My dear Miss Cox,—I had long looked forward to our visit to Genoa in order to write to you. I had fancied a thousand things of the "Superb City" which would have been matters of interest, and hoped that many others might have presented themselves to actual observation. But with that same fatality by which the future forever evades us, we have come and gone again, and really seen nothing.
Instead of a week or fortnight passed in loitering about these mysterious, narrow streets, each one of which is a picture, poking into crypts, and groping along the aisles of those dim churches, and then issuing forth into the blaze of sunshine to see the blue sea heaving in mighty masses on the rocky shore, we came here to see some vulgar spectacle of a circus or a tournament. By ill-luck, too, even this pleasure has proved abortive; a very mortifying, I might say humiliating, discovery awaited us, and we have, for shame's sake, taken our refuge in flight from one of the most interesting cities in the whole peninsula.
I am ashamed to confess to you how ill I have borne the disappointment. The passing glimpses I caught here and there of steep old alleys, barely wide enough for three to go abreast; the little squares, containing some quaint monument or some fantastic fountain; the massive iron gateways, showing through the bars the groves of orange-trees within; the wide portals, opening on great stairs of snow-white marble,—all set me a-dreaming of that proud Genoa, with its merchant-princes, who combined all the haughty characteristics of a feudal state with the dashing spirit of a life of enterprise.
The population, too, seemed as varied in type as the buildings around them. The bronzed, deep-browed Ligurian—the "Faquino"—by right of birth, stood side by side with the scarcely less athletic Dalmatian. The Arab from Tiflis, the Suliote, the Armenian, the dull-eyed Moslem, and the treacherous-looking Moor were all grouped about the Mole, with a host of those less picturesque figures that represent Northern Europe. There, was heard every language and every dialect. There, too, seen the lineaments of every nation, and the traits of every passion that distinguish a people. Just as on the deep blue water that broke beside them were ships of every build, from the proud three-decker to the swift "lateen," and from the tall, taper spare of the graceful clipper to the heavily rounded, low-masted galliot of the Netherlands.
I own to you that however the actual life of commerce may include commonplace events and commonplace people, there is something about the sea and those that live on the great waters that always has struck me as eminently poetical.
The scene, the adventurous existence, the strange faraway lands they have visited, the Spice Islands of the South, the cold shores of the Arctic Seas, the wondrous people with whom they have mingled, the dangers they have confronted,—all invest the sailor with a deep interest to me, and I regard him ever as one who has himself been an actor in the great drama of which I have only read the outline.
I was, indeed, very sorry to leave Genoa, and to leave it, too, unseen. An event, however, too painful to allude to, compelled us to start at once; and we came on here to the little village from whence I write. A lovely spot it is,—sheltered from the open sea by a tall promontory, wooded with waving pines, whose feathery foliage is reflected in the calm sea beneath. A gentle curve of the strand leads to Chiavari, another town about six miles off; and behind us, landward, rise the great Apennines, several thousand feet in height,—grand, barren, volcanic-looking masses of wildest outline, and tinted with the colors of every mineral ore. On the very highest pinnacles of these are villages perched, and the tall tower of a church is seen to rise against the blue sky, at an elevation, one would fancy, untrodden by man.
There is a beautiful distinctness in Italian landscape,—every detail is "picked out" sharply. The outline of every rock and cliff, of every tree, of every shrub, is clean and well defined. Light and shadow fall boldly, and even abruptly, on the eye; but—shall I own it?—I long for the mysterious distances, the cloud-shadows, the vague atmospheric tints of our Northern lands. I want those passing effects that seem to give a vitality to the picture, and make up something like a story of the scene. It is in these the mind revels as in a dreamland of its own. It is from these we conjure up so many mingled thoughts of the past, the present, and the coming time,—investing the real with the imaginary, and blending the ideal with the actual world.
How naturally do all these thoughts lead us to that of Home! Happily for us, there is that in the religion of our hearts towards home that takes no account of the greater beauty of other lands. The loyalty we owe our own hearth defies seduction. Admire, glory in how you will the grandest scene the sun ever set upon, there is still a holy spot in your heart of hearts for some little humble locality,—a lonely glen,—a Highland tarn,—a rocky path beside some winding river, rich in its childish memories, redolent of the bright hours of sunny infancy,—and this you would not give for the most gorgeous landscapes that ever basked beneath Italian sky.
Do not fancy that I repine at being here because I turn with fond affection to the scene of my earliest days. I delight in Italy; I glory in its splendor of sky and land and water. I never weary of its beauteous vegetation, and my ear drinks in with equal pleasure the soft accents of its language; but I always feel that these things are to be treasured for memory to be enjoyed hereafter, just as the emigrant labors for the gold he is to spend in his own country. In this wise, it may be, when wandering along some mountain "boreen" at home, sauntering of a summer's eve through some waving meadow, that Italy in all its brightness will rise before me, and I will exalt in my heart to have seen the towers of the Eternal City, and watched the waves that sleep in "still Sorrento."
We leave this to-morrow for Spezia, there to pass a few days; our object being to loiter slowly along till papa can finally decide whether to go back or forward: for so is it, my dearest friend, all our long-planned tour and its pleasures have resolved themselves into a hundred complications of finance and fashionable acquaintances.
