"_Jan. 2, 1868._--I have been out twice in the evening--to Mrs.
Ramsay to meet M. de Soveral, the ex-minister of Portugal, and his
wife and daughter, and to Mrs. Hall to meet the Erskines. Mrs. Hall
described a sermon she had lately heard at the Coliseum, the whole
object of which was the glorification of Mary Queen of Scots. It
was most painful, she said, describing how Elizabeth, who turned
only to her Bible, died a prey to indescribable torments of mind,
while Mary, clinging to her crucifix, died religiously and
devoutly.
"The Marchesa Serlupi has given a fearful account of the Albano
tragedy. The old Marchese had come to them greatly worn out with
his labours in attendance on the Pope during the canonisation,[363]
and he was seized with cholera almost at once. When the doctor
came, his hair was standing on end with horror. He said he had not
sat down for eighteen hours, hurrying from one to another. He said
the old Marchese had the cholera, and it was no use doing anything
for him, he would be dead in a few hours. The Marchesa thought he
had gone mad with fright, which in fact he had. When he was gone,
she gave remedies of her own to the old man, which subdued the
cholera at the time, but he sank afterwards from exhaustion.
During that time the dead all around them were being carried out:
the Appian Way was quite choked up by those who were in flight, and
people were dying among the tombs all along the wayside.
"As soon as the old Marchese was dead, the Serlupi family
determined to fly. As the Marchesa had been constantly nursing the
old man, she would not take her child with her, and sent him on
first in another carriage. When they got half way, a man came up to
them saying that the person who was with the child in the other
carriage was in the agonies of death, and they had to take the
child into their own carriage. At the half-way house they stopped
to inquire for a party of friends who had preceded them: five had
fled in the carriage, three were already dead! There was only one
remedy which was never known to fail: it was discovered by a
Capuchin monk, and is given in wine. It is not known what the
medicine is, and its effect entirely depends upon the exact
proportions being given. The Marchesa used to send dozens of wine
to the Capuchin, and then give it away impregnated with the
medicine to the poor people in Rome.
"To-day my darling has been rather better, and was able to drive
for an hour on the Pincio. Yesterday evening she prayed aloud for
herself most touchingly before both me and Lea, that God would look
upon her infirmities, that He would forgive her weakness, and
supply the insufficiency of her prayers. Her sweet pleading voice,
tremulous with weakness, went to our hearts, and her trembling
upturned look was inexpressibly affecting."
"_Feb. 4._--When we first came here, we were much attracted by
Francesca Bengivenga, a pleasant cordial woman who lets the
apartment above us, and who lived in a corner of it with her nice
respectable old mother. Lea went up to see them, and gave quite a
pretty description of the old woman sitting quietly in her room at
needlework, while the daughter bustled about.
"On January 9 we were startled by seeing a procession carrying the
Last Sacraments up our staircase, and on inquiry heard that it was
to a very old woman who was dying at the top of the house. Late in
the evening it occurred to Lea that the sick person at the top of
the house might perhaps be in want, and she went up to Francesca to
inquire if she could be of any use. Then, for the first time, we
heard that it had been Francesca's mother who had been ill, and
that she had died an hour after the priests had been. Francesca
herself was in most terrible anguish of grief, but obliged to
control herself, because only a few days before she had let her
apartment, and did not venture to tell her lodgers what had
occurred in the house. So whenever the bell rang, she had to dry
her tears by an effort, and appear as if nothing had happened. We
urged her to reveal the truth, which at length she did with a great
burst of sobs, and the tenants took it well. The next day at four
o'clock the old woman was carried away, and on the following
morning I pleased Francesca by attending at the _messa cantata_ in
S. Andrea delle Fratte.
"On January 10 Charlotte and Gina Leycester arrived. By way of
showing civilities to acquaintance, I have had several excursions
to the different hills, explaining the churches and vineyards with
the sights they contain. On the Aventine I had a very large--too
large a party. With the Erskines I went to San Salvatore in Lauro,
where the old convent is partially turned into a barrack, and was
filled with Papal Zouaves, who spoke a most unintelligible jargon
which turned out to be High Dutch. A very civil little officer,
however, took us into a grand old chapel opening out of the
cloisters, but now occupied as a soldiers' dormitory, and filled
with rows of beds, while groups of soldiers were sitting on the
altar-steps and on the altar itself, and had even piled their arms
and hung up their knapsacks on the splendid tomb of Pope Eugenius
IV., which was the principal object of our visit.[364] We went on
hence to the Vallicella, where we saw the home and relics of S.
Filippo Neri--his fine statue in the sacristy, his little cell with
its original furniture, his stick, his shoes, the crucifix he held
when he was dying, the coffin in which he lay in state, the
pictures which belonged to him, and the little inner chapel with
the altar at which he prayed, adorned with the original picture,
candlesticks, and ornaments.
"Another excursion has been to the Emporium, reached by an
unpleasant approach, the Via della Serpe behind the Marmorata, an
Immondezzajo half a mile long; but it is a fine mass of ruin, with
an old gothic loggia, in a beautiful vineyard full of rare and
curious marbles. Close by, on the bank of the Tiber, the ancient
port of the Marmorata is now being cleaned out.
