At Home And Abroad Part 23

No; Rome is not a nine-days wonder; and those who try to make it such lose the ideal Rome (if they ever had it), without gaining any notion of the real. To those who travel, as they do everything else, only because others do, I do not speak; they are nothing. n.o.body counts in the estimate of the human race who has not a character.

For one, I now really live in Rome, and I begin to see and feel the real Rome. She reveals herself day by day; she tells me some of her life. Now I never go out to see a sight, but I walk every day; and here I cannot miss of some object of consummate interest to end a walk. In the evenings, which are long now, I am at leisure to follow up the inquiries suggested by the day.

As one becomes familiar, Ancient and Modern Rome, at first so painfully and discordantly jumbled together, are drawn apart to the mental vision. One sees where objects and limits anciently wore; the superstructures vanish, and you recognize the local habitation of so many thoughts. When this begins to happen, one feels first truly at ease in Rome. Then the old kings, the consuls and tribunes, the emperors, drunk with blood and gold, the warriors of eagle sight and remorseless beak, return for us, and the togated procession finds room to sweep across the scene; the seven hills tower, the innumerable temples glitter, and the Via Sacra swarms with triumphal life once more.

Ah! how joyful to see once more _this_ Rome, instead of the pitiful, peddling, Anglicized Rome, first viewed in unutterable dismay from the _coupe_ of the vettura,--a Rome all full of taverns, lodging-houses, cheating chambermaids, vilest _valets de place_, and fleas! A Niobe of nations indeed! Ah! why, secretly the heart blasphemed, did the sun omit to kill her too, when all the glorious race which wore her crown fell beneath his ray? Thank Heaven, it is possible to wash away all this dirt, and come at the marble yet.

Their the later Papal Rome: it requires much acquaintance, much thought, much reference to books, for the child of Protestant Republican America to see where belong the legends ill.u.s.trated by rite and picture, the sense of all the rich tapestry, where it has a united and poetic meaning, where it is broken by some accident of history.

For all these things--a senseless ma.s.s of juggleries to the uninformed eye--are really growths of the human spirit struggling to develop its life, and full of instruction for those who learn to understand them.

Then Modern Rome,--still ecclesiastical, still darkened and damp in the shadow of the Vatican, but where bright hopes gleam now amid the ashes! Never was a people who have had more to corrupt them,--b.l.o.o.d.y tyranny, and incubus of priestcraft, the invasions, first of Goths, then of trampling emperors and kings, then of sight-seeing foreigners,--everything to turn them from a sincere, hopeful, fruitful life; and they are much corrupted, but still a fine race. I cannot look merely with a pictorial eye on the lounge of the Roman dandy, the bold, Juno gait of the Roman Contadina. I love them,--dandies and all?

I believe the natural expression of these fine forms will animate them yet. Certainly there never was a people that showed a better heart than they do in this day of love, of purely moral influence. It makes me very happy to be for once in a place ruled by a father's love, and where the pervasive glow of one good, generous heart is felt in every pulse of every day.

I have seen the Pope several times since my return, and it is a real pleasure to see him in the thoroughfares, where his pa.s.sage is always greeted as that of _the_ living soul.

The first week of November there is much praying for the dead here in the chapels of the cemeteries. I went to Santo Spirito. This cemetery stands high, and all the way up the slope was lined with beggars pet.i.tioning for alms, in every att.i.tude find tone, (I mean tone that belongs to the professional beggar's gamut, for that is peculiar,) and under every pretext imaginable, from the quite legless elderly gentleman to the ragged ruffian with the roguish twinkle in his eye, who has merely a slight stiffness in one arm and one leg. I could not help laughing, it was such a show,--greatly to the alarm of my attendant, who declared they would kill me, if ever they caught me alone; but I was not afraid. I am sure the endless falsehood in which such creatures live must make them very cowardly. We entered the cemetery; it was a sweet, tranquil place, lined with cypresses, and soft sunshine lying on the stone coverings where repose the houses of clay in which once dwelt joyous Roman hearts,--for the hearts here do take pleasure in life. There were several chapels; in one boys were chanting, in others people on their knees silently praying for the dead. In another was one of the groups in wax exhibited in such chapels through the first week of November. It represented St. Carlo Borromeo as a beautiful young man in a long scarlet robe, pure and brilliant as was the blood of the martyrs, relieving the poor who were grouped around him,--old people and children, the halt, the maimed, the blind; he had called them all into the feast of love. The chapel was lighted and draped so as to give very good effect to this group; the spectators were mainly children and young girls, listening with ardent eyes, while their parents or the nuns explained to them the group, or told some story of the saint. It was a pretty scene, only marred by the presence of a villanous-looking man, who ever and anon shook the poor's box. I cannot understand the bad taste of choosing him, when there were _frati_ and priests enough of expression less unprepossessing.

