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“Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast.”—Goethe.

“Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me.”—John Wesley.

“To seek fame is even a solemn duty for men endowed with more than ordinary powers of mind. First, as multiplying the ways and chances by which a useful work comes into the hands of such as are prepared to avail themselves of it; secondly, as securing for such a work that submissiveness of heart, that docility, without which nothing really good can be really acquired; and lastly, because the individuality of the author, with all the associations connected with his name and history, adds greatly to the effect of a work.”—Coleridge to Sir G. Beaumont.

“For ever I wrastle, for ever I am behind.”—Gower, Confessio Amantis.

“ ’Tis not in mortals to command success;

But we’ll do more, Sempronius—we’ll deserve it”

—Addison, Cato.

THE success of “Walks in Rome,” and the great pleasure which I had derived from the preparation of my “Days near Rome,” made me undertake, in the spring of 1874, the more ambitious work of “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” in preparation for which I left England at the end of January, accepting on the way an oft-repeated invitation from Mr. and Mrs. de Wesselow to their beautiful home at Cannes.

Journal.

“Villa La Cava, Cannes, Jan. 30, 1874.—What a view I look upon here from my beautiful room!—a pure blue sky all around, fading into the softest most delicate golden hues where it meets the waveless expanse of sea, upon which the islands seem asleep in the sunshine; on one side the old town of Cannes, with its pier and shipping and the white sails of its boats; on the other, the endless villas, and Mougins, and the mountains—all rising from a wealth of orange and cypress groves; and, close at hand, masses of geraniums and roses and the ‘sunshine tree’ (golden mimosa) in full blossom—and thus, they say, it has been all winter.

“Paris was at its ugliest. I had a pleasant dinner at the Embassy, and I went to see old Madame Dubois at the top of a house, in her room which is at once sitting-room, bedroom, and kitchen. She was full of the wretchedness of living in a country where your servant had no scruple in telling you she was your equal, and that she was jealous of your being richer than herself. She showed her household treasures, especially a little silver owl, ‘qui est restée longtemps sans se marier, et puis a fait un petit hibou.’

“I left in the evening for my four-and-twenty hours’ journey. The train was crowded, every place full, but, in spite of my seven companions and their twenty-eight handbags, which obliged me to sit bolt upright the whole way, I rather enjoyed it. There is something so interesting in the rapid transitions: the plains of Central France: the rolling hills of Burgundy in the white moonlight: the great towns, Dijon and Lyons, deep down below, and mapped out by their lamps: the dawn over the Rhone valley: the change to blue sky melting into delicate amber: the first stunted olives: the white roads leading, dust-surrounded, to the white cities, Avignon and Tarascon and Arles: the desolate stone-laden Crau: the still blue Mediterranean, and Marseilles with its shipping, and then the granite phase of southern Provence and its growth of heath and lavender and pines.

“On this, the eastern side, Cannes is a new world to me, but on Sunday, with Marcus Hare and G., I went up to the other side, to the Villa S. François and our beloved pine-wood, alive still with sacred memories, where the dear form still might seem to wander with her sunshade and camp-stool, and where we sat on the very stone she used to rest on in ‘the Shepherdesses’ Walk.’ G. is too matter of fact to enjoy this country. When I exclaimed over the glorious beauty and variety of the view of the Rocher de Bilheres, standing out as it does from the supreme point of the forest promontory, with the purple shadows behind it in the deep rift, she could only say, ‘I should be better satisfied if I could ascertain exactly what it is mineralogically.’

“I went with Frank de Wesselow to Vallauris, the walk a perfect series of pictures—the winding road with its glorious sea-views; then, at the chapel, the opening upon all the Alpine range; then the deep hollow ways overhung by old gnarled olives, and peopled by peasants with their mules and baskets.

“Yesterday I had a visit from George Sutherland, whom I looked after in his fever at Rome, full of his spiritualism, of his drawings made under the influence of spirits, who ‘squeeze out just the amount of colour to be used and no more,’ and of his conversations with his dead mother, whom he described as ‘touching him constantly.’

