And so on. I intended to have translated in full the programme,

but time fails, and the law of opportunity does not favor, as my

"opportunity" leaves for London this afternoon. I have given enough to

mark the purport of the whole. It will easily be seen that it was

not from the platform assumed by the _Contemporaneo_ that Lycurgus

legislated, or Socrates taught,--that the Christian religion was

propagated, or the Church, was reformed by Luther. The opportunity

that the martyrs found here in the Colosseum, from whose blood grew

up this great tree of Papacy, was not of the kind waited for by these

moderate progressists. Nevertheless, they may be good schoolmasters

for Italy, and are not to be disdained in these piping times of peace.

More anon, of old and new, from Tuscany.

LETTER XV.

ITALY.--FRUITS AND FLOWERS ON THE ROUTE FROM FLORENCE TO ROME.--THE

PLAIN OF UMBRIA.--ASSISI.--THE SAINTS.--TUITION IN SCHOOLS.--PIUS

IX.--THE ETRURIAN TOMB.--PERUGIA AND ITS STORES OF EARLY

ART.--PORTRAITS OF RAPHAEL.--FLORENCE.--THE GRAND DUKE AND HIS

POLICY.--THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS AND ITS INFLUENCE.--THE AMERICAN

SCULPTORS.--GREENOUGH AND HIS NEW WORKS.--POWERS.--HIS STATUE OF

CALHOUN.--REVIEW OF HIS ENDEAVORS.--THE FESTIVALS OF ST. JOHN AT

FLORENCE.--BOLOGNA.--FEMALE PROFESSORS IN ITS UNIVERSITY.--MATILDA

TAMBRONI AND OTHERS.--MILAN AND HER FEMALE MATHEMATICIAN.--THE STATE

OF WOMAN IN ITALY.--RAVENNA AND BYRON.--VENICE.--THE ADDA.--MILAN AND

ITS NEIGHBORHOOD, AND MANZONI.--EXCITEMENTS.--NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

Milan, August 9, 1847.

Since leaving Rome, I have not been able to steal a moment from

the rich and varied objects before me to write about them. I will,

therefore, take a brief retrospect of the ground.

I passed from Florence to Rome by the Perugia route, and saw for the

first time the Italian vineyards. The grapes hung in little clusters.

When I return, they will be full of light and life, but the fields

will not be so enchantingly fresh, nor so enamelled with flowers.

The profusion of red poppies, which dance on every wall and glitter

throughout the grass, is a great ornament to the landscape. In full

sunlight their vermilion is most beautiful. Well might Ceres gather

_such_ poppies to mingle with her wheat.

We climbed the hill to Assisi, and my ears thrilled as with many old

remembered melodies, when an old peasant, in sonorous phrase, bade

me look out and see the plain of Umbria. I looked back and saw

the carriage toiling up the steep path, drawn by a pair of those

light-colored oxen Shelley so much admired. I stood near the spot

where Goethe met with a little adventure, which he has described with

even more than his usual delicate humor. Who can ever be alone for a

moment in Italy? Every stone has a voice, every grain of dust seems

instinct with spirit from the Past, every step recalls some line, some

legend of long-neglected lore.

Assisi was exceedingly charming to me. So still!--all temporal noise

and bustle seem hushed down yet by the presence of the saint. So

clean!--the rains of heaven wash down all impurities into the valley.

I must confess that, elsewhere, I have shared the feelings of Dickens

toward St. Francis and St. Sebastian, as the "Mounseer Tonsons" of

Catholic art. St. Sebastian I have not been so tired of, for the

beauty and youth of the figure make the monotony with which the

subject of his martyrdom is treated somewhat less wearisome. But St.

Francis is so sad, and so ecstatic, and so brown, so entirely the

monk,--and St. Clara so entirely the nun! I have been very sorry for

her that he was able to draw her from the human to the heavenly life;

she seems so sad and so worn out by the effort. But here at Assisi,

one cannot help being penetrated by the spirit that flowed from that

life. Here is the room where his father shut up the boy to punish his

early severity of devotion. Here is the picture which represents him

despoiled of all outward things, even his garments,--devoting himself,

body and soul, to the service of God in the way he believed most

acceptable. Here is the underground chapel, where rest those weary

bones, saluted by the tears of so many weary pilgrims who have come

hither to seek strength from his example. Here are the churches above,

full of the works of earlier art, animated by the contagion of a great

example. It is impossible not to bow the head, and feel how mighty an

influence flows from a single soul, sincere in its service of truth,

in whatever form that truth comes to it.

A troop of neat, pretty school-girls attended us about, going with

us into the little chapels adorned with pictures which open at every

corner of the streets, smiling on us at a respectful distance. Some of

them were fourteen or fifteen years old. I found reading, writing, and

sewing were all they learned at their school; the first, indeed, they

knew well enough, if they could ever get books to use it on. Tranquil

as Assisi was, on every wall was read _Viva Pio IX.!_ and we found the

guides and workmen in the shop full of a vague hope from him. The old

love which has made so rich this aerial cradle of St. Francis glows

warm as ever in the breasts of men; still, as ever, they long for

hero-worship, and shout aloud at the least appearance of an object.

The church at the foot of the hill, Santa Maria degli Angeli, seems

tawdry after Assisi. It also is full of records of St. Francis, his

pains and his triumphs. Here, too, on a little chapel, is the famous

picture by Overbeck; too exact a copy, but how different in effect

from the early art we had just seen above! Harmonious but frigid,

grave but dull; childhood is beautiful, but not when continued, or

rather transplanted, into the period where we look for passion, varied

means, and manly force.

Before reaching Perugia, I visited an Etrurian tomb, which is a little

way off the road; it is said to be one of the finest in Etruria. The

hill-side is full of them, but excavations are expensive, and not

frequent. The effect of this one was beyond my expectations; in it

were several female figures, very dignified and calm, as the dim

lamp-light fell on them by turns. The expression of these figures

shows that the position of woman in these states was noble. Their

eagles' nests cherished well the female eagle who kept watch in the

eyrie.

Perugia too is on a noble hill. What a daily excitement such a view,

taken at every step! life is worth ten times as much in a city so

situated. Perugia is full, overflowing, with the treasures of early

art. I saw them so rapidly it seems now as if in a trance, yet

certainly with a profit, a manifold gain, such as Mahomet thought he

gained from his five minutes' visits to other spheres. Here are two

portraits of Raphael as a youth: it is touching to see what effect

this angel had upon all that surrounded him from the very first.

Florence! I was there a month, and in a sense saw Florence: that is to

say, I took an inventory of what is to be seen there, and not without

great intellectual profit. There is too much that is really admirable

in art,--the nature of its growth lies before you too clearly to be

evaded. Of such things more elsewhere.

I do not like Florence as I do cities more purely Italian. The natural

character is ironed out here, and done up in a French pattern; yet

there is no French vivacity, nor Italian either. The Grand Duke--more

and more agitated by the position in which he finds himself between

the influence of the Pope and that of Austria--keeps imploring and

commanding his people to keep still, and they _are_ still and glum

as death. This is all on the outside; within, Tuscany burns. Private

culture has not been in vain, and there is, in a large circle, mental

preparation for a very different state of things from the present,

with an ardent desire to diffuse the same amid the people at large.

The sovereign has been obliged for the present to give more liberty to

the press, and there is an immediate rush of thought to the new vent;

if it is kept open a few months, the effect on the body of the people

cannot fail to be great. I intended to have translated some passages

from the programme of the _Patria_, one of the papers newly started

at Florence, but time fails. One of the articles in the same number by

Lambruschini, on the duties of the clergy at this juncture, contains

views as liberal as can be found in print anywhere in the world. More

of these things when I return to Rome in the autumn, when I hope to

find a little leisure to think over what I have seen, and, if found

worthy, to put the result in writing.

I visited the studios of our sculptors; Greenough has in clay a David

which promises high beauty and nobleness, a bass-relief, full of grace

and tender expression; he is also modelling a head of Napoleon, and

justly enthusiastic in the study. His great group I did not see in

such a state as to be secure of my impression. The face of the Pioneer

is very fine, the form of the woman graceful and expressive; but I was

not satisfied with the Indian. I shall see it more as a whole on my

return to Florence.

As to the Eve and the Greek Slave, I could only join with the rest of

the world in admiration of their beauty and the fine feeling of nature

which they exhibit. The statue of Calhoun is full of power, simple,

and majestic in attitude and expression. In busts Powers seems to

me unrivalled; still, he ought not to spend his best years on an

employment which cannot satisfy his ambition nor develop his powers.

If our country loves herself, she will order from him some great work

before the prime of his genius has been frittered away, and his best

years spent on lesser things.

I saw at Florence the festivals of St. John, but they are poor affairs

to one who has seen the Neapolitan and Roman people on such occasions.

Passing from Florence, I came to Bologna,--learned Bologna; indeed an

Italian city, full of expression, of physiognomy, so to speak. A woman

should love Bologna, for there has the spark of intellect in woman

been cherished with reverent care. Not in former ages only, but in

this, Bologna raised a woman who was worthy to the dignities of its

University, and in their Certosa they proudly show the monument to

Matilda Tambroni, late Greek Professor there. Her letters, preserved

by her friends, are said to form a very valuable collection. In their

anatomical hall is the bust of a woman, Professor of Anatomy. In Art

they have had Properzia di Rossi, Elizabetta Sirani, Lavinia Fontana,

and delight to give their works a conspicuous place.

In other cities the men alone have their _Casino dei Nobili_, where

they give balls, _conversazioni_, and similar entertainments. Here

women have one, and are the soul of society.

In Milan, also, I see in the Ambrosian Library the bust of a female

mathematician. These things make me feel that, if the state of woman

in Italy is so depressed, yet a good-will toward a better is not

wholly wanting. Still more significant is the reverence to the Madonna

and innumerable female saints, who, if, like St. Teresa, they had

intellect as well as piety, became counsellors no less than comforters

to the spirit of men.

Ravenna, too, I saw, and its old Christian art, the Pineta, where

Byron loved to ride, and the paltry apartments where, cheered by a new

affection, in which was more of tender friendship than of passion, he

found himself less wretched than at beautiful Venice or stately Genoa.

All the details of this visit to Ravenna are pretty. I shall write

them out some time. Of Padua, too, the little to be said should be

said in detail.

Of Venice and its enchanted life I could not speak; it should only

be echoed back in music. There only I began to feel in its fulness

Venetian Art. It can only be seen in its own atmosphere. Never had I

the least idea of what is to be seen at Venice. It seems to me as if

no one ever yet had seen it,--so entirely wanting is any expression

of what I felt myself. Venice! on this subject I shall not write much

till time, place, and mode agree to make it fit.

Venice, where all is past, is a fit asylum for the dynasties of the

Past. The Duchesse de Berri owns one of the finest palaces on the

Grand Canal; the Duc de Bordeaux rents another; Mademoiselle Taglioni

has bought the famous Casa d'Oro, and it is under repair. Thanks to

the fashion which has made Venice a refuge of this kind, the palaces,

rarely inhabited by the representatives of their ancient names, are

valuable property, and the noble structures will not be suffered

to lapse into the sea, above which they rose so proudly.

The restorations, too, are made with excellent taste and

judgment,--nothing is spoiled. Three of these fine palaces are now

hotels, so that the transient visitor can enjoy from their balconies

all the wondrous shows of the Venetian night and day as much as any

of their former possessors did. I was at the Europa, formerly the

Giustiniani Palace, with better air than those on the Grand Canal, and

a more unobstructed view than Danieli's.

Madame de Berri gave an entertainment on the birthnight of her son,

and the old Duchesse d'Angoulême came from Vienna to attend it. 'T

was a scene of fairy-land, the palace full of light, so that from the

canal could be seen even the pictures on the walls. Landing from the

gondolas, the elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen seemed to rise

from the water; we also saw them glide up the great stair, rustling

their plumes, and in the reception-rooms make and receive the

customary grimaces. A fine band stationed on the opposite side of the

canal played the while, and a flotilla of gondolas lingered there to

listen. I, too, amid, the mob, a pleasant position in Venice alone,

thought of the Stuarts, Bourbons, Bonapartes, here in Italy, and

offered up a prayer that other names, when the possessors have power

without the heart to use it for the emancipation of mankind, might he

added to the list, and other princes, more rich in blood than brain,

might come to enjoy a perpetual _villeggiatura_ in Italy. It did not

seem to me a cruel wish. The show of greatness will satisfy every

legitimate desire of such minds. A gentle punishment for the

distributors of _letters de cachet_ and Spielberg dungeons to their

fellow-men.

Having passed more than a fortnight at Venice, I have come here,

stopping at Vicenza, Verona, Mantua, Lago di Garda, Brescia.

Certainly I have learned more than ever in any previous ten days of my

existence, and have formed an idea what is needed for the study of Art

and its history in these regions. To be sure, I shall never have time

to follow it up, but it is a delight to look up those glorious vistas,

even when there is no hope of entering them.

A violent shower obliged me to stop on the way. It was late at night,

and I was nearly asleep, when, roused by the sound of bubbling waters,

I started up and asked, "Is that the Adda?" and it was. So deep is

the impression made by a simple natural recital, like that of Renzo's

wanderings in the _Promessi Sposi_, that the memory of his hearing the

Adda in this way occurred to me at once, and the Adda seemed familiar

as if I had been a native of this region.

