Maud Howe Elliott

“ We read them with some surprise, and then go up to the terrace and pick our pansies and violets. We have some fine spirea and lilacs coming on fast! The wall flowers are already in bloom, and the roses make occasional little gifts, but it is far too early for these dear ones to give their perfect blossoms. Rose week—rose madness—in Rome comes at the end of April.
The strangest thing about life in Rome is that you not only do as the Romans do, but end by thinking as the Romans think, feeling as the Romans feel! ”

“ Two great spirits, Cervantes and Velasquez, come to meet you! Their hands are stretched out to you; if you so elect, they will walk with you in all your wanderings, and with their help you shall know Spain.
Gibraltar, a lion couchant, head on paws, fronts the sea. Cross the bay from Algeciras, the lion rears its head—a lion no longer—the pillar of the coast of Europe, blue at first, then purple; when you are close in its shadow you look up at a grim gray mountain towering above you. It greets you like an old friend. ”

“ The capital of the Moors is perched on a high hill behind which rise the snow-clad Sierras. The town of Granada lies at the foot of the hill reserved for the palaces and gardens. The exterior of the Alhambra is grim and simple, but noble in its somber strength. The interior—but it is indescribable! The beauty of design, the wealth of color, the wonderful harmony, the romance, the hot passionate quality of it all makes Greece seem cold and Italy thin compared to it. ”

“ The very grapes grown on its flanks make potent inflaming wine; if its fever is in the blood of the grape, a thousand times more is it in the hot blood of its men and women.
The earthquake? It is as if the giant had turned over in his bed, shaken his great shoulders, brought down town and city, destroyed a district, snapped ancient temple columns like pipestems, crushed cathedral and hut alike in one awful blood-curdling welter of pain, that has darkened the earth, made the whole world mourn. ”

“ Tried to show how the kingdom is God, the great providential order, before and beyond all earthly government; then the power, that of perfect wisdom and goodness, the power to know and rule all things, to be everywhere and ever present, to regulate the mighty sweep of stars and planets, and, at the same time, to take note of the poorest and smallest of us; the glory first of the visible universe, glory of the day and night, of the seasons, glory of the redeeming power of truth, glory of the inexhaustible patience, of boundless compassion and love. ”

“ VIAREGGIO—LUCCA—RETURN TO ROME Viareggio, October 15, 1898.
The long mole runs far out into the sea, the light-house stands at the extreme end; here we watch the fishing-boats come in every evening, the sailors poling them along the mole to their harborage in the river. They build boats at Viareggio; the real interest of the town, quite apart from the watering-place life, centres in the weatherbeaten sailors, the cumbrous craft with their rich colored sails, the smell of tar, oakum, and fish. ”

“ Through a gloomy stone doorway, along a dark passage to an inner court with borders of violets in full bloom, palms, oranges, fig and banana trees. Through a cypress swamp of skeleton trees hung with the ghostly Spanish moss to lovely Lake Pontchartrain.
During the Exposition New Orleans became a cosmopolitan nerve center, as did Philadelphia in the Centennial of 1876 and Chicago during the World’s Fair of 1893. The vivid passionate city with its old Place d’Armes, wrought-iron balconies, hedges of Cherokee roses, broad-spreading live oaks, was crowded with travelers from all over the world. ”

“ In the outer aisles, which are free of the coro, you have an uninterrupted view of the entire length of the building, and can realize its sublime proportions, get a sense of the harmony of the whole; the ease with which the vast columns uphold the roof, and divide the whole space into its proper parts. In itself, the coro is like an exquisitely wrought gem in a chaste and simple setting. It is shut off from the nave on the side of the puerta mayor, by a marble façade containing fine bas-reliefs, and a painting of the Virgin by Francesco Pacheco, father-in-law and teacher of Velasquez. ”

“ Nothing but a death in the house has ever made so sharp a difference as I knew between the evening of the 28th of December and the morning of the 29th, for it was only on Tuesday, the day after the earthquake, that we in Rome began to understand—but only began to understand—that the greatest disaster of European history had stricken Italy, our Italy, the world’s beloved. To each of us our own country is really dearest; we hope to die and lay our bones in the land where we were born. ”

