The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860

While Doctor Somerville was talking of these things, Mrs. Somerville came tripping into the room, speaking with the vivacity of a young person. She was seventy-seven years old, but appeared twenty years younger. Her face is pleasing, the forehead low and broad, the eyes blue,—the features so regular, that, as sculptured by Chantrey, in the bust at Somerset House, they convey the idea of a very handsome woman. Neither this bust nor the picture of her, however, gives a correct impression, except in the outline of the head and shoulders. She spoke with a strong Scotch accent, and was slightly affected by deafness.

At this time, Mrs. Somerville was re-writing her "Physical Geography." She said that she worked as well as when she was younger, but was more quickly fatigued; yet, in order to gain time, she had given up her afternoon nap, without apparent injury to her health. Her working hours were in the morning, and she never refused a visitor after noon. For her first work she said she computed a good deal; and here she stepped quickly into an adjoining room, and brought out a mass of manuscript computations made for that work, the mere sight of which would give a headache to most women. The conversation was rather of the familiar and chatty order, and marked by great simplicity. She touched upon the recent discoveries in chemical science,—upon California, its gold and its consequences, some good from which she thought would be found in the improvement of seamanship,—on the nebulae, more and more of which she thought would be resolved, while yet there might exist irresolvable nebulous matter, such as composed the tails of comets, or the satellites of the planets, which she thought had other uses than as their subordinates. Of Doctor Whewell's attempt to prove that our planet is the only one inhabited she spoke with disapprobation; she said she believed that the other planets might be inhabited by beings of a higher order than ourselves.

On subsequent visits, Mrs. Somerville had much to say of the Americans. She regretted that she so rarely received scientific articles from America; the papers of Lieutenant Maury alone reached her. She spoke of the late Doctor Bowditch with great interest, and said she had had some correspondence with one of his sons; of Professor Peirce as a great mathematician; and she was much interested in the successful photography of the stars by Mr. Whipple. To a traveller, thousands of miles from home, the mere mention of familiar names is cheering.

Mrs. Somerville resides in Florence on account of the health of her husband. A little garden, well-stocked with rose-bushes, which she shows with great pride to her visitors, furnishes her with a means of healthy recreation after her severe studies. Her children are a son by Mr. Greig and two daughters by Doctor Somerville. In early life, Mrs. Somerville was a fine musician: the daughters have inherited this talent; and having lived long in Florence, they speak Italian with a perfect accent. "I speak Italian," said Mrs. Somerville; "but no one could ever take me for other than a Scotchwoman."

No one can make the acquaintance of this remarkable woman without increased admiration for her. The ascent of the steep and rugged path of science has not unfitted her for the drawing-room circle; the hours of devotion to close study have not been incompatible with the duties of the wife and the mother; the mind that has turned to rigid demonstration has not thereby lost its faith in the truths which figures will not prove. "I have no doubt," said she, in speaking of the heavenly bodies, "that in another state of existence we shall know more about these things."

ROBA DI ROMA

MAY IN ROME

May has come again,—"the delicate-footed May," her feet hidden in flowers as she wanders over the Campagna, and the cool breeze of the Campagna blowing back her loosened hair. She calls to us from the open fields to leave the wells of damp churches and shadowy streets, and to come abroad and meet her where the mountains look down from roseate heights of vanishing snow upon plains of waving grain. The hedges have put on their best draperies of leaves and flowers, and, girdled in at their waist by double osier bands, stagger luxuriantly along the road like a drunken Bacchanal procession, crowned with festive ivy, and holding aloft their snowy clusters of elder-blossoms like thyrsi. Among their green robes may be seen thousands of beautiful wild-flowers,—the sweet-scented laurustinus, all sorts of running vetches and wild sweet-pea, the delicate vases of dewy morning-glories, clusters of eglantine or sweetbrier roses, fragrant acacia-blossoms covered with bees and buzzing flies, the gold of glowing gorses, and scores of purple and yellow flowers, of which I know not the names. On the gray walls, vines, grass, and the humble class of flowers which go by the ignoble name of weeds straggle and cluster; and over them, held down by the green cord of the stalk, balance the bursted balloons of hundreds of flaming scarlet poppies that seem to have fed on fire. The undulating swell of the Campagna is here ablaze with them for acres, and there deepening with growing grain, or snowed over with myriads of daisies. Music and song, too, are not wanting; hundreds of birds are in the hedges. The lark, "from his moist cabinet rising," rains down his trills of incessant song from invisible heights of blue sky; and whenever one passes the wayside groves, a nightingale is sure to bubble into song. The oranges, too, are in blossom, perfuming the air; locust-trees are tasselled with odorous flowers; and over the walls of the Campagna villa bursts a cascade of vines covered with foamy Banksia roses.

