Chapter XXXII: Palmam Qui Non Meruit (3)

Observe, here, that the order in which the thoughts arrange themselves is different from the manner of those who think by means of words. The main idea is "horse," and he gives it the preference, as the older and more simply constructed languages always did. It is reserved for our cultured and perfected language to describe an object before telling what that object is. Who will say that it is according to philosophical principles that we say, "A fine large red apple," instead of "An apple, fine, red, large"? A deaf-mute boy tells me that he saw two dogs fighting yesterday. He explains it in signs in this manner: "Dogs, two, fight; first, second ear bit, blood much. Second ran, hid; saw yesterday, I." Thus the fact is arranged in his mind. Let him attempt to translate--for it is nothing but translation--this simple statement into English. The perplexity which first seizes the hapless school-boy over his "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" is nothing to it. Like him, he must go hunting, as if for a needle in a haystack, for the word to put first. It is the last idea in his sign-sentence. Then he slowly learns to pick out the words and arrange them in English order--an order, as I said before, not founded on philosophical principles, but in most instances wholly arbitrary. This is by no means an easy task. Years of training do not ensure him against ludicrous lapses. A fair percentage of the whole number educated learn to construct sentences with tolerable accuracy; a smaller percentage of these acquire fluency, precision and, in some rare instances, grace of expression; but a large proportion never become good English scholars.

The method of beginning their instruction is by means of simple familiar objects, or, where these cannot be obtained, illustrations of them. A picture of a horse is placed, at one end of the teacher's blackboard. Instantly two fingers of each hand go up to the top of each little head. If it were a picture of an animal with longer ears, each would make an ass of himself. So far so good, only they do not know the name of this animal, familiar as they are with him. The teacher writes the name under the picture. The article "A" is also written, which, though it puzzles them, they must take on trust. It cannot be explained at this stage. The teacher then holds up an ear of corn. Of course they know that very well, and make the sign for it, shelling the fore finger. It is then laid upon the opposite end of the blackboard, and its name written under it. A short pause, with a glance first at the horse and then at the corn, soon brings out the sign for "eats," which is written in its proper place, and the sentence is complete. The little "ignorants," as they are dubbed by the older pupils, are then plunged head and ears into the task of learning to form the written characters as well as the construction of sentences. It is setting foot in an unexplored wilderness. No ray of light penetrates the darkness of that wilderness save the tiny torch just placed in their hands.

Mr. Isaac Lewis Peet, principal of the New York institution, before referred to in this paper, has lately been preparing a textbook for the use of deaf-mute instructors, which promises to be of great value. It reduces the whole of the earlier stages of instruction to a perfected system, by which each part of speech, with the various moods and tenses of the verbs, the different cases of nouns, etc., is brought out in successive stages entirely by means of sentences. A few illustrations will suffice to show the scope of the work, which promises to be of much value also in the ordinary school-room, for which it is likewise designed by the author. An object, such as a pitcher, is placed on the teacher's desk. A pupil is required to come forward and touch it. The teacher then asks the question, writing it upon the blackboard or spelling it upon his fingers, "What did John do?" Answer, "He touched the pitcher." A change from a boy to a girl brings out another pronoun; a change of objects, another noun; a change of actions, another verb.

In this way, by gradual, systematic stages, the language is taught by actual and constant use, the teacher doing away entirely with signs in the school-room. This is an end constantly aimed at in deaf-mute instruction, as it forces the pupils to use language instead of signs to express their thoughts. By constant effort at first, and constant practice, words gradually take the place of signs in their modes of thought, though not perhaps entirely.

Objective ideas are readily acquired by deaf mutes, their perceptive faculties being usually keen and quick. Abstract subjects are less readily apprehended, and sometimes cause great surprise. One Sunday morning Dr. Gillett, principal of the Illinois institution, had for the Scripture lesson in the chapel the "Resurrection." When he had made it plain and simple for the comprehension of the new pupils, some of the ideas, brought out by the lesson caused great astonishment, and even consternation among them. The little fellows shook their heads in utter skepticism at the thought of themselves dying.

"I'm not going to die," said one. "Sick people die: I'm well and strong;" standing on his feet and shaking his arms in attestation of the fact.

"But you will be sick some time," said Dr. G., "and you will have to die."

But they did not believe him in the least. The next morning one little fellow met the principal and said, "You said yesterday I was going to die: well, here I am, and I ain't dead yet."

On Monday morning, when they assembled in school, they were still full of the new ideas. "Dr. Gillett had said they all had to die: would they, truly?" they asked me. I could only confirm the statement. Whereupon they all began drawing graves, tombstones, weeping willows, and all such funereal paraphernalia upon the blackboards. It was a solemn scene, save for my own irrepressible laughter, which they thought very unaccountable when they learned that I must suffer a like fate. I explained as cheerfully as I could the delights of going to heaven, whereupon one boy burst into tears, saying he did not want to go to heaven: he would rather go home and see his mother.

