We have had a tragedy in our neighbourhood. A pretty English girl was burned fatally at a ball. Her mother, in trying to rescue her, was burned also. Both died in three or four days. The husband, who was burned also, is still ill. This is the eighteenth woman of my acquaintance to whom this has happened. Why do you wear crinoline? You should set an example. It is only necessary to turn around before the chimney-place, or to look at one’s self in the mirror (there is one always above the fireplace), to be roasted alive. It is true that one dies but once, and that it is a great source of satisfaction to exhibit a monstrous bustle, as if any one could be deceived by a balloon full of air! Why do you not have a metallic curtain before your chimney-place?
It seems that they are becoming more religious in Paris. I receive sermons from people from whom I should have expected something quite different. I am told that M. de Persigny came out as an ultra-papist in the committee of the Address to the Senate. Well and good, I do not believe there has ever been a period in the history of the world when it was more stupid than it is in this age. All this will last while it may, but the end is a little terrifying. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCLXI
Paris, April 26, 1863.
Dear Friend: As I was not counting on your travelling tortoise fashion, I did not write to you at Genoa. I am addressing this letter to Florence, where I hope that you will stop for a time. Of all the cities of Italy that I know, it has best retained its characteristics of the Middle Ages. Only be careful not to catch cold, if you stay on the Lung’ Arno, as all respectable people do.
As for Rome, it has been so long since I was there that I am unable to advise you about it. I shall offer you suggestions only on the two following points: first, do not be out in the air at twilight, because you might easily catch the fever. A quarter of an hour before the Angelus you should go to Saint Peter’s, and wait there until the peculiar dampness which arises just at that time should have passed. There is nothing, moreover, more beautiful as a place of reverie than this great church at the fall of day. In the dimness, when all is seen indistinctly, it is truly sublime. Think of me there.
My second suggestion is, if you should have a rainy day, employ it by visiting the Catacombs. While you are there, go into one of the small corridors opening on the subterranean streets, extinguish your candle, and remain alone there three or four minutes. You must tell me the sensations which you felt. It would be a pleasure to me to make the experiment with you, but then you would not feel, perhaps, the same emotions.
It has never happened to me to see in Rome what I had intended to see, because one is attracted on every street-corner by something unexpected, and it is a great pleasure to yield one’s self to that sensation. I advise you, also, not to devote too much time to visiting palaces, which are for the most part overestimated.
Pay special attention to the frescos, regarding them from an artistic standpoint, and to views of nature blended with art. I commend to you the view of Rome and of its surroundings seen from Saint Peter’s in Montorio. You will see there, also, a very beautiful fresco of the Vatican. Be sure to see at the Capitol the Wolf of the Republic, which bears the trace of the lightning which struck it in the time of Cicero. It is not a thing of yesterday.
Make up your mind that you will not be able to see the hundredth part of what you wish to see, in the short time that you can devote to your journey, but you need have few regrets on that score. There will remain with you a memory of the whole, which is far better than a lot of petty memories of details.