One might have supposed, from our failures in these attempts, that we should have learned at least our own unfitness for success. The very mortifications we have suffered might have taught us that all the enjoyment we could ever hope to reap could not repay the price of a single defeat. Yet here we are, just as eager, just as short-sighted, just as infatuated as ever, after a world that will have "none of us," and steadily bent on storming a position in society that, if won to-morrow, we could not retain.
I suppose that our reverses in this wise must have attained some notoriety, and I am even prepared to hear that the Dodd family have made themselves unhappily conspicuous by their unfortunate attempt at greatness; but I own, dearest friend, that I am not able to contemplate with the same philosophical submission the loss of good men's esteem and respect, to which these failures must expose US—an instance of which, I tremble to think, has already occurred to us.
You have often heard me speak of Mrs. Morris, and of the kindness with which she treated me during a visit at her house. She was at that time in what many would have called very narrow circumstances, but which by consummate care and good management sufficed to maintain a condition in every way suitable to a gentlewoman. She has since—or rather her son has—succeeded to a very large fortune and a title. They were at Genoa when we arrived there,—at the same hotel,—and yet never either called on or noticed us! It is perfectly needless for me to say that I know, and know thoroughly, that no change in their position could have produced any alteration in their manner towards us. If ever there were people totally removed from such vulgarity,—utterly incapable of even conceiving it,—it is the Morrises. They were proud in their humble fortune,—that is, they possessed a dignified self-esteem, that would have rejected the patronage of wealthy pretension, but willingly accepted the friendship of very lowly worth; and I can well believe that prosperity will only serve to widen the sphere of their sympathies, and make them as generous in action as they were once so in thought. That their behavior to us depends on anything in themselves, I therefore completely reject,—this I know and feel to be an impossibility. What a sad alternative is then left me, when I own that they have more than sufficient cause to shun our acquaintance and avoid our intimacy!
The loss of such a friend as Captain Morris might have been to James is almost irreparable; and from the interest he once took in him, it is clear he felt well disposed for such a part; and I am thoroughly convinced that even papa himself, with all his anti-English prejudices, has only to come into close contact with the really noble traits of the English character, to acknowledge their excellence and their worth. I am very far from undervaluing the great charm of manner which comes under the category of what is called "aimable." I recognize all its fascination, and I even own to an exaggerated enjoyment of its display; but shall I confess that I believe that it is this very habit of simulation that detracts from the truthful character of a people, and that English bluntness is—so to say—the complement of English honesty. That they push the characteristic too far, and that they frequently throw a chill over social intercourse, which under more genial influences had been everything that was agreeable, I am free to admit; but, with all these deficiencies, the national character is incomparably above that of any other country I have any knowledge of. It will be scarcely complimentary if I add, after all this, that we Irish are certainly more popular abroad than our Saxon relatives. We are more compliant with foreign usages, less rigid in maintaining our own habits, more conciliating in a thousand ways; and both our tongues and our temperaments more easily catch a new language and a new tone of society.
Is it not fortunate for you that I am interrupted in these gossipings by the order to march? Mary Anne has come to tell me that we are to start in half an hour; and so, adieu till we meet at Spezia.
Spezia, Croce di Malta.
The little sketch that I send with this will give you some very faint notion of this beautiful gulf, with which I have as yet seen nothing to compare. This is indeed Italy. Sea, sky, foliage, balmy air, the soft influences of an atmosphere perfumed with a thousand odors,—all breathe of the glorious land.
The Garden—a little promenade for the townspeople, that stretches along the beach—is one blaze of deep crimson flowers,—the blossom of the San Giuseppe,—I know not the botanical name. The blue sea—and such a blue!—mirrors every cliff and crag and castellated height with the most minute distinctness. Tall lateen-sailed boats glide swiftly to and fro; and lazy oxen of gigantic size drag rustling wagons of loaded vines along, the ruddy juice staining the rich earth as they pass.
Como was beautiful; but there was—so to say—a kind of trim coquetry in its beauty that did not please me. The villas, the gardens, the terraced walks, the pillared temples, seemed all the creations of a landscape-gardening spirit that eagerly profited by every accidental advantage of ground, and every casual excellence of situation. Now, here there is none of this. All that man has done here had been even better left undone. It is in the jutting promontories of rock-crowned olives,—the landlocked, silent bays, darkened by woody shores,—the wild, profuse vegetation, where the myrtle, the cactus, and the arbutus blend with the vine, the orange, and the fig,—the sea itself, heaving as if oppressed with perfumed languor,—and the tall Apennines, snow-capped, in the distance, but whiter still in the cliffs of pure Carrara marble,—it is in these that Spezia maintains its glorious superiority, and in these it is indeed unequalled.
It will sound, doubtless, like a very ungenerous speech, when I say that I rejoice that this spot is so little visited—so little frequented—by those hordes of stray and straggling English who lounge about the Continent. I do not say this in any invidious spirit, but simply in the pleasure that I feel in the quiet and seclusion of a place which, should it become by any fatality "the fashion" will inevitably degenerate by all the vulgarities of the change. At present the Riviera—as the coast-line from Genoa to Pisa is called—is little travelled. The steamers passing to Leghorn by the cord of the arch, take away nearly all the tourists, so that Spezia, even as a bathing-place, is little resorted to by strangers. There are none, not one, of the ordinary signs of the watering-place about it. Neither donkeys to hire, nor subscription concerts; not a pony phaeton, a pianist, nor any species of human phenomenon to torment you; and the music of the town band is, I rejoice to say, so execrably bad that even a crowd of twenty cannot be mustered for an audience.
