It is an extraordinary thing that passion for collections. I knew a man once who collected pipes. He had one hundred and sixty-three when I saw him last, and he had stolen them all. I have no sympathy with this sort of thing, and quite disapproved of his actions—in fact, I withdrew from his acquaintance. I have too much affection for my own pipes to know such people. The "Gentle One" told me that a friend of his collected old hats. He labelled each hat with the name of its former owner, and studied his character from his head-covering. He knew a family too who collected buttons. They were accustomed to secretly steal them from their visitors' overcoats, with a view to scientifical and psychological research—of course!
Now I collect money. Do not think me a miser. I do not hoard it up—I spend it. I shall be delighted to receive help with my collection. I have no false pride—any contribution, however small, will be thankfully received, and acknowledged by return of post.
In the afternoon the "Gentle Lunatic" and I drove round to inspect the place. We made a sort of grand tour of the town, and then went out to a little village from which there is a view. It is a lovely view, too. You stand on a hill and look down into a valley, or rather glen; far below one flows the Isonzo, bluer than any sea or any sky, winding along, with a little cascade here and there, between banks thickly covered with oak woods, whilst above everything tower the mountains. Another interesting place near Goritz is the church and convent of Castagnavizza, not on account of the buildings, which are nothing remarkable, but because the last princes of the French Royal Family are buried there. They all lie in a little chapel (a Della Torre burial-ground, by the way), in simple coffins—Charles X. and his sons, the unfortunate Duchess of Angoulême, and, last of all, the Count and Countess of Chambord. It is a very gloomy vault, and one cannot help thinking of all the splendour and glory of Versailles, of all the memories of that long lineage of kings, and contrasting them with this their last resting-place, so humble and forsaken in a strange land—the royal lilies withered in a foreign soil.
After this visit one is glad to get out into the sunshine again and to ramble through the streets of the gay little town.
There are four languages generally spoken in Goritz—Italian, Slav, Friulan, and German. Friulan is an extraordinary language, a sort of Italian dialect, only spoken in the Friul, as the neighbourhood of Goritz is called. German is, of course, the State language, but Italian is universally spoken all over the Littoral. The lower classes do not understand a word of German, and I have found that hardly any one understands my German. I had a forcible illustration of this not long ago. I was lunching with the Gentle Lunatic at a hotel, when an acquaintance of his came in and sat at our table. With my accustomed modesty, I said little or nothing until the G. L. suggested that I might air some of my German. I promptly opened conversation with a sentence I had learned from an exercise book—"The dog is more faithful than the cat." It was perhaps not the sort of remark one would as a rule make to a stranger, but I thought he would in all probability agree with my sentiments, and then it was one of the few complete German sentences I knew. The reply, however, was not what I expected. Instead of answering, "Yes, but have you seen the penknife of my grandmother's female gardener?" or something of that sort, he turned to the Gentle One—"Tell him," he said, "I am very sorry, but I have forgotten all my English." It was a crushing blow—he had mistaken my best German sentence for English!
GIRL FROM DUINO
The people of the Littoral are of the Italian type. Many of the women are very handsome, and they have almost all fine eyes, large and black, and soft and velvety-looking. They hold themselves very well too, probably from being accustomed to carry baskets and bundles on their heads. Only the better class women wear hats. The peasants wear nothing but their own luxuriant hair, or merely a coloured kerchief thrown gracefully over their heads. The height of fashion at present is a black kerchief with large red spots. The people generally are a good-natured, cheerful race. "They are dirty, they are rough and ready, but they have the heart in the right place," as the G. L.'s English butler says, and his words exactly describe them.
CASTLE DUINO FROM THE RAILWAY