I next entered a court-yard, where the stations, or different periods in the Pa.s.sion of Jesus, are painted on the wall. Kneeling before these were many persons: here a Franciscan, in his brown robe and cord; there a pregnant woman, uttering, doubtless, some tender aspiration for the welfare of the yet unborn dear one; there some boys, with gay yet reverent air; while all the while these fresh young voices were heard chanting. It was a beautiful moment, and despite the wax saint, the ill-favored friar, the professional mendicants, and my own removal, wide as pole from pole, from the positron of mind indicated by these forms, their spirit touched me, and. I prayed too; prayed for the distant, every way distant,--for those who seem to have forgotten me, and with me all we had in common; prayed for the dead in spirit, if not in body; prayed for myself, that I might never walk the earth

"The tomb of my dead self";

and prayed in general for all unspoiled and loving hearts,--no less for all who suffer and find yet no helper.

Going out, I took my road by the cross which marks the brow of the hill. Up the ascent still wound the crowd of devotees, and still the beggars beset them. Amid that crowd, how many lovely, warm-hearted women! The women of Italy are intellectually in a low place, _but_--they are unaffected; you can see what Heaven meant them to be, and I believe they will be yet the mothers of a great and generous race. Before me lay Rome,--how exquisitely tranquil in the sunset!

Never was an aspect that for serene grandeur could vie with that of Rome at sunset.

Next day was the feast of the Milanese saint, whose life has been made known to some Americans by Manzoni, when speaking in his popular novel of the cousin of St. Carlo, Federigo Borromeo. The Pope came in state to the church of St. Carlo, in the Corso. The show was magnificent; the church is not very large, and was almost filled with Papal court and guards, in all their splendid harmonies of color. An Italian child was next me, a little girl of four or five years, whom her mother had brought to see the Pope. As in the intervals of gazing the child smiled and made signs to me, I nodded in return, and asked her name.

"Virginia," said she; "and how is the Signora named?" "Margherita,"

"My name," she rejoined, "is Virginia Gentili." I laughed, but did not follow up the cunning, graceful lead,--still I chatted and played with her now and then. At last, she said to her mother, "La Signora e molto cara," ("The Signora is very dear," or, to use the English equivalent, _a darling_,) "show her my two sisters." So the mother, herself a fine-looking woman, introduced two handsome young ladies, and with the family I was in a moment pleasantly intimate for the hour.

Before me sat three young English ladies, the pretty daughters of a n.o.ble Earl; their manners were a strange contrast to this Italian graciousness, best expressed by their constant use of the p.r.o.noun _that_. "_See that man!_" (i.e. some high dignitary of the Church,) "Look at that dress!" dropped constantly from their lips. Ah! without being a Catholic, one may well wish Rome was not dependent on English sight-seers, who violate her ceremonies with acts that bespeak their thoughts full of wooden shoes and warming-pans. Can anything be more sadly expressive of times out of joint than the fact that Mrs.

Trollope is a resident in Italy? Yes! she is fixed permanently in Florence, as I am told, pensioned at the rate of two thousand pounds a year to trail her slime over the fruit of Italy. She is here in Rome this winter, and, after having violated the virgin beauty of America, will have for many a year her chance to sully the imperial matron of the civilized world. What must the English public be, if it wishes to pay two thousand pounds a year to get Italy Trollopified?

