Sunday.-Instead of going to church I stay in Mr. Franklin Simmons’ studio and watch him making a bust of Marion Crawford, the novelist. He has a good subject, for Marion Crawford is a large, handsome man with a fine figure and a genial face. There was a joking dialogue going on as to whether it is the great novelist now sitting to the sculptor Simmons or the great sculptor Simmons doing the face of a novelist, each modestly insisting the other only had claims on immortality. I liked Crawford and his genial ways. I had just finished reading his “Roman Singer.”
Frank Simmons seems to me to be the best sculptor in Rome, though he is not yet the most celebrated. He does not seem to try to seek fame; but lets it seek him, which it is doing. Marion Crawford, too, I know, regarded Simmons as the best sculptor living, and some day he will make him the hero of a great novel.
Italy is called the land of art and yet curiously there are few great Italian artists. Its galleries sometimes seem to me like opened coffins, where one beholds among the bones the jewel work of some dead age. I feel here much as I felt in Berlin when looking on the golden necklaces of Helen of Troy, dug up by Schliemann. All the fine paintings and marbles here in Rome seem like the ruins, relics of another time. Foreign artists by the hundred, live and work here for the inspiration they get from the fragments of the past. They taste the wine made good with age and mix some of it in the bottles of new wine of their own making. There are more imitators in Rome than anywhere else in the world.
*****
The duties of the consulate here are nothing compared with Zurich or with any other commercial consulate. The office is often full of callers, but their errands are visits of courtesy or to have passports issued and the like. The trade of Rome with America is insignificant.
There are two regular consular clerks here, burdened with nothing to do. The laws provide for some thirteen of these “regulars” in the consular service, who hold their places for life. They are rarely promoted, and grow gray doing little. One good, hired clerk whose staying in depends on his zeal and fitness and not on his self-importance, is worth a dozen of them. They should be made responsible to somebody. The salary of the Consul General does not pay his expenses in Rome.
Palazzo Mariani, where we live, is a very magnificent structure outside, with great white marble stairways within, leading from floor to floor. But it is cold as a sepulcher. No stoves and no fire-places save one little niche in the wall, where a few burning fagots scarcely change the temperature.
At night we come home (very late, as parties only begin at nine or so), and go to bed in a big cold bedroom with a brick floor. Our so-called cook stove is a little iron box heated with charcoal, in a kitchen about five feet square, but Antoinette seems to know how to broil a kid on it every day.
Our drawing-room is heated (?) by the fagots in the niche in the wall; but even this is too warm for our Italian friends, who, when they call, apologize and go and sit in the back end of the room as far from the so-called fire as possible.
We have our furniture here from Switzerland, and to us that is a comfort. Occasionally a couple of priests come into our house without asking and walk about through all the rooms, sprinkling holy water on the beds as is a custom here. On going out, they indicate their willingness for a fee, which is not surprising in a land where feeing is universal.
Like most modern houses in Rome, our big palace is built on top of a series of old arches that once supported the houses of ancient Rome. From our cellar we can prowl around unknown distances through these mysterious chambers.
The water for the house is still conducted from the Alban hills in one of the old Roman aqueducts. It is a queer combination, this old and new in Rome.
*****
Mr. Astor had written me that last night my wife and I were to be presented at court. At ten we were climbing the magnificent stairs of the Quirinal palace to be presented to Queen Margaret. Gorgeously uniformed sentinels stood on the stairway left and right. We were shortly escorted to one of the great drawing-rooms of the palace, where we found other ladies and gentlemen also waiting to be presented. In a little while we were all directed to stand in line around the walls of the drawing-room. A dead silence ensued, and then the Queen of Italy entered at our right, escorted by the Marchesa Villa Marina, who had in her hand a list of all of our names. A few moments before she had passed along the line whispering to each of us and confirming the correctness of her list. Queen Margaret turned to her left as she passed in and very graciously greeted a young Italian lady, whom she seemed to know personally. She extended her hand to the young lady, who, greatly honored, blushed and looked very pretty. This was the only instance where the Queen gave her hand that evening. As she started along the line toward us she halted before each one. The Marchesa promptly made the presentation, when the Queen bowed very sweetly and made some remarks. I noticed that in each case she spoke the language of the lady or gentleman presented. I could hear her speaking German, Italian, French. Certainly she cannot speak English, I meditated, but in a moment our turn came. Our names were pronounced, and the Queen commenced in very agreeable English. Her manner was extremely winning, kind and simple. She “knew we would like Rome,” she said. “Everybody did, and she hoped our stay would be long and very happy.” She wore an elegant gown, cut extremely low, revealing a fine form. Around her neck was the famous pearl necklace, to which the King adds a string of pearls every birthday. She carried an enormous white fan of ostrich plumes which she constantly waved while she talked with us. She looked the queen, and I thought more German than Italian. Her whole bearing was graciousness. Her smile seemed as sincere as beautiful, and no one but would call her a happy, beautiful woman.
