It did not take us long to get intimate with the names and habits of the rural population around us. They were quite willing to receive us as friends, and seemed to expect a ready sympathy from us in all their concerns. Unlike the peasants of an English village, the best of whom, at least amongst the women, cultivate so little acquaintance with each other, here everybody knew everybody else; and though I do not pretend to say there was less gossiping among them, it always struck me that there was less of that sour ill-nature which is apt to characterize the English cottager's comments on her neighbors. No doubt this arises in a greater degree from the nature of the people than from acquired virtue. It is only in northern, damp climes, like the English, that the necessary ills of life are so heightened and intensified by the general sense of moral and physical discomfort which a heavy atmosphere and a gray sky produce. We all know what it is to wake in the morning with a vague sense of apprehension, as if the post were about to bring us a distressing letter which our imagination foresaw. We all know the ceaseless and unreasoning feeling of being out of spirits which also tempts us to be out of temper. We are acquainted with the blue-devils, and we are generally taciturn and inclined to gloom. The Italian knows nothing of this. The very great and constantly-pervading influence these feelings have over our daily life is absolutely beyond the limits of his experience, unless, of course, he is suffering from a deep sorrow or a real physical malady. To the age of eighty, he wakes in the morning with the same sensation of joyous energy or placid pleasure which we were beginning to lose before we were eight. He is passionate; but he is not irritable. He has paroxysms of despair, but he knows no constant gloom. Our impatience, our tendency to being “put out,” are enigmas to him. The small hindrances of every day and every hour are less a great deal to him than the swarms of his pestering southern flies are to us. Pazienza (patience) is for ever on his lips; and it is no vain word, for patient he is to a degree which is exasperating to behold. When he is waiting, he is not gnawing an invisible bit, as we are doing, and grinding his teeth to powder. He is simply enjoying the being alive; and it does not much matter to him whether he chews the delicious cud of existence waiting at your door or sitting in his own home. You may make him furiously angry; and as likely as not he will stab you in the back and in the dark. But you cannot make him cross, or fretful, or peevish, or low-spirited. Depend upon it, if he is ever any [pg 360] one of these things, it is high time to call in the doctor, who probably will declare his case already hopeless. On the other hand, if anything—and it may often be a trifle—thoroughly rouses a Neapolitan, it is fearful. It becomes a rabbia (a rage), as they themselves express it; and then they are blind and deaf to reason and expostulation, and run amuck of all that comes in their way. It is possible that the extraordinary violence which seizes them is, in a measure, purely physical, and that that also in a measure diminishes their responsibility. Evidently, they think so themselves. Era una rabbia[92] is considered almost an excuse for the worst crimes, so long as these were committed in the heat of passion. And probably, in the long run, this has seriously affected the moral sense; so that good and reasoning people fail to be as much horrified at some murder committed in a brawl as we should be. They look upon an event of the kind almost in the light of a mutual misfortune between the murdered and the murderer. It is at least certain that the line of demarcation which separates inward resentment from the outward act of guilt is more easily crossed by these children of the sun, and does not presume the existence of so much previous demoralization as it would do with us. Yet I am far from intending to write an apology for the Neapolitan character. There is a great deal about them which is very graceful and very attractive; and when they are really good and refined, they are most lovable. But this is exceedingly rare. As a people, they are venal, deceitful, mercenary, and treacherous. But with it all, they are exactly like children; good or naughty, as the case may be, but always children.
