Chapter X

So doubt not, dear, that if I soar
Where none longwhile may dwell,
Though Heaven at times may be my home,
Home is my Heaven as well.

* * * * *

Notwithstanding Lamia’s anxiety lest we should find ourselves short of agreeable occupation, our familiarity with a quiet and unexciting existence enabled us to pass many delightful days, while none were without their incidents and their pleasures. If I attempted to describe these, they might possibly appear monotonous to you; but they were not monotonous to us. Excursions to ruined castles, to picturesquely-perched villages, to slopes and summits famous for their wild-flowers, are enchanting to those who make them; but one is hardly justified in demanding sustained attention for them from others. In life, as in Art, Nature is an excellent background to the actions and passions of human beings; and our almost daily quest of natural beauty was not unattended by experiences that aroused a feeling of pathos, unsealed the sources of pity, or awakened the always welcome sense of humour. The young ecclesiastic who was engaged in the agreeable task of reading Italian with Lamia was good enough to wish that we should pay him a visit, though he warned us, with much well-bred dignity, that his home was very humble, and that his reception of us would be equally so. He lived in an up-and-down hamlet among the hills; and we made the excursion, Veronica and Lamia on mules, the Poet and I on foot, with much willingness. Lamia spoke of him as her subdeacon; but I believe he was as yet only in minor orders. He already wore, however, the ecclesiastical garb, and he had all the grave demeanour of his destined calling. He made no secret of the modesty of his origin, and confessed, with perfect simplicity, that he had chosen the sacerdotal state because, while having lettered tastes, he could so best support his mother, who was a widow, and his two young sisters. He had contrived to pick up several volumes of the classics, which evidently were much dearer to him than the theological tomes that kept them company; and he frankly declared that, while deeply attached to his Creed, he would gladly divest himself of the cassock, if we would only take him to England, and put him in the way of earning a livelihood by such agreeable labours as he was engaged on with Lamia. Before we left, he asked if he might read us one of the many Sonnets he had composed in his abundant leisure; and it was impossible to listen to it without feeling that he was animated by that desire to extend the horizon of his existence, which makes the lives of so many students in Italy, both ecclesiastic and lay, so deeply pathetic. As we descended the hill, after visiting with him the unpretending chapel where he would one day minister, we lapsed into a compassionate silence, which I finally broke, knowing that we were all thinking the same thing, by repeating, though rather absently, the lovely if hackneyed Virgilian line:—

‘_Sunt lachrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt_’

I could not be sorry that I had done so; for instantly the Poet, translating the line, said: ‘Yes.

‘These are the things that cause the tears to start,
And human sorrows touch the human heart.’

‘Did you notice the artificial flowers on the altar?’ said Lamia; ‘and does it not seem strange the peasants should proffer these, when their hills furnish them with natural ones, in such abundance, of exquisite beauty and fragrance?’

‘It offends our taste,’ said Veronica; ‘but I suppose the artificial flowers cost them something, however little, while natural flowers would cost them nothing save the gathering. They want to give Heaven of their dearest and their best; and their dearest and best, poor things, are their small earnings and scant savings.’

‘Yes, that explains it,’ I said; ‘just as, when we get to Florence, you will see the most fashionable of its churches, the _Santissima Annunziata_, bedizened all over with gold; gold being the dearest and best thing with the fashionable. Thus, both poor and rich alike are devout in their separate and distinctive ways.’

Do what we would, and divert ourselves in our simple, unpretending way as we might, we could not help thinking withal of Florence, referring to Florence, and continually anticipating what Tuscany had in store for us. Lamia was the most impatient of us all, partly perhaps because she knew that concern for her alone still kept us from our bourne.

‘Please do not think,’ she said, one day, ‘that I have not greatly enjoyed myself here. But what is it—for there is something—that renders life on this lovely strip of coast between the mountains and the sea, after a brief sojourn, not quite satisfactory?’

‘Surely,’ said the Poet, ‘it is the insufficient presence of the Past. Every spot in Europe, as a matter of course, has had a Past of considerable duration; and this lovely tract of country must have had a chequered, and at times a very exciting one. But its visible relics are few. The Roman came and made his roads; the Saracen came and ravaged; feudal bandit harried feudal bandit; and the great bandit of our own century, Bonaparte, dispatched and sometimes accompanied his armies along it. But almost the sole vestiges of its vanished vigour and virility are trivial ruins devoid of architectural beauty; its villages are situated most picturesquely, but they are as devoid of plastic beauty as an eagle’s eyrie; their churches are touching in their devout simplicity, but, alike within and without, lack the impress of the artist’s mind, the artist’s hand. He has not been here; or, if he has, the _condottiere_ has destroyed all traces of his work. Look at the sea. Byron most happily called it ‘the image of Eternity,’ for its Present is exactly like its Past, and its Future will be only like its Present. Man can make no impression on it, nor leave on it any trace of his presence. Therefore, despite its sublimity, most of us at last tire of gazing on it. It lacks human interest. When it smiles, it enchants. When it frowns, it overawes. But we cannot take it to our heart; and something of the heartlessness of the sea attaches to a land where neither poet, architect, nor painter has bequeathed monuments to remind us that here man has aspired and striven, here woman consoled and suffered. But be patient, Lamia. Florence is reserving for you ample compensation.‘

‘And yet you, or Veronica, at least,’ said Lamia, ‘would not let us take up our quarters at or even near,—but perhaps I had better not mention the place. Only all you have said seems to justify those wicked people, who find lemon-gardens and olive-groves insufficient for happiness, and so have enlivened this lovely but unlively coast with casinos, roulette-tables, and pigeon-shoots.’