“In the evening we talked of the De Wesselows’ faithful servant Mrs. Manning, of her wonderful power of making people understand her, and how her appreciation of foreigners was entirely in proportion to their doing so. Frank was standing by her one day in the garden when their maid Thérèse passed by. Mrs. Manning said quickly, ‘Teresa, acqua fresca pully, and these things want lavering,’ and, without giving another moment’s attention, went on with what she had been doing. Thérèse, in her slow way, said ‘Yees,’ thinking that she talked English very well, and understood perfectly that she was to give some water to the chickens and that the things wanted washing.”

To Miss Leycester.

“Villa Heraud, Cimies, Feb. 6, 1874.—I am writing from a beautiful country villa, where, in sweet Mary Harford,[71] I find the friend of my childhood quite unchanged, though it is fifteen years since I have seen her. In spite of being the mother of six daughters and two sons, she looks still as young as the Mary Bunsen who was carried quite helpless into Hurstmonceaux Place twenty-three years ago. It is a most united family, and you would admire the ‘way in which the six daughters take arms and sing a hymn behind their mother (who plays) after family prayers.”

“Parma, Feb. 12, 1874.—I had so many kind invitations at Nice, I rather longed to remain there. On Sunday I went home after church with Lady Jocelyn and her little grand-daughter. I had not seen her since the loss of her children. Her sweet sad face quite haunts me. I said to her, ‘Do you often drive out.’—‘No,’ she said; ‘I must always walk, or else the days would be too long.’

“I had an interesting railway journey on Monday with Madame Franzoni, who lives in the house at Taggia described in ‘Dr. Antonio.’ She was Swiss. Her husband, of an old Swiss-Italian family, was disinherited on becoming Protestant, and was obliged to become an engineer. His father, still living, has been prevented by his priests from speaking to him for five-and-twenty years, though devotedly fond of him. She took her two little children and made them sing a hymn beneath the tree in which their grandfather was sitting. Tears streamed down the old man’s cheeks, but he would not look at them; he said it must be a lesson to his other children. The mother offered her whole fortune if her son would consent to hear one mass; she believed that one mass would reconvert him. Since then the Protestant part of the family have been dreadfully poor, whilst the rest are immensely rich. Madame Franzoni said that the priests of Taggia were very kind to them privately, but would not recognise them in public.

LAMPEDUSA FROM TAGGIA. [72]

STAIRCASE, PALAZZO DELL’ UNIVERSITA, GENOA [73]

“When we parted, I gave her my card. Some Americans in the carriage saw it and almost flew into my arms. ‘Oh, the “Quiet Life”—too great happiness,’ &c. Afterwards I had a warning to be careful what subjects one touched upon with strangers, for I said something about the loss of the Ville de Havre. The lady (Mrs. Colt) burst into tears, and her daughter said, ‘Mother’s brother was the judge who was lost; he would not leave his wife, and went down with her in his arms, saying, “Let us die bravely!” ’ Afterwards at Genoa I met a young lady (Miss Bulkeley) who went down with her mother. The mother was lost. As the daughter rose, something hurt her head; she put her hand to it and caught a chain, and finding her head above water, called, ‘A woman! help!’ She heard men say, ‘American sailors are saving you,’ but became unconscious and knew nothing for long afterwards. She said it was quite a mistake to say drowning was painless—the oppression on the lungs was agony.

CLOISTER OF S. MATTEO, GENOA. [74]

“I enjoyed Genoa and my work there, and made several pleasant Italian acquaintances, the Genoese are so hospitable. The Marchese Spinola showed me all the treasures and pictures of his old palace himself. I suppose I must take this as a great compliment, for I was amused the other day by an anecdote of the Marchesa Spinola, who made herself most agreeable to an Englishman she met at the Baths of Monte Catini. On taking leave, he politely expressed a hope that, as they were both going to Rome in the winter, they might meet there. ‘Mais non, Monsieur,’ she replied; ‘à Monte Catini je suis charmée de vous voir, mais à Rome c’est toute autre chose.’ Yesterday I spent in correcting my account of Piacenza—bitterly cold, children sliding all over the streets, which were one mass of ice. … I had forgotten the intense interest of Parma and its glorious pictures, especially what a grand master Pordenone was.”