But to turn to a pleasanter subject. When the Pope entered, borne in his chair of state amid the pomp of his tiara and his white and gold robes, he looked to me thin, or, as the Italians murmur anxiously at times, _consumato_, or wasted. But during the ceremony he seemed absorbed in his devotions, and at the end I think he had become exhilarated by thinking of St. Carlo, who was such another over the human race as himself, and his face wore a bright glow of faith. As he blessed the people, he raised his eyes to Heaven, with a gesture quite natural: it was the spontaneous act of a soul which felt that moment more than usual its relation with things above it, and sure of support from a higher Power. I saw him to still greater advantage a little while after, when, riding on the Campagna with a young gentleman who had been ill, we met the Pope on foot, taking exercise. He often quits his carriage at the gates and walks in this way. He walked rapidly, robed in a simple white drapery, two young priests in spotless purple on either side; they gave silver to the poor who knelt beside the way, while the beloved Father gave his benediction. My companion knelt; he is not a Catholic, but he felt that "this blessing would do him no harm." The Pope saw at once he was ill, and gave him a mark of interest, with that expression of melting love, the true, the only charity, which a.s.sures all who look on him that, were his power equal to his will, no living thing would ever suffer more. This expression the artists try in vain to catch; all busts and engravings of him are caricatures; it is a magnetic sweetness, a lambent light that plays over his features, and of which only great genius or a soul tender as his own would form an adequate image.

The Italians have one term of praise peculiarly characteristic of their highly endowed nature. They say of such and such, _Ha una phisonomia simpatica_,--"He has a sympathetic expression"; and this is praise enough. This may be pre-eminently said of that of Pius IX. _He_ looks, indeed, as if nothing human could be foreign to him. Such alone are the genuine kings of men.

He has shown undoubted wisdom, clear-sightedness, bravery, and firmness; but it is, above all, his generous human heart that gives him his power over this people. His is a face to shame the selfish, redeem the sceptic, alarm the wicked, and cheer to new effort the weary and heavy-laden. What form the issues of his life may take is yet uncertain; in my belief, they are such as he does not think of; but they cannot fail to be for good. For my part, I shall always rejoice to have been here in his time. The working of his influence confirms my theories, and it is a positive treasure to me to have seen him. I have never been presented, not wishing to approach, so real a presence in the path of mere etiquette; I am quite content to see him standing amid the crowd, while the band plays the music he has inspired.

"Sons of Rome, awake!"

Yes, awake, and let no police-officer put you again to sleep in prison, as has happened to those who were called by the Ma.r.s.eillaise.

Affairs look well. The king of Sardinia has at last, though with evident distrust and heartlessness, entered the upward path in a way that makes it difficult to return. The Duke of Modena, the most senseless of all these ancient gentlemen, after publishing a declaration, which made him more ridiculous than would the bitterest pasquinade penned by another, that he would fight to the death against reform, finds himself obliged to lend an ear as to the league for the customs; and if he joins that, other measures follow of course.

Austria trembles; and, in fine, cannot sustain the point of Ferrara.

The king of Naples, after having shed much blood, for which he has a terrible account to render, (ah! how many sad, fair romances are to tell already about the Calabrian difficulties!) still finds the spirit fomenting in his people; he cannot put it down. The dragon's teeth are sown, and the Lazzaroni may be men yet! The Swiss affairs have taken the right direction, and good will ensue, if other powers act with decent honesty, and think of healing the wounds of Switzerland, rather than merely of tying her down, so that she cannot annoy them.

In Rome, here, the new Council is inaugurated, and elections have given tolerable satisfaction. Already, struggles ended in other places begin to be renewed here, as to gas-lights, introduction of machinery, &c. We shall see at the end of the winter how they have gone on. At any rate, the wants of the people are in some measure represented; and already the conduct of those who have taken to themselves so large a portion of the loaves and fishes on the very platform supposed to be selected by Jesus for a general feeding of his sheep, begins to be the subject of spoken as well as whispered animadversion. Torlonia is a.s.sailed in his bank, Campana amid his urns or his Monte di Picti; but these a.s.saults have yet to be verified.

