Chapter XX My Mother’s Last Roman Winter
When we had been living in Rome four years my mother resolved to come out and pass a winter with us. One of the things that drew her to Italy was the wish to see her sister Louisa again. She had contemplated this visit for some time, but although she was in her seventy-ninth year, found it so hard to break away from the cares and responsibilities of public life that I crossed the ocean to help her get away. For one of the anticipated joys she had delayed too long, alas! In the August of 1898, my aunt, who had long been drooping, faded quietly out of life.
My letters to my brother and sisters give glimpses of whom and what my mother saw in that Rome which in her youth she had apostrophized as “The City of my Love!”
Rome, December 26, 1898. Well, my dears, we had a merry Christmas. In the afternoon we drove to the Pincio, where we sunned ourselves, then to the Odescalchi, where we enjoyed the Christmas tree Daisy Chanler had prepared for her own and the Crawford children. It was Mama’s first visit; it seemed best that it was made on this occasion, when youth was to the fore in force. The four Crawford angels, and Daisy’s three sported and enjoyed themselves. In the evening young Richard Norton, son of Charles Eliot Norton, came to dine with his bride, a daughter of Professor White of Harvard. We had a real English plum pudding on fire with holly on the top.
We keep up our exercise faithfully. If it is rainy we play ball, “I put my Ugly Mug In”, and “The Barberry Bush.” Mama works at her desk just as if she were at home and is hard at it writing her “Reminiscences.” I don’t believe she could ever have found time to write them in Boston.
January 16. We have seen Mme. Duse in Goldoni’s “Locandiera”, and in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s “Primavera”, a rotten piece, with which the great little woman did all she could. To-night we see her in “Magda.” The flocking Bostonians are in mid-career; on Sunday afternoons we have a houseful of them. I overheard Mama say to one the other day that she found “Boston more interesting than Rome.” Quand même she is really enjoying herself immensely and is ten years younger than when she sailed. The comfort of her presence is indescribable. The Richard Nortons are here for the winter; he lectures at the American School for Classical Studies. We may have the pleasure of hearing Courtland Palmer play at a concert to-day, but up till last night it was impossible to ascertain. The plays and the programmes of concerts are usually announced on the day of the performance. This is typical of the place and people. Yesterday we heard a good vesper service at St. Agnese in Piazza Navona, the music very fine. The other morning to St. Andrea della Valle to hear a mass by Chaldeans, according to their curious ritual. The Chaldeans looked remarkably like ordinary American negroes dressed in Oriental splendor.
Good luck is coming my way, for to-day I have an invitation to take tea with our friend Don R., the gobbo, a little South American humpback. You know, of course, that a gobbo brings luck. You must touch him if you can; if you can only manage to rub his hump you are likely to win the prize in the lottery. They say the reason why such people are so vain is that everybody tries to fondle them. His friend who lives with him, Mr. M., is a man so enormous that in the streets of Boston a lady stopped him and asked, “Sir, why are you so fat?”
The gobbo may weigh one hundred pounds; his friend the giant must weigh three hundred; they are a most diverting couple.
Rome. February 26, 1898. Hall Caine has been here for two hours. He got started talking on the subject of the Rossettis. He lived with Dante Gabriel Rossetti for the last eighteen months of his life. Rossetti died in his arms. The horror of the chloral habit which killed him was so indelibly impressed upon Caine’s mind that he could talk of little else, once the train of thought was started. Rossetti wrote the “White Ship” and the “King’s Tragedy” during this time and read both in manuscript to Caine. I am tingling with the pathos and the passion of it all!
Rome. February 11, 1896. To lunch with Mme. Labatt to meet Hall Caine again. He is a rosso, with no body, only a big head and consuming brown eyes. He is arranging “The Christian” for the stage and gave us the whole play from beginning to end in the rough, telling the great situations and giving fragments of the chief speeches. Caine talked to us from half-past twelve till four o’clock. He thinks the Roman campagna disgusting, says there isn’t a decent drive near Rome, also says the “Old Masters” are fakes. I said to him,
“Mr. Hall Caine, you have never learned to see. Stay in Italy till you have learned to use your eyes!” We had quite a fine row. We are to go for a drive and I am to try and teach him to see. It will be of no use, however!
To-day Mama and I went out to a tea where we met Mr. Butler, the author of Flora McFlimsey—“Nothing to Wear.” He is coming to see us to-morrow; he and Mama had endless literary reminiscences together.—We are very angry about the Maine tragedy. From the first moment I have been sure of foul play. I know too much of our naval men to believe in the possibility of such a hideous gigantic blunder—no, there’s malice in it.
