My mother’s last winter in Rome was full of activities. She was instrumental in founding an important organization among the Roman ladies, somewhat in the nature of our Civic Leagues. She also organized a literary club where she and other liberal thinkers addressed a thoughtful audience made up about equally of Romans and members of the Anglo-American colony. Among the speakers I remember Richard Norton, who gave us a brilliant talk upon the worship of Vesta, who, he maintained, was the only really original deity in all Roman mythology, the other gods having all been borrowed from Egypt or from Greece; as he put it:
“The gods of Hellas came over to Rome in the chapman’s pack!”
Paul Loyson, the son of Père Hyacinthe, was a member of this club and more than once spoke to us. He was a handsome young man, full of poetic impulse and a pronounced liberal in his views.
On Sunday mornings Miss Leigh Smith, a cousin of Florence Nightingale’s and a stanch Unitarian, summoned a group of friends to her apartment in the Trinità dei Monti, where we held a little service conducted by my mother. Among those who took part was Paul Sabatier, the French author. Our hostess was one of the most interesting figures in the Rome of that day, and her house was a Mecca to American and English travelers.
The artists admired my mother, who was much in demand as a sitter. She consented to pose for Villegas, who made a quick, powerful portrait of her, excellent in everything save the expression, which to those who remember the extraordinary tenderness of her face in those years, is strangely militant. The sittings occurred just after the sinking of the Maine, when the Spanish War was close at hand, and the thoughts of the people of both nations were filled with it to the exclusion of all other topics. Villegas was a Spaniard and full of anguish for his country, while my mother was filled with a righteous indignation at every mention of Spain. During the sittings they could neither of them think or speak of anything but the war, and this accounts for Villegas’ portrait showing our old chieftainess in a fighting mood! Something of this stern spirit is also felt in Hendrik Anderson’s bust of her made at the same time. People talked so much about her appearance that her niece Daisy Chanler once exclaimed:
“My aunt, I am always prepared for fresh surprises from you, but I confess I had not expected this succès de beauté.”
For many years my husband designed her costumes. She wore oftenest a white cashmere dress made something like the Pope’s robe. For the morning he allowed green or lilac, but black was banished from her wardrobe. She kept the coquetry of youth in her dress, though she avoided looking in the glass because she could not bear to see how old she was. In spite of this, she discussed our plans for a new dress with the zest of a débutante.
The blessing of my mother’s presence lingered in some subtle manner in our Roman dwelling after she left; now that she knew our surroundings and friends, I never again felt so far away from her or from home, and wrote with greater freedom than before of the life she had shared. Her letters to me show that her last winter in her beloved Rome was tenderly remembered.
241 Beacon St., March 6, 1899.
My dearest Ewe-lamb: Here I sit in the dear old house which you helped so much to provide for my old age and at the desk where I have ground out the tasks so many years. My book of poems, “From Sunset Ridge”, is just out. I don’t expect to make any money by it, but am glad to have the poems preserved. I have corrected the proofs for my first installment of my “Reminiscences” for the Atlantic Monthly. When you last wrote me you were in Lucca. I did not know it was so rich in works of art. You must by now be settled in your pretty nest. Give my love to the flowers—how I did enjoy them and what a good time I had with you. Your two dear letters just received bring you so near to me that I must write you one word this very day to say how much of your life and cheer these letters bring me. I seem to smell the very atmosphere of the Rusticucci, to see the pictures on the wall, to hear N. asking for his daily orders. What you say about the Monsignore reassures me; you must not think for one minute that I undervalue your native good sense and power of discernment, only “them Jesuits” is very cunning people and I had a momentary spasm of fear which your dear letter has removed.