On the day when the Council was to be inaugurated, great preparations were made by representatives of other parts of Italy, and also of foreign nations friendly to the cause of progress. It was considered to represent the same fact as the feast of the 12th of September in Tuscany,--the dawn of an epoch when the people shall find their wants and aspirations represented and guarded. The Americans showed a warm interest; the gentlemen subscribing to buy a flag, the United States having none before in Rome, and the ladies meeting to make it. The same distinguished individual, indeed, who at Florence made a speech to prevent "the American eagle being taken out on so trifling an occasion," with similar perspicuity and superiority of view, on the present occasion, was anxious to prevent "rash demonstrations, which might embroil the United States with Austria"; but the rash youth here present rushed on, ignorant how to value his Nestorian prudence,--fancying, hot-headed simpletons, that the cause of Freedom was the cause of America, and her eagle at home wherever the sun shed a warmer ray, and there was reason to hope a happier life for man. So they hurried to buy their silk, red, white, and blue, and inquired of recent arrivals how many States there are this winter in the Union, in order to making the proper number of stars. A magnificent spread-eagle was procured, not without difficulty, as this, once the eyrie of the king of birds, is now a rookery rather, full of black, ominous fowl, ready to eat the harvest sown by industrious hands. This eagle, having previously spread its wings over a piece of furniture where its back was sustained by the wall, was somewhat deficient in a part of its anatomy. But we flattered ourselves he should be held so high that no Roman eye, if disposed, could carp and criticise. When lo! just as the banner was ready to unfold its young glories in the home of Horace, Virgil, and Tacitus, an ordinance appeared prohibiting the display of any but the Roman ensign.

This ordinance was, it is said, caused by representations made to the Pope that the Oscurantists, ever on the watch to do mischief, meant to make this the occasion of disturbance,--as it is their policy to seek to create irritation here; that the Neapolitan and Lombardo-Venetian flags would appear draped with black, and thus the signal be given for tumult. I cannot help thinking these fears were groundless; that the people, on their guard, would have indignantly crushed at once any of these malignant efforts. However that may be, no one can ever be really displeased with any measure of the Pope, knowing his excellent intentions. But the limitation of the festival deprived it of the n.o.ble character of the brotherhood of nations and an ideal aim, worn by that of Tuscany. The Romans, drilled and disappointed, greeted their Councillors with but little enthusiasm. The procession, too, was but a poor affair for Rome. Twenty-four carriages had been lent by the princes and n.o.bles, at the request of the city, to convey the Councillors. I found something symbolical in this. Thus will they be obliged to furnish from their old grandeur the vehicles of the new ideas. Each deputy was followed by his target and banner. When the deputy for Ferrara pa.s.sed, many garlands were thrown upon his carriage. There has been deep respect and sympathy felt for the citizens of Ferrara, they have conducted so well under their late trying circ.u.mstances. They contained themselves, knowing that the least indiscretion would give a handle for aggression to the enemies of the good cause. But the daily occasions of irritation must have been innumerable, and they have shown much power of wise and dignified self-government.

After the procession pa.s.sed, I attempted to go on foot from the Cafe Novo, in the Corso, to St. Peter's, to see the decorations of the streets, but it was impossible. In that dense, but most vivacious, various, and good-humored crowd, with all best will on their part to aid the foreigner, it was impossible to advance. So I saw only themselves; but that was a great pleasure. There is so much individuality of character here, that it is a great entertainment to be in a crowd.

In the evening, there was a ball given at the Argentina. Lord Minto was there; Prince Corsini, now Senator; the Torlonias, in uniform of the Civic Guard,--Princess Torlonia in a sash of their colors, given her by the Civic Guard, which she waved often in answer to their greetings. But the beautiful show of the evening was the Trasteverini dancing the Saltarello in their most brilliant costume. I saw them thus to much greater advantage than ever before. Several were n.o.bly handsome, and danced admirably; it was really like Pinelli.

The Saltarello enchants me; in this is really the Italian wine, the Italian sun. The first time, I saw it danced one night very unexpectedly near the Colosseum; it carried me quite beyond myself, so that I most unamiably insisted on staying, while the friends in my company, not heated by enthusiasm like me, were shivering and perhaps catching cold from the damp night-air. I fear they remember it against me; nevertheless I cherish the memory of the moments wickedly stolen at their expense, for it is only the first time seeing such a thing that you enjoy a peculiar delight. But since, I love to see and study it much.