Spezia is, therefore, au naturel,—and long may it be so! Distant be the day when frescoed buildings shall rise around, to seduce from its tranquil scenery the peaceful lover of nature, and make of him the hot-cheeked gambler or the broken debauchee. I sincerely, hopefully trust this is not to be, at least in our time.
We made an excursion this morning by boat to Lerici, to see poor Shelley's house, the same that Byron lived in when here. It stands in the bight of a little bay of its own, and close to the sea; so close, indeed, that the waves were plashing and frothing beneath the arched colonnade on which it is built. It is now in an almost ruinous condition, and the damp, discolored walls and crumbling plaster bespeak neglect and decay.
The view from the terrace is glorious; the gulf in its entire extent is before you, and the island of Palmaria stands out boldly, with the tall headlands of Porto Venere, forming the breakwater against the sea. It was here Shelley loved to sit; here, of a summer's night, he often sat till morning, watching the tracts of hill and mountain wax fainter and fainter, till they grew into brightness again with coming day; and it was not far from this, on the low beach of Via Reggio, that he was lost! The old fisherman who showed us the house had known him well, and spoke of his habits as one might have described those of some wayward child. The large and lustrous eyes, the long waving hair, the uncertain step, the look half timid, half daring, had made an impression so strong, that even after long years he could recall and tell of them.
It came on to blow a "Levanter" as we returned, and the sea got up with a rapidity almost miraculous. From a state of calm and tranquil repose, it suddenly became storm-lashed and tempestuous; nor was it without difficulty we accomplished a landing at Spezia. To-morrow we are to visit Porto Venere,—the scene which it is supposed suggested to Virgil his description of the Cave in which Æneas meets with Dido; and the following day we go to Carrara to see the marble quarries and the artists' studios. In fact, we are "handbooking" this part of our tour in the most orthodox fashion; and from the tame, half-effaced impressions objects suggest, of which you come primed with previous description, I can almost fancy that reading "John Murray" at your fireside at home might compensate for the fatigue and cost of a journey. It would be worse than ungrateful to deny the aid one derives from guide-books; but there is unquestionably this disadvantage in them, that they limit your faculty of admiration or disapproval. They set down rules for your liking and disliking, and far from contributing to form and educate your taste, they cramp its development by substituting criticism for instinct.
As I hope to write to you again from Florence, I 'll not prolong this too tiresome epistle, but, with my most affectionate greetings to all my old schoolfellows, ask my dear Miss Cox to believe me her ever attached and devoted
Caroline Dodd.
The Morrises arrived here last night and went on this morning, without any notice of us. They must have seen our names in the book when writing their own. Is not this more than strange? Mamma and Mary Anne seemed provoked when I spoke of it, so that I have not again alluded to the subject. I wish from my heart I could ask how you interpret their coldness.
Dearest Kitty,—This must be the very shortest of letters, for we are on the wing, and shall be for some days to come. Very few words, however, will suffice to tell you that we have at length persuaded papa to come on to Florence,—for the winter, of course. Rome will follow,—then Naples,—e poi?—who knows! I think he must have received some very agreeable tidings from your uncle Purcell, for he has been in better spirits than I have seen him latterly, and shows something like a return to his old vein of pleasantry. Not but I must own that it is what the French would call, very often, a mauvaise plaisanterie in its exercise, his great amusement being to decry and disparage the people of the Continent. He seems quite to forget that in every country the traveller is, and must be, a mark for knavery and cheating. His newness to the land, his ignorance, in almost all cases, of the language, his occasional mistakes, all point him out as a proper subject for imposition; and if the English come to compare notes with any Continental country, I'm not so sure we should have much to plume ourselves upon, as regards our treatment of strangers.
For our social misadventures abroad, it must be confessed that we are mainly most to blame ourselves. All the counterfeits of rank, station, and position are so much better done by foreigners than by our people, that we naturally are more easily imposed on. Now in England, for instance, it would be easier to be a duchess than to imitate one successfully. All the attributes that go to make up such a station abroad, might be assumed by any adventurer of little means and less capacity. We forget—or, more properly speaking, we do not know—this, when we come first on the Continent; hence the mistakes we fall into, and the disasters that assail us.
It would be very disagreeable for me to explain at length how what I mentioned to you about James's marriage has come to an untimely conclusion. Enough when I say that the lady was not, in any respect, what she had represented herself, and my dear brother may be said to have had a most fortunate escape. Of course the poor fellow has suffered considerably from the disappointment, nor are his better feelings alleviated by the—I will say—very indelicate raillery papa is pleased to indulge in on the subject. It is, however, a theme I do not care to linger on, and I only thus passively allude to it that it may be buried in oblivion between us.
We came along here from Genoa by the seaboard, a very beautiful and picturesque road, traversing a wild range of the Apennines, and almost always within view of the blue Mediterranean. At Spezia we loitered for a day or two, to bathe, and I must say nothing can be more innocently primitive than the practice as followed there.
Ladies and gentlemen—men and women, if you like it better—all meet in the water as they do on land, or rather not as they do on land, but in a very first-parentage state of no-dressedness. There they splash, swim, dive, and converse,—float, flirt, talk gossip, and laugh with a most laudable forgetfulness of externals. Introductions and presentations go forward as they would in society, and a gentleman asks you to duck instead of to dance with him. It would be affectation in me were I not to say that I thought all this very shocking at first, and that I really could scarcely bring myself to adopt it; but Lord George, who really swims to perfection, laughed me out of some, and reasoned me out of others of my prejudices, and I will own, dearest Kitty, his arguments were unanswerable.
