Bearwood, December 19, 1889.
Dear Mr. Stillman,—One appreciates true sympathy at such a time as this, and none that I have received has touched me more than yours. It is sad indeed to go down to the office and be no more greeted with MacDonald's cheery voice and kindly look. His illness was unexpected and its progress rapid. Within a few days after his return from his holiday in Mull, he was attacked by the complaint which proved fatal—"an enlargement of the prostate gland"—brought on, I have no doubt, by exposure day after day to continual rain, and accompanied by recurrent attacks of fever. To myself personally his loss is irreparable, for I had been intimately associated with him for thirty years, while his connection with the paper, formed in my father's time, was very much longer. He was confident, to the last, of the successful issue of the great cause to which he had devoted so much time during the last three years, and I would that he had been spared to witness it.
Yours very truly,
J. WALTER.
Of the fourteen years of increasing and finally cordial intimacy that followed Mr. MacDonald's acceptance of my services as casual correspondent of the "Times," I have the unbroken record in the file of letters received from him at every post where my duty carried me. These contain the evidence of a noble, honest, and sympathetic nature, whose loss to me was, as Mr. Walter found it, "irreparable," for such friendships sever themselves from all relation of interest and business.
During the tenure of the joint jurisdiction over Greece and Italy, I had an amusing experience through a report of my assassination by the Albanians. I profited by one of the visits to Athens and Crete to pass through Trieste and take Montenegro and northern Albania in the itinerary. Disembarking at Cattaro I drove by the new road to Cettinje, a magnificent drive with unsurpassed views seaward and inland, but the abolition of the natural defense of Montenegro against the Austrian artillery. No doubt the astute Prince understood that after the recognition of Montenegrin nationality by all Europe and the emphasis put on its importance by the Dulcigno demonstration and its results, he could afford to ignore the hostility of Austria and take his chances as the head of a civilized nation which had rights Austria must respect. But even in this breaking down of a barrier provided by nature he showed his shrewdness and tenacity, for the Austrians, in passing the frontier, had made the trace of the road pass over an elevation from which their artillery would command the difficult gorge that was the gate to the principality, and the Prince refused to bring his portion of the road to meet it but brought it up to the frontier by a safe route, and left the terminus there until the Austrians brought their road to meet it where the junction was in favor of the Montenegrin defense.
My reception in Cettinje was one of the pleasant incidents of my career as correspondent, for it was marked by a grateful cordiality unique in my experience, and I saw that a people and a Prince could retain gratitude for past services where nothing was needed or to be expected in the future. The Prince received me as a brother. There was no time to revisit under happier circumstances the familiar places as I should have been glad to do, but I determined at least to see the new possessions on the coast, and passing from Cattaro I followed the coast road by Spizza, the impregnable (if defended) fortress which had surrendered to Montenegro towards the close of the war, and was, without the shadow of a right, taken possession of by Austria in the settlement, and made a halt at Antivari. Here all was decay and ruin; the damages by the bombardment years before had not been repaired, the former Albanian inhabitants, mainly Mussulmans, had not returned, and the Montenegrins had not come. I could not even pass the night there, but took a boat from the port (there is no harbor) to Dulcigno. The owner of the boat put a mattress in it where I could lie at length, and so, sleeping, or listening to the songs of the rowers, or watching the stars overhead, I found myself in the course of the night at Dulcigno, where I was warmly received and hospitably entertained by the governor, a comrade of the war-days. With a little expenditure and energy Dulcigno might be made a delightful winter resort, the climate being that of Naples and the surroundings picturesque, but Montenegro has neither the capital nor the appliances to profit by its position. A company had proposed to the Prince to build a port and construct a hotel and all necessary appurtenances if he would give, in compensation, the right of establishing gaming-tables, after the fashion of Monte Carlo, but the Prince, awake to the importance of maintaining the respect of Europe so fairly won, refused the offer.
From Dulcigno the road I had to take to Scutari was a plunge into the unknown. I hired two horses, one a pack-horse for the baggage and the other a poor hack for riding. The roads were fetlock deep in mud, and the whole region so inundated that we often had to take across country, profiting by the ridges to avoid fording the unconjecturable depths of water in the ancient roads. At one point we had to pass a deep ditch, over which I forced my horse to jump, but the baggage horse refused it until pushed to it by main force, when he plumped in over head, ears, and baggage, and we had very great difficulty to extricate him, as the water was at least four feet below the bank. But I reached Scutari fortunately before night, wet, bedraggled, and muddied from head to foot, my clothes in tatters from the tenacious wait-a-bit thorn hedges we had had to force our way through, and all my baggage soaked, more or less as the water had had time to penetrate to it. Not an inhabited house did we pass on the way, such had been the terror of the border warfare still not dissipated. But from Scutari south there were other dangers. The Albanians were in a state of incipient revolt, and the country was unsafe for a Turkish escort, if even such protection were not to me a greater danger, and I found, not I confess without a little trepidation, that the only protection I could count on was the consular postman who rode with the mail-bag to San Giovanni di Budua, the first point at which the Austrian Lloyd steamers called. We met with no annoyance, however, and though we had at some points curious looks we encountered nothing more offensive, but I decided to give up the remainder of the land journey till more propitious times. San Giovanni seems to have been an important Roman port and there are interesting remains of the Imperial epoch.
On my arrival at Athens I received a telegram from my brother-in-law in London mysteriously praying me, "If you are alive, wire us." On the heels of that came another from my father-in-law, "If you are safe, telegraph to Marie," one to Tricoupi, then prime minister, to ask news of me, one to the English legation from the Foreign Office demanding information of my whereabouts, and another to the same from the "Times"—to all which I could get no explanation nor could anybody in Athens conjecture the why of the querying. We soon learned that a telegram from Cettinje, based on a report from Albania, had reported my being beheaded in the interior of Albania. I was honored by a question in the House of Commons, and obituary notices were general in the American papers. The official Montenegrin journal went into mourning. Several kind-hearted ladies waited on my wife in Florence to condole with her, but as I had telegraphed her on receipt of the telegram from her father that I was well, and the Italian papers with the news of my death had not frightened her, for she never read them, the condolence was discounted and the condoling friends went away, their object unexplained and their equanimity upset by the information that she had received a telegram from me that morning. There was a small compensation in the reading of my obituary notices, a satisfaction that can rarely be given a man.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ITALIAN POLITICS
In the reorganization of the office consequent on the entry of a new manager, I was offered the choice between the posts of Athens and Rome. Personally I should have preferred Athens, but I had recently established my family at Rome, and the serious objection to a family residence at Athens in the want of any refuge from the heats of the intense summer of that city at a practicable distance from it, was an insuperable obstacle to my accepting it. The succession of Lord Dufferin to the Embassy at Rome, and the friendly personal relations which his large-hearted nature established between the Embassy and the correspondentship, made the position highly agreeable. He was of all the diplomats I have ever known the one who best understood how to treat a correspondent. He took my measure as correspondent and accepted me pro tanto into his confidence. He used to say, "I tell you whatever information there is, because I know that then you will not telegraph what ought not to be telegraphed, while if you find it out for yourself I have no right to restrain you."