As the Scottish lakes seem the domain of Walter Scott, so does Milan

and its neighborhood in the mind of a foreigner belong to Manzoni. I

have seen him since, the gentle lord of this wide domain; his hair is

white, but his eyes still beam as when he first saw the apparitions of

truth, simple tenderness, and piety which he has so admirably recorded

for our benefit. Those around lament that the fastidiousness of his

taste prevents his completing and publishing more, and that thus

a treasury of rare knowledge and refined thought will pass from

us without our reaping the benefit. We, indeed, have no title to

complain, what we do possess from his hand is so excellent.

At this moment there is great excitement in Italy. A supposed spy

of Austria has been assassinated at Ferrara, and Austrian troops are

marched there. It is pretended that a conspiracy has been discovered

in Rome; the consequent disturbances have been put down. The National

Guard is forming. All things seem to announce that some important

change is inevitable here, but what? Neither Radicals nor Moderates

dare predict with confidence, and I am yet too much a stranger

to speak with assurance of impressions I have received. But it is

impossible not to hope.

LETTER XVI.

REVIEW OF PAST AND PRESENT.--THE MERITS OF ITALIAN

LITERATURE.--MANZONI.--ITALIAN DIALECTS.--MILAN, THE MILANESE, AND

THE SIMPLICITY OF THEIR LANGUAGE.--THE NORTH OF ITALY, AND A TOUR TO

SWITZERLAND.--ITALIAN LAKES.--MAGGIORE, COMO, AND LUGANO.--LAGO DI

GARDA.--THE BOATMEN OF THE LAKES AND THE GONDOLIERS.--LADY FRANKLIN,

WIDOW OF THE NAVIGATOR.--RETURN TO AND FESTIVALS AT MILAN.--THE

ARCHBISHOP.--AUSTRIAN RULE AND AUSTRIAN POLICY.--THE FUTURE HOPES OF

ITALY.--A GLANCE AT PAVIA, FLORENCE, PARMA, AND BOLOGNA, AND THE WORKS

OF THE MASTERS.

Rome, October, 1847.

I think my last letter was from Milan, and written after I had seen

Manzoni. This was to me a great pleasure. I have now seen the most

important representatives who survive of the last epoch in thought.

Our age has still its demonstrations to make, its heroes and poets to

crown.

Although the modern Italian literature is not poor, as many persons at

a distance suppose, but, on the contrary, surprisingly rich in tokens

of talent, if we consider the circumstances under which it struggles

to exist, yet very few writers have or deserve a European or American

reputation. Where a whole country is so kept down, her best minds

cannot take the lead in the progress of the age; they have too much to

suffer, too much to explain. But among the few who, through depth of

spiritual experience and the beauty of form in which it is expressed,

belong not only to Italy, but to the world, Manzoni takes a high

rank. The passive virtues he teaches are no longer what is wanted; the

manners he paints with so delicate a fidelity are beginning to change;

but the spirit of his works,--the tender piety, the sensibility to the

meaning of every humblest form of life, the delicate humor and satire

so free from disdain,--these are immortal.

Young Italy rejects Manzoni, though not irreverently; Young Italy

prizes his works, but feels that the doctrine of "Pray and wait" is

not for her at this moment,--that she needs a more fervent hope, a

more active faith. She is right.

It is well known that the traveller, if he knows the Italian language

as written in books, the standard Tuscan, still finds himself a

stranger in many parts of Italy, unable to comprehend the dialects,

with their lively abbreviations and witty slang. That of Venice I had

understood somewhat, and could enter into the drollery and _naïveté_

of the gondoliers, who, as a class, have an unusual share of

character. But the Milanese I could not at first understand at all.

Their language seemed to me detestably harsh, and their gestures

unmeaning. But after a friend, who possesses that large and ready

sympathy easier found in Italy than anywhere else, had translated for

me verbatim into French some of the poems written in the Milanese,

and then read them aloud in the original, I comprehended the peculiar

inflection of voice and idiom in the people, and was charmed with it,

as one is with the instinctive wit and wisdom of children.

There is very little to see at Milan, compared with any other Italian

city; and this was very fortunate for me, allowing an interval

of repose in the house, which I cannot take when there is so much

without, tempting me to incessant observation and study. I went

through, the North of Italy with a constantly increasing fervor of

interest. When I had thought of Italy, it was always of the South, of

the Roman States, of Tuscany. But now I became deeply interested in

the history, the institutions, the art of the North. The fragments

of the past mark the progress of its waves so clearly, I learned to

understand, to prize them every day more, to know how to make use of

the books about them. I shall have much to say on these subjects some

day.

Leaving Milan, I went on the Lago Maggiore, and afterward into

Switzerland. Of this tour I shall not speak here; it was a beautiful

little romance by itself, and infinitely refreshing to be so near

nature in these grand and simple forms, after so much exciting thought

of Art and Man. The day passed in the St. Bernardin, with its lofty

peaks and changing lights upon the distant snows,--its holy, exquisite

valleys and waterfalls, its stories of eagles and chamois, was the

greatest refreshment I ever experienced: it was bracing as a cold bath

after the heat of a crowd amid which one has listened to some most

eloquent oration.

Returning from Switzerland, I passed a fortnight on the Lake of

Como, and afterward visited Lugano. There is no exaggeration in the

enthusiastic feeling with which artists and poets have viewed these

Italian lakes. Their beauties are peculiar, enchanting, innumerable.

The Titan of Richter, the Wanderjahre of Goethe, the Elena of Taylor,

the pictures of Turner, had not prepared me for the visions of beauty

that daily entranced the eyes and heart in those regions. To our

country Nature has been most bounteous; but we have nothing in the

same kind that can compare with these lakes, as seen under the Italian

heaven. As to those persons who have pretended to discover that the

effects of light and atmosphere were no finer than they found in our

own lake scenery, I can only say that they must be exceedingly obtuse

in organization,--a defect not uncommon among Americans.

Nature seems to have labored to express her full heart in as many

ways as possible, when she made these lakes, moulded and planted their

shores. Lago Maggiore is grand, resplendent in Its beauty; the view of

the Alps gives a sort of lyric exaltation to the scene. Lago di Garda

is so soft and fair,--so glittering sweet on one side, the ruins of

ancient palaces rise so softly with the beauties of that shore; but

at the other end, amid the Tyrol, it is sublime, calm, concentrated

in its meaning. Como cannot be better described in general than in the

words of Taylor:

"Softly sublime, profusely fair."

Lugano is more savage, more free in its beauty. I was on it in a

high gale; there was a little clanger, just enough to exhilarate; its

waters were wild, and clouds blowing across the neighboring peaks. I

like very much the boatmen on these lakes; they have strong and prompt

character. Of simple features, they are more honest and manly than

Italian men are found in the thoroughfares; their talk is not so witty

as that of the Venetian gondoliers, but picturesque, and what the

French call _incisive_. Very touching were some of their histories, as

they told them to me while pausing sometimes on the lake.

On this lake, also, I met Lady Franklin, wife of the celebrated

navigator. She has been in the United States, and showed equal

penetration and candor in remarks on what she had seen there. She gave

me interesting particulars as to the state of things in Van Diemen's

Land, where she passed seven years when her husband was in authority

there.

I returned to Milan for the great feast of the Madonna, 8th September,

and those made for the Archbishop's entry, which took place the same

week. These excited as much feeling as the Milanese can have a chance

to display, this Archbishop being much nearer tire public heart than

his predecessor, who was a poor servant of Austria.

The Austrian rule is always equally hated, and time, instead of

melting away differences, only makes them more glaring. The Austrian

race have no faculties that can ever enable them to understand the

Italian character; their policy, so well contrived to palsy and

repress for a time, cannot kill, and there is always a force at work

underneath which shall yet, and I think now before long, shake off

the incubus. The Italian nobility have always kept the invader at a

distance; they have not been at all seduced or corrupted by the lures

of pleasure or power, but have shown a passive patriotism highly

honorable to them. In the middle class ferments much thought, and

there is a capacity for effort; in the present system it cannot show

itself, but it is there; thought ferments, and will yet produce a

wine that shall set the Lombard veins on fire when the time for action

shall arrive. The lower classes of the population are in a dull state

indeed. The censorship of the press prevents all easy, natural ways of

instructing them; there are no public meetings, no free access to them

by more instructed and aspiring minds. The Austrian policy is to allow

them a degree of material well-being, and though so much wealth is

drained from, the country for the service of the foreigners, jet

enough must remain on these rich plains comfortably to feed and clothe

the inhabitants. Yet the great moral influence of the Pope's action,

though obstructed in their case, does reach and rouse them, and they,

too, felt the thrill of indignation at the occupation of Ferrara. The

base conduct of the police toward the people, when, at Milan, some

youths were resolute to sing tire hymn in honor of Pius IX., when the

feasts for the Archbishop afforded so legitimate an occasion, roused

all the people to unwonted feeling. The nobles protested, and Austria

had not courage to persist as usual. She could not sustain her police,

who rushed upon a defenceless crowd, that had no share in what excited

their displeasure, except by sympathy, and, driving them like sheep,

wounded them _in the backs_. Austria feels that there is now no

sympathy for her in these matters; that it is not the interest of the

world to sustain her. Her policy is, indeed, too thoroughly organized

to change except by revolution; its scope is to serve, first, a

reigning family instead of the people; second, with the people to

seek a physical in preference to an intellectual good; and, third,

to prefer a seeming outward peace to an inward life. This policy may

change its opposition from the tyrannical to the insidious; it can

know no other change. Yet do I meet persons who call themselves

Americans,--miserable, thoughtless Esaus, unworthy their high

birthright,--who think that a mess of pottage can satisfy the wants of

man, and that the Viennese listening to Strauss's waltzes, the Lombard

peasant supping full of his polenta, is _happy enough_. Alas: I have

the more reason to be ashamed of my countrymen that it is not among

the poor, who have so much, toil that there is little time to think,

but those who are rich, who travel,--in body that is, they do not

travel in mind. Absorbed at home by the lust of gain, the love of

show, abroad they see only the equipages, the fine clothes, the

food,--they have no heart for the idea, for the destiny of our own

great nation: how can they feel the spirit that is struggling now in

this and others of Europe?

But of the hopes of Italy I will write more fully in another letter,

and state what I have seen, what felt, what thought. I went from

Milan, to Pavia, and saw its magnificent Certosa, I passed several

hours in examining its riches, especially the sculptures of its

façade, full of force and spirit. I then went to Florence by Parma

and Bologna. In Parma, though ill, I went to see all the works of the

masters. A wonderful beauty it is that informs them,--not that which

is the chosen food of my soul, yet a noble beauty, and which did its

message to me also. Those works are failing; it will not be useless to

describe them in a book. Beside these pictures, I saw nothing in Parma

and Modena; these states are obliged to hold their breath while their

poor, ignorant sovereigns skulk in corners, hoping to hide from the

coming storm. Of all this more in my next.

LETTER XVII.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME IN THE SPRING.--THE POPE.--ROME AS

A CAPITAL.--TUSCANY.--THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS THERE JUST

ESTABLISHED.--THE ENLIGHTENED MINDS AND AVAILABLE INSTRUCTORS OF

TUSCANY.--ITALIAN ESTIMATION OF PIUS IX., AND THE INFLUENCE,

PRESENT AND FUTURE, OF HIS LABORS.--FOREIGN INTRUSION THE CURSE OF

ITALY.--IRRUPTION OF THE AUSTRIANS INTO ITALY, AND ITS EFFECTS.--LOUIS

PHILIPPE'S APOSTASY TURNED TO THE ADVANTAGE OF FREEDOM.--THE GREAT

FÊTE AT FLORENCE IN HONOR OF THE GRANT OF A NATIONAL GUARD.--THE

AMERICAN SCULPTORS, GREENOUGH, CRAWFORD, AND THEIR PARTICIPATION IN

THE FÊTE.--AMERICANS GENERALLY IN ITALY.--HYMNS IN FLORENCE IN HONOR

OF PIUS IX.--HAPPY AUGURY TO BE DRAWN FROM THE WISE DOCILITY OF THE

PEOPLE.--AN EXPRESSION OF SYMPATHY FROM AMERICA TOWARD ITALY EARNESTLY

HOPED FOR.

Rome, October 18, 1847.

In the spring, when I came to Rome, the people were in the

intoxication of joy at the first serious measures of reform taken

by the Pope. I saw with pleasure their childlike joy and trust. With

equal pleasure I saw the Pope, who has not in his expression the signs

of intellectual greatness so much as of nobleness and tenderness of

heart, of large and liberal sympathies. Heart had spoken to heart

between the prince and the people; it was beautiful to see the

immediate good influence exerted by human feeling and generous

designs, on the part of a ruler. He had wished to be a father, and

the Italians, with that readiness of genius that characterizes them,

entered at once into the relation; they, the Roman people, stigmatized

by prejudice as so crafty and ferocious, showed themselves children,

eager to learn, quick to obey, happy to confide.

