It is now nearly fourteen years, since I arrived in the United States of North America; and were I, here, relating the wrongs, and injustice I received from the hands of several americans—Mr. Headly, though I have not the honor of his acquaintance, as I think him a gentleman, and a man of feeling, in spite of his “Italy and the Italians,” were he using the same style in blaming his countrymen as he blames mine, Mr. Headley, I say, would execrate all the americans! But, stop, my dear sir, I would say to him; you ought not to execrate them all, because I had the misfortune of having fallen among a few american rogues. If I met individuals, whom Petrarca would call gente cui si fa notte innanzi sera, I have nevertheless a high respect still, for the whole nation: and although in this christian old, and new world it is difficult, very difficult to find a friend, not only I have a friend in America; but, I know many whom, though not my friends, I respect and esteem; and could I know the many virtuous, who generally, and unfortunately, are always the most retired, I am sure to find such a number in America—sufficient to shame those, who spoke badly of the whole nation, from which they cannot deny a Franklin received his birth. Still, Mr. Headley, who cannot ignore the many virtuous italians, who accelerated the civilization of the two hemispheres; and the last, though useless efforts made by italians for the rights of a suffering plurality; Mr. Headly, I say, proceeds his foregoing lines with the following: “How such things weaken one’s faith in man, and make him scorn his own nature, that is capable of such stone-like indifference to human suffering! These italians, as a mass, I do not like. They are exceedingly civil, but heartless—frank in manners, but capable of great duplicity in action—fiery-hearted, but not steadily brave, and selfish to any amount of meanness. In a word, you cannot trust them.” But, let us come to the point.
Genoa is a haven where the fourth of the population are strangers; and those who go to the italian opera, are strangers. Without mistake we can calculate that, in that theatre, more than the half of spectators must have been strangers. Mr. Headly says in his pamphlet, that Clara Novello was an english woman; and he does not know if the man who placed his hands on the patient, was an italian or not. But, were such a man an italian, he can no more disgrace the whole italian nation, than a Mr. Ballard can disgrace the whole Union, with his cowardly crime, against the noble minded Miss Amelia Norman. That the spectators in that italian theatre, must have thought the case of the so called dying man, not in such an urgent situation as Mr. Headley did, the very coolness with which the other man held the patient, proves it. But, if Mr. Headley did really think the man was dying; why did not his good american heart, force him to run to his succor? Or, at least, if he was morally suffering, and gazing passively at the dying man as well as the rest of those italians; why he does not suppose all those italians, though idle as he, not to have suffered his very undecided, and painful situation?
I was in Virginia; strangers were suspected as being abolitionists: some strangers had been mobbed, and hung on mere suspicion. In passing by a crowd of people assembled for an election, and seeing many persons around two men, one white and the other black, the former holding the second, bound with a rope like Jesus Christ, when he was dragged to Golgotha, and the white, thinking his old prisoner an escaped slave, with the smile of an expected gain, for which he appeared to me like another Judas, I approached the crowd; and seeing that the poor old black man was suffering, the rope being too tight, I remarked with pity to those, who were laughing at his sufferings, that the rope was torturing the poor human being! Suddenly the whole crowd felt the same charity, and pity I felt; and many went immediately to the magistrate, telling him they doubted the man being a slave, and soon they found he was a free black. I was in that place as a foreigner fallen from the clouds; no body was there to protect me, had a malicious man, for the sake of mischief, whispered, that I was an abolitionist. Mr. Headley could not have such an apprehension in Italy, had he acted with the impulse of his good heart.
Incapacity, timidity, and indecision, which cramp the finest feelings of the human heart, disappear in an instant from a crowded assembly, as soon as one, among them, springs forward the first, to do a good action. The bravest soldiers left the field of a nearly gained battle, because their general had, at that moment, the apprehension of death; and coward soldiers gained battles, because their general was brave, daring the whole time they were fighting. A motley crowd of people are less than soldiers; and an unexpected event in a place of pleasure, will paralyze their very faculties. Had I remained passive as Mr. Headley, I would not have felt the pleasure in seeing that, that crowd of americans had a heart as well as I; and that, if they did not feel sooner the pity which I felt, it was because they were habituated to see slaves in like situation, and not by want of a good heart. Were it necessary, I would bring many like instances which happened to me in America. But, my object, here, is neither a wish to write of my good actions, nor that of judging the whole mass of americans by such little things, or little casualties.
However, as the english Clara Novello went on with her sweet strain, the man near, held the patient down, and the people seemed to overlook the painful sight, I am rather inclined to think, that the patient must have been an epileptic, perhaps known as such by every one in that italian theatre, or, at least, believed by them an epileptic, a malady for which no remedy has yet been found, and the best thing is, to leave him alone, until the spasm will pass over.