The Carnival of the kitchen-gardens is now commencing. Peas are already an old story, strawberries are abundant, and cherries are beginning to make their appearance, in these first days of May; old women sell them at every corner, tied together in tempting bunches, as in "the cherry-orchard" which Miss Edgeworth has made fairy-land in our childish memories. Asparagus also has long since come; and artichokes make their daily appearance on the table, sliced up and fried, or boiled whole, or coming up roasted and gleaming with butter, with more outside capes and coats than an ideal English coachman of the olden times. Finocchi, too, are here, tasting like anisette, and good to mix in the salads. And great beans lie about in piles, the contadini twisting them out of their thick pods with their thumbs, to eat them raw. Nay, even the signoria of the noble families do the same, as they walk through the gardens, and think them such a luxury that they eat them raw for breakfast. But over and above all other vegetables are the lettuces, which are one of the great staples of food for the Roman people, and so crisp, fresh, delicate, and high-flavored, that be who eats them once will hold Nebuchadnezzar no longer a subject for compassion, but rather of envy. Drowned in fresh olive-oil and strong with vinegar, they are a feast for the gods; and even in their natural state, without condiments, they are by no means to be despised. At the corners of the streets they lie piled in green heaps, and are sold at a baiocco for five heads. At noontide, the contadini and laborers feed upon them without even the condiment of salt, crunching their white teeth through the crisp, wet leaves, and alternating a bite at a great wedge of bread; and toward nightfall, one may see carts laden high up with closely packed masses of them, coming in from the Campagna for the market. In a word, the festa of the vegetables, at which they do not eat, but are eaten, and the Carnival of the kitchen-garden have come.

But—a thousand, thousand pardons, O mighty Cavolo!—how have I dared omit thy august name? On my knees, O potentest of vegetables, I crave forgiveness! I will burn at thy shrine ten waxen candles, in penance, if thou wilt pardon the sin and shame of my forgetfulness! The smoke of thy altar-fires, the steam of thy incense, and the odors of thy sanctity rise from every hypaethral shrine in Rome. Out-doors and in-doors, wherever the foot wanders, on palatial stairs or in the hut of poverty, in the convent pottage and the Lepre soup, in the wooden platter of the beggar and the silver tureen of the prince, thou fillest our nostrils, thou satisfiest our stomach. Thou hast no false pride; great as thou art, thou condescendest to be exchanged for a baiocco. Dear enchantress! to thee, and to thy glorious cousin Broccoli, that tender-hearted, efflorescent nymph, the Egeria of the osteria con cucina, the peerless maid that goes with the steak and accepts martyrdom without moan, to drive away the demon of Hunger from her devoted followers,—all honor! Far away, whenever I inhale thy odor, I shall think of "Roman Joys"; a whiff from thine altar in a foreign land will bear me back to the Eternal City, "the City of the Soul," the City of the Cabbage, the home of the Dioscuri, Cavolo and Broccoli! Yes, as Paris is recalled by the odor of chocolate, and London by the damp steam of malt, so shall Rome come back when my nostrils are filled with thy penetrative fragrance!