Still doubts were always present whether all this joy was not

premature. The task undertaken by the Pope seemed to present

insuperable difficulties. It is never easy to put new wine into old

bottles, and our age is one where all things tend to a great crisis;

not merely to revolution, but to radical reform. From the people

themselves the help must come, and not from princes; in the new state

of things, there will be none but natural princes, great men. From the

aspirations of the general heart, from the teachings of conscience

in individuals, and not from an old ivy-covered church long since

undermined, corroded by time and gnawed by vermin, the help must come.

Rome, to resume her glory, must cease to be an ecclesiastical capital;

must renounce all this gorgeous mummery, whose poetry, whose picture,

charms no one more than myself, but whose meaning is all of the past,

and finds no echo in the future. Although I sympathized warmly with

the warm love of the people, the adulation of leading writers, who

were so willing to take all from the hand of the prince, of the

Church, as a gift and a bounty, instead of implying steadily that it

was the right of the people, was very repulsive to me. The moderate

party, like all who, in a transition state, manage affairs with a

constant eye to prudence, lacks dignity always in its expositions; it

is disagreeable and depressing to read them.

Passing into Tuscany, I found the liberty of the press just

established, and a superior preparation to make use of it. The _Alba_,

the _Patria_, were begun, and have been continued with equal judgment

and spirit. Their aim is to educate the youth, to educate the

lower people; they see that this is to be done by promoting thought

fearlessly, yet urge temperance in action, while the time is yet so

difficult, and many of its signs dubious. They aim at breaking down

those barriers between the different states of Italy, relics of a

barbarous state of polity, artificially kept up by the craft of her

foes. While anxious not to break down what is really native to the

Italian character,--defences and differences that give individual

genius a chance to grow and the fruits of each region to ripen in

their natural way,--they aim at a harmony of spirit as to measures

of education and for the affairs of business, without which Italy can

never, as one nation, present a front strong enough to resist foreign

robbery, and for want of which so much time and talent are wasted

here, and internal development almost wholly checked.

There is in Tuscany a large corps of enlightened minds, well prepared

to be the instructors, the elder brothers and guardians, of the lower

people, and whose hearts burn to fulfil that noble office. Before, it

had been almost impossible to them, for the reasons I have named in

speaking of Lombardy; but during these last four months that the way

has been opened by the freedom of the press, and establishment of the

National Guard,--so valuable, first of all, as giving occasion for

public meetings and free interchange of thought between the different

classes,--it is surprising how much light they have been able to

diffuse.

A Bolognese, to whom I observed, "How can you be so full of trust when

all your hopes depend, not on the recognition of principles and wants

throughout the people, but on the life of one mortal man?" replied:

"Ah! but you don't consider that his life gives us a chance to effect

that recognition. If Pius IX. be spared to us five years, it will

be impossible for his successors ever to take a backward course. Our

nation is of a genius so vivacious,--we are unhappy, but not stupid,

we Italians,--we can learn as much in two months as other nations in

twenty years." This seemed to me no brag when I returned to Tuscany

and saw the great development and diffusion of thought that had taken

place during my brief absence. The Grand Duke, a well-intentioned,

though dull man, had dared, to declare himself "_an_ ITALIAN _prince_"

and the heart of Tuscany had bounded with hope. It is now deeply as

justly felt that _the_ curse of Italy is foreign intrusion; that

if she could dispense with foreign aid, and be free from foreign

aggression, she would find the elements of salvation within herself.

All her efforts tend that way, to re-establish the natural position of

things; may Heaven grant them success! For myself, I believe they will

attain it. I see more reason for hope, as I know more of the people.

Their rash and baffled struggles have taught them prudence; they are

wanted in the civilized world as a peculiar influence; their leaders

are thinking men, their cause is righteous. I believe that Italy will

revive to new life, and probably a greater, one more truly rich and

glorious, than at either epoch of her former greatness.

During the period of my absence, the Austrians had entered Ferrara.

It is well that they hazarded this step, for it showed them the

difficulties in acting against a prince of the Church who is at the

same time a friend to the people. The position was new, and they were

probably surprised at the result,--surprised at the firmness of the

Pope, surprised at the indignation, tempered by calm resolve, on the

part of the Italians. Louis Philippe's mean apostasy has this

time turned to the advantage of freedom. He renounced the good

understanding with England which it had been one of the leading

features of his policy to maintain, in the hope of aggrandizing and

enriching his family (not France, he did not care for France); he did

not know that he was paving the way for Italian freedom. England now

is led to play a part a little nearer her pretensions as the guardian

of progress than she often comes, and the ghost of La Fayette looks

down, not unappeased, to see the "Constitutional King" decried by the

subjects he has cheated and lulled so craftily. The king of Sardinia

is a worthless man, in whom nobody puts any trust so far as regards

his heart or honor; but the stress of things seems likely to keep him

on the right side. The little sovereigns blustered at first, then ran

away affrighted when they found there was really a spirit risen

at last within the charmed circle,--a spirit likely to defy, to

transcend, the spells of haggard premiers and imbecile monarchs.

I arrived in Florence, unhappily, too late for the great fête of the

12th of September, in honor of the grant of a National Guard. But

I wept at the mere recital of the events of that day, which, if it

should lead to no important results, must still be hallowed for ever

in the memory of Italy, for the great and beautiful emotions that

flooded the hearts of her children. The National Guard is hailed with

no undue joy by Italians, as the earnest of progress, the first step

toward truly national institutions and a representation of the people.

Gratitude has done its natural work in their hearts; it has made

them better. Some days before the fête were passed in reconciling

all strifes, composing all differences between cities, districts, and

individuals. They wished to drop all petty, all local differences, to

wash away all stains, to bathe and prepare for a new great covenant of

brotherly love, where each should act for the good of all. On that day

they all embraced in sign of this,--strangers, foes, all exchanged the

kiss of faith and love; they exchanged banners, as a token that they

would fight for, would animate, one another. All was done in that

beautiful poetic manner peculiar to this artist people; but it was the

spirit, so great and tender, that melts my heart to think of. It was

the spirit of true religion,--such, my Country! as, welling freshly

from some great hearts in thy early hours, won for thee all of value

that thou canst call thy own, whose groundwork is the assertion, still

sublime though thou hast not been true to it, that all men have equal

rights, and that these are _birth_-rights, derived from God alone.

I rejoice to say that the Americans took their share on this occasion,

and that Greenough--one of the few Americans who, living in Italy,

takes the pains to know whether it is alive or dead, who penetrates

beyond the cheats of tradesmen and the cunning of a mob corrupted

by centuries of slavery, to know the real mind, the vital blood, of

Italy--took a leading part. I am sorry to say that a large portion of

my countrymen here take the same slothful and prejudiced view as the

English, and, after many years' sojourn, betray entire ignorance of

Italian literature and Italian life, beyond what is attainable in a

month's passage through the thoroughfares. However, they did show,

this time, a becoming spirit, and erected the American eagle where

its cry ought to be heard from afar,--where a nation is striving

for independent existence, and a government representing the people.

Crawford here in Rome has had the just feeling to join the Guard, and

it is a real sacrifice for an artist to spend time on the exercises;

but it well becomes the sculptor of Orpheus,--of him who had such

faith, such music of divine thought, that he made the stones move,

turned the beasts from their accustomed haunts, and shamed hell itself

into sympathy with the grief of love. I do not deny that such a spirit

is wanted here in Italy; it is everywhere, if anything great, anything

permanent, is to be done. In reference to what I have said of many

Americans in Italy, I will only add, that they talk about the corrupt

and degenerate state of Italy as they do about that of our slaves at

home. They come ready trained to that mode of reasoning which affirms

that, because men are degraded by bad institutions, they are not fit

for better.

As to the English, some of them are full of generous, intelligent

sympathy;--indeed what is more solidly, more wisely good than the

right sort of Englishmen!--but others are like a gentleman I travelled

with the other day, a man of intelligence and refinement too as to the

details of life and outside culture, who observed, that he did not

see what the Italians wanted of a National Guard, unless to wear these

little caps. He was a man who had passed five years in Italy, but

always covered with that non-conductor called by a witty French writer

"the Britannic fluid."

Very sweet to my ear was the continual hymn in the streets of

Florence, in honor of Pius IX. It is the Roman hymn, and none of the

new ones written in Tuscany have been able to take its place. The

people thank the Grand Duke when he does them good, but they know well

from whose mind that good originates, and all their love is for the

Pope. Time presses, or I would fain describe in detail the troupe of

laborers of the lower class, marching home at night, keeping step as

if they were in the National Guard, filling the air, and cheering the

melancholy moon, by the patriotic hymns sung with the mellow tone and

in the perfect time which belong to Italians. I would describe the

extempore concerts in the streets, the rejoicings at the theatres,

where the addresses of liberal souls to the people, through that best

vehicle, the drama, may now be heard. But I am tired; what I have to

write would fill volumes, and my letter must go. I will only add

some words upon the happy augury I draw from the wise docility of the

people. With what readiness they listened to wise counsel, and the

hopes of the Pope that they would give no advantage to his enemies, at

a time when they were so fevered by the knowledge that conspiracy

was at work in their midst! That was a time of trial. On all these

occasions of popular excitement their conduct is like music, in such

order, and with such union of the melody of feeling with discretion

where to stop; but what is wonderful is that they acted in the same

manner on that difficult occasion. The influence of the Pope here is

without bounds; he can always calm the crowd at once. But in Tuscany,

where they have no such idol, they listened in the same way on a very

trying occasion. The first announcement of the regulation for the

Tuscan National Guard terribly disappointed the people; they felt that

the Grand Duke, after suffering them to demonstrate such trust and joy

on the feast of the 12th, did not really trust, on his side; that he

meant to limit them all he could. They felt baffled, cheated; hence

young men in anger tore down at once the symbols of satisfaction and

respect; but the leading men went among the people, begged them to be

calm, and wait till a deputation had seen the Grand Duke. The people,

listening at once to men who, they were sure, had at heart their best

good, waited; the Grand Duke became convinced, and all ended without

disturbance. If they continue to act thus, their hopes cannot be

baffled. Certainly I, for one, do not think that the present road will

suffice to lead Italy to her goal. But it _is_ an onward, upward road,

and the people learn as they advance. Now they can seek and think

fearless of prisons and bayonets, a healthy circulation of blood

begins, and the heart frees itself from disease.

I earnestly hope for some expression of sympathy from my country

toward Italy. Take a good chance and do something; you have shown much

good feeling toward the Old World in its physical difficulties,--you

ought to do still more in its spiritual endeavor. This cause is

OURS, above all others; we ought to show that we feel it to be so. At

present there is no likelihood of war, but in case of it I trust the

United States would not fail in some noble token of sympathy toward

this country. The soul of our nation need not wait for its government;

these things are better done by individuals. I believe some in the

United States will pay attention to these words of mine, will feel

that I am not a person to be kindled by a childish, sentimental

enthusiasm, but that I must be sure I have seen something of Italy

before speaking as I do. I have been here only seven months, but my

means of observation have been uncommon. I have been ardently desirous

to judge fairly, and had no prejudices to prevent; beside, I was not

ignorant of the history and literature of Italy, and had some common

ground on which to stand with, its inhabitants, and hear what they

have to say. In many ways Italy is of kin to us; she is the country

of Columbus, of Amerigo, of Cabot. It would please me much to see a

cannon here bought by the contributions of Americans, at whose head

should stand the name of Cabot, to be used by the Guard for salutes

on festive occasions, if they should be so happy as to have no

more serious need. In Tuscany they are casting one to be called the

"Gioberti," from a writer who has given a great impulse to the present

movement. I should like the gift of America to be called the AMERIGO,

the COLUMBO, or the WASHINGTON. Please think of this, some of my

friends, who still care for the eagle, the Fourth of July, and the old

cries of hope and honor. See if there are any objections that I do not

think of, and do something if it is well and brotherly. Ah! America,

with all thy rich boons, thou hast a heavy account to render for the

talent given; see in every way that thou be not found wanting.

LETTER XVIII.

REFLECTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR.--AMERICANS IN EUROPE.--FRANCE, ENGLAND,

POLAND, ITALY, RUSSIA, AUSTRIA,--THEIR POLICY.--EUROPE TOILS AND

STRUGGLES.--ALL THINGS BODE A NEW OUTBREAK.--THE EAGLE OF

AMERICA STOOPS TO EARTH, AND SHARES THE CHARACTER OF THE

VULTURE.--ABOLITION.--THE YOUTH OF THE LAND.--ANTICIPATIONS OF THEIR

USEFULNESS.

This letter will reach the United States about the 1st of January; and

it may not be impertinent to offer a few New-Year's reflections. Every

new year, indeed, confirms the old thoughts, but also presents them

under some new aspects.

The American in Europe, if a thinking mind, can only become more

American. In some respects it is a great pleasure to be here. Although

we have an independent political existence, bur position toward

Europe, as to literature and the arts, is still that of a colony, and

one feels the same joy here that is experienced by the colonist in

returning to the parent home. What was but picture to us becomes

reality; remote allusions and derivations trouble no more: we see the

pattern of the stuff, and understand the whole tapestry. There is

a gradual clearing up on many points, and many baseless notions and

crude fancies are dropped. Even the post-haste passage of the business

American through the great cities, escorted by cheating couriers

and ignorant _valets de place_, unable to hold intercourse with the

natives of the country, and passing all his leisure hours with his

countrymen, who know no more than himself, clears his mind of some

mistakes,--lifts some mists from his horizon.

