 | MODERN ITALY. The Italian sketch book |  |
MODERN ITALY.
As we admire the beautiful in death.
But why despair? Twice hast thou lived already;
Twice shone among the nations of the world
As the sun shines among the lesser lights
Of heaven; and shalt again.”
The manners and morals of Italy, like the same
characteristics of other countries, are sometimes condemned,
without discrimination, even by intelligent
as well as virtuous men. Yet not only should the
general fact, that the intercourse of travellers is usually
limited to the extreme exemplars of the population
of a country, be kept in view, in judging of
character in Italy; let it be also borne in mind that the
choicest spirits of a nation, in such a political condition,
are often found only in the shades of retirement
at home, or enduring voluntary exile in a foreign
land. `Character,' says a distinguished authoress
`is an instinct; it is more allied with nature than the
understanding; and yet circumstances alone give men
the opportunity of developing it.' And to the sojourner
in Italy, who marks the unfolding of this
in that inner tabernacle of life which we
call home, will be revealed such qualities of humanity
as are rarely, if ever, known in equal freshness
and beauty. The modern Italian character is
far more intimately associated, in my mind, with
the memory of acts and sympathies of rare urbanity
and friendliness, than with the by-way specimens
of imposition and mendicity, with which travellers
seem to delight in interlarding their journals. He
who, in estimating character, attaches due importance
to what have been philosophically denominated
the affective powers, will scarcely dwell despairingly
upon the characteristics even of the present
inhabitants of Italy. They are, in truth, the children
of feeling. And hence we find the uneducated
peasantry and artisans appreciating and relishing,
often most enthusiastically, the poetry and music of
their country. The modification of Petrarch's sonnets,
and their becoming popular simply in an oral
form, is a phenomenon explicable only on the ground
of a national taste and enthusiasm. Nor have these
general features ceased to be. Although `silent
rows the songless gondolier,' the stanzas of Tasso
are not forgotten in Venice, nor does Ariosto cease
to amuse the crowd on the Mole at Naples. If,
therefore, one who mixes with the multitude, adapting
himself sufficiently to their temperament and
modes of expression, who goes with them to the
opera and the festival, and, especially, is brought
a remarkable degree of the pure spirit of human
brotherhood, such as shall impress his heart and win
him from his prejudices, we think his experience
must be singularly unfortunate.
Certain it is, indeed, that the intellectual charms,
the religious graces, the native modesty, which are
the glory of the American female character, are
sometimes wanting; and yet, in frequent instances,
one cannot but feel baffled in an attempt to point
out their opposites. There is often a rich and perfect
susceptibility without any great depth of sentiment;
there is a spirit of affectionate kindness, but
its extension is seemingly a kind of constitutional
habit; there is a pride without true dignity, and an
open, playful, genuine nature, which yet we are almost
persuaded, but for undoubted evidence, to brand
as habitual affectation. Let one imagine loveliness
combined with unrestrained and unrestrainable spirit,
illumined with passionate feeling, and seconded
by a language whose very accents are poetic, and a
manner frank, and from its intrinsic peculiarities,
interesting, and he may have a faint conception of
an Italian beauty. Let him portray to himself a
vivid and restless imagination, over whose magic-working
energies no moral control presides, and into
whose brilliant images no meditative colouring enters,
an intellect too active and inconstant for intense
or elevated action, a heart exquisitely alive to every
faint impression of sympathy and love; in a word, a
of religion, unnerved by the holy sinews of christian
principle, and yet glowing, restless and energetic,
and he may arrive at an inadequate but not
incorrect idea of a species of female character in
Italy.
General manners and morals are, indeed, proverbially
too loose, not to merit the condemnation of
the just observer. How far this is ascribable to the
political and physical peculiarities of the country,
an unprejudiced man cannot easily declare, while
candour compels him to confess that these palliating
causes exist. I have remarked, as a striking proof
of the want of intellectual resources among the Italians,
their sympathy for one who, from choice or
necessity, is even temporarily solitary. And the
importance which the mere conventional acts of life,
and the occasional intervention of amusement, have
acquired in their estimation, evinces the mournful
absence of more worthy and truly valuable employments
both for the time and intellect.