“59 B. Mario de’ Fiori, Rome, Feb. 22.—Rome is fearfully modernised, such quantities of new houses built, such quantities of old buildings swept away—the old shell fountain in the Felice, the lion of the Apostoli, the Vintner’s fountain at Palazzo Simonetti, the ruins of the Ponte Salara, and … all the shrines in the Coliseum, even the famous cross on the wall. The last nearly caused a Revolution. On the Pincio a Swiss cottage is put up, strangely out of place amongst the old statues, and a clock which goes by water. Even the most ardent Protestants too are a little shocked that the famous Quirinal Chapel, so redolent of Church history, should be turned into a cloak-room for balls, and the cloak-tickets kept in the holy water basins. The poverty and suffering amongst the Romans is dreadful, the great influx of Torinese taking the bread out of their mouths.

“You would be amused with the economy of my servants Ambrogio and Maria. They think it most extravagant if I have both vegetables and a pudding, and quite sinful to have soup the same day; and the first day, after I had seen the kitchen fire blazing away all afternoon, and ‘Il Signorino è servito’ was announced very magnificently, behold the dinner was—three larks! But what a pleasure it is to hear again from servants—‘Felicissima notte,’—that sweetest bidding of repose, as Palgrave calls it.”

“March 1.—I know, as usual, far too many people here for comfort, nearly three hundred. But I have enjoyed constant drives with Lady Castletown and her most sweet and charming daughter, Mrs. Lewis Wingfield. The Miss Seymours also are here, and very agreeable, with their very handsome sister, married to the Austrian Count von Lutzow. The Duchesse S. Arpino and her mother and engaging little daughter make their house as pleasant as ever. Mr. Adolphus Trollope has a pretty little daughter who sings most enchantingly.[75] I also like Lady Paget, the Minister’s wife, who is a clever artist in her own way.

“The spoliation of Rome continues every day. Its picturesque beauty is gone. Nothing can exceed the tastelessness of all that is being done—the Coliseum, Baths of Caracalla, and the temples are scraped quite clean, and look like sham ruins built yesterday: all the pretty trees are cut down: the outsides of the mediæval churches (Prassede, Pudentiana, &c.) are washed yellow or painted over: the old fountains are stripped of their ferns and polished: the Via Crucis and other processions are forbidden: and the Government has even sent out the ‘pompieri’ to cut down all the ivy from the aqueducts. I have, however, got back one thing—the Lion of the Apostoli! I went round to a number of people living in that neighbourhood, and engaged them to go in the morning to the Senators in the Capitol and demand its restoration: and a message was sent that the lion should be restored at once. So the little hideous beast goes back this week to his little vacant sofa, where he has sat for more than six hundred years.

COLONNA CASTLE, PALESTRINA. [76]

“The cardinals have been dying off a good deal lately, and a curious relic of old times was the lying in state of Cardinal Bernabo in the Propaganda Fide—the chapel hung with black, the catafalque with cloth of gold, a chain of old abbots and cardinals standing and kneeling round with tapers, and all the students singing. Pius IX. is well, and Antonelli has never been the least ill, except in the Times, in which he has received the last sacraments.”

GENAZZANO. [77]

SUBIACO. [78]

“Tivoli, March 22.—I have been greatly enjoying a little mountain tour with Lady Castletown and Mrs. Lewis Wingfield. On Wednesday we spent the day in the villas Aldobrandini and Mondragone at Frascati, and the next morning had the most charming drive by Monte Porzio and Monte Compatri, chiefly through the desolate chestnut forests, to Palestrina. It was the fair of Genazzano, and the whole road was most animated, such crowds of peasants in their gayest costumes and prettiest ornaments. At beautiful Olevano we had just time to go to the little inn and visit my friend of last year, Peppina Baldi. It was a tiring journey thence to Subiaco after such a long day, and we only passed the worst precipices by daylight, so it was quite dark when we reached Subiaco, where we found rooms with difficulty, as, quite unwittingly, we had arrived on the eve of the great festa of S. Benedetto. Most delighted we were, however, of course, and most picturesque and beautiful was the early pilgrimage, with bands of music and singing, up the stony mountain paths. Lady Castletown travels with a second carriage for her maids, so prices naturally rise at first sight of so grand a princess. … On the way here we diverged to the farm of Horace in the Licenza valley, all marvellously unaltered—the brook, the meadows, the vines, the surrounding hills and villages, still just as he described them eighteen hundred years ago. It is a wonderful country, one lives so entirely in the past.”