There are three species. First, the servile American,--a being utterly

shallow, thoughtless, worthless. He comes abroad to spend his money

and indulge his tastes. His object in Europe is to have fashionable

clothes, good foreign cookery, to know some titled persons, and

furnish himself with coffee-house gossip, by retailing which

among those less travelled and as uninformed as himself he can win

importance at home. I look with unspeakable contempt on this class,--a

class which has all the thoughtlessness and partiality of the

exclusive classes in Europe, without any of their refinement, or the

chivalric feeling which still sparkles among them here and there.

However, though these willing serfs in a free age do some little hurt,

and cause some annoyance at present, they cannot continue long; our

country is fated to a grand, independent existence, and, as its laws

develop, these parasites of a bygone period must wither and drop away.

Then there is the conceited American, instinctively bristling and

proud of--he knows not what. He does not see, not he, that the history

of Humanity for many centuries is likely to have produced results it

requires some training, some devotion, to appreciate and profit by.

With his great clumsy hands, only fitted to work on a steam-engine,

he seizes the old Cremona violin, makes it shriek with anguish, in his

grasp, and then declares he thought it was all humbug before he came,

and now he knows it; that there is not really any music in these old

things; that the frogs in one of our swamps make much finer, for they

are young and alive. To him the etiquettes of courts and camps, the

ritual of the Church, seem simply silly,--and no wonder, profoundly

ignorant as he is of their origin and meaning. Just so the legends

which are the subjects of pictures, the profound myths which are

represented in the antique marbles, amaze and revolt him; as, indeed,

such things need to be judged of by another standard than that of the

Connecticut Blue-Laws. He criticises severely pictures, feeling quite

sure that his natural senses are better means of judgment than the

rules of connoisseurs,--not feeling that, to see such objects, mental

vision as well as fleshly eyes are needed and that something is aimed

at in Art beyond the imitation of the commonest forms of Nature. This

is Jonathan in the sprawling state, the booby truant, not yet aspiring

enough to be a good school-boy. Yet in his folly there is meaning;

add thought and culture to his independence, and he will be a man of

might: he is not a creature without hope, like the thick-skinned dandy

of the class first specified.

The artistes form a class by themselves. Yet among them, though

seeking special aims by special means, may also be found the

lineaments of these two classes, as well as of the third, of which I

am now to speak.

This is that of the thinking American,--a man who, recognizing the

immense advantage of being born to a new world and on a virgin soil,

yet does not wish one seed from the past to be lost. He is anxious

to gather and carry back with him every plant that will bear a new

climate and new culture. Some will dwindle; others will attain a bloom

and stature unknown before. He wishes to gather them clean, free from

noxious insects, and to give them a fair trial in his new world. And

that he may know the conditions under which he may best place them in

that new world, he does not neglect to study their history in this.

The history of our planet in some moments seems so painfully mean

and little,--such terrible bafflings and failures to compensate some

brilliant successes,--such a crushing of the mass of men beneath, the

feet of a few, and these, too, often the least worthy,--such a small

drop of honey to each cup of gall, and, in many cases, so mingled that

it is never one moment in life purely tasted,--above all, so little

achieved for Humanity as a whole, such tides of war and pestilence

intervening to blot out the traces of each triumph,--that no wonder

if the strongest soul sometimes pauses aghast; no wonder if the many

indolently console themselves with gross joys and frivolous prizes.

Yes! those men _are_ worthy of admiration who can carry this cross

faithfully through fifty years; it is a great while for all the

agonies that beset a lover of good, a lover of men; it makes a soul

worthy of a speedier ascent, a more productive ministry in the next

sphere. Blessed are they who ever keep that portion of pure, generous

love with which they began life! How blessed those who have deepened

the fountains, and have enough to spare for the thirst of others! Some

such there are; and, feeling that, with all the excuses for failure,

still only the sight of those who triumph, gives a meaning to life or

makes its pangs endurable, we must arise and follow.

Eighteen hundred years of this Christian culture in these European

kingdoms, a great theme never lost sight of, a mighty idea, an

adorable history to which the hearts of men invariably cling, yet are

genuine results rare as grains of gold in the river's sandy bed! Where

is the genuine democracy to which the rights of all men are holy?

where the child-like wisdom learning all through life more and more

of the will of God? where the aversion to falsehood, in all its myriad

disguises of cant, vanity, covetousness, so clear to be read in all

the history of Jesus of Nazareth? Modern Europe is the sequel to that

history, and see this hollow England, with its monstrous wealth and

cruel poverty, its conventional life, and low, practical aims! see

this poor France, so full of talent, so adroit, yet so shallow and

glossy still, which could not escape from a false position with all

its baptism of blood! see that lost Poland, and this Italy bound down

by treacherous hands in all the force of genius! see Russia with its

brutal Czar and innumerable slaves! see Austria and its royalty that

represents nothing, and its people, who, as people, are and have

nothing! If we consider the amount of truth that has really been

spoken out in the world, and the love that has beat in private

hearts,--how genius has decked each spring-time with such splendid

flowers, conveying each one enough of instruction in its life of

harmonious energy, and how continually, unquenchably, the spark of

faith has striven to burst into flame and light up the universe,--the

public failure seems amazing, seems monstrous.

Still Europe toils and struggles with her idea, and, at this moment,

all things bode and declare a new outbreak of the fire, to destroy old

palaces of crime! May it fertilize also many vineyards! Here at this

moment a successor of St. Peter, after the lapse of near two thousand

years, is called "Utopian" by a part of this Europe, because he

strives to get some food to the mouths of the _leaner_ of his flock.

A wonderful state of things, and which leaves as the best argument

against despair, that men do not, _cannot_ despair amid such dark

experiences. And thou, my Country! wilt thou not be more true? does no

greater success await thee? All things have so conspired to teach, to

aid! A new world, a new chance, with oceans to wall in the new thought

against interference from the old!--treasures of all kinds, gold,

silver, corn, marble, to provide for every physical need! A noble,

constant, starlike soul, an Italian, led the way to thy shores, and,

in the first days, the strong, the pure, those too brave, too sincere,

for the life of the Old World, hastened to people them. A generous

struggle then shook off what was foreign, and gave the nation a

glorious start for a worthy goal. Men rocked the cradle of its hopes,

great, firm, disinterested, men, who saw, who wrote, as the basis

of all that was to be done, a statement of the rights, the _inborn_

rights of men, which, if fully interpreted and acted upon, leaves

nothing to be desired.

Yet, O Eagle! whose early flight showed this clear sight of the sun,

how often dost thou near the ground, how show the vulture in these

later days! Thou wert to be the advance-guard of humanity, the herald

of all progress; how often hast thou betrayed this high commission!

Fain would the tongue in clear, triumphant accents draw example from

thy story, to encourage the hearts of those who almost faint and die

beneath the old oppressions. But we must stammer and blush when we

speak of many things. I take pride here, that I can really say the

liberty of the press works well, and that checks and balances are

found naturally which suffice to its government. I can say that the

minds of our people are alert, and that talent has a free chance to

rise. This is much. But dare I further say that political ambition is

not as darkly sullied as in other countries? Dare I say that men of

most influence in political life are those who represent most virtue,

or even intellectual power? Is it easy to find names in that career of

which I can speak with enthusiasm? Must I not confess to a boundless

lust of gain in my country? Must I not concede the weakest vanity,

which bristles and blusters at each foolish taunt of the foreign

press, and admit that the men who make these undignified rejoinders

seek and find popularity so? Can I help admitting that there is as yet

no antidote cordially adopted, which will defend even that great, rich

country against the evils that have grown out of the commercial system

in the Old World? Can I say our social laws are generally better, or

show a nobler insight into the wants of man and woman? I do, indeed,

say what I believe, that voluntary association for improvement in

these particulars will be the grand means for my nation to grow, and

give a nobler harmony to the coming age. But it is only of a small

minority that I can say they as yet seriously take to heart these

things; that they earnestly meditate on what is wanted for their

country, for mankind,--for our cause is indeed, the cause of all

mankind at present. Could we succeed, really succeed, combine a deep

religious love with practical development, the achievements of genius

with the happiness of the multitude, we might believe man had now

reached a commanding point in his ascent, and would stumble and faint

no more. Then there is this horrible cancer of slavery, and the wicked

war that has grown out of it. How dare I speak of these things here?

I listen to the same arguments against the emancipation of Italy, that

are used against the emancipation of our blacks; the same arguments

in favor of the spoliation of Poland, as for the conquest of Mexico.

I find the cause of tyranny and wrong everywhere the same,--and lo! my

country! the darkest offender, because with the least excuse; forsworn

to the high calling with which she was called; no champion of the

rights of men, but a robber and a jailer; the scourge hid behind her

banner; her eyes fixed, not on the stars, but on the possessions of

other men.

How it pleases me here to think of the Abolitionists! I could never

endure to be with them at home, they were so tedious, often so narrow,

always so rabid and exaggerated in their tone. But, after all, they

had a high motive, something eternal in their desire and life; and if

it was not the only thing worth thinking of, it was really something

worth living and dying for, to free a great nation from such a

terrible blot, such a threatening plague. God strengthen them, and

make them wise to achieve their purpose!

I please myself, too, with remembering some ardent souls among the

American youth, who I trust will yet expand, and help to give soul to

the huge, over-fed, too hastily grown-up body. May they be constant!

"Were man but constant, he were perfect," it has been said; and it is

true that he who could be constant to those moments in which he has

been truly human, not brutal, not mechanical, is on the sure path to

his perfection, and to effectual service of the universe.

It is to the youth that hope addresses itself; to those who yet burn

with aspiration, who are not hardened in their sins. But I dare not

expect too much of them. I am not very old; yet of those who, in

life's morning, I saw touched by the light of a high hope, many have

seceded. Some have become voluptuaries; some, mere family men, who

think it quite life enough to win bread for half a dozen people,

and treat them, decently; others are lost through indolence and

vacillation. Yet some remain constant;

"I have witnessed many a shipwreck,

Yet still beat noble hearts."

I have found many among the youth of England, of France, of Italy,

also, full of high desire; but will they have courage and purity to

fight the battle through in the sacred, the immortal band? Of some

of them I believe it, and await the proof. If a few succeed amid the

trial, we have not lived and loved in vain.

To these, the heart and hope of my country, a happy new year! I do

not know what I have written; I have merely yielded to my feelings

in thinking of America; but something of true love must be in these

lines. Receive them kindly, my friends; it is, of itself, some merit

for printed words to be sincere.

LETTER XIX.

THE CLIMATE OF ITALY.--REVIEW OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS.--ROME IN ITS

VARIOUS ASPECTS.--THE POPE.--CEMETERY OF SANTO SPIRITO.--CEREMONIES AT

THE CHAPELS.--THE WOMEN OF ITALY.--FESTIVAL OF ST. CARLO BORROMEO.--AN

INCIDENT IN THE CHAPEL.--ENGLISH RESIDENTS IN THE SEVEN-HILLED

CITY.--MRS. TROLLOPE A RESIDENT OF FLORENCE.--THE POPE AS HE

COMMUNICATES WITH HIS PEOPLE.--THE POSITION OF AFFAIRS.--LESSER

POTENTATES.--THE INAUGURATION OF THE NEW COUNCIL.--THE CEREMONIES

THERETO APPERTAINING.--THE AMERICAN FLAG IN ROME.--A BALL.--A FEAST,

AND ITS REVERSE.--THE FUNERAL OF A COUNCILLOR.

Rome, December 17, 1847.

This 17th day of December I rise to see the floods of sunlight

blessing us, as they have almost every day since I returned to

Rome,--two months and more,--with scarce three or four days of rainy

weather. I still see the fresh roses and grapes each morning on my

table, though both these I expect to give up at Christmas.

This autumn is _something like_, as my countrymen say at home. Like

_what_, they do not say; so I always supposed they meant like their

ideal standard. Certainly this weather corresponds with mine; and

I begin to believe the climate of Italy is really what it has been

represented. Shivering here last spring in an air no better than the

cruel cast wind of Puritan Boston, I thought all the praises lavished

on

"Italia, O Italia!"

would turn out to be figments of the brain; and that even Byron,

usually accurate beyond the conception of plodding pedants, had

deceived us when he says, you have the happiness in Italy to

"See the sun set, sure he'll rise to-morrow,"

and not, according to a view which exercises a withering influence on

the enthusiasm of youth in my native land, be forced to regard each

pleasant day as a _weather-breeder_.