Let it ever be remembered, in view of the present
moral and social condition of Italy, how early the
`fatal gift of beauty' provoked those predatory incursions
which have so despoiled her shores, and
neutralized her nationality. How often have the
glittering ranks of an invading host gleamed, like a
meteor of ill omen, amid the mists of that mountain
barrier, which nature has interposed between her
favourite land and the surrounding nations!
The history of Italy, in the middle ages, is a detail
of successive contests, internal and foreign, the only
result of which seems to have been the settling down
of the political being of the whole country into a
kind of hydra-despotism—a government shared by
foreign princes, ecclesiastical rulers, the inhabitants
(and their representatives) of the several states.
During the long twenty years of Napoleon's domination,
whether enduring the horrors of famine in besieged
Genoa, sacrificing to the Moloch of war upon
the plains of Lombardy, or sending the flower of
her army to perish amid Russian snows, she was
courting martyrdom only to secure a change of masters,
or minister to the ambition of the ascendant.
It is perhaps impossible for a visitor of the present
day, to realize that this land has indeed been the
scene of such constant, severe, and unsuccessful warfare.
The peace which has been enjoyed by other
countries of the globe—a peace no less fruitful of
general prosperity and general intellectual growth,
than void of the ever active causes of commotion—
with such a tranquillity Italy seems never to have
been blessed.
There are, indeed, few problems more difficult to
solve satisfactorily than the prospects of this country,
as regards its vital interests. The several states,
if united and penetrated by a just revolutionary
sentiment, would advance towards independence as
rapidly and certainly as the moral circumstances of
the people would permit. But this is very far from
aspect of the present most clearly indicate. There
is Austria, on one side, jealous of her foothold in
this devoted land, and, perhaps, of all their political
sufferings, none is more galling to the Italians, than
the insulting presence of Austrian soldiery, an evil
which the Pope, as a measure of self-defence, is continually
encouraging. Then the corroding internal
divisions, which seem stronger and more baneful in
proportion to the motives for union, are an awful
barrier to the enfranchisement of the whole country.
Such, too, is the power of the priesthood, and their
influence over the women, that through them the
existence of any liberal sentiment is almost immediately
made known, and its extension prevented.
Indeed, this mutual conspiracy, for, viewed in reference
to its operation, it merits no lighter name,
between the two classes of community from which,
according to nature and truth, the chief purifying influence
should proceed, constitutes the spring which
embitters and undermines all excellence, individual
and political.
But a deeper cause, and one involving every
other, is discoverable in the want of intelligence
and moral sentiment among the people. In short,
while the liberalizing spirit and improving influences
of the age, have to some extent become diffused
in Italy, while we see distinct indications of
the decline of ecclesiastical power and ignorant superstition,
the English and French courts to gain experience
in the art of good government, we cannot but feel
that Italy is not yet virtuous enough to maintain the
forms or evolve the moral glory of genuine national
freedom.
There are times when the American visitor is
simultaneously impressed with the social and moral
pre-eminence of his native land and the local attractions
of this; and is thus led to think of them in
comparison with each other. In such a view it is
impossible to lose sight of the several causes which
have combined to form the present moral atmosphere
and intellectual spirit of the two countries.
In Italy, ages of barbarism and warfare, gradually
changing to a more refined existence, produced a
brilliant period of chivalry and art, and then, amid
despotic influences, acting upon a national constitution,
and in a country peculiarly exposed to their
worst effects, brought in the present form of society.
With us the bracing air of freedom, alive with the
higher impulses to action, teeming with moral motive,
elevating knowledge and religious enthusiasm,
naturally created a moral constitution presenting almost
a complete contrast. What cause for wonder,
if, destitute of a free arena, the ambition of a young
Italian of the present day is merged in a frivolous
passion for amusement? If, when the sublime motive
of a national spirit is wanting, men think within
women, looked upon as the victims, and not aspired
to as the honours of the other sex, cease to value the
virtues which are their highest, but most unappreciated
ornaments?
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