaimed. “I

always admired amethysts till they were set; then I found them spoilt.

It was the ugly purple and yellow contrast. These are lovely, and just

suit you, _Signora mia_. How I wish I could wear such things!”

“And why can you not?” Mr. Vane asked, with all the simplicity of a

man who can admire results without understanding what produces them.

“Because they would make me look like a starless twilight,” the girl

replied. “I should be obliged to paint my cheeks if I put on such

colors. Poor me! I could wear only rubies, or opals, or diamonds,

perhaps emeralds set in diamonds.”

Her father’s face assumed that sad and troubled expression a man’s

face always wears when one he loves wishes for something out of his

power to give. “Are you not rather young, my dear, to wear much

jewelry?” he asked doubtfully.

“He thinks I am pining for trinkets,” she said smilingly. “Certainly,

papa, I am altogether too young, and am, moreover, disinclined to wear

it. Don’t look so sad about it! My ribbons and flowers satisfy me

quite. I shall beg some rosebuds of the Signora for this evening, and

you shall see how much prettier they will be than rubies, besides

having perfume, which rubies have not.”

Isabel had arranged the bracelets around her neck, and fastened the

brooch in her lace ruffle.

“They do make one look three shades darker,” she said, and sighed

deeply in taking them off. “I would like to go dressed in jewels from

head to foot,” she added.

But, as Isabel was always sighing to possess every beautiful thing she

saw, and, if it were possible, would have had the Vatican for her

abode and St. Peter’s for a private chapel, nobody took her longings

very much to heart; the less so, moreover, as she managed to live a

very gay and happy life in spite of those unsatisfied longings.

Other pretty things had come in during their morning’s absence: a pile

of books, old copies of the Italian poets newly bound over in white

vellum with red edges to the leaves, a pile of Roman photographs which

were to be sent to America, and a collection of little squares of

marbles, porphyries, and alabasters, a stone rainbow, destined also

for America.

“But we need photographs in Rome,” the Signora said. “Looking at them,

we discover a thousand beauties which we missed when we saw the

original.”

A strange croaking sound drew the attention of the girls to the

windows, and they saw a little caravan of crates carried past on

carts, going from the railway station to the great markets of the

city. Out of the holes in these crates protruded heads and necks of

every sort of fowl—turkeys, hens, ducks, and pigeons. The poor

wretches, huddled and crowded together, seemed to know that they were

on their way to execution, and to implore the pity of the bystanders.

Bianca pressed her lips together and said nothing; Isabel leaned out

and contemplated them with a smile. “Those dear turkeys!” she said

with the greatest affection.

“You like them?” the Signora asked, rather surprised that any one

should choose pets so grotesque.

“Yes, immensely!” was the reply. “They’re so nice roasted.”

And then, obliterating this painful and awkward reminder of what lay

under the surface of their daily comforts, came a piercingly-sweet

chorus of trumpets, twenty trumpets playing together. A regiment was

passing, going from a camp in one part of the city to a camp in

another part. The men were dressed in gray linen, and, in the

distance, were hardly to be distinguished from the street, and their

bearing was not very soldier-like; but the wild and sunny music gave a

soul and meaning to them, and, rising through the hot and silent noon,

stirred even the most languid pulses.

“War will never be done away with till trumpets are abolished,” Mr.

Vane said. “I have no doubt that even I should make a very good

fighter if I had a band of them in full blast at my elbow while the

battle lasted. It wouldn’t do for them to stop, though. Fancy a charge

for which no trumpet sounded! It would no more go off, you know, than

a gun would without powder. Why doesn’t somebody take care of that

child?” he concluded abruptly.

For a soiled little wretch was sitting directly in the street, on a

cushion of dust, and staring contentedly at the soldiers as they

passed, as unconscious and unafraid as if it had been a poppy sprung

up there between the paving-stones, instead of a human being with a

body out of which the soul might be kicked or crushed.

“Somebody is taking care of it,” Bianca said. “Everybody is taking

care of it.”

In fact, the long line of soldiers made a tiny curve to accommodate

this bit of humanity, and the tide of life passing at the other side

made another, like a brook around a stick or stone. At length a woman,

not too much afraid, certainly, snatched the child away, and, in the

face of the world, administered a sound castigation, the meaning of

which, it was to be hoped, the child understood.

“I never saw such countryfied things happen in any other city,” Mr.

Vane said. “It is, perhaps, one reason why life here is so

picturesque. Nobody, except the small class of cultivated people,

behaves any differently in public from what they do in private, and

the common people do not pretend to be what they are not.”

“I wish sometimes that they were a little less sincere,” the Signora

remarked coldly. “One could spare that portion of the picturesque

which offends against decency. They seem to have no respect for public

opinion; though, perhaps,” she added, “public opinion here is not

worthy of much respect. It tolerates strange customs, certainly. The

workmen hammer away and saw stone all day Sunday at the house

opposite, and nobody protests, that I know of. Some clergymen did

think of complaining against the work going on on Sunday in the

_piazza_ above, but it would have been in vain for them, of course.

Let us go to luncheon, please. I am in danger of becoming ill-natured,

so many things here annoy me. Do you remember the old Protestant

missionary hymn about ‘Greenland’s icy mountains’? Two lines of it

often occur to me here:

‘Though every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile.’

I shall think better of them when I have had something to eat. Hunger

makes one critical. I fancy that critics are always badly-fed people.

I’m very sure that if Dr. Johnson had had a comfortable dinner before

he sat down to my last book, he would never have cut it up so—the

book, I mean. A good roastbeef would have taken the edge quite off his

blade. A dinner,” said the Signora, waxing eloquent as she seated

herself at a very pretty and plentiful table—“a dinner is the most

powerful of engines, and wealth is powerful only because it will

procure dinners. A person whom you have fed is obliged to serve you,

and the person whom you are going to feed never finds you ugly or

uninteresting.”

Bianca contemplated her friend with an expression of grieved

astonishment. “How can you talk so with all these flowers in the room

listening to you?” she exclaimed.

“Besides, you are going to feed me, but I never saw you so near being

ugly. I think, indeed, you are a little bit ugly.”

The Signora laughed pleasantly. “If I had known that the dearest

flower in the room was going to find a reproachful tongue for me, I

should never have uttered such shocking opinions. Never shake your

sunny locks at me. It was not I who said it; ‘twas hunger. It was

Bailey’s wolf. You do not know Clive Bailey? He will come this

evening, and I think you may be interested in him. I must tell you

about his wolf. The poor fellow was, at the age of twenty, left poor

indeed; suddenly found himself without a cent in the world, after

having been brought up with the expectation of a competency, and

studiously educated to do nothing. Fortunately, his taste had led him

to read a good deal, and he had also a fancy for writing fiction. It

was being thrown into the sea to learn to swim. He began to write for

the cheap newspapers, always intending to find some other employment;

but what with the necessity of writing a great deal to keep himself

alive, and the shock to his sensitive nature of finding himself in

such a situation, he only succeeded in living the life he had stumbled

into, without power to make another. It was the old story of poor

writers, with, however, a pleasant ending in this case. He managed to

squeeze a fair novel out of intervals in his drudge-work, and that won

him a better market. In the height of his success he gathered those

first sketches into a volume, and published them, giving the name of

the author as A. Wolf, Esq. When somebody, not knowing the book to be

his, asked him what Wolf it was who wrote those sketches, he answered:

‘The wolf at my door.’ And he insists that the same wolf is the most

voluminous writer the world has ever produced, and that the

title-pages of at least half the books written should bear his name.

_Buon appetito!_”

CHAPTER IV.

“A FLOCK OF SHEEP THAT LEISURELY PASS BY.”

Several persons came in that evening from seven to nine. First

appeared Mr. Coleman, a mild-looking, bald-headed man of an uncertain

age. Isabel immediately absorbed him. Next followed a new-comer in

Rome, on whose card was inscribed “Mr. Geo. Morton.” After having seen

him once, the Signora was guilty of dubbing him Mr. Geometrical

Morton. “He is ridiculous, but excellent,” she told her friends while

describing him. “He never laughs, because he thinks there is nothing

laughable in creation, every whim of nature, human or inanimate, being

the result of a mathematical principle, and every disorder only order

under an extraordinary form. Of course this is neither new nor

peculiar; but he announces it as if it were new, and has a peculiar

manner of clapping his measuring instruments on to everything. Not a

bit of cirrus can pass over the sky nor your mind, but instantly he

will tell you the philosophy of it. In fine, he strips everything to

the skeleton, and cannot see that it is a bore, but calls it truth, as

if the flesh and drapery were not truths also, as well as more

graceful. I had a quarrel with him when he was here last—or rather, I

got out of all patience, and scolded him almost rudely, and he

listened and replied with the most irritating patience and politeness.

