The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ an' dident furget my dets ef she did hern, an' ef his own wife disgraced him, I'd be d–d ef I wud.

      'Wal, I've got th' ma'am an' har boy ter hum, an' my 'oman hes tuk ter har a heep. I doan't no w'en the sale's ter cum off, but ye may bet hi' on my bein' thar, an' I'll buy har ef I hev ter go my hull pile on har, an' borrer th' money fur ole Pomp. But he'll go cheap, 'case the Cunnel's deth nigh dun him up. It clean killed Ante Lucey. She never held her hed up arter she heerd 'Masser Davy' war ded, fur she sot har vary life on him. Don't ye feel consarned 'bout the ma'am—I knows ye sot hi' on har. I'll buy har shore. Thet an' deth ar th' onely things thet I knows on, in this world, jess now, that ar Sartin.'

      Such is Andy's letter. Misspelled and profane though it be, I would not alter a word or a syllable of it. It deserves to be written in characters of gold and hung up in the sky, where it might be read by all the world. And it is written in the sky—in the great record book—and it will be read when you and I, reader, meet the assembled universe, to give account of what we have done and written. God grant that our record may show some such deed as that!

      SOUTHERN RIGHTS

      The right to poison bullets,

      The right to rifle graves,

      To cut our prisoners' gullets,

      Or treat them like our slaves;

      The right to use the savage

      To aid us in our fight,

      To freely scalp and ravage,

      Each is a Southern right.

      Call not these claims Satanic,

      They're far beyond your ken:

      How can a low mechanic

      Know aught of gentlemen?

      MACCARONI AND CANVAS

      VI

      ON THE PINCIO

      With that wise foresight, shared by all European rulers, the Roman Pincio was undoubtedly wedded to its purpose of keeping the idle ones very busy at the very time of day when revolutionary plots find the best hearing—before dinner. Whirling around its walks in carriages, or gently promenading under trees, among rose-bushes, and by fountains, while a large band of musicians play with spirit fine selections from the last operas, or favorite airs from old ones; the eye gratified by the sight of pleasant faces, or dwelling enraptured on the beautiful landscape spread before it—how can the brain disengage itself to think of Liberty, won through toil and battle, only to be preserved by self-denial and moral strength?

      But the traveler who travels only to travel, and has the means and spirit to find pleasure wherever he goes, thinking only of what he sees, enjoys to its fullest extent the luxurious seat of the hired, white-damask-lined carriage, drawn by stalwart, heavy-limbed, coal-black horses, with sweeping tails, the white foam flying from the champed silver bits, the whole turn-out driven by a handsome, white-gloved, black-coated Roman. In solemn state and swiftly, he winds up the zig-zag road leading from the piazza Popolo, (so-called from popolo, a poplar-tree, and not as the English will have it, from popolo, the people,) and at last reaches the summit of Roman ambition—the top of the Pincian hill. He passes other carriages filled with other strangers like himself, or with titled and fashionable Romans, and finally, his carriage drawn up to one side of the broad drive in front of the semi-circle where the band plays, he descends, to walk around and chat with the friends he may find there.

      Toward sunset the scene is full of animation. The sabres of the cavalry soldiers, on guard to prevent infraction of rules, gleam brightly; the old infantry soldiers are darting here and there, chasing away sundry ownerless dogs, who always make it a point to promenade the Pincio; the Italian nurses from Albano, or at least dressed in Albanese costume, shine conspicuous in their crimson-bodiced dresses; Englishmen going through their constitutional; Frenchmen mourning for the Champs Elysées; artists in broad-brim hats smoking cigars; Americans observing Italy, so as to be like Italians; ladies of all nations commanding the attention of mankind as they sweep along the hard-rolled gravel-walks; smiles, bows, looks of love, indignation, affection, coquetry; faces reflective of great deeds and greater dinners … every face bright in the lambent amber light that streams from the sun dipping his head preparatory to putting on his night-cap, and bidding Rome felicissima notte! a most happy night.

      Over the irregular walls of the subdued white and mellow gray houses and palaces, beyond the Tiber running red in the dying sunlight, over the round-walled castle of San Angelo, the dome of Saint Peter's rises full in the midst of the twinkling, hazy, red and golden light. Passing the stone-pines crowning Monte Mario, there gleam away to the left the far waters of the sea, over which the purple mist of young night tenderly, softly falls. Once thoughtfully noted, you will remember this glowing scene years after sublimer and wilder views are lost to memory or grown so faint that they are to you but as dull colors seen in dreams of old age compared to the flashing brightness of those presented to the closed eyes of youth.

      As the sun sets and those in carriages and on foot slowly leave the hights of the Pincio, and descend once more to the old city, you will hear, as the evening star shines brighter and brighter, the first liquid, thrilling notes of the nightingales; then as you lean over the stone parapet, dreamily looking into the dense foliage of trees and shrubs beneath you, you will feel the beauty of those lines:

      Seek the nightingale's sequestered tower,

      Who with her love-lorn melody

      So bewitched thee in the vernal hour:

      When she ceased to love, she ceased to be.

      It is from the months of May to November, when travelers have left Rome, and the city is in the hands of the Romans, that your walks on the Pincio will prove something more than a mere repetition of a stroll in Baden-Baden, or a revival of ideas common to the Prado or Prater. No longer the little prettinesses of the Medicean Venus flirt by you in the nervous silks that flutter along these walks, but something nobly womanly, of a solid past, slow and stately, moves solemnly, by. We know the lives of these copies of the Venus of Milos, we know its most commonplace and vulgar attributes, but we know, too, its strength! The city of Rome holds in its women the mothers of heroes, when Providence shall withdraw the black veil now hung over their rude minds, and let in the light of knowledge. We who laugh at their sad ignorance, think what we would be without liberty—our minds enslaved, geography tabooed! Egypt is a paradise compared to Rome.

      The advantages of foreign travel to an intelligent American are to teach him … the disadvantages of living any where save in America. And though the artistic eye dwells with such loving repose on the soothing colors of Italy, and particularly on the subdued white and gray tones of Roman ruins and palaces, walls and houses, yet the owner of that artistic eye should restrain his wrath at the fiery red bricks of our own cities, for let him reflect that this color goads him on, as it doth a bull, to make valorous efforts—to do something!

      Looking down from the stone balustrade of the Pincio on the piazza Popolo, we note two churches, one on either side of the Corso; their architecture is neither more nor less hideous than nine tenths of the other three hundred and odd churches of Rome; the same heavy, half-cooked look about doors and windows, suggesting cocked-hats of the largest size on the heads of dwarfs of no size at all; the same heavy scroll-work, reminding one of the work of a playful giant of a green-grocer who has made a bouquet of sausages and cabbages, egg-plants and legs of mutton, and exhibits it to a thick-headed public as a—work of art. O Roman Plebs! lay this nattering unction to your soul—we did not do that!

      The history of all nations seem to indicate successive ages of grub and butterfly-life; certainly Rome has been a grub long enough. Let us hope the sun of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Gallant Men, will hasten the time when the Romans shall wing their way to the light of Liberty. СКАЧАТЬ