Saunter out at any of the city-gates, or lean over the wall at San Giovanni, (and where will you find a more charming spot?) or look down from the windows of the Villa Negroni, and your eye will surely fall on one of the Roman kitchen-gardens, patterned out in even rows and squares of green. Nothing can be prettier or more tasteful in their arrangement than these variegated carpets of vegetables. A great cistern of running water crowns the height of the ground, which is used for the purposes of irrigation, and towards nightfall the vent is opened, and you may see the gardeners imbanking the channelled rows to let the inundation flow through hundreds of little lanes of intersection and canals between the beds, and then banking them up at the entrance when a sufficient quantity of water has entered. In this way they fertilize and refresh the soil, which else would parch under the continuous sun. And this, indeed, is all the fertilization they need,—so strong is the soil all over the Campagna. The accretions and decay of thousands of years have covered it with a loam whose richness and depth are astonishing. Dig where you will, for ten feet down, and you do not pass through its wonderfully fertile loam into gravel, and the slightest labor is repaid a hundred-fold.

As one looks from the Villa Negroni windows, he cannot fail to be impressed by the strange changes through which this wonderful city has passed. The very spot on which Nero, the insane emperor-artist, fiddled while Rome was burning has now become a vast kitchen-garden, belonging to Prince Massimo, (himself a descendant, as he claims, of Fabius Cunctator,) where men no longer, but only lettuces, asparagus, and artichokes, are ruthlessly cut down. The inundations are not for mock sea-fights among slaves, but for the peaceful purposes of irrigation. And though the fiddle of Nero is only traditional, the trumpets of the French, murdering many an unhappy strain near by, are a most melancholy fact. In the bottom of the valley, a noble old villa, covered with frescoes, has been turned into a manufactory of bricks, and the very Villa Negroni itself is now doomed to be the site of a railway station. Yet here the princely family of Negroni lived, and the very lady at whose house Lucrezia Borgia took her famous revenge may once have sauntered under the walls, which still glow with ripening oranges, to feed the gold-fish in the fountain, or walked with stately friends through the long alleys of clipped cypresses, and pic-nicked alia Giorgione on lawns which are now but kitchen-gardens, dedicated to San Cavolo. It pleases me, also, descending in memories to a later time, to look up at the summer-house built above the gateway, and recall the days when Shelley and Keats came there to visit their friend Severn, the artist, (for that was his studio,) and look over the same alleys and gardens, and speak words one would have been so glad to hear,—and, coming still later down, to recall the hearty words and brave heart of America's best sculptor and my dear friend, Crawford.

But to return to the kitchen-gardens. Pretty as they are to the eye, they are not considered to be wholesome; and no Roman will live in a house near one of them, especially if it lie on the southern and western side, so that the Sirocco and the prevalent summer winds blow over it. The daily irrigation, in itself, would be sufficient to frighten all Italians away; for they have a deadly fear of all effluvia arising from decomposing vegetable substances, and suppose, with a good deal of truth, that, wherever there is water on the earth, there is decomposition. But this is not the only reason; for the same prejudice exists in regard to all kinds of gardens, whether irrigated or not,—and even to groves of trees and clusters of bushes, or vegetation of any kind, around a house. This is the real reason why, even in their country villas, their trees are almost always planted at a distance from the house, so as to expose it to the sun and to give it a free ventilation; these they do not care for; damp is their determined foe, and therefore they will not purchase the luxury of shade from trees at the risk of the damp it is supposed to engender. On the north, however, gardens are not thought to be so prejudicial as on the south and west,—as the cold, dry winds come from the former direction. The malaria, as we call it, though the term is unknown to Romans, is never so dangerous as after a slight rain, just sufficient to wet the surface of the earth without deeply penetrating it; for decomposition is then stimulated, and the miasma arising from the Campagna is blown abroad. So long as the earth is dry, there is no danger of fever, except at morning and nightfall, and then simply because of the heavy dews which the porous and baked earth then inhales and expires. After the autumn has given a thorough, drenching rain, Rome is healthy and free from fever.