March 26, 1898. We are living so much in ancient Rome that I can more easily tell you about Caligula and Caracalla, or even Numa Pompilius, than about modern politics and Crispi, upon whom the Chamber has passed a vote of censure. This is very sad, as no one believes that he was guilty of anything but that political dishonesty, which at home goes under the name of “campaign expenses”, but it was a cruel thing, though an act for which one must respect the Italian Government. The death of Cavalotti was a great misfortune for the liberal party. He was a remarkable man, the strongest and most honest of the radical deputies in the Chamber. He was a perfect firebrand, had fought thirty-eight duels and was killed in his thirty-ninth by a man with whom he had some political quarrel. The only good likely to come out of it is a generally increasing dislike of duels. Mama is so well that I don’t worry about her at all and hardly consider her more than I do myself. For the past hundred years the English doctors have been sending old people who wished to prolong their lives to Rome. This has to do with the effect of the climate on the action of the heart.
April 2, 1898. Raining again, this makes the fourteenth day. This is an old-fashioned rainy spring. We all keep well, for it is warm. Mama went out a little too much last week and so had one rather grievous day. She would drink champagne. It was a bang-up dinner, with dukes, ambassadors and princes, also, more interesting to her, Mrs. Pearse, the daughter of Mario and Grisi, who sang for us. The hostess sang and rather mangled the “Battle Hymn.” Mama recited her poem “The Flag” with great applause.—The tourist flood at its height; there will be one more month of it. I could not live without all these dear people from home, but the demands they make are sometimes pretty heavy.
April 29, 1898. The farewells are beginning for Mama. To-day I gave a tea and she a reading especially for the Ambassador and Mrs. Draper, who were in mourning when she
read before and have asked to hear her. The little house is brave with green boughs and roses from the terrace and a big azalea in full bloom. Mama will read her “Plea for Humor”, the most popular of the papers she has with her for a society audience. We expect J.’s friend, Lady Kenmare, with her two nieces, Lady Beatrice and Lady Katherine Thynne (later Lady Cromer). Our Muse, Mrs. Stillman, will pour tea. In two weeks our darling will sail for home with the Arthur Terrys, unless the war news makes this dangerous; General Draper thinks it will not. I can’t get over the feeling that all the enthusiasm at home is excessive—if we were going to hit a man of our own size—you see I know Spain very well. It may be necessary for our lusty youth of a nation to put its heel on the neck of a broken and aged nation, but it should be done in the spirit I feel in McKinley, sternly and firmly and without fireworks or bunkum. This may sound like treason at home, but it looks so to every Roman American I have talked with. It’s awful; I wish I were at home and not away from it all and out of the magnetic current, for it is not likely that I can ever enter into what seems to be the national spirit at home. F.’s letters in abuse of McKinley remind me of the Chinese who flog their gods when things do not suit them.
My mother’s last winter in Rome was full of activities. She was instrumental in founding an important organization among the Roman ladies, somewhat in the nature of our Civic Leagues. She also organized a literary club where she and other liberal thinkers addressed a thoughtful audience made up about equally of Romans and members of the Anglo-American colony. Among the speakers I remember Richard Norton, who gave us a brilliant talk upon the worship of Vesta, who, he maintained, was the only really original deity in all Roman mythology, the other gods having all been borrowed from Egypt or from Greece; as he put it:
“The gods of Hellas came over to Rome in the chapman’s pack!”
Paul Loyson, the son of Père Hyacinthe, was a member of this club and more than once spoke to us. He was a handsome young man, full of poetic impulse and a pronounced liberal in his views.
On Sunday mornings Miss Leigh Smith, a cousin of Florence Nightingale’s and a stanch Unitarian, summoned a group of friends to her apartment in the Trinità dei Monti, where we held a little service conducted by my mother. Among those who took part was Paul Sabatier, the French author. Our hostess was one of the most interesting figures in the Rome of that day, and her house was a Mecca to American and English travelers.
The artists admired my mother, who was much in demand as a sitter. She consented to pose for Villegas, who made a quick, powerful portrait of her, excellent in everything save the expression, which to those who remember the extraordinary tenderness of her face in those years, is strangely militant. The sittings occurred just after the sinking of the Maine, when the Spanish War was close at hand, and the thoughts of the people of both nations were filled with it to the exclusion of all other topics. Villegas was a Spaniard and full of anguish for his country, while my mother was filled with a righteous indignation at every mention of Spain. During the sittings they could neither of them think or speak of anything but the war, and this accounts for Villegas’ portrait showing our old chieftainess in a fighting mood! Something of this stern spirit is also felt in Hendrik Anderson’s bust of her made at the same time. People talked so much about her appearance that her niece Daisy Chanler once exclaimed:
“My aunt, I am always prepared for fresh surprises from you, but I confess I had not expected this succès de beauté.”