‘And even the lemon-gardens and olive-groves,‘I said, ‘are fast disappearing. As we have observed only too frequently, they are being ruthlessly cut down, in order that, in their place, _Safrano_ and _Marie van Houtte_ roses may be grown for Vienna, London, and Saint Petersburg.’

‘And then,’ said Lamia, ‘there will be nothing left but the mountains and the sea.’

‘That will be a considerable residuum,’ said the Poet. ‘I happened to overhear a dialogue between them the other day, which, if you are so minded, I shall have much pleasure in repeating to you.’

‘By all means,’ said Veronica. ‘Here, we are in the presence of both; so they will be able to judge if you report their colloquy correctly.’

THE MOUNTAINS

What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far,
Find you a bourne to ease your burdened breast,
But throughout time inexorable are
Never at rest?

With foaming mouth and fluttering crest you leap
Impatiently towards never-shifting beach,
Then wheel, and hurry to some distant deep
Beyond your reach.

Nor golden sands nor sheltering combes can slake
Your fretful longing for some shore unknown,
And through your shrineless pilgrimage you make
Unending moan.

THE SEA

Nimbused by sunlight or enwreathed in snow,
Lonely you stand, and loftily you soar,
While I immeasurably ebb and flow
From shore to shore.

I see the palm-dates mellowing in the sun,
I hear the snow-fed torrents bound and brawl,
And if, where’er I range, content with none,
I know them all.

Inward the ice-floes where the walrus whet
Their pendent tusks, I sweep and swirl my way,
Or dally where ‘neath dome and minaret
The dolphins play.

Beneath or bountiful or bitter sky
If I myself can never be at rest,
I lullaby the winds until they lie
Husht on my breast.

THE MOUNTAINS

Till they awake, and from your feeble lap
Whirl through the air, and in their rage rejoice:
Then you with levin-bolt and thunderclap
Mingle your voice.

But I their vain insanity survey,
And on my silent brow I let them beat.
What is there it is worth my while to say
To storm or sleet?

I hear the thunder rumbling through the rain,
I feel the lightning flicker round my head;
The blizzards buffet me, but I remain
Dumb as the dead!

Urged by the goad of stern taskmaster Time,
The Seasons come and go, the years roll round.
I watch them from my solitude sublime,
Uttering no sound.

For hate and love I have nor love nor hate;
To be alone is not to be forlorn:
The only armour against pitiless Fate
Is pitying scorn.

THE SEA

Yet do I sometimes seem to hear afar
A tumult in your dark ravines as though
You weary of your loneliness, and are
Wrestling with woe.

THE MOUNTAINS

When the white wolves of Winter to their lair
Throng, and yet deep and deeper sleeps the snow,
I loose the avalanche, to shake and scare
The vale below.

And, when its sprouting hopes and brimming glee
Are bound and buried in a death-white shroud,
Then at the thought that I entombed can be,
I laugh aloud.

THE SEA

I grieve with grief, at anguish I repine,
I dirge the keel the hurricane destroys:
For all the sorrows of the world are mine,
And all its joys.

And when there is no space ‘twixt surf and sky,
And all the universe seems cloud and wave,
It is the immitigable wind, not I,
That scoops men’s grave.

I wonder how the blast can hear them moan
For pity, yet keep deaf unto their prayers.
I have too many sorrows of my own,
Not to feel theirs.

And when the season of sweet joy comes round,
My bosom to their rapture heaves and swells;
And closer still I creep to catch the sound
Of wedding bells.

I see the children digging in the sand,
I hear the sinewy mariners carouse,
And lovers in the moonlight, hand-in-hand,
Whispering their vows.

You in your lofty loneliness disdain
Suffering below and comfort from above.
The sweetest thing in all the world is pain
Consoled by Love.

After a somewhat lengthened pause, Lamia said: ‘With which do you sympathise, Veronica? With the mountains, or with the sea?’

‘O, with the sea!

‘The sweetest thing in all the world is pain
Consoled by Love.‘

‘And you, Sir Poet?’

‘Surely, with both,’ he answered.

‘But,’ she persisted, ‘with which of the two, chiefly?’

‘I suppose,’ he replied, ‘with the ineradicable selfishness of a man, one inclines towards the mountains. _Pacem summa tenent._ Serenity dwells upon the heights.’

LAMIA’S WINTER-QUARTERS

I heard the Poet’s voice in the balcony, followed by the pushing back of heavy _persiane_, and then:

‘Lamia! Come as quickly as you can; I want to show you what you may never have a chance of seeing again.’