I suppose he thought there was some mathematical reason for my being

angry, and was studying it out with his great, solemn eyes. He’s kind

and honest, I am sure, and as handsome as a picture. I pity the woman

he will choose for a wife, though. If she should scold, he will bring

out the barometer; if she weep, the rain-gauge; if she should be merry

and affectionate, he will consult the thermometer. Ugh! he makes me

feel all three-cornered.”

This gentleman made his salutations with the most perfect gravity and

courtesy, and, after considering the situation a moment, seated

himself by Bianca.

“Well, what conclusions have you arrived at concerning Rome?” he

asked, after a few preliminary remarks.

“None,” she replied; “but I have made a good many beginnings; or I

might say I have arrived at some fragmentary conclusions.”

“As what?” he persisted gently, desirous to make her talk; for she had

shrunk so shyly from him that her father had come to her other side,

which was _unique_. The young man had not often the opportunity to

study a shy feminine specimen.

“Oh! well,” she said doubtingly, then laughed; “apropos of papa’s

checked clothes, which distress me, I have discovered that the clergy

are the only well-dressed men in Rome. The others do not look like

gentlemen. But the long robe, whatever the color of it, and the cloak

they are always arranging, are so graceful, the hat is so picturesque,

and, above all, the buckles on the shoes please me.”

“Below all, you mean,” her father remarked.

The young man looked the least in the world disconcerted; for he wore

every day a suit of the same objectionable check cloth. Besides, he

was not prepared to take on himself the instruction of a young woman

whose tall father chose to assist at the lessons, and put in his word

in season and out of season.

At this moment Mr. Clive Bailey made his appearance. His bright,

clever face lighted up at sight of the new-comers, whom he had been

expecting with interest, having heard a great deal about them.

“I hope you intend to make Rome your home,” he said to Mr. Vane. “The

Signora has suggested such a possibility.”

“You compliment me more than you do our country,” Mr. Vane replied. “I

have been told that it would be unpatriotic for me to prefer any other

country to America as a residence. People talk that way. At the same

time I should like to stay, and I have an impression that North

America, as a whole, will not be aware of my absence.”

“Oh! I don’t mean to disparage any country,” Mr. Bailey said promptly;

“only the climate is so hard. Those northeast winds whistle through my

button-holes. By the way, a friend of yours asked me to-day if you had

arrived, and would have come up to-night to see, if he had not been

engaged: John Adams. You recollect him?”

“John Adams? Of course I recollect him. But what brought him here? I

never heard him speak of Italy but to abuse it.”

“Oh!” the young man said, lowering his voice a little, and glancing at

the Signora, who was near them, “he was brought by the same reason

that brought him before, and will keep him this winter—to wit, to

woo.”

“To woo! To who?” retorted Mr. Vane.

“Not a whit of your to who!” replied the other with a laugh.

“What are you quoting Wordsworth for?” asked the Signora, overhearing

the last part of their talk.

“Apropos of Mr. Adams, Signora,” Mr. Vane said, looking at her

attentively.

She blushed and seemed annoyed, and, as if about to say something,

finally turned away without speaking. It displeased her to have her

name used in connection with that of any gentleman, and, besides, she

did not mean to marry Mr. John Adams.

Here the door opened with a little breeze and three persons entered: a

bright-eyed, beautiful young lady with a somewhat Jewish cast of face,

who produced the impression that a bird had fluttered in, and,

following her, a young girl of not more than sixteen, and an elderly

woman, evidently a companion.

The Signora met the new-comer cordially.

“My dear countess, I do not know whether you are more welcome or

unexpected.”

“I have but two minutes,” the young lady said in the prettiest

breathless manner. “I am just on my way to dine out, and stop to ask a

favor. But first let me introduce my friends.”

They were a young baroness from the Azores Islands, who had spent ten

years in Egypt with her father, and was now on her way to her native

country to join her husband, and her lady companion.

“She has to leave Rome the day after to-morrow,” her friend explained,

“and wants an introduction to Monsignor M——. She wishes to take some

things from him to a friend of hers; and you know one doesn’t often

have an opportunity to send to the Azores direct. Now, dear Signora,

if you would be so very kind as to introduce her to Monsignor. You

know I am not acquainted with him.”

“I will take her to him to-morrow morning,” the Signora said. “But

they need not go now, if you do.”

“I was going to ask your hospitality for them while the carriage takes

me, for I have to call for cousin Anne. And now, will you do me the

favor to make me acquainted with the friends who have come to live

with you? I must apologize for my abrupt coming and going.”

She made her apologies in the most graceful and simple way, and looked

at Bianca a little lingeringly in meeting her, as if struck by her

face. “I meant to call on you first,” she said to the sisters, “and

will come to-morrow, if you permit me.”

The Signora followed her out to the landing. “I want a glimpse of your

dress,” she said. “You know I never go out after dark; and yet I do so

like to see a lady dressed for the evening.”

The countess smilingly threw back the long white cloak that covered

her from head to foot, and displayed a beautiful silk robe of so pale

a blue as to be almost white. Pink roses fastened the rich lace in the

square bosom and loose sleeves, and looped the braids of dark hair,

and she wore no jewels but some large strung pearls on her neck and

wrists.

“It is lovely!” the Signora exclaimed, and looked admiringly after the

lady as she tripped down the stone stairs, holding her rustling robes

up about her.

Going back, she found Mr. Coleman and Bianca trying to entertain the

rather stupid lady companion, Isabel taking her first lesson in

mathematics, and the girl baroness, a dark, plain, talkative little

creature, chatting away in very good English to Mr. Vane.

“I never saw my husband but once,” she said. “We were always betrothed

since we were babies, but his father, the old Baron of Santa Cruz, had

him sent to school in Lisbon, and I was always in a convent. My mamma

was dead, and I had no brothers nor sisters, and papa was in Egypt. He

has a high office there. Then Pedro came home from Portugal, and I

went to papa. Two years ago we met in Rome and were married, so that I

could go to him later with my companion. Papa couldn’t leave to go to

the Azores, and Pedro couldn’t come again for me.”

She told the story in a very childish, simple way, and seemed to

regard her marriage as quite a business-like and proper arrangement.

“You think that you will like Fayal as well as Cairo?” Mr. Vane asked

kindly, pitying this child-wife who seemed to have so little of family

affection to surround her in the most important time of her life.

“I cannot think, I cannot remember it,” she said. “When I try, it is

Paris or Rome that comes up, and I get confused. If I should not like

it, I shall ask Pedro to take me somewhere else. He has written me

that he will always do everything I wish him to do.”

Mr. Vane scarcely felt a disposition to smile at this perfect trust.

He found it pathetic.

“But I would like to go to your country,” she resumed with animation.

“Pedro’s sister Maria went there for a journey when she married, and

she wrote me the most wonderful things. Perhaps she did not tell the

truth. She may have been writing something only to make me laugh. You

will not laugh if I tell you?”

Mr. Vane promised to maintain his gravity at all risks.

“Well,” she said confidentially, “Maria wrote me that the snow there

is whiter than sea-foam on the rocks, and that one can walk in it and

not be wet, and that carriages drive over and make a solid road of it,

just as if the streets were paved with smooth, white marble, and that,

at the sides, it piles up and stays in shape, like heaps of

eider-down. It isn’t true, is it?”

She looked at him doubtfully and searchingly while he assured her of

the correctness of the picture.

“And, more than that,” he said, “I have seen the snow so deep and

solid that men would cut it in great blocks like Carrara marble, and,

when they were standing in the place they had dug, you couldn’t see

their heads over the top of the drifts. Did you ever see ice?”

“I saw some this morning, but it wasn’t white,” she said. “A carload

of it went past the hotel. It was grayish and crumbly. The men had cut

grass and weeds and piled over it to keep it from the sun.”

Mr. Vane, too, had seen this pitiful apology for the glorious crystal

blocks of New England ice-cutters as he looked from his window that

morning, and had indulged for the moment a feeling of scornful pride.

“Fancy that mat of fresh grass and wild-flowers trembling over one of

our ice-carts or snow-drifts!” he had said to Bianca. “Yes,” she had

replied, but at the same moment had pointed out to him a lovely

compensation for the absence of these frigid splendors in the land of

the sun. Beneath their window passed two men, bearing each on his head

a large basket, one flat, and covered with camellias laid singly, a

pink by a white one, each flower glistening with freshness; the other

deep, and heaped with pink roses and buds, among which might be seen

yellow roses tied in large, nodding bunches. Yes, the snow of the

tropics was a snow of flowers.