I have seldom enjoyed Tivoli more than in this spring of 1874. It was then that, sitting in the scene I describe, I wrote the paragraph of “Days near Rome” which I insert here.

SACRO SPECO, SUBIACO. [79]

“Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the views from the road which leads from Tivoli by the chapel of S. Antonio to the Madonna di Quintiliolo. On the opposite height rises the town with its temples, its old houses and churches clinging to the edge of the cliffs, which are overhung with such a wealth of luxuriant vegetation as is almost indescribable; and beyond, beneath the huge pile of building known as the Villa of Maecenas, the thousand noisy cataracts of the Cascatelle leap forth beneath the old masonry, and sparkle and dance and foam through the green—and all this is only the foreground to vast distances of dreamy campagna, seen through the gnarled hoary stems of grand old olive-trees—rainbow-hued with every delicate tint of emerald and amethyst, and melting into sapphire, where the solitary dome of St. Peter’s rises, invincible by distance, over the level line of the horizon.

S. MARIA DI COLLEMAGGIO, AQUILA. [80]

SOLMONA. [81]

“And the beauty is not confined to the views alone. Each turn of the winding road is a picture; deep ravines of solemn dark-green olives which waken into silver light as the wind shakes their leaves—old convents and chapels buried in shady nooks on the mountain-side—thickets of laurustinus, roses, genista, and jessamine—banks of lilies and hyacinths, anemones and violets—grand masses of grey rock, up which white-bearded goats are scrambling to nibble the myrtle and rosemary, and knocking down showers of the red tufa on their way;—and a road, with stone seats and parapets, twisting along the edge of the hill through a constant diorama of loveliness, and peopled by groups of peasants in their gay dresses returning from their work, singing in parts wild canzonetti which echo amid the silent hills, or by women washing at the wayside fountains, or returning with brazen conche poised upon their heads, like stately statues of water-goddesses wakened into life.”

Great was the difficulty of securing any companion for the desolate excursion to the Abruzzi, but at length I found a clever artist, Mr. Donne, who agreed to go with me.

HERMITAGE OF PIETRO MURRONE. [82]

To Miss LEYCESTER.

CASTLE OF AVEZZANO. [83]

GATE OF ARPINUM. [84]

“Sora in the Marsica, April 2.—Mr. Donne and I left the train at Terni, taking diligence to Rieti, the capital of the Sabina. Next day we had a long dreary drive to Aquila, a dismal place, but full of curious remains, surrounded by tremendous snow mountains. Thence we crossed a fearful pass in ghastly barren mountains to Solmona, a wonderful mediæval city seldom visited. On Sunday we clambered up the mountains above the town to the hermitage of Pietro Murrone, afterwards Cœlestine V., and then, as the snow was too deep to make it possible to cross the mountain, returned by night to Aquila. On Tuesday our journey of a whole day was through perfectly Lapland scenery, the road a mere track in the deep snow, which covered hedges and fields alike. Fortunately the weather was lovely, but it was a relief to come down again to even partial civilisation at Avezzano, on the borders of what was once the Lago Fucino, now dried up and spoilt by Prince Torlonia. Here I had an introduction to Count and Countess Restà, to whom I paid a most curious visit. On Wednesday we drew at S. Maria di Luco, a picturesque church on the site of a temple above the lake, and in the evening came on here, arriving at 2 A.M.—glorious moonlight and grand scenery, but the diligence unspeakably wretched. We have just been spending a charming day, partly at Arpino, the birthplace of Cicero, where there are wonderful Pelasgic remains, and a gateway which is the oldest architectural monument in Europe, and partly at Cicero’s island home on the Liris, a lovely place, all primroses and violets as in England, but with a background of snow mountains.”