"Were you not very much ashamed," said he, "the first time you saw a ballet, or 'poses plastiques'?—did not the whole strike you as exceedingly indelicate?—and now, would not that very same sense of shame occur to you as real indelicacy, since in these exhibitions it is Art alone you admire,—Art in its graceful development? The 'Ballarina' is not a woman; she is an ideal,—she is a Hebe, a Psyche, an Ariadne, or an Aphrodite. Symmetry, grace, beauty of outline,—these are the charms that fascinate you. Can you not, therefore, extend this spirit to the sea, and, instead of the Marquis of this and the Countess of that, only behold Tritono and sea-nymphs disporting in the flood?"
I saw at once the force of this reasoning, Kitty, and perceived that to take any lower view of the subject would be really a gross indelicacy. I tried to make Cary agree with me, but utterly in vain,—she is so devoid of imagination! There is, too, an utter want of refinement in her mind positively hopeless. She even confessed to me that Lord George without his clothes still seemed Lord George to her, and that no effort she could make was able to persuade her that the old Danish Minister in the black leather skullcap had any resemblance to a river god. Mamma behaved much better; seeing that the custom was one followed by all the "best people," she adopted it at once, and though she would scream out whenever a gentleman came to talk to her, I 'm sure, with a few weeks' practice, she 'd have perfectly reconciled herself to "etiquette in the water." Should you, with your very Irish notions, raise hands and eyes at all this, and mutter, "How very dreadful!—how shocking!" and so on, I have only to remind you of what the Princess Pauline said to an English lady, who expressed her prudish horrors at the Princess having "sat for Canova in wet drapery": "Oh, it was not so disagreeable as you think; there was always a fire in the room." Now, Kitty, I make the same reply to your shocked scruples, by saying the sea was deliciously warm. Bathing is here, indeed, a glorious luxury. There is no shivering or shuddering, no lips chattering, blue-nosed, goose-skinned misery, like the home process! It is not a rush in, in desperation, a duck in agony, and a dressing in ague, but a delicious lounge, associated with all the enjoyments of scenery and society. The temperature of the sea is just sufficiently below that of the air to invigorate without chilling, like the tone of a company that stimulates without exhausting you. It is, besides, indescribably pleasant to meet with a pastime so suggestive of new themes of talk. Instead of the tiresome and trite topics of ballet and balls, and dress and diamonds, your conversation smacks of salt water, and every allusion "hath suffered a sea change." Instead of a compliment to your dancing, the flattery is now on your diving; and he who once offered his arm to conduct you to the "buffet," now proposes his company to swim out to a lifebuoy!
And now let me get back to land once more, and you will begin to fancy that your correspondent is Undine herself in disguise. I was very sorry to leave Spezia, since I was just becoming an excellent swimmer. Indeed, the surgeon of an American frigate assured me that he thought "I had been raised in the Sandwich Islands,"—a compliment which, of course, I felt bound to accept in the sense that most flattered me.
We passed through Carrara, stopping only to visit one or two of the studios. They had not much to interest us, the artists being for the most part copyists, and their works usually busts; busts being now the same passion with our travelling countrymen as once were oil portraits. The consequence is that every sculptor's shelves are loaded with thin-lipped, grim-visaged English women, and triple-chinned, apoplectic-looking aldermen, that contrast very unfavorably with the clean-cut brows and sharply chiselled features of classic antiquity. The English are an eminently good-looking race of people, seen in their proper costume of broadcloth and velvet. They are manly and womanly. The native characteristics of boldness, decision, and highhearted honesty are conspicuous in all their traits; nor is there any deficiency in the qualities of tenderness and gentleness. But with all this, when they take off their neckcloths, they make but very indifferent Romans; and he who looked a gentleman in his shirt-collar becomes, what James would call, "an arrant snob" when seen in a toga. And yet they will do it! They have a notion that the Anglo-Saxon can do anything,—and so he can, perhaps,—the difference being whether he can look the character he knows so well how to act.
We left Carrara by a little mountain path to visit the Bagni di Lucca, a summer place, which once, in its days of Rouge-et-Noir celebrity, was greatly resorted to. The Principality of Lucca possessed at that period, too, its own reigning duke, and had not been annexed to Tuscany. Like all these small States, without trade or commerce, its resources were mainly derived from the Court; and, consequently, the withdrawal of the Sovereign was the death-blow to all prosperity. It would be quite beyond me to speculate on the real advantages or disadvantages resulting from this practice of absorption, but pronouncing merely from externals, I should say that the small States are great sufferers. Nothing can be sadder than the aspect of this little capital. Ruined palaces, grass-grown streets, tenantless houses, and half-empty shops are seen everywhere. Poverty—I might call it misery—on every hand. The various arts and trades cultivated had been those required by, even called into existence by, the wants of a Court. All the usages of the place had been made to conform to its courtly life and existence, and now this was gone, and all the "occupation" with it! You are not perhaps aware that this same territory of Lucca supplies nearly all of that tribe of image and organ men so well known, not only through Europe, but over the vast continent of America. They are skilful modellers naturally, and work really beautiful things in "terra cotta." They are a hardy mountain race, and, like all "montagnards," have an equal love for enterprise and an attachment to home. Thus they traverse every land and sea, they labor for years long in far-away climes, they endure hardships and privations of every kind, supported by the one thought of the day when they can return home again, and when in some high-perched mountain village—some "granuolo," or "bennabbia "—they can rest from wandering, and, seated amidst their kith and kind, tell of the wondrous things they have seen in their journeyings. It is not uncommon here, in spots the very wildest and least visited, to find a volume in English or French on the shelf of some humble cottage: now it is perhaps a print, or an engraving of some English landscape,—a spot, doubtless, endeared by some especial recollection,—and not unfrequently a bird from Mexico—a bright-winged parrot from the Brazils—shows where the wanderer's footsteps have borne him, and shows, too, how even there the thoughts of home had followed.