The Signora passed near enough to Isabel and her companion to catch a

part of their conversation. “Since you entered this room,” the

gentleman was saying, “you have doubtless, either consciously or

unconsciously, gone through with a good deal of swift reasoning. Some

people you have liked more, others less, and in both cases the

feeling, as you would call it, has been the result of a certain

calculation as exact as anything in mathematics could be. You have

been pleased with one for certain manners, or looks, or for certain

qualities which you believe him to possess; and there are also exact

and mathematically calculable reasons why these things should please

you.”

Isabel looked edified, but puzzled. “If, then,” she ventured, “there

is so much more reason in us all than we are aware of, why need we

correct ourselves? I should think we might be all the better satisfied

with what goes on in our minds, and let them arrange their own

processes without troubling ourselves.”

“No,” he said with earnest gravity. “There are good reasons and bad

reasons; and by knowing why we may correct the bad reasons. For

example, your tooth aches; the reason is because there is a defective

spot in it. You go to the dentist, and the pain ceases. Or you do not

fancy a person; the reason is because that person does not flatter

you, and you are fond of flattery. You correct your inordinate love of

praise, and thus appreciate the worth of one who tells you the truth,

and also make it more easy for him to praise you sincerely.”

“But all this takes so much time,” she said, seeing that he waited for

a response.

“It is for such uses that time was given us,” he replied.

She struggled for another objection, her mind rapidly becoming swamped

in the conversation. “Then you think that we can arrange and order all

our feelings, and make our hearts as regular as clocks; and if we lose

a friend, by examining why he died, and why we grieve for him, we can

reason ourselves into indifference.”

“No,” he said again. “We can undoubtedly subdue the violence of

unreasonable grief by such examination, but there are deep and

ineradicable reasons why we should grieve when we lose those dear to

us.”

The girl’s eyes brightened. “Why,” she said, “it all seems to me only

a difference of terms. You mean just what everybody means, only you

say everything, and others haven’t time nor wit for that. It all

amounts to the same thing in the end. We say, ‘Such and such a thing

is natural,’ where you say it is mathematical, _voilà tout_.”

He began to say something about the natural including both good and

bad, while his meaning was to exclude the bad; but the Signora took

pity on his victim, and stopped his eloquence by offering him a cup of

tea.

“He will take the tea,” she thought, pouring another cup, “because the

beverage is agreeable to the palate and refreshing to the body, and,

by consequence, enlivening to the mind, and he will see the whole

subject worked out to its smallest part as he stirs in the sugar. He

will put in sugar because—because—dear me! I wonder what is the good

reason for putting sugar in tea! How uncomfortable it all is! I should

go mad with such a man about me all the time. And yet how well-bred,

and earnest, and handsome he is! If only it might happen that he would

mellow with time, and learn to take subjects by their convenient

handles, and not spread them out so! He makes me remember that I am a

skeleton, with—pah! How glad I am I don’t know all about my bones!”

“What are you studying out, Signora?” asked Isabel at her elbow.

“I am trying not to see everything crumble at once into its elements,”

she replied distressfully. “My dear, if you will make that man talk

like a human being, I shall be thankful. Find out if he has a heart,

or only a triangle instead; and just watch his fingers to see if there

are little scales and figures marked along the insides of them. He is

worth rescuing. I like him.”

The little baroness went, and more people came in. It was after _Ave

Maria_, and they were obliged to light the candles, and close the

windows and shutters on the street. But the great _sala_ needed not to

be closed, for no one could see into it, and so the exquisite twilight

was left free to enter, with only the soft light of a single hanging

lamp to shame its tender radiance. This inner light, the steady,

deep-hued flame of olive oil, burning in an antique bronze lamp, made

the room softly visible, and, shining out into the garden, turned the

yellow gold of the jasmine blossoms into red gold here and there, and

made the snow-white of the orange-flowers look like a sun-lighted

drift of the north.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF MILLIARDS.[199]

There is much in a title. Many an insignificant if not objectionable

individual is widely welcomed and sweetly smiled upon because he

boasts a “handle to his name”; and that which is true as regards man

is equally so of books. Many a shallow and worthless production, like

the monstrosities produced in the floral world by fancy

horticulturists, becomes “the rage” from its pretentious or, as the

case may be, its unpronounceable name.

There is, then, much in the title of a book; and yet, had M. Victor

Tissot sent into the world his _Voyage au Pays des Milliards_ under

the sober superscription of “Travels in Germany,” although it might

not so immediately have attracted the public eye, it must ultimately

have secured the attention and interest it so justly merits, and which

have necessitated the issue of nine editions in the course of a few

weeks.

This interest is sustained throughout the book by the varied

information it contains respecting facts connected with Prussianized

Germany, which are related not only with that happy fluency of style

which is the gift of most literary Frenchmen, but also with a justice

of reasoning and fairness of appreciation of which one of his nation

dealing with such a subject might not always be found capable.

The work professes to be simply _notes de voyage_ addressed to a

friend; a series of sketches which introduce the reader in a familiar

manner—“looking at everything, listening everywhere”—to this new

Germany, such as she has sprung forth, sword in hand, from the brain

of Herr von Bismarck.

The first part of the book relates to Southern and Central Germany.

France, before the time of her misfortunes, was wont to say with her

old university professors, _Qui non vidit Coloniam non vidit

Germaniam_,[200] but now the proverb is changed, and it must rather be

said, “He who would see Germany must see Berlin.” In the vast Germanic

body, Berlin has alike usurped the place of head and heart; she it is

who conceives, meditates, contrives, commands; she who deprives and

bestows, legislates and executes; and she who distributes glory.

Towards her flow the life and warmth of that Germany which is now no

more the land of picturesque and simple legends, sweet ballads, Gothic

dreams, holy cathedrals, but the land of blood and iron. The knight

Albrecht Dürer no more finds his steps arrested in the enchanted

forest of poetry and art, but rides rough-shod over the high-roads of

Europe, armed with a needle-gun, and with a spiked helmet on his head.

“Had we but known,” sighed France, after the war—“if we had only

known!” Yes, often enough has it been repeated that her ignorance

respecting her neighbors, of all that they were secretly designing and

silently doing, was one chief cause of her disasters.

“Had we but known!” “Well, then,” writes M. Tissot, “for the future

_let us know_! Let us be aware that the Germans ransack our country in

every sense; that they study our language, manners, customs, and

institutions; following us step by step, and spying us everywhere,

until they know France more thoroughly than we know it ourselves. For

thirty years past has their spyglass been busily scrutinizing every

corner of our land.… Let us then learn to do among them what they do

among us: the weak place in the breastplate of the German Colossus is

not very difficult to discover.”

In going forth to repel invasion, Germany has suffered herself to be

carried away by the spirit of conquest, and has returned home with a

rear-guard of vices which before she knew not, and under a despotism

which it had cost her the struggle of centuries to break. Having

departed from the path of humanity and civilization, she has gone back

to her wild forests despoiled of her studious leisure and with the

tradition of her ancient domestic virtues well-nigh lost; while, a

prey to all the material appetites, she forgets God, or else denies

him, and no longer believes in anything except the supreme triumph of

her cannon.

From fear of being attacked by the revolution, she enters into an

alliance with it. In proof of this, we have but to observe with what

gratified attention the socialists, not only in Germany but all over

Europe, watch the moral decomposition which is going on in this

atmosphere of materialism and of pride. They know very well that the

day is sure to come, and is perhaps not far distant, when “they will

make a descent into the arena with their knotted clubs; and that this

argument will suffice to put to flight the gentlemen whose wisdom has

discovered the soul to be composed of cellular tissue, and has shut up

patriotism in a membrane.”

The Catholics also act with energy in the strength of their (for the

most part passive) resistance to an oppressive and unjust power, whose

hypocritical excuses render it as contemptible as its tyranny makes it

odious in the eyes of every upright man, whether Catholic or

Protestant.

“From a distance,” says M. Tissot, “it might be easy to deceive one’s

self into a doubt as to the dangerous nature of so many alarming

symptoms, but on the spot I know for a certainty that an attentive

listener cannot fail to hear the pulsations of a nation disturbed to

its very depths, and ill at ease. Is it,” he asks, “as a means of

escape from impending dangers, and to prepare the minds of the people

for a skilful diversion, that the parliamentary orators and the

official Prussian press keep them in a continual ferment of warlike

excitement, and appear to regret the milliards left behind on the

banks of the Rhone and the Garonne? This is the opinion of thoughtful

minds, for it is on the field of battle only that a reconciliation

between the Catholics and their adversaries can be expected to take

place.”

