Maurice Baring

“ I am afraid that by the time the next generation is grown up the beautiful Rome that we have known and loved will have entirely disappeared, and that when our sons and daughters make the pilgrimage which we looked upon as the reward of our studies and the greatest privilege of our youth, they will find a new city, elegant no doubt, and not without grandeur,198 but devoid of that special charm, that rare and solemn dignity, which clothed the city as we knew it. ”

“ Herr Heine said to the Princess. “Perhaps Bellini is not a genius after all. Besides which I have never heard a note of his music. I purposely came in this evening after it was all over. Is he a genius, Princess? What do you think?” Then he addressed himself again to Bellini: “Let us hope, my dear friend, that the world has made a mistake about you, and that you are not a genius after all. It is a bad thing to be. It is the gift of the wicked fairy. ”

“ The boxes are always full when Shakespeare is on the bill, and last night the play was well received; the disgusting jokes and the extravagant ravings duly listened to and applauded by men, women, lawyers, merchants, lords, and sailors. One and all they seemed to breathe with delight the obnoxious vapours of that earth which is made up of the remains of corpses. Compare this deliberate brutality, which educated men have tried to justify in books, with the mildness of the penal laws and the real executions, and explain it if you can! ”

“ When Rome falls may our language and our literature perish with us. May we be utterly forgotten. My verse at least shall escape the pedagogues, for it is licentious; and yours, Crassus, I fear they will scarcely understand across the centuries. But, O Vergilius, the spirit of your poetry, so noble and so pure, is the very thing to be turned into a bed of Procrustes for little Dacians! ”

“ We arrived late the night before last from Rome, and never have I seen Capreae so crowded. There are hundreds of yachts here, and many from Egypt, Greece, and Asia, and the whole fleet has arrived, and is drawn up ready for inspection. Clothes are, of course, a difficulty, because one is expected to be elegant, and if one wears anything beautiful it is certain to be spoilt when one gets in and out of boats. Clodia looks too absurd in Egyptian silks and gold chains, just as if she were going to the Games, and Lesbia looks sillier still dressed up as a Greek sailor boy. ”

“ The soothsayer told Caesar that all would be well with him should he follow the advice of those who loved him most. When the soothsayer said this, Caesar looked at Cleopatra with infinite tenderness, and she smiled at him very sweetly. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. The vanity of men is extraordinary! I thought to myself—How can that conceited old politician think that a woman as young, as clever, and as pretty as Cleopatra could possibly care for him, or feel anything else but disgust at his attentions!
The soothsayer then told Cicero’s fortune. ”

“ For a boy of sixteen he is enormous: very tall, large, and fat. He has dark hair, a low forehead, with a thick and rebellious tuft of hair growing over it, rather coarse features, and thick lips. He must be immensely strong, but although you could not find a greater contrast to his pale, prim, and dapper father, there is a strong family likeness, nevertheless. You see at once that he is a son of Marcus Aurelius. It is as though the gods had wished to play a huge joke, and had made in the son a caricature, on a large scale, of the father. ”

“ They tell us that the populace are the lords of the English stage, and that they must needs be pleased. It is their depraved taste, we are told, which maintains these spectacles which would empty the theatres in any other country. I am quite ready to believe it; but then it is only drunken sailors who should be asked to admire Shakespeare, since it is only by drunken sailors that his altars are supported.
On the other hand, I cannot help adding that educated society shares to a certain extent the prejudice of the rabble, since it shares their pleasures. ”

“ I am dreadfully afraid the Greeks will never take Troy.
I can give you no idea of how dull everything is here. We do the same thing and see the same people every day. We know exactly what is going on in the Greek camp, and most of the time is spent in discussing the gossip, which bores me to death. You are quite right in what you say about Paris. I made a fatal mistake. It is all Aphrodite’s fault. He has become too dreadful now. He is still very good-looking, but even compared with Menelaus he is pitiable in every way and every bit as cross. Hector is very nice, but painfully dull. ”

“ The Rome I knew, the Rome of the straggly narrow streets and rotting wooden houses, has disappeared, and in its place there is a kind of Corinth on a huge scale, marred of course by the usual want of taste of the Romans, but imposing nevertheless and extraordinarily gay and brilliant. The fault of the whole thing is that it is too big: the houses are too high, the streets too broad, everything is planned on too large a scale. From the artist’s point of view the effect is deplorable ”