In 1890 the negotiations between England and Italy in reference to the occupation of Kassala by the latter, culminated in the congress of Naples, where Crispi met Sir Evelyn Baring (now Lord Cromer), for the discussion of the conditions. Until that time my relations with Crispi had been such as he generally maintained with journalists, viz., a distant civility, but in my case attended by confidential relations with his two secretaries. I attended the congress, and was admitted by both Dufferin and Baring to such confidential knowledge of the negotiations as was possible. From Crispi's private secretary I learned his views, and, knowing the opinions on both sides, I was able to remove certain prejudices on the part of Crispi and so smooth the difficulties which his suspicious nature raised. Unfortunately there was one misapprehension on his part of which I became aware too late, namely, that Sir Evelyn Baring was hostile to Italians in Egypt and predisposed to combat Crispi's conditions. This was due to sheer misrepresentation on the part of the Italian delegates, who were both Anglophobes; and the conviction on the part of Crispi that he must fight Baring as an enemy led to protracted and obstinate contest of each point in the conditions, till finally, just as agreement had been arrived at, a dispatch from Lord Salisbury ordered the withdrawal from the negotiations, and the convention fell through, to Crispi's great annoyance. His total miscomprehension of the large-hearted and generous ruler of Egypt was a misfortune to Italy and to Crispi, but the defect was in his temperament—a morbid tendency to suspicion of strangers characteristic of the man and in the roots of his Albanian nature. Crispi was not a judge of men—had he been he would have avoided the friends who ruined his political career, and made friends who would have strengthened his position. The efforts I had made to remove misunderstandings satisfied Crispi that I was really friendly to Italy and established more cordial relations between us thenceforward. In acknowledgment of his mistaken treatment of me he conferred on me the cross of commander of the Crown of Italy.
A little later the combination was formed in the Chamber to overthrow the ministry. I had some time before befriended Monsignor X., the victim of an outrageous act of injustice on the part of the French government, and of accessory indifference on the part of the Vatican, and he had repaid me by valuable information from the Vatican from time to time. When this ministerial crisis was in progress, Monsignor X. came to me one evening to tell me that the chiefs of the factions in opposition were in conference with agents of the Vatican to support them in the overthrow of Crispi. The Vatican promised to release Catholics from the non expedit in case of the fall of the ministry and the necessity of going to the country in a general election. The ministerial combination which accepted this pact with the immitigable enemy of the unity of Italy, whose sole motive for hostility to Crispi was the latter's invincible antagonism to the temporal power and the immixtion of the Church in civil affairs, comprised a leading Republican and Radical, Nicotera, and Rudiní, the chief of the ultra-Conservative group, beside members of various groups of intervening shades of politics. Knowing little of the rottenness of the politics of Italy at that time I was amazed by the information of Monsignor X., and went at once to the Palazzo Braschi to inform Crispi and ascertain if there was positive confirmation of the information. I asked him to use his means of intelligence at the Vatican, which was always sure, and so well informed that Cardinal Hohenlohe told me one day that Crispi knew better what was passing at the Vatican than the cardinals did. On inquiry he discovered that my news was true, and for the first time he understood the full meaning of the combination against him.
That the King should have accepted Crispi's resignation under the circumstances (the adverse vote in the Chamber, being a surprise vote involving no question of policy, and, as all knew, the result of a secret combination—a conspiracy, in fact) was a grave mistake on the part of His Majesty, and opened the way to all the confusion and parliamentary anarchy which has followed, and which to-day is increasing and menaces the stability of the throne and the unity of Italy. The government of Crispi had been most successful, his attitude in the Bulgarian affair had rendered an important service to the cause of European peace, as was acknowledged by Lord Salisbury in a published dispatch, and he had strengthened the ties between England and Italy; he had maintained perfect order, and had effected economies in the national expenditure to the amount of 140,500,000 lire a year, besides suppressing some annoying taxes and without imposing any new one, and when he fell gold was practically at par and the financial position solid as it had not been since 1860. He had decided on the reform of the banking system, which would have prevented the catastrophe that fell on the succeeding ministry, and the rotten banks and the corrupt element in the Chamber which was in their pay were the leading element in the combination against him. Under these circumstances the King's duty was to support a minister who had at the grave crisis of the death of Victor Emmanuel saved the dynasty from a serious danger, who was universally known to be the only Italian statesman whose nerve was equal to any sudden emergency, and of whose devotion, as the King personally assured me later, he was absolutely certain. That no reason for the crisis existed was shown by the fact that the succeeding ministry adopted the identical measure on which Crispi was defeated. But the King (whose death has occurred while I am revising these chapters) showed on many occasions that, though loyal to his constitutional obligation so far as deference to parliamentary forms is concerned, he never had the nerve to assume a responsible attitude or maintain the authority of the throne; and, while he was ready to abdicate if popular opinion demanded it, he was unable to withstand a factious and revolutionary movement as his father had done, by calling to his support the statesmen who could maintain order when menaced. His form of constitutionality was perfectly adapted to a country where the Conservative forces were supreme and the institutions solid; but in a half-consolidated monarchy, attacked from within and without by dissolvent influences as is Italy at present, he was a cause of weakness to good government. And Rudiní assured me when I went to pay the formal visit of congratulation on his accession to power, that the King had said that he was in the position of the young Emperor of Germany when he threw off the yoke of Bismarck—he was tired of Crispi's strong hand. The King later denied the statement in an audience he gave me, but I am afraid that Rudiní was, for a novelty, nearer the truth.
Rudiní as minister of foreign affairs began with a blunder which might well have been fatal. When the murder of the Italian prisoners at New Orleans took place, he determined to show his energy and patriotic spirit, and he telegraphed to the Italian minister at Washington to demand of the federal government the immediate bringing to justice of the murderers under the alternative of sending the Italian fleet to New Orleans. This amazing display of ignorance of the situation and of geography appeared in the Roman journals of the next morning. As I knew enough of the temper of my countrymen to foresee that this demand was certain to end in war or a humiliating result to Italy, I jumped into a cab and drove over to the ministry of public instruction, the titular of which, Professor Villari, was an old friend of our life in Florence, and begged him to go at once to Rudiní and urge the countermanding of the telegram of the previous night, for, as the federal government had no jurisdiction in the case, it could not comply, and the imperious demand of the Italian government, intended for home consumption and as demonstration of the high spirit of the ministry, was certain to be peremptorily responded to, while the menace of sending the ironclad fleet to New Orleans was absurd and impossible of execution as the Mississippi did not admit ships of their draft, to say nothing of the defenses of the river and the certainty of war if the ultimatum were pushed. Vlllari at once took a cab and drove to the house of the minister, and we never heard anything more of the matter.
The presence (which nothing but the amorphous state of Italian politics could explain), in that scratch ministry, of Villari, one of the most devoted, honest and patriotic of living Italians and for years one of my best friends in Italy, secured my support of the ministry until their financial measures came on, and I was obliged to expose their specious character in the "Times," when our friendly relations ceased temporarily. Political opponents in Italy are more likely to meet with seconds than at a friendly dinner party, as used to be the case in the days of Minghetti and Sella, and this passionate personal antagonism for purely political motives which influences all political and social intercourse in Italy is one of the gravest causes of political decline.
Amongst the notable men whose friendship I gained at this period of my service was Von Keudall, the German ambassador, one of the most human diplomatists whose acquaintance I have ever made. Like Dufferin, he measured exactly the distance to which a correspondent could be treated confidentially, without encouraging him to presume on cordiality. Introduced to him by Sir John Saville Lumley, I was treated as one of the diplomatic body, with the confidence which is so important to a journalist, and as long as he remained in Rome our relations were of the most cordial and unceremonious. Wishing to make me a confidential communication one day and the coast not being clear, he asked me, in the presence of others, if I had ever seen the view from the tower of the embassy, and, as of course I had not, he invited me to come and see it, and we had our conversation on the platform of the lookout with all Rome and the Campagna spread out before us, beyond the reach of others' hearing. Von Keudall was a power in Rome, and no ambassador of any government in my time had the influence at court that he had.