There was no reason why, if there was anything new or wonderful to behold, Lamia and the Poet should have a monopoly of the spectacle; so, arraying myself as rapidly as I could, I emerged onto the balcony just as Lamia, in incomplete but most fascinating attire, did the same.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘What hills! What slopes! What villas! But where is Florence?’

‘Wait,’ said the Poet, ‘and you shall see. Like you, dear Lamia, she is very fair,’—how I wish I had the courage to address her in that fashion!—‘but, unlike you, she has not yet flowered out of the night.’

‘Neither have I, quite, I fear,’ she said, showing, when thuswise reminded, a quite unnecessary concern respecting her hastily-donned apparel.

‘She is veiled, absolutely veiled, as I have never seen her before, in a, shall I call it, _peignoir_ of white mist, which conceals her utterly from sight. But look! she is beginning to disrobe her marble beauty.’

‘O, what is that, that surges through the mist?‘ ‘That is the noblest symbol of civic liberty in the world, the Tower of the _Palazzo Vecchio_.’

‘And that? And that?‘ ‘The topmost tier of Giotto’s Belfry, worthy, by its sublime simplicity, to serve for the type of all great Art; and, at its side in the rapidly-clearing ether, the cupola of the Duomo, that Michelangelo would not copy and could not better.‘Dome after dome, tower after tower, _campanile_ after _campanile_, surged silently out of the mist; and, to use the Poet’s I hope not too familiar simile, the silvery folds of night sank downward to her feet, and Florence stood in naked loveliness before Lamia’s delighted gaze. Over the eastern hills came the bright vernal sun, every mountain slope broke into smiles and dimples, and in the last of its seaward valleys Arno glanced and gleamed with joy of the expanding dawn. Distance lends enchantment to the sound as well as to the view, and the clang and clash of innumerable belfries came modulated through the intervening air, wherefrom the last lingering trails of mist were gradually wizarded away.

Question and answer followed each other in uninterrupted succession. Yes, that was _San Miniato Al Monte_, with _La Bella Villanella_ hard by; and that beyond was _Santa Margherita_, neighboured by the villa in which Guicciardini completed his History. And yes,—Lamia was quite right,—that was the _Torre del Gallo_, and away to the right and farther up the hills was the Medicean _Poggio-a-Cajano_, where Lorenzo wrote his poem on the _Ambra_. Over the matchless panorama of hill and valley her interrogatories wandered unceasingly, whilst we called on our recollection to supply the names she asked for.

Suddenly, other _persiane_ were pushed back, and Veronica joined us.

‘What are you all doing?’

‘Do you remember,’ answered Lamia, ‘the wife of Cosimo, Pater Patriæ, asking him, when advanced in years, why he so often sate with closed eyes, and his answering that he did so in order to accustom them to what they must soon always be doing? I am opening mine thus early, feeling that, in such a world as this, I shall never be able to close them again.’

* * * * *

‘It is perfect, absolutely perfect,’ said Lamia, ‘and no wonder Politian found it so.’

‘But did Politian really live here?’ I asked.

‘Let us be wise enough to think so,’ said the Poet, ‘and it was quite in keeping with Lorenzo’s magnificence, when that testy scholar, to whom he had committed the tuition of his sons, quarrelled with Donna Clarice because she thought she also should have something to say to their training, to provide him with such a sanctuary. Besides, in Italy, Tradition is not, as some one has said she is elsewhere, a toothless old crone with memory half gone, but the trustworthy depositary of unforgotten glories.‘

‘It is more than a tradition,’ said Veronica. ‘Only this morning I came across a passage from Politian’s correspondence, which would seem to confirm local legend. Here it is. He is writing to Lorenzo. “When you are incommoded by the heat of the season at Careggi, you will perchance bethink you of the shelter of my abode, nor deem it undeserving of your notice. Nestled in the sloping sides of the hill, we have here water in abundance, and, being constantly refreshed by moderate breezes, experience but little inconvenience from the fervour of the sun. As you approach the villa itself, it seems embosomed in a grove; but, when you reach it, you discover that it commands a full view of the city. Though the neighbourhood is not without its denizens, I can here enjoy the solitude so congenial to my disposition. But I can offer you the temptation of other allurements. Wandering beyond his own boundaries, Pico della Mirandola sometimes steals unexpectedly on my retirement, and draws me from my seclusion to share his supper. What that is, you well know; modest indeed, but neatly served, and made grateful by the charm of his converse. But be you my guest. The meal shall be as good, and the wine better.”‘

‘How very philosophic!’ said Lamia. ‘So much so, that the passage was probably written on the morrow of a certain fascinating young woman, whose name I cannot remember, but of whom Politian, I have read, was, notwithstanding his erudition, deeply enamoured, giving her hand to a rival scholar, though which of them, I need scarcely say, I have equally forgotten.’