Before visiting the imperial capital, the traveller on whose work the

present observations are principally based begins with the southern

states, “being desirous of interrogating those ancient provinces which

have sacrificed their autonomy to a gust of glory, and of asking if

the mess of pottage is still savory, or whether, awakening from recent

illusions, there is not some regret for the good old times.”

After visiting Ulm, with its enormously increased fortifications;

Stuttgart, the sunny capital of Würtemberg; and the little university

town of Heidelberg—respecting all which places M. Tissot has much to

say—the impression resulting from his observations is that South

Germany was duped and alarmed into submitting to Prussia. With regard

to Frankfort, no longer the free city of past times, his conviction is

that the real population, quite as much as that of Metz and

Strassburg, detests the sight of the spiked helmets and the sound of

the Prussian fifes and drums (the latter shaped like small saucepans),

constantly passing through the streets.

The particulars of the Prussian occupation of this city in 1866 are

still fresh in the memory of its inhabitants. “The history of those

days,” M. Tissot tells us, “has never been written.” We will give in

his own words the account he received from an eye-witness:

“On the 6th of July, the Senate announced to the townspeople

the impending entry of the Prussians, ‘whose good discipline

was a sure guarantee that no one would be exposed to

inconvenience.’

“In spite, however, of this ‘good discipline,’ all the

banking-houses hastened to place themselves under the

protection of the foreign consuls, and hoisted American,

English, French, or Swiss colors. The streets were as

deserted as a cemetery.

“The Prussians did not arrive until nine in the evening,

when they made a triumphal entry. At their head, with his

sword drawn, rode General Vogel von Falkenstein; music

played, drums beat; there was noise enough to wake the dead.

Billeting tickets had been prepared for this army of

invaders, who, however, preferred to select their own

quarters. The troops divided into squadrons of 50, 70, 100,

or 150 men, and, led by their officers, forced their way

into houses of good appearance. The inmates, who had, in

some cases, retired for the night, ran bewildered through

their rooms. The officers, finding ordinary candles on the

tables, held their pistols at the throats of the women, and

ordered them to bring wax-lights. But their first care was

to demand the keys of the cellar, after which they passed

the night in drinking the best wines, making especial havoc

among the champagne.

“Next day, General Vogel von Falkenstein, surnamed _Vogel

von Raubenstein_, or the bird of prey, caused to be read and

posted up in the streets a proclamation establishing the

state of siege. He suppressed all the newspapers, prohibited

all private _réunions_, and announced moreover a long list

of requisitions.

“On the 18th of July, General von Falkenstein, who the day

before had compelled the town of Frankfort to purchase from

the contractor of the Prussian army many thousands of

cigars, now demanded that there should be delivered to him

60,000 ‘good pairs of shoes,’ 300 ‘good saddle-horses,’ and

a year’s pay for his soldiers—promising, in return, to make

no other requisition upon the inhabitants.… On the 19th they

brought him six millions of florins; but as, in the course

of that same evening, General von Falkenstein was called to

command elsewhere, the Senate received anew, on the morning

of the 20th, a note expressed as follows:

“‘Messieurs the senators of the city of Frankfort are

informed that their town is laid under a contribution of war

for the amount of twenty-five millions of florins, payable

within twenty four hours.

“‘MANTEUFFEL.

“‘HEADQUARTERS, FRANKFORT, July 30, 1866.’”

“Three of the principal bankers of Frankfort were

immediately delegated to present themselves before General

Manteuffel, to remind him of the promises given by his

predecessor, and to entreat him to withdraw this fresh

imposition. All that they obtained was a delay of three

times twenty-four hours.

“‘I know,’ said Manteuffel to them, ‘that I shall be

compared to the Duke of Alva, but I am only here to execute

the orders of my superiors.’

“‘And what shall you do if, between now and Sunday, we have

not paid?’ asked a member of the deputation—‘you will

not——?’

“‘I read the word on your lips,’ rejoined the General;

‘alas! yes, I shall give up the town to pillage.’

“‘In that case, why do you not at once, like Nero, set fire

to the four corners of Frankfort?’

“To this sally General Manteuffel contented himself by

answering: ‘Rome arose only more fair from her ashes.’[201]

“Before quitting the General, the deputation asked whether

this imposition would be the last.

“‘On my part, yes; I give you my word of honor for it; but

another general may come and replace me, with orders of

which I know nothing.’

“The threat of the pillage and bombardment of the city

spread with the rapidity of lightning; the burghers and

bankers contributed together to pay the ransom.

“Five days later, General de Roeder sent for the President

of the Chamber of Commerce, to whom he read the following

telegram, which he had just received from M. von Bismarck:

“‘Since the measures hitherto taken have not been found

sufficient to obtain their object, close, from this evening,

all the telegraph and post-offices, the hotels, inns, and

all public establishments; prohibit the entry into the town

of any persons, and of every kind of merchandise.’

“These few facts, selected from innumerable others of a

similar kind, and which are of warranted authenticity, are

sufficiently edifying.”

We may add, that with memories like the foregoing we cannot wonder

that Frankfort, once the free, is now the irreconcilable, city.

But we hasten on to glance at the capital, where, more plainly than

anywhere else, may be seen the impress of events more recent still.

Space fails us to do more than merely refer to the descriptions given

of the material city, its public buildings, its homely palace, its

long, monotonous lines of streets, “ruled straight by the cane of the

corporal-king,” and built right and left of the pestiferous Spree; the

colossal arsenal, piled with the captured arms of France, and which is

to Berlin what their cathedral is to other European cities. Leaving

all this, and much besides, we will briefly consider the effects of

the late war and of the milliards of France upon the people of

Germany.

On entering Berlin the visitor, as he leaves the railway carriage, is

greeted by the sight of a large placard posted up at the four corners

of the station, and bearing the appropriate warning, “_Beware of

Thieves_.” This is a small indication of a momentous fact; for if,

from her very beginning, Prussia has chosen Mars for her tutelar

divinity, her worship of Mercury since the last war has left him but a

divided throne.[202]

Like the arsenal, the _Bourse_ sums up the recent history of Prussia.

The greed of gain has in fact taken entire possession of the people,

and in no other European city is covetousness so ferocious or the

thirst for gold so ardent as in the Prussian capital. Princes,

ministers of state, and high functionaries of the crown meditate

financial combinations, and launch into speculative investments, from

which they intend to secure large profits; tradespeople and

manufacturers invent skilful falsifications, whether in figures or in

merchandise; students of the university arrange lotteries—all, great

and small, rich and poor, are alike in search of prey.

In a pamhlet published by Herr Diest-Haber, under the characteristic

title of _Plutocracy and Socialism_ (“Geldmacht und Socialismus”) are

to be found revelations which are anything but edifying, and supported

by proofs, respecting the more than questionable probity of certain

ministers of high position in the state. Gustaf Freitag, also, wrote

in 1872: “Great evils have resulted to us from victory. The honor and

honesty of the capital have greatly suffered. Every one is possessed

by a senseless passion for gain: princes, generals, men in high

administrative positions, all are playing an unbridled game, preying

on the confidence of small capitalists, and abusing their position to

make large fortunes. The evil has spread like fire; and at the sight

of this widely extended corruption it is impossible not to fear for

the future.”

The army is also tainted. In 1873, an aid-de-camp of a small German

prince, whose services in the war had brought him nothing, thought

well to indemnify himself, and by forging his master’s signature

pocketed the sum of 300,000 thalers from the coffers of the state.

But the example is set in high quarters, where in everything might is

made to overrule right. Could it be expected that so many thrones

confiscated, without a thought of justice; so many provinces seized,

to form the lion’s share; so complete an overthrow of the most

ordinary moral principles; treaties torn up like false bank-notes; a

policy at the same time so crafty and audacious, could fail to find

sedulous imitators in a people naturally prone to rapine?