During the period of Von Keudall's residence Lord Rosebery came to Rome, in an interval of being in opposition, and, as the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and probably a future occupant of the same post, it was important that in a brief stay he should see all the important people in the capital. Lady Rosebery, who was the most assiduous and intelligent manager possible of her husband's interests, had sent for me to ascertain who were the people whom he should know in order to learn the true condition of affairs in Italy. Chief amongst them I put Von Keudall, but, as Lord Rosebery did not know him, and the custom of Rome is that the newcomer makes the first call, Lady Rosebery was in a quandary, her ideas of the position of her husband not consenting that he should make the first call on an ambassador. At the last moment, for he was to leave Rome the midnight following, she begged me to tell her how the acquaintance could be made, without derogation of Lord Rosebery's position between two portfolios. "Give me his card," I replied, "and I will manage it." I had intended to ask Von Keudall for some information, and I made my visit, finding him engaged with a dispatch, and as I wrote a message on the business on which I had come, I added that Lord Rosebery was at the Hôtel de Rome and was leaving that night, and left his lordship's card with mine. When I got back to the hotel I found Von Keudall's carriage at the door and him closeted with Lord Rosebery. And certainly no man could then have told the English statesman the state of things in Italy so well as the large-hearted German ambassador, who enjoyed the confidence of every element in Italian politics as a sincere friend of the country. He was recalled later on account of a pique of Herbert Bismarck, whose untimely meddling with public affairs had, I believe, more to do with his father's fall than any act of the Prince. As an eminent German statesman put it, in a conversation not long after the recall of Von Keudall, "a Bismarck dynasty could not be tolerated." Von Keudall was succeeded by his antithesis, a nullity in court and country of whom even his fellow diplomats could say nothing in praise.
The Rudiní ministry had no long life and merited no more, while that of Giolitti, which followed, ended in scandal and disaster. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brin, with whom alone I had had to do, was an honest, able, and patriotic man, and my relations with him were always excellent. The fall of that ministry coincided with the culmination of the financial and political disorders which were the direct consequence of the overthrow of Crispi and the demoralization which ensued. From the beginning of the financial embarrassment which came to its crisis during the term of Rudiní's government, I had devoted much attention to the financial situation and had predicted the crash when no one else foresaw it. But for Villari I should have been expelled from Italy on account of my letters exposing the situation, which created such a sensation that Rothschild wrote to a financial authority in Rome to inquire what truth there was in them, receiving naturally such assurances as only hid the trouble. But when the crash came people said, "How did you know? What a prophet you were!" etc., etc. Tanlongo, the director of the Banca Romana, which led off in the crash, threatened the "Times" with a libel suit, and accompanied the threat by offers to me of personal "commercial facilitations" to drop the subject. The argumentum ad hominem did not weigh, but it was desired in the office to avoid legal troubles and I was advised to keep a more moderate tone. The disaster came so soon after, however, that I got all the credit, and maintained abroad the prestige of a greater authority in Italian finance than I perhaps deserved.
It is true that honesty and courage are two things that a correspondent has no right to boast of, for honest editing and management presupposes them in him, and a conspicuous want of either cuts his career very short unless he is uncommonly clever; but as the result of my personal experience I may say that, having campaigned with many English colleagues, I have found them to be almost universally men of thorough honesty and unflinching courage. Personality aside, I think I may be permitted to say so much of a profession of whose real character and besetting temptations no one can know so much as one of themselves, and of whom the general public knows very little.
The financial authority which thus accrued to me became of not unimportant influence a little later when the second scratch ministry broke up under the financial depression, with gold at 16 premium, the scandals of the bank affair oozing into publicity, and insurrection breaking out in Sicily and Tuscany, with movements pending in the Romagna, where the spring had come late and so saved the country from a great disaster. It became so clear to even the most benighted partisan that a strong hand at the Palazzo Braschi was imperiously necessary, that even the strongest Conservatives submitted in silence to the call for Crispi which came from all parts of Italy, and no section of the Chamber except the extreme Left, who were the prime movers in the insurrectionary movement, raised the least objection to the old Sicilian's return to the position from which the most corrupt and ignoble intrigues had driven him hardly three years before, years of discredit and steady demoralization.
The disgraceful struggle for office then grown characteristic of Italian parliamentary politics now assumed the most shameful form that I have ever known. The general sentiment of the country was that Crispi should be given dictatorial powers, and one of the Venetian deputies, an ultra-Conservative, coming fresh from an audience with the King, said to me that Crispi ought to be made dictator and that the King had professed his readiness to confer that power on him; and the chiefs of all the factions that had been engaged in the conspiracy for his downfall in 1891 were among the most eager to enter his ministry, when the King finally gave him the call to form one, after having combined in the most desperate intrigues to effect some other combination. In the anteroom of the minister designate all the political world, personally or by deputy, was represented except the friends of the insurrection, who fought him by every device. I met there a Roman deputy who was one of the amphibious politicians that breed freely in Italian politics, who gave his right hand to Crispi and his left to Rudiní, and who, under the impression that I had great personal influence with the old man, begged me to urge him to offer the portfolio of Foreign Affairs to Rudiní. In fact, my defense of Crispi in the "Times" in 1891 and the fulfillment of my predictions of his inevitable and necessary return to office, at a moment when there was no one in Italy who did not consider his career at an end, gave me a purely fanciful importance as a counselor in the crisis and as having great weight with the minister.
The obsequiousness of the leading politicians at that juncture must have given Crispi a savage satisfaction for the contumely he had had to suffer in 1891, and there is no kind of question in my mind that, if he had then insisted as a sine qua non on a dictatorship, he would have had it with the almost universal approbation of Italians out of office and the acquiesence of those who hoped to be in it. Cavalotti, his most implacable opponent and personal enemy in disguise, in a session of the Chamber made a passionate appeal to him to avoid Sonnino and take a ministry of one color, i.e. the Left, promising his entire devotion on such a concession. The hostility was sullen and masked, but purely parliamentary; the country at large would have been delighted to see the old man sweep the parliament out of existence, and I am convinced that he might then have played the rôle of Cromwell and received the support of nine tenths of all Italians. The Chamber had become nauseous to the nation.
I was cool enough to see that the key of the position was finance, for I knew that Crispi would make short work with the insurrection, and I knew also the full value of all the possible ministers of finance in the country, and their influence abroad. When I saw that the constitution of the cabinet really hung on the disposition of that portfolio, I did not hesitate to say to Crispi that, while I could not pretend to any judgment as to the formation of the ministry at large, I could assure him that if there was to be a rehabilitation of the financial position of Italy abroad by his ministry, it could only be by the appointment of Sonnino to the Treasury. I said to him in so many words that Sonnino was as necessary to the restoration of the credit of the financial situation as he himself was to that of order. The pressure in the Chamber was very great to induce him to take the finance minister from the Left and so move toward the constitution of the government in accordance with the color of the majority, and Crispi was urged that way by most of his oldest and most faithful adherents, either unconscious of or indifferent to the influence of financial opinion through Europe on the stability or success of the ministry. I could see that he was hesitating and that the idea of reconstituting parties, which had always been one of his most cherished and important schemes, was very present with him, but I think that the conviction of the necessity of the restoration of the confidence of the financial publics of Europe finally prevailed with him, for he decided to offer the Treasury to Sonnino, to whose measures he subsequently gave the most thorough and loyal support, though some of them were the reverse of popular and not of possible effectuation without his earnest support. It is possible that my advice turned the balance in his mind, but it is, with one later exception, the only instance in which I ever ventured to advise him as to a political line of conduct, though I was generally credited with a good deal of meddling.