The presentation over, we will now be entitled to invitations to the palace balls and other public functions. There is an American lady here at court whom we knew in Switzerland. It is the Countess Ginotti, formerly Miss Kinney, of Washington. Her husband is a court official and is entrusted with important duties.
Last night we went to our second court ball at the Quirinal. A week following our presentation we had had the customary invitation to the first. We go at ten at night, ascend the same brilliantly lighted stairway as at the presentation, and even more gorgeously uniformed sentinels line the way on left and right.
The dress is prescribed; gentlemen in evening attire of course-there is nothing else a man can do but dress himself in mourning and call it festive; but so many ladies, in their elegant, light gowns and extremely low bodices, with swan white necks and shining diamonds, made a lovely scene. We shortly found ourselves seated among five hundred other guests in a brilliant ballroom of the palace. A raised dais and a royal chair stood at the end in front of us. There was a little gossip with each other, a little wondering at the gorgeous gowns, when suddenly the music from a lofty gallery proclaimed the coming of the court. Instantly, side doors unfolded, and King Humbert with Queen Margaret on his arm, marched toward the raised platform, followed by the court officials and all the Ambassadors in Rome in gala attire. We all rise, the ladies courtesying and the men bowing, as the King gracefully swings Queen Margaret into her seat and takes his place, standing beside her chair. There is some more bowing and smiling and courtesying. The music changes for the dance and the guests look on while the Queen and the Ambassadors and their wives dance the royal cotillon. The Ambassador of Germany, the head of the diplomatic corps, dances with Queen Margaret. It is all very lovely, though some of us guests feel we could beat the dancing all to pieces. In a few moments the Queen is back on the dais talking with the ladies privileged to surround her. The music has changed and some of the five hundred present are swinging in the waltz.
All has been simple and beautiful. Such a ball might take place in the extremest republic in the world. Some formality, some etiquette, there must be everywhere. While the others dance, the Queen and the King talk with the ladies, with the Ministers, and the Ambassadors. I was close to the King at different times in the evening. He was as unpretending as any other gentleman in the room. He seemed to have a bad cough, and his great eyes sometimes glanced around in a strange way. His mustache is almost as big and bristling as was his father’s, Victor Emmanuel. He has a kindly, earnest look, and Italy has in him a patriotic King. At midnight everybody repaired to little marble tables in an adjoining room, where most expensive refreshments were served. Every one seemed to have a bottle of champagne to himself. I never saw such a flowing of wines, yet all managed to keep sober. The ball souvenirs presented to every guest were all made in Paris and of every conceivable and lovely design.
*****
We are not far from the “Porta Pia,” and often go out walking or driving on the Campagna. Much of this barren land was a graveyard once, and splendid broken marble tombs still stretch away for miles. One can guess at the enormous wealth of the old city by walking for hours among the fallen columns and broken tombs of the rich out here on the Campagna. It is as if a wilderness of marble trees had at some past time been torn down by a whirlwind, and only the debris left behind.
The most impressive scene about Rome is the great aqueducts by moonlight, as they stretch across this waste of the Campagna. They are one hundred feet high and built on immense arches. One gets an idea of what the population of Rome must have been, on reflecting that at one time there were twenty-four of these canals through the air for carrying water into the city, and that fifty million cubic feet of water a day flowed into Rome through them. I was surprised to learn that hundreds of miles, too, of these aqueducts were built under ground. A tunnel a few thousand feet long we regard as a wonder at home, but some of these aqueducts were thirty-six miles at a stretch, under ground.
