Part 6

Surely it is true, is it not, that accidental experiences have a sharper savour and leave behind them a more enduring reminiscence than projected ones? What one expects but rarely comes up to expectation, and has generally cost some thought or trouble to procure. What happens unexpectedly, if it be of the welcome kind, finds one disarmed and indisposed to criticise, and the emotion it excites is all sheer gain, no price of admission, to so speak, having been paid for it. Just as wandering along a river is more agreeable than walking along a canal, so people who canalise their lives and prearrange their enjoyments lose much of the enchantment which attends the guiding beneficence of chance. In Florence, you can scarcely halt anywhere, but story sacred or profane, saint or scholar, painter or patriot, poet, martyr, or enthusiast, has left some indelible trace to mark and glorify the spot, and to make you lift your head and then your heart. The very lapidary inscriptions let into the walls where architect or sculptor, jurist or astronomer once abode, are a continual invitation to the wayfarer to pause, to read, to ponder. Nor is it perhaps the most famous or the best known that are the most interesting and suggestive. The Poet seemed to have a special faculty for arresting our footsteps by those most worthy of contemplation. ‘Is not this one,’ he said, ‘peculiarly consolatory in a period like the present, when most people, and the Italians especially, seem to think that originality consists in artificial novelty and even grotesqueness—for that is where such novelty too often leads—of manner and expression.’

Thereupon he read: ‘_Qui visse e morì Benedetto da Majano, chi nelle opere sue confrontò con venustà di stile e di forme le grandi idee del genio creatore._’ (Here lived and died Benedetto da Maiano, who in his works conferred charm of style and beauty of form on the lofty ideas of creative genius.)

‘To do that,’ he said, ‘is to overcome the main difficulty and solve the essential problem of Art, whether in marble or in language. In our day, too many persons shirk the difficulty and ignore the problem, and seek to conceal the poverty of their ideas under the extravagance of their manner.’

‘Some of these are very successful,’ I ventured to observe.

‘Not,’ said Veronica, ‘if in the notion of success be included that of succession. Congratulated to-day, will they not be consigned to oblivion to-morrow, when right taste has resumed its authority, or when some one yet more extravagant creates an impression, equally sudden and equally transitory, of a somewhat similar character?’

‘I think so,’ said the Poet, ‘and I am sufficiently enamoured of _venustà di stile_ to hope so. As great a master of style as this century has produced says somewhere, “_On peut tout dire dans le style simple et correct des bons auteurs. Les expressions violentes viennent toujours ou d’une prétention, ou de l’ignorance de nos richesses réelles._” Do you mind, Lamia, committing that sentence to memory, for I see you sometimes deeply immersed in works of much pretension, but consisting for the most part of _expressions violentes_, though I never observe you admiring in marble or on canvas the violence or the profuse colouring you occasionally tolerate in language?‘

‘Is it not,’ said Veronica, ‘that in architecture, painting, and sculpture, the manner in which a thing is done is so much more conspicuous, so to speak, than what is done, that failure, whether it arise from feebleness or from violence, strikes us at once; whereas, in language, what is said, if interesting in itself, makes us indulgent to, and indeed forgetful of, the manner of saying it?’

‘I suppose that is so,’ he answered; ‘and perhaps it is one of the incidental drawbacks to literature. Fortunately, however, what you say is more true of prose than of verse; defect of style in poetry being at least as obvious to fastidious readers as in marble. And yet,’ he added, ‘in our time, a grotesque, violent, and what seems to me lamentable way of saying things has been more than tolerated in verse, for the sake of the things said. For my part, I should be sorry to be original, either in prose or verse, at the expense of truth or beauty.’

