IN VENICE ONCE.
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In Venice once they lived and loved— Fair women with their red gold hair— Their twinkling feet to music moved, In Venice where they lived and loved, And all Philosophy disproved, While hope was young and life was fair, In Venice where they lived and loved. |
It is interesting to feel in this a far suggestion of Browning's "A Toccata of Galuppi's," because so seldom does any echo of her contemporaries strike through Mrs. Moulton's verse.
With friends Mrs. Moulton visited Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi, Castellamare, Pompeii, and then went on to Rome. Here she passed the morning of her fiftieth birthday in the galleries of the Vatican. Friends made a festa of her birthday, with a birthday-cake and gifts; and she dined with the Storys, to go on later to one of Sir Moses Ezekiel's notable musicales at his study in the Baths of Diocletian. "The most picturesque of studios," she wrote, "and a most cosmopolitan company,—at least fifty ladies and gentlemen, representing every civilized race.... All languages were spoken. Pascarella, the Italian poet, recited.... Professor Lunardi, of the Vatican library, who has his Dante and Ariosto by heart, was talking Latin to an American Catholic clergyman." Of this studio she gives a picturesque description:
"Suspended from the lofty ceiling was a hanging basket of flowers encircled by a score of lights; while around the walls hundreds of candles in antique sconces were burning, throwing fitful gleams over marble busts and groups of statuary. The frescoes on the walls are fragments of the walls of Diocletian, and the floor is covered with rich antique tiles fifteen hundred years old. Eight elephants' heads hold the candles that light the studio on ordinary occasions. Two colossal forms claim the attention of the visitor; one, the picture of a herald, drawn by Sir Moses, holds in his right hand the shield of art; the other is the figure of Welcome, holding in one hand a glass of wine, while the other rests upon a shield. The most striking and interesting work in the studio is the group of Homer. The figure of the poet is of heroic size, and he is represented sitting on the seashore, reciting the Iliad, and beating time with his hands; even in his blindness, his face wears an expression that seems to be looking into the future and down through the ages of time. At his feet is seated his guide, a youth with Egyptian features, who accompanies Homer with strokes on the lyre."
In the studio was also a bronze bust of Liszt, the only one for which he ever sat, and which Sir Moses modelled at the Villa d'Este.
After Rome came Florence, where Mrs. Moulton was the guest of Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement Waters, who had taken a villa in that city. Among other people whom Mrs. Moulton met at this time was "Ouida," who unbent from her accustomed stiffness to Americans, and, yielding to the charm of her guest, displayed her house and pets in a manner which for her was almost without precedent. Mrs. Waters gave a brilliant reception in her honor; she was the guest of the Princess Koltzoff Massalsky (Dora d'Istria), and she visited Professor Fiske at the Villa Landor, where she was "charmed by his wonderful library" with its collections of the most notable editions of Dante and Petrarca; and she was entertained by Professor and Madame Villari.
From Florence she went to Aix-les-Bains. Then she passed to England.
In London she saw constantly almost everybody of note in literary circles. Her diary records visits to or from or meetings with the Lord Bishop of Winchester, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, Lord Morley, Thomas Hardy, the Bishop of Ripon, Mr. Verschoyle of the Fortnightly Review, William Sharp, Frederick Wedmore, Sir Frederic and Lady Pollock, Dr. Furnival, and others, for a list too long to give entire. Her journal shows how full were her days.
"Mrs. Campbell-Praed came to lunch; a lot of callers in the afternoon, among them the Verschoyles, the Francillons, Mrs. Cashel-Hoey, Mrs. Fred Chapman, and Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt.