Part 6

Because I have not been writing much to The News on the subject of art, it must not be supposed that I am omitting the regular work of every tourist. Nor do I want it presupposed that I don’t know enough about art to tell the difference between a renaissance and a vermicelli. If industry and a desire to thoroughly do the job so it will not have to be done a second time will count for anything, I have been an arduous lover of art in all its forms since I passed the custom-house on the Italian border. Everybody knows that the center of art is Italy and that anything that isn’t old and Italian is second-class. When you come to Italy you expect to see the heights of the artistic and you are expected to have fits of ecstasy over the said heights. I have had ’em every time the guidebook told me to. I have endeavored in every way to show that a plain, common citizen of Kansas knew what to do when brought face to face with Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo and the other gentlemen since whose death the world has never really seen much in art. According to my pedometer I have traveled through 171 miles of cathedrals, 56 miles of public buildings and 85 miles of art galleries—all in ten days. Some people may think my pedometer is too rapid, but I know it is too slow. You know a good bird dog learns never to “set” for anything but a game bird. And it is well established that people with a certain kind of rheumatism can tell the approaching changes in the weather by the twinges in their joints. And it is a fact that even when I do not know there is a cathedral or an art gallery within a hundred miles, let me approach one accidentally and my feet will begin to ache. Then I know what is before me and I try to do my duty. If the work of absorbing Italian art should prove too much for me, the words could be as appropriately put on my tombstone as they were over the early citizen of Dodge who died with a dozen bullets in his body and a half-dozen enemies lying on the floor:

HERE LIES BILL. HE DONE HIS DAMDEST. ANGELS COULD DO NO MORE.

There are three places where you always find art in Italy: First and foremost, the churches; second, the public buildings; third, the art galleries and museums. The churches come first, because the Catholic Church has always been the support and promoter of art. For centuries it was the only strong power that encouraged artists. It had the tasteful men of the age and it had the money. The great artists both in painting and sculpture would have had no opportunity and their works would have been destroyed if it had not been for the church. In return, the artists took the subjects of religion and portrayed them most beautifully and effectively. There is hardly a church in Italy which does not have paintings by some of those old painters which would be worth a fortune now if they were for sale. The Catholic faith especially appeals to the artistic sense, and the history of the church furnished a boundless field of subjects. Walls and ceilings of churches are covered with magnificent pictures, the exteriors are decorated with sculpture, and the architecture of the buildings is brilliant and effective. To see paintings, statues or architecture in Italy you first go to the churches, and there you see the greatest and best.

After the churches the art treasures and galleries are found in the public buildings, and there we get what is left of the art of Greece and Rome, together with much of a later time. The old pagan mythology furnished most of the ancient art, together with a few attempts at transferring abstract ideas into concrete form. Of course I don’t want to set up as an art critic—I have trouble enough without that. But according to the way I was raised, a large per cent. of ancient sculpture isn’t fit to be exhibited to young folks—or to old men. Probably the times were different and fashions in art were acute, but the Grecian and Roman sculptors paid no attention to the rules of common decency as generally understood in this generation. While doing my duty in the art galleries I have actually blushed so much that it grew noticeable to the other art critics, and I fear that I lost standing with them. Of course I am not a regular critic, but I know a few things, and this is one of them.

Another objection I have to the old masters is that they never considered any subject too big for them. I have written something of this when I kicked on Michael Angelo attempting to make a picture of God Almighty. There is too much of that kind of business in Italian art. And another thing is that they couldn’t paint good animals. Some of the pictures by the great masters have horses or lions in them, and I believe even the horses would laugh at their own appearance.

Aside from these unimportant objections and a trifling criticism of a great deal of ignorance about drawing and the fitness of things, the “old masters,” by which is meant the great painters from about 1400 to 1600, are certainly worthy of their reputation. Everybody I met knew more about art than I did—so they thought—and everyone said: “What wonderful color.” The old masters certainly did know how to mix paints so as to make the most beautiful and most lasting colors. I think Titian’s red-headed girls are the prettiest reds I have ever seen. Raphael’s paintings cannot be criticized by me—their feeling and their execution will make a cynical Kansan stand and admire. Michael Angelo I did not take to so well as I did Titian and Raphael, but he did a lot of work, and he, too, had the ability to make his pictures like life. The other great painters of Italy in these two centuries of the renaissance have not been equaled in any period since, and in spite of the fact that the experience of one generation ought to help the next, I do not believe that the modern Italian painters, or the Englishmen and Americans who go to Italy and copy, can come within several blocks of equaling the work of the “old masters.”

