Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ rule of exclusion.

      “I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it’s Tomkins; he’ll be overjoyed to see me.” “I travelled with him from Manchester to Bridgeport; he’ll remember me when he sees me; I lent him a wrapper in the train.” “I knew his son Menotti when at school.” “I was in New York when Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking for his candles;” such and suchlike were the claims which would not be denied. At last the infliction became insupportable. Some nights of unusual pain and suffering required that every precaution against excitement should be taken, and measures were accordingly concerted how visitors should be totally excluded. There was this difficulty in the matter, that it might fall at this precise moment some person of real consequence might have, or some one whose presence Garibaldi would really have been well pleased to enjoy. All these considerations were, however, postponed to the patient’s safety, and an order was sent to the several hotels where strangers usually stopped to announce that Garibaldi could not be seen.

      “There is a story,” said my companion, “which I have heard more than once of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not vouch. Se non vero e’ ben trovato, as regards the circumstance. It was said that a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, having come as a deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in England, to see the General, and make their own report on his health, his appearance, and what they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. They had come a very long journey, endured a considerable share of fatigues and certain police attentions, which are not exactly what are called amenities. They had come, besides, on an errand which might warrant a degree of insistance even were they – which they were not – of an order that patiently puts up with denial. When their demand for admission was replied to by a reference to the general order excluding all visitors, they indignantly refused to be classed in such a category. They were not idle tourists, or sensation-hunting travellers. They were a deputation! They came from the Associated Brothers and Sisters of Freedom – from the Branch Committee of the Ear of Crying Nationalities – they were not to be sent away in this light and thoughtless manner.

      “The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, and not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of the writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort of way, the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to England with the story of their rejection.

      “Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; and that, from the hour of these ladies’ arrival in England, all supplies would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the greater number of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the suite of Garibaldi, not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts and choice hosiery, silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the ordinary wear of people to whom such luxuries were not known even by description, it was no mean menace that seemed to declare all this was to have an end.

      “One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of Arundel’s port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that English liqueur called ‘Punch sauce,’ and so on; and they very reasonably disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel.

      “It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the General, was the plan – a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief some annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more than was now intended.

      “To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in his habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was introduced. The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One dropped, Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot of his bed; another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained the bedside to grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion to water it with her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party took out her scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble head. They sobbed over him – they blubbered over him – they compared him with his photograph, and declared he was libelled – they showered cards over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, not unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they declared that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they’d have willingly made a pilgrimage to Mecca.

      “It is said,” continued my informant, “that Ripari never could be induced to give another representation; and that he declared the luxuries that came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed by a deputation of sympathisers.

      “But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera.”

      SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS

      Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of exaggeration in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the harbours of France and England, and have room for all the fleets of Europe besides. About seven miles in depth, and varying in width from two to three and a half, it is fissured on every side by beautiful little bays, with deep water everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, or a bar, throughout the whole extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf has its protection by the long coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away to the southward and eastward, so that the security is perfect, and a vessel once anchored within the headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is as safe as in dock.

      The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took up the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity during the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the Chamber his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions sterling; but his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow to the undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the great statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak executors.

      The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to a bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first spadeful of earth was turned.

      The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest they should “utilise” Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, has been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their own ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the slightest evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions of francs – the only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very beautiful road, and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors.

      There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the management of new machinery.

      Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed – that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made – that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one branch, and never ask to go beyond СКАЧАТЬ