JUF--THE FORCELLINA--THE SEPTIMER--CASACCIA.
Yet still e’en here content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Tho’ poor the peasant’s hut, his feast tho’ small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all.--GOLDSMITH.
_August 9._--Up at 5 A.M., but nothing could be done out o’ doors. The
only difference from yesterday afternoon was that the amount of the
rain had diminished while that of the snow and sleet had increased. The
downfall of one or other was incessant. Such is Cresta in the dog days.
The good man of the house, however, was of opinion--the circumnavigator
did not present himself and his opinion till past seven--that the
weather would improve before midday. At ten his prognostications were
verified, and we started for Casaccia by way of the Forcellina and the
Septimer. Every one yesterday, and this morning, recommended us to go
to the Engadin by the way of Stalla on the Julier, as the shorter and
easier route. But as I was not due till midday to-morrow at Pontresina,
where I was to meet my wife, and the little boy of my two former
_Months in Switzerland_, there was plenty of time, if only the weather
would permit, for the grander Pass of the Forcellina, the old paved
road of the Septimer, and the Maloja, all of which I wished to see; the
shortness, therefore, and easiness of the alternative route were only
deterrent considerations.
The valley immediately beyond Cresta begins to widen and flatten
its bottom prairie land. We walked over the grass rejoicing in the
returning gleams of sunshine; and all the more because we knew how
deeply every soul around us was stirred by the same feelings, for
did not those warm rays of light mean well-being for their families
during the long arctic winter that was already not far off? These first
gleams, however, were shockingly short-lived, for before we had reached
Pürt, the first village beyond Cresta, the sleet had again returned,
and we were driven to take refuge in a large hay-grange, which it was
pleasant to find nearly full of new hay. Upon this we sat for some
twenty minutes, noting, through the open door, the women of the place
scouring their wooden milk vessels, and setting their small white
meagre cheeses on the window sills to consolidate. Each piece was about
the shape, size, and colour of a marmalade gallipot. The sleet having
nearly exhausted itself, a second start was made. As we went along we
counted a herd of about fifty cows on the lower flank of the opposite
range. Among them was a large flock of crows; on our side we saw a pair
of hawks, and a pair of choughs. The feathered fauna of the Grisons
is to the eye of the pedestrian far more abundant both in species and
in individuals than that of Central, or of Western Switzerland. We
passed through two more villages, and as many more scuds of sleet, and
at midday reached Juf, the last village of Oberland Aversthal, and the
highest village in Europe that is inhabited throughout the year.
Here it was necessary that we should halt for dinner. Designedly I had
taken nothing with us, in order that we might be thrown entirely on the
resources of people who live at an elevation of 6,900 feet, that is to
say 500 feet above Cresta. The _châlet_ we chanced to enter was that
of the shoemaker of Juf. At first we found in it only an ancient dame.
Before, however, we left we had to receive a levée of some ten, or a
dozen of the inhabitants of the place. The ancient dame would gladly
do for us anything in her power. Milk, of course, she could supply;
but she insisted on our having it warm: for who ever offered any one
cold milk when sleet was falling? For this it was necessary that a
fire should be lighted. She also had some black rye-bread, and two
kinds of cheese: a piece of last year’s fat cheese, and plenty of this
year’s meagre cheese. This was all. I, however, was quite satisfied.
Was it not the best these good people had to offer? and was it not what
they had themselves to be satisfied with? The sitting-room was very
low--hardly more than six feet in height. This was, first, to economize
the wood of which the house was built throughout, and all of which
had to be brought from below Cresta; and then to make the most of the
heat of the stove, the fuel for which, whether wood or turf, was very
costly to them; every piece of the latter having been paid for with
so much of the precious time of their brief summer, and of the former
with very large demands upon the muscular tissues of their own bodies,
while cutting it in winter, and getting it across the ravine opposite
to Cresta. The stove was a large structure, and filled about a fourth
part of the room. The object of its size was that it might have as
much heat-radiating surface as possible. It was fed by an opening not
in our sitting room, but in the kitchen behind it. At last the milk
was warmed, brought in, and placed on the table in a large bowl. In
this was placed a wooden ladle to dip out the milk with. The bowl was
flanked on one side with the loaf of black rye-bread, which, as it was
moist and fresh, was preferable to the desiccated wheaten bread of the
_Pasteur’s_ establishment; and on the other side with the two kinds
of cheese. Of these the fat variety was so old as to have almost lost
its consistency, and with its consistency had almost gone its goaty
flavour; the meagre variety had the texture of new soap, while its
flavour was that which may be imagined of soap which has somehow or
other become somewhat insipid. I asked for a knife to cut the loaf and
the cheese. Had not the Herr a knife of his own in his pocket? No other
kind of knife was used at Juf. This being their practice with respect
to knives, of course forks were altogether unknown. The Herr happened
to have a knife in his pocket, and was not sorry that his not having
thought of using it had thrown some light on the table arrangements
of Juf, which do not admit of anything that would require a fork, or
any kind of knife, except that which is carried in the pocket. These
particulars do not seem inviting, but it must be remembered where
we were, what was the _entourage_, and what the conditions of the
situation, and it will then become intelligible how it could have been
that this Juf dinner, if that word may be used for what was before us,
would not have been left, if one had been called on to make a choice
between the two, for a Lord Mayor’s banquet in the Egyptian Hall.