How delightful, too, is the contrast between this time and the spring

in another respect! Then I was here, like travellers in general,

expecting to be driven away in a short time. Like others, I went

through the painful process of sight-seeing, so unnatural everywhere,

so counter to the healthful methods and true life of the mind. You

rise in the morning knowing there are a great number of objects worth

knowing, which you may never have the chance to see again. You go

every day, in all moods, under all circumstances; feeling, probably,

in seeing them, the inadequacy of your preparation for understanding

or duly receiving them. This consciousness would be most valuable if

one had time to think and study, being the natural way in which the

mind is lured to cure its defects; but you have no time; you are

always wearied, body and mind, confused, dissipated, sad. The objects

are of commanding beauty or full of suggestion, but there is no quiet

to let that beauty breathe its life into the soul; no time to follow

up these suggestions, and plant for the proper harvest. Many persons

run about Rome for nine days, and then go away; they might as well

expect to appreciate the Venus by throwing a stone at it, as hope

really to see Rome in this time. I stayed in Rome nine weeks, and came

away unhappy as he who, having been taken in the visions of the night

through some wondrous realm, wakes unable to recall anything but the

hues and outlines of the pageant; the real knowledge, the recreative

power induced by familiar love, the assimilation of its soul and

substance,--all the true value of such a revelation,--is wanting; and

he remains a poor Tantalus, hungrier than before he had tasted this

spiritual food.

No; Rome is not a nine-days wonder; and those who try to make it such

lose the ideal Rome (if they ever had it), without gaining any notion

of the real. To those who travel, as they do everything else, only

because others do, I do not speak; they are nothing. Nobody counts in

the estimate of the human race who has not a character.

For one, I now really live in Rome, and I begin to see and feel the

real Rome. She reveals herself day by day; she tells me some of her

life. Now I never go out to see a sight, but I walk every day; and

here I cannot miss of some object of consummate interest to end a

walk. In the evenings, which are long now, I am at leisure to follow

up the inquiries suggested by the day.

As one becomes familiar, Ancient and Modern Rome, at first so

painfully and discordantly jumbled together, are drawn apart to the

mental vision. One sees where objects and limits anciently wore; the

superstructures vanish, and you recognize the local habitation of so

many thoughts. When this begins to happen, one feels first truly

at ease in Rome. Then the old kings, the consuls and tribunes, the

emperors, drunk with blood and gold, the warriors of eagle sight and

remorseless beak, return for us, and the togated procession finds

room to sweep across the scene; the seven hills tower, the innumerable

temples glitter, and the Via Sacra swarms with triumphal life once

more.

Ah! how joyful to see once more _this_ Rome, instead of the pitiful,

peddling, Anglicized Rome, first viewed in unutterable dismay from the

_coupé_ of the vettura,--a Rome all full of taverns, lodging-houses,

cheating chambermaids, vilest _valets de place_, and fleas! A Niobe

of nations indeed! Ah! why, secretly the heart blasphemed, did the sun

omit to kill her too, when all the glorious race which wore her crown

fell beneath his ray? Thank Heaven, it is possible to wash away all

this dirt, and come at the marble yet.

Their the later Papal Rome: it requires much acquaintance, much

thought, much reference to books, for the child of Protestant

Republican America to see where belong the legends illustrated by rite

and picture, the sense of all the rich tapestry, where it has a united

and poetic meaning, where it is broken by some accident of history.

For all these things--a senseless mass of juggleries to the uninformed

eye--are really growths of the human spirit struggling to develop its

life, and full of instruction for those who learn to understand them.

Then Modern Rome,--still ecclesiastical, still darkened and damp in

the shadow of the Vatican, but where bright hopes gleam now amid the

ashes! Never was a people who have had more to corrupt them,--bloody

tyranny, and incubus of priestcraft, the invasions, first of

Goths, then of trampling emperors and kings, then of sight-seeing

foreigners,--everything to turn them from a sincere, hopeful, fruitful

life; and they are much corrupted, but still a fine race. I cannot

look merely with a pictorial eye on the lounge of the Roman dandy, the

bold, Juno gait of the Roman Contadina. I love them,--dandies and all?

I believe the natural expression of these fine forms will animate them

yet. Certainly there never was a people that showed a better heart

than they do in this day of love, of purely moral influence. It makes

me very happy to be for once in a place ruled by a father's love, and

where the pervasive glow of one good, generous heart is felt in every

pulse of every day.

I have seen the Pope several times since my return, and it is a real

pleasure to see him in the thoroughfares, where his passage is always

greeted as that of _the_ living soul.

The first week of November there is much praying for the dead here in

the chapels of the cemeteries. I went to Santo Spirito. This cemetery

stands high, and all the way up the slope was lined with beggars

petitioning for alms, in every attitude find tone, (I mean tone that

belongs to the professional beggar's gamut, for that is peculiar,)

and under every pretext imaginable, from the quite legless elderly

gentleman to the ragged ruffian with the roguish twinkle in his eye,

who has merely a slight stiffness in one arm and one leg. I could

not help laughing, it was such a show,--greatly to the alarm of my

attendant, who declared they would kill me, if ever they caught me

alone; but I was not afraid. I am sure the endless falsehood in which

such creatures live must make them very cowardly. We entered the

cemetery; it was a sweet, tranquil place, lined with cypresses, and

soft sunshine lying on the stone coverings where repose the houses of

clay in which once dwelt joyous Roman hearts,--for the hearts here do

take pleasure in life. There were several chapels; in one boys were

chanting, in others people on their knees silently praying for the

dead. In another was one of the groups in wax exhibited in such

chapels through the first week of November. It represented St. Carlo

Borromeo as a beautiful young man in a long scarlet robe, pure and

brilliant as was the blood of the martyrs, relieving the poor who were

grouped around him,--old people and children, the halt, the maimed,

the blind; he had called them all into the feast of love. The chapel

was lighted and draped so as to give very good effect to this group;

the spectators were mainly children and young girls, listening with

ardent eyes, while their parents or the nuns explained to them the

group, or told some story of the saint. It was a pretty scene, only

marred by the presence of a villanous-looking man, who ever and anon

shook the poor's box. I cannot understand the bad taste of choosing

him, when there were _frati_ and priests enough of expression less

unprepossessing.

I next entered a court-yard, where the stations, or different periods

in the Passion of Jesus, are painted on the wall. Kneeling before

these were many persons: here a Franciscan, in his brown robe and

cord; there a pregnant woman, uttering, doubtless, some tender

aspiration for the welfare of the yet unborn dear one; there some

boys, with gay yet reverent air; while all the while these fresh young

voices were heard chanting. It was a beautiful moment, and despite the

wax saint, the ill-favored friar, the professional mendicants, and

my own removal, wide as pole from pole, from the positron of mind

indicated by these forms, their spirit touched me, and. I prayed too;

prayed for the distant, every way distant,--for those who seem to have

forgotten me, and with me all we had in common; prayed for the dead in

spirit, if not in body; prayed for myself, that I might never walk the

earth

"The tomb of my dead self";

and prayed in general for all unspoiled and loving hearts,--no less

for all who suffer and find yet no helper.

Going out, I took my road by the cross which marks the brow of the

hill. Up the ascent still wound the crowd of devotees, and still the

beggars beset them. Amid that crowd, how many lovely, warm-hearted

women! The women of Italy are intellectually in a low place,

_but_--they are unaffected; you can see what Heaven meant them to be,

and I believe they will be yet the mothers of a great and generous

race. Before me lay Rome,--how exquisitely tranquil in the sunset!

Never was an aspect that for serene grandeur could vie with that of

Rome at sunset.

Next day was the feast of the Milanese saint, whose life has been made

known to some Americans by Manzoni, when speaking in his popular novel

of the cousin of St. Carlo, Federigo Borromeo. The Pope came in state

to the church of St. Carlo, in the Corso. The show was magnificent;

the church is not very large, and was almost filled with Papal court

and guards, in all their splendid harmonies of color. An Italian child

was next me, a little girl of four or five years, whom her mother

had brought to see the Pope. As in the intervals of gazing the child

smiled and made signs to me, I nodded in return, and asked her name.

"Virginia," said she; "and how is the Signora named?" "Margherita,"

"My name," she rejoined, "is Virginia Gentili." I laughed, but did not

follow up the cunning, graceful lead,--still I chatted and played with

her now and then. At last, she said to her mother, "La Signora e molto

cara," ("The Signora is very dear," or, to use the English equivalent,

_a darling_,) "show her my two sisters." So the mother, herself a

fine-looking woman, introduced two handsome young ladies, and with the

family I was in a moment pleasantly intimate for the hour.

Before me sat three young English ladies, the pretty daughters of

a noble Earl; their manners were a strange contrast to this Italian

graciousness, best expressed by their constant use of the pronoun

_that_. "_See that man!_" (i.e. some high dignitary of the Church,)

"Look at that dress!" dropped constantly from their lips. Ah! without

being a Catholic, one may well wish Rome was not dependent on English

sight-seers, who violate her ceremonies with acts that bespeak their

thoughts full of wooden shoes and warming-pans. Can anything be

more sadly expressive of times out of joint than the fact that Mrs.

Trollope is a resident in Italy? Yes! she is fixed permanently in

Florence, as I am told, pensioned at the rate of two thousand pounds

a year to trail her slime over the fruit of Italy. She is here in Rome

this winter, and, after having violated the virgin beauty of America,

will have for many a year her chance to sully the imperial matron of

the civilized world. What must the English public be, if it wishes to

pay two thousand pounds a year to get Italy Trollopified?

But to turn to a pleasanter subject. When the Pope entered, borne in

his chair of state amid the pomp of his tiara and his white and gold

robes, he looked to me thin, or, as the Italians murmur anxiously

at times, _consumato_, or wasted. But during the ceremony he seemed

absorbed in his devotions, and at the end I think he had become

exhilarated by thinking of St. Carlo, who was such another over the

human race as himself, and his face wore a bright glow of faith. As he

blessed the people, he raised his eyes to Heaven, with a gesture quite

natural: it was the spontaneous act of a soul which felt that moment

more than usual its relation with things above it, and sure of support

from a higher Power. I saw him to still greater advantage a little

while after, when, riding on the Campagna with a young gentleman who

had been ill, we met the Pope on foot, taking exercise. He often quits

his carriage at the gates and walks in this way. He walked rapidly,

robed in a simple white drapery, two young priests in spotless purple

on either side; they gave silver to the poor who knelt beside the way,

while the beloved Father gave his benediction. My companion knelt;

he is not a Catholic, but he felt that "this blessing would do him

no harm." The Pope saw at once he was ill, and gave him a mark of

interest, with that expression of melting love, the true, the only

charity, which assures all who look on him that, were his power equal

to his will, no living thing would ever suffer more. This expression

the artists try in vain to catch; all busts and engravings of him are

caricatures; it is a magnetic sweetness, a lambent light that plays

over his features, and of which only great genius or a soul tender as

his own would form an adequate image.

The Italians have one term of praise peculiarly characteristic of

their highly endowed nature. They say of such and such, _Ha una

phisonomia simpatica_,--"He has a sympathetic expression"; and this is

praise enough. This may be pre-eminently said of that of Pius IX. _He_

looks, indeed, as if nothing human could be foreign to him. Such alone

are the genuine kings of men.

He has shown undoubted wisdom, clear-sightedness, bravery, and

firmness; but it is, above all, his generous human heart that gives

him his power over this people. His is a face to shame the selfish,

redeem the sceptic, alarm the wicked, and cheer to new effort the

weary and heavy-laden. What form the issues of his life may take is

yet uncertain; in my belief, they are such as he does not think of;

but they cannot fail to be for good. For my part, I shall always

rejoice to have been here in his time. The working of his influence

confirms my theories, and it is a positive treasure to me to have seen

him. I have never been presented, not wishing to approach, so real a

presence in the path of mere etiquette; I am quite content to see

him standing amid the crowd, while the band plays the music he has

inspired.

"Sons of Rome, awake!"

Yes, awake, and let no police-officer put you again to sleep in

prison, as has happened to those who were called by the Marseillaise.

Affairs look well. The king of Sardinia has at last, though with

evident distrust and heartlessness, entered the upward path in a

way that makes it difficult to return. The Duke of Modena, the

most senseless of all these ancient gentlemen, after publishing a

declaration, which made him more ridiculous than would the bitterest

pasquinade penned by another, that he would fight to the death against

reform, finds himself obliged to lend an ear as to the league for

the customs; and if he joins that, other measures follow of course.

Austria trembles; and, in fine, cannot sustain the point of Ferrara.

The king of Naples, after having shed much blood, for which he has a

terrible account to render, (ah! how many sad, fair romances are to

tell already about the Calabrian difficulties!) still finds the spirit

fomenting in his people; he cannot put it down. The dragon's teeth are

sown, and the Lazzaroni may be men yet! The Swiss affairs have taken

the right direction, and good will ensue, if other powers act with

decent honesty, and think of healing the wounds of Switzerland, rather

than merely of tying her down, so that she cannot annoy them.

In Rome, here, the new Council is inaugurated, and elections have

given tolerable satisfaction. Already, struggles ended in other places

begin to be renewed here, as to gas-lights, introduction of machinery,

&c. We shall see at the end of the winter how they have gone on. At

any rate, the wants of the people are in some measure represented; and

already the conduct of those who have taken to themselves so large a

portion of the loaves and fishes on the very platform supposed to be

selected by Jesus for a general feeding of his sheep, begins to be

the subject of spoken as well as whispered animadversion. Torlonia is

assailed in his bank, Campana amid his urns or his Monte di Picti; but

these assaults have yet to be verified.