The Campagna was honeycombed in all directions by these strange canals, and the miles of arches above ground to-day impress one more than does the Coliseum.
However desolate the Campagna to-day, in the olden time it must have been a wonder with its catacombs and canals under ground and its magnificent tombs, pillars and aqueducts above ground.
Evenings when the weather is fine we see the Cardinals with their cassocks and hats of flaming red, taking the air. They drive over from the Vatican in closed carriages and when once on the Campagna get out and walk about.
Next to the Cardinals, these Campagna shepherds are picturesque and interesting. They wear leather leggings, sheepskin jackets, goatskin breeches with the long hair outside, a red sash and a rakish hat. They look very much like stage villains, which they are not. When they ride into town, two or three on the same donkey, they make a remarkable figure; but a very miserable one, when the one behind is seen jabbing the donkey with an awl to make him go faster with his load of vagabonds.
January, 1885.-Christmas Day we went to see the magnificent ceremonies in the church called the Santa Maria Maggiore. Its forest of vast marble columns was wrapped in hangings of crimson and gold. The priests, bishops, cardinals and other dignitaries wore the most gorgeous regalia of the church.
At the height of the ceremony a part of the Holy Manger in a crystal chest was borne up and down the aisles, among the kneeling, praying multitudes. Whatever the history of this relic, I think it was regarded that day by every one present as very sacred. I never saw a multitude so impressed with one thought. To many present, death itself could not, I think, have caused deeper emotion.
Great church ceremonies are all the time going on in Rome, and as there are more than three hundred church buildings, one can go to a different place every day in the year. Not at the Sistine Chapel alone, with its “Last Judgment” scenes, its moving music and officiating Pope, need one be interested; in dozens of churches great things are always going on.
*****
A few evenings ago we were invited to a party at the Danish consul’s. Met a number of interesting people, but the lion of the evening was Ibsen, the great dramatic writer. He is a little short man with a big head, a great shock of white hair, and twinkling eyes. I talked with him some in English. Famous as his dramas are, I knew little about them, and our few minutes’ talk was on indifferent subjects, not worth remembering or jotting down; only he talked like a very genial, open-hearted man.
The next day there was an afternoon reception at our own home, and among our guests was Hugh Conway, the author of “Called Back.” He went with me to a little corner in the dining-room, where we had a chat about his famous story, his own past, and his future hopes. He had been an auctioneer in England, and on trying his hand at stories was astonished to find himself suddenly famous. He was simple, kind and communicative as a child. Shortly his wife joined us, agreeable as himself, and they were promising much to themselves from another season, which they intended spending in Rome. And we were going to be friends. He told me of their children in England. We emptied a glass to the children’s health, and the next day they started for Nice. He took a cold on the way, and a little later came the sad news that the lovable man was dead.
Almost every day, afternoon or evening, we go to receptions. Half the Americans living here give them, to say nothing of those given by the English, French and other foreign residents whom one happens to know. One meets a sprinkling of Italians at all of them, but this is by no means Roman society. That is something that few foreigners know very much about. The receptions are all about alike, though differing in interest of course, according to the personality of the entertainers. People come to them and stand up and gossip a little; some pretty girls pour tea, and occasionally there is a song by some visiting celebrity. Getting a “celebrity” to be at one’s receptions and parties, by the way, is a part of a society woman’s bounden duty in Rome. What lions have we not met at these delightful afternoon and evening affairs-Liszt, Crawford, Ibsen, Rogers, Fargus, Bonaparte, Houghton, the Trollopes, Wallace, and how many others less great. One meets most of them just long enough for a cup of tea together, or a glass of wine, a hand shake, a few words, and then “au revoir.” Yet the memory of it all remains.
Rome is always full of great people and they all seem to like to be lionized. Then there are the distinguished artists of many countries who live here by the hundred, and who honor the hostess and sometimes themselves, by dropping in at these receptions for a stand-up cup of tea and a general hand shake.
We have attended three, four, even half a dozen receptions the same day. If ever I go into business in Rome it will be to sell tea to people who give receptions. A man of war could float in the tea poured out here by pretty girls every afternoon.