We, and our ways, appeared as interesting to the Juffians, as they and
their ways to us, if we might judge by the attention with which we
were observed by the levée of old men and old women, and young women
too, who came in, and took possession of the benches fastened against
the wall, which surrounded the room, except in the stove corner. The
room contained no other seats than these benches. Among our visitors
was a poor fellow who had broken his leg on the mountains; and, the
fracture not having been properly reduced, he was now sadly crippled,
and complained of the pains he felt at moving, and at every change of
the weather. He never then, I thought, can be long together up here,
at all events at midsummer, without having his sufferings aggravated
by the latter cause. From what I understood of what we now had to
do, I was sure that my porter would be quite unequal to his work, I,
therefore, made inquiries for one who would act as guide and porter
across the Pass. A venerable senior among the company had a son, who,
he assured me, was exactly the man I was in want of; and so he went to
fetch him.
I paid five francs for our entertainment. I estimated its fair price
rather by the satisfaction it had given to myself, than by what it had
cost my hostess; that satisfaction was heightened at seeing how her old
weather-beaten, stove-dried features relaxed and brightened as she took
into her withered hand the little flake of gold, which perhaps was the
easiest earned payment she had ever received in her long hard life.
The balance between the services rendered and the value of them to
their recipient, having been thus adjusted to the contentment of both
parties, and the youth who was to accompany us over the Pass having
arrived, we recommenced our march at one o’clock. There was nothing
about him to indicate that he had been cradled in so rude a climate. He
was tall and slim, yet well and strongly built. His features were fine
and regular, and his complexion fair, almost to girlishness.
Before us was the long _cul de sac_ of the head of the valley. We
had to ascend the left mountain diagonally almost from Juf to the
visible summit, about two miles off. For the most part there was no
path at all, or our young guide could do better than following it. His
long, sure, smooth stride, as he glided up the slant of the mountain,
seemed like some new kind of pace; it was hardly walking. We found
it no easy task to keep up with him, which we only did, in Irish
style, by following him as well as we could. When we left Juf the sun
was bright, but as we ascended higher we saw a dark storm advancing
towards us from the direction of Cresta. It might not, however, reach
us; and for the present we had the sun, in the warmth of which even
the marmots were rejoicing, for we frequently heard the shrill cries
of their sentinels announcing the presence of an enemy, and saw those
that had taken the alarm scrambling back to their earths. When we
were approaching the summit, the diagonal direction of the ascent
ceased for a time, and we had for three or four hundred feet to go
straight up the mountain. This was the only bit of the Pass which at
all required attention to what we were about. It was something like
walking up one of the angles of the tower of York Minster, supposing
that angle to have become so dilapidated as to give from bottom to top
an almost perpendicular, irregular staircase. This is, I believe, what
is called in mountaineering phraseology an _arête_, that is the edge
of a mountain rib, or shoulder. Here the rib, or shoulder, was not far
from perpendicular, and could not be crossed. It had, therefore, to
be ascended, and its edge had been nicked into steps all the way up,
partly by nature, and partly by the pickaxe. As I was going up this
mountain staircase, and saw the storm below me, no great way off now, I
hoped it would not catch me upon it. In that case I thought there will
be some chance of my being blown off. We were, however, soon over this
bit, which also proved almost too high for the storm, for not much of
it reached up to where we were, about 1,700 feet above Juf.