On the day when the Council was to be inaugurated, great preparations

were made by representatives of other parts of Italy, and also of

foreign nations friendly to the cause of progress. It was considered

to represent the same fact as the feast of the 12th of September in

Tuscany,--the dawn of an epoch when the people shall find their wants

and aspirations represented and guarded. The Americans showed a warm

interest; the gentlemen subscribing to buy a flag, the United States

having none before in Rome, and the ladies meeting to make it. The

same distinguished individual, indeed, who at Florence made a speech

to prevent "the American eagle being taken out on so trifling an

occasion," with similar perspicuity and superiority of view, on the

present occasion, was anxious to prevent "rash demonstrations, which

might embroil the United States with Austria"; but the rash youth

here present rushed on, ignorant how to value his Nestorian

prudence,--fancying, hot-headed simpletons, that the cause of Freedom

was the cause of America, and her eagle at home wherever the sun shed

a warmer ray, and there was reason to hope a happier life for man. So

they hurried to buy their silk, red, white, and blue, and inquired of

recent arrivals how many States there are this winter in the Union, in

order to making the proper number of stars. A magnificent spread-eagle

was procured, not without difficulty, as this, once the eyrie of the

king of birds, is now a rookery rather, full of black, ominous fowl,

ready to eat the harvest sown by industrious hands. This eagle, having

previously spread its wings over a piece of furniture where its back

was sustained by the wall, was somewhat deficient in a part of its

anatomy. But we flattered ourselves he should be held so high that no

Roman eye, if disposed, could carp and criticise. When lo! just as the

banner was ready to unfold its young glories in the home of Horace,

Virgil, and Tacitus, an ordinance appeared prohibiting the display of

any but the Roman ensign.

This ordinance was, it is said, caused by representations made to the

Pope that the Oscurantists, ever on the watch to do mischief, meant to

make this the occasion of disturbance,--as it is their policy to seek

to create irritation here; that the Neapolitan and Lombardo-Venetian

flags would appear draped with black, and thus the signal be given for

tumult. I cannot help thinking these fears were groundless; that the

people, on their guard, would have indignantly crushed at once any

of these malignant efforts. However that may be, no one can ever be

really displeased with any measure of the Pope, knowing his excellent

intentions. But the limitation of the festival deprived it of the

noble character of the brotherhood of nations and an ideal aim, worn

by that of Tuscany. The Romans, drilled and disappointed, greeted

their Councillors with but little enthusiasm. The procession, too, was

but a poor affair for Rome. Twenty-four carriages had been lent by

the princes and nobles, at the request of the city, to convey the

Councillors. I found something symbolical in this. Thus will they be

obliged to furnish from their old grandeur the vehicles of the new

ideas. Each deputy was followed by his target and banner. When

the deputy for Ferrara passed, many garlands were thrown upon his

carriage. There has been deep respect and sympathy felt for the

citizens of Ferrara, they have conducted so well under their late

trying circumstances. They contained themselves, knowing that the

least indiscretion would give a handle for aggression to the enemies

of the good cause. But the daily occasions of irritation must have

been innumerable, and they have shown much power of wise and dignified

self-government.

After the procession passed, I attempted to go on foot from the Café

Novo, in the Corso, to St. Peter's, to see the decorations of the

streets, but it was impossible. In that dense, but most vivacious,

various, and good-humored crowd, with all best will on their part

to aid the foreigner, it was impossible to advance. So I saw

only themselves; but that was a great pleasure. There is so much

individuality of character here, that it is a great entertainment to

be in a crowd.

In the evening, there was a ball given at the Argentina. Lord Minto

was there; Prince Corsini, now Senator; the Torlonias, in uniform of

the Civic Guard,--Princess Torlonia in a sash of their colors, given

her by the Civic Guard, which she waved often in answer to their

greetings. But the beautiful show of the evening was the Trasteverini

dancing the Saltarello in their most brilliant costume. I saw them

thus to much greater advantage than ever before. Several were nobly

handsome, and danced admirably; it was really like Pinelli.

The Saltarello enchants me; in this is really the Italian wine,

the Italian sun. The first time, I saw it danced one night very

unexpectedly near the Colosseum; it carried me quite beyond myself,

so that I most unamiably insisted on staying, while the friends in my

company, not heated by enthusiasm like me, were shivering and perhaps

catching cold from the damp night-air. I fear they remember it against

me; nevertheless I cherish the memory of the moments wickedly stolen

at their expense, for it is only the first time seeing such a thing

that you enjoy a peculiar delight. But since, I love to see and study

it much.

The Pope, in receiving the Councillors, made a speech,--such as the

king of Prussia intrenched himself in on a similar occasion, only much

better and shorter,--implying that he meant only to improve, not to

_reform_, and should keep things _in statu quo_, safe locked with

the keys of St. Peter. This little speech was made, no doubt, more to

reassure czars, emperors, and kings, than from the promptings of the

spirit. But the fact of its necessity, as well as the inferior freedom

and spirit of the Roman journals to those of Tuscany, seems to say

that the pontifical government, though from the accident of this one

man's accession it has taken the initiative to better times, yet

may not, after a while, from its very nature, be able to keep in the

vanguard.

A sad contrast to the feast of this day was presented by the same

persons, a fortnight after, following the body of Silvani, one of

the Councillors, who died suddenly. The Councillors, the different

societies of Rome, a corps _frati_ bearing tapers, the Civic Guard

with drums slowly beating, the same state carriages with their

liveried attendants all slowly, sadly moving, with torches and

banners, drooped along the Corso in the dark night. A single horseman,

with his long white plume and torch reversed, governed the procession;

it was the Prince Aldobrandini. The whole had that grand effect so

easily given by this artist people, who seize instantly the natural

poetry of an occasion, and with unanimous tact hasten to represent it.

More and much anon.

LETTER XX.

ROME.--BAD WEATHER.--ST. CECILIA.--THE PEOPLE'S PROCESSIONS.--TAKING

THE VEIL.--FESTIVITIES.--POLITICAL AGITATION.--NOBLES.--MARIA

LOUISA.--GUICCIOLI.--PARMA.--ADDRESS TO THE NEW SOVEREIGN.--THE NEW

YORK MEETING FOR ITALY.--ADDRESS TO THE POPE.

Rome, December 30, 1847.

I could not, in my last, content myself with praising the glorious

weather. I wrote in the last day of it. Since, we have had a fortnight

of rain falling incessantly, and whole days and nights of torrents

such as are peculiar to the "clearing-up" shower in our country.

Under these circumstances, I have found my lodging in the Corso not

only has its dark side, but is all dark, and that one in the Piazza di

Spagne would have been better for me in this respect; there on these

days, the only ones when I wish to stay at home and write and study, I

should have had the light. Now, if I consulted the good of my eyes, I

should have the lamp lit on first rising in the morning.

"Every sweet must have its bitter," and the exchange from the

brilliance of the Italian heaven to weeks and months of rain, and such

black cloud, is unspeakably dejecting. For myself, at the end of this

fortnight without exercise or light, and in such a damp atmosphere,

I find myself without strength, without appetite, almost without

spirits. The life of the German scholar who studies fifteen hours out

of the twenty-four, or that of the Spielberg prisoner who could live

through ten, fifteen, twenty years of dark prison with, only half an

hour's exercise in the day, is to me a mystery. How can the brain, the

nerves, ever support it? We are made to keep in motion, to drink the

air and light; to me these are needed to make life supportable, the

physical state is so difficult and full of pains at any rate.

I am sorry for those who have arrived just at this time hoping

to enjoy the Christmas festivities. Everything was spoiled by the

weather. I went at half past ten to San Luigi Francese, a church

adorned with some of Domenichino's finest frescos on the life and

death of St. Cecilia.

This name leads me to a little digression. In a letter to Mr.

Phillips, the dear friend of our revered Dr. Charming, I asked him if

he remembered what recumbent statue it was of which Dr. Charming was

wont to speak as of a sight that impressed him more than anything else

in Rome. He said, indeed, his mood, and the unexpectedness in seeing

this gentle, saintly figure lying there as if death had just struck

her down, had no doubt much influence upon him; but still he believed

the work had a peculiar holiness in its expression. I recognized at

once the theme of his description (the name he himself had forgotten)

as I entered the other evening the lonely church of St. Cecilia in

Trastevere. As in his case, it was twilight: one or two nuns were at

their devotions, and there lay the figure in its grave-clothes, with

an air so gentle, so holy, as if she had only ceased to pray as the

hand of the murderer struck her down. Her gentle limbs seemed instinct

still with soft, sweet life; the expression was not of the heroine,

the martyr, so much as of the tender, angelic woman. I could well

understand the deep impression made upon his mind. The expression of

the frescos of Domenichino is not inharmonious with the suggestions of

this statue.

Finding the Mass was not to begin for some time, I set out for the

Quirinal to see the Pope return from that noble church, Santa Maria

Maggiore, where he officiated this night. I reached the mount just

as he was returning. A few torches gleamed before his door; perhaps a

hundred people were gathered together round the fountain. Last year an

immense multitude waited for him there to express their affection in

one grand good-night; the change was occasioned partly by the weather,

partly by other causes, of which I shall speak by and by. Just as he

returned, the moon looked palely out from amid the wet clouds, and

shone upon the fountain, and the noble figures above it, and the

long white cloaks of the Guardia Nobile who followed his carriage

on horseback; darker objects could scarcely be seen, except by the

flickering light of the torches, much blown by the wind. I then

returned to San Luigi. The effect of the night service there was very

fine; those details which often have such a glaring, mean look by day

are lost sight of in the night, and the unity of impression from the

service is much more undisturbed. The music, too, descriptive of that

era which promised peace on earth, good-will to men, was very sweet,

and the _pastorale_ particularly soothed the heart amid the crowd, and

pompous ceremonial. But here, too, the sweet had its bitter, in the

vulgar vanity of the leader of the orchestra, a trait too common in

such, who, not content with marking the time for the musicians, made

his stick heard in the remotest nook of the church; so that what would

have been sweet music, and flowed in upon the soul, was vulgarized to

make you remember the performers and their machines.

On Monday the leaders of the Guardia Civica paid their respects to

the Pope, who, in receiving them, expressed his constantly increasing

satisfaction in having given this institution to his people. The same

evening there was a procession with torches to the Quirinal, to pay

the homage due to the day (Feast of St. John, and name-day of the

Pope, _Giovanni Maria Mastai_); but all the way the rain continually

threatened to extinguish the torches, and the Pope could give but a

hasty salute under an umbrella, when the heavens were again opened,

and such a cataract of water descended, as drove both man and beast to

seek the nearest shelter.

On Sunday, I went to see a nun take the veil. She was a person of high

family; a princess gave her away, and the Cardinal Ferreti, Secretary

of State, officiated. It was a much less effective ceremony than I

expected from the descriptions of travellers and romance-writers.

There was no moment of throwing on the black veil; no peal of music;

no salute of cannon. The nun, an elegantly dressed woman of five or

six and twenty,--pretty enough, but whose quite worldly air gave the

idea that it was one of those arrangements made because no suitable

establishment could otherwise be given her,--came forward, knelt, and

prayed; her confessor, in that strained, unnatural whine too common

among preachers of all churches and all countries, praised himself for

having induced her to enter on a path which would lead her fettered

steps "from palm to palm, from triumph to triumph," Poor thing! she

looked as if the domestic olives and poppies were all she wanted; and

lacking these, tares and wormwood must be her portion. She was then

taken behind a grating, her hair cut, and her clothes exchanged for

the nun's vestments; the black-robed sisters who worked upon her

looking like crows or ravens at their ominous feasts. All the while,

the music played, first sweet and thoughtful, then triumphant strains.

The effect on my mind was revolting and painful to the last degree.

Were monastic seclusion always voluntary, and could it be ended

whenever the mind required a change back from seclusion to common

life, I should have nothing to say against it; there are positions of

the mind which it suits exactly, and even characters that might choose

it all through life; certainly, to the broken-hearted it presents a

shelter that Protestant communities do not provide. But where it

is enforced or repented of, no hell could be worse; nor can a more

terrible responsibility be incurred than by him who has persuaded a

novice that the snares of the world are less dangerous than the demons

of solitude.

Festivities in Italy have been of great importance, since, for a

century or two back, the thought, the feeling, the genius of the

people have had more chance to expand, to express themselves, there

than anywhere else. Now, if the march of reform goes forward, this

will not be so; there will be also speeches made freely on public

occasions, without having the life pressed out of them by the

censorship. Now we hover betwixt the old and the new; when the many

reasons for the new prevail, I hope what is poetical in the old will

not be lost. The ceremonies of New Year are before me; but as I shall

have to send this letter on New-Year's day, I cannot describe them.

The Romans begin now to talk of the mad gayeties of Carnival, and the

Opera is open. They have begun with "Attila," as, indeed, there

is little hope of hearing in Italy other music than Verdi's. Great

applause waited on the following words:--

"EZIO (THE ROMAN LEADER).

"E gittata la mia sorte,

Pronto sono ad ogni guerra,

S' io cardò, cadrè da forte,

E il mio nome resterà.

"Non vedrò l'amata terra

Svener lenta e farri a brano,

Sopra l'ultimo Romano

Tutta Italia piangerà."

"My lot is fixed, and I stand ready for every conflict. If

I must fall, I shall fall as a brave man, and my fame will

survive. I shall not see my beloved country fall to pieces and

slowly perish, and over the last Roman all Italy will weep."