The arrival of the five milliards upset the equilibrium of the German

brain. Every form of speculation sprang from the ground like fungi

after a shower; everything—breweries, grocery companies, streets,

roads, canals—was parcelled out in shares. Houses were sold at the

exchange, and in the course of two hours had five or six times changed

their owner. In eight months, the price of tenements was doubled;

fifty or sixty persons would dispute the possession of a garret. In

1872, the average number of persons inhabiting a house of three or

four stories (the usual height in Berlin) was from fifty-five to

sixty-five, or ten persons to a room. Masons made fortunes, worked ten

hours, went in a cab from the stone-yard to the _restaurants_, and

drank champagne in beer-glasses. A simple brick-and-mortar carrier

earned five thalers a day; and small bankers’ clerks, at the present

time out of situation and shoe-leather, paraded in white kid gloves in

the first boxes of the theatre—not to speak of far worse extravagances

still. Societies of share venders fiercely quarrelled with each other

over the purchase of feudal castles in the neighborhood, which were to

be transformed into _casinos_ on a large scale, with theatre in the

open air, artificial lakes and mountains, Swiss dairies, and games for

every taste. But this dream of the Thousand-and-one Nights did not

last a year. The temples of pleasure are bankrupt, and “the police

have seized Cupid’s quiver.” The whole of Germany—“the nation of

thinkers,” as her philosophers love to call her—was dazzled by the

deceitful mirage, and so fierce was the eagerness for gain that at one

time it was scarcely prudent to go to the exchange without a revolver.

Fights were of constant occurrence, and ardent speculators would

collar each other like stable-boys.[203] Before the close of 1872,

nearly eight hundred and fifty different shareholding investments had

sprung up. The middle classes, the representatives of honest and

laborious industry, have been the principal victims of these hollow

speculations; and in a public report made by the Governor of the Bank

of Prussia, January 1, 1873, it was stated that in the course of two

years several millions of thalers had been extorted by unscrupulous

adventurers from the credulous public.

In various ways it is evident that, if France paid dearly for her

defeat, Germany is paying far more dearly for her glory, besides

having so mismanaged matters that peace to her is more costly than

war. Herr Schorlemer-Ast lately declared in the Reichstag that the

financial burdens of the empire, from her system of complete and

permanent armament, are crushing all classes. “The milliards,” he

says, “that we have received are already converted into fortresses,

ships-of-war, Mauser rifles, and cannon; the military budget has this

year increased by nineteen millions of marks, … and into this budget

we cast all our resources, all our reserves, all our savings, but

never can we meet its demands; and thus the land becomes more and more

impoverished.” There is another method, also, by which the “eminently

moral” government of the Emperor seeks to increase its resources, and

this is by lotteries. A Protestant minister observing to his majesty

that these lotteries were a very bad example, the latter replied, “You

are mistaken; they are instituted to punish already on earth the

cupidity of my people: the great prize is never drawn.”

Fresh imposts are also created; but the time for these is scarcely the

present, when, according to the testimony of Germans themselves,

commerce languishes, the manufacturing interest is passing through a

crisis of which it is impossible to foresee the end, and on all sides

arise murmurs and complaints. And yet we hear of proposals like that

of Herr Camphausen in the Reichstag, namely, to “demand more labor

from the artisan and pay him less for it.” A profitable subject,

truly, for communist declamation must this be; and well might Bebel,

the notorious socialist of Leipzig, say, “Prussia is doing our work

for us; we need but fold our arms and wait,” and his colleague,

Liebknecht, declare that “M. de Bismarck has done more for the radical

interest than five socialist ministers could have done. The people see

with bitterness how little has been gained by sacrifices so great. The

expense of living has doubled since the war, but the salaries have not

increased in proportion.… In the manufacturing districts there is

fearful distress.… Families of five or six persons obliged to starve

on a thaler a week! See what the milliards have done for us! No wonder

that month after month sees ten or fifteen thousand Germans emigrate

to other lands.”

We pass over the dark portraiture of “misery and crime” in Berlin, and

also the information respecting the reptile agency of the official

press, the political dye-house of the empire, whose business it is to

color all communications with the hue required by the prime minister.

Nor have we space to dwell on the state of education in Prussia, which

is far behind the rest of Germany,[204] nor the falsification of

history and even geography in its educational books. We cannot,

however, forbear producing the lesson with which the studies of the

day begin in the primary schools.

The master holds up before his pupils the Emperor’s portrait, asking,

“Who is this?”

Making a reverential bow, they answer, “His majesty the Emperor.”

“What do we owe to him?” resumes the teacher, in a grave and

impressive tone.

“We owe him obedience, fidelity, and respect; we owe him all that we

have and all that we possess.”

Would any child, unless a German or a Russian, find its loyalty

increased after two or three weeks of this daily exercise? We doubt

it.

The Catholic clergy proving a hindrance to the government in the

application of its new catechism, the law on secular instruction was

passed to force them out of the schools: the state, henceforth sole

master, can form at the will of Cæsar, not Christians, but soldiers or

slaves, which are more in accordance with its taste—all that is taught

being made to converge to the one end of blind and absolute submission

to secular power.

God being set aside to make way for the Emperor and his Church

trampled under foot for the good pleasure of the prime minister, we or

our children may see the fulfilment of the prediction written thirty

or forty years ago by Heinrich Heine, in which, after announcing the

reconstitution of the Germanic Empire, he says: “The Empire will

hasten to its fall; and this catastrophe will be the result of a

political and social revolution, brought about by German philosophers

and thinkers. The Kantists have already torn up the last fibres of the

past, the Fichteans will come in turn, whose fanaticism will be

mastered neither by fear nor instinct. The most of all to be dreaded

will be the philosophers of nature, the communists, who will place

themselves in communication with the primitive forces of the earth,

and evoke the traditions of the Germanic pantheism. Then will these

three choirs intone a revolutionary chant at which the land will

tremble, and there will be enacted in Germany a drama in comparison to

which the French Revolution shall have been but an idyl.”

[199] _Voyage au Pays des Milliards._ V. Tissot. Paris: Dentu.

[200] He who has not seen Cologne, has not seen Germany.

[201] “I have this dialogue from one who was present.”—_M.

Tissot._

[202] M. Tissot’s book contains some painful pages having

relation to the votaries of Venus also, to which we

need do no more than allude.

[203] The _Tribune_ for August 1, 1872, has the following:

“Never has the liquidation been so quiet as to-day.

Not a single box on the ear was given in full

exchange, nor had the syndic to interfere on account

of abusive language.”

[204] “Prussia is of all Germany the country which contains

the largest number of persons unable to read and

write,” is the testimony of Herr Karl Vogt.

A QUAINT OLD STUDIO IN ROME, A QUEER OLD PAINTER, AND A LOVELY PICTURE

The exterior does not indicate the remotest relationship with a

studio. I must have misunderstood the _père’s_ directions. I wish

these artists would show some consideration for errant humanity, and

number their quarters. Now, that wall which begins on the street and

backs in behind the rubbish-pile might pass for a parapet but for the

green door with a bell-rope dangling from the upper panel, which

compromises its military character at once. It might pass for a

convent wall. Indeed, the little church which seems to have been

pushed entire right out of the farther end might be accepted as a very

respectable declaration to that effect. But a more accurate

observation of the premises is fraught with diffidence in the latter

conjecture. A portion of an unpretentious dwelling-house, which is

incorporated with that part of the wall abutting on the Via del

Colosseo, and the appearance at one of the windows of a fossilized old

woman who proceeds to hang out linen, dispel effectually the monastic

probability intimated above. But why indulge in speculations? The most

summary, and after all most rational, way of solving my doubts is to

approach the green door, pull the bell-cord, enter, and, _si

monumentum quæris_, _circumspice_. Pulling the bell-rope produced an

inquiring bark from a dog within. Then the door opened slowly, and

just wide enough to admit a visiting card, insinuated edgeways. But,

as if not liking my appearance, it closed with a short but very

decisive slam. I took a short survey of my person, with the view of

assuring myself that there was nothing in my dress or carriage which

would excite a suspicion bearing reference to burglary. I had just

come to a conclusion very flattering to my integrity, when a shrill

female voice screamed from across the way, “_Tira! spingi!_”—Pull!