The absence of method in our visits to cloister or gallery seemed to govern most of our movements. Sometimes we were but two, sometimes but three, of a company; and it would happen that, when we were four, we lost touch of each other for a time, and went our separate ways. Veronica not infrequently was missing; and generally, when this occurred, when she returned alone to the villa, she brought with her some ‘object of antiquity,’ as the Florentine dealers in curios and old furniture call such things, purchased after considerable thought and much bargaining. I think you know Veronica has a large heart, and would defraud no one of his due, and indeed would give any one more than his due, where no bargaining was in question. But she knows just as much about the date and value of _cassettone_, triptych, or embroidery, as any of the various dealers on the Ponte Vecchio or in the Via de’ Serragli; and she not unnaturally enjoyed displaying her peculiar learning in those interesting haunts. Her perfect familiarity with the language, and indeed even with Florentine _patois_, added to her advantage and strengthened her position in appraising the value of mediæval picture-frame or sixteenth-century mirror. Moreover, it is the greatest possible error to suppose that Florentine dealers are consumed with a single-minded desire to rob unwary purchasers; and I am convinced they much preferred to conclude a fair bargain with Veronica, than an unfair one with the first ignorant comer. Oriental ways and traditions of business still linger sufficiently with them to make _prezzo fisso_ or a rigidly-fixed price exceedingly distasteful. Their day is long, they have abundance of time on their hands, and, if the few things they sell in the course of the week were sold without demur and in a couple of minutes, life would be insufferably tedious for want of human intercourse and agreeable conversation. Veronica invariably regaled us with minute accounts, on the occasion of each fresh purchase, of the polite but protracted controversy that had attended it; and very diverting these were. She preferred to conduct these transactions without our company; for, in the first place, as she truly enough remarked, we knew nothing whatever upon the subject and could therefore be of no use to her, and, in the second place, when we honoured her with our useless society, one or other of us invariably ended by showing signs of impatience, and to be impatient over a bargain is inevitably to get the worst of it. She did not always come off a winner in these friendly encounters; and she was just as candid and as diverting in confessing her defeats as in recording her victories. On one occasion she suffered a peculiarly humiliating disaster, which she detailed with much zest at her own expense. Wishing to give an agreeable surprise to Lamia on the occasion of that Birthday, when, as you will perhaps remember, I was so sorely discomfited, she went in search of some amber beads which Lamia had more than once expressed a longing to find in order to complete a set she already possessed. But it was indispensable they should be of a special hue. At length, Veronica discovered some in a shop in the Por Santa Maria, but, do what she would, and notwithstanding all her Florentine wit, she could not bring the owner of them into what she deemed a reasonable frame of mind as regards price.

‘_Ebbene_,’ she said, ‘I will try elsewhere,’

She tried everywhere, but in vain, and so at length had to go back to the Por Santa Maria, and say she would take the beads at the man’s own price.

‘But now, _Signora mia_,’ he said, ‘that is no longer the price: you can find no others in Florence to suit you, so these in the meantime have become more valuable.’ And he added some insignificant sum to the original figure, more for the sake of triumph than from any mercenary motive. Had Veronica been making a purchase for herself, I am sure she would have defrauded him of his victory by leaving him in possession pf his amber treasures. But she would not disappoint Lamia, and so paid the forfeit of her unsuccessful strategy.

But we had a less humorous and far more touching experience on another occasion. Visiting a hillside village some twenty-five miles away, we were all much taken by a small altar-piece, a _Presentation in the Temple_, which stood in a side-chapel in a little church of otherwise no particular pretension. We discussed, then and there, by whom it may have been painted, for I need scarcely say that, on that subject, we all, like so many other people, consider ourselves exceedingly expert, and quite competent to express an opinion. The _Parroco_, a venerable Priest of courtly manners but much humility, did not affect to adjudicate among us, but was evidently much interested in our deliberations, and still more in our admiration of the picture. At last he hesitatingly asked Veronica if we should like to become the owners of it. This had certainly not occurred to us, and we were rather taken aback by the question. But Veronica, enchanted at the chance of an unexpected bit of bargaining, said ‘Yes,’ without a moment’s hesitation. So modest a sum, however, was asked, if compared with the high artistic qualities we had been attributing to it, that it went against her conscience, which, as you know, is the strongest part of her, to offer anything less. Moreover, she probably remembered, on second thoughts, that the place was not a suitable one for financial transactions; and any remaining scruple we might have had in completing the bargain was set at rest by his telling us that he had long been anxious to buy a second-hand harmonium that was for sale, whereby the services of his little church could be conducted in a more seemly manner.