There is one more objection I have to the “old masters,” and I would like to tell it to their faces. They had the habit of taking a great subject and making it a means of flattery for wealthy patrons. For example, a picture of Christ or the Virgin sitting and talking confidentially with some old scamp of a Medici. Of course I don’t blame the old artists. The Medici were a lot of thugs, thieves, highwaymen, murderers, and lovers of art. They put up handsomely for the great masters, and undoubtedly assisted much in promoting art at a time when the princes and nobility of Italy were not respectable according to our standard. This flattery by the old masters may have been necessary to make a living, but I don’t think it is Art.

I had one objection which has been overruled on the ground that it was simply because my apprenticeship in art had been too short. Every artist painted a “Madonna.” Each had a different ideal or model. Mary was a Jewess. But the Italian artists nearly all ran in pictures of Italians, and each had a different style. It makes a confusing aggregation. I think I have seen a thousand Madonnas, five hundred Magdalens, and from one to three hundred of each of the saints. There is a sameness of subject and a variance in execution which makes me a little nervous. I haven’t worked at the art business as long as I should, and therefore I may be too hasty in my judgment, although I am fairly perspiring art at every pore and the climate of Italy in the latter part of June and the first of July has nearly as much cause for perspiration as the climate of Kansas.

AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH.

MENAGIO, ITALY, July 5, 1905.

At an early hour yesterday morning, July 4, we left the hotel in Venice in a gondola, and defiantly waving in the air was an American flag which I carried as proudly and as exuberantly as a ten-year-old boy would at a picnic in Kansas. We met several Americans at the station, and they waved and cheered “Old Glory.” We met all kinds of Italians, who looked as amused and curious as a lot of Americans would at an Italian carrying a green, white and red banner down the streets of Hutchinson. I flaunted the stars and stripes in the faces of the Italian policemen, and they seemed to enjoy it. Several people tried to find out from me what it all meant, and in spite of the fact that I told them in good English that this was the Fourth of July, the anniversary of independence, they shook their heads and did not “comprehendo.” The weather was very hot and very dry, the train was dusty, and the conditions as near ideal for a successful Fourth of July celebration as could be imagined. The American flag that day floated in the Italian breeze from Venice to Milan and then to Lake Como. The inability to make the Dagoes understand what I meant was embarrassing at times, and I longed vainly for a pack of firecrackers or a few good torpedoes. The conductor on the train was greatly interested. We talked in sign language and all the Italian I knew and all the English he knew, but to no effect. Finally I said the word “liberty,” and as the Italian word is about the same, he caught on and I could tell he was approving. “Vive l’America!” I cried, and he took off his hat and said it after me and smiled agreement to the remarks I was making on what the old flag meant. I gave him a big tip, 10 cents,—5 cents for hurrahing for America and 5 cents for listening to my speech.

To-night we are out of the heat of the fertile plains of Lombardy and are in a delightful cool place on the shore of Lake Como, the prettiest and pleasantest place I have seen since we left Killarney. The last part of the day the flag waved over Como, Bellagio, Cernobio, Nesso, Colomo, Bellano, and all the other “o’s” that make the list of Italian towns look like the roster of an Irish Fenian society, only the o is at the wrong end of the names.

Speaking of “tipping” the conductor reminds me of the tipping system in Italy, which is a subject of the greatest importance to the traveler. I think I have seen only one man in Italy who did not hold out his hand, and that was an armless beggar at the Milan station who had a tin cup in which you were expected to deposit. The tipping custom is general in Europe, but it reaches its greatest development in Italy. Everybody you meet is so courteous and polite, willing to show you or tell you or take you, but always expecting something. You tip the conductor, the porter, the hotel manager, the chambermaid, the “man chambermaid,” the elevator boy, the waiter, the head waiter, the clerk, the interpreter, the attendants, the driver, the man who opens the door, the church janitor, the policeman, and everybody you ask a question or who is there to answer if you do ask, and then you tip a few more just because they expect it. This looks like an alarming expenditure of money. But as a matter of fact the total amount of tips is not more than is expected at a big hotel in New York. And when you tip the waiter at the restaurant he does not keep it, but all tips go into a common fund that is divided and is the wages the waiters receive in most cases.

Here is a schedule of “tips,” which, after considerable study and comparison with that of others, I have figured as about right:

Baggageman, 2 cents. Elevator boy, 2 cents. Chambermaid, 3 cents. Man chambermaid, 3 cents. Waiter, per day, 5 cents. Head waiter, 10 cents. Manager of hotel, 20 cents. Miscellaneous men and boys, each 1 cent. Railroad conductor, 5 cents. Policeman, 2 cents. Driver, 2 cents. Italian nobleman, 3 cents. Italian merchant, 2 cents. Clerk in store, 1 cent. Ordinary civility, 1 cent.

I haven’t met the king or queen, but I estimate that if I did and asked a favor they would look like about 30 cents.