One asked if we should go to heaven in the cars. I said I had been told that we should go through the air, perhaps fly there. A little girl immediately held up a wood-cut of a vulture, saying, "Ugly thing! I don't want to be one." A boy whose new skates lay spoiling for the ice in his trunk asked if he could skate there. Not having quite the faith of the author of _Gates Ajar_, I could not answer "Yes" unhesitatingly. A girl asked if fishes went to heaven. I answered "No." "Where, then?" I replied that we ate the fishes, but was greatly troubled afterward lest she should confound me with the question, "What becomes of the snakes?"

In addition to the ordinary one-hand alphabet, the only one commonly used by deaf mutes, there are five others. One of these is the two-hand alphabet, sometimes used by hearing children at school. It is clumsy and inconvenient, however. A second is made by the arms alone. Still a third is formed by means of the body and arms also, in various positions, to represent the different letters, and is used in signaling at a distance. It is not often learned by deaf mutes, however. A fourth is made entirely with the feet. But the most curious of all is the facial or expression alphabet. Various emotions and passions expressed on the face represent, by means of their initial letters, the letters of the alphabet. Thus, A is indicated by an expression of avarice, B by boldness, C by curiosity, D by devotion, etc. This alphabet is sometimes so admirably rendered that words can easily be spelled by means of it by the spectators.

Deaf mutes also excel in pantomime. A large amount of gesture and pantomime is naturally employed in their conversation, and it thus becomes easy to train them to perform pantomimic plays. I have seen one young man, a deaf mute, whose narration in this manner of a hunter who made a pair of buckskin breeches, hung them up during the summer, drew them on when the rainy season came on, and found a hornet's nest within, was interpreted amid roars of laughter. Thus told, it was far more vivid than words could have possibly made it, and infinitely more amusing.

The sign-language, growing slowly from natural signs--i.e., signs representing the shape, quality or use of objects, or the action expressed by verbs--has at length become a perfected system. This language is the same throughout Europe and America, so that deaf mutes from any country of Christendom who have acquired the regular system can readily communicate with each other, however diverse their nationality. Being formed from analogy, many of the signs are exceedingly expressive. Thus, the sign for "headache" is made by darting the two forefingers toward each other just in front of the forehead. The sign for "summer" is drawing the curved forefinger across the brow, as if wiping off the sweat. "Heat," or rather "hotness," is expressed by blowing with open mouth into the hand, and then shaking it suddenly as if burned. "Flame" and "fire" are represented by a quivering, upward motion of all the fingers. The memory of the ancient ruffled shirt of our forefathers is perpetuated in the sign for "genteel," "gentility" or "fine." It is the whole open hand, with fingers pointing upward, shaken in front of the breast. "Gentleman" and "lady" are expressed by the signs for "man" (the hat-brim) and "woman" (the bonnet-string), followed by the ruffled-shirt sign. The sign for "Jesus" is doubtless the most tender and touching in the whole language. It is made by touching the palm of each hand in succession with the middle finger of the other. This represents the print of the nails. The name "Jesus" itself does not convey so pathetic and expressive a meaning as does this sign.

Hearing persons who understand the sign-language sometimes find it exceedingly convenient as a means of communicating when they wish to be private, I remember an amusing incident occurring at a festival which I attended while teaching in the Illinois institution. Another teacher and myself sat apart, surrounded by entire strangers. Near by stood a lady in a gorgeous green silk dress, with many gaudy accessories. My companion remarked in signs to me upon her striking costume. I replied in like manner, expressing my appreciation of so magnificent a proportion of apple-green silk. There was a great deal of lady, but a great deal more of dress.

"See them dummies, Jake," she remarked to her husband at her side, whose dazzling expanse of bright-figured velvet waistcoat and massive gold chain was in admirable keeping with his wife's attire. It was a _landscape_, begging the word, after Turner's own heart. "Them's two dummies from the asylum, I know," she continued. "Let's watch 'em make signs." And she gazed upon us from the serene heights of green sward with an amused, patronizing smile.

We dared not laugh. Dummies we had been dubbed, and dummies we must remain to the end of the scene. Were ever mortals in such a fix? We talked _them_ over well, however, while suffering tortures from our pent-up emotions.

"That there one's rayther good-looking," ventured the proprietor of the velvet and gold.

"Not so mighty, either," said his wife, bridling. "Face is too chalky-like, and the other one is too fat." This was near being the death of us both, as the two critics together would have turned the scale at near five hundred. Consternation seized us just then, however, as we saw a fellow-teacher approaching us who would be sure to address us in spoken language and reveal us as two cheats. Hastily retreating from the scene, we made our way to an anteroom, where it was not considered a sin to laugh.

