The morning called me out imperatively. It is almost like that Sunday
morning on which I took my first early walk with Harry. I fell into
the same path we followed then. This path led us to the Dohuta. We
walked slowly along its fringed bank, as I have been walking along it
now, and stopped here where the river makes a little bend round a just
perceptible rising graced by three ilex-trees. We found ourselves here
more than once afterwards. We never thought beforehand what way we
should take; we could not go amiss, where we went together.
The river holds its calm flow as when Harry was beside it with me.
Here are the trees whose vigorous growth he praised, their thorny
foliage glittering in the new sunlight as it glittered then. These
associates of that pleasant time, renewing their impressions, awaken
more and more vividly those of the dearer companionship.
It is strange the faithfulness with which the seemingly indifferent
objects about us keep for us the record of hours that they have
witnessed, rendering up our own past to us in a completeness in which
our memory would not have reproduced it but for the suggestions of
these unchosen confidants. Without displacing the familiar scene,
distant and far other landscapes rise before me, visions that Harry
Dudley called up for me here; to all the clear, fresh sounds of the
early morning join themselves again our asking and replying voices.
I knew at once when a place had a particular interest for Harry, by
the tone in which he pronounced the name. Fiesole was always a
beautiful word for me, but how beautiful now that I must hear in it
his affectionate accent! Volterra has a charm which it does not owe to
its dim antiquity, or owes to it as revivified by him. His strong
sympathy, embracing the remoter and the near, makes the past as actual
to him as the present, and both alike poetic.
Harry's researches have not been carried on as a pastime, or even as a
pursuit, but as a true study, a part of his preparation for a
serviceable life. It is the history of humanity that he explores, and
he reads it more willingly in its achievements than in its failures.
The remains of the early art of Etruria, its grand works of utility,
give evidence of the immemorial existence of a true civilization upon
that favored soil, the Italy of Italy.
Among the retributions of time--as just in its compensations as in its
revenges--there is hardly one more remarkable than this which is
rendering justice to the old Etruscans, awakening the world to a long
unacknowledged debt. Their annals have been destroyed, their
literature has perished, their very language has passed away; but
their life wrote itself on the country for whose health, fertility,
and beauty they invented and labored,--wrote itself in characters so
strong that the wear of the long ages has not effaced them. This
original civilization has never been expelled from the scene of its
ancient reign. Through all changes, under all oppressions, amid all
violences, it has held itself in life,--has found means to assert and
reassert its beneficent rights. Its very enemies have owed to it that
they have been able to blend with their false glory some share of a
more honorable fame. In its early seats it has never left itself long
without a witness; but still some new gift to the world, in letters,
in art, or in science, has given proof of its yet unexhausted
resources.
As freedom is older than despotism, so civilization is older than
barbarism. Man, made in the image of God, was made loving, loyal,
beneficently creative.
No country except his own is nearer to Harry's heart than Italy,--not
even France, though it is almost a second home to him; but perhaps
there cannot be that passion in our love for the prosperous. For me,
too, Italy has always stood alone;--sacred in her triple royalty of
beauty, genius, and sorrow.
Harry has ties of his own to Italy, and of those which endear most
closely. It was the scene of his first great grief,--as yet his only
one. The firm, devout expression which his face took, whenever he
spoke of his brother, showed that the early departure of the friend
with whom he had hoped to walk hand in hand through life had not
saddened or discouraged him,--had only left with him a sense of double
obligation.
Harry does not speak of himself uninvited; but he was ready to do so,
as simply and frankly as of anything else, when I drew him to it. He
has his day-dreams like other young men, and found a true youthful
delight in sharing them. I could not but observe that into his plans
for the future--apart from the little home, vaguely, yet tenderly
sketched, for which a place was supposed in them--his own advantage
entered only inasmuch as they provided him a sphere of beneficent
activity.
The one great duty of our time may oblige him to postpone all designs
which have not its fulfilment for their immediate object. But only to
postpone, I will hope. For why should we suppose that the struggle
with slavery is to last through the life of the present generation?
May we not believe that the time may come, even in our day, when we
shall only have to build and to plant, no longer to overthrow and
uproot?
* * * * *
Karl and Fritz have found me out here. They came to propose to me that
we should have our service this morning in the open air, at the same
place where we had it Sunday before last. They had already been at the
house, and had obtained my mother's assent. Karl was the spokesman, as
usual; but he stopped at the end of every sentence and looked for his
brother's concurrence.
I have remarked a change in Karl lately. He has the advantage of
Fritz, not only in years, but in capacity and energy. He has always
been a good brother; but his superiority has been fully taken for
granted between them, and all its rights asserted and admitted without
a struggle. Within a short time, however, his character has matured
rapidly. He has shown greater consideration for Fritz, and in general
more sympathy with what is weaker or softer or humbler than himself. I
had observed a greater thoughtfulness in him before Harry Dudley's
visit here. But that short intercourse has extended his view in many
directions. The entire absence of assumption, where there was so
incontestable a superiority, could not but affect him profoundly. And
then Harry, although Karl's strength and cleverness made him a very
satisfactory work-fellow, took a great interest in Fritz, in whom he
discovered fine perceptions. He tried to draw him out of his reserve,
and to give him pleasure by making him feel he could contribute to
that of others. Some latent talents, which the shy boy had cultivated
unnoticed, brought him into a new importance. He knows the habits of
all our birds, and has a marvellous familiarity with insects. His
observations on their modes of life had been so exact, that Doctor
Borrow, in questioning him, had almost a tone of deference. He was
able to render signal service to the Doctor, too, by discovering for
him, from description, tiny plants hard to find when out of bloom.
Hans, who is fondest of the son that never rivalled him, exulted
greatly in this sudden distinction. Karl took a generous pleasure in
it; and, under the double influence of increased respect from without
and enhanced self-esteem, Fritz's diffident powers are warming out
wonderfully.
The boys thanked me very gratefully, as if I had done them a real
favor, when I gave my consent to their plan; though I do not know why
they should not suppose it as agreeable to me as to themselves.