The conduct of the Italian factions and politicians during the two years of the second ministry of Crispi, the internecine war of intrigues to which the King lent a negative but effectual assent, and which ended in the disaster of Adowah, showed me that the Italian commonwealth is incurably infected with political caries, and that, though the state may endure, even as a constitutional monarchy, for years, the restoration of civic vitality to it is only to be hoped for under the condition of a moral renovation, to which the Roman Catholic Church is an unsurmountable obstacle, because the Church itself has become infected with the disease of the state,—the passion of personal power, carried to the fever point of utter disregard of the general good. The liberty which the extreme party in Italian politics agitates for is only license, and, with the exception of a few amiable and impracticable enthusiasts in the extreme Left and a few honest and patriotic conservators of the larger liberties towards the Right, there are nothing but self-seekers and corrupt politicians in the state. During the years of my residence in Italy, the strengthening conviction of these facts has dampened my early enthusiasms for its political progress and my faith in its future, and, retiring at the limits of effective service from a position into which I had entered with sympathy, I buried all my illusions of a great Italian future as I had those of a healthy Greek future. My profound conviction is that until a great moral reform shall break out and awaken the ruling classes, and especially the Church, to the recognition of the necessity of a vital, growing morality to the health of a state, there will be no new Italy. The idle dreamers who hope to cure the commonweal by revolution and the establishment of a republic will find, if their dream come true, that to a state demoralized in its great masses, more liberty can only mean quicker ruin. The court itself is so corrupted by the vices and immoralities which always beset courts, that it does not rally to itself the small class of devoted patriots who cannot yet resign themselves to despair, and who find in a change of persons the possibility of a revival which they hope for rather than anticipate, while it offends every day more and more deeply the equally small class of honest and patriotic reformers of the Radical side in politics. The mortally morbid condition of public feeling is shown, not in the fact that the Hon. X. or Y. is an immoral man, but in that he is not in the least discredited by well-known immoralities which would banish a man from public life in England or America, and compared with which those with which Crispi was charged were trivial.
One cannot pronounce the same judgment on Greece and Italy. The decay in Greece is economic and civic, poverty of resource and resources on one side, and on the other invincible insubordination, refusal in the individual to submit to discipline or sacrifice, the conceit of a dead and forgotten superiority which makes progress or docility impossible. The measure of apparent renovation in Athens and some other points is owing to the influence and benefactions of the Greeks who have lived and prospered in other lands, where their natural mental activity has borne fruit, but the normal progress of the nation is so slight that it has no chance in the race of races now being run in the Balkans. But the Greeks are preserved from a moral decay like that which threatens Italy by the domestic morality, due in part to temperament, but in part also to the influence of the clergy, who, if not scholars and wise theologians, are generally men of pure domestic morality and leaders of the common people. The Orthodox Church is national, lives with and for the people, has no political ambitions, and cannot endanger the state.
In Italy the danger is other. The Roman Church has long ceased to be a distinctly religious institution; it has become a great human machine organized, disciplined like an army, for a war of shadows and formalities, but now employed in the conquest of political influence, a kingdom absolutely of this world. It is as much a foreign body in Italy (or France) as if it were the Russian Church; it has no part or lot in the well-being of the Italian people, and, so far as the central power of it is concerned, the Vatican and its councils, its only purpose is to acquire political influence for its own political aggrandizement, to the exclusion from its field of operations of all other creeds. For the attainment of this end it works with the single-eyedness which Christ recommended for other ends, to the neglect of all pressure on the people in the direction of common morality. The Pope, in the present case an amiable, excellent ecclesiastic, is only one part of this machine, and through him it speaks, saying, practically, to the Italian people, "Be what you please, do what you please; only in all things which we command obey us,"—obedience to the prescriptions of rites and ceremonies being, so far as my observation during my years of residence in Italy goes, considered as of far greater importance than the observance of the laws of sexual morality, veracity, or common honesty. The rule of conduct of the parochial clergy has appeared to me to be to keep their influence over their flocks in purely ecclesiastical matters, and run no risk of straining that influence by interfering with their personal morality, or by making Christianity the difficult rule of life which it is in Puritan countries.
I have no hostility to Roman doctrine or dogma, for the distinction I make between the different forms of anthropomorphic religion is only one of degree, and I have so many personal friends amongst Roman Catholics in whom I see the fire of pure and living spirituality glowing through the forms and superstitions of their creed that I cannot join in that indiscriminate denunciation which is common amongst Protestants. My experience in these matters has taught me that to certain natures the anthropomorphic forms of religion are a Jacob's ladder to that spiritual life which is the end of religion. Nor can I see that a little more or a little less of the credulity which is, in all human minds, mingled with pure faith in the Divine, can make a vital difference in the character of the religion, whatever it may make in the creed. The most earnest man is hampered by an heredity of credence that makes the conception of the Supreme Being a matter of an intellectual struggle which is to some minds insuperable, and to deprive such of the symbols which lead to a final comprehension of the truth is no service to humanity or truth. The suppression of the Roman Catholic religion in Italy, if possible, would be only to leave its place vacant for unreason and anarchy, for the intellectual status of the common people does not admit of a more abstract belief. For that evil influence, however, which a recent writer has designated as Curialism, which to-day has its seat at the Vatican, and whose aim and end are the absolute antagonism of all pure religion, I have no respect, and only the feeling due to unmitigated evil. It is a deadly political malady, malefic in proportion to its influence on the people; and, I fear, until Italy is freed from it, no progress or healthy political life or morality is possible.
For myself, the study of the system and a comparison of its relations with other religions completed that evolution of my religious ideal which I regard as the principal outcome of my life. The Roman Catholic religion is to me the reductio ad absurdum of all anthropomorphic religions, and such a study of it as was there possible drove me to a logical conclusion on the whole matter, not by a sudden revulsion, but as the gradual and normal growth of a rational evolution of my conceptions of the spiritual life, starting from that stage of emancipation which my residence at Cambridge and the intercourse with the liberal thinkers there had brought me to; the influence of Norton, Lowell, Agassiz, and Emerson especially. In this liberation I am aware of no sudden break in my belief from its crude acceptance of miraculous conversion and eternal damnation for the unconverted, but a slow opening of my eyes to larger truths. If any individual influence other than those I have named came in, it would have been the reading of Swedenborg, which gave me a comprehension of what spiritual life was and must be; but Swedenborg himself had never been emancipated from the anthropomorphic conception of Deity. He was a seer, not a philosopher. Emancipation from ignorance will never be complete, and ignorance and even superstition have their divine uses as infancy has. Once the idea of evolution as the law of life is accepted, the logical conclusion is the reign of law and the rejection of all miraculous interposition, and the perception of this fact by the clever schemers at the Vatican underlies the implacable hostility they show to science and evolution. If they could, they would have burned Darwin as they burned Giordano Bruno. They are, and they must ever be, as the condition of keeping up the existence and power of the Vatican and its peculiar institutions, the enemies of mental emancipation. It is not ignorance which is the enemy of wisdom, but the passion of domination.