The instruction of deaf mutes in articulate speech has of late years attracted considerable attention in both Europe and America. In some of the European schools, in the Clark Institute at Northampton, Massachusetts, and in a few of our State institutions it is brought to great perfection. There are also special schools for this system of teaching in most of our large cities. The majority of pupils in these schools converse with ease, and understand readily what is said to them by means of the motion of the lips. The Clark Institute at Northampton, already referred to, under the conduct of Miss Harriet Rogers, is the largest and most widely known of the schools for this special method of instruction in this country. This is not a State institution, but one endowed by the munificence of a private gentleman, and consequently subject to none of the restrictions imposed on the public institutions. Of course, only the most promising pupils are sent there, and from these a careful selection is made, by which means the highest possible success is ensured. Some of the State institutions, however, burdened as they are with a large and unassorted mass of pupils, have made most encouraging progress in this direction. Of these, one of the most successful is the Illinois institution. In its last published report the correspondence between the principal and the parents of those pupils who have been taught by this method is given, showing the utmost satisfaction at the progress made and results attained.

Deaf mutes are divided into two classes--viz., entire mutes and semi-mutes. The first comprises those who either have been born deaf or have become so at so early an age as to have retained no knowledge of articulate speech. The second class embraces those who have lost their hearing after attaining such an age as still to be able to talk. Speech is more easily and perfectly learned if the pupil has learned to read before the loss of hearing. A knowledge of the sounds and powers of the letters enables him to acquire the pronunciation of new words with much greater facility than would be otherwise possible, giving him a foundation on which to build his acquisition of spoken language. To this last class, semi-mutes, articulation is invaluable, enabling them to pursue their education with less difficulty, and also to retain their power of communication with the outside world. In regard to entire mutes, the utility of the accomplishment is seriously questioned by some experienced educators. The fact must be admitted that, while a much larger number of entire mutes can be taught to converse intelligently and agreeably than would be imagined by those unacquainted with the results obtained, the great mass of the deaf and dumb must still be instructed wholly by means of written language. In most instances, to ensure success, instruction should be begun at a very much earlier age than it is possible to receive them into school, and constantly practiced by all who hold communication with the pupil, doing away entirely with the habit of using signs. It also requires pupils of bright, quick mind, keen perceptive faculties, and an amount of intelligence and perseverance on the part of the parents not found in the average parent of deaf mutes; for it is well known that a very large proportion of deaf mutes come from the poorer and more illiterate classes. This is mainly attributable to the fact that by far the larger number lose their hearing in infancy or early childhood through disease--scarlet fever, measles and diphtheria being probably the most frequent causes of deafness. Among those able to give skillful nursing and to obtain good medical aid the number of cases resulting in deafness is reduced to a minimum. Accidents, too, causing deafness, occur more frequently among those unable to give their children proper care. Congenital deafness is also probably greater among the laboring classes, and is undoubtedly due to similar causes.

The methods used in the teaching of articulation form a subject of much interest. The system has materially changed within the past few years. The first step to be taken is to convey a knowledge of the powers of the consonants and sounds of the vowels. Formerly, this was done by what was called the "imitation method." The letter H was usually the point of attack, the aspirate being the simplest of all the powers of the letters. The teacher, holding up the hand of the pupil, makes the aspirate by breathing upon his palm. This is soon imitated, and thus a starting-point is gained. The feeling produced upon the hand is the method of giving him an idea of the powers of the consonants. A later and better system is that called "visible speech." This is a system of symbols representing positions of the mouth and tongue and all the organs of speech, and if the pupil does what the symbols direct he cannot help giving the powers of the letters correctly. By this method a more distinct and perfect articulation is gained, with one-half the labor of the other method. As fast as the powers of the letters are learned, the spelling of words is undertaken. Many words are pronounced perfectly after a few trials: others, however, often defy the most strenuous and persevering effort.

Entire mutes who undertake articulation are like hearing children endeavoring to keep up the full curriculum of a modern school and pursue the study of music in addition: the ordinary studies demand all the energies of the child. Articulation consumes much time and strength. Exceptional cases are of course to be found which are indeed a triumph of culture, but the great mass of the deaf and dumb must always be content with written language.

Articulation is also exceedingly trying to the unused or long-disused throat and lungs. In this the teachers are likewise sufferers. The tax upon the vocal organs is necessarily much greater than that in ordinary speaking schools. But the disuse of the vocal organs in articulate speech does not indicate that they are wholly unused. A lady visiting an institution for the deaf and dumb a few years ago poetically called the pupils the "children of silence." Considering the tremendous volume of noise they are able to keep up with both feet and throat, the title is amusingly inappropriate. A deaf-and-dumb institution is the noisiest place in the world.

In summing up the results usually attained, let no discontented taxpayer grumble at the large outlays annually made in behalf of the deaf and dumb. If they learned absolutely nothing in the school-room, the intelligence they gain by contact with each other, by the lectures in signs, by intercourse with teachers, and the regular and systematic physical habits acquired, are of untold value. Add to this a tolerable acquaintance with the common English branches, such as reading, writing, arithmetic--one of their most useful acquirements--geography and history, and we have an amount of education which is of incalculable value.

JENNIE EGGLESTON ZIMMERMAN.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

THE CITY OF VIOLETS.