For many years my husband designed her costumes. She wore oftenest a white cashmere dress made something like the Pope’s robe. For the morning he allowed green or lilac, but black was banished from her wardrobe. She kept the coquetry of youth in her dress, though she avoided looking in the glass because she could not bear to see how old she was. In spite of this, she discussed our plans for a new dress with the zest of a débutante.
The blessing of my mother’s presence lingered in some subtle manner in our Roman dwelling after she left; now that she knew our surroundings and friends, I never again felt so far away from her or from home, and wrote with greater freedom than before of the life she had shared. Her letters to me show that her last winter in her beloved Rome was tenderly remembered.
241 Beacon St., March 6, 1899.
My dearest Ewe-lamb: Here I sit in the dear old house which you helped so much to provide for my old age and at the desk where I have ground out the tasks so many years. My book of poems, “From Sunset Ridge”, is just out. I don’t expect to make any money by it, but am glad to have the poems preserved. I have corrected the proofs for my first installment of my “Reminiscences” for the Atlantic Monthly. When you last wrote me you were in Lucca. I did not know it was so rich in works of art. You must by now be settled in your pretty nest. Give my love to the flowers—how I did enjoy them and what a good time I had with you. Your two dear letters just received bring you so near to me that I must write you one word this very day to say how much of your life and cheer these letters bring me. I seem to smell the very atmosphere of the Rusticucci, to see the pictures on the wall, to hear N. asking for his daily orders. What you say about the Monsignore reassures me; you must not think for one minute that I undervalue your native good sense and power of discernment, only “them Jesuits” is very cunning people and I had a momentary spasm of fear which your dear letter has removed.
There were so many ecclesiastics among the habitués of our house that it is not wonderful my mother feared I might like my cousins join the Church of Rome. I have warm friends among the clergy, but never for an instant, while living under the very shadow of the Vatican, did I feel the faintest inclination to change the religion in which I was bred. Was it some trait inherited from my ancestor, that old cavalry officer, John Ward of Oliver Cromwell’s army, who after the Restoration took refuge in Rhode Island, that made me so indifferent to the strong influences that from time to time were brought to bear upon me? I like to think so, and that in whatever else I have failed, I have kept the faith!
[To my Mother.]
Rome, April 11, 1899. Lady W., a stout Englishwoman, rich, respectable, a city “knightess” or ex-Lady Mayoress, desires me to help her in the selection of pleasant guests to entertain during the Congress of Women to be held in London in June. The ladies are to stay at her house. Constance Flower (Lady Battersea) asked this and is evidently to be a personage in the coming congress. I was invited to meet Lady W. especially for this object, so do you stir yourself and find out who the American delegates are, and suggest to Lady W. those she might invite, so that she may have acceptable guests.
Yesterday I had a “great daughters” tea party, the Longfellow women, Alice and Edith, Huxley’s daughter, and to meet them, Loyson, son of Père Hyacinthe and Penn Browning, son of Robert and Elizabeth.
Anacapri, October 12, 1899. I have begun many letters to you lately and finished some, but all have been torn up because a touch of east wind seemed somehow to get into them—it’s always like that after a long lonely hot summer in Rome. Now I can send you a flood of sunshine. Last Saturday Jessie Cochrane, John Loudon, and I came by invitation and took possession of the Foresteria, a little villa belonging to Dr. Axel Munthe at Anacapri. We had rather a troublous journey down, the Capri steamer was poor, the sea rough. We landed in pouring rain after dark and drove up and up the steep zigzagging road to Anacapri, which I think you never saw, a little town perched at the tiptop of the island of Capri. The road was not finished when you and I were here so long ago. We met Dr. Munthe walking on the road, followed by three immense wolfhounds, on his way to visit a patient. He had not expected us till the next day, so we slept that night at a quaint little inn, the Paradise, and on Sunday morning took possession of our Eden,—I can’t call it less. The Foresteria has a small garden filled with roses, passion flowers, grapes, figs and white doves. The house is perfect. I want it. It would just fit J. and me. Loudon sleeps at the hotel but is with us all day. Two dear Capriotes, man and wife, serve us and cook deliciously. We may give no orders to them; our host attends to all this. He lives close at hand, but we hardly see him.
Capri is one of the loveliest places in the world. The vintage is beginning; tall girls bearing baskets of purple grapes on their heads pass constantly up and down the street of stairs. The whole land is fragrant with new wine.
Dr. Munthe is a remarkable man. His patients, who often occupy the Foresteria, are mostly the rich and great of every land, with at least one royalty among them. He is a sort of overlord to the peasants, scolds them, tends them when they are ill, settles their disputes, in fine, acts the part of a benevolent despot. He has made some excavations with rich finds. You remember that Tiberius lived here and there were many sumptuous villas in the Capri of his time.