The Roman Catholic Church with its hypothetical succession of Peter will exist forever, because the necessity of seeing through forms and of obedience to authority will endure as long as humanity endures, for certain orders of mind and certain temperaments; but the political problem of the existence of the Vatican in a free and united Italy, progressive and maintaining her place amongst the European powers, is one the solution of which I shall await with great interest, not regarding the triumph of the Vatican as possible according to its hopes, but not sure that the internecine struggle may not end in the ruin of both contestants, since the Italians have not the courage or the patriotism to accept the only safe measure, formal and complete suppression of all civic privileges for the Pope and his bishops—the relegation of religion to a place outside the organization of government.
CHAPTER XL
ADOWAH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The dolorous history of the defeat at Adowah, the decisive event in the decline of Italy, is an epitome of all the tendencies and weaknesses of the Italian nation; and, as I was more or less intimately informed of all the causes of it, the intrigues and treachery which made it possible, and as no Italian who knows the story will, for very shame, tell it, I will leave the record of what I learned and what I believe to be the indisputable facts.
When Lord Salisbury came to power in 1895, he renewed a compact with Italy and Austria which had been made when Crispi was in office in his first premiership, about 1888, for a common action in all questions concerning the Turkish Empire; and on the occasion of the Armenian massacres he called for the execution of its provisions, sending the English fleet to Turkish waters and making a requisition on Austria and Italy for the support of their fleets. Crispi, who saw in the measure the longed-for opportunity of action in league with England, ordered the fleet to follow that of England, and prepared the mobilization of an army corps to coöperate by land. He had already revived the ancient hostility of France by the rejection of an offer of the French government, made at his accession to office, of all desirable friendly offices, a treaty of commerce, financial facilities, etc., if he would withdraw from the understanding with England as to Mediterranean questions. The entry into the plans of England for the Armenian question, which were diametrically opposed to those of Russia, provoked the active enmity of that power, with which Italy had until then been on friendly terms. Thenceforward Russia united her influence with that of France in creating difficulties for Italy in Abyssinia as the punishment of Crispi, and at the same time the means of paralyzing one of the members of the Triple Alliance. Lord Salisbury, vacillating, as is his way, and under persuasion of the powers opposed to his action, consented to delay and negotiate, thus giving the Sultan time to prepare the defenses of the Dardanelles, making the coup de main, possible at first, then impossible, and necessitating serious naval operations, which were likely to involve considerable losses if the pressure at Constantinople were to be successful.
The abandonment of the inconsiderate scheme, initiated in obedience to a religious agitation and far too daring for a statesman of Lord Salisbury's nervelessness, having drawn Italy into such difficulties as the result of her obedience to his call, the least that Crispi could expect was that he would be supported by all the moral if not by the military power of England, whose influence in Abyssinia was very great. During the government of Lord Rosebery that influence had been distinctly exercised in favor of Italy, in opposition to that of France, and, when Crispi asked for the privilege of landing troops at Zeila, the English port for Abyssinia, in case of war, it had been accorded, giving Italy the advantage of a menace on the rear of all the positions of Menelek, which had in the early stages of the trouble been efficient. The Italian government had no intention of sending an expedition through Zeila to attack Harrar in any contingency foreseen, but the possibility of such a movement compelled Menelek to keep a strong force in Harrar and prevented the concentration which ultimately proved so disastrous at Adowah. The French government protested against the concession, but the English ministry refused to recognize the right of France to protest. Lord Salisbury withdrew the privilege, enabling the French agents to convince Menelek that England was hostile to Italy, and thus decided the question of peace or war between Abyssinia and Italy.
That the occupation of Abyssinia had been a folly had always been the opinion of Crispi, who, in the outset, opposed it in a speech which proved a prophecy of all the disasters which followed; and on his return to power I very strongly, in one of the two cases in which I attempted to exercise any influence on him, urged him to withdraw from Africa, but the old man's patriotic pride was too intense for him to consent to an abandonment of an undertaking in which Italian blood had been shed. "The flag cannot retreat," he said, and in fact public opinion was at that moment so strongly in favor of the maintenance of the colony that no ministry could have carried a proposal to abandon it. It has been the habit of the Italians since the disaster to throw the blame for it on Crispi, but I, who was always opposed to the undertaking, can testify that at the outbreak of war, and especially after the brilliant if slight victories won by the Italian troops in Africa, Crispi would have been defeated in the Chamber if he had proposed withdrawing. In the Chamber there was only the extreme Left which opposed the war policy, and the order of the day which was accepted by the government as the war programme was presented by the Marquis di Rudiní, then head of the opposition, and carried by an enormous majority. As I was present at the sitting of the Chamber at which the vote was taken I do not speak uncertainly.
Baratieri had been recalled to Rome on the suspicion that he was intending to extend the conquest unduly, and I met him at a breakfast arranged by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to enable me to discuss the subject with the general. He then made the most unqualified declarations that he was opposed to all extension of operations, and that he did not ask for a man or a lira more than had been accorded to him by Crispi. Baratieri was a Garibaldian general, a daring and brilliant commander of a brigade at most, without a proper military education, but with some experience. He was a political general, however, a partisan of Zanardelli, who had been the most insistent rival of Crispi at the formation of a ministry in 1893, and he had been Zanardelli's candidate for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his nomination having been protested against by Austria on the well understood ground that he was an Irredentist, that is, in favor of taking the Tyrol from Austria. In the battle of Coatit, which inaugurated the hostilities, he had shown brilliant qualities as a partisan commander and had become very popular, so that to remove him, as Crispi had intended when he was recalled to Rome, was very difficult, the more as he protested his strict adherence to the defensive policy imposed on him by the ministry; but on his return it soon became evident that he cherished more ambitious plans than he had owned up to when in Rome, and Crispi soon saw that his recall was necessary. But Baratieri had now the support, not only of the common public favor, but of the entire court circle, which saw in him a convenient weapon against Crispi, and of the military party, and, through these, of the King, who refused to assent to the recall of the general when Crispi finally demanded it.
The premier was not supported in his insistence and pressure on the King by the whole of the cabinet, and the only practical method of getting rid of Baratieri was by increasing the forces in Africa to the number at which, by the regulations, a superior officer was necessary to command. The general chosen, Baldissera, a safe and competent commander, was already in Africa, at Massowah, when Baratieri, warned of his supersession in spite of all the precautions to keep secrecy, precipitated hostilities against the distinct orders of Crispi never to attack a force superior to his own, so as to force the issue before he should be deprived of the command. A court-martial sat to try Baratieri, nominally, but its sentence simply concealed all the facts and covered the responsibility, which there was good evidence to show was morally if not technically divided between Baratieri and certain parties in the court and army cliques more desirous of overthrowing Crispi than of securing a victory. The mystery that hid all the details of the investigation that could fix the disgrace where it belonged, and allowed only unimportant transactions to appear, will never be dispelled.
Crispi was disposed to renew the struggle, for there was within a march of a day or two a larger Italian force than that which had been defeated, under a competent commander, and the losses of the Abyssinians had been so heavy that they were unable to advance, while the season of rain was so close on them that they must have retreated in a few days, even if not attacked, and if attacked in their retreat they must have abandoned all the fruits of their previous victory. But to do this it was necessary to prorogue the Chamber until the operations were concluded, and this course was opposed in the cabinet; Saracco, the Minister of Public Works, threatening to resign if a further prorogation was decreed. The public panic was such that a partial crisis would have been the signal for an outbreak of disorders on the part of the parties opposed to the African policy, headed by the extreme Left in the Chamber,—a risk which several of the ministers were indisposed to face,—and the ministry resigned without waiting to meet the Parliament.