Wartburg, with its pleasant memories of delightful excursions during the previous summer, was covered with snow, as if buried in slumber, when I dashed past it on the 25th of March. A gray mantle of mist obscured the sky, and by all the roadsides stood bushes loaded with green buds shivering in the frosty air. The exquisite landscape, which I had last seen glowing with such brilliant hues, now appeared robed in one monotonous tint of gray, and the ancient towers and pointed roofs of Weimar loomed with a melancholy aspect through the dense fog. Only the welcome of my faithful friends, Gerhard Rohlfs and his pretty, fair-haired wife, was blithe and gay. The brave desert wanderer and bird of passage has now built himself a little wigwam or nest near the railway-station: the grand duke of Weimar gave him for the purpose a charming piece of ground with a delightful view. On the 25th of March a light veil of snow still rested on the ground, but two days later we were listening to the notes of the lark and gathering violets to take to Schiller's house and adorn the table of the beloved singer. Everything was illumined by the brilliant sunlight--the narrow bedstead on which he died, and all the numerous withered laurel-wreaths and bouquets of flowers that filled it--while outside, in Schiller's little garden, in the bed where his bust is placed, violets nodded at us between the leaves of the luxuriant ivy.

And we carried in our hands bouquets of violets when we stood before Goethe's house to pay our respects to the lady who in these bustling days remains a revered memento of the times of Carl Augustus and his poet-friend--Ottilie von Goethe. The beloved daughter-in-law of the great master of song lives in the poet's house in the utmost seclusion: few strangers know that she receives visitors. Only on rare occasions is the classic little _salon_ opened in the evening to a select few--only now and then, when the health of the aged lady permits it, a circle of faithful friends gather round her listening eagerly to her vivid descriptions of long-past days. The grand duke himself often knocks at this door, and the grand duchess and princesses take pleasure in coming hither. With deep emotion we crossed the threshold over which Goethe's coffin was borne, and with light step ascended the broad, easy staircase of the house that we had so often heard described. Half-effaced frescoes, which had gleamed over the head of the king of poesy, looked down upon us, and our eyes wandered over the bronze figures past which Goethe had walked day after day.

On reaching the second story, Ottilie von Goethe came forward to greet us, looking like an apparition from another world. Her figure was small and fragile, but there was an aristocratic repose in all her movements. A white lace cap trimmed with dark-red velvet bows rested on her hair, which was arranged over her temples in thick gray curls, framing her face, from which a pair of brown eyes greeted us with a bright, cordial glance. A white knit shawl covered her shoulders and a black silk dress fell around her in ample folds. At her side stood her younger sister, a canoness, who was paying her a few days' visit--an amiable lady with a very cheerful temperament. Ottilie von Goethe shared the violets with her. An easy conversation commenced. Frau von Goethe was very much interested in Herr Rohlfs' travels and Edward Vogel's fate, and said that one of her grandsons also cherished the same ardent, restless longing to see foreign countries and people. Then she spoke of her own journeys to Italy, "a long, long time ago," and of the charms of Venice and Verona. Underlying the words was a slight tone of regret that she was now not only bound to the spot, but also to the house, for invalids cannot venture out of doors to enjoy the spring until the first of May, and September drives them back into their quiet cell. "How often one longs for a distant horizon!" she sighed. My eyes wandered over the wilderness of ancient roofs upon which the windows of Goethe's house looked out, and discovered a small spot where the blue mountain-peaks appeared.

"Why, there is a distant horizon!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"Ah, but even that is so near!" replied Frau von Goethe, smiling.

The room where we were, as well as the adjoining apartment into which we were allowed to peep, was full of relics of all kinds. Each article probably had its special history, from the paintings and drawings on the walls and the old-fashioned chests, chairs and tables, to the cups, vases, glasses, coverlets, and cushions arranged in the neatest order, some standing or lying around the apartment, others visible through the glass doors of a cupboard. But the most interesting object to me was the portrait of Goethe painted by Stieler. It has been made familiar to all by copies, and represents the poet, though at an advanced age, in the full possession of his physical strength. He holds in his hand a letter, from which he is in the act of looking up: the face is turned slightly aside. It seems as if the glance was one of greeting to some friend who is just entering. The colors are still wonderfully fresh and the expression bewitching. The large eyes beam with the fire of genius, Olympian majesty is enthroned upon the brow, and the curve of the lips possesses unequaled grace and beauty. A more aristocratic, noble mouth cannot be imagined. Who could have resisted the eloquence of those lips?

"This picture is not in the least idealized: it is a perfect likeness of my father-in-law," observed Frau von Goethe, and added that this portrait by Stieler was one of the best which had ever been painted. Not far from the superb portrait of the father appears the melancholy face of the son, August von Goethe, but I sought in vain for a picture of the bud so early broken, Goethe's granddaughter, the lovely Alma, who died in Vienna.

Fran von Goethe noticed with evident pleasure our eager interest in her surroundings, and showed us many a relic. As she spoke of the radiance of those long-past days which still gilded her quiet life, she seemed to me like the venerable figure in the tale of the "Seven Ravens," who relates marvelous stories to a listening group. Gradually a throng of shapes from the dim past entered the small room and gathered round the speaker, who suddenly became transfigured by the light of youth. She was again the poet's cheerful nurse, the fair flower of the household, the happy mother, the intellectual woman, the centre of a brilliant circle. I gazed as if at a buried world, which suddenly became once more alive: its inhabitants, clad in antique garments, walked past us, stared in astonishment, and seemed to say, We too were happy and beloved, feted and praised, the blue sky arched over us also, and we plucked violets and rejoiced in their fragrance till the deep, heavy sleep came.

