Part 8 (1/2)

We had to wait one month till my cousin could get certain news from America. We employed the time in travelling in the south, visiting Arles, Nismes, Montpellier, and other places. An English gentleman named Gordon, whom I had met in Ma.r.s.eilles, had given me a letter of introduction to M. Saint Rene Taillandier in the latter place. I knew nothing at all then about this great man, or that he was the first French critic of German literature, but I presented my letter, and he kindly went with me about the town to show me its antiquities. I can remember discussing Gothic tracery with him; also, that I told him I was deeply interested in the Troubadours. He recommended Raynouard and several other books, when finding that I was familiar with them all, he smiled, and said that he believed he could teach me nothing more. I did not know it then, but that word from him would have been as good as a diploma for me in Paris.

As for old Roman ruins and Gothic churches, and cloisters grey, and the arrowy Rhone, and castellated bridges--everything was in a more original moss-grown, picturesque condition then than it now is--I enjoyed them all with an intensity, a freshness or love, which pa.s.seth all belief. I had attended Professor Dodd's lectures more than once, and illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, and had bought me in Ma.r.s.eilles Berty's ”Dictionary of Gothic Architecture,” and got it by heart, and began to think of making a profession of it, which, if I had known it, was the very wisest thing I could have done. And that this is no idle boast is clear from this, that I in after years made a design according to which a ”store,” which cost 30,000 pounds, was built, my plan being believed by another skilled architect to have been executed by a ”professional.” This was really the sad slip and escape of my lifetime.

In those days, really _good_ red wine was given to every one at every table; savoury old-fas.h.i.+oned dishes, vegetables, and fruits were served far more freely and cheaply than they now are, when every dainty is sent by rail to Paris or London, and the drinking of Bordeaux and Burgundy did me much good. Blessed days of cheapness and good quality, before chicory, the accursed poison, had found its way into coffee, or oleomargarine was invented, or all things canned--the world will never see ye more! I have now lived for many months in a first-cla.s.s Florence hotel, and in all the time have not tasted one fresh Italian mushroom, or truffle, or olive--nothing but tasteless abominations bottled in France!

It was settled that my cousin should return from Ma.r.s.eilles to the United States, while I was to go on alone to Italy. It was misgivingly predicted at home by divers friends that I would be as a lamb set loose among wolves, and lose all my money at the outstart. Could they have learned that within a week after my arrival I had been regarded by Spanish smugglers as a brother, and tripped up a spy of the police, and been promised a situation as a slaver's and pirate's a.s.sistant, they might have thought that I had begun to learn how to take care of myself in a hurry. As for losing my money, I, by a terrible accident, _doubled it_, as I will here describe.

Before leaving home, a lady cousin had made for Samuel and me each a purse, and they were exactly alike. Now by a purse I mean a real _purse_, and not a pocket-book, or a porte-monnaie, or a wallet--that is, I mean a long bag with a slit and two rings, and nothing else. And my cousin having often scolded me for leaving mine lying about in our room, I seeing it, as I thought, just a few minutes before my departure, lying on the table, pocketed it, thanking G.o.d that Sam had not found it, or scolded me.

I went on board the steamboat and set sail towards Italy. I was sea-sick all night, but felt better the next day. Then I had to pay out some money, and thought I would look over my gold. To my utter amazement, it was _doubled_! This I attributed to great generosity on Sam's part, and I blessed him.

But, merciful heavens! what were my sensations at finding in the lower depth of my pocket _another purse_ also filled with Napoleons in rouleaux! Then it all flashed upon me. Samuel, the careful, had left _his_ purse lying on the table, and I had supposed it was mine! I felt as wretched as if I had lost instead of won.

When I got to Naples I found a letter from my cousin bewailing his loss.

He implored me, if I knew nothing about it, not to tell it to a human soul. There was a M. Duclaux in Ma.r.s.eilles, with whom we had had our business dealings, and from him Sam had borrowed what he needed. I at once requested Captain Olive, of the steamer, to convey the purse and its contents to M. Duclaux, which I suppose was done _secundem ordinem_.

Poor Sam! I never met him again. He died of consumption soon after returning home. He was one of whom I can say with truth that I never saw in him a fault, however trifling. He was honour itself in everything, as humane as was his grandfather before him, ever cheerful and kind, merry and quaint.

The programme of the steamboat declared that meals were included in the fare, ”except while stopping at a port.” But we stopped every day at Genoa or Leghorn, or somewhere, and stayed about fifteen hours, and as almost every pa.s.senger fell sea-sick after going ash.o.r.e, the meals were not many. On board the first day, I made the acquaintance of Mr. James Temple Bowdoin, of Boston, and Mr. Mosely, of whom I had often heard as editor of the _Richmond Whig_. Mr. Bowdoin was a nephew of Lady Temple, and otherwise widely connected with English families. He is now living (1892), and I have seen a great deal of him of late years. With these two I joined company, and travelled with them over Italy. Both were much older than I, and experienced men of the world; therefore I was in good hands, and better guides, philosophers, mentors, pilots, and friends I could hardly have found. Left to myself, I should probably ere the winter was over have been the beloved chief of a gang of gypsies, or brigands, or witches, or careering the wild sea-wave as a daring smuggler, all in innocence and goodness of heart; for truly in Ma.r.s.eilles I had begun to put forth buds of such strange kind and promise as no friend of mine ever dreamed of. As it was, I got into better, if less picturesque, society.