The Pope, in receiving the Councillors, made a speech,--such as the king of Prussia intrenched himself in on a similar occasion, only much better and shorter,--implying that he meant only to improve, not to _reform_, and should keep things _in statu quo_, safe locked with the keys of St. Peter. This little speech was made, no doubt, more to rea.s.sure czars, emperors, and kings, than from the promptings of the spirit. But the fact of its necessity, as well as the inferior freedom and spirit of the Roman journals to those of Tuscany, seems to say that the pontifical government, though from the accident of this one man's accession it has taken the initiative to better times, yet may not, after a while, from its very nature, be able to keep in the vanguard.

A sad contrast to the feast of this day was presented by the same persons, a fortnight after, following the body of Silvani, one of the Councillors, who died suddenly. The Councillors, the different societies of Rome, a corps _frati_ bearing tapers, the Civic Guard with drums slowly beating, the same state carriages with their liveried attendants all slowly, sadly moving, with torches and banners, drooped along the Corso in the dark night. A single horseman, with his long white plume and torch reversed, governed the procession; it was the Prince Aldobrandini. The whole had that grand effect so easily given by this artist people, who seize instantly the natural poetry of an occasion, and with unanimous tact hasten to represent it.

More and much anon.

LETTER XX.

ROME.--BAD WEATHER.--ST. CECILIA.--THE PEOPLE'S PROCESSIONS.--TAKING THE VEIL.--FESTIVITIES.--POLITICAL AGITATION.--n.o.bLES.--MARIA LOUISA.--GUICCIOLI.--PARMA.--ADDRESS TO THE NEW SOVEREIGN.--THE NEW YORK MEETING FOR ITALY.--ADDRESS TO THE POPE.

Rome, December 30, 1847.

I could not, in my last, content myself with praising the glorious weather. I wrote in the last day of it. Since, we have had a fortnight of rain falling incessantly, and whole days and nights of torrents such as are peculiar to the "clearing-up" shower in our country.

Under these circ.u.mstances, I have found my lodging in the Corso not only has its dark side, but is all dark, and that one in the Piazza di Spagne would have been better for me in this respect; there on these days, the only ones when I wish to stay at home and write and study, I should have had the light. Now, if I consulted the good of my eyes, I should have the lamp lit on first rising in the morning.

"Every sweet must have its bitter," and the exchange from the brilliance of the Italian heaven to weeks and months of rain, and such black cloud, is unspeakably dejecting. For myself, at the end of this fortnight without exercise or light, and in such a damp atmosphere, I find myself without strength, without appet.i.te, almost without spirits. The life of the German scholar who studies fifteen hours out of the twenty-four, or that of the Spielberg prisoner who could live through ten, fifteen, twenty years of dark prison with, only half an hour's exercise in the day, is to me a mystery. How can the brain, the nerves, ever support it? We are made to keep in motion, to drink the air and light; to me these are needed to make life supportable, the physical state is so difficult and full of pains at any rate.

I am sorry for those who have arrived just at this time hoping to enjoy the Christmas festivities. Everything was spoiled by the weather. I went at half past ten to San Luigi Francese, a church adorned with some of Domenichino's finest frescos on the life and death of St. Cecilia.

This name leads me to a little digression. In a letter to Mr.

Phillips, the dear friend of our revered Dr. Charming, I asked him if he remembered what rec.u.mbent statue it was of which Dr. Charming was wont to speak as of a sight that impressed him more than anything else in Rome. He said, indeed, his mood, and the unexpectedness in seeing this gentle, saintly figure lying there as if death had just struck her down, had no doubt much influence upon him; but still he believed the work had a peculiar holiness in its expression. I recognized at once the theme of his description (the name he himself had forgotten) as I entered the other evening the lonely church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere. As in his case, it was twilight: one or two nuns were at their devotions, and there lay the figure in its grave-clothes, with an air so gentle, so holy, as if she had only ceased to pray as the hand of the murderer struck her down. Her gentle limbs seemed instinct still with soft, sweet life; the expression was not of the heroine, the martyr, so much as of the tender, angelic woman. I could well understand the deep impression made upon his mind. The expression of the frescos of Domenichino is not inharmonious with the suggestions of this statue.