push! I turned my immediate attention to the practical application of

these laconic instructions. Nothing to pull but the bell-rope, nothing

to push but the door. Another tug at the hemp, a canine response from

within, the door opened as before, I pushed, entered, and the slamming

process was repeated. I turned around with the view of confronting the

slammer—a rope, a pulley, and a weight. He has a taste for mechanics,

thought I. At the top of a few steps I saw a friendly-looking

house-dog, who sniffed apologetically, and then whisked himself about,

as if expressing a hearty welcome. If I had not had positive reason

afterwards to arrogate to myself this compliment, I should have gone

away with the conviction that the dog sniffed with satisfaction

because the mingled odor of lemon, of orange, and of a hundred

fragrant flowers which floated on the air was inexpressibly

gratifying. I found myself in a quadrangular enclosure not unlike the

cloister of a convent. The central plot was planted with orange and

lemon trees, and with every kind of vegetable. It only lacked the

traditional well in the centre, with the iron-bound bucket resting on

the edge, and the iron rods for pulley, wrought into the form of a

cross, to make it a perfect little cloister. ‘Tis true that the

resemblance might be impaired by the large chicken-coop in the corner,

which emitted a chorus of cackling suggestive of a prosperous

barnyard. But a flourishing coop is no contemptible accessory to the

effects of a religious community; and as for its encumbering the

cloister, that is very easily explained. The consideration of the

civil power for religious communities has disencumbered them of all

their property outside the walls, and even extended itself to

everything within that is worth taking care of. A marble pavement of

variegated pieces, formed into mosaics of no definable pattern,

extends around the garden. The walls of the house are studded with

fragments of sarcophagi and frieze-work—here the hand of a child,

there a lion’s head, yonder a foot—while these are interspersed with

lamps of terra-cotta, such as are found in the Catacombs; and, high

above all, a row of Roman vases let into the wall as far as the neck

gives it the appearance of a battery of cannon. The well, which, sunk

in the centre of the garden, would have completed the picture of a

cloister, is over against the wall. An attempt had been made to apply

a fly-wheel and a crank, with some other complicated machinery of

ropes and pulleys, to the process of drawing water, but evidently

didn’t approach a success, as the crank is rusty and the rope frayed

with age and exposure. On the other side of the garden stands a large

cistern of water literally alive with gold-fish. The house itself is

built around the garden, save the portion enclosed by the wall. It is

but one story high generally. It seems, however, that the builder,

some time after the completion of the lower story, wanted to try the

effect of another story; so, with an utter disregard of architectural

designs and proportions, he raised the four walls at the fenestral

apertures of which the fossil appeared. I ascertained afterwards that

this addition forms the “apartments” of her antiquity. On the corner

diagonally opposite arises a similar portion, which is reached by

stairs on the outside—evidently the residence of the lord of the

premises. A railing extends around the roof, while vines on trailers

and a great fig-tree, which towers out of the garden and up to the

roof, give the establishment quite an Oriental aspect. We only want a

patriarch taking his evening promenade on the roof, and we have Syria

in the shadow of the Colosseum. While I was contemplating all this the

dog barked impatiently, ran ahead to an open door underneath a pent

roof, and then trotted back, giving me to understand that he was very

impatient to usher me in there. A Maltese cat appeared on the scene,

walked furtively around me, inspected me from head to foot, and

finally came to a halt in front of me and fixed his great, amber eyes

upon me with an inquiring look, as which should say, “Are your

intentions peaceful?” My addressing him by the name of “puss” seemed

to satisfy him, and he trotted on with the dog.

The first object which met my gaze as I entered the door caused me to

start back with a shudder; for I was not prepared for such a sight. On

a table, stretched at full length, lay a human skeleton, with the head

turned towards the door. It seemed to have taken that position of

itself, with a view of seeing who passed in and out. The floor was

littered with cartoons and bits of old lumber. In a corner stood an

ancient-looking painting of a skeleton seated in a meditative

attitude—one bony leg crossed on the other, the elbow planted on the

knee, and the chin resting on the hand. It had not the appearance of a

caricature, for the lipless mouth and fleshless jaws wore a solemn and

awful expression, which the most intemperate and frivolous fancy could

not associate with the ridiculous. The walls, too, were covered with

cartoons of different sizes, some of which were very beautiful. One

especially struck me with admiration. It represented the Eternal

Father gazing out into the chaotic darkness which preceded the great

act of volition, “_Fiat lux_.” The perfection of the _actus purus_ and

_existentia_, which are identical in God, was powerfully expressed in

the intensely active expression of the eyes and forehead. While all

this occurred to me, a consciousness of the spirit of love, which

mellowed and softened the sternness of that face, affected me. Passing

another door, I found myself in a large room painted a Pompeian red.

My first impression was that I had walked into the laboratory of an

alchemist—a very justifiable impression. A long table in the middle of

the room was crowded with vials of all sizes and every variety of

form, containing liquids of the strangest colors. Crucibles, mortars,

glass tubes, bellows, scales, and spirit-lamps were scattered over the

table confusedly. A row of shelves garnished one of the walls, and

upon them were arranged, in something like order, busts of different

sizes and casts in plaster of arms, legs, feet, and hands. From the

beams of the ceiling dangled a number of little cherubs of Berninian

propensities—that is to say, they were very plump, very short, and

kicked and doubled themselves up into the most impossible attitudes

for little fellows of their exaggerated proportions. These, coupled

with several chunks of half-wrought clay tumbled promiscuously into

one corner, and a number of modelling tools, a sponge, and an elevated

stool, would perhaps incline the visitor to the belief that he was in

the sanctum of a sculptor. The other three walls were covered with

pictures representing a variety of subjects, sacred and profane. Here

a muscular, sightless Samson coped with the pillars of the temple of

the Philistines, to the seemingly intense interest of a demure

cardinal on the opposite wall. There Justice poised her scales in

front of a sketch, which the most unpractised eye would have no

difficulty in recognizing as the work of Fra Angelico, portraying the

Last Judgment. The activity of the devils as they scourged the damned

into the bottomless pit is striking. Farther on a “Battle of the

Centaurs” afforded an interesting anatomical study. But the sweetest

picture of all was a little one not over a foot square, which

represented with vivid simplicity the dispute between the two hermits,

St. Paul and St. Anthony. The latter holds up one hand

argumentatively, and points with the other to the untouched loaf,

while his earnest face seems to say: “Paul, take up the loaf and break

it.” Paul looks respectful, but not overcome. He leans upon his long

staff with both hands, and contemplates the loaf with a face

betokening his resolution not to touch it, at least until more

conclusive arguments be adduced; and, after all, it is a quiet,

domestic sort of a picture. Beside this was another of about the same

dimensions—one that pleased the eye not so much as the heart. It was

St. Jerome in the wilderness. The crucifix is suspended high upon a

thin sapling, and the great doctor kneels off at a distance, and prays

with his hands joined before his breast. It is one of those prayerful

pictures which recall Fra Bartolomeo, but the coloring was Timoteo

Vite’s, and none else’s. In the corner of the room nearest the window

I observed a ladder, made of iron bars, fastened into the wall, which

terminated in a trap-door in the ceiling. At the foot of this ladder,

right under the window, stood what seemed to be a sedan-chair. It was

covered on all sides with oilcloth turned wrongside out. Before this

chair stood an easel, on the easel a small picture, which I perceived

was being touched by a brush; and I observed, furthermore, that the

brush was manipulated by a hand of powerful proportions, such a hand

as would have been enough of itself to build up that strange old house

from the foundation-stone. Then a man’s head, adorned with gray locks

and an old cap with a pair of turned-up flaps, emerged from the

darkness, and I saw a pair of dark, bright, benevolent eyes smiling up

at me. The face was bronzed, the beard gray and not heavy, but growing

in a heavy instalment around the mouth and chin, then light on the

under jaws, and developing into a bushy abundance in the direction of

the ears. It was a pleasant, happy face, still possessing the

ingenuous expression of the happy boy. As he worked himself out of the

nook in which he was ensconced, and stood up to welcome me, giving me

at the same time a grip of that powerful hand which I associated above

with the construction of the house, but which then referred me to a

blacksmith-shop, I had an opportunity of surveying his figure.

I should have said, rather, I saw an old dressing-gown of brown stuff

which buttoned closely at the chin, was tied around him with a rope,

and terminated in a pair of heavy brogans. I introduced myself by

stating that the _père_ had requested me to call and see how the

picture was doing. “Ah! there it is,” said the old man, and a smile of

happy excitement mantled upon his face as he looked at the little

picture on the easel, _La Notte del Correggio_. He gazed more intently

than before, and then sank down quietly on one knee and scanned the

face of the kneeling Virgin Mother, in whose face is reflected that

wonderful intense light which concentrated in the face of the Child,

as if desirous of seeing underneath the coloring. “The spirit of

Correggio is here,” continued he in a musing strain; “no man living

possessed his secret of blending colors into one another. I will not

touch the face of the Child.”

“Then you believe,” said I, “that this is an original?”

“I _feel_ it,” added he warmly. “Correggio may repeat himself, but he

cannot be copied, at least in two pictures, his _Giorno_ and his

_Notte_. The dominating, character of Correggio’s paintings in oil,

that something which proclaims him on the instant, is the coloring,

penetrating and brilliant as enamelling—of such a kind that the lights

assume an indefinable splendor, the shadows have a depth and

transparency which no painter, and much less a copyist, ever produced,

save Correggio. There”—and he arose and drew the curtain over the

window, until the room was nearly dark—“you need no light to see that

picture; it has its own light in the divinity which is effulgent from

the face of the Infant. Tell me the copyist who effected this, and I

will venerate him as Correggio’s other self.”

