Julia Ward Howe

“ A fierce shower of rain follows,—our table is set in a gallery inclosed on one side only with Venetian blind-work, and through this the rain rushes at us like a volley of canes flung into the pit of a theatre. It grows dark, and for an hour or so, very cold. There is an instantaneous closing of doors and wooden window-shutters, and we of the Dinner protect ourselves from the wet and chill with the few warm garments we have with us,—for is not the bulk of our solid clothing laid up at Havana in that sea-trunk which we could wish never to open again? ”

“ But hers was not the ideal truth which Margaret followed so zealously. "So vile are men, so weak are women, so ruthless is passion," were the utterances of her sincerity. Mistress of the revels, she did indeed command a new unmasking at the banquet, thoughtless of the risk of profaning innocent imaginations with sad facts which they had no need to know, and which, shown by such a master of art and expression, might bear with them the danger fabled in the mingled beauty and horror of the Gorgon's head.
George Sand was saved by the sincerity of her intention. ”

“ The communings of a chosen few around a table simply spread, with no view to the recognition of the great Babylon, but rather with a pleasure in its avoidance; refined sympathy and support given and received in a round of daily duties, by those whose hands are busy and whose minds are full; the inner sweetness of a beautiful song or poem, the kindling of mind from mind, till all become surprised at what each can do,—this sort of society maintains itself by keeping the noisy rush of the crowd at arm's length. ”

“ What silver chisel turned the tender leaves of this marble foliage? Here is a little bit, a yard or so, which has escaped the gnawing of the elements, lying turned away from the course of the winds and rains! No king of to-day, in building his palace, can order such a piece of work. Artist he can find none to equal it. And I am proud to say that no king nor millionaire to-day can buy this, or any other fragment belonging to this sacred spot. What England took before Greece became a power again, she may keep, because the British Museum is a treasure-house for the world. ”

“ Before the shadows grew quite dark, a barouche or two, with ladies and livery, would drive across the Piazza, giving a whiff of fashion like the gleam of red costume that heightens a landscape. And the people sat, ate and drank, came and went, in sober gladness, not laughing open-mouthed—rather smiling with their eyes. From our narrow hotel balcony we used to look down and wonder whether we should ever be cool again. For though the evenings were not sultry, their length did not suffice to reduce the fever of the day. And the night within the mosquito-nettings was an agony of perspiration. ”

“ Allston, with his snowy curls and old-fashioned attire, looked like an impersonation of winter, his luminous dark eyes suggesting the fire which warms the heart of the cold season. The wonderful beauty of the face, intensified by age, impressed [p. 431] me deeply. He did not recognize me, having seen me but once, and we passed without any salutation; but his living image in my mind takes precedence of all the shadowy shapes which his magic placed upon canvas.
Boston should never forget the famous dinner given to Charles Dickens on the occasion of his first visit to America in 1842. ”

“ Now the Italian heavens wear again their deep blue. The sun is glorious, the melancholy lustres arc stealing again over the Campagna, and hundreds of larks sing unwearied above its ruins. Nature seems in sympathy with the great events that are transpiring."
What were these events which, Margaret says, stunned her by the rapidity and grandeur of their march?
The face of Italy was changed indeed. Sicilly was in revolt, Naples in revolution. Milan, Venice, Modena, and Parma were driving out their tyrants; and in Rome, men and women were weeping and dancing for joy at the news. ”

“ The enlargement of a new sympathy was made to modify the intense and narrow interests in which women, as a class, are apt to abide.
Margaret's journal and letters to friends give some accounts of the first meetings. She finds her circle, from the start, devoutly thoughtful, and feels herself, not "a paid Corinne," but a teacher and a guide. The bright minds respond to her appeal, as half-kindled coals glow beneath a strong and sudden breath. The present, always arid if exclusively dwelt in, is enriched by the treasures of the past and animated by the great hopes of the future. ”

“ From these golden fields whose overflow gives Europe food, while her human overflow gives them labor? From this large construction of human right, which lifts the cruel yoke from the neck of labor, and gives him who earns the livelihood of many his own life to enjoy and perfect? From this holy record of pious endeavor, from these splendid achievements of souls inspired by freedom, thou canst go, joyous and triumphant, to pay homage to the lies which are no longer believed by those who profess them; lies whose fallacy America exposes every day and hour to the detection of the world. ”

“ And so one treads lightly, and speaks in hushed accents; lest, in the brilliant Southern noon, one should wake the sleeping heart of Rome to the agony of her slow extinction.
But what is all this? We are dreaming of Rome,—and this is Cuba, where the spirit of Art has never been, and where it could not pass without sweeping out from houses, churches, gardens, and brains, such trash as has rarely been seen and endured elsewhere. They show us, for example, some mutilated statues in the ruins of what is called the Bishop's Garden. ”