‘The great Marullus, I think,’ said the Poet; ‘and your fascinating young woman was Alessandra, the accomplished daughter of Lorenzo’s Chancellor, Bartolomeo della Scala, whose house, still standing, you must remind us to show you in Florence.‘

Our first business was to make acquaintance with the immediate surroundings of the home provided for us by Veronica’s indefatigable foresight, operating through a protracted correspondence none of us had been deemed worthy to peruse. The rural architecture of Tuscany is of a noble simplicity; and, in the main portion of our villa, built in the course of the sixteenth century, there was no deviation from the familiar type. But, adjoining it westward, and seemingly of more ancient date, were an upper and a lower _loggia_ of conventual aspect; the upper one having a sloping roof of rich red tiles supported by graceful pillars of _pietra serena_, and the lower one serving as an Italian equivalent of an English verandah, only more spacious and more tasteful, in which we could sun or shade ourselves according to the mood of the weather. Together, they formed an impenetrable barrier against the well-known keenness of the _tramontana_, while the main building provided ample shelter against possible inclemency from the east. To the west our view was over the final valley of the Arno, that spacious plain of fertile cultivation tenderly protected by hills of exquisite shape and moderate elevation, on whose bolder ridges stand historic towns of unmatched picturesqueness; while southward, over vineyards and olive-groves terraced down precipitously-sloping ground, we gazed on the domes and towers of the fair Tuscan capital. If one lives on the side of a hill, one cannot reasonably expect to have a very vast level expanse for the purposes of a garden. A quadrangular space of modest dimensions between the house and the low boundary wall, where the ground began to fall away, was all that had been dedicated to that pleasurable end; and this afforded Lamia an opportunity of observing that two such enthusiastic horticulturists as the Poet and myself would find but few worlds to conquer in so narrow a territory.

‘Forget,’ I ventured to plead, ‘what it is useless to remember. England is well enough, and so is Italy, but only on condition that you do not ask from the one what belongs to the other. I am not quite sure that the person who is intimately acquainted with both is ever quite satisfied with either, since it is part of our perverse human nature mentally to extol what we have not, to the depreciation of what we have.’

‘Is it to a woman you say that?’ observed Lamia, to my complete confusion. ‘Men preach Philosophy, women practise it; and I shall probably show myself quite content without your well-filled borders, while you inwardly, and perhaps sometimes outwardly, long for your rampant greenery and untidy efflorescence. These _garofani_—you see,’ she said, turning to the Poet, ‘I know the Italian for carnations,—in their tasteful pots along the loopholed wall are much more to my taste than all the straggling annuals and robust perpetuals in the world.’

‘I can see,’ he said, kindly coming to my rescue, ‘you have found your proper home at last. I thought it would be so; and we can only congratulate ourselves on the result. But now let us explore farther afield, and we shall probably find that, if we will only use the word garden in a liberal sense, and indeed in that in which it is used in the corner of England where we have our home, there is more of it than we have just rashly assumed.’

Thereupon, we passed through a cool, spacious _cortile_, cloistered on two of its sides, but for the rest open to the sky, and whose only occupants were a disused fountain and a tall glistening orange-tree covered with golden fruit, of course of the hardy bitter sort; thence under an archway festooned with wistaria not yet in flower, and out into the _podere_, which I must needs call by that name, since there is no English equivalent for it, and which is nowhere to be seen in such perfection as in Tuscany.

‘Indeed, indeed you are right,’ exclaimed Lamia; ‘right as when you once said that, were it always Spring, one would never garden, even in England. O this young green corn, with its purple anemones, its crimson tulips, its pale almond and intensely bright peach blossom, its fantastically growing fig-trees with their budding tips, its burgeoning vines and spectral olive-trees, all dwelling together on the fair hillside that seems to be smiling self-complacently at its own loveliness! Look at that bank of irises, not yet broken from their sheath! But when they have, what a sight they will be!’

It is always delightful to have one’s feelings expressed by some one else in language of enthusiasm one might oneself be afraid to employ; and we accompanied Lamia, as a sort of chorus, echoing all she said, and only too well pleased to follow in her footsteps, as she wandered on and on through a world of beauty wholly new to her.

‘And these lovely grassy paths,’ she said, ‘that lead everywhere and nowhere, tempting one to travel on in search of something unknown, but with ever, on either side, more sprouting wheat, more pendent vines, more crookedly-branching fig-stems, more tulips, more windflowers, more mountains, more glimpses of towers and belfries in the glittering distance. In England everything seems to crouch. Here everything seems to soar.’

Lured onward by Lamia’s enjoyment, and mounting by such easy and gradual slopes that we hardly noticed we were ascending, we suddenly came to a grassy plateau almost encircled by secular cypresses that are the distinctive glory of Tuscany; and here we might have been tempted to halt, had it not been that yet beyond it were rugged paths that zigzagged among tall, dense bushes of white heath and yellow broom, both now in full flower; while on shapeless boulders and protruding rocks were the stars of the white, the yellow, and the rose-coloured cistus. Here and there we came on sheets of the single pink anemone; elsewhere, in the more sheltered nooks, were the Apennine wind-flower which, with due care and choice of position, perhaps you remember, we have persuaded to flourish in the garden that we love.