Rome has with strangers the reputation of being unhealthy; but this opinion I cannot think well founded,—to the extent, at least, of the common belief. The diseases of children there are ordinarily very light, while in America and England they are terrible. Scarlet and typhus fevers, those fearful scourges in the North, are known at Rome only under most mitigated forms. Cholera has shown no virulence there; and for diseases of the throat and lungs the air alone is almost curative. The great curse of the place is the intermittent fever, in which any other illness is apt to end. But this, except in its peculiar phase of Perniciosa, though a very annoying, is by no means a dangerous disease, and has the additional advantage of a specific remedy. The Romans themselves of the better class seldom suffer from it, and I cannot but think that with a little prudence it may be easily avoided. Those who are most attacked by it are the laborers and contadini on the Campagna; and how can it be otherwise with them? They sleep often on the bare ground, or on a little straw under a capanna just large enough to admit them on all-fours. Their labor is exhausting, and performed in the sun, and while in a violent perspiration they are often exposed to sudden draughts and checks. Their food is poor, their habits careless, and it would require an iron constitution to resist what they endure. But, despite the life they lead and their various exposures, they are for the most part a very strong and sturdy class. This intermittent fever is undoubtedly a far from pleasant thing; but Americans who are terrified at it in Rome give it no thought in Philadelphia, where it is more prevalent,—and while they call Rome unhealthy, live with undisturbed confidence in cities where scarlet and typhus fevers annually rage.

It is a curious fact, that the French soldiers, who in 1848 made the siege of Rome, suffered no inconvenience or injury to their health from sleeping on the Campagna, and that, despite the prophecies to the contrary, very few cases of fever appeared, though the siege lasted during all the summer months. The reason of this is doubtless to be found in the fact that they were better clothed, better fed, and in every way more careful of themselves, than the contadini. Foreigners, too, who visit Rome, are very seldom attacked by intermittent fever; and it may truly be said, that, when they are, it is, for the most part, their own fault. There is generally the grossest inconsistency between their theories and their practice. Believing as they do that the least exposure will induce fever, they expose themselves with singular recklessness to the very causes of fever. After hurrying through the streets and getting into a violent perspiration, they plunge at once into some damp pit-like church or chill gallery, where the temperature is at least ten degrees lower than the outer air. The bald-headed, rosy John Bull, steaming with heat, doffs at once the hat which he wore in the street, and, of course, is astounded, if the result prove just what it would be anywhere else,—and if he take cold and get a fever, charges it to the climate, and not to his own stupidity and recklessness. Beside this, foreigners will always insist on carrying their home-habits with them wherever they go, and it is exceedingly difficult to persuade any one that he does not understand the climate better than the Italians themselves, whom he puts down as a poor set of timid ignoramuses. However, the longer one lives in Rome, the more he learns to value the Italian rules of health. There is probably no people so careful in these matters as the Italians, and especially the Romans. They understand their own climate, and they have a special dislike of death. In France and England suicides are very common; in Italy they are almost unknown. The American recklessness of life completely astounds the Italian. He enjoys life, studies every method to preserve it, and considers any one who risks it unnecessarily as simply a fool.

What, then, are their rules of life? In the first place, in all their habits they are very regular. They eat at stated times, and cannot be persuaded to partake of anything in the intervals. If it be not their hour for eating, they will refuse the choicest viands, and will sit at your table fasting, despite every temptation you can offer them. They are also very abstemious in their diet, and gluttony is the very rarest of vices. I do not believe there is another nation in Europe that eats so sparingly. In the morning they take a cup of coffee, generally without milk, sopping in it some light brioche. Later in the day they take a slight lunch of soup and macaroni, with a glass of wine. This lasts them until dinner, which begins with a watery soup; after which the lesso or boiled meat comes on and is eaten with one vegetable, which is less a dish than a garnish to the meat; then comes a dish of some vegetable eaten with bread; then, perhaps, a chop, or another dish of meat, garnished with a vegetable; some light dolce or fruit, and a cup of black coffee,—the latter for digestion's sake,—finish the repast. The quantity is very small, however, compared to what is eaten in England, France, America, or, though last, not least, Germany. Late in the evening they have a supper. When dinner is taken in the middle of the day, lunch is omitted. This is the rule of the better classes. The workmen and middle classes, after their cup of coffee and bit of bread or brioche in the morning, take nothing until night, except another cup of coffee and bread,—and their dinner finishes their meals after their work is done. From my own observation, I should say that an Italian does not certainly eat more than half as much as a German, or two-thirds as much as an American. The climate will not allow of gormandizing, and much less food is required to sustain the vital powers than in America, where the atmosphere is so stimulating to the brain and the digestion, or in England, where the depressing effects of the climate must be counteracted by stimulants. Go to any table d'hôte in the season, and you will at once know all the English who are new comers by their bottle of ale or claret or sherry or brandy; for the Englishman assimilates with difficulty, and unwillingly puts off his home-habits. The fresh American will always be recognized by the morning-dinner, which he calls a breakfast.