TRIUMPHAL ARCH, AQUINO.

[85]

PORTO S. LORENZO, AQUINO. [86]

“Easter Sunday, 1874.—The Count and Countess de Lützow, the two Miss Seymours, and Miss Ellis[87] met me at S. Germano, and we have been spending to-day in the monastery of Monte Cassino, gloriously beautiful always, with its palatial buildings on a mountain-top, and all around billows of purple hill tipped with snow. An introduction from the Duke of Sermoneta caused the gentle-looking Abbot to receive us, and then the great bent figure of the great Tosti came forward, his deep-set eyes excessively striking. After the service in the church they entertained us to an excellent dinner, finishing with delicious Aleatico wine. They were ‘spogliati,’ they said, but ‘La Providenza’ still watched over them.”

“April 7.—In the second-class carriage of the train on our way to Velletri sat a venerable and beautiful old man, to whom we talked of Aquino, the birthplace of St. Thomas Aquinas, where we spent yesterday. Gradually we found out that he was the Abbot of Monte Vergine, and he told us much that was interesting about that wonderful place—of the intense love and veneration of the Neapolitan people for the sanctuary, which is connected with the different events of their domestic life; that no betrothal or marriage or birth was considered entirely consecrated without receiving a benediction at the sanctuary; that peasant women had it entered in their marriage contracts that they should be allowed to make the pilgrimage from time to time, and after the birth of each child; that because, on account of the suppression, two miles of the road to the sanctuary still remained unfinished, the peasants voluntarily undertook to finish it themselves, 30,000 persons subscribing one soldo apiece; that when, at the same time, he, the Abbot, was obliged to give up keeping a carriage, five Neapolitan families insisted upon undertaking to keep one for him, one paying the horses, another the coachman, &c. The Abbot gave us his benediction on taking leave, and invited us to Monte Vergine.”[88]

“April 14.—I met Mademoiselle von Raasloff at Mrs. Terry’s. She narrated to me some facts which had been told to her by the well-known Dr. Pereira.

“An acquaintance of his, a lady, was travelling with some friends in an out-of-the-way part of Poland. Suddenly, late at night, their carriage broke down and they were obliged to get out, and as they knew of no shelter near, they were in great difficulties. At this juncture a gentleman appeared, who said to the lady that if she would take the trouble to walk a few steps farther, she would come to the gate of his house; that he was unable to accompany her, but that if she would mention his name she would be received, and would find all she required. She thanked him and followed his directions. The servant to whom she spoke at the house seemed very much surprised, but seeing her plight, brought her in, left her in a library, and went to get some refreshment. When she was alone, a door in the panelling opened and the unknown master of the house came in and sat down by her. As he said nothing, she felt rather awkward, and more so when the servant, coming in with a tray, seemed to brush up close to him in a very odd way as he set it down. When the servant left the room, the unknown said, ‘Ne vous étonnez pas, Mademoiselle, c’est que je suis mort;’ and he proceeded to say that he was most thankful she had come, and that he wished her to make him a solemn promise; that the people who were now in possession of the property were not the rightful heirs, but that he had left a will, deposited with a certain lawyer in a certain place, the name of which he made her write down. She listened as in a trance, but did as she was bid. The servant, coming in again about this time, walked straight through the unknown. Presently the carriage, being mended, was announced to be at the door, upon which the unknown walked with her to the porch, bowed, and disappeared.

“When the lady got to Warsaw, she had an attaque des nerfs, was very ill, and sent for Dr. Pereira. She told him all she had seen, and also gave him the paper with the directions she had written down. Dr. Pereira, finding that the person and place mentioned really existed, inquired into the matter, and the result was that the will was found, the wrongful possessors ejected, and the rightful owners set up in their place.”

“One evening at the Palazzo Odescalchi, when everybody had been telling stories, and nothing very interesting, Mademoiselle von Raasloff suddenly astonished us by saying, ‘Now I will tell you something.’ Then she said—