Judged by our own experiences, these people are but scantily welcomed amongst us. They are constantly associated in our minds with intolerable hurdy-gurdies and execrable barrel-organs. They are the nightmare of invalids, and the terror of all studious heads, and yet the wealth with which they return shows that their gifts are both acknowledged and rewarded. It must be that to many the organ-man is a pleasant visitor, and the image-hawker a vendor of "high art" I have seen a great many of them since we came here, and in their homes too; for mamma has taken up the notion that these excellent people are all living in a state of spiritual darkness and destitution, and to enlighten them has been disseminating her precious little volume on the Miracles of Mount Orsaro. It is plain to me that all this zeal of a woman of a foreign nation seems to them a far more miraculous manifestation than anything in her little book, and they stare and wonder at her in a way that plainly shows a compassionate distrust of her sanity.
It is right I should say that Lord George thinks all these people knaves and vagabonds; and James says they are a set of smugglers, and live by contraband. Whatever be the true side of the picture, I must now leave to your own acuteness, or rather to your prejudices, which for all present purposes are quite good enough judges to decide.
Papa likes this place so much that he actually proposed passing the winter here, for "cheapness,"—a very horrid thought, but which, fortunately, Lord George averted by a private hint to the landlord of the inn, saying that papa was rolling in wealth, but an awful miser; so that when the bill made its appearance, with everything charged double, papa's indignation turned to a perfect hatred of the town and all in it: the consequence is that we are tomorrow to leave for Florence, which, if but one half of what Lord George says be true, must be a real earthly paradise. Not that I can possibly doubt him, for he has lived there two, or, I believe, three winters,—knows everybody and everything. How I long to see the Cascini, the Court Balls, the Private Theatricals, at Prince Polywkowsky's, the picnics at Fiesole, and those dear receptions at Madame della Montanare's, where, as Lord G. says, every one goes, and "there's no absurd cant heard about character."
Indeed, to judge from Lord G.'s account, Florence—to use his own words—is "the most advanced city in Europe;" that is to say, the Florentines take a higher and more ample view of social philosophy than any other people. The erring individual in our country is always treated like the wounded crow,—the whole rookery is down upon him at once. Not so here; he—or she, to speak more properly—is tenderly treated and compassionated; all the little blandishments of society showered on her. She is made to feel that the world is really not that ill-natured thing sour moralists would describe it; and even if she feel indisposed to return to safer paths, the perilous ones are made as pleasant for her as it is possible. These are nearly his own words, dearest, and are they not beautiful? so teeming with delicacy and true charity. And oh! Kitty, I must say these are habits we do not practise at home in our own country. But of this more hereafter; for the present, I can think of nothing but the society of this delightful city, and am trying to learn off by heart the names of all the charming houses in which he is to introduce us. He has written, besides, to various friends in England for letters for us, so that we shall be unquestionably better off here—socially speaking—than in any other city of the Continent.
We leave this after breakfast to-morrow; and before the end of the week it is likely you may hear from me again, for I am longing to give you my first impressions of Firenza la Bella; till when, I am, as ever, your dearly attached
Mary Anne Dodd.
P. S. Great good fortune, Kitty,—we shall arrive in time for the races. Lord G. has got a note from Prince Pincecotti, asking him to ride his horse "Bruise-drog,"—which, it seems, is the Italian for "Bull-dog,"—and he consents. He is to wear my colors, too, dearest,—green and white,—and I have promised to make him a present of his jacket How handsome he will look in jockey dress!
James is in distraction at being too heavy for even a hurdle-race; but as he is six feet one, and stout in proportion, it is out of the question. Lord G. insists upon it that Cary and I must go on horseback. Mamma agrees with him, and papa as stoutly resists. It is in vain we tell him that all depends on the way we open the campaign here, and that the present opportunity is a piece of rare good fortune; he is in one of his obstinate moods, and mutters something about "beggars on horseback," and the place they "ride to." I open my letter to say—carried triumphantly, dearest—we are to ride.
