That expresses a feeling which, I think, one often has in Italy. It is the intense beauty of certain moments, certain views, certain sunsets, that makes one declare one never before has seen anything so lovely, and dread lest on such loveliness one never more may gaze. A foolish fear; for to-morrow renews the radiance and raptures of to-day.
OUR TUSCAN GARDEN
But the closing hours of the now lengthening days were always spent in the loggia, the garden, or the podere of our Villa; and Veronica, who, so English at home, was here the most Italian of us all, would, whenever the weather permitted, arrange for us to have our evening meal al fresco, in the society of the roses and the nightingales. Lamia had, as you may suppose, picked up many a Tuscan stornello and canzone, and would sing them to us, to the accompaniment of her guitar; and, between song and song, discourse would run on all the beauty and the wonders we had seen that day.
‘What is it,’ said Lamia, ‘that, more than anything else, constitutes the charm of Italy?’
‘Ancientness,’ said the Poet, ‘and an ancientness that never grows old. For Italy, notwithstanding its centuries of history, art, warfare, misfortune, remains perennially young. More than once, the rash have said, “Italy is dead.” Italy never dies. She has the gift of perpetual life; but, with all her indestructible freshness, she carries about her the dignity of bygone times and the majesty of tradition. The new is always more or less vulgar. Refinement is the work of time. You remember Aristotle’s definition of Aristocracy, Ancient riches. Italy has ancient riches, the riches of law, religion, poetry, and the arts, long established, and she has therefore what is most precious in aristocracy. She has ancient speech and ancient manners. Her mountains are necessarily ancient, the Soracte of Horace, the Alps of Hannibal. But her plains and valleys are equally so, for she has an ancient agriculture. We are sitting at this moment surrounded by a rural cultivation that is described with absolute accuracy in the Georgics, and again by Politian in his Rusticus, written on this very spot, and that has not changed since the days of Cincinnatus. Listen to that fellow singing among the olives. Virgil has described him,—Canit fundator ad auras,—and might be his contemporary. It is this far-backness, if I may coin a word to express my meaning, that sheds a glamour over everything in Italy, a far-backness, however, that endures and persists, that is with us and around us, and compels us to bend with reverence before it, as we must ever do before the parent Past we still have with us. In proportion as Italy parts with its Past, Italy will lose its charm. The temptation to do so in this age is great, and I fear it is not being sufficiently resisted.
‘Dear Poet,’ said Lamia, ‘will you forgive me if I object that I have sometimes been told, though I am sure most inaccurately, that I, for instance, am charming; and yet I am not ancient.’
‘Dear Lamia,’ he replied, ‘you are very ancient, and are under deep obligation to ancestors you never saw, and probably never heard of; and I hope you will be yet more charming for your visit to this old and captivating land. For my part, I always seem to miss something in people who have not fallen under its spell. You have succumbed to it entirely. I shall never weary, and I hope I shall never weary you, in extolling the power of the Past. Would the descant of those nightingales have the same charm for us, if they had not been singing thus for myriads of Mays? Spring is so irresistibly charming because it recalls and renews the Aprils that are gone. Time consecrates and confirms. The deeper our roots, the loftier our thoughts, and the sounder our hearts. I remember a great poet of this age saying to me that he could not see that, as some one had affirmed, he in his writings so much resembled Keats. “You are Keats’s own child,” I replied, “and are of noble parentage.” But indeed every great poet is the lineal descendant of every other great poet. At any given moment, what exercises most influence is, not the present, but the Past. I ventured, the other day, to observe that there are only two sorts of people, the noble and the ignoble. Dear Lamia, let us try to belong to the noble, since every one may be a member of that untitled aristocracy; so that, when we ourselves are, as some of us are gradually becoming, portions of the Past, we may influence beneficently an unborn Future.‘
‘There never was anything more untrue,’ said Lamia, who was quick to surmise the more personal meaning that underlay those closing words, ‘than the saying “On n’est jeune qu’une fois.” I have been old several times; but I always get young again.‘ ‘And you will do so very often, I dare say, for many years to come. Moreover, I like to think there is the youth of one’s youth, the youth of one’s manhood, and, finally, the youth of one’s old age. But, when one has reached this last, man’s capacity for rejuvenescence is exhausted.‘