SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE
In June, 1850, after a seven years' residence in and near Boston, during
which I labored at study and literary composition, I enjoyed an interval
of rest and recreation in Europe. With me went Dr. Howe and our two
youngest children, one of them an infant in arms. We passed some weeks
in London, and went thence to renew our acquaintance with the
Nightingale family, at their summer residence in Derbyshire. Florence
Nightingale had been traveling in Egypt, and was still abroad. Her
sister, Parthenope, read us some of her letters, which, as may be
imagined, were full of interest.
Florence and her companions, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, had made some
stay in Rome, on their way to Egypt. Margaret Fuller called one day at
their lodgings. Florence herself opened the door, and said to the
visitor, "Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge are not at home." Margaret replied,
"My visit is intended for Miss Florence Nightingale;" and she was
admitted to a tete-a-tete of which one would be glad to know something.
It was during this visit that I learned the sad news of Margaret's
shipwreck and death.
Dr. Howe, with all his energy of body and of mind, was somewhat of a
valetudinarian. The traces of a severe malarial fever, contracted by him
in the Greek campaign of his youth, went with him through life. He was
subject to frightful headaches, and these and other ailments caused him
to take great interest in theories of hygiene, and among these in the
then new system of hydropathy, as formulated by Priessnitz. At the time
now spoken of he arranged to pass a period at Boppard on the Rhine,
where a water-cure had recently been established. He became an outside
patient of this institution, and seemed to enjoy thoroughly the routine
of bathing, douching, packing, etc. Beyond the limits of the water-cure
the little town presented few features of interest. Wandering about its
purlieus one day, I came upon a sort of open cave or recess in the rocks
in which I found two rude cradles, each occupied by a silent and stolid
baby. Presently two rough-looking women, who had been carrying stones
from the riverside, came in from their work. The little ones now broke
out into dismal wailing. "Why do they cry so?" I asked. "They ought to
be glad to see you." "Oh, madam, they cry because they know how soon we
must leave them again."
Tom Appleton disposed of the water-cure theory in the following fashion:
"Water-cure? Oh yes, very fine. Priessnitz forgot one day to wash his
face, and so he died."
My husband's leave of absence was for six months only, and we parted
company at Heidelberg; he to turn his face homewards, I to proceed with
my two sisters to Rome, where it had been arranged that I should pass
the winter.
Our party occupied two thirds of the diligence in which we made a part
of the journey. My sister L. had with her two little daughters, my
youngest sister had one. These, with my two babies and the respective
nurses, filled the _rotonde_ of the vehicle. The three mammas occupied
the _coupe_, while my brother-in-law, Thomas Crawford, took refuge in
the _banquette_. The custom-house officer at one place approached with
his lantern, to ascertain the contents of the diligence. Looking into
the _rotonde_, he remarked, "Baby baggage," and inquired no further.
Dr. Howe had charged me to provide myself with a watch when I should
pass through Geneva, and had given me the address of a friend who, he
said, would advise me where best to make the purchase. Following his
instructions, I wrote Dr. G. a letter in my best French; and he, calling
at our hotel, expressed his surprise at finding that I was not a
Frenchwoman. He found us all at breakfast, and, after the first
compliments, began a voluble tirade in favor of the use of emetics,
which was scarcely in place at the moment. From this he went on to speak
of the management of children.
"When my son was born," he said, "and showed the first symptoms of
hunger, I would not allow him to be fed. If his cries had met with an
immediate response he would have said to himself, 'I have a servant.' I
made him wait for his food until he was obliged to say, 'I have a
master.'" I thought of my own dear nurslings and shook my head. Learning
that Mr. Crawford was a sculptor, he said, "I, too, in my youth desired
to exercise that art, and modeled a bust, in which I made concave the
muscle which should have been convex. A friend recommended to me the
study of anatomy, and following it I became a physician."
We reached Rome late in October. A comfortable apartment was found for
me in the street named Capo le Case. A donkey brought my winter's supply
of firewood, and I made haste to hire a grand piano. The artist Edward
Freeman occupied the suite of rooms above my own. In the apartment
below, Mrs. David Dudley Field and her children were settled for the
winter. Our little colony was very harmonious. When Mrs. Field
entertained company, she was wont to borrow my large lamp; when I
received, she lent me her teacups. Mrs. Freeman, on the floor above, was
a most friendly little person, partly Italian by birth, but wholly
English in education. She willingly became the companion and guide of my
walks about Rome, which were long and many.