If you wish to keep your health in Italy, follow the example of the Italians. Eat a third less than you are accustomed to at home. Do not drink habitually of brandy, porter, ale, or even Marsala, but confine yourselves to the lighter wines of the country or of France. Do not walk much in the sun; "only Englishmen and dogs" do that, as the proverb goes; and especially take heed not to expose yourself, when warm, to any sudden changes of temperature. If you have heated yourself with walking in the sun, be careful not to go at once, and especially towards nightfall, into the lower and shaded streets, which have begun to gather the damps, and which are kept cool by the high, thick walls of the houses. Remember that the difference of temperature is very great between the narrow, shaded streets and the high, sunny Pincio. If you have the misfortune to be of the male sex, and especially if you suffer under the sorrow of the first great Caesar in being bald, buy yourself a little skullcap, (it is as good as his laurels for the purpose,) and put it on your head whenever you enter the churches and cold galleries. Almost every fever here is the result of suddenly checked transpiration of the skin; and if you will take the precaution to cool yourself before entering churches and galleries, and not to expose yourself while warm to sudden changes of temperature, you may live twenty years in Rome without a fever. Do not stand in draughts of cold air, and shut your windows when you go to bed. There is nothing an Italian fears like a current of air, and with reason. He will never sit between two doors or two windows. If he has walked to see you and is in the least warm, pray him to keep his hat on until he is cool, if you would be courteous to him. You will find that he will always use the same gentilezza to you. The reason why you should shut your windows at night is very simple. The night-air is invariably damp and cold, contrasting greatly with the warmth of the day, and it is then that the miasma from the Campagna drifts into the city. And oh, my American friends! repress your national love for hot rooms and great fires, and do not make an oven of your salon. Bake yourselves, kiln-dry yourselves, if you choose, in your furnaced houses at home, but, if you value your health, "reform that altogether" in Italy. Increase your clothing and suppress your fires, and you will find yourselves better in head and in pocket. With your great fires you will always be cold and always have colds; for the houses are not tight, and you only create great draughts thereby. You will not persuade an Italian to sit near them;—"Scusa, Signore" he will say, "mi fa male; se non gli dispiace, mi metto in questo cantone,"—and with your permission he takes the farthest corner away from the fire. Seven winters in Rome have convinced me of the correctness of their rule. Of course, you do not believe me or them; but it would be better for you, if you did,—and for me, too, when I come to visit you.

But I must beg pardon for all this advice; and as my business is not to write a medical thesis here, let me return to pleasanter things.

Scarcely does the sun drop behind St. Peter's on the first day of May, before bonfires begin to blaze from all the country towns on the mountain-sides, showing like great beacons. This is a custom founded in great antiquity, and common to the North and South. The first of May is the Festival of the Holy Apostles in Italy; but in Germany, and still farther north, in Sweden and Norway, it is Walpurgisnacht,—when goblins, witches, hags, and devils hold high holiday, mounting on their brooms for the Brocken. And it was on this night that Mephistopheles carried Faust on his wondrous ride, and showed him the spectre of Margaret with the red line round her throat. Miss Bremer, in her "Life in Dalecarlia," gives the following account of the origin of this custom:—"It is so old," she says, "that there is no perfect certainty either of its origin or signification. It is, however, believed that it derives its origin from a heathen sacrificatory festival; and there is ground for the acceptation that children were sacrificed alive at this very feast,—and this, in fact, in order to expel or reconcile the evil spirits, of whom the people believed, that, partly flying, partly riding, they commenced their passages over fields and woods at the beginning of spring, and which are to this day called enchanters, witches, nymphs, and so forth. It is also believed that about this time the spirits of the earth came forth from out of the bosom of the earth and the heart of the mountains in order to seek intercourse with the children of men. Fires were frequently kindled upon the sepulchral hills, and at these, sacrifices were offered, chiefly to the good powers, namely, to those who provide for a fruitful year. At present I should scarcely think there is an individual who believes in such superstitious stuff. But they still, as in days of yore, kindle fires upon the mountains on this night, and still look upon it as a bad omen, if any common or ugly-formed creature, whether beast or man, makes its appearance at the fire."