Finding the Ma.s.s was not to begin for some time, I set out for the Quirinal to see the Pope return from that n.o.ble church, Santa Maria Maggiore, where he officiated this night. I reached the mount just as he was returning. A few torches gleamed before his door; perhaps a hundred people were gathered together round the fountain. Last year an immense mult.i.tude waited for him there to express their affection in one grand good-night; the change was occasioned partly by the weather, partly by other causes, of which I shall speak by and by. Just as he returned, the moon looked palely out from amid the wet clouds, and shone upon the fountain, and the n.o.ble figures above it, and the long white cloaks of the Guardia n.o.bile who followed his carriage on horseback; darker objects could scarcely be seen, except by the flickering light of the torches, much blown by the wind. I then returned to San Luigi. The effect of the night service there was very fine; those details which often have such a glaring, mean look by day are lost sight of in the night, and the unity of impression from the service is much more undisturbed. The music, too, descriptive of that era which promised peace on earth, good-will to men, was very sweet, and the _pastorale_ particularly soothed the heart amid the crowd, and pompous ceremonial. But here, too, the sweet had its bitter, in the vulgar vanity of the leader of the orchestra, a trait too common in such, who, not content with marking the time for the musicians, made his stick heard in the remotest nook of the church; so that what would have been sweet music, and flowed in upon the soul, was vulgarized to make you remember the performers and their machines.

On Monday the leaders of the Guardia Civica paid their respects to the Pope, who, in receiving them, expressed his constantly increasing satisfaction in having given this inst.i.tution to his people. The same evening there was a procession with torches to the Quirinal, to pay the homage due to the day (Feast of St. John, and name-day of the Pope, _Giovanni Maria Mastai_); but all the way the rain continually threatened to extinguish the torches, and the Pope could give but a hasty salute under an umbrella, when the heavens were again opened, and such a cataract of water descended, as drove both man and beast to seek the nearest shelter.

On Sunday, I went to see a nun take the veil. She was a person of high family; a princess gave her away, and the Cardinal Ferreti, Secretary of State, officiated. It was a much less effective ceremony than I expected from the descriptions of travellers and romance-writers.

There was no moment of throwing on the black veil; no peal of music; no salute of cannon. The nun, an elegantly dressed woman of five or six and twenty,--pretty enough, but whose quite worldly air gave the idea that it was one of those arrangements made because no suitable establishment could otherwise be given her,--came forward, knelt, and prayed; her confessor, in that strained, unnatural whine too common among preachers of all churches and all countries, praised himself for having induced her to enter on a path which would lead her fettered steps "from palm to palm, from triumph to triumph," Poor thing! she looked as if the domestic olives and poppies were all she wanted; and lacking these, tares and wormwood must be her portion. She was then taken behind a grating, her hair cut, and her clothes exchanged for the nun's vestments; the black-robed sisters who worked upon her looking like crows or ravens at their ominous feasts. All the while, the music played, first sweet and thoughtful, then triumphant strains.

The effect on my mind was revolting and painful to the last degree.

Were monastic seclusion always voluntary, and could it be ended whenever the mind required a change back from seclusion to common life, I should have nothing to say against it; there are positions of the mind which it suits exactly, and even characters that might choose it all through life; certainly, to the broken-hearted it presents a shelter that Protestant communities do not provide. But where it is enforced or repented of, no h.e.l.l could be worse; nor can a more terrible responsibility be incurred than by him who has persuaded a novice that the snares of the world are less dangerous than the demons of solitude.

Festivities in Italy have been of great importance, since, for a century or two back, the thought, the feeling, the genius of the people have had more chance to expand, to express themselves, there than anywhere else. Now, if the march of reform goes forward, this will not be so; there will be also speeches made freely on public occasions, without having the life pressed out of them by the censorship. Now we hover betwixt the old and the new; when the many reasons for the new prevail, I hope what is poetical in the old will not be lost. The ceremonies of New Year are before me; but as I shall have to send this letter on New-Year's day, I cannot describe them.

The Romans begin now to talk of the mad gayeties of Carnival, and the Opera is open. They have begun with "Attila," as, indeed, there is little hope of hearing in Italy other music than Verdi's. Great applause waited on the following words:--

"EZIO (THE ROMAN LEADER).