There were so many ecclesiastics among the habitués of our house that it is not wonderful my mother feared I might like my cousins join the Church of Rome. I have warm friends among the clergy, but never for an instant, while living under the very shadow of the Vatican, did I feel the faintest inclination to change the religion in which I was bred. Was it some trait inherited from my ancestor, that old cavalry officer, John Ward of Oliver Cromwell’s army, who after the Restoration took refuge in Rhode Island, that made me so indifferent to the strong influences that from time to time were brought to bear upon me? I like to think so, and that in whatever else I have failed, I have kept the faith!
[To my Mother.]
Rome, April 11, 1899. Lady W., a stout Englishwoman, rich, respectable, a city “knightess” or ex-Lady Mayoress, desires me to help her in the selection of pleasant guests to entertain during the Congress of Women to be held in London in June. The ladies are to stay at her house. Constance Flower (Lady Battersea) asked this and is evidently to be a personage in the coming congress. I was invited to meet Lady W. especially for this object, so do you stir yourself and find out who the American delegates are, and suggest to Lady W. those she might invite, so that she may have acceptable guests.
Yesterday I had a “great daughters” tea party, the Longfellow women, Alice and Edith, Huxley’s daughter, and to meet them, Loyson, son of Père Hyacinthe and Penn Browning, son of Robert and Elizabeth.
Anacapri, October 12, 1899. I have begun many letters to you lately and finished some, but all have been torn up because a touch of east wind seemed somehow to get into them—it’s always like that after a long lonely hot summer in Rome. Now I can send you a flood of sunshine. Last Saturday Jessie Cochrane, John Loudon, and I came by invitation and took possession of the Foresteria, a little villa belonging to Dr. Axel Munthe at Anacapri. We had rather a troublous journey down, the Capri steamer was poor, the sea rough. We landed in pouring rain after dark and drove up and up the steep zigzagging road to Anacapri, which I think you never saw, a little town perched at the tiptop of the island of Capri. The road was not finished when you and I were here so long ago. We met Dr. Munthe walking on the road, followed by three immense wolfhounds, on his way to visit a patient. He had not expected us till the next day, so we slept that night at a quaint little inn, the Paradise, and on Sunday morning took possession of our Eden,—I can’t call it less. The Foresteria has a small garden filled with roses, passion flowers, grapes, figs and white doves. The house is perfect. I want it. It would just fit J. and me. Loudon sleeps at the hotel but is with us all day. Two dear Capriotes, man and wife, serve us and cook deliciously. We may give no orders to them; our host attends to all this. He lives close at hand, but we hardly see him.
Capri is one of the loveliest places in the world. The vintage is beginning; tall girls bearing baskets of purple grapes on their heads pass constantly up and down the street of stairs. The whole land is fragrant with new wine.
Dr. Munthe is a remarkable man. His patients, who often occupy the Foresteria, are mostly the rich and great of every land, with at least one royalty among them. He is a sort of overlord to the peasants, scolds them, tends them when they are ill, settles their disputes, in fine, acts the part of a benevolent despot. He has made some excavations with rich finds. You remember that Tiberius lived here and there were many sumptuous villas in the Capri of his time.
To call on C. C. Coleman. He spoke much of Kate Field, whom he greatly admired. Called on Captain Butler and saw his wife, the daughter of my old friend Anna, the guide of the Villa of “Timberio.” She has traces of the great beauty J. remembers, splendid teeth and eyes. Butler, who lost an arm in the Civil War, was a landscape and animal painter. After the loss of the right hand he had to learn to work with his left, and took up portrait painting, in which he is very successful. His attitude towards his wife was tender and chivalrous. The couple interested me deeply. They have a daughter and three sons, one a famous football player. They were living in a house they had taken near the pretty cottage Butler gave Anna. They gave me a glass of Capri wine, a present from the husband of Mrs. B.’s godchild. This relationship seems to be especially considered here. A godchild is a member of its madrina’s family. Mrs. Butler said she preferred the United States to Capri (they have a farm in New Jersey), but that “out there” she “missed the flowers.” I don’t wonder. The wonderful broom is ablaze, passion flowers such as I never dreamed of clasp and curl about every gate and pergola. The lovely myrtle is in bloom. The island is starred with wild flowers, many quite new to me.
To-day I enjoyed a sea bath at the Marina Grande, driving down from Anacapri. It was so like Newport, the cool blue water so very native, that I felt a little homesick. Tea at the Quisisana, a delightful hotel but expensive. The moon, a blood-red crescent, made a splendid descent behind the Sorrentine Peninsula. We watched it set from the balcony outside our room. The Bay of Naples was a pale turquoise, the sky old-rose color. The people here are as beautiful as tradition holds—the handsomest I ever saw.
November 9, 1899. Mother! The first cream of this day I skim for you as it is my birthday, and but for your kind assistance, I should never have been born at all, so in some measure you have your rights in my natal day. I don’t like to be quite so elderly (I heard you say to J. that you hated to see your daughters grow old) but I don’t mean to be so melancholy about it as your poems seem to imply you were,—“The shell of objects inwardly consumed, etc.” Last night John Loudon dined with us for the last time. He leaves to-morrow for the Hague where he has a fine appointment in the foreign office. He is in despair at going. Rome has gripped him hard and tight. His going leaves, as you will know, a great blank for us. He improves always, and the wrench I had at parting with him is the most severe since I put you on the steamer at Naples. My best news is that I am having an Emerson spree, having “shook with ol’ Shakespere” all summer. Read again the essays on Compensations and Self-Reliance.