Civic courage in Italy is so low that any grave military or civil disaster, no matter on whom should fall the responsibility, entails a change of ministry, and in this case even the King abandoned Crispi, though the chief responsibility for the disastrous result of the campaign rested on himself. Humbert always retreated before any popular commotion. He never understood that the duty of the sovereign was to lend his moral support to his ministers so long as no constitutional question was involved, or until there had been the expression of the will of the nation, deliberately formulated, and not by the accidental votes which in the Italian Chamber are oftener the result of conspiracies or panics than of any question involving a political measure. Parliamentary government in Italy is a caricature of the form, demanding for its safe working the most conservative influence of the Crown to control its action. But Humbert, by yielding to every gust of excitement in the Chamber which, even by a surprise, menaced the ministry, encouraged and developed the disorderly tendency and the strength of the subversive party which always profited by the disorders. Victor Emmanuel in a similar case quelled the anarchy by dissolving the Chamber; Humbert had never that degree of courage even when he knew that the disorder was directed against the monarchy, not merely against a ministry; and he is, more than any other person, the cause of the decline and anarchy in parliamentary government in Italy.
In the succeeding ministry the King had the unprecedented courage to refuse to accept Rudiní and his programme, but admitted his inclusion in the ministry of General Ricotti, an old and admirable soldier and military organizer, who was resolved to begin his administration by a long desired and needed reorganization of the army, reducing its numbers and increasing its efficiency. On this point the King was inflexible, for he always refused to allow the army to be reduced organically, though he never refused to accept such a diminution of the rank and file as made it utterly inefficient for an emergency, so long as the cadres and the number of officers were not diminished. He sent a message to some senators who were in his confidence to the effect that the measure of Ricotti must be defeated there, as he could not count on its being rejected by the popular assembly. The senate rejected it, and Ricotti, unsupported by his colleagues, resigned. The régime of half measures and little men returned. The accession of Victor Emmanuel III. may bring about a change, if the new King has statesmen to fall back on, but I do not see them amongst the old men. The only man competent to assume an effective reconstitution of the state is Sidney Sonnino, the Secretary of the Treasury with Crispi, but he is not a popular man, and, if he attempts to govern by the strong measures necessary, he will meet the same hostility which always assailed Crispi. Nothing less than the courage and abilities of a Cromwell could reform government in Italy, and, in the opinion of some of the wisest and most patriotic Italians I know, the task is hopeless and the decay inevitable.
Fully convinced of this myself, I could but lose that interest in the future of Italy which had always made residence there so attractive to me. Moreover, I had arrived at an age which rendered the proper performance of the duties of my position on the "Times" impossible. Accordingly, I sent in my resignation and returned to England, where in such condition of social and intellectual activity as my years and circumstances permit, I hope to end my days, no longer a participant in political affairs and content simply to live.
INDEX
A., Miss, spiritualistic medium
A'ali Pasha
Abyssinia, Italians in
Adams, Charles Francis, minister to England during the Civil War
Adirondack Club
Adirondacks, life in the
Adirondacs, The, poem by Emerson
Adowah, defeat at, the decisive event in the decline of Italy
circumstances which led to it
results
After the Burial
Agassiz, Louis
is pleased with one of Stillman's pictures
first meets Stillman
makes excursion with the Adirondack Club
his scientific work
personal character
brief mentions of
Agios Rumeli
Aiguille de Varens
Alabama, the Confederate cruiser
Albania, Stillman's travels in
Albanians, character and customs of
intellectual capacity
Albert, Prince, his attitude towards the United States in the Civil War
Alcott, A. Bronson
Aldrich, T.B., contributes to The Crayon
Ali Saib Pasha
Alps, See Switzerland.
Aluga
American Archaeological Institute, Stillman undertakes expedition for
American Art Union
"American Pre-Raphaelite," Stillman so called
Ames, Mr., Stillman's companion on voyage to England
Ampersand Pond
Anakim, procession of the
Anti-rent war in New York
Antivari
Antonelli, Cardinal, character of
Appleton, Thomas Gold, contributes to The Crayon
his character
Appleton, William H.
Arethusa, English frigate, at Crete
Arkadi, convent of
Arkadi, the blockade runner
Armenian massacres, action of England and Italy in regard to
Armitage, Mr., fellow art-student with Stillman
Art in America in Stillman's youth
Art instruction in France and England compared
Art Union of New York buys a picture by Stillman
Arthur, Chester A., school and college friend of Stillman
Askyphó
Associateship of Design, Stillman elected to, 140.
Assurance, English vessel, at Crete
Atlantic, the steamer, 139.
Auf Wiedersehen
Bacevich, Maxime
Backwoods experiences. See Adirondacks, life in the.
Bailey, Philip James
Baldissera, General, appointed to command of Italian forces in Africa
Ball, Daniel
Banovich, Mitrofan
Baptists, Seventh-Day. See Seventh-Day Baptists.
Baratieri, General, commanding Italian forces in Africa
Barbieux, French officer in Herzegovina
Baring, Sir Evelyn
Barnum, P.T.
Basil, St., Herzegovinian bishop
Bath, Marquis of
Beaconsfield, Lord, his Aylesbury speech
comment on Montenegrin affairs
discussed by Stillman and Gladstone
Beaulieu, M. Le Hardy de, Stillman's meeting with
Beaver Brook
Bed of Ferns, Stillman's picture
Buskin's criticism of, rejected by the Academy
Being a Boy
Bennett, James Gordon
Berdas, the, Stillman's journey into
invasion by the Turks
Berlin, Treaty of
Bigelow, John, managing editor of the Evening Post
Biglow Papers, edited by Thomas Hughes
Bilek
Binney, Dr. Amos
Binney, Mrs. Amos
Bismarck, Herbert
Black, Rev. William
Blair, Mr., engineer
Blanc, Baron
Bliss, Elder, ancestor of W.J. Stillman
anecdotes of his family
Bodichon, Barbara
Borthwick, Colonel
Boston
Boutakoff, Captain
Boyce, Mr., artist, visits Stillman
Boyle, Mr., artist
Brett, Mr., artist, Rossetti's aversion for
Brigandage in Rome
Briggs, C.F.
Brin, Sig., Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Brooklyn School,"
Brown, Mr., consular agent at Civita Vecchia
Brown, Ford Madox
Stillman's judgment of, and his influence on Rossetti
Brown, H.K., the sculptor
Brown, Mrs. H.K.
Browning, Mrs., mother of the poet
Browning, Robert, father of the poet
Browning, Robert, the poet
Browning, Sariana, sister of the poet
Bruno, Giordano
Bryant, William Cullen
Stillman's association with, on the Evening Post
contributes to The Crayon
feeling towards Lowell
Buchanan, Robert, his criticism of Rossetti
Buchanan, James, his influence on English public opinion
Bulgaris
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward
Burnside, General Ambrose E.
Burr, Aaron
Butler, Benjamin F., his influence in Massachusetts at opening of the
Civil War
Calvin, doctrines of, held by Ruskin
Cambridge, Mass., life at
Camp life. See Adirondacks, life in the.
Camp Maple, See Adirondack Club.
Canandaigua, U.S. corvette, at Crete
Candanos, collision between Mussulmans and Christians at
serious fight at
relief of
Cass, Major
Castellani, Sig.
Cattaro
Cattaro, Gulf of
Cattermole, George, Turner's liking for
Cavallotti, Sig.
Crispi's opponent
Cemeteries, prehistoric
Century, The. See Scribner's Monthly.
Cettinje
Chabot, Charles, the handwriting expert
Chalons, Alfred, miniature painter
Chalons, Edward, miniature painter
Chamois-hunting
Chamounix
Chase, Salmon P.