In the Neapolitan towns great fires are built on this festival, around which the people dance, jumping through the flames, and flinging themselves about in every wild and fantastic attitude. It is probably a relic of some old sacrificatory festival to Maia, who has given her name to this month,—the custom still remaining after its significance is gone.

The month of May is the culmination of the spring and the season of seasons at Rome. No wonder that foreigners who have come when winter sets in and take wing before April shows her sky sometimes growl at the weather, and ask if this is the beautiful Italian clime. They have simply selected the rainy season for their visit; and one cannot expect to have sun the whole year through, without intermission. Where will they find more sun in the same season? where will they find milder and softer air? Days even in the middle of winter, and sometimes weeks, descend as it were from heaven to fill the soul with delight; and a lovely day in Rome is lovelier than under any other sky on earth. But just when foreigners go away in crowds, the weather is settling into the perfection of spring, and then it is that Rome is most charming. The rains are over, the sun is a daily blessing, all Nature is bursting into leaf and flower, and one may spend days on the Campagna without fear of colds and fever. Stay in Rome during May, if you wish to feel its beauty.

The best rule for a traveller who desires to enjoy the charms of every clime would be to go to the North in the winter and to the South in the spring and summer. Cold is the speciality of the North, and all its sports and gayeties take thence their tone. The houses are built to shut out the demon of Frost, and protect one from his assaults of ice and snow. Let him howl about your windows and scrawl his wonderful landscapes on your panes and pile his fantastic wreaths outside, while you draw round the blazing hearth and enjoy the artificial heat and warm in the social converse that he provokes. Your punch is all the better for his threats; by contrast you enjoy the more. Or brave him outside in a flying sledge, careering with jangling bells over white wastes of snow, while the stars, as you go, fly through the naked trees that are glittering with ice-jewels, and your blood tingles with excitement, and your breath is blown like a white incense to the skies. That is the real North. How tame he will look to you, when you go back in August and find a few hard apples, a few tough plums, and some sour little things which are apologies for grapes! He looks sneaky enough then, with his make-believe summer, and all his furs off. No, then is the time for the South. All is simmering outside, and the locust saws and shrills till he seems to heat the air. You stay in the house at noon, and know what a virtue there is in thick walls which keep out the fierce heats, in gaping windows and doors that will not shut because you need the ventilation. You will not now complain of the stone and brick floors that you cursed all winter long, and on which you now sprinkle water to keep the air cool in your rooms. The blunders and stupidities of winter are all over. The breezy loggia is no longer a joke. You are glad enough to sit there and drink your wine and look over the landscape. Manuccia brings in a great basket of grapes that are grapes, which the wasp envies you as you eat, and comes to share. And here are luscious figs bursting with seedy sweetness, and apricots rusted in the sun, and velvety peaches that break into juice in your mouth, and great black-seeded cocomeri. Nature empties her cornucopia of fruits and flowers and vegetables all over your table. Luxuriously you enjoy them and fan yourself and take your siesta, with full appreciation of your dolce far niente. When the sun begins to slope westward, if you are in the country, you wander through the green lanes festooned with vines and pluck the grapes as you go; or, if you are in the city, you saunter the evening long through the streets, where all the world are strolling, and take your granito of ice or sherbet, and talk over the things of the day and the time, and pass as you go home groups of singers and serenaders with guitars, flutes, and violins,—serenade, perhaps, sometimes, yourself; and all the time the great planets and stars palpitate in the near heavens, and the soft air full of fragrance blows against your cheek. And you can really say, This is Italy! For it is not what you do, so much as what you feel, that makes Italy.