Isabella Mary Anderton

“ They shrug a shoulder at you from under the houses, they poke out a rounded back in the very middle of the church wall, they lie across your path in winking, slippery masses, nourishing thorns in their bosoms on to which you may fall, and then, if you look up suddenly, you may see one that has climbed on to the shoulders of his brethren and with feathered cap stuck awry, and big empty eye-sockets, is grinning down at you with unholy, sardonic mirth. Every little fold in the hillside, shut in strangely from the outside world, has its chestnut grove and its running stream ”

“ II. Surely no city in the world queens it over the waves so completely as does Portoferraio. She rides them imperiously, lifting high the turrets that are her crown and defence; she decks herself in the brightest colours, conscious of her beauty; and sets herself boldly on the very head and front of the dark blue waters that wash her feet or leap up in wrath at her pride, yet never injure her. Genoa is called the Superb, but the epithet rises more spontaneously to the mind on view of the capital of the Island of Elba. ”

“ Or rather it will be when from this negation the poet-priest shall have drawn the moral essence. Who can imagine the words by which we shall feel ourselves whirling through space? by which we shall feel ourselves mortal? We know this and that: we do not feel it. The day we feel it ... we shall be better. And we shall be sadder. But do you not see that it is exactly by his sadness that man differs from the brute beasts? And that to advance in sadness is to advance in humanity?... Man, embrace your destiny! Man, resign yourself to be man! ”

“ So I turned aside among the cypresses. They will calm me, I thought. Their whisperings are so grave. They flaunt not their joy at the sun’s kisses, like the shameless trees along the roadside. They keep their hearts unmoved in sun and in storm; they are the true stoics of Nature. And their calm is sympathetic; it comes not of a soul immovable; it comes of strength in trial.
And the cypresses wrapped me round in their scent—the grave, penetrating odour in which the battered spirit folds its wings to rest, and [181] the heart-beats grow quieter, and the brow smooths itself out in peace. ”

“ She is sitting holding the frying-pan over the fire, but the menial occupation is forgotten as we watch the delicate poise of the head and stretch of the arm, the exquisite Greek profile, the lustrous dark eyes gazing dreamily into the fire, the fair wavy hair coiled into a knot at the back, and the soft pink of the common little cotton kerchief, which, tied with the point under the chin, is thrown up by the dark dress, and sets off the spring of the graceful neck. ”

“ The smell of youthful meadows rises from either bank, the great trees sign to the skiff as it passes, and, descending from the trees and rising from the flowering hedges, the birds follow through the gold and rosy streaks (of sky and water) , mingling joyful loves. Between rich meadows the Adda flows on to lose itself in the Eridano; the untiring sun sinks to its setting.
“O sun, O flowing Adda!” exclaims the poet, “the soul floats through an elysium behind thee; where will it and mutual love lose themselves, O Lydia? ”

“ A ride along the hills overhanging the gulf of Portoferraio brings us to the foot of the precipice on which it stands, rising, with the sheer rocks that form part of the building, out of a tangled mass of [131] low growth, from which, every now and again springs a graceful wild olive. By only one path is the place accessible. Path is a courtesy title. The way up is a scramble, often on hands and feet, up smooth, slippery, slanting masses of jasper rock in whose crevices flourish rounded, hedgehog-like cushions of the most cross-grained thorns. ”

“ Yet it is mid-winter, and we are going to witness a thoroughly winter occupation; the making of the olive-oil in a villa at a little distance out of Florence.
Leaving the tram at the foot of the hill, we climb for about three-quarters of an hour through vineyards in which the fresh green of the springing wheat contrasts hopefully with the knotted, bare vine branches. The slopes around us are clothed with olives, whose grey-green is thrown into relief by the austere rows of cypresses in the distance, and the spreading tops of the pine-trees on the further hills. ”

“ The sun shines low through the trellis and breaks, rosy, against my glass; he glances and trembles golden among thy locks, O Lydia. Among the blackness of thy locks, O snowy Lydia, a pallid rose languishes, and a gentle sudden sadness tempers the fires of love in my heart. Tell me: why does the sea down there send up mysterious groanings under the flaming evening? What songs, O Lydia, do those pines sing to each other? See with what desire those hills stretch out their arms to the setting sun: the shadow grows and embraces them: it seems as though they were begging the last kiss, O Lydia. ”

