The very kind of laughter, already described in the foregoing chapter, induced many tourists to laugh at every little imperfection they meet in foreign countries. The laughter of a man of letters should be inoffensive: it should be rather the laughter enhancing the merit of the person he laughs at, than a depreciating, or self-conceited laughter.
Once, in giving letters of introduction to a gentleman, who was going to visit Italy, I could not prevent myself from smiling, on hearing him say: “The Italians are an intelligent people.”—“How do you know it?” said I to him. “Because” he answered, “I think so.” Now a days, every thing goes so fast, that even gentlemen judge of nations before they have seen them! And celebrated writers sell their books, describing nations which they never saw. To those who praised my poor, dear country, rather too much, originated perhaps, from their blind love towards my imperfect, lovely country, I will still be thankful to them, though their praises might spoil Italy. However, the Vicar of Wakefield, also, praised his wife upon her epitaph, which he placed on the chimney piece, in order to keep the good woman to her family duties, during her life time!
No nation has yet reached the civilization for which God created us. As the lover of a little discrimination sees better the faults of the lady whom he loves, than the faults of the ladies whom he does not love, a man of letters, who has at heart the improvements of society, sees the faults of all the countries, with which he feels an interest. Of the blind lovers of my country, I will say here nothing more, than I would of those, who had no kind feeling for Italy. Besides, there are so many, who wrote on Italy, that, were I undertaking to comment on them, it would be a work too long for me, and unfit here. However, as such kind of writers form one of the most extensive branches of our present literature, I will take up “Italy and the Italians,” by J. T. Headley, for two good reasons. The first, because I find in it, the least to say against, and the second, because it is the most recent I know of on the subject.
How could Mr. Headley entitle his short reflections of six months, which he spent in that country, “Italy and the Italians,” I cannot understand. It seems to me, such a title is rather a too pompous one, when we reflect, at the same time, that Mr. Headley, by his very confession, we learn, that he did not know, at that time, the italian language.
It was no more than one or two days Mr. Headley had stepped on a shore of Italy, Genoa, when he found himself offended by two individuals. The first, was a mustached officer, who eyed him askance as he passed; and the second, a black-robed priest, not deigning him even a look, as he went. Here, I find the very logic of the wolf, disposed to eat the lamb, at a water spring.—The officer offended the writer, because he looked at him; and the priest, because he did not deign to look at him! Next, comes an elegantly dressed woman, who, I suppose, having seen Mr. Headley offended, because the priest did not look at him, she lifted her quizzing glass, coolly scanning him from head to foot, and with a smile of self-satisfaction on her face, walked on.—For me, I always like to see a lady looking at me: it is a sign of kind feeling, and innocence: and children, not spoiled by too fond parents, look at strangers with like pleasing curiosity.
The gentleman went to see an Asylum, where he found an italian woman, who had lost her mind, because her father forced her to marry a gentlemen, whom she did not love. This only instance is enough for the writer in question to say: “When we remember in what manner marriages are contracted in this country, looseness of morals in italian woman should cease to surprise us.... Her lover was a young, and melancholy creature.... The morning after she was led to the alter, she sat by her window with pale countenance, and swollen eyes, watching his coming. But, he came no more.... The night that made her a wife, made him a corpse. He had driven a stiletto through his heart.... The young bride went into a paroxysm of grief; and went raving mad.... And now for sixteen years had she lived with a dead heart in her bosom.”
Many of the suicides in America are slandered by fanatics of the temperance society, as being caused by intemperance. Mr. Headley, here, satisfies himself, by venting against the unfortunate young man, these words: “to render his death still more heart-breaking, he had not left her a single line.” Such a gratuitous imputation is, indeed unkind against a man, now in his grave! Had, the writer of “Italy, and the Italians,” sounded a little more the italian heart, he might have found, that the woman, who turned insane, and the man who killed himself for love, cannot have looseness of morals. He, and she who feel love, have a heavenly mind, free from every immoral propensity; and the innocent girl in the private company of her lover, is more morally guarded, than by the most careful parent. I speak here of a lover, and not of those wretches, who dishonor love, and whose base passion renders them incapable of killing themselves for a woman. And here I may use the language of an american lady from her Alida. “I cannot despair of any one who can love—not with the temporary interest that changes its object, as whim, or accident directs; but, who, in spite of disappointment, coldness, rejection, absence, despair, still clings to her who first taught his heart to feel it.”