“ The Venetian school is, however, to the Florentine much as Rossini's Barbière to Dante's Divina Commedia. Here all is color, vitality, energy. The superabundance of life and of temperament does not allow the severer deliberations of thoughtful art. The finest picture of this school, the Assumption of Titian, is the intense embodiment of the present, an ideal moment that presupposes no antecedent and no successor. It is as startling as a sudden vision. But it is a vision of life, not of paradise. The Madonna is a grand, simple, human woman, whose attitude is more rapt than her expression. ”

“ If possession is nine points of the law, as it is acknowledged to be, the knowledge of values may be said to be nine points of possession, and Margaret and her friends, with their knowledge of the import of art, and with their trained and careful observation of its outward forms, had a richer feast in the casts and engravings of that time than can be enjoyed to-day by the amateur, who, with a bric-a-brac taste and blase feeling, haunts the picture-shops of our large cities, or treads the galleries in which the majestic ghosts of earnest times rebuke his flippant frivolity. ”

“ In the later Papal Rome she discerns, through the confusion of rite and legend, a sense which to her marks the growth "of the human spirit struggling to develop its life." And the Rome of that day was dear to her in spite of its manifold corruptions; dear for the splendor of the race, surviving every enslaving and deforming influence; dear for the new-born hope of freedom which she considered safe in the nursing of Pope Pius.
Most of the occasions chronicled by Margaret in her letters of this period are of the sort familiarly known to travellers, and even to readers of books of travel. ”

“ We are not so deeply moved at leaving Havana, though to go to sea is always as unnatural an act as having a tooth pulled. The green earth reminds us that it is our element, and the slowly counted palms nod to us: "Remember,—remember!" We indulge ourselves in a last drive, and take kind farewell of the gay streets, the Plaza, the Paseo, and the Cerro, with its blue villas and palm-bordered gardens. Beautiful those gardens are in their own way,—Nature refusing to be kept down, but excusing her irregularities by their wild and graceful results. ”

“ His genius reaches its sublime maturity. He becomes acquainted with camps and courts, with the learning and the world of his day. But when, with all his powers, he would build a perfect monument to Truth, he takes her perfect measure from the hand of his child-love. The world keeps that work, and will keep it while literature shall last. It has many a subtle passage, many a wonderful picture, but at its height, crowned with all names divine, he has written, as worthy to be remembered with these, the name of Beatrice. ”

“ Surely, if there is any virtue which a republican people is bound to show, it is that self-respect which is the only true majesty, and which can afford to be as generous and gracious as majesty should be.
It is, perhaps, natural that many of us should, through a want of experience, mistake the standpoint of people conspicuous in the older European society as greatly superior to our own. We can learn much, indeed, from the observation of such a standpoint; but, in order to do so, we must hold fast our own plain, honest judgment, as we derive it from education, inheritance, and natural ability. ”

“ The Italian school was to art what the Greek school was to literature—an original creation and beginning. But life has surpassed Plato and Aristotle. We are forced to piece their short experiences, and to say to both, "You are matchless, but insufficient." And so, though Raphael's art remains immortal and unsurpassed, we are forced to say of his thought, "It is too small." No one can settle, govern, or moralize a country by it. It will not even suffice to reform Italy. The golden transfigurations hang quiet on the walls, and let pope and cardinal do their worst. ”

“ A flight to the tropics is apt to be like a death-bed repentance, deferred to the last moment, and with no appreciable benefit. Not only giving,—everything is done twice which is done quickly,—Time and Disease having between them a ratio too mysterious and rapid for computation. Ye who must fly, wounded, from the terrible North, fly in season, before the wound festers and rankles,—otherwise you escape not, bringing Death with you. Do not rush moreover to a hotel in the heart of Havana, and falling down there, refuse to be removed. ”

“ Death gives an unexpected completeness to the view of individual character. The secret of a noble life is only fully unfolded when its outward envelope has met the fate of all things perishable. And so the mournful tragedy just recounted set its seal upon a career whose endeavor and achievement the world is bound to hold dear. When all that could be known of Margaret was known, it became evident that there was nothing of her which was not heroic in intention; nothing which, truly interpreted, could turn attention from a brilliant exterior to meaner traits allowed and concealed. ”

“ It was upon this best and wisest womanhood that Margaret relied for the standard which should redeem the sex from violence and headlong excitement. Here, as elsewhere, she shows her faith in the good elements of human nature, and sees them, in her prophetic vision, as already crowned with an enduring victory.
"I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening. Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill, some fair effigies that once stood for human destiny have been broken. ”