Frank not being with us, the Vernons had undertaken to procure for us a carriage and a pair of horses, with a well-conducted coachman, to hire by the month. Indeed, had Frank been there, he could not have done it half as well as they did; for all these transactions require you to be acquainted with the current charges and with the character of the people; and Frank had no experience in either. The Vernons concluded the bargain for us with Pascarillo, the man from whom they always hired a vehicle when they wanted one; and a fine, handsome-looking fellow he was, with the reputation of being rather a gay Lothario, but, on the whole, an honest man as Neapolitans go. Our carriage was delightfully roomy. It held four with admirable ease, and five at a pinch, together with cloaks and cushions, luncheon and drawing materials, whenever we went on an excursion. In the evening, we could close it. We had two very fleet horses, not at all fine-looking, and rather undersized for the carriage, but the best little beasts to go I ever saw. Our coachman was a veritable son of Jehu. He was a miserable object, mean and despicable to look at, diminutive, with bleared eyes, a beardless chin, and the expression of a low coward. But never have I sat behind such a coachman as that. I believe he would have taken us up the wall of a house and down the other side in perfect safety. It did not signify what his horses did, or what evident peril we got into, he always managed quite quietly to bring us right again without any expression of vehemence or alarm. Suddenly, one day, our coachman [pg 361] vanished. An old man appeared in his stead, and a pair of grays, larger than the little brown horses. We made no remark, supposing it was an accident, and that our former equipage would return in time. That day we set out for the Vomero—the height above Posilippo, covered with beautiful villas, and commanding a superb view, or rather many views. The horses jibbed. We were greatly alarmed. They could not be got up the hill, and we had to go home. We sent an indignant message to Pascarillo, and hoped it would never happen again. But it did happen; not once nor twice only. And then Pascarillo was sent for in person to render an account of himself. There he stood, six foot two, with broad chest, a forest of hair, and an august presence. Ida, the universal spokeswoman, with her fluent Italian and her determined energy, left him in no doubt as to her opinion of his conduct. He heard her out silently and calmly, and then replied that the signorina was quite right; he was conscious that his conduct had been inexcusable, and that we had serious cause for displeasure. He had not kept to his bargain, and he was aware of it. It should not happen again; and with a polite bow, he retired. It did not happen again. He had tried to take us in, and he had not succeeded—just a little speculation that had failed, and that was all! As for any rancor at being scolded, or any humiliation at having to make an apology, such sentiments did not trouble the breast of Pascarillo for a second. He probably only said to himself, “Better luck next time.” Our little horses came back, and our impish young coachman with them. We had never again to complain. But the impression made on Mary's imagination by our coachman's face was such that she had scruples of conscience about Paolino being allowed to converse with him on the coach-box. Paolino was, therefore, seriously informed that for a footman to talk to the coachman when the ladies were in the carriage was not good manners. And from that moment silence was maintained; and Paolino's morals were left untainted, as he sat, radiant in clean white cotton gloves and a new necktie, enjoying the delights of drives and picnics at least as much as the persons on whose account they were undertaken.
The Female Religious Of America.
In this busy world of labor, where mankind seems exclusively bent on the acquisition of wealth, fame, or power, on fashion, folly, and empty pleasures, how seldom we pause to consider seriously the diversity and multiplicity of the elements of humanity by which we are surrounded! How few, in their headlong career after vain desires, ask themselves if this world were made for them alone; if the end and object of life, the first gift of a merciful Creator, is merely selfish enjoyment, or whether the social compact, as well as the laws of God, do not require of us to assist in every way possible our less fortunate or more afflicted fellow-creatures.
It requires little reflection or effort to distinguish the favorites of fortune—those whose lot having been cast in pleasant places, shine in the public regard like beings of a superior order. Worldly success is ever prominent, and its devotees are always ready to court its notice and extol its merits. To be fashionable is to be fawned upon; to be influential, sought after; to wield power is to be placated. Not so with the humble, the poor, the ignorant, and the obscure; the victims of physical affliction or of moral degradation. They are usually shunned, often despised, and, as far as possible, contemptuously ignored. They constitute the outcasts of “society,” and, when they come betwixt the wind and its nobility, are merely objects of contempt, barren pity, or downright loathing. Yet these very unfortunates comprise, even in our own favored land, a very large and, in an indirect sense, a potent constituent of our population. Always with us, no matter how much we may attempt to separate ourselves from them, they appeal to us for help in the name of all we hold sacred; and their supplications, no matter how mutely made, if unheeded, are certain to be followed, even in this life, by a blight on our souls as well as a curse to our bodies. The heart of man becomes hardened, the fine perception of fraternal love and charity with which he is naturally blessed withers and shrivels up, and he becomes a mere embodiment of self, an arid isolation, in proportion as he steels himself against the cries and sufferings of his kind. The very ignorance he will not help to remove, the want and squalor he refuses to alleviate, rise up in judgment against him, and, developing into crimes against life and property, haunt his footsteps, and but too often mark him for their prey.
