We passed through Carrara, stopping only to visit one or two of the studios. They had not much to interest us, the artists being for the most part copyists, and their works usually busts; busts being now the same passion with our travelling countrymen as once were oil portraits. The consequence is that every sculptor's shelves are loaded with thin-lipped, grim-visaged English women, and triple-chinned, apoplectic-looking aldermen, that contrast very unfavorably with the clean-cut brows and sharply chiselled features of classic antiquity. The English are an eminently good-looking race of people, seen in their proper costume of broadcloth and velvet. They are manly and womanly. The native characteristics of boldness, decision, and highhearted honesty are conspicuous in all their traits; nor is there any deficiency in the qualities of tenderness and gentleness. But with all this, when they take off their neckcloths, they make but very indifferent Romans; and he who looked a gentleman in his shirt-collar becomes, what James would call, "an arrant snob" when seen in a toga. And yet they will do it! They have a notion that the Anglo-Saxon can do anything,—and so he can, perhaps,—the difference being whether he can look the character he knows so well how to act.
We left Carrara by a little mountain path to visit the Bagni di Lucca, a summer place, which once, in its days of Rouge-et-Noir celebrity, was greatly resorted to. The Principality of Lucca possessed at that period, too, its own reigning duke, and had not been annexed to Tuscany. Like all these small States, without trade or commerce, its resources were mainly derived from the Court; and, consequently, the withdrawal of the Sovereign was the death-blow to all prosperity. It would be quite beyond me to speculate on the real advantages or disadvantages resulting from this practice of absorption, but pronouncing merely from externals, I should say that the small States are great sufferers. Nothing can be sadder than the aspect of this little capital. Ruined palaces, grass-grown streets, tenantless houses, and half-empty shops are seen everywhere. Poverty—I might call it misery—on every hand. The various arts and trades cultivated had been those required by, even called into existence by, the wants of a Court. All the usages of the place had been made to conform to its courtly life and existence, and now this was gone, and all the "occupation" with it! You are not perhaps aware that this same territory of Lucca supplies nearly all of that tribe of image and organ men so well known, not only through Europe, but over the vast continent of America. They are skilful modellers naturally, and work really beautiful things in "terra cotta." They are a hardy mountain race, and, like all "montagnards," have an equal love for enterprise and an attachment to home. Thus they traverse every land and sea, they labor for years long in far-away climes, they endure hardships and privations of every kind, supported by the one thought of the day when they can return home again, and when in some high-perched mountain village—some "granuolo," or "bennabbia "—they can rest from wandering, and, seated amidst their kith and kind, tell of the wondrous things they have seen in their journeyings. It is not uncommon here, in spots the very wildest and least visited, to find a volume in English or French on the shelf of some humble cottage: now it is perhaps a print, or an engraving of some English landscape,—a spot, doubtless, endeared by some especial recollection,—and not unfrequently a bird from Mexico—a bright-winged parrot from the Brazils—shows where the wanderer's footsteps have borne him, and shows, too, how even there the thoughts of home had followed.
Judged by our own experiences, these people are but scantily welcomed amongst us. They are constantly associated in our minds with intolerable hurdy-gurdies and execrable barrel-organs. They are the nightmare of invalids, and the terror of all studious heads, and yet the wealth with which they return shows that their gifts are both acknowledged and rewarded. It must be that to many the organ-man is a pleasant visitor, and the image-hawker a vendor of "high art" I have seen a great many of them since we came here, and in their homes too; for mamma has taken up the notion that these excellent people are all living in a state of spiritual darkness and destitution, and to enlighten them has been disseminating her precious little volume on the Miracles of Mount Orsaro. It is plain to me that all this zeal of a woman of a foreign nation seems to them a far more miraculous manifestation than anything in her little book, and they stare and wonder at her in a way that plainly shows a compassionate distrust of her sanity.
It is right I should say that Lord George thinks all these people knaves and vagabonds; and James says they are a set of smugglers, and live by contraband. Whatever be the true side of the picture, I must now leave to your own acuteness, or rather to your prejudices, which for all present purposes are quite good enough judges to decide.
Papa likes this place so much that he actually proposed passing the winter here, for "cheapness,"—a very horrid thought, but which, fortunately, Lord George averted by a private hint to the landlord of the inn, saying that papa was rolling in wealth, but an awful miser; so that when the bill made its appearance, with everything charged double, papa's indignation turned to a perfect hatred of the town and all in it: the consequence is that we are tomorrow to leave for Florence, which, if but one half of what Lord George says be true, must be a real earthly paradise. Not that I can possibly doubt him, for he has lived there two, or, I believe, three winters,—knows everybody and everything. How I long to see the Cascini, the Court Balls, the Private Theatricals, at Prince Polywkowsky's, the picnics at Fiesole, and those dear receptions at Madame della Montanare's, where, as Lord G. says, every one goes, and "there's no absurd cant heard about character."
Indeed, to judge from Lord G.'s account, Florence—to use his own words—is "the most advanced city in Europe;" that is to say, the Florentines take a higher and more ample view of social philosophy than any other people. The erring individual in our country is always treated like the wounded crow,—the whole rookery is down upon him at once. Not so here; he—or she, to speak more properly—is tenderly treated and compassionated; all the little blandishments of society showered on her. She is made to feel that the world is really not that ill-natured thing sour moralists would describe it; and even if she feel indisposed to return to safer paths, the perilous ones are made as pleasant for her as it is possible. These are nearly his own words, dearest, and are they not beautiful? so teeming with delicacy and true charity. And oh! Kitty, I must say these are habits we do not practise at home in our own country. But of this more hereafter; for the present, I can think of nothing but the society of this delightful city, and am trying to learn off by heart the names of all the charming houses in which he is to introduce us. He has written, besides, to various friends in England for letters for us, so that we shall be unquestionably better off here—socially speaking—than in any other city of the Continent.
We leave this after breakfast to-morrow; and before the end of the week it is likely you may hear from me again, for I am longing to give you my first impressions of Firenza la Bella; till when, I am, as ever, your dearly attached
Mary Anne Dodd.
P. S. Great good fortune, Kitty,—we shall arrive in time for the races. Lord G. has got a note from Prince Pincecotti, asking him to ride his horse "Bruise-drog,"—which, it seems, is the Italian for "Bull-dog,"—and he consents. He is to wear my colors, too, dearest,—green and white,—and I have promised to make him a present of his jacket How handsome he will look in jockey dress!
James is in distraction at being too heavy for even a hurdle-race; but as he is six feet one, and stout in proportion, it is out of the question. Lord G. insists upon it that Cary and I must go on horseback. Mamma agrees with him, and papa as stoutly resists. It is in vain we tell him that all depends on the way we open the campaign here, and that the present opportunity is a piece of rare good fortune; he is in one of his obstinate moods, and mutters something about "beggars on horseback," and the place they "ride to." I open my letter to say—carried triumphantly, dearest—we are to ride.