This Pass presents a scene of solid, rugged desolation, of dreary
grandeur, as approached from the Juf side. The way to the summit
lies across one of the crateriform depressions, which are not
uncommon in such situations, between two mighty peaks, with torn and
shattered pinnacles. The whole scene is hereabouts so storm-beaten,
and frost-bitten, as to be apparently incapable of supporting even
a lichen. Everything on which the eye rests is in character--rocks
protruded, and rocks shivered, of a dull dark colour, pools of water
equally dark, and patches of new summer snow; the whole made more
forbidding to-day by icy gusts and pelting sleet.
And now that we have traversed the whole valley from the junction of
the Averser with the Hinter Rhein to the summit of the Pass, upon which
we are about to step, we are able to understand how its Oberland comes
to be the highest inhabited valley in Europe. But we will review the
whole of it. Our way up has been through three well defined stages. It
began with the Ferrerathal, the first stage. That is comparatively low
ground; in respect of altitude it has no special interest. It possesses
only the ordinary Swiss interest of being bounded by mountains more
or less rocky and precipitous, of maintaining forests more or less
shady and vigorous, interspersed at the mouths of lateral valleys
with small pieces of grass-land, which give space for the support of
their respective little villages. So, too, with the second stage from
Canicül to Campsut. The difference here is that the forest has become
far more damp and mossy, and the mountains, especially at the triple
watersmeet, more precipitous and iron-faced, and the stream more
impetuous, and that there is an entire absence of prairies, indeed
even of margin. From Campsut, the third stage, the particular of
inhabited altitude becomes interesting. This portion is divided into
two parts, that from Campsut to Cresta, and that from Cresta to Juf.
In the first the mountain ranges begin to recede from each other; and
as the forest has been made to confine itself to the rocky mountain
side, there is in the middle a good expanse of grass land, capable of
supporting many cattle. But as to the cultivation of anything else
we have now got too high for that. At Cresta, which is over against
the last trees, there is for about a mile a narrowing in again of the
valley. It then spreads out once more, and continues wide all the
way up to Juf. In this last part lies its chief interest, for under
ordinary Alpine conditions, though the grass might still be available
in summer, so elevated a valley would be unfit for human habitation.
What, then, is there here to counteract the ordinary conditions? The
answer is the height and direction of the ranges. They run from east
to west, closing in completely at the eastern end. The broad valley,
therefore, is thoroughly protected from the cold winds of the north and
east, completely open to the south, and no ray of sunlight with its
accompanying warmth is intercepted. Still, notwithstanding, there might
be a condition which would neutralize these advantages; for instance,
if the valley were closed with a glacier, or had glaciers from either
of the bounding ranges descending into it, the place would probably be
unfit for human residence. There is, however, nothing of the kind; the
head of the valley and the bounding ranges are not of such a height
as to support snowfields and their glaciers. It is, therefore, the
presence of the favourable conditions that have been mentioned, and
the absence of the unfavourable ones, which make the grassy expanse of
Oberland Aversthal the highest inhabited ground in Europe.
As you begin the descent of the Forcellina on its northern side you
come upon two or three pieces of old snow. Beneath these--it may be
about 700 feet from the summit--flowers suddenly become abundant; among
many others the charming little Alpine forget-me-not, a purple pansy
as large as a shilling, and a clear dark-blue little gentian. About
400 feet more of descent bring you to a grassy bottom--there are no
trees in sight--which is in reality the summit of the Septimer Pass
from Casaccia at the head of the Bregaglia to Stalla on the Julier.
In calculating the day’s work I had supposed that, as the books spoke
of the Septimer being a Pass on this route in the same sense as the
Forcellina, we should have had to descend so much from the Forcellina
as to have had to ascend somewhat on the Septimer. This expectation was
wholly unfounded: for to those who take it from the direction we did
every step upon it is downhill: to them it is only the descent of the
Forcellina. To those, however, who take it reversely and who are also
going on by Stalla to the Julier, and not by the Forcellina to Juf, it
is a Pass, and one with a stiff ascent of at least two hours.
