From the Oak to the Olive: A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey

by Julia Ward Howe

Of the Protestant preaching I will once more and finally say, that it is a genuine missionary work, and commend it to the good wishes and good offices of those whose benefactions do not fear to cross the ocean. May it permanently thrive and prosper.

Of the pictures I can only say, that I doubly congratulate myself on having paid them my last homage before leaving Titian's lovely city. For, not long after, a cruel fire broke out in or near that sacristy, precious with carvings in wood and marble bas-reliefs; and all the treasures were destroyed, including the two pictures, only temporarily bestowed there, and many square yards of multitude by Tintoretto, bearing, as usual, his own portrait in a sly corner, representative, no doubt, of his wish to watch the effect of his masterpieces upon humanity at large. The Madonna by Bellini was a charming picture, but the St. Peter is a loss that concerns the world. The saint, one hopes, has been comfortable in Paradise these many years. But the artist? What Paradise would console him for the burning of one of his chefs-d'œuvre? He would be like Rachel weeping for her children, which reminds me that ideal parentage is of no sex. The artist, the poet, the reformer, are father and mother, all in one.

We left Venice, the diary tells me, on the 5th of August, with what regret we need not say. The same venerable authority records a grave disagreement with the custom-house officers, of whose ministrations we had received no previous warning. So, two very modest pieces of dress goods, delayed in the making, caused me to be branded as a contrabandista, with a fine, and record to my discredit. I confess to some indecorous manifestations of displeasure at these circumstances. The truth is, forewarned is forearmed. Venice is a free port, and the traveller who leaves her by railroad for the first time may not be aware of the strict account to which he will be held for every little indulgence in Venetian traffic. Now, to have the spoons presented to you in the house, and to be arrested as a thief when you would pass the door, is a grievous ending to a hospitable beginning. So it came to pass that I anathematized beautiful Venice as I departed, gathering up the broken fragments of my peace, past diamond cement. But here, in trunk-upsetting Boston, I bethink me, and confess. I was wrong, utterly wrong, O custom-house officers, when I frowned and stormed at you, contending inch by inch and phrase by phrase. You were neither unjust nor uncivil, although I was both. Only I still attest and obsecrate to the fact that I did not intend to smuggle, and entered your jealous domain with no sense of contraband about me. Yet to such wrath did your perquisitions bring me, that the angry thoughts slackened only at Verona, where the tombs of the Scaligers and the rounds of the amphitheatre compelled me to quiet small distempers with great thoughts.

At railroad speed, however, we visited these rare monuments. Can Grande and his horse looked flat and heavy from their eminence. We admired the beautiful iron screen of one of the tombs, hammer-wrought, and flexible as a shirt of mail. And we remembered Dante, paid two francs to the guardian of the enclosure, and drove away. The afternoon's journey whirled us past some strange antique towns, with walls and battlements, and at night we were in Bolsena, Germanicè Bottsen. And when we asked the hotel maid if she had ever been in Verona, she replied, "O, no; that is in Italy." And so we knew that we were not.

FLYING FOOTSTEPS.

The journey which we now commenced was too rapid to allow of more than the briefest record of its route. The breathlessness of haste, and the number of things to be seen and visited, left no time for writing up on the subjects suggested by the meagre notes of the diary. To the latter, therefore, I am forced to betake myself, piecing its fragmentary statements, where I can do so, from memory.

Tuesday, August 6. Started with vetturino for Innspruck, via Brenner pass. A splendid day's journey. Stopped to dine at a pretty village,—name forgotten,—at whose principal inn a smart, bustling maid-servant in costume, very clean and civil, came to the carriage, helped us to alight, and carried our travelling bags up stairs to a parlor with a stout bed in it, upon which our chief threw himself and slept until the cutlets were ready. This old-fashioned zeal and civility were pleasant to contemplate once more, probably for the last time. For a railroad has been built over the Brenner pass, the which will go into operation next week. Then will these pleasant manners insensibly fade away, with the up-to-time curtness of modern travel. The porter who helps you to carry your hand luggage from the car to the depot will sternly demand his fee for that laborious service. All officials will grow as reticent of doing you the smallest pleasure as if civility were a contraband of war. And it does indeed become so, for the railroad develops the antagonisms of trade. Its flaming sword allows of no wanderings in wayside Paradises. Its steam trumpet shrieks in your ear the lesson that the straight line is the shortest distance between two points. It swallows you at one point and vomits you at another, with extreme risk of your life between. And it vulgarizes every place that it touches. The mixed stir and quiet of the little town become concentrated into fixed crises of excitement. For the postilion's horn and whip, and the pleasant rattling of the coming and going post-chaise, you will have, three or four times in the day, those shrill bars whose infernal symphony is mercifully allowed to proceed no farther; and a cross and steaming crowd; and a cool and supercilious few in the first or second class wart-saal; and then a dull and dead quiet in the little town, as if steam and stir came and went together, and left nothing behind them.

The buxom maid-servant mourned over the impending ruin of the small tavern business, as she showed us the curious arrangements of the old house. It had formerly been a convent of nuns, and was very solidly put together. The back windows commanded a lovely view of the mountains. In the garden we found a pleasant open house, no doubt formerly a place for devout assemblages and meditations, but now chiefly devoted to the consumption of beer.

After dinner we walked to the church near by, and looked at the curious iron crosses and small mural tablets which marked the final resting-place of the village worthies. Their petty offices and cherished distinctions were all preserved here. All of them had received the "holy death sacrament," and had started on the mysterious voyage in good hope. Through this whole extent of country, the crucifixes by the wayside were numerous. Resuming our journey, we reached Mittelwald, a picturesque hamlet, composed of a small church, a stream, a bridge, and a short string of houses. Here we defeated the future machinations of all officers of customs, by causing the two offending dress-patterns, already twice paid for, and treated at length in various printed and written documents, to be cut into breadths, which we hastily managed to sew up, reserving their fuller treatment for the purlieus of civilized life.

Our two days' drive over the mountains was refreshing and most charming. Our vetturino was not less despondent than the maid-servant before alluded to. In our progress we were much in sight of the scarcely completed railroad, whose locomotive and working cars constantly appeared and disappeared before us, plunging into the numerous tunnels that defeat the designs of the mountain fortresses, and mocking our slow progress, as the money-getting train of success and sensation mocks the tedious steps of learning and the painful elaboration of art.