A word of explanation is necessary here. The _Notte_ is a picture

representing the Nativity. The Child is in the arms of the kneeling

Mother. “The radiant Infant, and the Mother who holds him, are lost in

the splendor which has guided the distant shepherds. A maiden on one

side, and a beautiful youth on the other, who serves as a contrast to

an old shepherd, receive the full light, which seems to dazzle their

eyes; while angels hovering above appear in a softened radiance. A

little farther back Joseph is employed with his ass, and in the

background are more shepherds with their flocks. Morning breaks in the

horizon. An ethereal light breaks through the whole picture, and

leaves only so much of the outline and substance of the forms apparent

as is necessary to enable the eye to distinguish objects.” This

picture is at present in the gallery of Dresden, and the foregoing is

the description of it given by Kugler. The same writer adds in a note:

“Smaller representations of this subject, with similar motives and

treated in the same manner as the Dresden picture, exist in various

places. An excellent little picture of the kind is in the Berlin

museum, No. 223, and is there ascribed to the school of Correggio.”

That Correggio himself reproduced smaller representations of this

scene, preserving only the three prominent figures of the Infant, the

Mother, and St. Joseph, is notorious. It was a favorite subject of the

great master’s, as is evident in the very counterpart of the _Notte_,

because of its wonderful light—St. Jerome, or _Giorno_—“Day.” Coindet,

in his _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, speaking of the _Notte_,

says that, on account of the celestial light which emanates from the

divine Child, the picture “has been called ‘Night,’ just as the St.

Jerome is often called ‘Day,’ by the Italians, who thus express the

striking light of that picture. Is it necessary to say that that light

is as harmonious as it is brilliant, and that the celebrity of those

two pictures, ‘Night’ and ‘Day,’ is due above all to the perfection of

the chiaroscuro?”

The picture which the old man was restoring is one of the “smaller

representations” spoken of by Kugler. It required no restoration as

far as the coloring was concerned. That was deep and brilliant as

ever. Not the lights but the shadows needed retouching, and the old

man showed himself a good artist, as well as a reverent admirer, when

he said he would not touch the face of the Child. The wonderful

durability of the coloring, which every one knows to be one of the

grand characteristics of Correggio’s productions, is admirable in the

little picture. M. Coindet says that frequent analyses of some of

Correggio’s paintings, with the view of discovering the secret of this

durability, have produced results more curious than useful. Upon the

chalk, he says, the artist appeared to have laid a surface of prepared

oil, which then received a thick mixture of colors, in which the

ingredients were two-thirds of oil and one of varnish; that the colors

seemed to have been very choice, and particularly purified from all

kinds of salts, which, in process of time, eat and destroy the

picture; and that the before-mentioned use of prepared oil must have

greatly contributed to this purification by absorbing the saline

particles. It is, moreover, commonly believed that Correggio adopted

the method of heating his pictures either in the sun or at the fire,

in order that the colors might become, as it were, _interfused_, and

equalized in such a way as to produce the effect of having been poured

rather than laid on. Of that lucid appearance which, though so

beautiful, does not reflect objects, and of the solidity of the

surface, equal to the Greek pictures, Lomazzo says that it must have

been obtained by some strong varnish unknown to the Flemish painters

themselves, who prepared it of equal clearness and liveliness, but not

of equal strength. The history of the little picture in question is

not known to any precision. It was brought to Rome from Madrid by the

late Cardinal Barili, who received it as a present from a Spanish

nobleman while he was nuncio to the court of Madrid. After the death

of the cardinal it was exposed for sale with many other pictures,

mostly of indifferent merit. The probabilities are that it would have

fallen into the hands of some son of Jewry, and disappeared, perhaps

for ever, into a dark and dingy lumberroom of the Ghetto. A better

fate was in store for the gem. The _père_ saw it, admired it,

purchased it, and rested not until he had placed it in the hands of

the venerable artist in the quaint old studio, of whom no better

eulogium can be pronounced than that implied by the members of the

Academy of St. Luke, who, having been requested by Prince Borghese to

hold a consultation on the restoration of Raphael’s “Deposition,”

unanimously chose the old man to do it. He has since been entrusted

with the delicate and important commission of restoring the principal

pictures in the gallery of the Vatican. That he did justice to the

little _Notte_ requires no proof. He possesses the necessary

requisites for such a task—the skill of an artist, the love of an

artist, and the humility of an artist. The picture is now in New York

City, and, as an old painter once said laconically, in pronouncing his

opinion on a painting, “_ex ipsa loquitur_”—it speaks of itself. But I

have left the old man standing outside the parenthesis, palette in

hand, and a smile irradiating his countenance which would be the

instant destruction of legions of blue fits. He saw me look

inquiringly at the prayerful St. Jerome, and divined my desire of

knowing something, about it.

“Painted by Timoteo Vite,” said he, “and I’m to copy it for the good

_père_ and send it off to America. Going to be in good company, too!”

And he pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the

lightsome “Night.”

Then I turned towards the “Dispute of the Hermits.”

“That was an effort of mine when I was eighteen. I never thought it

would go to the New World when I worked at it.”

Laying down the palette, he asked me if I wished to walk around the

house. I was only too glad of the invitation. As we passed out of the

door he pointed towards the ladder in the corner, and said laughingly:

“Jacob’s ladder when it rains; only there are no angels ascending and

descending. My room is above—an old man’s contrivance.”

As we walked up on the roof, he narrated with the complacency of a

little boy how he built the house himself; how he was somewhat

discouraged in digging the foundation when the folks laughed at him;

how he built the outside wall first, to hide himself from the

observation of the passers-by, and after that he got along finely. At

this juncture I stopped to examine a large cage on the roof. It

contained several white mice.

“They are pleasant little fellows, especially when the moon shines,”

said my host, and, stooping down, he opened the little door, whereat

several of the little creatures ran out into his hand.

Replacing them with some difficulty—for they seemed reluctant to be

shut up again—we went down the stairway and over to the part of the

building opposite the studio. As we passed the door I looked in again

at the grim skeleton, and then turned away quickly. But he laid his

hand gently on my shoulder, and said:

“You young people don’t like the sight of skeletons, because they tell

an unpleasant truth very plainly. I call that skeleton the Naked

Truth; it’s a splendid antidote against a disease called pride.”

As we passed the chicken-coop he had to caress a few favorite

bantlings. Then came an old storeroom, then a carpenter-shop, then a

blacksmith-shop, where he told me he did all his own carpentering and

smithing; then a hole in the wall containing a wheelbarrow, pickaxes,

and spades, with which he amused himself in the evening, as, indeed,

the lovely little garden attested. The gold-fish in the cistern seemed

to be his especial favorites. When he dipped his hand in the water

they all flocked around and nibbled it vigorously. Nor did they evince

the slightest disinclination to be caught. I remarked that the cistern

was large enough to bathe in.

“Precisely,” he answered; “I made it for that purpose—the fish were a

second thought. I learned to swim in there. It is very pleasant on a

warm evening.”

I asked him how long he labored in building up his little home.

“Seven years, like Jacob; only the patriarch had the advantage of me

there, too—he got a Rachel in the end, and I have only—” He paused and

looked about him. The friendly dog and cat had appeared on the scene,

a hen began to cackle boisterously, which left no doubt in the minds

of the neighbors that the great feat of laying an egg had just been

achieved. The little shadow which saddened his face for a moment

passed away in an instant, and he completed the sentence—“this

live-stock.”

“And your art,” I subjoined.

“And my art,” he admitted pleasantly. “Say,” he added, as he saw me

moving towards the steps which led down to the garden door, “do you

think the good _père_ would like to sell that picture?”

I thought not—I was sure he would not; and, with a promise to come and

see him often, I left him. I have gone to the old studio repeatedly

since, and each visit has been a new confirmation of my first

impression—that he was the happiest old artist in the Eternal City.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

JUNE 13.

What a lovely day, my sister! Everything is singing, around and within

me; my mother is making rapid progress in her convalescence. Baby has

five double teeth, and Lucy is radiant; Adrien, Gertrude, and Hélène

left us this morning to be present at the marriage of which I have

already told you; René and his brothers are gone out; Berthe and all

the darlings in the country; Lucy is going out, and your Georgina is

by the side of the reclining-chair. Poor mother! how sweet it is to

watch her revive. Johanna’s Bengalese birds, brought hither to enliven

our dear invalid, are hopping about gaily in their gilded cage; my

beautiful exotics are flowering in the _jardinière_; everything is

living, animated, radiant. My mother can now converse; all her wishes

are now for her complete recovery, that the _two sisters_ may meet.