The way to Casaccia was now along an old paved road, said to have
been constructed by the Romans. The pavement consists of blocks of
gneiss, and is generally in good preservation. On the summit it is
lost, either because it is now buried beneath the turf, or because
in this part of it its stones were taken up to build the hospice the
ruins of which you pass, and the wall that enclosed some space around
it. There are some places, in which you would have expected to find it
buried, or carried away by storm-torrents, but in which it is still in
good order, and much in the same state as I will not say its first,
because it is safer to say its last, constructors left it. For as we
are told that German as well as Roman Emperors used it for the transit
of their armies, we must infer that those who last used it for this
purpose repaired whatever damages time had done to it. I saw pieces of
it on the very edge of the stream, where it must sweep over it with
great force, but which were still quite uninjured. I was surprised at
its general width, as well as at the size of the stones with which
it is paved. I say general width, because there are some interesting
exceptions. These occur at points where the roadway could not have been
enlarged to its general width without cutting through a projecting
rock. That on a great military road the inconvenience--very great to
an army on the march--of these narrow places was submitted to shows
that it would have been very costly in old times to have cut away such
rocks; a work which a few handfuls of some explosive would now effect
in a morning. It also shows that if wheeled carriages were ever used on
this road their gauge must have been very small. Some five miles of the
old pavement still remain. I have seen very similar bits of Roman road
on Judæan hills. The sight of this drew from the circumnavigator the
sceptical remark, that it was a very good road (he meant too good an
one) for those times.
In descending this old historical, but now deserted route, on which
even a centrifugal tourist is seldom seen, I could not but think
of its older and better days. Those granite blocks, on which I was
treading, had felt the tramp of Roman armies marching, it might have
been, to the Danube, to secure that threatened frontier of the Empire
against barbarian aggression. The couriers who brought the intelligence
of victories from which much was hoped, and of disasters from which
much was feared, had traversed it with quicker steps than those with
which I was then descending it. At Rome, and in the cities and villas
of northern Italy, the despatches of which they were the bearers had
been anxiously looked for. After a time the mind’s eye could see hordes
of barbarians swarming down its steep pavement to plunder, and to
overthrow, the civilization, to aid in the protection of which it had
been constructed. Time had turned the tables.
But probably there had been an earlier, and unrecorded chapter in its
history. We know that there had been in almost prehistoric times an
Etruscan Dodecapolis established in the plain of the Po, and which
reached down to the Adriatic, an offset of the original Dodecapolis
between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian sea. The inhabitants of these
confederations of cities were the earliest known organizers of commerce
in Europe. That they were great in maritime commerce implies this, for
maritime commerce presupposes inland and overland trade. Now in those
times tin and copper must have been among the most coveted articles of
European commerce, because it was from a combination of them that the
best tools and weapons then procurable were formed; and there is a very
high degree of probability in favour of the supposition that Britain
was even in those early days the chief source for the indispensable
tin, and if of the tin, then almost necessarily of some of the copper
at that time so abundantly used; and as we can hardly suppose that
the way to Britain through the Pillars of Hercules was then used as
a highway of commerce, we are almost driven to the conclusion that
they were brought down to the shores of the Mediterranean by overland
carriage. Some of the traffic may have centred at some port on the Gulf
of Lyons, perhaps at the point which afterwards became Massilia, for
of course it was an inland trade that supported the maritime commerce
of Massilia, and made it rich and populous, and powerful. That part,
however, of the traffic, of which the Etruscan Dodecapolis of the plain
of the Po and of the Adriatic was the _entrepôt_, in all probability
came over the Julier and the Septimer. In thinking of those remote
times the necessity of the existence of a very considerable inland
traffic has been almost entirely lost sight of. This was far the most
potent agency then at work among the barbarians of Europe, precisely
in the same manner as ocean commerce is in these days of ours far the
most potent agency now at work over the whole world. We have many
indications of it in the trade in gold as well as in that of tin and
copper. These commodities were widely carried about, and very generally
dispersed. This active and continuous traffic implies the existence
of certain well-established, and regularly used routes. And all this
reached far back beyond any historical traditions. The traffic in the
bulky article of salt also must needs have been of equal antiquity.
That the inhabitants of northern and central Europe were tribes of
barbarians is no argument against the existence of these kinds of
traffic. They did exist. And as to the people who carried them on
being barbarians, whatever that might have amounted to, they were not
such savages as the negroes of central Africa now are; and we know
that they can appreciate the value of the ivory trade, and of that in
ostrich feathers, and gold dust, which commodities, under the guidance
of Arab, and Banian, and Nubian traders, they collect at stations and
marts in the interior, to be furthered to the coast, and thence to be
dispersed over the world. And this they did also in the time of the
Pharaohs, three and four thousand years ago, as we know from still
existing Egyptian sculptures and paintings. The ivory that was expended
in the decoration of the palace of Ahab and of the kings of Assyria
was doubtless procured from this source, and in this fashion. The
barbarians, then, of central Europe, aided and instructed by Etruscan
merchants, might, though perhaps we ought to use a stronger auxiliary,
and say must, have done the same by the tin, and perhaps the copper, of
Cornwall. And this way of the Septimer was in all probability the route
a part of their trade in these articles took. If so it cannot have been
but that Etruscan traders were in those times to be seen every year in
Britain. They had landed at Dover. They had trafficked at the British
_entrepôt_ of Londinium. They must have had some kind of establishment
there. They had not stopped there. They had gone on to the mines from
which the tin was extracted, and had looked out on the western ocean
from the Land’s End.