We came to Naples, and went to a hotel, and visited everything. In those days the beggars and pimps and pickpockets were beyond all modern conception. The picturesqueness of the place and people were only equalled by the stinks. It was like a modern realistic novel. We went a great deal to the opera, also to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and ascended Mount Vesuvius, and sought Baiae, and made, in fact, all the excursions.

As there were three, and sometimes half-a-dozen of our friends on these trips, we had, naturally, with us quite a _cortege_. Among these was an ill-favoured rascal called ”John,” who always received a dollar a day.

One evening some one raised the question as to what the devil it was that John did. He did not carry anything, or work to any account, or guide, or inform, yet he was always there, and always in the way. So John, being called up, was asked what he did. Great was his indignation, for by this time he had got to consider himself indispensable. He declared that he ”directed, and made himself generally useful.” We informed him that we would do our own directing, and regarded him as generally useless. So John was discarded. Since then I have found that ”John” is a very frequent ingredient in all societies and Government offices. There are Johns in Parliament, in the army, and in the Church. His children are pensioned into the third and fourth and fortieth generation. In fact, I am not sure that John is not the great social question of the age.

There was in Philadelphia an Academy of Fine Arts, or Gallery, of which my father had generously presented me with two shares, which gave me free entrance. There were in it many really excellent pictures, even a first- cla.s.s Murillo, besides Wests and Allstons. Unto this I had, as was my wont, read up closely, and reflected much on what I read, so that I was to a certain degree prepared for the marvels of art which burst on me in Naples. And if I was, and always have been, _rather_ insensible to the merits of Renaissance sculpture and architecture, I was not so to its painting, and not at all blind to the unsurpa.s.sed glories of its cla.s.sic prototypes. Professor Dodd had indeed impressed it deeply and specially on my mind that the revival of a really pure Greek taste in England, or from the work of Stewart and Revett, was contemporary with that for Gothic architecture, and that the appreciation of one, if _true_, implies that of the other. As I was now fully inspired with my new resolution to become an architect, I read all that I could get on the subject, and naturally examined all remains of the past far more closely and critically than I should otherwise have done. And this again inspired in me (who always had a mania for bric-a-brac and antiquity, which is certainly hereditary) a great interest in the characteristic _decoration_ of different ages, which thing is the soul and life of all aesthetic archaeology and the minor arts; which latter again I truly claim to have brought, I may say, into scientific form and made a branch of education in after years.

I think that we were a month in Naples. I kept a journal then, and indeed everywhere for three years after. The reader may be thankful that I have it not, for I foresee that I shall easily recall enough to fill ten folios of a thousand pages solid brevier each, at this rate of reminiscences. As my predilection for everything German and Gothic came out more strongly every day, Mr. Mosely called me familiarly Germanicus, a name which was indeed not ill-bestowed at that period.

From Naples we went to Rome by _vettura_, or in carriages. We were two days and two nights on the route. I remember that when we entered Rome, I saw the _douanier_ who examined my trunk remove from it, as he thought unperceived, a hair-brush, book, &c., and slyly hide them behind another trunk. I calmly walked round, retook and replaced them in my trunk, to the discomfiture, but not in the least to the shame, of the thief, who only grinned.

And here I may say, once for all, that one can hardly fail to have a mean opinion of human common-sense in government, when we see this system of examining luggage still maintained. For all that any country could _possibly_ lose by smuggling in trunks, &c., would be a hundred-fold recompensed by the increased amount of travel and money imported, should it be done away with, as has been perfectly and fully proved in France; the announcement a year ago that examination would be null or formal having had at once the effect of greatly increasing travel. And as there is not a custom-house in all Europe where a man who knows the trick cannot pull through his luggage by bribery--the exceptions being miraculously rare--the absurdity and folly of the system is apparent.

We went to the Hotel d'Allemagne, where I fell ill, either because I had a touch of Neapolitan malaria in me (in those days the stench of the city was perceptible three miles out at sea, and might have risen unto heaven above and been smelt by the angels, had they and their home been as near to earth as was believed by the schoolmen), or because the journey had been too much for me. However, an English physician set me up all right in two or three days (he wanted to sell us pictures which would have cured any one--of a love of art), and then there began indeed a glorious scampering and investigating, rooting and rummaging--

”'Mid deathless lairs in solemn Rome.”

