parishioners’ bodies than in saving their souls. He tells of being
called to administer the last sacrament to a dying man. The moment he
saw him he threw away book and candle, called for a pail of water and a
linen sheet, put the patient in a wet pack, and saved his life. For many
years the _Pfarrer_ only practised among his peasant neighbors.
Gradually his fame spread to the surrounding villages, to the city of
Munich, to other cities. People began to flock to Woerishoven from all
over Germany, France, Europe, America, till finally this obscure
Bavarian hamlet has become one of the world’s great Meccas of health.
The only person who makes any effort for society is an Austrian
countess, a great court lady. She has taken a tiny cottage, brought her
own cook, maid, and butler from Vienna, and tries to give “at homes.” I
heard some good music at her rooms the other day. Somehow she had
managed to draw together half a dozen people of the sort that can make
“society” in the prison of La Jacquerie, on an ocean steamer, or even at
a German cure,--an Austrian officer, an English diplomat, a French abbé,
my Polish count, and the musician, who is a real artist. We walked with
the gods for that hour; the pianist gave us whatever we asked
for--Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Grieg. It was a _Kaffee-klatsch_
without the coffee (all stimulants are forbidden, even tea and coffee);
the butler handed--scornfully, I thought--milk and grapes. The party
broke up rather hurriedly at sunset, everybody rushing away to get their
_Wassertreten_ before dark. Water treading is to wade up to one’s knees
in one of the streams which run through the fields. Very pleasant, very
comic--fortunately, there is a male stream and a female stream; such
chippendales! such piano legs have I seen! It is all so strange, so
_echt deutsch_! The countess does not harmonize with the rest, she is
out of key. I meet her at seven o’clock in the morning, her feet, head,
neck, and arms bare, strolling over the wet grass, a lovely, incongruous
vision; her hair dressed and “_ondulée_” in the latest fashion; her
parasol, rose-colored satin. Now, a rose-colored satin parasol at
Woerishoven is a false note in a pastoral symphony. She worships Father
Kneipp; they all say she owes him her life; he cannot endure her, has
attacked her almost openly in his talks; he will not tolerate folly,
vanity, or worldliness; she personifies--oh, so charmingly--all three!
She wears the prescribed dress of coarse Kneipp linen with such a
difference; the other women look like meal-sacks; she has the lines of a
Greek goddess.
In the early morning all the patients walk barefoot through the wet
grass. Those who have been here longest go without shoes and stockings
all day. I am told it is delightful to walk bare foot in the new-fallen
snow. Women’s skirts reach only to the ankles; men wear knickerbockers.
The only foot-gear allowed at Woerishoven is the leather sandal,
classic and comfortable. Newcomers begin by wearing the sandal over the
stocking, then the stocking is left off for half an hour--an
hour--finally for the whole day. An hour and a half after breakfast and
dinner a cold douche is taken. The _blitzguss_ (lightning douche) is for
people who have been taking the cure for some time, the _rumpf_ (body)
douche is commonly prescribed for new arrivals. At the ladies’ bath
attached to this hotel a rosy _mädchen_ plays the hose upon the patient
with skill and firmness. That ordeal over, the dripping victim scrambles
hastily into her clothes--drying and rubbing are forbidden--and
exercises vigorously until she is perfectly dry and warm. The
exhilaration which follows is indescribable. In the exercise-room
attached to the largest bath, I have seen a bishop capering, a princess
sawing wood, a fat American millionaire pirouetting with a balancing
pole. No one laughs; it is too grave a matter. You dance or prance, box,
saw wood, or do calisthenics for your life--anything to get up the
circulation!
Bavaria is enchanting, Bavarians are delightful, not at all like other
Germans, more like the Tyrolese,--simple, kind, deeply religious. I
cannot imagine becoming a “convert” in Rome, but here it would be
easier. Why should the people of Catholic countries have better manners
than those of Protestant lands? I know you will bring up some old saw
about sincerity and truth not always being compatible with suavity! We
can’t be _all_ right and they _all_ wrong, “and yet and yet” it is known
that the Pope keeps his own private account at the Bank of Protestant
England! Does this mean that he, like the Italians I meet every day, is
readier to trust an Englishman or an American than his own countrymen?
