University of Virginia Library

MY HOME ABROAD.

How much to be commiserated is he to whom not a
line of the poetry of human nature has been directly
revealed; who has never been lured from the sterile
pathway of isolated pursuit, by a flower that smiled
up to him, or a murmur that fell soothingly upon
his ear; whose mind has never been charmed into
blessed self-forgetfulness, by the consoling activity
of native sentiment. It was but the impulse of inalienable
human feeling which led Sterne to say, that
if he were in a desert, he would love some cypress;
and baffled, indeed, must be his spirit who has wandered
to and fro in a peopled world, and found no
child of humanity whose companionship and affection
could recall the simple joyousness of early and
unsophisticated being. How much does the pleasure
of a sojourner in the fairest lands depend upon

the position whence he gazes forth upon their domain,
upon the immediate social influences by which
he is surrounded, upon his home abroad! How different
will be the aspect of external nature and the
impressions of social or moral phenomena, to the
wanderer who looks forth from his own solitary
consciousness, and to him who views them through
the loop-holes of a domestic retreat! This is not a
merely speculative suggestion, as I propose to illustrate,
if the reader will but pass, in fancy, to the favourite
city of Italy, once the scene, and at present
the witness of Lorenzo de Medici's authority and
enterprise.

The high and dark buildings which line the narrow
and flag-paved street, running from the Piazza
di Colonna to the Mercato Nuovo, render its general
aspect peculiarly sombre; yet at the season when
the fiery solar influence is at its height, it is truly
refreshing to turn from the dazzling heat of the open
squares into these shady by-streets, so characteristic
of the cities of southern Europe. The second range
of apartments of one of these edifices was occupied
by a family whose fortunes received their downfall
under the Napoleon dynasty. The comfortable and
quiet seclusion adapted to their condition, succeeded
a more brilliant, but perhaps less happy establishment.
At the close of a winter's day spent in the
delectable employment of inspecting `lodgings for
single gentlemen,' I found myself settled in one of
the front rooms of this building—the domicile I had

at length decided should be my temporary abode.
As I sat musingly before a cheerful wood fire, my
reverie was interrupted by a gentle tap at the door;
and scarcely had the entrate passed my lips, when
it quietly opened, and the presiding goddess of that
little world was before me. The countenance of
Antoinetta exhibited features so beautifully regular,
that even when in perfect repose, they would bear
the most critical persual. But it was when lit up
by a cheering smile, playing over and enlivening
their bland expression, such as they wore when she
thus broke in like sun-light upon my misty daydreaming,
that the witchery of her eye and the pleasantry
of her air, exerted their full power. In the
sweet accents of her native tongue, she bade me good
evening, adding that she had thought the Signor
might feel solitary, and had brought in her muslin
work to sit an hour with him. How thankfully he
accepted the proposition need not be related. The
converse of that evening sufficed for our mutual understanding.
For, be it known to you, kind reader,
that the social, like the physical atmosphere of Italy,
is wonderfully insinuating; one discovers his adaptation
at once. The Italians seem to know intuitively
the latent points of sympathy between themselves
and those with whom they come in contact;
a short time serves, either to convince them that
their acquaintance never can become a friend, or to
make him so almost immediately. Nor is this all.
Let a genuine Italian discern but the glimmerings of
congenial sentiment, and you have his confidence;
and, if there be aught noble within you, the very
alacrity with which you are trusted, will secure it
from abuse. My fair padrona was betrothed to a
countryman then in Britain, and her mother had
resigned to her the duties of housewife, while she,
Italian-like, devoted her more mature years to the
exercises of religion, and to basking in the sunshine
of imaginative enjoyment.

The Countess was a genuine specimen of a Tuscan
lady of the old school. She still retained sufficient
matronly comeliness to attest her youthful
beauty, and her habits and conversation clearly evidenced
the cultivation of a naturally good mind, and
the urbanity of a kindly spirit; yet withal was there
the strict devotion of the Catholic, and the never
absent enthusiasm of the Italian. There was a dignified
earnestness and grace in her manners, which
almost insensibly inspired respect and interest. I
could not but mark the different results of a convent
education upon the mother and daughter. The faith
of the former was fixed thereby, while the latter
used to tell me that, until her twelfth year, having
lived chiefly in a nunnery, she was truly una angiola;
`but,' she added, `when I came into the world,
I saw that much of what I had been made to believe,
was una bagatella; I saw I had been imposed upon,
and so I don't think much of the whole matter.' A
commentary this upon any thing like hood-winking
in early education! The mother earnestly sympathised