Wait--only wait:
Soon thou too will rest.

It was a cold, feeble hand I respectfully kissed at parting, and I remained under its spell, lingering in the strange world conjured up by Ottilie von Goethe, till we stood before Goethe's pretty summer-house and the blue violets peeped at us from the turf. The windows stood wide open, the mild breeze swept gently in, and the sun also looked to see if everything was in order in "der alte Herr's" rooms. Far away between the trees gleamed the white pillars of the house, and the ground at our feet was covered with a blue carpet. It is said that nowhere in North Germany are there so many violets as in the vicinity of Weimar. And why? Because, as the people poetically say, "der alte Herr," whenever he went to walk, always filled his pockets with violet-seeds, and scattered them everywhere with lavish hands.

ELISE POLKO.

LA BEFANA.

Putting out of the question the Piazza of St. Peter's with Bernini's encircling colonnades, which is a special thing and unlike anything else in the world, the Piazza Navona is the handsomest piazza in Rome. It is situated in the thickest and busiest part of the city, far out of the usual haunts of the foreign residents, and nearly in the centre of that portion of the city which is enclosed between the Corso and the great curving sweep of the Tiber. It is handsome, not only from its great space and regular shape--a somewhat elongated double cube--but from its three fountains richly ornamented with statuary of no mean artistic excellence, and from the clean and convenient pavement which, intended for foot-passengers only, occupies all the space save a carriage-way close to the houses encircling it. This large extent of pavement, well provided with benches, and protected from the incursion of carriages, which make almost every other part of Rome more or less unsafe for all save the most wide-awake passengers, renders the Piazza Navona a playground specially adapted for nurses and their charges, who may generally be seen occupying it in considerable numbers. But on the occasion on which I wish to call the reader's attention to it the scene it presents is a very different and far more locally characteristic one.

We will suppose it to be about midnight on the fifth of January, the day preceding the well-known revel, now come to be mainly a children's festival, which English people call Twelfth Night and celebrate by the consumption of huge plumcakes and the drawing of lots for the offices of king and queen of the revels. The Italians call it the festival of the "Befana," the word being a readily-perceived corruption of "Epifania." Of course the sense and meaning of the original term have been entirely forgotten, and the Befana of the Italian populace is a sort of witch, mainly benevolent indeed, and especially friendly to children, to whom in the course of the night she brings presents, to be found by them in the morning in a stocking or a shoe or any other such fantastic hiding-place. But Italians are all more or less children of a larger growth, and at Rome especially the populace of all ages, ever ready for _circenses_ in any form, make a point of "keeping" the festival of the Befana, who holds her high court on her own night in the Piazza Navona.

We will betake ourselves thither about midnight, as I have said. It is a bitterly cold night, and the stars are shining brilliantly in the clear, steely-looking sky--such a night as Rome has still occasionally at this time of year, and as she used to have more frequently when Horace spoke of incautious early risers getting nipped by the cold. One of the first things that strikes us as we make our way to the place of general rendezvous muffled in our thickest and heaviest cloaks and shawls is the apparent insensibility of this people to the cold. One would have expected it to be just the reverse. But whether it be that their organisms have stored up such a quantity of sunshine during the summer as enables them to defy the winter's cold, or whether their Southern blood runs more rapidly in their veins, it is certain that men, women and children--and especially the women--will for amusement's sake expose themselves to a degree of cold and inclement weather that a Northerner would shrink from.

For some days previously, in preparation for the annual revel, a series of temporary booths have by special permission of the municipality been erected around the piazza. In these will be sold every kind of children's toys--of the more ordinary sorts, that is to say; for Roman children have never yet been rendered fastidious in this respect by the artistic inventions that have been provided for more civilized but perhaps not happier childhood. There will also be a store of masks, colored dominoes, harlequins' dresses, monstrous and outrageous pasteboard noses, and, especially and above all, every kind of contrivance for making a noise. In this latter kind the peculiar and characteristic specialty of the day are straight tin trumpets some four or five feet in length. These are in universal request among young and old; and the general preference for them is justified by the peculiarly painful character of the note which they produce. It is a very loud and vibrating sound of the harshest possible quality. One feels when hearing it as if the French phrase of "skinning the ears" were not a metaphorical but a literal description of the result of listening to the sound. And when hundreds of blowers of these are wandering about the streets in all parts of the town, but especially in the neighborhood of the Piazza Navona, making night hideous with their braying, it may be imagined that those who go to their beds instead of doing homage to the Befana have not a very good time of it there.