To call on C. C. Coleman. He spoke much of Kate Field, whom he greatly admired. Called on Captain Butler and saw his wife, the daughter of my old friend Anna, the guide of the Villa of “Timberio.” She has traces of the great beauty J. remembers, splendid teeth and eyes. Butler, who lost an arm in the Civil War, was a landscape and animal painter. After the loss of the right hand he had to learn to work with his left, and took up portrait painting, in which he is very successful. His attitude towards his wife was tender and chivalrous. The couple interested me deeply. They have a daughter and three sons, one a famous football player. They were living in a house they had taken near the pretty cottage Butler gave Anna. They gave me a glass of Capri wine, a present from the husband of Mrs. B.’s godchild. This relationship seems to be especially considered here. A godchild is a member of its madrina’s family. Mrs. Butler said she preferred the United States to Capri (they have a farm in New Jersey), but that “out there” she “missed the flowers.” I don’t wonder. The wonderful broom is ablaze, passion flowers such as I never dreamed of clasp and curl about every gate and pergola. The lovely myrtle is in bloom. The island is starred with wild flowers, many quite new to me.
To-day I enjoyed a sea bath at the Marina Grande, driving down from Anacapri. It was so like Newport, the cool blue water so very native, that I felt a little homesick. Tea at the Quisisana, a delightful hotel but expensive. The moon, a blood-red crescent, made a splendid descent behind the Sorrentine Peninsula. We watched it set from the balcony outside our room. The Bay of Naples was a pale turquoise, the sky old-rose color. The people here are as beautiful as tradition holds—the handsomest I ever saw.
November 9, 1899. Mother! The first cream of this day I skim for you as it is my birthday, and but for your kind assistance, I should never have been born at all, so in some measure you have your rights in my natal day. I don’t like to be quite so elderly (I heard you say to J. that you hated to see your daughters grow old) but I don’t mean to be so melancholy about it as your poems seem to imply you were,—“The shell of objects inwardly consumed, etc.” Last night John Loudon dined with us for the last time. He leaves to-morrow for the Hague where he has a fine appointment in the foreign office. He is in despair at going. Rome has gripped him hard and tight. His going leaves, as you will know, a great blank for us. He improves always, and the wrench I had at parting with him is the most severe since I put you on the steamer at Naples. My best news is that I am having an Emerson spree, having “shook with ol’ Shakespere” all summer. Read again the essays on Compensations and Self-Reliance.
The warm weather hangs on; last night at dinner my table was covered with roses from the terrace. Heard the “Barber of Seville” this week splendidly given. How I thought of your singing “Guarda Don Bartolo” and “Pace gioja sia con voi.” I like your singing better than the new soprano Tetrazzini, who has a flute-like exquisite voice.
December 4, 1899. To-day I begin my Christmas letter. May it find you as it leaves me, hopeful and in good spirits. The magnum opus (J.’s Public Library ceiling) is getting finished. Paul Sabatier saw it the other day and wants photographs to illustrate an article he will write about it.
If you should be in New York be sure and see Marion Crawford. His address is always the Macmillans. I wish you could write him and ask him to spend Christmas with you. He is very near to you and is better worth while than the silly intrusive strangers who gobble up so much of your time and strength. Do you remember the man who wrote you asking you to send him your “thoughts on the personality of God, by return mail?” Make good resolutions this new year to keep yourself aloof from mere curiosity seekers and lion hunters! A lecture, my little dear, from your wise old grandmother in Rome!
Did I write you how delightful Henry James was? We saw him constantly while he was here preparing the material for the life he is to write of Mr. Story. He is now old bacheloresque, but so dear though a wee thought cranky. I saw Apolloni and told him about your letter in re Mme. Papa (a lady who had been attacking the Italian Government). He said you were quite right in contradicting her, also in your view that the best hope for Italy is still in the dynasty. I feel pretty sure di Viti di Marco would say so too. They both deplore the suicidal policy of the government but A. say á propos of Mme. Papa’s attacks in America, “Let us wash our dirty linen at home.”
Villegas has been made Director of the Spanish Academy of Art in Rome and is much pleased with the appointment. Miss Leigh Smith and all your Roman friends are very sad not to have you among them again this winter as they had hoped. Miss L. S. reports that the recovery of the manuscript poems you left with Florence Nightingale cannot be hoped for.
Rome, April 26, 1899. Yesterday being the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Oliver Cromwell, I had a tea party to honor the event. The “proceedings” opened by my reading a brief sketch I had prepared; this was followed by Reverend Leverett Bradley, who was the chief speaker. Then Paul Loyson in a masterly spirit took up certain points in Bradley’s address and poured forth a fine flow of eloquence.
To-day Lady Kenmare brought Henry James to tea. He was perfectly darling about your “Reminiscences”, saying the only fault with the book is that it is far too brief. He felt that on almost every topic touched you had not set down all you had to say. In spite of this he said,
“I find the volume perfectly delightful.”