“ We might say, tentatively, that Pascoli is both more pagan and more human, notwithstanding Margaret and Michael, than Wordsworth. He is more pagan in that his delight in the beauty of a natural object is more self-sufficing, therefore more intense; it is a delight that suggests no defined religious or quasi-religious ideas, though there is always a feeling, conscious or sub-conscious, that the object is an organic part of the Universe. He is more human in that the peasants too attract him more for their own sakes than for the moral reflections to which they may give rise. ”

“ Most thickly do reminiscences of Napoleon cluster round the lovely village of Marciana. The road leading westwards from Portoferraio skirts the seashore. On the left hand rise cliffs densely overgrown with white heather; below, on the right, lies the shore in a succession of bewitching bays and headlands. A ride of between two and three hours brings one to a village lying along a graceful curve, backed by dense chestnut woods, over which hang the frowning precipices of Monte Capanne, the highest mountain in the island. ”

“ I entertain to this day an astonished admiration for those simple peasant women, who cooked all that dinner without help, who yet found time to go to mass and take a short walk in the village in their best clothes, and who did the honours of their table with such inborn grace, without haste, or flurry, or bustle. ”

“ Let us remain ever betrothed groom and bride; for we have found our happiness in this state where loves are ever young and new.” And the Ancient of Days granted their request and blessed their resolution.
Once only in the year, during four weeks, do the two meet at midnight. And when Ämarik puts the sun that has gone out into the hand of her lover, there follow a pressure of the hand and a kiss; and Ämarik’s cheeks grow red and their rosy hue is reflected through the heavens, until Koit lights the lamp again and the golden sheen in the sky announces the upgoing sun. ”

“ There has passed away at Florence, where she had lived many years, Isabella M. Anderton, an elegant and learned writer on Italian art in several English reviews, among them The Studio. Well skilled in our language and literature, she turned both prose and verse into strong and faithful English: worthy of special mention being her versions of Pascoli—of whom she was an admirer and friend—and her translation of the Kalevala of Domenico Comparetti. An Englishwoman settled in Italy, she blended in an enchanting harmony the nervous energy of her race and the grace of ours. ”

“ A murmur runs through the doubting summits, the rosy light of the setting sun shines athwart the dark cypress green with a pitying smile, sun and trees seem to feel compassion for him, and the murmur embodies itself in words. The winds have told the poet’s old companions of his eternal unrest, of his eternal brooding over vexed questions which can never be settled. ”

“ We distinguish a low, broad archway dividing the room into two parts, and at the further end a small twinkling light; while nearer the entrance a lamp, swung from the roof, enables us, after a little practice, to make out the objects around us. The whole place is pervaded by a grey steam, sweetish yet piquant, of the peculiar odour of the undried olive.
So great is the heat that the peasants are working without coats, and we, too, are glad enough to lay aside our winter wraps. ”

“ Many will not agree with Pascoli’s method of arriving at his conclusions; for men’s minds are infinite in number, and but few think alike. But all will recognise the reverent earnestness of his belief, and respect the man whom hatred has moulded into a fervent apostle of love.
To understand Pascoli’s power of differentiating character and handling dialogue, we must turn, not to his Italian, but to his Latin poems. These are not in any sense of the word academic exercises: they are instinct with life and of extraordinary vivacity. ”

“ A beautiful and terrible monster breaks loose, traverses the ocean, traverses the land: shining and smoke-wreathed like the volcano, it climbs mountains, devours plains, leaps gulfs; then hides in nameless caves traversing deep-hidden paths; and issues forth; and untamed sends out its cry like a whirlwind from shore to shore, like a whirlwind scatters abroad its breath: he passes, O peoples, Satan the Great,—passes beneficent from place to place on the resistless chariot of fire. ”

“ It kept his mind fixed not so much on the philosophical as on the sentimental and physical side of death: on the churchyard [233] with its cypresses, its driving showers and gleams of golden sunshine, its rainbow, its groups of merry children playing “Touch” round the great cross—but, also, with its dead lying through the long nights of rain and wind. Even here, however, where triteness would seem inevitable, Pascoli is individual. He never contemplates physical decay: worms and skulls are not so much as hinted at. ”