“ There is snow on the Leonessa; it is a trifle chilly up here on the terrace where I write, but it is near “peaks and stars” and very near peace. I weed the flowers, and collect the snails that prey upon our pansies and threaten our roses. The awful gardens where Nero’s living torches flamed lay just below my windows, where the Piazza of St. Peter’s is now. Soracte, the Leonessa, with all the rest of the purple Alban hills, looked down on that sight as calmly as they look on my lilies and me. There is no place in the world where one feels so small as in Rome. ”

“ I am in the old place, but the old Dudie is not in me; in her stead is a spirit of crossness and dullness, insensible to all the gentler influences of life, knowing no music, poetry, wit, or devotion, intent mainly upon holding on to the ropes, and upon getting through the present without too much consciousness of it.... All society has been paralyzed by the shocking murder of Dr. Parkman. There has perhaps never been in Boston so horrible and atrocious an affair. The details of the crime are too heart-sickening to be dwelt upon. ”

“ It was so like Newport, the cool blue water so very native, that I felt a little homesick. Tea at the Quisisana, a delightful hotel but expensive. The moon, a blood-red crescent, made a splendid descent behind the Sorrentine Peninsula. We watched it set from the balcony outside our room. The Bay of Naples was a pale turquoise, the sky old-rose color. The people here are as beautiful as tradition holds—the handsomest I ever saw. ”

“ Silence settled upon the dining room; the only sounds were the scratch-scratch of Elinor’s pen, the snores of Romulus curled up at Vera’s feet, the tinkle of the fountain up on the terrace under the stars near the Pretorian’s cinerary urn, the rustle of the cards going into the envelopes. On the Gothic sideboard which J. made for our Roman home, the pile of invitations, sealed and stamped, rose higher and higher, finally hiding the legend carved in quaint letters at the top:
“Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” ”

“ I tell my friends here that the loss of Cuba and the Philippines was the dawn of a renaissance, the beginning of a new Spain. It was cutting back the vine that had gone to wood. Now the sap runs, there is new life, fresh growth. Knockdown blows are what men and nations need to get up their muscle. He said it,—your father: ‘Obstacles are things to be overcome!’”
The pigeons fluttered in and out of the Giralda, careless of the great bells swinging to and fro, and the shadow of their wings wove a new pattern on the face of the roseate tower. ”

“ Crispi laughs at the attempts to kill him, and they have begun to say he has a charmed life. The King looks as if he would like to be in anybody’s boots but his own. Some of Crispi’s acts would have brought about a revolution in any other country; the King alone has prevented this, and the unconscious triumph of his simple, honest character is most impressive. He is not a brilliant man, but he loves his people and Italy better than his own dynasty, which he has not scrupled to jeopardize. Crispi is perfectly sincere in the belief that for the country’s sake his government must continue. ”

“ At this time she writes to her sister Annie:—
"I cannot yet write of what has come to me. Chev and I feel that we are baptized into a new order of suffering—those who have lost children, loving them, can never be like those who have not. It makes a new heaven and a new earth. The new heaven I have not yet—the blow is too rough and recent. But the new earth, sown with tears, with the beauty and glory gone out of it, the spring itself, that should have made us happy together, grown tasteless and almost hateful. All the relish of life seems gone with him. ”

“ We had driven over that morning from Sorrento to Castellamare through odorous orange and lemon groves, and were so filled with the beauty of land and sea, that going to any city, even to our Rome, seemed a waste of life. We reluctantly boarded the crowded train for Naples. In the same carriage were a mercante di campagna and his daughter, the most lovely Italian girl I ever saw. Her hair clustered in purple shadowed masses like bunches of grapes about her perfect face; her complexion was golden and red—no pink and white prettiness, but a rich and memorable beauty. They had left home early ”

“ Scylla, the ancient village at the foot of the purple Calabrian mountains, was not forgotten, nor Reggio, nor the white fishing hamlets that line the tawny shores of Sicily and Calabria on either side of the restless straits. The people of the coast were soonest reached and soonest helped by the sailors of the passing ships, for the navies of the world flew on the wings of love and pity to succor the stricken ports. ”

“ Patsy explained, “they keep the fine, inner pinkish layers to bottle up those two great life destroyers, the drugs and liquors of the world.”
The way now led over the Sierra Rondena, through the wildest, most beautiful part of Andalusia; past thickets of gum cistus, covered with glorious, golden-hearted, white blossoms; across green vegas enamelled with clumps of amber gorse; through waves of daisies, white and yellow, regiments of scarlet poppies marching through the pale green wheat, multitudes of cornflowers, morning glories, and ruby-headed alfalfa, king of all the handsome clover tribe. ”