Childhood of the Virgin Mary, Rossetti's picture
Children's Crusade, referred to
Cholera
Christ in the Carpenter's Shop, picture by Millais
Church, F.E., artist and teacher of Stillman
Civil War in the United States, Stillman returns to America on account of
English attitude concerning
Clermont, Fulton's steamer
Clough, Arthur Hugh, Norton gives Stillman letter to
intercourse with
Col des Fours
Cole, Thomas, landscape painter
Collegiate education, discussion of
Collins line of steamers
Colucci, Sig., Italian consul at Crete
Comoundouros, Greek prime minister
his character
brief references to
Coney Island
"Conscious mind in creation,"
Constable, John, artist
Constantinople
Consular service abroad, weakness of
Conversion, Baptist views concerning
See, also, Revival meetings.
Corfu
Cornhill Magazine, Stillman contributes article to, on
architectural restorations in Florence.
Coroneos, Colonel, his action in the Cretan insurrection
Corot, Jean Baptiste, comparison of his work with that of Rousseau
Cortina
Cosmopolitan Club, London
Coutet, Alpine guide
Couture, Thomas
Coxe family, traveling companions and friends of Stillman
Crayon, The, Stillman's art journal
Creswick, Thomas, artist
Cretan committee of Athens assists Stillman
Cretan committee of Boston
Cretan insurrection
Stillman writes history of
Cretan women, beauty of
Crete, Stillman made consul in
consular life in
plan for its annexation to Egypt
later visit to
survival of ancient superstitions
horrible history of Crete
Crispi, Francesco, Italian premier, Stillman's association with, and
estimate of
his relations with King Humbert
with Sir Evelyn Baring
his overthrow
its consequences
his second ministry
review of his conduct of Italian affairs in Abyssinia
Crispi, Signora
Cromer, Lord. See Baring, Sir Evelyn.
Cunard line of steamers
Curialism
Cushman, Charlotte, in Rome
Cuvier, Baron Georges
Daily News, Stillman is placed on staff of
Dalmatia,
journeys and correspondence in,
attitude of the people towards the Herzegovinian insurrection
Dana, R.H.
Dancing, disapproved of by Stillman's father
Danilo, Prince of Montenegro
Danilograd
Danish Effendi
Darwin, Charles R., his evolutionary hypothesis
Davidson, Charles, gives Stillman lessons in art
Dead House, The
Delacroix, Eugène, artist
Delane, Mr., of the London Times
Delaroche, Paul
Delf, Mr.
Deliyanni, Greek premier
Delos
Dendrinos, Russian consul at Crete
Depretis, Agostino
Derché, M., French consul at Crete
De Ruyter, N.Y., school at
Dervish Pasha
Diamond, the steamer
Dickson, Charles H., English consul at Crete
Dickson, Mrs. T.G., cares for Stillman's children
Didot, Mlle.
Didot, Firmin, Stillman's meeting with, in Paris
Diplomatic service, American
Dobrilovina, convent of, Stillman's visit to
Dormitor, Mt.
Dossi, Count Alberto Pisani, Crispi's secretary
Doughty, Thomas, artist
Drobniak, province of
Duby, secretary of the Prince of Montenegro
Dufferin, Lord, succeeds to the Embassy at Rome
Dulcigno
Duprés, the
Durand, A.B., artist,
contributes to The Crayon
Durand, John, partner of Stillman in publishing The Crayon
Dusseldorf, visited by Stillman
"Dutch courage"
Echo, English paper, prints letter from Stillman
Edhem Pasha
Edmonds, Judge
Edmunds, Senator
Elliott, Sir Henry, English ambassador at Crete
Emerson, Edward W.
Emerson, R.W.,
his estimate of Alcott
Stillman's first meeting with
his relations with Longfellow
excursion with the Adirondack Club
visits Stillman in England
influence on Stillman
England,
first visit to
second visit
her attitude during the American Civil War
later visits and residences in
English church in Rome
Enneochoria, valley of
Ennosis, blockade runner
Ense, Varnhagen von
Epirus, invasion of
Erie Canal
Eshref Pasha
Estee, Elder
Evans, Mr., archaeologist
Evening Post, The
Evolution, theory of
Eyoub Pasha
Fable for Critics
Father's influence in forming character of children
Fenian organization
Festus, Bailey's
Fielding, Copley
First Snow-Fall, The
Fish, Hamilton, urges Stillman's dismissal from Crete
Fleming, Colonel, of Florida
Florence
Florida, Stillman's trip to
Fogg, George G., American minister at Berne
Follansbee Pond. See, also, Adirondack Club.
Forbes, Archibald
Forbes, J.M., gives Stillman a commission for a picture
France, relations with Italy
Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria
"Franco, Harry" (pseudonym). See Briggs, C.F.
Freeborn, Mr., English banker and friend of Stillman
Freeman, Professor Edward A
Freemasons in Rome
Froude, James Anthony, Stillman's friendship for
Fuller, George, Stillman's companion on voyage to England
Gallenga, Mr., Rome correspondent of the Times
Garibaldi, Giuseppe
Garrick, the ship
Garrison, William Lloyd
Geissler Pasha, German officer, in Crete
General-Admiral, Russian frigate at Crete
Geneva, Stillman's visit to
"Geodesy," nickname of a professor at Union College
George, King of Greece, his character
his weakness of action and unpopularity
calls Tricoupi to form a ministry
Gérôme, the artist
Gettysburg, battle of
Ghost at Chamounix
Gibson, John
Gifford, S.R., artist
Gilder, Richard Watson
Giolitti, Sig., Italian minister
Girtin, Thomas, artist
Gladstone, W.E., his satisfaction with himself
Beaconsfield's banter of
Stillman's intercourse with
Mr. Walter's dislike of
Gnossus
Goldsborough, Rear-Admiral
"Good Americans, when they die …,"
Görgey, Arthur, treason of
Gosdanovich, Montenegrin interpreter and traveling companion of
Stillman
Gray, Judge
Gray, Asa
Gray, H.P., artist
Greece, political affairs in
Greek Church, influence of
Greeley, Horace, opposes coercion of the South
Greene, Colonel W.B.
Greene, Mr., English consul at Scutari
Greenleaf, Dora
Greenough, Horatio, contributes to The Crayon
Griffiths, Mr., London picture dealer
Halbherr, Federico, archaeologist
Halford, Mr., his collection of pictures
Hall, S.C., editor of the Art Journal
Hamilton, Alexander
Hamlet and Ophelia, Rossetti's picture
Hamley, General
Hancock, Mass
Harding, James Duffield, artist
Haynes, Mr., accompanies Stillman on his archaeological expedition
Hector, Rossetti's picture
Herald, the New York, correspondence of, from Vienna, during
the Exposition; further correspondence.
Herzegovina, Stillman's journey to, as
Times correspondent;
condition of the country during the
insurrection; battle at Muratovizza
See also, Dalmatia and Montenegro.
Hibernia, Fla.
Hoar, Judge E.R., joins the Adirondack Club;
Grant's attorney-general.
Hobart Pasha, English admiral at Crete.
Hohenlohe, Cardinal.
Holland, J.G.
Holmes, John.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell;
Stillman's estimate of.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.
Holmes, Sir William, English consul at Mostar, Herzegovina.
Hooker, Mr., secretary of legation at Rome.
Hosmer, Harriet.
House of the Four Winds.
Houssein, Hadji.
Howe, Dr. Estes.
Howe, Dr. S.G.
Howells, William Dean,
Stillman's first meeting with;
consul at Venice.