As I walked down the Septimer, constructing in my mind this chain of
inferences, I saw by my side the large-boned, sturdy Etruscan trader,
overlooking his party of barbarian porters, loaded with tin and copper,
and perhaps with some amber, which he had been twelve months, or more,
in collecting, and which he had paid for with the gold jewelry, in the
workmanship of which those Dodecapoleis were so skilful, and in later
times perhaps with iron knives, and daggers, and spear and arrow-heads.
Again this trade must have had established routes, and for the eastern
Dodecapolis the most likely route must have been the Julier and the
Septimer; and it must have had some organisers and managers, and it is
in these cities that we must look for them.
Commerce, then, first traced this road. Of course it must have had
some halting stations, and _depôts_, and these could only have been
at such places as Casaccia, Stalla, Molins, and Tiefenkasten. Some
of these, doubtless, were fortified, and made capable of maintaining
a small garrison against sudden attacks of barbarians, just like the
forts of our Hudson’s Bay Company. Then came its imperial days, when
it connected the capital and heart of the world with a threatened
frontier. But commerce has now taken other channels, and empire has
established itself in other seats, and the barbarians have become
the foremost nations of the world; and this road is only traversed
occasionally by a few northern travellers, descended from the
barbarians, or from the kindred of the barbarians, it was constructed
to keep back, but who now have no other object in traversing it than
to see deep valleys and lofty mountains. For many centuries change has
everywhere else been actively at work, but the poor herdsmen who dwelt
round about the Septimer remained in much the same condition as their
predecessors of the old imperial and commercial periods of its history.
Hitherto there had been little change for them. It was only yesterday
that they were as hard-pressed and as poor as their remote forefathers
had been. Their only resource was still their cows, and what little
their cows enabled them to get of the products of sunnier valleys,
and of the plains below. Human societies, however, are now entering
on a new phase of their long progress, the distinguishing features
of which are that culture is becoming accessible to all, even to the
children of these herdsmen; that mind can now find a station, and a
market anywhere; and that new avenues to obtaining the means of living
are being opened on all sides to all men, who have the capacity and the
will to enter upon them. And what is changing the rest of the world has
not been unfelt up here. Many now go out from these valleys into the
world, and after a time return with the proceeds of their labour and
thrift. And, too, the outside world having advanced to a point which
enables it to take an interest in the aspects which nature wears up
here, sends hither, yearly, many visitors. This also supplies means of
living to some. Life has, in consequence, become easy to many, and less
hard and narrow to all. And these advantages, which are far from being
altogether of a material kind, at all events they both rest on and lead
on to, what is moral and intellectual, are year by year being extended
to greater numbers.
As I walked down the single street of Casaccia the contrast it
presented in externals to Cresta and Juf was felt to be great indeed;
but when I entered the hotel the contrast between its interior and
those with which I had yesterday and this morning become acquainted
was felt to be greater still. To one coming from the mountains--it
seemed as if one had been sojourning among them for a long time--its
single reception room had an air even of amplitude and loftiness.