I had begun the study of Hebrew in America, and was glad to find a
learned rabbi from the Ghetto who was willing to give me lessons for a
moderate compensation.
My sister, Mrs. Crawford, was at that time established at Villa Negroni,
an old-time papal residence. This was surrounded by extensive gardens,
and within the inclosure were an artificial fish pond and a lodge which
my brother-in-law converted into a studio. My days in Rome passed very
quietly. The time, which flew by rapidly, was divided between study
within doors, the care and companionship of my little children, and the
exploration of the wonderful old city. I dined regularly at two o'clock,
having with me at table my little son and my baby secured in her high
chair. I shared with my sisters the few dissipations of the season,--an
occasional ball, a box at the opera, a drive on the Campagna. On Sunday
mornings my youngest sister usually came to breakfast with me, and
afterward accompanied me to the Ara Coeli Church, where a military mass
was celebrated, the music being supplied by the band of a French
regiment. The time, I need scarcely say, was that of the early years of
the French occupation of the city, to which France made it her boast
that she had brought back the Pope.
As I chronicle these small personal adventures of mine, I am constrained
to blush at their insufficiency. I write as if I had forgotten the
wonderful series of events which had come to pass between my first visit
to Rome and this second tarrying within its walls. In the interval, the
days of 1848 had come and gone. France had dismissed her citizen king,
and had established a republic in place of the monarchy. The Pope of
Rome, for centuries the representative and upholder of absolute rule,
had stood before the world as the head of the Christianity which
liberalizes both institutions and ideas. In Germany the party of
progress was triumphant. Europe had trembled with the birth-pangs of
freedom. A new and glorious confederacy of states seemed to be promised
in the near future. The tyrannies of the earth were surely about to meet
their doom.
My own dear eldest son was given to me in the spring of this terrible
and splendid year of 1848. When his father wrote "_Dieu donne_" under
the boy's name in the family Bible, he added to the welcome record the
new device, "_Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite_." The first Napoleon had
overthrown rulers and dynasties. A greater power than his now came upon
the stage,--the power of individual conviction backed by popular
enthusiasm.
My husband, who had fought for Greek freedom in his youth, who had
risked and suffered imprisonment in behalf of Poland in his early
manhood, and who had devoted his mature life to the service of humanity,
welcomed the new state of things with all the enthusiasm of his generous
nature. To him, as to many, the final emancipation and unification of
the human race, the millennium of universal peace and good-will, seemed
near at hand. Alas! the great promise brought only a greater failure.
The time for its fulfillment had not yet arrived. Freedom could not be
attained by striking an attitude, nor secured by the issuing of a
document. The prophet could see the plan of the new Jerusalem coming
down from heaven, but the fact remained that the city of God must be
built by patient day's work. Such builders Europe could not bring to the
front. The Pope retreated before the logical sequence of his own
initiative. France elected for her chief a born despot of the meaner
order, whose first act was to overthrow the Roman Republic. Germany had
dreamed of freedom, but had not dreamed of the way to secure it.
Reaction everywhere asserted itself. The light of the great hope died
down.
Coming to Rome while these events were still fresh in men's minds, I
could see no trace of them in the popular life. The waters were still as
death; the wrecks did not appear above the surface. I met occasionally
Italians who could talk calmly of what had happened. Of such an one I
asked, "Why did Pio Nono so suddenly forsake his liberal policy?" "Oh,
the Pope was a puppet moved from without. He never rightly understood
the import of his first departure. When the natural result of this came
about, he fled from it in terror." These things were spoken of only in
the secrecy of very private interviews. In general intercourse they were
not mentioned. Now and then, a servant, lamenting the dearness of
necessaries, the paper money, etc., would say, "And this has been
brought about by blessed [_benedetto_] Pio Nono!" People of higher
condition eulogized thus the pontiff's predecessor: "Gregorio was at
least a man of decided views. He knew what he wanted and how to obtain
it." Once only, in a village not far distant from Rome, I heard an
Italian peasant woman say to a prince, "We [her family] are
Republicans." Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, Garibaldi, your time was not yet
come.