And at lines of which the following is a translation:--

"O brave man, whose mighty power can raise thy country from

such dire distress; from the immortal hills, radiant with

glory, let the shades of our ancestors arise; oh! only one

day, one instant, arise to look upon us!"

It was an Italian who sung this strain, though, singularly enough,

here in the heart of Italy, so long reputed the home of music, three

principal parts were filled by persons bearing the foreign names of

Ivanoff, Mitrovich, and Nissren.

Naples continues in a state of great excitement, which now pervades

the upper classes, as several young men of noble families have been

arrested; among them, one young man much beloved, son of Prince

Terella, and who, it is said, was certainly not present on the

occasion for which he was arrested, and that the measure was taken

because he was known to sympathize strongly with the liberal movement.

The nobility very generally have not feared to go to the house of his

father to express their displeasure at the arrest and interest in

the young man. The ministry, it is said, are now persuaded of the

necessity of a change of measures. The king alone remains inflexible

in his stupidity.

The stars of Bonaparte and Byron show again a conjunction, by the

almost simultaneous announcement of changes in the lot of women with

whom they were so intimately connected;--the Archduchess of Parma,

Maria Louisa, is dead; the Countess Guiccioli is married. The Countess

I have seen several times; she still looks young, and retains the

charms which by the contemporaries of Byron she is reputed to have

had; they never were of a very high order; her best expression is that

of a good heart. I always supposed that Byron, weary and sick of the

world such as he had known it, became attached to her for her good

disposition, and sincere, warm tenderness for him; the sight of her,

and the testimony of a near relative, confirmed this impression. This

friend of hers added, that she had tried very hard to remain devoted

to the memory of Byron, but was quite unequal to the part, being one

of those affectionate natures that must have some one near with whom

to be occupied; and now, it seems, she has resigned herself publicly

to abandon her romance. However, I fancy the manes of Byron remain

undisturbed.

We all know the worthless character of Maria Louisa, the indifference

she showed to a husband who, if he was not her own choice, yet would

have been endeared to almost any woman, as one fallen from an immense

height into immense misfortune, and as the father of her child. No

voice from her penetrated to cheer his exile: the unhappiness

of Josephine was well avenged. And that child, the poor Duke of

Reichstadt, of a character so interesting, and with obvious elements

of greatness, withering beneath the mean, cold influence of his

grandfather,--what did Maria Louisa do for him,--she, appointed by

Nature to be his inspiring genius, his protecting angel? I felt for

her a most sad and profound contempt last summer, as I passed through

her oppressed dominion, a little sphere, in which, if she could not

save it from the usual effects of the Austrian rule, she might have

done so much private, womanly good,--might have been a genial heart

to warm it,--and where she had let so much ill be done. A journal

announces her death in these words: "The Archduchess is dead; a woman

who _might_ have occupied one of the noblest positions in the history

of the age";--and there makes expressive pause.

Parma, passing from bad to worse, falls into the hands of the Duke of

Modena; and the people and magistracy have made an address to their

new ruler. The address has received many thousand signatures, and

seems quite sincere, except in the assumption of good-will in the Duke

of Modena; and this is merely an insincerity of etiquette.

LETTER XXI.

THE POPE'S RECEPTION OF THE NEW OFFICERS.--THEY KISS HIS

FOOT.--VESPERS AT THE GESÙ.--A POOR YOUTH IN ROME SEEKING A

PATRON.--RUMORS OF DISTURBANCES.--THEIR CAUSE.--REPRESENTATIONS TO THE

POPE.--HIS CONDUCT IN THE AFFAIR.--AN ITALIAN CONSUL FOR THE UNITED

STATES.--CATHOLICISM.--THE POPULARITY OF THE POPE.--HIS DEPOSITION OF

A CENSOR.--THE POLICY OF THE POPE IN HIS DOMESTIC NOT EQUAL TO THAT

OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE.--HIS OPPOSITION TO PROTESTANT REFORM.--LETTER FROM

JOSEPH MAZZINI TO THE PONTIFF.--REFLECTIONS ON IT.

Rome, January 10, 1848.

In the first morning of this New Year I sent off a letter which must

then be mailed, in order to reach the steamer of the 16th. So far am

I from home, that even steam does not come nigh to annihilate the

distance.

This afternoon I went to the Quirinal Palace to see the Pope receive

the new municipal officers. He was to-day in his robes of white and

gold, with his usual corps of attendants in pure red and white, or

violet and white. The new officers were in black velvet dresses, with

broad white collars. They took the oaths of office, and then actually

kissed his foot. I had supposed this was never really done, but only

a very low obeisance made; the act seemed to me disgustingly abject.

A Heavenly Father does not want his children at his feet, but in his

arms, on a level with his heart.

After this was over the Pope went to the Gesù, a very rich church,

belonging to the Jesuits, to officiate at Vespers, and we followed.

The music was beautiful, and the effect of the church, with its

richly-painted dome and altar-piece in a blaze of light, while the

assembly were in a sort of brown darkness, was very fine.

A number of Americans there, new arrivals, kept requesting in the

midst of the music to know when _it_ would begin. "Why, this is _it_,"

some one at last had the patience to answer; "you are hearing Vespers

now." "What," they replied, "is there no oration, no speech!" So

deeply rooted in the American mind is the idea that a sermon is the

only real worship!

This church, is indelibly stamped on my mind. Coming to Rome this

time, I saw in the diligence a young man, whom his uncle, a priest of

the convent that owns this church, had sent for, intending to provide

him employment here. Some slight circumstances tested the character

of this young man, and showed it what I have ever found it, singularly

honorable and conscientious. He was led to show me his papers, among

which was a letter from a youth whom, with that true benevolence only

possible to the poor, because only they _can_ make great sacrifices,

he had so benefited as to make an entire change in his prospects for

life. Himself a poor orphan, with nothing but a tolerable education

at an orphan asylum, and a friend of his dead parents to find him

employment on leaving it, he had felt for this young man, poorer and

more uninstructed than himself, had taught him at his leisure to read

and write, had then collected from, friends, and given himself,

till he had gathered together sixty francs, procuring also for

his _protégé_ a letter from monks, who were friends of his, to the

convents on the road, so that wherever there was one, the poor youth

had lodging and food gratis. Thus armed, he set forth on foot for

Rome; Piacenza, their native place, affording little hope even of

gaining bread, in the present distressed state of that dominion. The

letter was to say that he had arrived, and been so fortunate as to

find employment immediately in the studio of Benzoni, the sculptor.

The poor patron's eyes sparkled as I read the letter. "How happy he

is!" said he. "And does he not spell and write well? I was his only

master."

But the good do not inherit the earth, and, less fortunate than his

_protégé_, Germano on his arrival found his uncle ill of the Roman

fever. He came to see me, much agitated. "Can it be, Signorina," says

he, "that God, who has taken my father and mother, will also take

from me the only protector I have left, and just as I arrive in this

strange place, too?" After a few days he seemed more tranquil, and

told me that, though he had felt as if it would console him and divert

his mind to go to some places of entertainment, he had forborne and

applied the money to have masses said for his uncle. "I feel," he

said, "as if God would help me." Alas! at that moment the uncle was

dying. Poor Germano came next day with a receipt for masses said for

the soul of the departed, (his simple faith in these being apparently

indestructible,) and amid his tears he said: "The Fathers were so

unkind, they were hardly willing to hear me speak a word; they were so

afraid I should be a burden to them, I shall never go there again. But

the most cruel thing was, I offered them a scudo (dollar) to say six

masses for the soul of my poor uncle; they said they would only say

five, and must have seven baiocchi (cents) more for that."

A few days after, I happened to go into their church, and found it

thronged, while a preacher, panting, sweating, leaning half out of

the pulpit, was exhorting his hearers to "imitate Christ." With

unspeakable disgust I gazed on this false shepherd of those who had

just so failed in their duty to a poor stray lamb, Their church is so

rich in ornaments, the seven baiocchi were hardly needed to burnish

it. Their altar-piece is a very imposing composition, by an artist

of Rome, still in the prime of his powers. Capalti. It represents the

Circumcision, with the cross and six waiting angels in the background;

Joseph, who holds the child, the priest, and all the figures in the

foreground, seem intent upon the barbarous rite, except Mary the

mother; her mind seems to rush forward into the future, and understand

the destiny of her child; she sees the cross,--she sees the angels,

too.

Now I have mentioned a picture, let me say a word or two about Art and

artists, by way of parenthesis in this letter so much occupied, with

political affairs. We laugh a little here at some words that come from

your city on the subject of Art.

We hear that the landscapes painted here show a want of familiarity

with Nature; artists need to return to America and see her again. But,

friends, Nature wears a different face in Italy from what she does in

America. Do you not want to see her Italian face? it is very glorious!

We thought it was the aim of Art to reproduce all forms of Nature, and

that you would not be sorry to have transcripts of what you have not

always round you. American Art is not necessarily a reproduction of

American Nature.

Hicks has made a charming picture of familiar life, which those who

cannot believe in Italian daylight would not tolerate. I am not sure

that all eyes are made in the same manner, for I have known those who

declare they see nothing remarkable in these skies, these hues; and

always complain when they are reproduced in picture. I have yet seen

no picture by Cropsey on an Italian subject, but his sketches from

Scotch scenes are most poetical and just presentations of those lakes,

those mountains, with their mourning veils. He is an artist of great

promise. Cranch has made a picture for Mr. Ogden Haggerty of a fine

mountain-hold of old Colonna story. I wish he would write a ballad

about it too; there is plenty of material.

But to return to the Jesuits. One swallow does not make a summer, nor

am I--who have seen so much hard-heartedness and barbarous greed of

gain in all classes of men--so foolish as to attach undue importance

to the demand, by those who have dared to appropriate peculiarly to

themselves the sacred name of Jesus, from a poor orphan, and for the

soul of one of their own order, of "seven baiocchi more." But I have

always been satisfied, from the very nature of their institutions,

that the current prejudice against them must be correct. These

institutions are calculated to harden the heart, and destroy entirely

that truth which is the conservative principle in character. Their

influence is and must be always against the free progress of humanity.

The more I see of its working, the more I feel how pernicious it is,

and were I a European, to no object should I lend myself with more

ardor, than to the extirpation of this cancer. True, disband the

Jesuits, there would still remain Jesuitical men, but singly they

would have infinitely less power to work mischief.

The influence of the Oscurantist foe has shown itself more and more

plainly in Rome, during the last four or five weeks. A false miracle

is devised: the Madonna del Popolo, (who has her handsome house very

near me,) has cured, a paralytic youth, (who, in fact, was never

diseased,) and, appearing to him in a vision, takes occasion to

criticise severely the measures of the Pope. Rumors of tumult in

one quarter are circulated, to excite it in another. Inflammatory

handbills are put up in the night. But the Romans thus far resist all

intrigues of the foe to excite them to bad conduct.

On New-Year's day, however, success was near. The people, as usual,

asked permission of the Governor to go to the Quirinal and receive the

benediction of the Pope. This was denied, and not, as it might truly

have been, because the Pope was unwell, but in the most ungracious,

irritating manner possible, by saying, "He is tired of these things:

he is afraid of disturbance." Then, the people being naturally

excited and angry, the Governor sent word to the Pope that there was

excitement, without letting him know why, and had the guards doubled

on the posts. The most absurd rumors were circulated among the people

that the cannon of St. Angelo were to be pointed on them, &c. But

they, with that singular discretion which they show now, instead

of rising, as their enemies had hoped, went to ask counsel of their

lately appointed Senator, Corsini. He went to the Pope, found him ill,

entirely ignorant of what was going on, and much distressed when he

heard it. He declared that the people should be satisfied, and,

since they had not been allowed to come to him, he would go to them.

Accordingly, the next day, though rainy and of a searching cold like

that of a Scotch mist, we had all our windows thrown open, and the red

and yellow tapestries hung out. He passed through the principal parts

of the city, the people throwing themselves on their knees and crying

out, "O Holy Father, don't desert us! don't forget us! don't listen

to our enemies!" The Pope wept often, and replied, "Fear nothing,

my people, my heart is yours." At last, seeing how ill he was, they

begged him to go in, and he returned to the Quirinal; the present

Tribune of the People, as far as rule in the heart is concerned,

Ciceronacchio, following his carriage. I shall give some account of

this man in another letter.

For the moment, the difficulties are healed, as they will be whenever

the Pope directly shows himself to the people. Then his generous,

affectionate heart will always act, and act on them, dissipating the

clouds which others have been toiling to darken.

In speaking of the intrigues of these emissaries of the power of

darkness, I will mention that there is a report here that they are

trying to get an Italian Consul for the United States, and one in the

employment of the Jesuits. This rumor seems ridiculous; yet it is true

that Dr. Beecher's panic about Catholic influence in the United

States is not quite unfounded, and that there is considerable hope

of establishing a new dominion there. I hope the United States will

appoint no Italian, no Catholic, to a consulship. The representative

of the United States should be American; our national character

and interests are peculiar, and cannot be fitly represented by a

foreigner, unless, like Mr. Ombrossi of Florence, he has passed part

of his youth in the United States. It would, indeed, be well if our

government paid attention to qualification for the office in the

candidate, and not to pretensions founded on partisan service;

appointing only men of probity, who would not stain the national

honor in the sight of Europe. It would be wise also not to select men

entirely ignorant of foreign manners, customs, ways of thinking, or

even of any language in which to communicate with foreign society,

making the country ridiculous by all sorts of blunders; but 't were

pity if a sufficient number of Americans could not be found, who are

honest, have some knowledge of Europe and gentlemanly tact, and are

able at least to speak French.