The picture was carried off; and, by the time it had been in our possession forty-eight hours, its artistic value had enormously increased, and there was hardly any Umbrian painter, Raphael perhaps excepted, to whom we were not ready to ascribe it. We discussed, over and over again, where it should be hung when we returned to England, and first one position of honour and then another was suggested for it. But, as I knew well enough from the first would turn out to be the case, it was finally assigned by Veronica to the Poet’s study.

For a week she had the satisfaction of seeing all of us as much interested in, and as proud of, a purchase as herself. But, on the morning of the eighth day after our mountain excursion, the old Priest suddenly made his appearance at the villa, whither he had walked all the way; and, in a state of much agitation, he said that he had come to ask us to give him back the picture, the price of which he would restore and which he had in his hand. At first there was a protesting chorus, and Veronica was particularly eloquent in pointing out that the request was most unreasonable, as we had given the full amount asked for, without any demur. Thereupon the poor old man explained, with tears in his eyes, that his parishioners had missed the picture, and, though he had told them of his intended purchase of the harmonium, they insisted on its being restored to its traditional home, and all his pleas and arguments had proved unavailing with them. To such an appeal but one answer was possible. The picture was returned, and the Poet’s study will never see that Umbrian masterpiece. Our disappointment was great; but why, said Veronica, should everybody be disappointed? Poor old man! He stood there a most touching figure. So we put our hearts and purses together; and the sound of the second-hand harmonium now follows on his quavering voice, when, in answer to his _Dominus vobiscum_, the entire mountain congregation shrills out, to its instrumental accompaniment, _Et cum spiritu tuo_.

As a rule, however, Veronica’s purchases, over and above being definitive, were as useful as they were ornamental; and it sometimes seemed as though Lamia’s predictions concerning the transformation that was gradually to come over the villa were about to be fulfilled. Veronica invariably declared that the furniture she brought back with her from the Via Maggio, or the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, was intended strictly for home consumption, and would in due course be packed and dispatched to England. Where she would find room in a house already remarkably well stocked, was a mystery to all of us; and meanwhile it remained on the spot, to whose aspect it certainly added finish and charm, and to whose commodiousness it materially contributed.

‘I told you,’ said Lamia, ‘I should end by having a comfortable armchair, and you see I have. Nor can I well doubt that a host of work-people have been secretly introduced by Veronica, for I can now count on my bell ringing with absolute certainty; and, as for Placida and Perfetta,’—Placida and Perfetta were two handmaidens,—‘though they still regard fair words and sweet smiles as the principal ingredients of domestic service, they have developed a talent for tidying my drawers and arranging my toilet-table which cannot but have proceeded from severe drilling by Veronica, while you and I were discussing the Infinite under the shade of cheerful boughs. Shortly after we first came, Veronica gave one of our dear devoted but somewhat primitive attendants a sponge, for what purpose I cannot say. But this domestic novelty was found so useful, that each of them in turn, she discovered, had the loan of it, till it came to enjoy an absolute monopoly in the cleaning of the establishment. Now, I believe, sponges, and all other requisites of a well-ordered place of residence, are as plentiful as blackberries. Do you remember,’ she said, turning to me, ‘your giving me some most lovely flowers last week, which, of course, I treasured beyond words, even after they had faded? But I discovered, the next morning, that Perfetta, moved by a spirit of economy which seems to be a perfect passion with these dear people, was applying them, on the carpet, to the same purpose, I am told, for which we sometimes use tea-leaves in England. That was a sad ending, was it not, to your lovely gift?’