“ Gave a talk upon my Roman experiences before the New England Woman’s Club. I sounded a blast for the American School for Classical Study in Rome and for Richard Norton, who made it the vital place it now is. The school was dead-alive till he took it, breathed upon it and made it alive with his life. A greater transformation I never saw, nor a more striking illustration of how a man can work his vitality into a stodgy institution like yeast into heavy dough, and see it rise, almost overnight. ”

“ Louisa was like a damask rose, Annie like a dark lily; dark, too, of eyes and hair were Sam and Marion, while Henry was fair and blue-eyed.
At this distance of time, it may not be unpardonable to touch briefly on another aspect of our mother's youth; indeed, it would hardly be candid to avoid it. From the first she seems to have stirred the hearts of men. Her masters, old and young, fell in love with her almost as a matter of course. Gilded youth and sober middle-age fared no better; her girlhood passed to the sound of sighing. ”

“ Sympathy for Italy was at its height, the great scheme for the unification was growing silently and strongly. England, the mighty ally, was helping Italy prepare for the struggle. Looking back at the England of that day, one seems to see a whole army of Raleighs spreading their cloaks before the feet of the young Queen Victoria. All England seems to have shared in the youth, the hope, the courage of the Queen. With Galli, the romantic Italian, the universal enthusiasm became personal; he fell in love, not with the sovereign, but with the woman, which makes all the difference. ”

“ The comfortable smell of kine came in at the window. On the other side of the Guadalquiver, in the golden haze of dust kicked up by those silly, helter-skeltering cows, lay Cordova. Before us rose the great Mosque; in the centre the towering masonry of the Christian Cathedral stood out in bold outline against the distant Sierra. The sun set quietly in the quiet sky; a few minutes after, the whole heaven was aflame with the glorious crimson after-glow; the river ran red; the whole earth shone with the reflection. ”

“ In my own Boston at this time there prevailed a primitive custom of social segregation of persons of the same age. Boys and girls consorted together, the middle-aged, the elderly, the old. In London I found no trace of this tiresome restriction; in social life as in the family life the different generations were allowed to mix. This was much to my liking. I care less for people of my own age than for any others, because I have less to learn from them. We have all been rolled like pebbles on the beach by the same world currents and taken more or less the same shape. ”

“ She engaged the best caterer in New York; the most fashionable musicians; she even hired a splendid cut-glass chandelier to supplement the sober lighting of the yellow drawing-room.
The evening came: Mr. Ward, coming downstairs, found assembled as brilliant a gathering as could have been found in any other of the great houses of New York. He betrayed no surprise, but welcomed his guests with charming courtesy, as if they had come at his special desire; the music sounded, the young people danced, the evening passed off delightfully, to all save the young hostess. ”

“ I asked Bonanno what manner of man the general was; I remember his answer well.
“A good man and a brave soldier. He has but one fault, the incurable one: he is sixty-eight years old and out of health besides!”
The proclaiming of martial law was a military necessity. The prison at Messina had been destroyed by the earthquake, and the convicts, the scum of Sicily, were at large. From Naples, from Palermo, from all over Italy, the offscouring of the cities raced, like beasts of prey who scent the carnage of battle, to the ruin of Messina, the beautiful. ”

“ The city has been a Babel of foreign tongues, a kaleidescope of foreign faces and costumes. One tastes life as from a goblet filled and brimming over with sparkling, heady wine. That old gogpate, Z——, has let his villa, carriage, servants, even his precious Antonio, the best cook in Rome. ”

“ Fate wove the thread of our existence into her tapestry of life in the Spanish capital in the year 1906; a many-toned fabric with touches of gold and silver, sinister crimson and sombre black. Now that the web is finished and hung up in the hall of memory, I see that in the earlier part rose color is the predominating tone.
“It’s as good for a nation as it is for a person, after they have been in mourning, to come out into the world again and take an interest in other people’s affairs,” said Patsy. “The Conference, whatever it may do for Morocco, is being very good for Spain.” ”

“ There was a certain exaltation in all the people who worked for Sicily and Calabria that seemed to lift them above the smallnesses of every day existence. They saw each other transfigured, they lived the heroic life. Each was eager to do the other’s work,—all were quick to sacrifice themselves to the others, as well as to the cause. It was a time when men and women seemed purged of meanness and jealousy. ”

“ Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." ”