Were I controverting all the little incidents upon which, as it seems, Mr. Headley places too much consideration; this work, which I intend to have printed in the form of a small pamphlet, would grow to a big volume. I will only say here, that a writer who intends to give an idea of Italy, and of the Italians, should have taken a quite different ground, though he says: “I have gone over these little things, because they are the best illustration of italian character.” So, a people who has its enemies in the house, a people from whom to expect freedom is to expect the impossible, impossible, I say, because France with her pretended freedom, England with her selfishness, Russia with her despotism, and all the european despotical alliance, diabolically blessed, and sanctioned by what they call christian religion, did, and always would unite with Austria, to crush Italy—her people is judged by little things, which travelers, meet on their way. Every time the italians attempted to shake off the yoke of foreign tyrants, the tyrants oppressing the very italian princes, who rule italian blood, the pope, and his accomplices rendered grace to God, when they heard that their jealous enemies, I mean the protesants, gave to italian princes, ropes to hang the italian Catos, who attempted to place on the italian soil, italian princes, free of foreign servitude. But, this yet uncivilized world, in which the friends of humanity are misrepresented, is still doomed to look without feeling at victims, who honor our degraded race!—May the true God, who is in heaven, listen to my prayer! A short prayer, but a true one!—Foreigners who call us effeminate, must be effeminate themselves, unless they are so ignorant as to call Brutus an effeminate, because they find him in chains with a slave, and forced to work with the last of men! Travelers, and Mr. Headley blame italians, because they find under that sky, worthy of a better fortune, beggars, and wretches “selling their rich ornaments that were the objects of their ancestors’ affection, and veneration, like the trinkets of a toy shop.” But, you, spoiled children of more happy governments, you should not, at least, laugh at our nakedness!—And the pretty piedemontese who gave you a fall, Mr. Headley, because her necessity forced her to stand before you with a little pewter dish in her hand, most humbly asking for a few sous, rather as charity, than as a recompense of her mountain songs; instead of throwing her the coppers, and thinking her inspiration nothing but a love of money, your good, american heart should have prompted a feeling, if not mixed with tears, at least, with a smile of sympathy, which would have been, by far, more pleasing to an italian heart, than your few coppers. That poor delicate female was singing not for the love of money, a love which wrongs rather too much this country of America. She charmed you for the urgent necessity of hunger! And who knows that the loaf of bread she bought with your few coppers, had not been mixed with her innocent and bitter tears? And that hunger is originated from the continual plunders which the despotical foreign powers in Italy, and surrounding Italy, are unlawfully forcing on us to maintain an exorbitant army, with which to distress us. Who knows, that the father of the poor piedmontese had not been hanged for having claimed the rights of man, the very rights to which God did create us?
The other ragged woman to whom your american navy taught how to say: ‘God damn’ without knowing the meaning of it, would prove, that if such americans are found in Italy, passing their christian time with such women, your americans must have looseness of morals as much as my italians. But, as I think the cursing women in Broadway cannot take off the merit of the american ladies, you have no right to think that my mother, and sisters are not ladies! Sins are committed in every part of this world; but, as we know there are virtuous people, we should exclude the greater number, or, at least, think ourselves no better. We are all fine nations, indeed, in this pretended christian world! But, since we cannot fling the first stone, we have no right to laugh at the faults of our neighbor, nor to tell, that our neighbor has not our virtues, or morals.
Mr. Headley has now already passed the half of his time he spent in Italy, which is to say, three months: and though during these three months, he never went out of Genoa, he says that nothing is more stupid than an italian soiree. Had he said a genoese soiree, Mr. Headley would have only offended the citizens of Genoa, who gave him hospitality: but, to offend the whole of Italy, who had never had the pleasure of seeing him, nor he the displeasure of seeing their stupidity, it is what we call a gratuitous offense.—Not pleased therefore, in finding them excessively stupid, he believes that ten dollars would pay, each evening, all the expenses the governor is at, in the entertainment!—Were I saying the same against the kind americans who honored me, every one would be right in thinking, that I must have accepted their invitations, rather for their refreshments than for the pleasure of their conversation. And here, I must copy Mr. Headley’s outline of the italian soirees:—“Splendid rooms, brilliantly illuminated, any quantity of nobility—dancing, waltzing, promenading, ice creams, hot punch,” no hot corn, Mr. Headley? “and late hours make up the description. It is gay, and brilliant, but without force or wit.” And here, benevolent reader, a stranger, who does not know the italian language, dares to say of having found no wit! And, because the kind italians had no other way to please the happy gentleman of this New World, seeing he could not understand their language, they gave him dancing, waltzing, promenading, ice cream and hot punch: and because these things could not amount to ten dollars, he blames, them because the scanty refreshments had not been supplied by wit, with which nature did not favor those poor italian brains! The american lady, I have already quoted, says in her Alida: “Superfluous refinements in eating, and drinking are among the enjoyments least important to a rational being. Do not let us poison a feast to a neighbor, by the mortifying reflection that he can make no similar return. An evil spirit of competition is thus awakened, and all true hospitality destroyed.”
While Mr. Headley claims as an american, a beautiful english lady, whose charms had been transmitted from her american mother, he sadly writes of not having found in Italy not a really pretty woman; and the only one he met, who was called the belle of the city, it was, what he would term, of the doll kind. And mind here, benevolent reader, that the Italy of Mr. Headley, is nothing else but the city of Genoa! He has not yet gone out of it.
To define beauty, I have nothing else to say, that a beauty is the beauty of different men, who have different sight, and different feeling. The artist will always draw it as he feels it himself. But, he who pretends to settle rules on beauty, must needs not know what beauty is. The beauty of one’s eyes cannot be the beauty of another, though rules we find settled by different nations. The Venus of De Medici is a greek beauty, whom a greek would love in preference to any italian, english, french, chinese, or indian beauty. But the chinese will always prefer the chinese, as well as the indian the wild one. He who compares the music of Hyden or Mozart, with the music of Rossini or Bellini, shows too plainly, he does not understand the art. He who wishes to see pretty women, has only to step into the car, and in a few hours he will see in Baltimore a great many. But, if he delays five or six years longer, he might meet there the ugliest in the world, so the glory of the world is transient. Once, in passing through a small city of France, all the women I saw in that place were so pretty, that I thought to have fallen into the garden of Armida. Still, though we know that every dog has its happy days, there are travelers who did not pass but six months in Italy, running through ten cities of that populous country, who, like Mr. Headley, asserted not to have seen one single pretty italian lady. I did pass myself more than six months in one single city of America, without having met one pretty lady, when to my astonishment, I met in that very city, on a public walk, beauties as cheerful as the sun. To bless this being of war, called man, nature did scatter beauties in every part of this singular planet.