"My dearest Mother continues very ailing and terribly weak, but I
am hopeful now (as the cold months are so far advanced), that we
may steer through the remainder of the winter, and that I may once
more have the blessing of taking her back to England restored to
health and power. Every Friday she has been seriously ill, but has
rallied afterwards. On Friday 17th, she was very ill, and I was too
anxious about her to rest at all during the night, but perpetually
flitted ghost-like in and out of her room. Last Friday again she
was, if anything, worse still, such a terrible cloud coming over
all her powers, with the most complete exhaustion. I scarcely left
her all day. When these sad days are over, life becomes quite
different, so heavy is the burden lifted off, and it is difficult
to realise all that they have been, the wearing anxiety as to what
is best to be done, the terribly desolate future seeming so near at
hand, all the after scenes presenting themselves so vividly, like
fever phantoms, to the imagination, and then sometimes the seeming
carried with my dearest one to the very gates of the unseen
world.... She is always patient, always self-forgetful, and her
obedience to her 'doctor,' as she calls me, is too touching, too
entirely confiding and childlike. Oh, if our unity is broken by
death, no one, _no one_ will ever realise what it has been. Come
what will, I can bless God for this winter, in which that union has
been without one tarnished moment, one passing difference, in which
my sweetest one has entirely leant upon me, and I have entirely
lived for her.
"_Feb. 9._--There is no improvement in my dearest Mother. If there
is a temporary rally, it is followed by a worse attack and intense
fits of exhaustion, and the effort of going up and down stairs
fatigues her so much that it is difficult to judge how far it is
wise to gratify her constant craving for air. On Tuesday, Lea and I
took her to the Monte Mario, and she sat in the carriage while we
got out and picked flowers in the Villa Mellini. That day she was
certainly better, and able to enjoy the drive to a certain degree,
and to admire the silver foam of the fountains of St. Peter's as we
passed them. I often think how doubly touching these and many other
beautiful sights may become to me, if I should be left here, when
she, with whom I have so often enjoyed them, has passed away from
us to the vision of other and more glorious scenes.
"It is in these other scenes, not _here_, that I often think my
darling's mind is already wandering. When she sits in her great
weakness, doing nothing, yet so quiet, and with her loving
beautiful smile ever on her revered countenance, it is surely of no
earthly scenes that my darling is thinking.
"In the night I am often seized with an irresistible longing to
know how she is, and then I steal quietly through the softly
opening doors into her room and watch her asleep by the light of
the night-lamp. Even then the face in its entire repose wears the
same sweet expression of childlike confidence and peace.
"I dined with Mrs. Robert Bruce one day, meeting Miss Monk and
Cavendish Taylor, and went with them afterwards to see the 'Grande
Duchesse de Gerolstein' acted. It was in a booth in the Piazza
Navona, such as is generally used for wild beasts at a fair, and
where one would expect an audience of the very lowest of the
people; but instead the place was crowded with the most _élite_ of
the Roman princes and their families. The acting was wonderful, and
the dresses and scenery very beautiful. It is said that the actors
are a single family, fourteen sons, three daughters, and their
cook!
"At the Shakspeare Woods' I met Miss Charlotte Cushman, the great
American tragic actress, who has been living here for some years.
She was the Mrs. Siddons of her time in America, and places were
taken weeks beforehand for the nights when she acted. She does a
great deal of good here and is intensely beloved. In appearance she
is much like Miss Boyle,[365] with white hair rolled back, and is
of most winning and gracious manners. I went to a party at her
house last night, and never saw anything more dignified and
graceful than her reception of her guests, or more charming than
her entertainment of them. She sang, but as she has little voice
left, it was rather dramatic representation than song, though most
beautiful and pathetic.
"The American Consul, Mr. Cushman, told me he had crossed the
Atlantic forty-seven times. The last time he returned was during
the cholera at Albano, and he described its horrors. A hundred and
fifty people died in the village on the first day, and were all
thrown immediately into a large pit by a regiment of Zouaves,
happily quartered there, and were tumbled in just as they happened
to fall. The next day, so many more died, that soldiers were sent
down into the pit to pack the bodies closer, so as to fit more in.
The bodies already in the pit were so entangled, that several arms
and legs were pulled off in the process. The Zouaves employed in
the work all died."
I often saw Miss Cushman afterwards, and greatly valued her friendship.
Hers was a noble and almost unique character, a benignant influence upon
all she came in contact with. Her youth had been a long struggle, but it
gave her a wonderful sympathy with young artists striving as she herself
had done, and for them her purse, her hand, and her heart were always
open. When she was only a "stock actress," the wife of the manager, who
played herself and was jealous of her talents, got her husband to give
her a very inferior part: it was that of Nancy Sykes in "Oliver Twist."
Miss Cushman saw through the motive, and determined to prepare herself
thoroughly. She disappeared. She went down to the worst part of the
town, and remained for four days amongst all the lowest women there,
till she understood them thoroughly and could imitate their
peculiarities to perfection. Her first appearance, when she strolled on
to the stage chewing a sprig of a tree, as they all do, took the house
by storm, and from that time it was at her feet. The play of "Guy
Mannering" was written to suit her in the part of Meg Merrilies. She
would take an hour and a half to get herself up for it, painting all the
veins on her arms, &c., and her success was wonderful.
She had been originally intended for an opera-singer, but, just when she
was to appear, she had a dangerous illness, and, when she recovered, her
voice was gone. But she wasted no time in regrets: she immediately
turned to being an actress. This power of making the best of whatever
_was_, formed one of the grandest traits of her character.
She died of what, to many, is the most terrible of all diseases. She
insisted on an operation; but when she went to have it repeated, the
great surgeons told her it was no use, and advised her to devote her
remaining life to whatever would most take her out of herself and make
her forget her pain. Then she, who had left the stage so long, went back
to it as Meg Merrilies again and had all her old triumphs. And the last
time she appeared, when she, as it were, took leave of the stage for
ever, she repeated the words "I shall haunt this old glen," &c., in a
way which sent a cold shiver down the backs of all who heard them.
Miss Stebbings' interesting Life of Miss Cushman is inadequate. It
dwells too much on the successful part. What were really interesting,
and also useful to those beginning life, would have been the true story
of the struggles of her youth, and how her noble nature overcame them.