The Italian money is like the French money, based on a unit which is equivalent to 20 cents. So when you give a man 10 cents you give him a half-lire or half-franc. The lire is divided into 100 centimes, and when you give a man 2 cents you hand him a great big copper coin with “ten centimes” on it. This small unit of measurement causes an American a peculiar sensation. For example, I had to buy a shirt in Venice and it was marked 5.50. That looked like a big price for a shirt, but reduced to American currency it was only $1.10. I bought some of the long Italian cigars which look like stogies and have straws down the center so they will draw. They were 30 centimes each—only 6 cents American. For a carriage and driver to go anywhere in Rome, carrying Mrs. Morgan and myself and a lot of baggage, it was 1.00, twenty American cents. When two Americans can ride a couple of miles in a comfortable victoria for 20 cents they don’t walk much, and they feel as if they were beating somebody and are perfectly willing to “tip” the driver an extra 2 cents. So when you are “doing” Italy and get used to the custom, you do not mind carrying a pound or so of copper coins and distributing them whenever you speak to a native.

The effect of this custom on the people must be very pernicious. And it takes away the charm of recognizing courtesy and hospitality as a national trait when you remember that you pay for it and it is cheap.

I wrote from Paris that the government of France has the monopoly of the tobacco business. In Italy the government has the monopoly of tobacco and salt, the two great necessities. It looks funny to go along the street and see the little government shops with the sign in Italian, “Tobacco and Salt.” The Italian government doesn’t sell good tobacco or good salt. The best cigars are from the island of Luzon, manufactured into alleged cigars in the government factories in Italy. The salt is heavy and coarse, something like old-style yellow-brown sugar. If you don’t like the tobacco or the salt you can go without, for the government allows no competitor who might do better.

I have learned a little Italian, not so much but I can forget it when I cross the line. And that leads me to tell of a little experience with a moral. I had been so annoyed by the numerous beggars and vendors of trinkets that I asked a hotel porter who knew some English what I should say in Italian to tell them to go away. He told me something that sounded like “Muffa tora.” Accordingly I went around for a couple of days saying “Muffa tora” to all that bothered me. Then a friend who knew a little more Italian happened to hear me and suggested that my language was too strong. The words were about what in America is meant by “Go-to-hell.” And there I had been going around St. Peter’s, St. Paul, and all the churches and art galleries in Rome, saying to half the people who approached me, “Go-to-hell,” “Go-to-hell.” A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Of course Americans stop at the best hotels, and they are about the same everywhere, being based on the French model. They are from one-third to one-half cheaper than the best hotels in American cities. We are supposed to get three meals a day: First, rolls and coffee; second, about 12 o’clock, what is really a late breakfast but is called “dejeuner” and has three to five courses: eggs (always—generally omelet), macaroni, a cutlet or chop with potatoes, a roast meat, cheese, and fruit. No coffee or tea or anything to drink except water, which they say is bad and unhealthful. Dinner at 7 o’clock and a good meal: Soup, fish, cutlet or chop with macaroni, roast, vegetables, roast chicken and salad, cheese, small cakes, and fruit. No coffee or tea. If you want coffee after dinner you have it served in the lounging-room or out-of-doors, and it is extra. Nobody but Americans drink water, and they do not use enough to hurt. When you enter the hotel you are received by the “hall porter,” really the manager, who bows and takes you or sends you to a room. After a while he sends up for your name and nationality, but that is for the police. There is no hotel register. When you pay your bill and are leaving the porter rings a bell and everybody from proprietor to chambermaid appears to say “good-by,” speed the parting guest and receive the parting tips. At first your royal reception and leave-taking makes quite an impression and you feel “set up,” but after a while it gets to be a bore and you try to escape it but can’t. The cooking and service are first-class, better than in America. There is one kind of dishes I steer clear of, those labeled on the bill of fare, “a la Americaine.” They are like those served in Hutchinson, “a la Italia,” or “a la Français,” which means that they are probably spoiled by the cook trying to do something he does not understand.

Of course in the small Italian hotels the cooking is different, but they tell me it is good. The restaurants where the poorer people eat are full of garlicky smells which can be heard for a block. The staple articles of food for Italians are soup, macaroni and vegetables, all flavored with garlic. The ordinary Italian does not eat meat. There are probably several reasons why, but the first one is that he has not the price, and that is enough. When a man is working for 30 cents a day he is a stranger to roast beef, for meat is as high as it is in America.

I haven’t seen a real clothing store in Italy. There are two classes of Italians only: The rich, who have a tailor, and the poor, who put the goods together themselves. Again I want to repeat what I have said before: The things that are cheap in Europe are those in which labor is the principal factor. When it comes to hiring a man to do work, you name your price. That is why carriage-driving, servants, clothes-making, the building trades and labor of every kind from lace-makers to railroad engineers, are so low.