I keep thinking of him, my neighbor in Rome, the Prisoner of the
Vatican, shut up between the walls of his vast garden through all the
long summer. I used to look at his windows and wonder if he felt the
heat as much as I did in those last August days before we came away on
our _villeggiatura_. No _villeggiatura_ for him, he is still there! The
“Black Pope” (as the power of the Jesuit is called) is his gaoler,--not
good King Humbert, as you may have been led to suppose,--but a prison is
a prison, whoever the gaoler may be.
I am learning all I can about the German Kaiser. I am inclined to think
he plays the strongest game at the European card-table. The Bavarians I
have talked with seem rather bored by him; they compare him unfavorably
with poor, dear, mad King Ludwig and his father, great art patrons,
both.
The Prussians think their Kaiser the greatest man on earth. I gather
from one of their number that the court people are harried by him beyond
belief; he is forever interfering with their private affairs. A young
officer with an English wife and English tastes set up a tandem in
Berlin last winter. He received a message from the Emperor requesting
him not to drive one horse before the other! How can they bear it? When
we first arrived the Kaiser had lately been at Rome and people were
still telling stories of him. The Italians are not over-fond of his
visits; he costs a great deal to entertain and is too much given to
dropping in to tea! He stayed at the Quirinal Palace, the guest of the
King. As such, etiquette forbade his visiting the Pope. You don’t
suppose he let a little thing like that interfere! On a certain day the
German Ambassador to the Vatican (you understand there are two
Ambassadors, don’t you, one to the King, one to the Pope?) received
notice that the Emperor was to be his guest for the morrow. The
Ambassador, a bachelor of simple tastes, prepared for the imperial visit
as best he could. The Emperor arrived with a portmanteau, made one of
his lightning changes, and came down to breakfast. The breakfast-table
was a bright spot, a friend having lent a fine service of silver and
some wonderful Venetian glass. When the Kaiser saw the display he cried
out, “Mein Gott, A----, where did you steal all these?” Rather nice,
wasn’t it? After they had “eated and drinked,” as your children say, a
carriage, come all the way from Berlin, with horses, harnesses, and
servants to match, drove up to the door and carried the Emperor off to
call on the Pope! It would not have been etiquette to use the Italian
royal carriage to pay the papal visit!
Prince Doria’s ball for the Kaiser at the splendid Palazzo Doria--one of
the finest of the Roman palaces--must have been gorgeous; the picture
gallery was a blaze of glory,--you remember there the great Velasquez
portrait of Pope Innocent X.?--all the jewels in Rome were present
except the emeralds of the Pope’s tiara. When he went away the Kaiser
said to Prince Doria,--
“We shall be very glad to see you and the Princess at Potsdam, but we
cannot show you anything like this.” Handsome of him, wasn’t it?
When the Kaiser went sightseeing to St. Peter’s he admired my fountains.
Well he might! After watching them leap and play for some time he said,
“Turn them off now; it’s a pity to waste so much water.” Thrifty, eh?
Turn off Carlo Maderno’s tireless fountains, which have danced in the
sun and shimmered in the moon nigh three hundred years!
III
A VISIT TO QUEEN MARGARET
PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, December 7, 1894.
Yesterday was _sirocco_. In consequence the house was full of fine sand
blown up from the African desert and everybody was out of humor; it is
curious how this soft wind sets people’s nerves on edge. In spite of
_sirocco_, I saw the King and Queen going to open Parliament. The King,
Prince of Naples, and two officers were in the first crystal and gilt
coach, the Queen her mother the Duchess of Genoa, and a gentleman of the
court in the next. The horses, trappings, coachmen, and footmen were
magnificent. There were three servants to each of the six royal
carriages--one on the box, two standing behind. They wore scarlet coats,
white wigs, three-cornered hats, and pink silk stockings. The King and
the Prince were in uniform, the Queen and her mother in the latest
French fashion. Little Gwennie Story (the granddaughter of our dear old
friends the William Storys) was dreadfully disappointed when she found
that the Queen did not always wear a crown. I sympathize with her. I
had a place in the loggia of the Palazzo Montecitorio--where Parliament
meets--and saw the royalties step out of their carriages and enter the
palace.
January 21, 1895.
Yesterday I went to the annual memorial mass for Victor Emmanuel at the
Pantheon. The noble old temple--the only one of the Roman buildings
which has been in continuous use since it was erected in the first
century--was hung with black and cloth of gold. A huge catafalque stood
in the middle, directly under the open dome; the whole interior was
lighted by classic torches, urns, and tripods holding blue fire. A
tribune had been constructed for the orchestra and singers. The music, a
mass of Cherubini’s, was very fine. The catafalque was surrounded by a
double line of men who stood facing one another through the long
service. The men of the outer circle were soldiers of the King, the men
of the inner ring were priests of the Church, for Victor Emmanuel was a
good Catholic and died in the faith.
