“‘My man Gigi came to me the other day and said, “I went to the Acqua Acetosa[501] last Sunday, Signorina, and I liked the water so much, I drank no less than twenty fiaschi of it.”—“Well,” I said, “Gigi, that was a good deal; I’ll get twenty fiaschi of it, and put twenty scudi down by them, and then, if you can drink them all off, you shall have the scudi.”—“Well, Signorina, perhaps I did exaggerate a little: now I come to think it over, perhaps it was ten fiaschi I drank.”—“Well, do it again before me, and you shall have ten scudi.” “Now, Signorina, you know I like to be precise, perhaps it was six fiaschi I drank.”—“Well, do it again and you shall have six scudi.”—“Well, I suppose it really was two fiaschi.”—“Oh, I could drink that myself!”’
“You may imagine how entertaining stories like these—traits from the life around one—make our little dinners, and afterwards we often go into the Storys’ apartment close by, where the easy intellectual pleasant talk and fun are always reviving. Besides, it amuses Mrs. Story, who is most sadly ailing now, though her cheerfulness is an example. She says she comforts her sleepless nights by the old distich—
‘For all the ills beneath the sun
There is a cure, or there is none:
If there is one, try to find it;
If there is none, never mind it.’
“Nothing can describe the charm of Mr. Story’s natural bubble of fun and wit, or the merry twinkle which often comes into his eye, even now, at moments when his wife’s illness does not make him too anxious.[502] He and Miss Hosmer are capital together. It is difficult to say what are their ‘projecting peculiarities,’ as Dr. Chalmers would have called them, they have so many; but they are all of a perfectly delightful kind.
“‘Well, what’s the news, Harriet?’ he said as we went in to-night. ‘Why, that I am going to be married.’—‘What! to the Pope?’—‘Yes, only I didn’t want it to get out till he announced it himself.’
“‘An American was looking at my statue of Canidia the other day,’ said Mr. Story, and exclaimed—“Ah! Dante, I suppose, or is it—Savonarola?” Another man who came to my studio said, “Mr. Story, have you baptized your statue?”—“Why, yes,” I said; “generally we think of the name first, and then we set to work in accordance with it.”—“Well,” he said, “there’s some as doos, and there’s some as doosn’t.”’
“Mrs Story was very amusing about an Italian who wanted a portrait of his father very much, and came to an artist she knew and asked him to paint it. The artist asked, ‘But when can I see your father?’—‘Oh, you can’t see him: he’s dead.’—‘But how can I paint him, then?’—‘Well, I can describe him, and he was very like me: I think you can paint him very well.’ So the artist painted away, according to the description, as well as he could. When he had finished the portrait he sent for the son, anxious to see if he would find any likeness. The son rushed up to the picture, knelt down by it, was bathed in tears, and sobbed out, ‘O padre mio, quanto avete sofferto, o quanto siete cambiato: O non l’aveva mai riconosciuto.’