The Italian shopkeepers have a well-deserved reputation as bargainers. Go into a shop, ask a price, and very likely the proprietor or clerk will say “So much: what will you give?” Americans have a reputation of being “easy,” and so they usually start us with a price of “6 francs,” when they will come down to one or two rather than lose a sale. When you get through you never know just how much you have been beaten—you only know you have been. Some stores advertise “fixed prices,” but they are unfixed if necessary. The process of “shopping” thus has another and delicious feature for the American “shopper.”

I have found the Italians honest. We hardly ever lock our room. I am always leaving the umbrella, but somebody always finds it and brings it to me, and I can’t say that much for Americans. The hackmen do not overcharge, or at least not near as much as in Chicago or New York. I think a stranger is better treated in Rome than in Kansas City. But then comes the suspicious thought—we pay for it.

Previous to this trip I had often heard people talk about the fleas in Italy, and had thought it was very funny. It is no joke. At first I was much amused when I would see a well-dressed lady stop suddenly on the street, elevate her skirt and go hunting. I now consider it a perfectly justifiable and proper action. If there is a game law in Italy with a closed season on fleas it is not at this time of the year. I have seen the anxious, heart-stricken look on the faces of the martyrs and saints as painted by the old masters, and I know now where they got their models, for I have seen the man and the woman conscious of the march of the flea along the small of the back or in some other unreachable place, and have seen the haunted, hunted look on the face as conjecture what the flea would do next changed into realization. The Italian flea works a good deal like the American mosquito, only he makes no music and you can only tell where he is by sad experience. He can dodge better than some politicians and he can get in his work early and often. I am growing accustomed to the sensation myself, but I do not think I shall ever enjoy it. The Bible says the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but in Italy the wicked flea is improving each minute whether anyone pursueth or not. Mingled with art and old masters, lagoons, and gondolas, cathedrals and Cæsars, blue sky and green fields, will always be my recollection of the flea that never takes a siesta and to whom the poets have never done justice.

SWITZERLAND.

ACROSS THE ALPS.

BRIEG, SWITZERLAND, July 7, 1905.

“Beyond the Alps lies Italy” with all of its art and history and fleas. After a day on Lake Lugano and Lake Maggiore, where the two countries of Italy and Switzerland meet, and where the customs officers examined our baggage three times in the course of a trip around the water, we crossed the Alps, among which we had been for two days, and are now in the oldest republic on earth, Switzerland. We came over the Simplon Pass in a stage-coach and not through a tunnel, as we could have done. The Simplon Pass is historic and picturesque. As soon as the tunnel is completed, which has been seven years in building, the railroad train will rush through the mountains and the stage-coach will be an old fogy luxury. But the way to go over the Alps for pleasure and observation is not to take a tunnel train, but ride over on the outside of a coach with five horses and see the panorama as you pass by. After a fortnight spent among the great works of man, cathedrals, coliseums and galleries, one day was enough in the Simplon to prove that Nature is still ahead. The great amphitheatres of the mountains, the magnificent stage-settings of forest and peak, left the coliseum and the forum far behind. The changing hues of the slopes, now gradual and now precipitate, sometimes bare and sometimes covered with pasture and vineyard or forest, were in colors which even the old masters could not equal. It was an all-day drive over a fine road, through narrow gulches, alongside rushing rivers, under waterfalls of melted snow, finally through the snow itself, and then down, almost sliding, with the coach-wheels locked so they were like runners, into the quaint little town of Brieg.

The road over the Simplon was built by Napoleon. All over the map of Europe you will see such monuments to the name of the great emperor. I do not give Napoleon much credit for the job, as it was a military necessity to him. He had to keep an army in Italy and always be on the lookout for his enemies there, so he ordered the Simplon Pass, up to the time only a trail, to be provided with a macadamized road, and it was done. I have seen so many of such roads in Europe that I would be willing to support Napoleon for road overseer or street commissioner any time. The road was completed in 1807, and the tunnel under the Pass will be finished in 1906. It is sixteen miles long, large enough for a double track, and has been constructed from both ends at the same time. To my mind it is a great engineering feat to start two small holes in a mountain, sixteen miles apart, and figure so accurately that those holes will meet some place in the center over a mile from the daylight on top. I suppose it looks easy to the engineer who knows how, but it is miraculous to me. A good many lives have been lost and a lot of money spent on this tunnel, but those are the sacrifices the world demands before it will move on.

The road over the Pass is forty-five miles long. Soon after starting, all agriculture disappeared, except vineyards and pasture. The vineyards continued almost up to the snow. Wherever there was enough ground there were vines, and in many places the mountain-side was terraced and in the made land the vines were growing profusely. Literally speaking, there are mountains of vineyards in northern Italy and in Switzerland.