Lamia’s observation on ‘the principal ingredients of domestic service,’ as understood in Italy by those who render it, was strictly accurate. They wait on you with a smile, and minister to your need with copious conversation. They will end by giving you all you ask for; but you must ask, and you must not expect that, having asked for it ninety-nine times, you will get it the hundredth, without asking for it again. That would be to defraud them, and you as well, of an opportunity of talk, the thing they love most in the world. Moreover, they have an invincible objection to being made methodical; nor can you give them greater pleasure than to ask them to do the work naturally pertaining to somebody else. The cook would be delighted to nurse the baby, the housemaid would find it quite natural to be bidden to cook the dinner, the butler would eagerly go in search of the vegetables, and the gardener at once mount the box and drive you into Florence. Only do not ask them to be perfect, according to English ideas, in their own line. They will do anything on earth for you, if you go the right way about it; but they will not be turned into machines. Nothing I have ever seen in Veronica is more admirable, or shows so conclusively the discrimination she can blend with her love of order, than the amount of method, limited no doubt but quite unusual, with which, for the time at least, she imbued those about us; and Lamia, as we have seen, indulged in a little characteristic raillery on the subject.

‘It is all very well,’ said the Poet, ‘for us to have our little joke about a certain person’s passion for discipline. But, upon my word, what Italy stands in need of is a Ruler with plenary powers, of the temperament and talents of Veronica. So the Roman Empire was founded, so the British. Dear Lamia, you are very charming; our friend here is, I do not forget, a gardener of much repute, and I write verses which, I am told, sometimes give pleasure to people who are easily pleased. But Veronica is worth all of us put together a hundred times over.‘

‘Quite so,’ said Lamia. ‘Veronica is our _Minerva Medica_, whose salutary if sometimes unpalatable wisdom keeps us in such tolerable health as moral valetudinarians like myself are capable of; whereas I am but a would-be Egeria, who have not yet succeeded in inducing any one, and you, dear Poet, least of all, to be my Numa. Still, do not judge me altogether by the way in which I conduct myself here, among a people very much after my own heart. I _have_ a conscience, which I showed by declaring it at the frontier, as I heard it was contraband. I proved to be right; it was confiscated, and I have got on very comfortably without it ever since. Indeed, I should have missed a new gown much more. Poets, we all know, never have a conscience, in any country. But, as Veronica has enough for two, indeed—obligingly remembering my existence—for three, I daresay we shall continue to manage fairly well in this easy-going land, with Veronica’s occasional assistance.‘

At this moment, Veronica joined us under the lower _loggia_, where we had for some time been sitting, and desisting more frequently than perhaps you have imagined, from audible converse, in order to commune silently with the plashing of the fountain in front of us, with city, plain, and river far below, and with hill-slope and summit everywhere around us. The sun had just disappeared; and, each instant, mountain and sky grew more and more unreal, more and more transfigured in the afterglow. The last _Ave Maria_ bell had rung; the last wain drawn by the sleek, swaying oxen had creaked up the hill; and, somewhere among the more distant olives, a peasant lingering at his work, but pondering aloud on his love, sang out with clear voice to the clear air:

‘Fin al fin de’ giorni miei, Io te sola voglio amar.‘

‘You never told us,’ said Veronica, ‘what you two did yesterday afternoon.’ The two were the Poet and Lamia.