Mr. Headley is rather one of the most mild in his language, among the many writers who, in copying each other, bring such an unjust blame on all the italian ladies. There may be nations, where ladies might know better how to conceal their affections; but, as the race of Adam and Eve are all beings of flesh, blood, and bones, instances of depravity are found in every part of the world; and like sins, stand in the records of America as well as of Italy: and as there are gentlemen who have their mother and sisters in Italy, whom they esteem and honor, I would advise such writers to use a better language, when they write of other nations. To speak disrespectfully of the ladies of a whole nation, it is not a demonstration; and it is only the devil on two sticks, who could be able to say so. A gentleman from the top of a tower, cannot see what passes in the households of a strange country.
The writer of “Italy and the Italians;” after having passed three weeks in the only city of Genoa, he reproaches himself by having mistook an italian lady for a common woman, because she was badly dressed. And because her good nature prevented her from resenting his innocent mistake, by this only fact, he thinks that the ladies of Italy have not the dignity of the american or english ladies. “Dignity and woman’s rights,” says he, “are nothing to an italian lady, while victory is every thing.” It seems to me that, had the italian lady pouted, because of his mistake, such a bad humor would have robbed her of all woman’s dignity, and woman’s right. Nothing is more attractive in a woman than her innocent forgiveness. And the woman, who shows any fear of losing her dignity or woman’s rights before a gentleman, she does but tell him he is not a gentleman. However, had, here, the gentleman been acquainted with her language, he might have discovered the lady under servant’s garments; and her new dress, nothing but a reproach on herself by having forgotten, at that moment, that she ought to have been better dressed before them. There are faults in innocent woman, which render her still more lovely. It is like that child who stumbles, for too much eagerness in running to embrace its mother. I suppose she was one of those good italian ladies, who forget themselves to please their neighbors; and while her innocent blunders force you to love the childish woman, who always places you at home, you find yourself happy in playing the child with her. That which one calls woman’s dignity, for another, is nothing but a chilling pride.
I must here now copy the following lines from Mr. Headley: “I have seen, and heard much of an italian love of music, but nothing illustrating it so forcibly as an incident that occured last evening at the opera. In the midst of one of the scenes, a man in the pit near the orchestra, was suddenly seized with convulsions. His limbs stiffened; his eyes became set in his head, and stood wide open, staring at the ceiling like the eyes of a corpse; while low, and agonizing groans broke from his struggling bosom. The prima donna came forward at that moment, but seeing his livid, death-stamped face before her, suddenly stopped with a tragic look and start, that for once was perfectly natural. She turned to the bass-singer, and pointed out the frightful spectacle. He also started back in horror, and the prospect was, that the opera would terminate on the spot; but, the scene that was just opening, was the one in which the prima donna was to make her great effort, and around which the whole interest of the play was gathered, and the spectators were determined not to be disappointed, because one man was dying, and so shouted ‘go on! go on!’ Clara Novello gave another look towards the groaning man, whose whole aspect was enough to freeze the blood, and then started off in her part. But, the dying man grew worse and worse, and finally sprung bolt upright in his seat. A person sitting behind him, all-absorbed in the music, immediately placed his hands on his shoulders, pressed him down again, and held him firmly in his place. There he sat, pinioned fast with his pale, corpse-like face upturned, in the midst of that gay assemblage, and the foam rolling over his lips, while the braying of trumpets, and the voice of the singer, drowned the groans that were rending his bosom. At length the foam became streaked with blood, as it oozed through his teeth, and the convulsive starts grew quicker and fiercer. But, the man behind, held him fast, while he gazed in perfect rapture on the singer, who now, like the ascending lark, was trying her loftiest strain. As it ended, the house rang with applause, and the man, who had held down the poor dying creature could contain his ecstacy no longer, and lifting his hands from his shoulders, clapped them rapidly together three or four times, crying out over the ears of the dying man, ‘Brava, brava!’ and then hurriedly placing them back again to prevent his springing up in his convulsive throes. It was a perfectly maddening spectacle, and the music jarred on the chords of my heart, like the blows of a hammer. But, the song was ended, the effect secured, and so the spectators could attend to the sufferer in their midst. The gens d’armes entered, and carried him speechless, and lifeless out of the theatre. If this be the refined nature, and sensitive soul, love of music creates, heaven, keep me from it, and my countrymen. Give me a heart with chords that vibrate to human suffering, sooner than to the most ravishing melody, aye, that can hear nothing, and feel nothing else, when moving pity speaks. But, so the world goes—men will weep over a dying ass, then pitch a brother into the ditch. A play, oh, how they can appreciate, and feel it, they are so sensitive; but a stern stirring fact, they can look as coldly on, as a statue!”