I was in Rome for the first time in 1878, the last winter of his life. I
often saw him driving on the Pincio or in the Corso. He was an
extraordinary-looking man, fierce, powerful, bizarre, every inch a king;
loved and hated accordingly. I remember the intense excitement when the
two old enemies, Pius the Ninth and Victor Emmanuel, both lay dying in
the city for which they had fought. Would the King be permitted to
receive the sacrament? When it was known that the Pope on his death-bed
had sent his blessing to the King _in extremis_ all Rome drew a long
breath. We went to see _Il Re Galantuomo_ lying in state in the _capella
ardente_ at the Quirinal. He was dressed in full uniform with high
riding-boots, the royal robe of red velvet and ermine was spread over
the inclined plane on which he lay, the crown and sceptre at his feet.
The chapel blazed with candles; in each of the four corners knelt a
brown Capuchin monk telling his beads. Signor Simone Peruzzi,
chamberlain to the King, watched one night beside the body. He was alone
for the moment when he heard a deep sigh, saw the King’s breast heave.
The matter was explained by the physicians afterwards. I remember to
this day the thrill in Peruzzi’s voice when he spoke of the dead King’s
sigh.
March 10, 1895.
Mrs. Potter Palmer and I have had a private audience with the Queen. The
visit went off very well. We arrived at the Quirinal Palace at two
o’clock, and were received by the Marchesa Villamarina and two other
court ladies, with whom we talked for perhaps ten minutes. A tiny old
woman dressed in mourning, looking like the Fairy Blackstick, came out
from her audience just as we entered the Queen’s reception-room for
ours. She must have been a privileged person, for we had been warned not
to wear black and not to wear hats, bonnets being _de rigueur_. As I do
not own a bonnet, Mrs. Palmer kindly lent me a charming one, fresh from
Paris--a few days later, when she was received by the Pope, she wore my
Spanish mantilla. The Queen, who was seated on a sofa, rose as we
entered and shook hands cordially with us. She is still beautiful, her
hair magnificent, her eyes kind and keen. When you visit royalty you
must only speak when you are spoken to; the choice of the topic of
conversation thus remains with the royal personage. You must always say
“your Majesty,” and you must make three reverences on entering and
leaving the presence. In all this, I was tutored by Marion Crawford, who
has often been “received,” and whose books the Queen is said to read
with pleasure. She speaks English perfectly, by the way. She had seen an
article in a late magazine--_The Century_, I think--on American country
houses; she spoke of those at Newport, and said that, “judging from the
illustrations, they must be very fine.” She showed us a grand piano at
the end of the room, saying that it was an American instrument, a
Steinway, and that “it had a very brilliant action.” With Mrs. Palmer
the Queen spoke of the World’s Fair. Mr. MacVeagh had presented her with
a copy of the book I edited on the Woman’s Department of the Chicago
Exposition. The audience lasted about twenty minutes; then the Queen
rose, the signal for us to withdraw. We made our three courtesies and
backed successfully from the room. The Queen is much beloved; she has
real charm, besides being good and clever.
Yesterday I went to Mr. William Story’s studio. The garden is lovelier
than ever, the climbing vines that mask the dead wall make a rustling
screen of cool green in which the birds build their nests. I waited in
the studio among the statues--most of them old friends of mine--and
found my particular tassel on the fringed robe of the marble
Sardanapalus. One day, seventeen years ago, when Mr. Story was working
on the clay, he let me take his modelling tool and add a few touches to
the fringe. I have seen a copy of this statue in Lord Battersea’s fine
house in London opposite the Marble Arch of Hyde Park. When Mr. Story
came in--much as you remember him, the same graceful, brilliant talker,
only with a new pensive note since his wife’s death--we talked of the
old days at Dieppe, of the meetings in the studio there, when he and my
mother read aloud from the books they were writing, and Mrs. Story gave
us tea and read us Mallock’s “New Republic,” published that year; it
must have been the summer of 1878. Mr. Story remembered the mornings on
the _plage_ when we sat on the warm sea sand under big red umbrellas
watching “the boys” tumbling in the surf, and mamma’s calling Waldo “the
amber god,” and Julian “a young leopard,” as he swam and dove through
the waves like a merman. I reminded him of the little poem he wrote in
our autograph book, and showed him the locket Mrs. Story gave me with a
picture of herself and Pippa, the funny little pug dog she took with
her wherever she went. We both remembered how Pippa behaved the day they
left Dieppe when she saw the handbag in which she always travelled. She
bit and scratched the bag, whined and generally remonstrated. Once
inside the satchel, however, she was perfectly quiet and never betrayed
her presence by barking _en route_.