One noticed, as one might something that is not seen every day, that
chairs and sofas had taken the place of benches against the wall. Table
linen, too, had reappeared, for the table was ready spread as far as
the usual condiments and appliances go. This indicated the possibility
of such a supper as would require such aid. In this house--it is
often so with small inns in Italy, and Italian influences begin to be
felt at Casaccia--there was no attempt to shunt the kitchen out of
sight. Here it had to be passed through to reach the stone staircase
that led up to the bedrooms. The landings and passages were spacious
for the size of the house; and so in a still greater degree was the
bedroom into which I was shown. It had two windows; but, as they were
small and deep-recessed, they did not admit a sufficiency of light;
and the ceiling and panelling being of a dark coloured pine-wood,
this scanty allowance of light was not made the most of. There was
about the room, and its contents, a look of newness from disuse, or
rather of oldness kept new by disuse. It had three beds. These it was
evident were not frequently required, for the bed-clothes had been
put away beneath the mattresses; and the washing apparatus for the
possible occupants of the three beds was all arranged on one of the
deep-recessed window-sills, as if it was regarded rather as something
to be looked at than used. This also led me to infer that the windows
were seldom opened: an inference which was not contradicted by a kind
of solidity and ancientness in the atmosphere of the room. The lock
on the door was very un-Swiss, and very Italian. Everybody knows that
every lock on every door of every bedroom in every hotel in Switzerland
is a little plain black iron box applied to the surface of the door.
Here it was a highly elaborated specimen of the locksmith’s art: all
open iron-work, with a marvellously large and complicated key, and
an equally marvellous arrangement of bolts. For some little time I
despaired of being able to discover how the key was to be inserted, or
used; and feared that, if I should succeed in turning it, I might not
be able to turn it back again. Such a lock would not have been out of
place on the door of some floridly decorated old Chapter House, or of
the banqueting hall of some mediæval castle. The good man of the house
assured me that the room should be arranged for me immediately. It was
then five o’clock. It was, however, not till night had come down on
Casaccia that this immediate arrangement was taken in hand. On that
day, at all events, he was the only person who was in the house, and so
he had to obtain from outside the female hands that were needed for the
immediate arrangement. At last he impressed for this little service two
of his neighbours--I suppose to atone for the delay by showing that he
was ready to do all that was in his power, even more than was really
needed.
As to the good man himself; in his making, as in that of the lock,
there was nothing Swiss. He was altogether unlike the hardy sturdy
people I had been among lately. The loss of a few thousand feet of
altitude had made a great difference in the elements of the human
composition. His figure was tall, but not erect. His muscular tissue
was soft. His features were large without being coarse. His hair and
eyes were of a jet black, though in the latter there was none of that
twinkling rapidity of motion, which is characteristic of the children
of the south. His face was quite smooth. His complexion was the
bloodless and untinted, but not unhealthy, white of many Italian women,
and of some Italian men. He had none of the volubility of utterance,
or quickness of manner of the Italian. On the contrary; his voice
and manner were as smooth as his face. Smoothness, indeed, was his
pervading characteristic. His smile was smooth, but it was the smile of
manner, not of the heart, and indicated not pleasure, but the wish to
please, or rather to make, and keep, things smooth. His dress even was
smooth, and studiedly so. To him would have been intolerable anything
so rough as Swiss homespun. His step was inaudible as he glided in and
out of the room. What he did for you in placing things on the table,
or removing them, was done as it were by the shadow of a man. He would
have deemed it barbarous to have disturbed, he would have shrunk from
disturbing, you even with a sound. His business was to assist, and to
please. I had asked him what I could have for supper? He had replied
with the gentlest tone, with a forward inclination of his body, and
with a half smile, ‘Whatever I pleased.’ ‘Could I have mutton cutlets?’
‘Certainly.’ ‘In half an hour?’ ‘Certainly.’ In an hour and a half the
supper was placed noiselessly on the table. It was announced in the
form that the cutlets were served. They proved, however, to be of veal,
as doubtless he had foreknown that they would be; but it had seemed
to him harsh to tell a man that he could not have what he wanted. In
like manner it was now deemed unnecessary to call attention to any
deviation from what had been promised and expected; or to say a word
that might imply that anything could possibly be otherwise than as you
had wished. Did not his manner give you to understand that he had done
all, and would continue to do all, in his power to supply your wants,
and to contribute to your comfort? Everything was said and done so
smoothly, that it was impossible for you by an exhibition of surprise,
or of dissatisfaction to break the spell of smoothness that had been
cast over you. We affect bluntness, and even roughness, under the
supposition that they indicate honesty and independence of character.
The Italian--and this Casaccian was Italian in mind and manner--does
not value the exhibition of these qualities. He affects gentleness,
mildness, blandness both for their own sake, and because they are means
to his ends. This is his idea of civilization; and it is what we,
perhaps, may come to when our civilization shall have become as old as
his. Our manners may, then, have become more soft, more pliant, more
politic. The time may arrive when we too shall consider it uncivilized
to say or do what will produce needless mental jars. Our present ideas
may indicate that we are nearer than the Italians to the woods and
caves.