To return to the Pope, although the shadow that has fallen on his

popularity is in a great measure the work of his enemies, yet there is

real cause for it too. His conduct in deposing for a time one of the

Censors, about the banners of the 15th of December, his speech to the

Council the same day, his extreme displeasure at the sympathy of a

few persons with the triumph of the Swiss Diet, because it was a

Protestant triumph, and, above all, his speech to the Consistory, so

deplorably weak in thought and absolute in manner, show a man less

strong against domestic than foreign foes, instigated by a generous,

humane heart to advance, but fettered by the prejudices of education,

and terribly afraid to be or seem to be less the Pope of Rome, in

becoming a reform prince, and father to the fatherless. I insert a

passage of this speech, which seems to say that, whenever there shall

be collision between the priest and the reformer, the priest shall

triumph:--

"Another subject there is which profoundly afflicts and harasses our

mind. It is not certainly unknown to you, Venerable Brethren, that

many enemies of Catholic truth have, in our times especially, directed

their efforts by the desire to place certain monstrous offsprings

of opinion on a par with the doctrine of Christ, or to blend them

therewith, seeking to propagate more and more that impious system of

_indifference_ toward all religion whatever.

"And lately some have been found, dreadful to narrate! who have

offered such an insult to our name and Apostolic dignity, as

slanderously to represent us participators in their folly, and

favorers of that most iniquitous system above named. These have been

pleased to infer from, the counsels (certainly not foreign to

the sanctity of the Catholic religion) which, in certain affairs

pertaining to the civil exercise of the Pontific sway, we had benignly

embraced for the increase of public prosperity and good, and also from

the pardon bestowed in clemency upon certain persons subject to that

sway, in the very beginning of our Pontificate, that we had such

benevolent sentiments toward every description of persons as to

believe that not only the sons of the Church, but others also,

remaining aliens from Catholic unity, are alike in the way of

salvation, and may attain eternal life. Words are wanting to us, from

horror, to repel this new and atrocious calumny against us. It is true

that with intimate affection of heart we love all mankind, but not

otherwise than in the charity of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who

came to seek and to save that which had perished, who wisheth that all

men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and who sent

his disciples through the whole world to preach the Gospel to every

creature, declaring that those who should believe and be baptized

should be saved, but those who should not believe, should be

condemned. Let those therefore who seek salvation come to the pillar

and support of the Truth, which is the Church,--let them come, that

is, to the true Church of Christ, which possesses in its bishops

and the supreme head of all, the Roman Pontiff, a never-interrupted

succession of Apostolic authority, and which for nothing has ever been

more zealous than to preach, and with all care preserve and defend,

the doctrine announced as the mandate of Christ by his Apostles; which

Church afterward increased, from the time of the Apostles, in the

midst of every species of difficulties, and flourished throughout the

whole world, radiant in the splendor of miracles, amplified by the

blood of martyrs, ennobled by the virtues of confessors and virgins,

corroborated by the testimony and most sapient writings of the

fathers,--as it still flourishes throughout all lands, refulgent in

perfect unity of the sacraments, of faith, and of holy discipline.

We who, though unworthy, preside in this supreme chair of the Apostle

Peter, in which Christ our Lord placed the foundation of his Church,

have at no time abstained, from any cares or toils to bring, through

the grace of Christ himself, those who are in ignorance and error to

this sole way of truth and salvation. Let those, whoever they be,

that are adverse, remember that heaven and earth shall pass away, but

nothing can ever perish of the words of Christ, nor be changed in the

doctrine which the Catholic Church received, to guard, defend, and

publish, from him.

"Next to this we cannot but speak to you, Venerable Brethren, of the

bitterness of sorrow by which we were affected, on seeing that a few

days since, in this our fair city, the fortress and centre of the

Catholic religion, it proved possible to find some--very few indeed

and well-nigh frantic men--who, laying aside the very sense of

humanity, and to the extreme disgust and indignation of other citizens

of this town, were not withheld, by horror from triumphing openly and

publicly over the most lamentable intestine war lately excited among

the Helvetic people; which truly fatal war we sorrow over from the

depths of our heart, as well considering the blood shed by that

nation, the slaughter of brothers, the atrocious, daily recurring, and

fatal discords, hatreds, and dissensions (which usually redound among

nations in consequence especially of civil wars), as the detriment

which we learn the Catholic religion has suffered, and fear it may yet

suffer, in consequence of this, and, finally, the deplorable acts of

sacrilege committed in the first conflict, which our soul shrinks from

narrating."

It is probably on account of these fears of Pius IX. lest he should

be a called a Protestant Pope, that the Roman journals thus far, in

translating the American Address to the Pope, have not dared to add

any comment.

But if the heart, the instincts, of this good man have been beyond his

thinking powers, that only shows him the providential agent to work

out aims beyond his ken. A wave has been set in motion, which cannot

stop till it casts up its freight upon the shore, and if Pius IX. does

not suffer himself to be surrounded by dignitaries, and see the signs

of the times through the eyes of others,--if he does not suffer the

knowledge he had of general society as a simple prelate to become

incrusted by the ignorance habitual to princes,--he cannot fail long

to be a most important agent in fashioning a new and better era for

this beautiful injured land.

I will now give another document, which may be considered as

representing the view of what is now passing taken by the democratic

party called "Young Italy." Should it in any other way have reached

the United States, yet it will not come amiss to have it translated

for the Tribune, as many of your readers may not otherwise have a

chance of seeing this noble document, one of the milestones in the

march of thought. It is a letter to the Most High Pontiff, Pius IX.,

from Joseph Mazzini.

"London, 8th September, 1847.

"MOST HOLY FATHER,--Permit an Italian, who has studied your every step

for some months back with much hopefulness, to address to you, in the

midst of the applauses, often far too servile and unworthy of you,

which, resound near you, some free and profoundly sincere words. Take

to read them some moments from your infinite cares. From a simple

individual animated by holy intentions may come, sometimes, a great

counsel; and I write to you with so much love, with so much emotion of

my whole soul, with so much faith in the destiny of my country, which

may be revived by your means, that my thoughts ought to speak truth.

"And first, it is needful, Most Holy Father, that I should say to

you somewhat of myself. My name has probably reached your ears,

but accompanied by all the calumnies, by all the errors, by all the

foolish conjectures, which the police, by system, and many men of my

party through want of knowledge or poverty of intellect, have heaped

upon it. I am not a subverter, nor a communist, nor a man of blood,

nor a hater, nor intolerant, nor exclusive adorer of a system, or of

a form imagined by my mind. I adore God, and an idea which seems to me

of God,--Italy an angel of moral unity and of progressive civilization

for the nations of Europe. Here and everywhere I have written the best

I know how against the vices of materialism, of egotism, of reaction,

and against the destructive tendencies which contaminate many of

our party. If the people should rise in violent attack against the

selfishness and bad government of their rulers, I, while rendering

homage to the right of the people, shall be among the first to prevent

the excesses and the vengeance which long slavery has prepared. I

believe profoundly in a religious principle, supreme above all social

ordinances; in a divine order, which we ought to seek to realize here

on earth; in a law, in a providential design, which we all ought,

according to our powers, to study and to promote. I believe in the

inspiration of my immortal soul, in the teaching of Humanity, which

shouts to me, through the deeds and words of all its saints, incessant

progress for all through, the work of all my brothers toward a common

moral amelioration, toward the fulfilment of the Divine Law. And in

the great history of Humanity I have studied the history of Italy, and

have found there Rome twice directress of the world,--first through

the Emperors, later through the Popes. I have found there, that

every manifestation of Italian life has also been a manifestation of

European life; and that always when Italy fell, the moral unity

of Europe began to fall apart in analysis, in doubt, in anarchy.

I believe in yet another manifestation of the Italian idea; and I

believe that another European world ought to be revealed from the

Eternal City, that had the Capitol, and has the Vatican. And this

faith has not abandoned me ever, through years, poverty, and griefs

which God alone knows. In these few words lies all my being, all

the secret of my life. I may err in the intellect, but the heart has

always remained pure. I have never lied through fear or hope, and I

speak to you as I should speak to God beyond the sepulchre.

"I believe you good. There is no man this day, I will not say in

Italy, but in all Europe, more powerful than you; you then have, most

Holy Father, vast duties. God measures these according to the means

which he has granted to his creatures.

"Europe is in a tremendous crisis of doubts and desires. Through the

work of time, accelerated by your predecessors of the hierarchy of the

Church, faith is dead, Catholicism is lost in despotism; Protestantism

is lost in anarchy. Look around you; you will find superstitious and

hypocrites, but not believers. The intellect travels in a void. The

bad adore calculation, physical good; the good pray and hope; nobody

_believes_. Kings, governments, the ruling classes, combat for a power

usurped, illegitimate, since it does not represent the worship of

truth, nor disposition to sacrifice one's self for the good of all;

the people combat because they suffer, because they would fain take

their turn to enjoy; nobody fights for duty, nobody because the war

against evil and falsehood is a holy war, the crusade of God. We have

no more a heaven; hence we have no more a society.

"Do not deceive yourself, Most Holy Father; this is the present state

of Europe.

"But humanity cannot exist without a heaven. The idea of society is

only a consequence of the idea of religion. We shall have then, sooner

or later, religion and heaven. We shall have these not in the kings

and the privileged classes,--their very condition excludes love,

the soul of all religions,--but in the people. The spirit from God

descends on many gathered together in his name. The people have

suffered for ages on the cross, and God will bless them with a faith.

"You can, Most Holy Father, hasten that moment. I will not tell you

my individual opinions on the religious development which is to come;

these are of little importance. But I will say to you, that, whatever

be the destiny of the creeds now existing, you can put yourself at the

head of this development. If God wills that such creeds should

revive, you can make them revive; if God wills that they should be

transformed, that, leaving the foot of the cross, dogma and worship

should be purified by rising a step nearer God, the Father and

Educator of the world, you can put yourself between the two epochs,

and guide the world to the conquest and the practice of religious

truth, extirpating a hateful egotism, a barren negation.

"God preserve me from tempting you with ambition; that would be

profanation. I call you, in the name of the power which God has

granted you, and has not granted without a reason, to fulfil the good,

the regenerating European work. I call you, after so many ages of

doubt and corruption, to be apostle of Eternal Truth. I call you to

make yourself the 'servant of all,' to sacrifice yourself, if needful,

so that 'the will of God may be done on the earth as it is in heaven';

to hold yourself ready to glorify God in victory, or to repeat with

resignation, if you must fail, the words of Gregory VII.: 'I die in

exile, because I have loved justice and hated iniquity.'

"But for this, to fulfil the mission which God confides to you, two

things are needful,--to be a believer, and to unify Italy. Without the

first, you will fall in the middle of the way, abandoned by God and by

men; without the second, you will not have the lever with which only

you can effect great, holy, and durable things.

"Be a believer; abhor to be king, politician, statesman. Make no

compromise with error; do not contaminate yourself with diplomacy,

make no compact with fear, with expediency, with the false doctrines

of a _legality_, which is merely a falsehood invented when faith

failed. Take no counsel except from God, from the inspirations of your

own heart, and from the imperious necessity of rebuilding a temple to

truth, to justice, to faith. Self-collected, in enthusiasm of love for

humanity, and apart from every human regard, ask of God that he will

teach you the way; then enter upon it, with the faith of a conqueror

on your brow, with the irrevocable decision of the martyr in your

heart; look neither to the right hand nor the left, but straight

before you, and up to heaven. Of every object that meets you on the

way, ask of yourself: 'Is this just or unjust, true or false, law of

man or law of God?' Proclaim aloud the result of your examination, and

act accordingly. Do not say to yourself: 'If I speak and work in such

a way, the princes of the earth will disagree; the ambassadors will

present notes and protests!' What are the quarrels of selfishness in

princes, or their notes, before a syllable of the eternal Evangelists

of God? They have had importance till now, because, though phantoms,

they had nothing to oppose them but phantoms; oppose to them the

reality of a man who sees the Divine view, unknown to them, of human

affairs, of an immortal soul conscious of a high mission, and these

will vanish before you as vapors accumulated in darkness before the

sun which rises in the east. Do not let yourself be affrighted by

intrigues; the creature who fulfils a duty belongs not to men, but to

God. God will protect you; God will spread around you such a halo

of love, that neither the perfidy of men irreparably lost, nor

the suggestions of hell, can break through it. Give to the world a

spectacle new, unique: you will have results new, not to be foreseen

by human calculation. Announce an era; declare that Humanity is

sacred, and a daughter of God; that all who violate her rights to

progress, to association, are on the way of error; that in God is the

source of every government; that those who are best by intellect and

heart, by genius and virtue, must be the guides of the people.

Bless those who suffer and combat; blame, reprove, those who cause

suffering, without regard to the name they bear, the rank that invests

them. The people will adore in you the best interpreter of the

Divine design, and your conscience will give you rest, strength, and

ineffable comfort.