But first we shall fulfil our vow, and go to tread the holy mountain

upon which the Blessed Virgin Mary placed her heavenly foot, and hang

our _ex voto_ in the beloved sanctuary. To revisit La Salette without

you, my Kate, will be to me both sweet and bitter.

Hélène has no secrets from me; she permits me to read her

journal—pious effusions of a soul belonging wholly to God. If I did

not fear to be indiscreet, I would transcribe for you these pages, all

palpitating with divine love.

Yesterday I took all the small population to the fair. The displays in

the open air, under gigantic chestnut-trees, made them wild with

delight, but Aunt Georgina willingly shut her eyes and ears. In the

evening there is so much noise and animation, it rather reminds one of

_Vanity Fair_. How sweet is solitude when one returns! Kate, as time

goes on, the more my happiness increases in solidity and depth. René

appears to me still more attractive, more gentle, good, and handsome

than ever. I fear the future, since happiness is an exception.

Margaret tells me to-day of her arrival in Paris; you will see her

before I do. “I can but bless God,” she writes, “for having mingled

wormwood with the honey of my golden cup; I should have loved earth

too well.” Poor Margaret! I persist in my opinion that she is

mistaken, and that her imagination deceives her. Can you imagine what

a whole life would be without sunshine and without love?

Mme. de T—— has long been insisting that I should consent to set out

with René, but I should not forgive myself if I were to leave her

side, feeling that I am necessary to her. It fatigues her to speak,

and I understand her look. How good is God to have given me another

mother! Lucy is going to spend two months with hers. Her communicative

gaiety, her cheerful spirit, and her lively chatter make her valuable

to us, not to speak of her excellent qualities. To amuse our beloved

invalid we got up a little drama yesterday, and some _tableaux

vivants_. It was superb.

Here I have been interrupted to give my mother some music. I played

her the _Symphony in La_.

And hereupon, dear Kate, I make you my best curtsy, and hasten away to

René.

JUNE 16.

Thanks to “this ingenious art of painting speech and speaking to the

eye,” we already know that Hélène has apparently enjoyed herself very

much on her last appearance in the world. Adrien and Gertrude have

despatched quite a volume to my mother. Gertrude will carefully keep

the white and vapory toilette of her daughter, who had, she says, a

charming expression, like that of an exiled angel, in those

drawing-rooms where she was the admired of every eye. They announced

their return for the 18th. It seems to us all as if they had been

absent for months. Separations, departures—these are the real crosses

of life.

Read the _Beatitudes_, by Mgr. Landriot. It is very fine, this

eloquent commentary on the magnificent words of our Saviour. The

_beati qui lugent_ too often finds its application.

The last four days I have been to Hélène’s paralytic. The poor woman

was quite confused at my eagerness, while I was so happy to wait upon

her that I would willingly have done so on my knees. My charities will

not be rewarded in heaven; I have too much sense of pleasure in them,

too much enjoyment. God is present to me in the poor. “May God bless

you, my ladies!” This is the most delightful adieu I have ever heard.

René, to whom I have given a detailed account of my morning, says that

he should be curious to see me doing the house-work for my good old

woman. I have probably done it very badly, but then I shall soon

become used to it. Benoni keeps his sweetest smiles for me, and I am

teaching him your name. A thought of Mgr. Dupanloup often comes into

my mind: “The borders of the Ganges, which send us Oriental pearls,

have not given us simplicity; I have found it in the heart of a

child.” Picciola is rich in it—in this sweet and charming simplicity

which is the sister of innocence. “Would you not consent to give her

to me?” I said yesterday to Berthe. This morning the pretty dove came

leaping into my room, exclaiming, “Now I have two mammas!

Good-morning, mamma!”

Adieu for the present, my sweet one.

20.

Dearest, we set off to-morrow. My mother declares that she will not be

completely cured except at La Salette. Hélène is enthusiastic about

it. What a festival! What joy!

I am pressed for time. We are packing up. All is commotion; every one

coming and going; everybody calling everybody else. Picciola runs from

room to room with outstretched hands, offering her services. I send

you a kiss. Unite yourself to us. René will write to you when we are

in the train; an impossibility to me. I shall pray for Ireland.

LA SALETTE, June 20.

Why cannot we die here, dear Kate? It is truly the vestibule of

heaven. I have no need to describe to you the landscape, the chapel,

my emotion on finding myself again in the same place where we had

prayed together so much. My mother is making wonderful progress, and

would fain not set out again any more. René, to whom I had described

it all, assures me that the reality surpasses my poetic pictures. How

sweet and good a thing it is to pray together, and to be at the very

well-spring of graces! Hélène is overflowing with joy. Adrien and

Gertrude weep no more.… And we are soon to see and embrace you again,

to spend a month near to you. I think we shall be in Paris on the 12th

of July. Dearest Kate, I regret you here! Oh! the inconstancy of my

poor heart, so happy to give up to God the better part of itself, and

then desiring to take it back again. The gifts of the Lord alone are

without repentance. O sweet, delightful, perfect friend! nothing can

separate our souls, always fraternally united in the adorable Heart

which gave itself for us.

La Salette! La Salette! To say to one’s self that here, where we

tread, Mary has passed; that her voice, more melodious than all the

harps of Eden, has been heard upon these heights; that this sky has

beheld her tears, her propitiatory and beloved tears, mysterious

pearls which should be gathered up by a seraph; to pray here, where

the Mother of the Saviour has herself taught prayer; oh! what

felicity: _Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum!_

Beloved, I have prayed for you, and soon now I shall see you. “Dear

Georgina,” my mother said to me yesterday, “may God reward you for the

sacrifice you have made for me!” Between this super-excellent mother,

René, Hélène, and myself there passes a continual interchange of

thoughts and feelings, and I could even say amongst us all.

Yours now and always, my sister.

* * * * *

AUGUST 12, 1867.

What, already? so soon? and we must resume our correspondence! Again I

have quitted you, my Kate, my visible angel guardian … Hélène is also

gone. The heavenly Spouse has placed in his own garden this delicate

and charming flower, for which this world had no dew that was pure

enough. “Let us be saints,” she writes to me; “it is only at this

price that we may purchase heaven.” And I answer her: “It is also only

at this price that this life is endurable; that the departures, the

separations, the pain of absence, too sensible an image of death, can

be courageously accepted.” Dear Kate, where shall we find each other

now? May God protect you! Brittany enchants me. I walk along the

beach; make people tell me all the legends of the country; hunt with

René; but most often slip away into the little village church, or into

the chapel of the château. We have an organ, and consequently superb

festivals. Our almoner is a college friend of my brother’s; he has

been kind enough to undertake Arthur’s education for a time, and we

are all very glad of this arrangement; this good _abbé_ is really a

learned man; the little girls are profiting largely by his stores of

information, and we are busy with collections, botany, maps, etc. This

_savant_ is moreover a traveller: he is lately returned from the new

world! And hence we have stories of most exciting interest. My

Picciola dreams about them. In short, the new-comer has already turned

all the heads of the infantine world, and our Breton life will be at

the very least as animated and joyous as our life at Orleans.

I am expecting Margaret, who says that she is coming to visit me,

without naming the day. Our habitation is beautiful, antique, vast;

with halls like those described by Sir Walter Scott. It is surrounded

by immense woods, and brightened by a profusion of flowers. There too

is the sea, blue and profound, image of life, with its waves and

hidden rocks. I never look at it without an inexpressible longing to

pass over it to behold again my Ireland. Kate, Kate, what a charm do

not memories possess!

René is writing to you. I have not described to you my rooms, so

exquisitely ornamented according to my own taste. Let us praise God,

my sister!

AUGUST 13.

An unexpected visit; some Irish friends, the W——s. “We come to

reconcile ourselves,” said Lady Helen gracefully to me. My

mother-in-law gave them a most cordial reception, and they remained

with us two days. You may imagine how happy I was. What details we had

to communicate! Marie de S—— is at rest in God; no one had written to

tell me. Beautiful and holy soul, remember us on high! The old men,

almost centenarians, whom we left in our dear native place, are living

yet, and death has stricken down another victim, in the brightness of

youth and future prospects, George D——, only six days older than I am,

and who died far from his home. He was brought back by his mourning

family to the vault at V——, where his brother already reposed. He died

a really holy death, … that is a consolation. They say that his father

is distracted with grief. Dear Isa, whose aspirations tended towards

the cloister, is giving up her happiness to remain in the world, there

to pray, suffer, and comfort her family in their sorrows. Gerty is

grown even prettier than she was—a lily. How much I have been

questioned about my Kate!