Mr. Story showed me the monument he is modelling for Mrs. Story’s
grave--a kneeling figure of an angel leaning over a classic altar. The
face, every line of the figure, every finger of the hand, each feather
of the drooping wings seems to weep. He calls it the Genius of Grief.
This last expression of a great life love gripped me by the heart. It is
to be placed in the Protestant cemetery here (where lovely Jennie
Crawford is buried) not far from the corner where the ashes of Shelley
were interred, and near the tombstone of Keats with its familiar
inscription,--
“Here lies one whose name is writ in water.”
ST. AGNELLO DI SORRENTO, March 18, 1895.
Last Monday we left Rome in a rain-storm and came here to break up a
pair of obstinate colds. We are delightfully established at the
Cocumella, an old Jesuit monastery turned into a hotel. There is less of
what Hawthorne calls the odor of sanctity--a peculiar mildewed smell the
monks leave behind them--than is usual in such places. Our windows
command an astonishing view of the Bay of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius. To
the right, about a quarter of a mile away, is Villa Crawford, where we
are most kindly welcomed by the ladies; the man of the house is away.
The children are charming; the villa ideal; it stands on the edge of a
high cliff leaning over the sea. The grounds, filled with flowers and
fruit-trees, are seamed with quaintly paved walks. On the left of the
house is a terrace, where they dine in summer. Here a flaming heart in
gray and white paving-stones took my fancy. The house is large and
luxurious; there are roses everywhere inside and out.
To-day is Palm Sunday. The chambermaid who brings my morning coffee
brought me a bit of olive-branch, instead of palm, from early service.
Later we went to high mass at the cathedral in Sorrento. The procession
was headed by the bishop, his acolytes, and some smart young canons in
rose-colored satin capes. After the mass the procession marched through
the town, led by a group of bronzed fishermen and boys dressed in white
robes, with bright blue _moiré_ capes, and loose oriental white hoods
over their heads. They all carried yellow palm branches in their hands.
It was the most perfect contrast of color imaginable.
Yesterday I saw the nets hauled in. The men and women, old and young,
form a line upon the beach, take hold upon the rope, and with a
graceful, swinging motion pull in the seine inch by inch, as they did in
the days of St. Peter. The Sorrentines are a handsome and seem a kindly
people; there are comparatively few beggars here.
Throughout the _Piano di Sorrento_ thousands of men and women are
employed in the manufacture of silk stockings, scarfs, carved and inlaid
wood, coral ornaments, tortoise-shell combs, and jewelry. I dare not
enter a shop for fear of temptation. The Italian spoken is far
pleasanter than the nasal Neapolitan; the chief peculiarity is the
dropping of the final vowel. Maria, the dark-eyed chambermaid, asks if
she shall make the _lett_, for _letto_ (bed), and speaks of Sorrent,
_doman_, and _Sabad_, meaning Sorrento, _domani_ (to-morrow), and
_Sabato_ (Saturday).
The trees in the garden are laden with oranges and lemons, the feast of
the roses is beginning, the birds are singing. The service of the hotel
is excellent, the table quite good enough, our room has a fireplace and
afternoon sun; for all this, food and wine included, we pay six
francs--one dollar and twenty cents--a day, with permission to roam in
the garden and pick as many oranges and roses as we like. I am reminded
of Hugh Norman’s saying, “When I have only a dollar and a half a day
left to live on, I shall retire to the Cocumella and pass the rest of my
life there.” We have _uva secca_ for luncheon, grapes dipped in wine and
spices, rolled up with bits of citron in grape-leaves, tied in little
bundles, and roasted. They may be kept half the year, and are among the
dainties of the world. The miniature Italian count who married Mrs. Tom
Thumb, _veuve_, said when he came to take tea at our house, “_In Italia
si mangia bene_ (In Italy one eats well).” He was right; we hear less
about Italian than about French cookery, but it is quite as good--the
range of dishes is wider and shows more imagination. There is a great
deal about cooking in my letters; so there is in life. Fire, cookery,
and civilization seem to be inseparable. Speaking of fire, the women
about here say that Vesuvius, across the bay there, sets a bad example
smoking his eternal pipe. The men sit watching him, presently they
imitate him, and try and see how big a cloud of smoke they can make.