My dear Bob,—Here we are going it, and in about the very "fastest" place I ever set foot in. In any other city society seems to reserve itself for evening and lamplight; but here, Bob, you make "running from the start," and keep up the pace till you come in. In the morning there 's the club, with plenty of whist; all the gossip of the town,—and such gossip too,—the real article, by Jove!—no shadowy innuendoes, no vague and half-mystified hints of a flaw here or a crack there, but home blows, my boy, with a smashed character or a ruined reputation at every stroke. This is, however, only a breathing canter for what awaits you at the Cascini,—a sort of "promenade," where all the people meet in their carriages, and exchange confidences in scandal and invitations to tea,—the Cascini being to the club what the ballet is to the opera. After this, you have barely time to dress for dinner; which over, the opera begins. There you pay visits from box to box; learn all that is going on for the evening; hear where the prettiest women are going, and where the smartest play will be found. Midnight arrives, and then—but not before—the real life of Florence begins. The dear Contessa, that never showed by daylight, at last appears in her salon; the charming Marchesa, whose very head-dress is a study from Titian, and whose dark-fringed eyes you think you recognize from the picture in "the Pitti," at length sails in, to receive the humble homage of—what, think you? a score of devoted worshippers, a band of chivalrous adorers? Nothing of the kind, Bob: a dozen or so of young fellows, in all manner of costumes, and all shapes of beards and moustaches; all smoking cigars or cigarettes, talking, singing, laughing, thumping the piano, shouting choruses, playing tricks with cards,—all manner of tomfoolery, in fact; with a dash of enthusiasm in the nonsense that carries you along in spite of yourself. The conversation—if one can dare to call it such—is a wild chaos of turf-talk, politics, scandal, literature, buffoonery, and the ballet. There is abundance of wit,—plenty of real smartness on every side. The fellows who have just described the cut of a tucker can tell you accurately the contents of a treaty; and they who did not seem to have a thought above the depth of a flounce or the width of a sandal, are thoroughly well versed in the politics of every State of Europe. There is no touch of sarcasm in their gayety,—none of that refined, subtle ridicule that runs through a Frenchman's talk; these fellows are eminently good-natured: the code of morals is not severe, and hence the secret of the merciful judgments you hear pronounced on every one.
As to breeding, we English should certainly say there was an excess of familiarity. Everybody puts his arm on your shoulder, pats you on the back, and calls you by your Christian name. I am "Giacomo" to a host of fellows I don't know by name; and "Gemess" to a select few, who pride themselves on speaking English. At all events, Bob, there is no constraint,—no reserve amongst them. You are at your ease at once, and good fellowship is the order of the day.
As to the women, they have a half-shy, half-confident look, that puzzles one sadly. They 'll stand a stare from you most unblushingly; they think it's all very right and very reasonable that you should look at them as long and as fixedly as you would do at a Baffaelle in the Gallery: but with all that, there is a great real delicacy of deportment, and those coram-publico preferences which are occasionally exhibited in England, and even in France, are never seen in Italian society. As to good looks, there is an abundance, but of a character which an Englishman at first will scarcely accept as beauty. They are rarely handsome by feature, but frequently beautiful by expression. There is, besides, a graceful languor, a tender Cleopatra-like voluptuousness in their air that distinguishes them from other women; and I have no doubt that any one who has lived long in Italy would pronounce French smartness and coquetry the very essence of vulgarity. They cannot dress like a Parisian, nor waltz like a Wienerin; but, to my thinking, they are far more captivating than either. I am already in love with four, and I have just heard of a fifth, that I am sure will set me downright distracted. There 's one thing I like especially in them; and I own to you, Bob, it would compensate to me for any amount of defects, which I believe do not pertain to them. It is this: they have no accomplishments,—they neither murder Rossini, nor mar Salvator Rosa; they are not educated to torment society, poison social intercourse, and push politeness to its last entrenchment. You are not called on for silence while they scream, nor for praise when they paint. They do not convert a drawing-room into a boarding-school on examination-day, and they are satisfied to charm you by fascinations that cost you no compromise to admire.
After all, I believe we English are the only people that adopt the other plan. We take a commercial view of the matter, and having invested so much of our money in accomplishment, we like to show our friends that we have made a good speculation. For myself, I 'd as soon be married to a musical snuff-box or a daguerreotype machine as to a "well-brought-up English girl," who had always the benefit of the best masters in music and drawing. The fourth-rate artist in anything is better than the first-rate amateur; and I 'd just as soon wear home-made shoes as listen to home-made music.
I have not been presented in any of the English houses here as yet. There is some wonderful controversy going forward as to whether we are to call first, or to wait to be called on; and I begin to fear that the Carnival will open before it can be settled. The governor, too, has got into a hot controversy with our Minister here, about our presentation at Court. It would appear that the rule is, you should have been presented at home, in order to be eligible for presentation abroad. Now, we have been at the Castle, but never at St James's. The Minister, however, will not recognize reflected royalty; and here we are, suffering under a real Irish grievance O'Connell would have given his eye for. The fun of it is that the Court—at least, I hear so—is crammed with English, who never even saw a Viceroy, nor perhaps partook of the high festivities of a Lord Mayor's Ball. How they got there is not for me to inquire, but I suppose that a vow to a chamberlain is like a customhouse oath, and can always be reconciled to an easy conscience.
We have arrived here at an opportune moment,—time to see all the notorieties of the place at the races, which began to-day. So far as I can learn, the foreigners have adopted the English taste, with the true spirit of imitators; that is, they have given little attention to any improvement in the breed of cattle, but have devoted considerable energy to all the rogueries of the ring, and with such success that Newmarket and Doncaster might still learn something from the "Legs" of the Continent.
