FROM A LETTER TO —— ——.
Bellagio, Lake of Como, August, 1847.
You do not deceive yourself surely about religion, in so far as that there is a deep meaning in those pangs of our fate which, if we live by faith, will become our most precious possession. "Live for thy faith and thou shalt yet behold it living," is with me, as it hath been, a maxim.
Wherever I turn, I see still the same dark clouds, with occasional gleams of light. In this Europe how much suffocated life!—a sort of woe much less seen with us. I know many of the noble exiles, pining for their natural sphere; many of them seek in Jesus the guide and friend, as you do. For me, it is my nature to wish to go straight to the Creative Spirit, and I can fully appreciate what you say of the need of our happiness depending on no human being. Can you really have attained such wisdom? Your letter seemed to me very modest and pure, and I trust in Heaven all may be solid.
I am everywhere well received, and high and low take pleasure in smoothing my path. I love much the Italians. The lower classes have the vices induced by long subjection to tyranny; but also a winning sweetness, a ready and discriminating love for the beautiful, and a delicacy in the sympathies, the absence of which always made me sick in our own country. Here, at least, one does not suffer from obtuseness or indifference. They take pleasure, too, in acts of kindness; they are bountiful, but it is useless to hope the least honor in affairs of business. I cannot persuade those who serve me, however attached, that they should not deceive me, and plunder me. They think that is part of their duty towards a foreigner. This is troublesome no less than disagreeable; it is absolutely necessary to be always on the watch against being cheated.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER.
One loses sight of all dabbling and pretension when seated at the feet of dead Rome,—Rome so grand and beautiful upon her bier. Art is dead here; the few sparkles that sometimes break through the embers cannot make a flame; but the relics of the past are great enough, over-great; we should do nothing but sit, and weep, and worship.
In Rome, one has all the free feeling of the country; the city is so interwoven with vineyards and gardens, such delightful walks in the villas, such ceaseless music of the fountains, and from every high point the Campagna and Tiber seem so near.
Full of enchantment has been my summer, passed wholly among Italians, in places where no foreigner goes, amid the snowy peaks, in the exquisite valleys of the Abruzzi. I have seen a thousand landscapes, any one of which might employ the thoughts of the painter for years. Not without reason the people dream that, at the death of a saint, columns of light are seen to hover on those mountains. They take, at sunset, the same rose-hues as the Alps. The torrents are magnificent. I knew some noblemen, with baronial castles nestled in the hills and slopes, rich in the artistic treasures of centuries. They liked me, and showed me the hidden beauties of Roman remains.