Some of the artists also, like Ezekiel, the sculptor, give unique little receptions in their picturesque studios. These are almost the best of all.
*****
Had an interesting letter from General Sherman yesterday.
“St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 14, 1884.
“Dear Byers: – I was very glad to receive your letter of October 28, from Rome, telling us that you are now fairly established in the Eternal City. Somehow that renowned city did not make the impression on me that its fame warranted, but I was told that it grew upon every man who dwelt there long enough. I hope you will experience that result, and realize not only contentment, but gather much material for future literary work, because I fear your diplomatic career is drawing to a close. It now seems almost certain that all the little petty causes of discontent and opposition inside the Republican party have united with the Democrats and elected Cleveland President. When installed next spring he will be a stronger man that he has credit for, if he can resist the pressure sure to be brought on him, and consulships will be in great demand, for distance lends enchantment, and exaggerates the value of such offices. I have no fear of violence, and believe that Cleveland will not allow the solid South to dictate to him. If he does, and the old Rebels show the cloven foot, the reaction four years hence will be overwhelming.
“We are all very well in St. Louis, and the autumn has been beautiful, crops good and bountiful, general business dull by reason of apprehended change of tariff, but the country growing steadily all the time. My daughter Rachel is in Maine on a visit to the Blaines, at this critical period. Mrs. Sherman is at Philadelphia on a short visit to our daughter Elly, so that the family here is small. I expect to make a short visit to New York and Washington about Christmas, with which exception I propose to remain quiet. Time, with me, glides along smoothly and I am amply convinced that I was wise in retiring just when I did. I don’t believe the Democrats will materially hurt the army, but they will make Sheridan’s place uncomfortable. I visited Des Moines in September and found it a prosperous, fine city. I should suppose you might make it your home, devote your time to literature, and give general supervision to your farm. I’m afraid, however, that you have been so long abroad that it will be hard to break yourself and family into the habits of Iowa farmers. Give to Mrs. Byers and son the assurance of our best love.
“Your friend,W. T. Sherman.”
The other night we were at a private musicale, next door to one of the hotels. Some girls, and a certain princess, played and sang extremely well. In the midst of the evening the door opened and who should walk in? It was Franz Liszt. He was in his slippers just as he had been in his room next door. He had heard the music and had just dropped in. Quite a little emotion was created among us all, when after standing and listening a little bit, he went straight over to the young girl at the piano and put a rousing kiss on her forehead. She blushed, and was stamped for immortality. To her last hour she will remember that approving kiss of the master.
After the musicale I was presented and was glad he remembered me so well from Zurich. He recalled a kissing scene that I had witnessed there as well, and laughed heartily about it.
But Liszt is getting old. He has had his day of great life. What genius and a great deal of work can do for a man in this world anyway! Liszt, with his genius, worked too at the piano like a galley slave, years before any soul applauded.
*****
Yesterday, one of the Bonapartes came to the office on some business. It was Napoleon Charles. He owns the villa Bonaparte and is a rich man, for his villa grounds are to be sold off at great prices for the new Rome rapidly building. I observed him closely because I had been told that his is the real Bonaparte face. He is taller than was the First Consul. His family name is still a power in Rome. It interested me to see one who is closely connected with the Great Napoleon. He wrote me a pretty French note of thanks, and that is pasted in among my autograph letters from interesting people.
CHAPTER XXVII
1885
STILL IN ROME-PRESENTED TO POPE LEO XIII-STORY, THE POET SCULPTOR-RANDOLPH ROGERS-TILTON-ELIHU VEDDER-ASTOR RESIGNS-SECRETARY OF LEGATION DIES WITH ROMAN FEVER-I AM PUT IN CHARGE OF LEGATION-CAPRI-GOVERNOR PIERPONT-THINGS SUPERNATURAL-TALK AGAINST GLADSTONE-SHAKESPEARE WOOD-SENATOR MOLESCHOTT, A REMARKABLE MAN-INTERESTING LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN-PARTY STRONGER THAN PATRIOTISM; MY RECALL-MONEY LENDING AND TAXES-KEEP OUT OF DEBT.
February, 1885.-On Sunday morning we (myself, wife and son) together with others, were presented to the Pope, Leo XIII. The card of notification told us how we should dress. Full evening suit, with black cravat and black gloves for the gentlemen; black silk dress for the ladies, with black lace veils over the head, instead of bonnets. Our carriage entered the court yard at a private entrance, where dismounting we entered at a side door and went up the Bernini stairway. The Swiss guards, glad to hear their own tongue spoken, were very polite to us. Colonel Schmidt, their commander, is also a personal friend, who had visited us in Switzerland. He soon turned us over to the Pope’s personal body guard. These are young Roman nobles. We were led through a labyrinth of apartments, and put in charge of some of the court officers at the reception room.
“The reception will take place in just thirty minutes,” said one of the officials, and this gave us time to look out of the window, and wonder what part of the enormous pile called the Vatican, we were in.
Outside, the four thousand room building, with its two hundred stairways, looks like an ugly collection of big yellow factories. Inside, it is all magnificence. We were standing in rooms where the Popes ruled Rome, at a time when Rome ruled the world. The history of a thousand years was made and written under this roof. The genius of many ages found a resting place here. Here for centuries God, himself, was supposed to have his only agent on earth.
Just as we were meditating on all this, a rustle of officers entering the room is heard. We are placed in a line, single file, around the walls of the apartment. “You will all kneel,” whispers an official, “as his Holiness enters.” That moment the door opened, and Leo XIII, robed in scarlet, entered the room. Everybody knelt. As he passes the door an attendant draws the scarlet robe away, and he stands before us in white and gold. He is a very old man, tall and thin, colorless in face, and with silvery hair; there is a soft, sad smile on his lips; his clear, steady eyes look out of a kindly face. He motions us all to rise, and then slowly walks around the room, speaking a gracious word to each as presented. An official walks with him carrying a list of our names. The Pope’s half-gloved hand with the signet ring, is held forward for us to kiss. His words are kindness itself. I never saw so saintly a face before. I do not wonder that many in the room are weeping. They are faithful Catholics and this moment is the event of their lives. Some have traveled ten thousand miles to have that white hand placed on their heads with a blessing. To them, the doors of paradise are this moment visibly opening.
Everybody, Catholic or not, was affected. Shortly the kindly voice comes to us, “And you are from America-America-good, far off America,” he says in English, and then changes to French, and Italian. He placed his hand on our heads and blessed us-and, believing or disbelieving-a feeling of a holy presence moved us.
Shortly, a signal indicated that all should come to the center of the room and kneel, and then a blessing was asked on the lands from which we came. It was an impressive moment. Numbers kneel down and kiss the gold cross on his embroidered slipper. An attendant enters, throws the scarlet robe gently over his shoulders again. There are some kindly smiles, a bow, and the Pope leaves the room. Our reception at the Vatican was over.
*****
Last evening visited Mrs. Greenough, wife of the celebrated sculptor. They have lived here many years. She is an interesting woman, but delicate as a lily. She talked much of Margaret Fuller, whom she had known well for many years.
We find many self-expatriated Americans here, first-class snobs, mostly a rich and terribly stuck-up gentry, hanging around the edge of Italian society, watching opportunity to pick up an alliance with somebody with some sort of a title. They are usually ashamed of their own countrymen, even those of them who are here, and regard themselves entirely too good to be Americans. It is a great pity in their minds that they were born in the United States at all, where, likely as anyway, their fathers made their fortunes selling hides and hominy.
*****
March 21.-Spent last evening till very late, sitting on the steps of Frank Simmons’ studio, talking with W. W. Story, sculptor and poet. He is the finest talker I ever heard. Of course, he knows everything about Italy; he has lived here most of his life, and his “Roba di Roma” tells more worth knowing about Rome than any similar book ever written. We talked, too, of America. He lamented that he had never achieved distinction in the United States as a poet. That, not sculpture, had been his first ambition. I told him he did not know how many loved his name at home for the poetry he had written. On my last trip over the sea, a young and discriminating newspaper man had envied me that I was going where I would know Story, the poet. He had committed “Antony and Cleopatra” to memory, repeated it to me walking on the ship deck one evening, and said it was the “best American poem.” The incident gratified Mr. Story very much, as it should.