Tiverton, who is completely behind the scenes, has told me some strange stories about their doings; and, at the very moment I am writing, horses are being withdrawn, names scratched, forfeits declared, and bets pronounced "off," with a degree of precipitation and haste that shows how little confidence exists amongst the members of the ring. As for myself, not knowing either the course, the horses, nor the colors of the riders, I take my amusement in observing—what is really most laughable—the absurd effort made by certain small folk here to resemble the habits and ways of certain big ones in England. Now it is a retired coach-maker, or a pensioned-off clerk in a Crown office, that jogs down the course, betting-book in hand, trying to look—in the quaintness of his cob, and the trim smugness of his groom—like some old county squire of fifteen thousand a year. Now it is some bluff, middle-aged gent, who, with coat thrown back and thumbs in his waistcoat, insists upon being thought Lord George Bentinck. There are Massy Stanleys, George Paynes, Lord Wiltons, and Colonel Peels by dozens; "gentlemen jocks" swathed in drab paletots, to hide the brighter rays of costume beneath, gallop at full speed across the grass on ponies of most diminutive size; smartly got-up fellows stand under the judge's box, and slang the authorities above, or stare at the ladies in front. There are cold luncheons, sandwiches, champagne, and soda-water; bets, beauties, and bitter beer,—everything, in short, that constitutes races, but horses! The system is that every great man gives a cup, and wins it himself; the only possible interest attending such a process being whether, in some paroxysm of anger at this, or some frump at that, he may not withdraw his horse at the last moment,—an event on which a small knot of gentlemen with dark eyes, thick lips, and aquiline noses seem to speculate as a race chance, and only second in point of interest to a whist party at the Casino with a couple of newly come "Bulls." A more stupid proceeding, therefore, than these races—bating always the fun derived from watching the "snobocracy".
I have mentioned—cannot be conceived. Now it was a walk over; now a "sell;" now two horses of the same owner; now one horse that was owned by three. The private history of the rogueries might possibly amuse, but all that met the public eye was of the very slowest imaginable.
I begin to think, Bob, that horse-racing is only a sport that can be maintained by a great nation abounding in wealth, and with all the appliances of state and splendor. You ought to have gorgeous equipages, magnificent horses, thousands of spectators, stands crowded to the roof by a class such as only exists in great countries. Royalty itself, in all its pomp, should be there; and all that represents the pride and circumstance of a mighty people. To try these things on a small scale is ridiculous,—just as a little navy of one sloop and a steamer! With great proportions and ample verge, the detracting elements are hidden from view. The minor rascalities do not intrude themselves on a scene of such grandeur; and though cheating, knavery, and fraud are there, they are not foreground figures. Now, on a little "race-course," it is exactly the reverse: just as on board of a three-decker you know nothing of the rats, but in a Nile boat they are your bedfellows and your guests at dinner.
To-morrow we are to have a match with gentlemen riders, and if anything worth recording occurs I 'll keep a corner for it Mother is in the grand stand, with any amount of duchesses and marchionesses around her. The governor is wandering about the field, peeping at the cattle, and wondering how the riders are to get round a sharp turn at the end of the course. The girls are on horseback with Tiverton; and, in the long intervals between the matches, I jot down these rough notes for you. The scene itself is beautiful. The field, flanked on one side by the wood of the Cascini, is open on t' other to the mountains: Fiezole, from base to summit, is dotted over with villas half buried in groves of orange and olive trees. The Val d'Arno opens on one side, and the high mountain of Vallombrosa on the other. The gayly dressed and bright-costumed Florentine population throng the ground itself, and over their heads are seen the glorious domes and towers and spires of beautiful Florence, under a broad sky of cloudless blue, and in an atmosphere of rarest purity.
Thursday.
Tiverton has won his match, and with the worst horse too. Of his competitors one fell off; another never got up at all; a third bolted; and a fourth took so much out of his horse in a breathing canter before the race, that the animal was dead beat before he came to the start. And now the knowing ones are going about muttering angry denunciations on the treachery of grooms and trainers, and vowing that "Gli gentlemen riders son grandi bricconi."
I am glad it is over. The whole scene was one of quarrelling, row, and animosity from beginning to end. These people neither know how to win money nor to lose it; and as to the English who figure on such occasions, take my word for it, Bob, the national character gains little by their alliance. It is too soon for me, perhaps, to pronounce in this fashion, but Tiverton has told me so many little private histories—revealed so much of the secret memoirs of these folk—that I believe I am speaking what subsequent experience will amply confirm. For the present, good-bye, and believe me,
Ever yours,
James Dodd.
My dear Tom,—It is nigh a month since I wrote to you last, and if I didn't "steal a few hours from the night, my dear," it might be longer still. The address will tell you where we are,—I wish anybody or anything else would tell you how or why we came here! I intended to have gone back from Genoa, nor do I yet understand what prevented me doing so. My poor head—none of the clearest in what may be called my lucid intervals—is but a very indifferent thinking machine when harassed, worried, and tormented as I have been latterly. You have heard how James's Countess, the Cardinal's niece and the betrothed of a Neapolitan Prince, turned out to be a circus woman, one of those bits of tawdry gold fringe and pink silk pantaloons that dance on a chalked saddle to a one-shilling multitude! By good fortune she had two husbands living, or she might have married the boy. As it was, he has gone into all manner of debt on her account; and if it was not that I can defy ruin in any shape,—for certain excellent reasons you may guess at,—this last exploit of his would go nigh to our utter destruction.
We hurried away out of Genoa in shame, and came on here by slow stages. The womenkind plucked up wonderfully on the way, and I believe of the whole party your humble servant alone carried abasement with him inside the gates of Florence.