The French were not beloved in Rome. I was told that the mass of the
people would not endure the license of their conquerors in the matter of
sex, and that assassinations in consequence were frequent. In high
society it was said that a French officer had endeavored to compel one
of the Roman princes to invite to his ball a lady of doubtful
reputation, by threatening to send a challenge in case of refusal. The
invitation was nevertheless withheld, and the challenge, if sent, was
never accepted. In the English and American circles which I frequented,
I sometimes felt called upon to fight for the claim of Italy to freedom
and self-government. At a dinner party, at which the altercation had
been rather lively, I was invited to entertain the company with some
music. Seating myself at the piano, I made it ring out the Marseillaise
with a will. But I was myself too much disconcerted by the recent
failure to find in my thoughts any promise of better things. My friends
said, "The Italians are not fit for self-government." I may ask fifty
years later, "Who is?"
The progress of ideas is not indeed always visible to superficial
observers. I was engaged one day in making a small purchase at a shop,
when the proprietor leaned across the counter and asked, almost in a
whisper, for the loan of a Bible. He had heard of the book, he said, and
wished very much to see a copy of it. Our _charge d'affaires_, Mr. Cass,
mentioned to me the fact that an entire edition of Deodati's Italian
translation of the New Testament had recently been seized and burned by
order of the papal government.
But to return to matters purely personal. As the Christmas of 1850 drew
near, my sister L., ever intent on hospitality, determined to have a
party and a Christmas tree at Villa Negroni. This last was then a
novelty unheard of in Rome. I was to dine with her, and had offered to
furnish the music for an informal dance.
On Christmas Eve I went with a party of friends to the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore, where the Pope, according to the custom of those days,
was to appear in state, bearing in his arms the cradle supposed to be
that of the infant Jesus, which was usually kept at St. Peter's. We were
a little late in starting, and were soon obliged to retire from the
highway, as the whole papal _cortege_ came sweeping by,--the state
coaches of crimson and gold, and the _Guardia Nobile_ with their
glittering helmets, white cloaks, and high boots. Their course was
illuminated by pans of burning oil, supported by iron staves, the spiked
ends of which were stuck in the ground. When the rapid procession had
passed on we hastened to overtake it, but arrived too late to witness
either the arrival of the Pope or his progress to the high altar with
the cradle in his arms.
On Christmas Day I attended high mass at St. Peter's. Although the
weather was of the pleasantest, an aguish chill disturbed my enjoyment
of the service. This discomfort so increased in the course of the day
that, as I sat at dinner, I could with difficulty carry a morsel from my
plate to my lips.
"This is a chill," said my sister. "You ought to go to bed at once."
I insisted upon remaining to play for the promised dance, and argued
that the fever would presently succeed the chill, and that I should then
be warm enough. I passed the evening in great bodily discomfort, but
managed to play quadrilles, waltzes, and the endless Virginia Reel. When
at last I reached home and my bed, the fever did come with a will. I was
fortunate enough to recover very quickly from this indisposition, and
did not forget the warning which it gave me of the dangers of the Roman
climate. The shivering evening left me a happier recollection. Among my
sister's guests was Horace Binney Wallace, of Philadelphia, whom I had
once met in his own city. He had angered me at that time by his ridicule
of Boston society, of which he really knew little or nothing. He was now
in a less aggressive frame of mind, and this second meeting with him was
the beginning of a much-valued friendship. We visited together many
points of historic interest in the city,--the Pantheon, the Tarpeian
Rock, the bridge of Horatius Cocles. He had some fanciful theories about
the traits of character usually found in conjunction with red hair. As
he and I were both distinguished by this feature, I was much pleased to
learn from him that "the highest effort of nature is to produce a
_rosso_." He was a devoted student of the works of Auguste Comte, and
had recently held some conversation with that remarkable man. In the
course of this, he told me, he asked the great Positivist how he could
account for the general religious instinct of the human race, so
contrary to the doctrines of his philosophy. Comte replied, "Que
voulez-vous, monsieur? Anormalite cerebrale." My new friend was good
enough to interest himself in my literary pursuits. He advised me to
study the most important of Comte's works, but by no means to become a
convert to his doctrines. In due time I availed myself of his counsel,
and read with great interest the volumes prescribed by him.
Horace Wallace was an exhilarating companion. I have never forgotten the
silvery _timbre_ of his rather high voice, nor the glee with which he
would occasionally inform me that he had discovered a new and most
remarkable _rosso_. This was sometimes a picture, but oftener a living
individual. If he found himself disappointed in the latter case, he
would account for it by saying that he had at first sight mistaken the
color of the hair, which shaded too much upon the yellow. Despite his
vivacity of temperament, he was subject to fits of severe depression.
Some years after this time, finding himself in Paris, he happened to
visit a friend whose mental powers had been impaired by severe illness.