Hubbard, Richard W., artist.
Hudson and Mohawk Railroad, opening of.
Hughes, Thomas, Lowell gives Stillman letter to;
intercourse with.
Humbert, King of Italy, character of his rule
and relations with Crispi.
Hungarian crown jewels, concealed by Kossuth;
schemes for their removal;
recovered by the Austrian government.
Hungarian politics. See Kossuth, Louis.
Hunt, Holman.
Hunt, William M.
Huntington, Daniel, contributes to The Crayon.
Hussein Avni.
Ignatieff, General.
"Indian Chiefs" of the anti-rent war.
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique.
Inman, Henry, artist.
International copyright.
Ioannides, Dr., in the Cretan insurrection.
Irby, Miss.
Isle of Wight.
Ismael Pasha, Stillman's relations
with, during his consulate at Crete;
character of his rule;
action during the insurrection;
his dismissal.
Italian politics.
Italian prisoners murdered at New Orleans.
Ivanovich, General.
Jacque, Charles, artist.
"Jack-hunting,"
James, Henry, father of the novelist,
contributes to The Crayon
Jay, John, American minister at Vienna.
Jesuits.
Jews in Newport, R.I.
Johnson family, in the Adirondacks.
Jonine, Russian agent.
Juliet and her Nurse, Turner's picture.
Kalepa.
Karam, Joseph, prince of the Lebanon.
Kaulbach, Wilhelm von.
Kestrel, the yacht, Stillman makes use of, about Crete;
hired for the voyage "on the track of Ulysses."
King, John A.
King, Rufus.
Kingsley, Charles.
Kingsley, Henry.
Knapp, Mr., revival preacher.
Kolashin.
Kossuth, Louis, his tour in America;
his intercourse with Stillman.
Koumani
Kovachevich, Slavonic patriot
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de
Landscape Element, The, in American Poetry, series of articles by
Stillman in The Crayon
Landscape in America, lack of picturesqueness in
Larcom, Lucy, contributes to The Crayon
Lark, The, and her Young, fable of
Lasithe
Laufenburg
Lausanne
Leighton, Sir Frederick, visits Stillman
Lemaître, Frédéric, actor
Lenox, James
his attempts to obtain Turner's Téméraire
possession of another work by Turner
Leslie, Sir Charles R., artist
Levant Herald, Stillman's work upon
Leys, Baron
Lincoln, Abraham,
at the outbreak of the Civil War
his understanding of the North
in the Mason and Slidell case
brief mentions of
his assassination
Lind, Jenny, fellow-passenger with Stillman from England
Linnell, John, artist
Ljubibratich, Herzegovinian leader
Llanthony Abbey, Turner's picture
Lloyd, Mr., English consul at Syra
Lockwood, Le Grand
Longfellow, H.W.
Stillman's intercourse with
his spiritualism
comparison with Emerson
Longfellow, Mrs. H.W.
Lowell, James
Lowell, Charles
Lowell, James Russell
assists Stillman with The Crayon
is appointed a professor at Harvard
complimentary dinner to
comparison with Holmes
Stillman's personal association with and judgment of
brief mentions of
Lowell, Mrs. James Russell
Lumley, Sir John Saville. See Saville, Lord, of Burford.
Lyons, Lord, English ambassador at Constantinople
MacDonald, Captain
MacDonald, Mr., manager of the Times, Stillman's association with
Mack, Dr. David
Mack, Laura, of Cambridge. See Stillman, Laura, wife of W.J.
Mackail, J.W., his life of Morris
Macmillan's, evenings at
Magdalene, Rossetti's picture
Mahmoud Pasha, Hungarian general, in Turkish army
Mahommed the Arabian, bricabrac dealer
Mantz, Paul, French correspondent of The Crayon
Marsh, George P., American minister to Italy
Marshall, John, surgeon
Martins, Professor, French scientist
"Mason and Dixon's line"
Mason and Slidell, capture of
Matanzas, Fla.
Maxson, Mr., grandfather of W.J. Stillman
Maxson, Eliza Ward. See Stillman, Eliza Ward Maxson
Maxson, John, ancestor of W.J. Stillman
Maxson, William B., uncle of W.J. Stillman
Mayor, Edmond, Crispi's secretary
Mazzini, Giuseppe
Medun
Mehmet Ali, governor-general of Crete
Mehmet Pasha
Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernst
Melos. See Milo
Menelek
Meskla
Metellus, his siege of Canea
Milan
Millais, Sir John
his picture The Proscribed Royalist
Stillman meets
his facility of execution
his influence compared with Rossetti's
Millet, J.F., Stillman's meeting with, at Barbizon
his work
his personal relations with Rousseau
appreciation by Americans
Millianoff, Marko, Kutchian chief
Milnes, Monckton, Stillman makes acquaintance of
Milo, Montenegrin hero
Milo, the island of
Mirko, father of Prince Nicholas
Modern Painters
Mohawk River
Monson, Sir Edward
Mont Blanc
Montenegro, Princess of
Montenegro, Stillman's journey to, as Times correspondent
condition and character of the people
incidents of travel
participation in the Herzegovinian insurrection
declaration of war and military operations
Russian intervention
campaign of 1877
siege of Niksich
later visit to the country
See, also, Herzegovina.
Montenegrin women, courage of
Monteverde, Colonel
Moratsha, Stillman's journey to
scene of defeat of Mehemet Ali Pasha
Morley, Lord
Morris, E. Joy, American minister at Constantinople
Morris, William; character of his work and Rossetti's influence
upon him
Mosier, Joseph
Mostar, visit to
Mother's influence in forming character of children
Moustier, Marquis de
Mukhtar Pasha, commands Turkish troops in the Herzegovinian
insurrection
is replaced by Suleiman Pasha
Müller, Max, quoted
reviews The Cretan Insurrection
with Mrs. Müller, meets Lowell at Stillman's house in London
Muratovizza, battle of
Murnies
Murray, Captain Patrick, commander of the Wizard
Mussulman honesty
Mustapha Kiritly Pasha, his campaign in Crete
his relations with Stillman
his recall
his execution of Cretans in 1837
Naples, Congress of
Naples, King of
Napoleon III.
Natural selection, theory of
Neuchâtel
Nevius brothers, missionaries
New Orleans, murder of Italian prisoners in
New York city
the schools of
description of, in Stillman's boyhood
artist life and journalism in
New York politics
Newport, R.I., "Seventh-Day Baptists" in
Niagara
Nicholas, Prince of Montenegro, opposes Herzegovinian insurrection in
its early stages
Stillman's first audience with
his character and appearance
his civil list
incidents in Stillman's intercourse with
unwillingness to take responsibility of a war
his conditions refused by Turks
relations with Austria
his gratitude to Stillman for sympathy aroused by his Times
correspondence
his opposition to Russian suggestions
movements during the war
brief mentions of
Nicotera, Sig.
Niksich, siege of
Njegush
Nooning, The, plan of
Norich, Mr.
Normandy
North Conway, N.H.
Norton, Charles Eliot,
first meets Stillman
contributes to The Crayon
friendship with Stillman
brief mentions of
Nott, Mrs., wife of President Nott
Nott, Eliphalet, President of Union College
Ode to Happiness
Ogle, Mr., Times correspondent, killed by Turkish troops
Omalos
Omar Pasha
succeeds Mustapha Kiritly in Crete
his campaign
his recall
On the Track of Ulysses
Orealuk
Orzovensky, Dr.
Osman Pasha
Ostrog
convent of
fighting near
Owen, Richard
Owen, Robert Dale