It is a curious thing that the Italians, who are denizens of "the land of song," should take especial delight in mere abundance of discordant noise. Yet such is unquestionably the case. They are in their festive hours the most noisy people on earth. And the farther southward you go the more pronounced and marked is the propensity. You may hear boys and men imitating the most inharmonious and vociferous street-cries solely for the purpose of exercising their lungs and making a noise. The criers of the newspapers in the streets must take an enthusiastic delight in their trade; and I have heard boys in the street who had no papers to sell, and nothing on earth to do with the business, screaming out the names of the different papers at the hour of their distribution at the utmost stretch of their voices, and for no reason on earth save the pleasure of doing it--just as one cock begins to crow when he hears another.

The crowd on the piazza is so thick and close-packed that it is a difficult matter to move in any direction when you are once within it, but good-humor and courtesy are universal. An Italian crowd is always the best-behaved crowd in the world--partly, I take it, from the natural patience of the people, and the fact that nobody is ever in a hurry to move from the place in which he may happen to be; and partly as a consequence of the general sobriety. Even on such a night of saturnalia as this of the Befana very little drunkenness is to be seen. Although the crowd is so dense that every one's shoulder is closely pressed against that of his neighbor, there is a great deal of dancing going on. Here and there a ring is formed, carved out, as it were, from the solid mass of human beings, in which some half dozen couples are revolving more or less in time to the braying of a bagpipe or scraping of a fiddle, executing something which has more or less semblance to a waltz. The mode in which these rings are formed is at once simple and efficacious. Any couple who feel disposed to dance link themselves together and begin to bump themselves against their immediate neighbors. These accept the intimation with the most perfect good-humor, and assist in shoving back those behind them. A space is thus gained in the first instance barely enough for the original couple to gyrate in. But by violently and persistently dancing up against the foremost of the little ring the area is gradually enlarged: first one other couple and then another are moved to follow the example, and they in their turn assist in bumping out the limits of the ring till it has become some twenty feet or so in diameter. These impromptu ball-rooms rarely much exceed that size, but dozens of them may be found in the course of one's peregrinations around the large piazza. The occupants of some of them will be found to consist of town-bred Romans, and those of others of people from the country. There is no mistaking them one for the other, and the two elements rarely mingle together. The differences to be observed in the bearing and ways of the two are not a little amusing, and often suggestive of considerations not uninstructive to the sociologist. The probabilities are that the music in the case of the first mentioned of the above classes will be found to consist of a fiddle--in that of the latter, of a bagpipe, the old classical _cornamusa_, which has been the national instrument of the hill-country around the Campagna for it would be dangerous to say how many generations. In either case there seems to be an intimate connection between the music and the spirit of the public for which it is provided. The peasant of the Campagna and of the Latian, Alban and Sabine hills takes his pleasure, even that of the dance, as an impertinent Frenchman said of us Anglo-Saxons, _moult tristement_. That indescribable air of sadness which, as so many observers have concurred in noting, broods over the district which they inhabit seems to have communicated itself to the inmost nature and character of the populations. They are a stern, sad, sombre and silent race, for what I have said above of a tendency to noisiness and vociferation must be understood to apply to the town-populations only. Their dance is generally much slower than that of the city-folk. In these latter days increased communication has taught some of them to assimilate their dancing with more or less successful imitation to the waltz, but in many cases these parties of peasants may still be seen practicing the old dances, now wholly unknown in the city. But whether they are keeping to their old figures and methods or endeavoring to follow new ones, the difference in their bearing is equally striking. The dancing of peasants must necessarily be for the most part heavy and awkward, but despite this the men of the Campagna and the hills are frequently not without a certain dignity of bearing, and the women often, though perhaps not quite so frequently, far from devoid of grace. Especially may the former quality be observed if, as is likely, the dancers belong to the class of mounted herdsmen, who pass their lives on horseback, and whose exclusive duty it is to tend the herds of half-wild cattle that roam over the plains around Rome. These are the "butteri" of whom I wrote on a former occasion in these pages--the aristocracy of the Campagna. And it is likely that dancers on the Piazza Navona on a Befana night should belong to this class, for the Campagna shepherd is probably too poor, too abject and too little civilized to indulge in any such pastime.

Little of either grace or dignity will be observed in the Terpsichorean efforts of the Roman _plebs_ of the present day. Lightness, _brio_, enjoyment and an infinite amount of "go" may be seen, and plenty of laughter heard, and "lazzi"--sallies more or less imbued with wit, or at least fun, and more or less repeatable to ears polite. But there is a continual tendency in the dancing to pass into horse-play and romping which would not be observed among the peasantry. In a word, there is a touch of blackguardism in the city circles, which phase could not with any justice or propriety be applied to the country parties.

But it is time to go home. The moon is waning: _suadentque cadentia sidera somnum_, if only there were any hope of being able to be persuaded by their reasonable suggestions. But truly the town seems to afford little hope of it. We make our way out of the crowd with some difficulty and more patience, and are sensible of a colder nip in the January night-air as we emerge from it into the neighboring streets. But even there, though the racket gradually becomes less as we leave the piazza behind us, there is in every street the braying of those abominable tin trumpets, and we shall probably turn wearily in our beds at three or four in the morning and thank Heaven that the Befana visits us but once a year.

T.A.T.

ERNESTO ROSSI.

The stage of Paris has long been conceded to be the first in the world. In France the player is not only born--he must be made. Before the embryo performer achieves the honors of a public début he has been trained in the classes of the Conservatoire to declaim the verse of Racine and to lend due point and piquancy to the prose of Molière. He is taught to tread in the well-beaten path of French dramatic art, fenced in and hedged around with sacred traditions. If he attempts to embody any one of the characters of the classic drama, every tone, every gesture, every peculiarity of make-up, every shade and style in his costume, is prescribed to him beforehand. Originality of treatment and of conception is above all things to be avoided. So spoke Molière, so looked Lekain, so stepped Talma; therefore all the succeeding generations of players must so speak and look and walk. Let us imagine the process transferred to our English stage--the shades of Burbage and Betterton prescribing how Hamlet and Richard III. should be played--the manners of the seventeenth century forcibly transferred to our modern stage. The process would be intolerable. Worse still, it would have the effect on our comparatively undramatic race of crushing out every spark of originality and of wholly hindering the development of histrionic talent. With the French such results are happily, to a certain extent, impossible. There is scarcely any French man or woman of ordinary intelligence who does not possess sufficient capacity for acting to be capable of being trained into a very fair performer. The preponderance of beautiful women on the French stage above those to be found in other stations of life may be accounted for on the ground that any young girl of the lower classes possessing extraordinary beauty and ordinary intelligence can readily, from the bent of her national characteristics, be trained into an actress. But while the high-comedy theatres and those of the melodrama flourish, there can be no doubt but that the highest type of acting finds no chance for development in France. The actor who possesses one spark of genius soon escapes from the galling fetters of classicism and tradition, and takes refuge in comedy or in melodrama. Thus did Frédéric Lemaître in his prime, and thus, too, in later days, did the accomplished and brilliant Lafontaine.

From these causes, or from others of a kindred nature, the French tragic stage has within our generation possessed no actor of commanding genius. One actress indeed adorned it for a few brief years--the great Rachel. But she, strange and unnatural production of unnatural art, was a phenomenon, and one not likely to be soon reproduced. The art of the Comédie Française is to-day inimitable. Like Thalberg's playing, it is the very apotheosis of the mechanical. There talent is trained and cut and trimmed into one set fashion, till the very magnitude of the work becomes imposing, as the gardens of Le Nôtre in their grand extent almost console the spectator for the absence of virgin forests and of free-gushing streams. But could the forest be brought side by side with the parterre, could Niagara pour its emerald floods or Trenton its amber cascades side by side with the Fountain of Latona or the Great Basin of Neptune, Nature, terrible in her grandeur, would rule supreme. Such has been the comparison afforded by the appearance of Ernesto Rossi on the Parisian stage. It was Shakespeare and genius coming into direct competition with perfectly-trained talent and with Racine.

Early last October a modest announcement was made that Signor Rossi would give two performances at the Salle Ventadour, one of them to be for the benefit of the sufferers by the Southern inundations. _Othello_ was the play selected for both occasions. The first night arrived. The unlucky opera-house, shorn of its ancient popularity, was not half filled. Public curiosity was not specially aroused. Nobody cared particularly to see an Italian actor perform in a translation of a play by an English dramatist. Of the scanty audience present, fully one-half were Italians, and the rest were mostly English, lured thither by the desire of comparing the new actor with his great rival, Salvini. There was a sprinkling of Americans and a scanty representation of the Parisian public.

When Othello came upon the stage the foreign actor received but a cool and unenthusiastic greeting. His appearance was a disappointment to those familiar with the majestic bearing and picturesque garb of Salvini. His dress was unbecoming, and the dusky tint of his stage complexion accorded ill with his blue eyes. Then, too, his conception of the character jarred on the ideas of those who had seen the other great Italian actor. It was hard to dethrone the majestic and princely Moor, the stately general of Salvini's conception, to give place to the frank, free-hearted soldier, intoxicated with the gladness of successful wooing, that Rossi brings before us. Certain melodramatic points, also, in the earlier acts, such as the "Ha!" wherewith Rossi with upraised arms starts from Desdemona when Brabantio reminds him

"She has deceived her father, and may thee,"

seemed exaggerated and out of place. In the scenes with Iago he equaled Salvini, yet did not in any one point surpass him. Nor did he in any way imitate him. The fury of the two Othellos is widely different. Salvini is the fiercer, for Rossi's rage has a background of intensest suffering. One is an enraged tiger, the other a wounded lion. Both are maddened--the one with wrath, the other with pain. But in the last act, with the unutterable anguish of its closing scenes--the swift remorse, the unavailing agony of that noble nature, too late undeceived, the wild, pathetic tenderness wherewith Othello clasped the dead Desdemona to his heart, smoothing back her loosened tresses with an inarticulate cry of almost superhuman love and woe--the horror of the catastrophe was all swallowed up in a sympathy whose pain was wellnigh too great to be aroused by mimic despair. The fall of the curtain was greeted with a tempest of applause. Men sprang to their feet and wildly waved their hats in the air. Shouts of "Bravo, Rossi!" and "Vive Rossi!" arose on all sides. Ladies stood up in the boxes waving their handkerchiefs, and every hand and throat joined in the universal uproar. Before noon the next day every seat in the house was engaged for the second representation. The great actors of the French stage came to study the acting of this new genius who had so suddenly made his appearance in their midst. To this sudden success succeeded the announcement of a prolonged engagement, the failing health of the younger Rossi having decided his father to relinquish all immediate idea of an American tour.

The second character that Rossi assumed was Hamlet, and in this he achieved the greatest success of his Parisian engagement. The opera of Thomas had rendered the public familiar with the personage of the hero, and the magnates of the Grand Opera came to the Salle Ventadour to study this new and forcible presentment of the baritone prince, who wails and warbles through the operatic travesty of Shakespeare's masterpiece. That the impersonation will prove wholly acceptable to all Shakespearian critics in England or America is extremely doubtful. For the Hamlet of Rossi is mad--undeniably, unmistakably mad--from the moment of his interview with the Ghost. But once accept that view, and the characterization stands unrivaled upon our modern stage. Nothing can be imagined at once more powerful or more pathetic than that picture of a "noble mind o'erthrown," alternating between crushed, hopeless misery and wild excitement--thirsting for the rest and peace that only death can bestow, yet shrinking from the fearful leap into the dim unknown beyond the grave. The scene with the Queen is inimitably grand. One feels that the entrance of the Ghost comes only in time to stay the frenzied hand, and then follows the swift revulsion when Hamlet, melting into tenderest pathos, kneels at his mother's feet to beseech her to repent--a mood that changes anew to frenzy when his wild wandering thoughts are turned toward the King. It is only in the last scene of the play that the approach of death scatters the clouds that have so long obscured the grief-tortured brain. Nothing can be imagined finer or more picturesque than this closing scene. On the raised daïs in the centre of the stage, and on the throne from which the King has been hurled, the dying prince, conqueror and sovereign in this last supreme moment, dominates the scene of death and carnage, triumphant over all, even in the clutches of his own relentless doom.

As the Hamlet of Rossi is unmistakably mad, so his Macbeth is an undeniable craven and criminal. I can compare this personation to nothing so much as to that of a man haunted by a fiend. For the steps of Macbeth are dogged ever by an unseen devil--namely, his own evil yet coward nature. He is wicked and he is afraid. The whole physique of Rossi in the scene in the first act where the king heaps favors and commendations on his valiant warrior was eloquent of conscious guilt: the constrained attitude, the shifting, uneasy glance, told, louder than words, of a wicked purpose and a stinging conscience. From the moment of the murder the wretched thane lives in a perpetual atmosphere of fear. He is afraid of everything--first of his own unwashed hands, and next of the dead king; then of Banquo and of Banquo's ghost; and finally he is afraid of all the world. It is only at the last that the mere physical courage of the soldier reasserts itself, and Macbeth, driven to bay by Fate, fights with the fierce energy of despair.

As to Rossi's Lear, it is not to be criticised. Words fail when the heartstrings are thrilled to trembling and to tears. The pathos of Lear's recognition of Cordelia was past the power of words to describe. He stands at first gazing in vague bewilderment at the face of his child, then into the darkened and troubled gaze steals anew the light of reason and of recognition: unutterable sorrow, inexpressible remorse, sweep across the quivering features, and with an inarticulate sob Lear would fain sink on his knees at his wronged daughter's feet to pray for pardon. That people rose and left the house in a very passion of tears is the fittest criticism that can be bestowed upon this personation.

The list of the Shakesperian characters closed with Romeo. Rossi was the divinest of lovers, in spite of his forty years and his stalwart proportions, and the balcony scene was an exquisite love-duet that needed not the aid of music to lend it sweetness. But in the Italian version the play was so cut and garbled that there could be little pleasure in listening to it for any one familiar with the original.

Outside of his Shakespearian répertoire, Rossi has appeared in only two plays--the _Kean_ of the elder Dumas, and _Nero_, a tragedy by Signer Cosso, The first, originally written for Lemaître, is an ill-constructed, improbable melodrama. But it contains one grand scene--namely, that where Kean, whilst playing Hamlet, goes mad upon the stage; and this scene Rossi renders superbly. As to Nero, it is marvelous to witness the complete eclipse of the refined, accomplished gentleman and intellectual actor behind the brutal physiognomy of the wicked emperor. It is Hamlet transformed into a prize-fighter.

In person, Signor Rossi is less strikingly handsome than is his rival, Salvini, but he possesses a singularly attractive and pleasing countenance. He is a Piedmontese, blue-eyed and fair-complexioned, with chestnut hair, the abundant locks of which are just touched with gray. He is tall and finely proportioned, with the chest of a Hercules and the hands and feet of a duchess. Off the stage he is peculiarly pleasing in manner, and is said to be a noble-hearted and generous gentleman, as well as an amiable and genial companion, singularly free from conceit and delighting in his art.

L.H.H.

BISHOP THIRLWALL'S PRECOCITY.