He himself had been haunted for some time by the fear of becoming
insane, and the sad condition of his friend so impressed him with the
fear of suffering a similar disaster that he made haste to avoid the
dreaded fate by taking his own life.
The following lines, written not long after this melancholy event, bear
witness to my grateful and tender remembrance of him:--
VIA FELICE
'Twas in the Via Felice
My friend his dwelling made,
The Roman Via Felice,
Half sunshine, half in shade.
But I lodged near the convent
Whose bells did hallow noon,
And all the lesser hours,
With sweet recurrent tune.
They lent their solemn cadence
To all the thoughtless day;
The heart, so oft it heard them,
Was lifted up to pray.
And where the lamp was lighted
At twilight, on the wall,
Serenely sat Madonna,
And smiled to bless us all.
I see him from the window
That ne'er my heart forgets;
He buys from yonder maiden
My morning violets.
Not ill he chose these flowers
With mild, reproving eyes,
Emblems of tender chiding,
And love divinely wise.
For his were generous learning
And reconciling art;
Oh, not with fleeting presence
My friend and I could part.
* * * * *
Oh, not where he is lying
With dear ancestral dust,
Not where his household traces
Grow sad and dim with rust;
But in the ancient city
And from the quaint old door,
I'm watching, at my window,
His coming evermore.
For Death's eternal city
Has yet some happy street;
'Tis in the Via Felice
My friend and I shall meet.
Adolph Mailliard, the husband of my youngest sister, had been an
intimate friend of Joseph Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. My sister was
in consequence invited more than once to the Bonaparte palace. The
father of the family was Prince Charles Bonaparte, who married his
cousin, Princess Zenaide. She had passed some years at the Bonaparte
villa in Bordentown, N. J., the American residence of her father, Joseph
Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain. This princess, who was _tant soit peu
gourmande_ said one day to my sister, "What good things they have for
breakfast in America! I still remember those hot cakes." The
conversation was reported to me, and I managed, with the assistance of
the helper brought from home, to send the princess a very excellent
bannock of Indian meal, of which she afterwards said, "It was so good
that we ate what was left of it on the second day." This reminds me of a
familiar couplet:--
"And what they could not eat that night
The queen next morning fried."
Among the friends of that winter were Sarah and William Clarke, sister
and brother of the Rev. James Freeman Clarke. It was in their company
that Margaret Fuller made the journey recorded in her "Summer on the
Lakes." Both were devoted to her memory. I afterwards learned that
William Clarke considered her the good genius of his life, her counsel
and encouragement having come to his aid in a season of melancholy
depression and self-depreciation. Miss Clarke was characterized by an
exquisite refinement of feeling and of manner. She was also an artist of
considerable merit. This was the first of many winters passed by her in
Rome.
I will further mention only a dinner given by American residents in Rome
on Washington's birthday, at which I was present. Mrs. Ann S. Stephens,
the well-known writer, was also one of the guests. She had composed for
the occasion a poem, of which I recall the opening line,--
"We are met in the clime where the wild flowers abound,"
and the closing ones,--
"To the halo that circles our Washington's head
Let us pour a libation the gods never knew."
Among many toasts, my sister Annie proposed this one, "Washington's clay
in Crawford's hand," which was appropriate, as Thomas Crawford was known
at the time to be engaged in modeling the equestrian statue of
Washington which crowns his Richmond monument.
My Roman holiday came to an end in the summer of the year 1851, and my
return to my home and friends became imperative. As the time of my
departure approached, I felt how deeply the subtle fascination of Roman
life had entered into my very being. Pain, amounting almost to anguish,
seized me at the thought that I might never again behold those ancient
monuments, those stately churches, or take part in the society which had
charmed me principally through its unlikeness to any that I had known
elsewhere. I have indeed seen Rome and its wonders more than once since
that time, but never as I saw them then.
I made the homeward voyage with my sister Annie and her husband in an
old-fashioned Havre packet. We were a month at sea, and after the first
days of discomfort I managed to fill the hours of the long summer days
with systematic occupation. In the mornings I perused Swedenborg's
"Divine Love and Wisdom." In the afternoon I read, for the first and
only time, Eugene Sue's "Mysteres de Paris," which the ship's surgeon
borrowed for me from a steerage passenger. In the evening we played
whist; and when others had retired for the night, I often sat alone in
the cabin, meditating upon the events and lessons of the last six
months. These lucubrations took form in a number of poems, which were
written with no thought of publication, but which saw the light a year
or two later.