Galleries and gardens, ruins and palaces, Colosseum and temples, churches and museums--ye have had many a better informed and many a more inspired or gifted visitor than I, but whether from your first Sabine days you ever had a happier one, or one who enjoyed you more with the simple enjoyment of youth and hope gratified, I doubt. Sometimes among moss- grown arches on a sunny day, as the verd-antique lizards darted over the stones from dark to light, while far in the distance tinkled bells, either from cows or convents, and all was calm and sweet, I have often wondered if it could indeed be real and not a dream. Life often seemed to me then to be too good to be true. And there was this at least good in my Transcendentalism and Poly-Pantheism, that it quite unconsciously or silently gave me many such hours; for it had sunk so deeply into my soul, and was so much a real part thereof, that it inspired me when I never thought of it, in which I differed by a heaven's width from the professional Yankee Transcendentalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, AEsthetes, and other spiritualists or sorcerers, who always kept their blessed belief, as a holy fugleman, full in sight, to give them sacred straight tips, or as a Star-spangled Bannerman who waved exceedingly, while my spirit was a shy fairy, who dwelt far down in the depths of the all too green sea of my soul, where it seemed to me she had ever been, or ever a storm had raised a wave on the surface. Antiquely verdant green I was, no doubt. And even to this day the best hours of my life are when I hear her sweet voice 'mid ivy greens or ruins grey, in wise books, h.o.a.r traditions. Be it where it will, it is _that_, and not the world of men or books, which gives the charm.

It was usual for all who drew from Torlonia's bank not less than 20 pounds to be invited to his soirees. To ensure the expenses, the footman who brought the invitation called the day after for not less than _five francs_. But the entertainment was well worth the money, and more. There was a good supper--Thackeray has represented a character in ”Vanity Fair”

as devouring it--and much amus.e.m.e.nt.

Now I had written my name _Chas._, which being mistaken for _Chev._, I in due time, received an invitation addressed to M. le Chevalier G.o.dfrey de Leland. And it befell that I once found a lost decoration of the Order of the Golden Spur, which in those days _was_ actually sold to anybody who asked for it for ten pounds, and was worth ”nothing to n.o.body.” This caused much fun among my friends, and from that day I was known as the Chevalier Germanicus, or the Knight of the Golden Spur, to which I a.s.sented with very good grace as a joke. There were even a few who really believed that I had been decorated, though I never wore it, and one day I received quite a severe remonstrance from a very patriotic fellow-countryman against the impropriety of my thus risking my loss of citizens.h.i.+p. Which caused me to reflect how many there are in life who rise to such ”honours,” Heaven only knows how, in a back-stairs way. I know in London a very great man of science, _nemini secundus_, who has never been knighted, although the tradesman who makes for him his implements and instruments has received the t.i.tle and the _accolade_.

_Fie_ at just.i.tia!

I saw at one of the Torlonia entertainments a marvellously beautiful and strange thing, of which I had read an account in Mme. de Stael's _Corinne_. There was a stage, on which appeared a young girl, plainly dressed, and bearing a simple small scarf. She did not speak or dance, or even a.s.sume ”artistic positions”; what she did was far more striking and wonderful. She merely sat or stood or reclined in many ways, every one of which seemed to be _perfectly_ natural or habitual, and all of which were incredibly graceful. I have forgotten how such women were called in Italy. I am sure that this one had never been trained to it, for the absolute ease and naturalness with which she sat or stood could never have been taught. If it could, every woman in the world would learn it. Ristori was one of these instinctive _Graces_, and it const.i.tuted nearly all the art there was in her.

This was in 1846. The Carnival of that year in Rome was the last real one which Italy ever beheld. It was the very last, for which every soul saved up all his money for months, in order to make a wild display, and dance and revel and indulge in

”Eating, drinking, masking, And other things which could be had for asking.”

Then all Rome ran mad, and rode in carriages full of flowers, or carts, or wheelbarrows, or triumphal chariots, or on camels, horses, a.s.ses, or rails--_n'importe quoi_--and merrily cast _confetti_ of flour or lime at one another laughing, while grave English tourists on balconies laboriously poured the same by the peck from tin scoops on the heads of the mult.i.tude, under the delusion that they too were enjoying themselves and ”doing” the Carnival properly. It was the one great rule among Italians that no man should in the Carnival, under any provocation whatever, lose his temper. And here John Bull often tripped up. On the last night of the last Carnival--that great night--there was the _Senza Moccolo_ or extinguishment of lights, in which everybody bore a burning taper, and tried to blow or knock out the light of his neighbour. Now, being tall, I held my taper high with one hand, well out of danger, while with a broad felt hat in the other I extinguished the children of light like a priest. I threw myself into all the roaring fun like a wild boy, as I was, and was never so jolly. Observing a pretty young English lady in an open carriage, I thrice extinguished her light, at which she laughed, but at which her brother or beau did not, for he got into a great rage, even the first time, and bade me begone. Whereupon I promptly renewed the attack, and then repeated it, ”according to the rules of the game,” whereat he began to curse and swear, when I, in the Italian fas.h.i.+on of rebuke (to the delight of sundry Italians), pointed my finger at him and hissed; which const.i.tuted the winning _point d'honneur_ in the game.