“ Stranger yet, perhaps, is the survival of the old pagan spirit, the haunting echo of old pagan legend, which any visitor to the hills of Tuscany may verify. Let him join the peasants as they meet now in one house, now in another, to spend the long winter evenings round the fire; or let him stroll, in the early autumn, into some low, dark kitchen where neighbours sit among piles of chestnut twigs, busily stripping off the leaves and making them into bundles for winter use in the baking of chestnut cakes (necci) . ”

“ A magnificent thunder-storm rendered sleep impossible, and lit up the surrounding hills with wondrous beauty. The next morning was bright and fresh with dripping leaves and mist-wreathed hills, and I started early for the Melo with a peasant friend and my landlord’s son. Our party was soon materially increased, however, for we emerged from the chestnut woods on to the road just as a band of men, with three horses, bound for the same village, were passing the farm-house. ”

“ Thou speakest and thy voice’s soul, yielding languidly to the gentle breeze, floats out over the caressing waves, and sails to strange shores. It sails smiling in a tepor of setting sunlight, into the solitudes: white birds fly between sky and sea, green islands pass by, the temples on their rocky summits dart rays of Parian [215] whiteness in the rosy sunset, the cypresses on the shores tremble, and the thick myrtles send forth their odour. ”

“ Still do the flocks come down to thee, O Clitunnus, through the moist air of evening, from the mountain that waves with dusky ash-groves murmuring in the wind, and scatters afar its odours of wild sage and thyme; the Umbrian boy still plunges the struggling sheep into thy wave; whilst the babe at the breast of the sunburnt mother, sitting barefoot by the cottage door and singing, turns towards him, and smiles from its fair round face; thoughtfully does the father, his legs clad in goat-skins like the fauns of old, guide the painted ploughshare, and the strength of the beautiful heifers ”

“ Such jewels of expression are indeed scattered throughout the whole of Carducci’s work, their conciseness rendering very apparent the classicality of the models on which Carducci formed his style. Of him, indeed, Tennyson might have said, as he did of Virgil—
“All the wealth of all the Muses,
often flowering in a lonely word.”
Spring sets Carducci’s heart beating in dithyrambs; it is in his spring songs that he abandons himself most completely to the joy of life as life, and attains, perhaps, some of his highest flights of lyric song. ”

“ A MONTH IN ELBA I. An atmosphere as invisible as that of Egypt, a sea of the clearest amethyst and emerald, merging into sapphire in the distance, and jealously guarded by a series of frowning headlands, now grey, now black, now red, with heart and veins of iron, that enclose miniature beaches and mysterious grottos where the water sleeps peacefully in the arms of its lord ”

“ Soldiers, convicts, “society,” trade, all hive on those two little hills, and the only opening through which workers and drones can pass in and out on the landside is a low-browed gateway, bearing the Medici arms, and overlooking a plank bridge spanning the moat of sea-water. Within the gateway is a wide, open space, through which one passes up the first ramparts of the Falcone, to a wonderful winding tunnel, hewn in the solid rock. ”

“ In vain monks and nuns try to shut him out from their lives; he inspires Heloïse, he murmurs the verses of Ovid and Horace among David’s psalms and tears of repentance. But Satan often peoples the sleepless cell with images of a better age. He arouses, from the pages of Livy, eager tribunes, consuls, agitated shouting crowds. Wiclif and Huss, Savonarola, Luther secure the triumph of human thought: matter, rise again! Satan has conquered. ”

“ The heavy grating of the lower windows, the picturesque archway leading to the square, paved courtyard, the little garden on one side, with its olive-tree bending over the grey wall towards the road below—all breathe an almost cloistered quietness. Parva domus magna quies, [6] runs the legend sculptured in black letters on grey marble over the house door.
Nothing clashes in this villa. The present proprietor, with his antiquarian and artistic tastes, and his love of Latin inscriptions, has produced a rare welding of past with present. ”

“ This is Marciana Marina. Behind it a steep, boulder-paved path, running along a ridge above the chestnut woods, where cicale sing all day long to the sound of falling waters, leads to Marciana Alta, a fortified place defended once by a huge castle. The castle is now a mere shell within which [158] fowls are penned; they pick up a living among the heaps of débris, and drink out of the two halves of the large iron crown which once hung proudly above the Medici arms. To the right of Marciana Alta, a long Via Crucis leads to a church known as the Madonna del Monte. ”