We spoke of the Washington monument at the capital. “It is nothing but a great, high smoke stack,” he said. “There was a design offered, for a monument, that had some taste, art, grandeur about it, but the mullet-headed politicians, knowing nothing, and thinking they knew everything, naturally threw that aside.”
There was but little outlook, he said, for any immediate realization of true art in America. “There was but one god there-money getting.”
I liked Mr. Story’s generosity of speech concerning other sculptors less famous than himself, and for poets with less renown than he believed he had. He is altogether one of the most agreeable men I ever knew. His studio is full of fine work that brings great prices, but it does not seem to me greater than the work of Frank Simmons, or even some of the statues of Ives and Rogers. There is a sea nymph at Ives’ studio more beautiful than anything else I ever saw in marble.
We often go to the studio and the home of Randolph Rogers. He is an invalid, has been paralyzed, and sits most of his time in his chair; but he has a great, big, joyous heart, and is happy at seeing his friends. His fame is very wide. His “Blind Nydia” is one of the great things in marble. Very many copies of it have been made. They are everywhere. “Nydia” and his bronze doors at the Capitol in Washington, more than all else, made his reputation.
I have met no one in Rome who seemed to retain his real, joyous, bluff Americanism as Mr. Rogers does. He knows his art, but he has not forgotten his country.
His home is one of the most delightful here. He is justly proud of his wife, as she is proud of his art. “She must have been very beautiful in her youth,” said an American innocently. “Yes,” replied Mr. Rogers, “my wife is beautiful now.”
The other morning occurred the wedding of his daughter to a worthy and handsome officer of the Italian army. Every hour he is expecting orders to go to Africa to help avenge the massacre of a lot of his countrymen.
Mr. Tilton, the American painter, showed us a Venetian scene yesterday of supreme loveliness, as most of his water scenes are. I never saw so much delicious coloring as is always in his pictures of the Adriatic.
He sells mostly to the English, and at great prices. He showed me his selling book, and I was astounded at what he got. It was pounds, where others of our artist friends got dollars.
Went to Elihu Vedder’s studio. He received me very coolly at first, because he thought I mispronounced his name; a very important matter. Afterward, he took some pains to show me his work. It is certainly characteristic, at least, and original, and nobody ever misses guessing whose picture it is, if it should be from his brush.
March 25.-Mr. Pierpont, the Secretary of Legation, is down with the Roman fever. Strong and young and handsome as he was, constant late hours and cold stone floors were too much for him. He may never recover.
His coming here was almost a sensation, and no one ever got into “good society” in Rome so promptly. His handsome face, genial ways, good family and fine talents have made him welcome everywhere. He is a son of Attorney General Edwards Pierpont, of New York, once Minister to England.
They have taken him to the German hospital up by the Capitol. What makes his illness worse just now is that Mr. Astor, the Minister, has sent in his resignation and will go home at once.
April, 1884.-Went to the Island of Capri, only a couple of hours’ sail from the most beautiful bay in the world. This is the spot where the Garden of Eden ought to have been.
Went to the Blue Grotto-wonderful! While floating about there in a little boat, I thought of T. Buchanan Read’s lines:
Oh, happy ship to rise and dip
With the blue crystal at your lip
Just mere common existence ought to be a delight on Capri. The combination of romantic scene, delicious air, blue sky, and almost bluer sea, make it adorable.
One should need little to live on here, and I think the peasants indeed have little aside from fruits and olive oil and wine. The young women are strikingly beautiful.
Tiberius, when he built his palace up on top of this wonderful Isle of the Sea, at least knew where to find the beautiful.
Ischia, even more beautiful, if possible, is close by, and we look over and think of the terrible fate of its people only a few months ago.
In front of us is Naples, and, in sight, Vesuvius sullenly smokes away as if to remind us of the eternal peril to all who stay among these loveliest scenes of earth.
We visited Pompeii, with its lifted mantle of ashes and cinder, that have helped mankind to patch out history. I was impressed by the extreme smallness of the Pompeiian houses. They look like little stone kitchens. Everything in the excavated city seems in miniature. One could think of a toy town built of stone, but supplied with everything wonderful of art and luxury.