My sense of sorrow and shame probably somehow blunted my faculties and dulled my reasoning powers, for I would seem to have concurred in a vast number of plans and arrangements that now, when I have come to myself, strike me with intense astonishment. For instance, we have taken a suite of rooms on the Arno, hired a cook, a carriage, and a courier; we are, I hear, also in negotiation for a box at the "Pergola," and I am credibly informed that I am myself looking out for saddle-horses for the girls, and a "stout-made, square-jointed cob of lively action," to carry myself.
It may be all true—I have no doubt it is more philosophical, as the cant phrase is—to believe Kenny Dodd to be mistaken rather than suppose his whole family deranged, so that if I hear to-morrow or next day that I 'm about to take lessons in singing, or to hire a studio as a sculptor, I 'm fully determined to accept the tidings with a graceful submission. There is only one thing, Tom Purcell, that passes my belief, and that is, that there ever lived as besotted an old fool as your friend Kenny D., a man so thoroughly alive to everything that displeased him, and yet so prone to endure it; so actively bent on going a road the very opposite to the one he wanted to travel; and that entered heart and soul into the spirit of ruining himself, as if it was the very best fun imaginable.
That you can attempt to follow me through the vagaries of this strange frame of mind is more than I expect, neither do I pretend to explain it to you. There it is, however,—make what you can of it, just as you would with a handful of copper money abroad, where there was no clew to the value of a single coin in the mass, but wherewith you are assured you have received your change.
With a fine lodging, smart liveries, a very good cook, and a well-supplied table, I thought it possible that though ruin would follow in about three months, yet in the interval I might probably enjoy a little ease and contentment. At all events, like the Indian, who, when he saw that he must inevitably go over the Falls, put his paddles quietly aside, and resolved to give himself no unnecessary trouble, I also determined I 'd leave the boat alone, and never "fash myself for the future." Wise as this policy may seem, it has not saved me. Mrs. D. is a regular storm-bird! Wherever she goes she carries her own hurricane with her! and I verily believe she could get up a tornado under the equator.
In a little pious paroxysm that seized her in the mountains, she, at the instigation of a stupid old lord there, must needs write a tract about certain miracles that were or were not—for I 'll not answer for either—performed by a saint that for many years back nobody had paid any attention to. This precious volume cost her three weeks' loss of rest, and me about thirty pounds sterling. It was, however, a pious work, and even as a kind of visa on her passport to heaven, I suppose it would be called cheap. I assure you, Tom, I spent the cash grudgingly; that I did pay it at all I thought was about as good "a miracle" as any in the book.
Armed with this tract, she tramped through the Lucchese mountains, leaving copies everywhere, and thrusting her volume into the hands of all who would have it. I 'm no great admirer of this practice in any sect. The world has too many indiscreet people to make this kind of procedure an over-safe one; besides, I 'm not quite certain that even a faulty religion is not preferable to having none at all, and it happens not unfrequently that the convert stops half-way on his road, and leaves one faith without ever reaching the other. I 'll not discuss this matter further; I have trouble enough on my hands without it.
These little tracts of Mrs. D.'s attracted the attention of the authorities. It was quite enough that they had been given away gratis, and by an Englishwoman, to stamp them as attempts to proselytize, and, although they could n't explain how, yet they readily adopted the idea that the whole was written in a figurative style purposely to cover its real object, and so they set lawyers and judges to work, and what between oaths of peasants and affirmations of prefects, they soon made a very pretty case, and yesterday morning, just as we had finished breakfast, a sergeant of the gendarmerie entered the room, and with a military salute asked which was la Signora Dodd? The answer being given, he proceeded to read aloud a paper, that he held in his hand, the contents of which Cary translated for me in a whisper. They were, in fact, a judge's warrant to commit Mrs. D. to prison under no less than nine different sections of a new law on the subject of religion. In vain we assured him that we were all good Catholics, kept every ordinance of the Church, and hated a heretic. He politely bowed to our explanation, but said that with this part of the matter he had nothing to do; that doubtless we should be able to establish our innocence before the tribunal; meanwhile Mrs. D. must go to prison.
I 'm ashamed at all the warmth of indignation we displayed, seeing that this poor fellow was simply discharging his duty,—and that no pleasant one,—but somehow it is so natural to take one's anger out on the nearest official, that we certainly didn't spare him. Tiverton threatened him with the House of Commons; James menaced him with the "Times;" Mary Anne protested that the British fleet would anchor off Leghorn within forty hours; and I hinted that Mazzini should have the earliest information of this new stroke of tyranny. He bore all like—a gendarme! stroked his moustaches, clinked his sword on the ground, put his cocked-hat a little more squarely on his head, and stood at ease. Mrs. D.—there s no guessing how a woman will behave in any exigency—did n't go off, as I thought and expected she would, in strong hysterics; she did n't even show fight; she came out in what, I am free to own, was for her a perfectly new part, and played martyr; ay, Tom, she threw up her eyes, clasped her hands upon her bosom, and said, "Lead me away to the stake—burn me—torture me—cut me in four quarters—tear my flesh off with hot pincers." She suggested a great variety of these practices, and with a volubility that showed me she had studied the subject. Meanwhile the sergeant grew impatient, declared the "séance" was over, and ordered her at once to enter the carriage that stood awaiting her at the door, and which was to convey her to the prison. I need n't dwell on a very painful scene; the end of it was that she was taken away, and though we all followed in another carriage, we were only admitted to a few moments of leave-taking with her, when the massive gates were closed, and she was a captive!