‘As Veronica has told us that we are to lead a life of strict simplicity,’ said Lamia, ‘we had better do something to make it graceful; and, if you two will only cut some branches of heath and broom, I will be equally energetic among the anemones.’

We were descending homeward with our lovely spoil, when we heard a creaking sound well known to me; and, in another moment, we overtook the slowly-rolling wheels of a wooden wain—of wood, not only in its low, long body, but of wood throughout, with wooden wheels, wooden pole, and wooden yoke—drawn by a couple of cream-coloured steers, and bearing a fragrant load of newly-cut rye-grass. Though at no little inconvenience and delay, on the incline along which it was moving, the peasants who accompanied it at once cried a halt, that they might show their respect to and make the acquaintance of the new-comers. Of the manifold charms of Tuscany, perhaps there is none so great or so enduring as the charm of manner peculiar to its rural population. Frank without being free, deferential but never servile, not without a fine reserve yet with never a touch of shyness, withholding not a certain tribute to social superiority, while tacitly intimating the fundamental equality that appertains to human brotherhood, the demeanour and speech of Tuscan _contadini_ keep intercourse perpetually fresh, and impart to conversation on the tritest and most familiar themes perennial liveliness and interest. Their salutations, frequent though these be, for they would never think of passing you without one, are divested of conventionality by their manifest sincerity. They can never see you, never speak to you, too often; and, whenever they speak, they smile. For thousands of years, morning has risen upon the world, but without any diminution in its freshness; and it is the same with their _Buon giorno, signore_! their _Felice sera, sua signoria_! their _Felicissima notte, e buon riposo_! their _A rivederla_! and all their ancient consecrated phrases for conveying their sense of the strong link that binds human creatures to each other. Every time they say these things, they mean them; nor do they ever tire of the iterated and reiterated courtesies of life. The undeferential nod of Northern manners, the mumbled recognition, the slipshod salutation, would seem shocking to them, as lacking in human piety. On this occasion, no doubt, natural curiosity blended with native good-breeding to make them halt in their labours; for they were, I have no doubt, as eager to make our acquaintance as we were to make theirs. Yet of visible curiosity there was not a trace, as they lifted their hats from their beaded foreheads and remained bareheaded till we begged them to cover themselves. What they conveyed was a fervour of welcome akin to the glow of an Italian sun, a welcome that warmed us through and through, and made us feel that, at that instant, we were forming friendships that, save for some fault of ours, would last through life. Were we all in good health? Had we had a fatiguing journey? Were we comfortable and happy in the villa? They hoped we were going to stay a long time. Could they do anything for us? Did we love Italy? Had we been there before? O, but it was evident we had; for we talked their language like one of themselves (somewhat of an exaggeration, save in the case of Veronica). Yes, the season was fairly forward, and there was good promise for everything, given what was now wanted, plenty of sunshine. Commonplaces, you perhaps will say. Indeed, yes. But which of us in this world is so surprisingly original? The real originality, in some countries I could mention, would be amiability, unfailing courtesy in the ever-recurring trifles of life, a wish to please and to be pleased, and a perpetual freshening of existence by treating nothing in it as a matter of course, or as undeserving of recognition and thankfulness. Even the most original of us are original only sometimes; and, if we are to consort with each other at all, we must needs indulge in a good deal of repetition and commonplace. But freshness of manner can make repetition sound absolutely new, and kindliness of disposition invest the veriest commonplace with an air that everybody shall take for uncommon.

It was with difficulty we led Lamia away from her new acquaintances, not the least attractive of those being the sleek, smooth-coated, soft-eyed oxen that play so large a part in the picturesqueness as in the rural life of Tuscany, and that seemed to appreciate the tender stroking of her hand and the equally soft caress of her voice.

‘I never felt such a bumpkin before,’ she said, ‘as in the presence of those gracious peasants. What barbarians they must think us!’

‘If they thought that of you, Lamia,’ I said, more struck by the exaggeration than by the humility of her remark, ‘they certainly contrived to conceal their impression. Still, speaking generally, rural Tuscany is a school of manners.’

The noble simplicity referred to as the distinguishing mark of villa architecture in Tuscany, is as dominant in the interior as on the exterior of its buildings; ample space being their chief feature and adornment. Unless they have been invaded by modern hands, they depend for effect on bold outlines rather than on decorative detail; and they are furnished in harmony with the same severe taste. When Veronica admonished us that we were to lead a life of strict simplicity, she referred to this circumstance among others.

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘you have left your sybaritic tastes at home. You will find many shapely but no comfortable chairs, no superfluity of cushions, nowhere a footstool, and, if you choose to lie on what looks like a sofa, you will soon find you are not reposing on rose-leaves. You must not come to me and complain that there is not a bell in your room, or, if there is, that it apparently has no communication with the outer world. If Lamia wishes to make a mess indoors with her flowers and branches of blossom, she shall not be denied; but you must not look for those more permanent graces of life to which you are all so attached.’