‘You scarcely gave us the chance,’ Lamia replied. ‘We were all so absorbed in admiring the bust you brought from Florence of the founder of the Magliabecchian Library, whose name I have already forgotten, but who was himself, you told us, what you, dear Veronica, will become if you go on accumulating stray black-letter volumes at the rate you are doing at present,—_quædam bibliotheca_. But have a care. What if they were lost or stolen? I was reading only yesterday that, when Guarino, returning to Florence from Constantinople with a cargo of Greek manuscripts, was shipwrecked, and all his treasures went to the bottom of the sea, his hair turned white. See how well-informed I am getting. I can tell you still more on this interesting subject, and indeed meditate lecturing on it next winter in the Sala Dante. Cosimo de’ Medici healed a political breach with Alfonso of Naples by sending him a Manuscript of Livy; and Lorenzo declared to Pico della Mirandola, probably where we are now sitting, that, if his fortune proved insufficient, he would pledge his furniture in order to buy books. But, when your purse gives out, you will spare my easy-chair, Veronica, won’t you?‘

‘You have still not told us where you went yesterday afternoon.’

Lamia remained silent; leaving it to the Poet to reply:

‘We carried some flowers to the grave of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.’

Again there was silence. Then, shortly, Veronica asked:

‘Did nothing come of it?’

We all well knew the meaning of the question, and so did he, and accordingly replied:

‘Well, yes, something came of it, such as it is’; and, not waiting for us to express a desire he was aware we all entertained, he unaffectedly recited to us the following lines:—

AT HER GRAVE

I

Lo, here among the rest you sleep, As though no difference were ‘Twixt them and you, more wide, more deep, Than such as fondness loves to keep Round each lone sepulchre.

II

Yet they but human, you divine, Warmed by that heavenly breath, Which, when ephemeral lights decline, Like lamp before nocturnal shrine, Still burneth after death.

III

Yes, here in Tuscan soil you lie, With Tuscan turf above; And, lifting silent spires on high, The cypresses remind the sky Of the city of your love.

IV

And you did grow so like to her Wherein you dwelt so long, Your thoughts, like her May roses, were Untrained, unchecked, but how astir, And oh how sweet, with song!

V

The Poet of Olympian mien His frenzy doth control, And, gazing on the dread Unseen, Keep mind majestic, will serene, And adamantine soul.

VI

He, save to Wisdom sternly true, Is but the sport of Fate And gladiatorial pain. But you! A poet, and a woman too! The burden was too great.

VII

And so you laid it down, and here, Oblivious of life’s load, Quiet you sleep through all the year, Young Spring, staid Summer, Autumn sere, And Winter’s icy goad.

VIII

The swallows, freshly on the wing, In April’s sun rejoice; The nightingales unceasing sing; Yes, Spring brings back the birds of Spring, But not, alas! your voice.

IX

So round your sleep I soft let fall Frail emblems of regret; The lowly wind-flower, tulip tall, The iris mantling wayside wall, And weeping violet.

X

My votive flowers to-day will blow, To-morrow be decayed; But, though long sunk from sight, I know, The glory of your afterglow Will never wholly fade.

LAMIA’S WINTER-QUARTERS

It was _Pasqua delle Rose_, literally Easter of Roses, to distinguish it from _Pasqua delle Uova_, or Easter of Eggs; in other words, Whitsuntide. We were indebted to Lamia for this pretty designation, which was new to all of us, and she had made acquaintance with it in the course of conversation with Perfetta, who, though by no means what her name implied, and, indeed, as Veronica said, the most imperfect of our native retainers, had long since quite won Lamia’s heart by a spontaneous compliment. Very early on in her study of Italian, Lamia had displayed an extraordinarily fine ear for the pronunciation of that language, and a quick talent for assimilating its most familiar phrases, so that Perfetta one day declared she must surely be of Italian parentage.

‘Indeed she is not,’ I said. ‘Guess from what land she comes?’

Perfetta looked at her for a moment, and then exclaimed: ‘_Dal Paradiso_.’

Lamia treated this suggestion of celestial origin with much levity, but, all the same, made Perfetta a present of a gown which she declared was worn out; though to my masculine perception it seemed almost as good as new, and Veronica confirmed my impression by reproving her for spoiling Perfetta at the same time that she deprived herself of a still very excellent garment.