with the past. Her nobilita, the shadowy
remnant of former days, was her much-loved and
constant theme. Her early and affectionate interest
in me was at first unaccountable, until I learned the
romantic sentiments with which the very name of
American was associated in her mind. Her ideas
on the subject were derived, in no small degree, from
the novels of the Seconda Valter Scott, as she called
Cooper, the translations of which she had eagerly
pondered; and prejudice not a little strengthened her
partiality, for she declared that the Italians were
abused by the French and despised by the English.
But there was yet another cause for the good lady's
maternal regard:—for I was ever spoken of as nostra
Enrichino and bambino di case, epithets, as the Italian
scholar is aware, of no small endearment—she had
conceived the idea of making me a Catholic; and if
she failed, I was learned a beautiful lesson in the art of
proselyting, worthy of the pure spirit of Christianity.
Methinks I see her now, that ardent votary of the
church, as, her eye lighted up with fervent feeling, she
poured forth, in measured and liquid accents, her elo-quentappeals.
Nor can I recall but one instance when
zeal betrayed her into an impatient expression. A
Capuchin friar drew crowds to the cathedral, for
many days of the holy week, and his harangues were
the subject of general eulogium. His whole appearance
betokened the practical devotee of the Romish
faith. His coarse robe was girded about his waist
by a rope, and the cowl being thrown far back, displayed
a countenance upon which care had traced,
in withering lines, the marks of premature age; the
hair fell thinly over high temples which shaded a
face incessantly wearing an expression of anxious
despondency. He would walk to and fro, in the
marble pulpit, ever and anon prostrating himself
before a crucifix, and imploring inspiration, or lean
over and earnestly address his audience. To this
priest the Countess would fain persuade me to repair,
that I might inquire and be enlightened. She
described his benignant spirit, his self-sacrificing
piety, and finally his literary attainments. To evade
the suggestion, I spoke of my comparatively slight
acquaintance with the language, and my consequent indisposition
to attempt controversy with so finished a
scholar. She surveyed me intently, and, at length,
half-mournfully, half-reproachfully, exclaimed, ecco
il diavolo. But the usual tenor of her efforts was
so disinterested, and marked by such delicate consideration,
that I respected, spontaneously, her advocacy
of the views she deemed so vitally true and
important. Indeed I loved to listen to the voice of
so gentle a controversialist, modulated by the true
spirit of human kindness, and inspired by an unaffected
interest in a stranger's welfare.

There was a delightful characteristic in these specimens
of woman in Italy; taste was subordinate to
sympathy. With all their love of the beautiful—
the idea of suffering most immediately and permanently
awakened their affections. They were never

weary of descanting upon my predecessor in the occupancy
of their apartments; and I soon discovered
that it was the view of his tears shed over a letter,
which revealed to them the cause of his prevailing
sadness, that first drew forth their kind regard. My
quondam friend was one of that most curious species
of the genus homo, found in Italy—an artist,
who had nurtured a natural propensity to silent musing
by three years of loitering in the sunny air of
Italia. Inexplicable to them was what they called
his melanconia, and vain my asseverations
that it was merely a constitutional habit; no; children
of emotion as they were, it was confidently referred
to some disappointment of the affections, and
all their kindly energies were bent to win my
moody amico to hilarity. Nor were their efforts in
vain. My lodgings soon became his favourite resort;
and few things drew him so effectually from his
abstraction as the vivacious chat of my affable
hostesses.

I have ever taken a kind of Epicurean delight in
the observation of my species; but here, it was intellectual
character which had been prominently displayed;
there, I learned many a beautiful lesson in
the chapter of human sentiment and feeling. The
icy partition of cautious reserve through which one
is frequently obliged to mark the heart's workings
in colder latitudes, is, in that genial region, dissolved
by their very intensity. I could sometimes almost
fancy myself gazing through the vista of years upon

a kind of primitive humanity, in beholding the responses
of feeling vibrating so directly to the spell
of music, the eloquence of art, or the impulse of
poetic sentiment. I recognised, as never before,

Happily, then, was I located for experimenting in
a new field of my favourite study. The Countess
instructed me in the enthusiasm of faith; the Contessina
in the poetry of life; to the one I expressed
my impressions of Italy as she is; and my reverence
for her as she was; to the other I spoke of her
absent betrothed, and brought votive offerings gleaned
from the bouquets of the flower-girl. How have
I seen them start, and pale as the solemn chant of
the morté, or the toll of the Campanile—broke indistinctly
upon the ear, amid the cheerfulness of our
evening coteries;—how have I read the varying
scenes of a drama typified in the meaning and rapid
changes of their expression! Under their espionage
did I wander through the verdant precincts of
the palace garden, and gaze upon the ceremonial and
the féte, and they interpreted to me the local characteristics
of the place and people. And so weeks
and months glided on; how swiftly! Twice, in
preparation for departure, was my portmanteau taken

from its dark corner; but it would not do. The
Countess started back when she beheld it with a sorrowful
exclamation, and it was consigned to its former
repose. At length the spring had fairly opened, and
there was no excuse for delay. And shall I attempt
to describe the feelings with which I left `my
home abroad?' No, it were a vain endeavour—for
it would require a full delineation, with more than a
painter's fidelity, of the several elements which
combined to render it a home; but, while all this is
waived in detail, it is embalmed in an affectionate
memory; yet not altogether in vain, gentle reader,
will you have taken this glimpse, if it serve to
brighten in your mind, severer portraitures of the
Florentines of the nineteenth century.