Easter Sunday, April 3d.
It has been a beautiful day. Bessie and I went to the English church, which was crowded. We could only find seats quite at the bottom of the church, and those were chairs which had been brought in at the last moment. We went afterward to breakfast with the Wurts in their beautiful apartment. They had flowers everywhere (from their villa) and the rooms looked like a garden. We were quite a party—16—and stayed there talking and looking at everything until after three. Then we started for a drive. I wanted to go to the Protestant Cemetery and see the little mortuary chapel we built after father's death. Some one told me it was utterly uncared for, going to ruin. The gates were open as we drove up, a good many carriages waiting, and plenty of people walking about inside. It is a lovely, peaceful spot, so green and still, many fine trees, quantities of camellias, and violets on almost every grave. The chapel stood just as I remembered it—in the middle of the cemetery. It is in perfectly good order, and had evidently been used quite lately as there were wooden trestles to support a coffin, and bits of wreaths and stalks of flowers lying about. The two inscriptions, Latin on one side and English on the other, are both quite well preserved and legible. I wanted very much to see a guardian or director of the cemetery, but there was only a woman at the gate, who knew nothing, hadn't been there very long, in fact she knew nothing about the chapel, and showed me a room opening into the old cemetery (where Keats is buried) which looked more like a lumber room than anything else. There are some interesting monuments, one to Mrs. Story, quite simple and beautiful, an angel kneeling with folded wings. It was done by her husband, the last thing he did, his son told me. The old cemetery looks quite deserted, close under the great pyramid of Caius Cestius, the few graves quite uncared for, a general air of neglect, a fitting resting-place for the poor young poet whose profound discouragement will go down to posterity. Every one goes to the grave and reads the melancholy inscription, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
It was such a lovely afternoon that we drove on to Tre Fontane. There, too, there were people. The churches were open, but there was no service going on; however the place has always a great charm. The tops of the eucalyptus trees were swaying in a little breeze, and the smell was stronger and more aromatic than when we were there the other day.
We have had a quiet evening, all of us, children and grown-ups, Protestants and Catholics, singing the English Easter Hymns. Josephine, who is a very strict Catholic, loves the English hymns, and certainly we can all sing "Christ the Lord is Risen To-day," for Easter is a fête for all the world. I am sorry I didn't go to St. Peter's this morning. I don't know that there was any special ceremony, but for the sake of old times I should have liked to have had my Easter and Hallelujah there.
I am writing rather under difficulties as the telephone is ringing furiously (it goes all day, as every one in the house uses it for everything). At the present moment Josephine seems conversing with "all manner of men"—the Marquise Villa Marina from the Queen's Palace, the padrone of the hotel where Mustel is staying, and one or two others. It seems Queen Margherita would like to have Mustel and his organ to-morrow night at the Palace; and has asked us three, Bessie, Josephine and me, to come. I am very glad for Mustel who wants so much to be heard by the Queen. He hopes to sell some of his organs here. They are not expensive, but so few people care about an organ of their own.
Wednesday, April 6th.
We had an interesting evening at the palace on Monday. I couldn't get there for the beginning, as I had a big dinner, and a very pleasant one, at the Iddings'. When I arrived I heard the music going on, but the Marquise de Villa Marina came to meet me in the corridor, and we walked up and down talking until the piece was over. I found a small party—the Queen, her mother, the Duchess of Genoa, and about fifteen or twenty people. The Queen was in black, with beautiful pearl necklace. She received me charmingly and was most kind and gracious to Mustel, saying she was so pleased to see a French artist, and taking great interest in his instrument. He played several times: Handel's grand aria, Bach, and the Marche des Pèlerins from "Tannhäuser," which sounded magnificent—quite an effect of orchestra.
About 11.30 there was a pause. The Duchess of Genoa came over and talked to me a little, saying she had known my husband and followed his career with great interest, his English origin and education making him quite different from the usual run of French statesmen. She also spoke of my sister-in-law, Madame de Bunsen, whom she had known formerly in Florence. She exchanged a few words with the other ladies, and then withdrew, the Queen and her ladies accompanying her to her apartments. We remained talking with the other guests until Queen Margherita came back. She asked Mustel to play once more—and then we had orangeade, ices, and cakes. There was a small buffet at one end of the drawing-room. It was quite half-past twelve when the Queen dismissed us. We had a real musical evening, pleasant and easy.
Cardinal Antonelli. From a picture painted for the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. From a photograph given to Madame Waddington by the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar at Rome.