‘Don’t mind _me_,‘ said Lamia. ‘I am quite prepared to empty my own bath, brush my own skirts, answer the bell instead of ringing it, and live on _fagioli_ and dried _funghi_. Indeed, it was chiefly to indulge in those unusual luxuries that I came to Italy.’

Considering who it is that has created, cherished, and fostered in us those sybaritic tastes, and that attachment to the graces and elegancies of life of which Veronica spoke, and with which she told us we were now to dispense, we may be pardoned, I think, if, at the first opportunity, we indulged in some private humour at her expense. If we are demoralised by domestic luxury, who is it but Veronica that has corrupted us? I protest that most men, in the matter of material comfort, are absolute Spartans, and, as for the Poet, his native austerity was once not to be surpassed, and he still indulges from time to time in his ideal, at any rate in conversation. But he too has, for the most part, succumbed to Veronica’s unequalled capacity for making life at once graceful and commodious; and I am not sure that now he would not, if at home, feel almost wronged if, should he happen to want a paper-cutter, he had to rise from his chair in order to go in search of one.

‘Just you wait!’ said Lamia, ‘and see what becomes of the simple life to which we are to dedicate ourselves. The first time Veronica goes to Florence, she will return, I will engage to say, laden with manifold conveniences of existence, and by degrees she will introduce a world of things into this splendid vacuum; and if, some fine morning, you meet a plumber or bell-hanger on the stairs, you need not regard him as an interloper. Nor would I mind wagering my next quarter’s dress-money that, before long, you will see me sitting in the easiest of easy-chairs, and gracefully reposing on the softest of ottomans.‘

‘I doubt it,’ said the Poet, ‘for Veronica has a fine sense of the fitness of things, and her tastes are sufficiently flexible for her to distinguish between Northern and Southern needs, Northern and Southern traditions. When Francesco Cibo, the nephew of Innocent VIII., married Lorenzo’s daughter, and came to Florence with a large and splendid retinue, he was entertained during the period of the nuptials with the utmost magnificence. But, at the end of that time, he observed that all the silver vessels and ornaments, of which there had been such a profusion, disappeared from the table, and were replaced by others of brass; and, moreover, that every meal was now served with the utmost plainness and frugality. Anxious lest his Roman attendants should carry back to the Eternal City the impression that he had contracted a union with either a very poor or a very parsimonious family, he sought to discover how they were faring, and found they were still being entertained in the most sumptuous manner. The enigma was explained when Lorenzo said to him, “You are now one of ourselves, and as one of ourselves I treat you. My grandsire Cosimo used to say to his sons, ‘Remember you are only citizens of Florence, and must reserve what splendours you can command for the glorification of the City.’ As his descendant, I obey his injunction.”‘

‘Hark!’ I said. ‘Already there are sounds of modern civilisation. The grass-plot is being mown.’

Lamia and the Poet listened, though I think the latter at once guessed my meaning.

‘What is it?’ said Lamia. ‘A mowing-machine? I cannot hear it. I hear only the bleating of sheep.’

We passed afresh into the garden, and there was a flock of ewes and lambs nibbling the sweet short clover, attended by a picturesque shepherd girl, who carefully kept them off the shrubs, but went on industriously knitting all the while.

‘Is not that a simple enough mowing-machine for you?’ I asked. ‘It attains to even Veronica’s ideal of primitive expedients.‘

‘It is as simple and primitive,’ said Lamia, ‘as much of the garden itself. What a comfort it is to find oneself in a country where’—I imagine this was intended as a shaft against myself—‘there does not rage a fidgety mania for perfection. Flowers here are reduced to their proper subordination in the universe.’

Whether Lamia was right or wrong in this conclusion, it must be allowed that, as a race, Italians have not that tender attachment to flowers which is universal among ourselves, and that being, contrary to general belief, far less sentimental and more practical than we are, they do not care to devote much attention to the growing of anything that cannot be taken to market and turned into _quattrini_, or ready cash. Hence, they will willingly grow carnations, freesias, arum-lilies, lilies of the valley, ranunculuses, and such like flowers that find a quick sale on the ledges of the _Palazzo Strozzi_, or under the shadow of the _Municipio_ in the _Piazza della Trinità_. But even these are so reared that the purchaser alone gets any delectation out of them, and the spot where they are produced is but little more of a garden in consequence of their temporary presence. The difficulty is to induce an Italian gardener to believe that you care for flowers for their own sake, that you regard the sale of them as a sort of desecration, that you feel they ought to be love-gifts, tokens of present or mementoes of absent affection, and, in any case, cherished companions of one’s private thoughts, one’s habitual pursuits, and one’s transitory emotions. He cannot understand that you want to consort with them, to tend them in sickness and health, to cultivate them for better or for worse, to let them twine and garland themselves about your inner and your outer life, to make them, in fact, flesh of your flesh, and spirit of your spirit, till death do you part, when, with a sweet form of suttee, they will come and immolate themselves upon your grave.

This conflict of ideals between the Poet and myself on the one side, and Ippolito, the gardener, on the other,—for the humblest folk in Tuscany have classical names, which they imagine to be Christian, and indeed frequently are so, thanks to some primitive martyr in the Church Calendar,—began at once, and never wholly ceased. We put our veto on the sale in Florence of flower or leaf grown on the premises; and as Veronica, with all her marvellous foresight, had not extended our contract to these, we had to arrange with him what was to be paid by us for what would otherwise have been profitable produce. Ippolito’s calculations were of the most elaborate character; but their complexity arose solely from his scrupulous desire to do justice as between man and man. Personally, he had no money interest in the matter; for, but for what he regarded as our unaccountable tastes, he would have carried all the saleable flowers twice a week to that charming little market-place which every visitor to the fair city knows so well, made the best bargain he could with the purchasing public, and credited his _padrone_ with the amount received. Selling the flowers, he could know, to a _centesimo_, what they were worth. Not selling them, in deference to these odd _forestieri_, and therefore having to surmise what they would probably have fetched could they have been sold, and anxious neither to defraud his master nor to rob us, he lived, during our sojourn, a life of continual arithmetical anxiety. In vain were the Poet’s magnificent endeavours to make him understand that we were not, as modern language has it, so mighty particular as to what we paid for rescuing the flowers from what he regarded as an ignoble doom. We could excite no sentimental emotion on the subject in Ippolito. To him it was simply a matter of addition in decimals, the sum total of which should represent the practical results of abstract justice. It must not be supposed, however, that this quite satisfied him, or entirely quieted his conscience. To the last he let us perceive that he considered our arbitrary conduct to have a certain moral obliquity about it, since it caused and consecrated so much absolute waste; waste of time, waste of material, waste of money. Once, when we were not present, he appealed to Veronica, and asked if we were really in earnest in forbidding him to sell any portion of the flowers. The violets flowered by tens of thousands, the carnations were rotting on their stalks, and it was not possible more freesias could be wanted for indoors; and, with his _Ma, Signora mia_, and _Senta, Sua Signoria_, he did his best to convert her. But she told him we were inexorable; and, though she fully shared our sentiments on the subject, she laughed at us for a couple of _zucconi_, or dunderheads, for allowing ourselves to pay twice what the flowers were worth: a form of judgment which, as we have seen, was not quite equitable, but which nevertheless represented, with tolerable accuracy, the low estimate she entertained of either the Poet’s or my capacity for a bargain.

Once Ippolito was thoroughly convinced of our obduracy concerning his mercenary traditions, he showed an amiable readiness to please us, by bringing pot after pot of well-grown plants from frame and shelf and sheltering nook, and placing them where we would, and mostly round the noble fountain that flashed quietly but unceasingly in the centre of the garden enclosure; though he well knew that, even in the genial weather with which we were being favoured, the length of their days would thereby be somewhat curtailed; white arum-lilies, freesias, lilies of the valley, and early carnations, thus making a most lively show.

‘Do not suppose, though,’ I said to Lamia, ‘that Italy has not its true garden season, even in the English sense; and I trust you will, in due course, be able to judge of it for yourself. But it is brief in its marvellous beauty. Like the people themselves of this lovely land, the year ages soon, when compared with the lagging Spring, the lingering Summer, and the slowly-ripening Autumn of Northern climes. But when the roses come they will come in battalions, the wistaria will run riot over wall and pergola, the _Spiræa Van Houtte_ will whitely decorate itself with a lavishness unknown to chillier latitudes, and Madonna lilies will astound you by their height, and irises by their profusion. For a month, in a favourable season for six weeks, one will be embowered in bloom; then suddenly to find, if one gardens in English fashion, you have no garden at all.’

‘A short life and a merry one,’ said Lamia: ‘an ideal existence.’

‘But do not let us forget,’ I observed, ‘that when this brief exuberant blending of Spring and Summer has passed away from the garden, the purple and opal bunches of the festooned and trellised vine come timely to take its place.’

‘Nor,’ added the Poet, ‘should we omit that bewitching preliminary to the profuse period you speak of, when, as now, in whichever direction you look or ramble in that astonishing valley, almond and peach, plum-blossom, pear-blossom, and apple-bloom, fleck with their rich rival tints, from purest white to rosiest pink, the silvery spray of the ubiquitous olives.’

‘Silvery till ruffled by the wind,’ he went on, ‘as Lorenzo so admirably describes it in his poem on the _Ambra_.

‘L’uliva, in qualche dolce piaggia aprica,
Secondo il vento par, or verde, or bianca.‘

‘What an incautious quotation!’ said Lamia; ‘and, were I a critic, I should at once fasten on you a charge of gross plagiarism. I remember, if you do not:—

‘The smiling slopes with olive groves bedecked,
Now darkly green, now, as the breeze did stir,
Spectral and white, as though the air were flecked
With elfin branches laced with gossamer;

And then so faint, the eye could scarce detect
Which the gray hillside, which the foliage fair;
Until once more it dense and sombre grew,
To shift again just as the zephyr blew.

‘Have I not established my case?’

‘Completely, my dear Lamia; and I am glad to find myself in such excellent company as that of Lorenzo, more especially now that we have taken possession of a villa where he must often have been a guest, with Politian for host, and Poggio and Pico della Mirandola for companions.‘ ‘I fear,’ said Lamia modestly, ‘I should have found them too learned to be congenial society.’

‘Not when Lorenzo was with them; for he assimilated their learning to life, and contrived to make gaiety out of their scholarship. With more even than the statesmanship of his grandfather, and of whom it may equally be said that he ruled without arms and without a title, endowed with no inconsiderable portion of the culture of the students he so generously abetted, Lorenzo was a thorough man-of-the-world, and more than a respectable man-of-letters. I recommend to you his description, in the _Selve d’ Amore_, of the shepherd leading his flock from the wintry fold to the Spring pasture, and carrying in his arms a newly-dropped lamb, his sonnet on the origin of the violet, and, still more perhaps, the one in praise of rural sights, sounds, and solitude. Permit me to cite at least a portion of it:—

‘Cerchi, chi vuol, le pompe, e gli alti onori,
Le piazze, e tempi, e gli edifizi magni,
Le delicie, il tesor, qual accompagni
Mille duri pensier, mille dolori.
Un verde praticel pien di bei fiori,
Un rivolo che l’erba intorno bagni,
Un augelletto che d’amor si lagni,
Acqueta molto meglio i nostri ardori.‘

‘I fear,’ said Lamia, ‘I have not yet made sufficient progress in my studies to follow your recitation completely. Will you kindly translate?’

‘Let a spontaneous paraphrase suffice, which will reproduce the original with, if with less literary perhaps with more spiritual, accuracy.

‘Covet who will the patronage of Kings,
And pompous titles Emperors bestow,
Splendour, and revelry, and all that brings
A thousand bitter thoughts, a world of woe:
A meadow glistening in an April shower,
A green-banked rivulet, and, near his nest,
A blackbird carolling in guelder bower,
‘Tis these that soothe and satisfy the breast.‘

‘Surely it is strange,’ I said, ‘that a man so occupied with affairs of State as Lorenzo, conspiring and conspired against from morning to night, a landowner not indifferent to the prosperity of his estate, a banker attentive to the profitable employment of his capital, a father most anxious for the wise bringing up of his sons, a collector of manuscripts, gems and intaglios, a founder of libraries, an owner of alum mines, a prince, a statesman, and a diplomatist, should not only have experienced such a sentiment as you have cited, but should have found leisure to give expression to it.’

‘And in so short a space of time,’ said Lamia, more indulgent than usual to my observations. ‘Was he not only forty-one when he died?’

‘He was,’ I said, ‘but he seems to have lived every hour of his life, and to have acted on the principle he lays down in his contribution to the _Disputationes Camaldulenses_, that life should consist in equal parts of action and contemplation; thereby being rather at issue with Plato, whom he loved so well. But even in his most contemplative moods he never seems to be divorced from the themes that interest mankind. There is a passage in a poem of his expository of the Platonic Philosophy which some critics have thought gave Michelangelo the suggestion for his famous marble _Sonno_, which you will shortly see in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo; while, in his _Simposio_ there is a description of a toping friar which is worthy of Chaucer, and in the _Canzoni a Ballo_ and the _Canti Carnascialeschi_, which I cannot recommend you to read save in what you will scarcely find, an expurgated edition, he expresses the very thoughts, feelings, and ideals of the populace of Florence.’

‘Veronica shall be my Bowdler,’ said Lamia, ‘and meanwhile I thank you for your erudition! But, as it happens to be my birthday, do you think you could forget the Medici for a few moments, if only to wish me, in the most conventional manner, “many happy returns”?‘

I had not forgotten the circumstance, and indeed had armed myself with a propitiatory gift which I intended to offer later in the day. But, before I could stammer out my excuses, she put her hand in that of the Poet, and said:

‘Perhaps you have forgotten that, not very long ago, you rebuked me most gently for one of my numerous foibles, and that I asked you to tell me what I ought to do, and to be, in order to merit your approval. Will you, for a birthday present, tell me now?’

We had come, in our saunterings, to the long low wall, leaning over which we gazed down direct on Florence.

‘With pleasure,’ he said, ‘and I must only hope you will not think me too severe.

A BIRTHDAY PRESENT

I

‘“Say what, to please you, you would have me be.”
Then listen, dear!
I fain would have you very fair to see,
And sweet to hear.

II

‘You should have Aphrodite’s form and face,
With Dian’s tread;
And something of Minerva’s lofty grace
Should crown your head.

III

‘Summer should wander in your voice, and Spring
Gleam in your gaze,
And pure thoughts ripen in your heart that bring
Calm Autumn days.

IV

‘Yours should be winning ways that make Love live,
And ne’er grow old,
With ever something yet more sweet to give,
Which you withhold.

V

‘You should have generous hopes that can beguile
Life’s doubts and fears,
And, ever waiting on your April smile,
The gift of tears.