Vesuvius dominates the whole landscape. He finally got the better of us,
drew us like a magnet; so, finding that the ascent can be made from here
as well as anywhere, we gave a day to it. The road, an ascending spiral,
embraces the great black mountain like the coils of a serpent. At first
it leads through pleasant vineyards; when these are left behind the
dreadful lava fields begin. The weird forms of the petrified rivers of
lava, once red and molten, now grim and black, suggest human bodies
writhing in the clutch of horrid monsters. Here a huge trunk madly
wrenches itself from the toils, there a vast body lies supine and
agonized, the last resistance passed. When we left our carriage at the
foot of the funicular railway, I felt I had passed through several
circles of the Inferno. Dante must have received many of the impressions
he transmits to us from Vesuvius. At the summit, when I looked down into
the crater, at the slippery, slimy sides, with their velvet bloom of
sulphur, I saw where the fathers of the Church and the early painters,
Fra Angelico among them, got their ideas of hell. Marcus Aurelius, my
guide, bibulous, muscular, with a grip of iron, found a point from
which, when the wind lifted the veil of thick white smoke, I could, by
leaning well over the crater, see the flood at the bottom surge, seethe,
toss up from its depth big, red-hot stones, which dropped back again
while the mountain roared and scolded. It was an awesome day. Vesuvius
has given me not only a new understanding of the poetry and religion of
Italy, but of the volcanic Italian character, which it surely has had a
share in forming. On our way down we ran over a soldier, the front wheel
of our carriage passing across his leg. As we were three people in the
carriage, it must have hurt him, but he got up and walked nimbly off,
cursing us vehemently. I wish the Abyssinians might find the Italian
soldiers equally invincible in Africa.
ST. AGNELLO DI SORRENTO, Easter Sunday, 1895.
I find the services of Holy Week more impressive here than in Rome.
Thursday afternoon, on a lonely road by the sea, we heard a strange,
primitive chanting,--the music might have been Palestrina’s,--and came
suddenly upon a procession led by children carrying the usual emblems of
the Passion, and some I have never seen before. The story of the
betrayal and the crucifixion was told by symbols, the basin of Pilate,
the cock and sword of Peter, the bag of Judas, the scourge, the pillar,
the spear, the sponge, the cross, the hammer and nails, the crown of
thorns, and the winding-sheet. The washing of the apostles’ feet at the
cathedral Holy Thursday was really moving. A dozen poor old fishermen,
scrubbed as clean as possible, represented the twelve; they were each
rewarded by a loaf of bread and a franc at the end of the service. Early
Good Friday morning, before the sun was up, a band of peasants passed
through the town bearing a life-sized image of the Madonna dressed all
in white, going out to look for her son. After sundown they returned,
bringing back the mother from her search, clad in mourning robes. She
had found her son; behind her the figure of the dead Christ was carried
on a bier. The people stood gravely watching the bearers as they passed
through the dark, torch-lit streets. On Saturday, as we were driving, a
cannon sounded at twelve o’clock in token of the resurrection. Our
driver threw himself from the cab and, touching his head to the ground
three times, remained kneeling long enough to repeat several _aves_.
PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, March 27, 1895.
We were glad to get back to Rome, and to the terrace, where the
wall-flowers are out, and daffodils, pansies, primroses, forget-me-nots,
and lilies-of-the-valley. Two large lilac-bushes and three spiræa will
be in bloom by Sunday. There is snow on the Leonessa; it is a trifle
chilly up here on the terrace where I write, but it is near “peaks and
stars” and very near peace. I weed the flowers, and collect the snails
that prey upon our pansies and threaten our roses. The awful gardens
where Nero’s living torches flamed lay just below my windows, where the
Piazza of St. Peter’s is now. Soracte, the Leonessa, with all the rest
of the purple Alban hills, looked down on that sight as calmly as they
look on my lilies and me. There is no place in the world where one feels
so small as in Rome. The sunflowers come up, each with his little burst
shell of seed on his head, which he soon throws away; so the lesson of
the new life springing from the old is studied in the shadow of Angelo’s
dome. The great church greeted me like a friend. Tourists criticise the
architecture: I do not deny faults, I only do not see them.