As in all things else, if we want an exemplar for our conduct in relation to our fellow-beings, we must look to the church. Following the teachings of her divine Founder, from the earliest ages she has recognized the existence of the vast amount of misery, poverty, vice, and ignorance which underlies the surface of civilization, ancient and modern, and has used every effort to mitigate it. While yet the successors of S. Peter were [pg 363] struggling with the effete though polished paganism of the dismembered Roman Empire, and the greater part of Europe was enshrouded in the darkness of barbarism, societies of holy men and pious women were established and sustained by the popes and the fathers of the church, to mitigate in some degree, by their prayers and good works, the evils which beset society in its earliest transition state. The principal evils to be combated at that time were the ferocity of heathenism outside the confined limits of Christendom, and, within, the mental obscurity of the barbaric catechumens and neophytes. Physical destitution, in our signification of the term, was but little known beyond the limits of a few great cities; for men's wants were few and easily supplied before the increase of population and the unequal distribution of property became general in the Old World. Therefore we find that the monks and nuns of the IVth century, and for many hundreds of years afterwards, devoted themselves mainly to preaching and teaching, to the multiplication of copies of the Holy Scriptures, and to praying for the conversion of mankind. Thus the order founded by S. Basil, Archbishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, a.d. 362, and that of S. Benedict, Abbot of Norcia, in Italy, in 529, and the numerous cenobitic communities which sprang from them, all more or less strictly observing the rules laid down by those great lights of the church, considered prayer, humility, and obedience the essential principles of their foundation.
Congregations of women devoted to the worship of God, prayer, and poverty were coeval with, if not anterior to, those of men; for we find that S. Anthony, in the latter part of the IIId century, placed his sister in a “house of virgins,” of which she afterwards became abbess; and that on Christmas day, 352, in S. Peter's Church in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the habit and veil on Marcellina, enjoining on her a life of mortification and prayer. A little later, mention is made of SS. Marcella, Lea, and Paula as distinguished Roman women who forsook the world, and spent their remaining life in prayer and good works; the latter especially, who, with her daughter, built a hospital at Bethlehem, erected a monastery for S. Jerome and his monks, and founded in Palestine three convents for female recluses, of which she took personal charge. S. Basil found many such convents in existence, and established several more within his jurisdiction, one of which was presided over by his sister Macrina, at Pontus. S. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, up to 407, writes that in Egypt the congregations of women were as numerous as the monasteries; and S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (396-430), built a convent of nuns, of which his sister was superior, giving it, in 423, a written rule, still followed by the religious who bear his name. Four years after, S. Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Casino, the rules of which, having been approved by Gregory the Great, in 595, have been very generally adopted by many religious bodies of men and women in Europe and America.
At first these religious institutions were confined to Italy and the East; but as the light of the faith gradually extended over Europe, religious houses were multiplied; and though for a long time each convent was governed by its own [pg 364] inmates, and followed the ancient rules, modified in many instances by peculiar circumstances, it was eventually found judicious to form them into distinct orders or congregations, in which all the establishments of a particular foundation were governed by a general head or superior. The strict requirements of prayer, humility, and obedience were still observed; but to these were added the education of the children of the poor, alms-giving, and other acts of external devotion. Wherever a church was built, a monastery planted, or a number of people gathered together to worship God, there was generally to be found a convent, wherein the ailing might find relief; the afflicted, consolation; and the ignorant of the female sex, enlightenment. There the young whose parents were scarcely out of the slough of barbarism were taught their catechism and the beautiful prayers and litanies of the church, as well as to weave, spin, and all the other duties of a civilized housewife. While the clergy, secular and regular, went among the adults, preaching, instructing, and baptizing, holy women were near at hand to pray for the success of their efforts, and to show, by their gentle charities and meek demeanor, the loveliness and beneficence of the Christian religion.
One of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church is that she, and she alone, freed woman from the grossest slavery, and placed her in her proper sphere of usefulness and influence. By the sacrament of marriage, woman was made the honored equal of man; by her commandments and precepts, the church guarded her liberty and her purity, exalted her authority in the family, and recognized in her, even in death, the loving protectress of her offspring. But the church did more than all this. She gave to woman a part in her divine mission, a share in the most glorious task ever allotted to humanity—the propagation of the law of the Most High; and the dispensation of his mercies and benevolence. We are not surprised, then, to learn that in past ages, “when faith was young,” the most gifted and high-born of their sex in every Christian land, daughters of nobles and princes, abandoning all the fascinations of the world, even those of royalty itself, were to be found eager to take part in the great work of religion, and consecrate their lives to prayer, penance, and charity, for the sake of the poor and helpless.