“ Shall I ask him? Without Iseult, of course. He can’t expect us to ask her after all that has happened. I hear the King of Orkney asked them both and that he now expects her to be asked, but nothing shall induce me to receive her. If you think it is impossible to ask him alone we had better leave it, and ask neither of them.
Oh! I quite forgot. There’s Lancelot. Shall we ask him to stay? He’s been so often, so if you would rather not have him we can quite well leave him out this time. I don’t want him to think he’s indispensable to you. ”

“ In Rome there is a continuity with which nothing can interfere.” And he added that he thought there was something in the atmosphere, the vegetation, the very grass and the weeds of the place which acted like a spell and softened what was ugly and modern, reconciled all differences, and reduced all discords into an eternal harmony which was the genius of the city. ”

“ I did everything I could to soothe him and quiet him, but the truth is, ever since Papa has been here he has lost control of his wits. He suffers from the oddest kind of delusions. He thinks that for some reason he is being treated like a beggar; and although he has a hundred knights—a hundred, mind you! (a great deal more than we have) —in the house, who do nothing but eat and drink all day long, he says he is not being treated like a King! I do hate unfairness. ”

“ The Emperor did not speak at all, but the Empress kept up a running conversation on the topics of the day—the games, the new port of Ostia, the Emperor’s new improved alphabet, and the progress of the History of Etruria, which he is writing in Greek.
“You will be a great help to him,” she said, talking as if he were not present. “There is nobody at all literary at Court just now, and he loves talking about literature. I am so anxious he should go on with his writing—you must encourage him. I do what I can, but I am not up to his scholarship and science; I am only an ignorant woman.” ”

“ Play is everywhere high, and at every “boulingrin” there is a pavilion where refreshments are sold—liquors such as cyder, hydromel, sparkling ale, and Spanish wine. There is a race of men called “Rooks” who meet together to smoke and to drink. They are what we should call grooms in France, and they always have about them enough money to lend to those who have lost at play; they are themselves so skilful at games of hazard, especially at one particular game which is played with three cards, that no one who plays with them wins. ”

“ I could not help saying to him that in Greece artists took pains to dress like everybody but to paint like no one.
Last night I supped with Maecenas at his house on the Esquiline. Let me do justice to my host and give praise where praise is due; here are no jarring notes and no foolish display. Maecenas has exquisite taste; his house is not overcrowded with ornaments nor overwhelmed by useless decoration. By a cunning instinct he has realized that art should be the servant of necessity. Everything in his house has a use and a purpose ”

“ There is no doubt that the Emperor is extraordinarily popular, and whenever he shows himself in public he is greeted with frantic enthusiasm. Of course there are some mal-contents among the old-fashioned Liberals, but they have no influence whatever and count practically for nothing, for what are their grumblings and their eternal lamentations about the good old times and the Empire going to the dogs, in the scale with the hard solid fact that ever since Nero came to the throne the prosperity of the Empire has increased in every possible respect? ”

“ The broad streets—a blaze of coloured marble and fresh paint—are now crowded with brilliant shops where you see all that is new from Greece and the East, together with82 curiosities from the North and the barbarian countries. Everybody seems to be spending money. The shops are crowded from morning till night. The display of gold trinkets, glass vases, carpets, rugs, silks, gold and silver tissues, embroideries, all glittering in the sunlight, dazzles the eye and imposes by the mass and glare of colour and gaudiness. ”

“ I always think they are the most charming people in the world. It is their works which I find so disappointing. Everybody writes too much,” he continued, “and, what is worse still, everybody writes. Even the dear Emperor writes hexameters; they do not always scan, but they are hexameters for all that. It has even been hinted that he has written a tragedy. Of course it doesn’t matter how much verse a young man writes as long as he burns it all, but our dear Master’s hexameters are preserved by the Empress. ”

“ She laughs at everything and everybody. She has a passion for those games which are usually played only by children of twelve and thirteen; such as, for instance, Blind Man’s Buff, and even when at cards the play is at its highest, she builds houses and castles with the cards, and forces everybody to join in the pastime. She is encouraged in her gaiety and her frivolity by the Duke of Buckingham, who sings agreeably, and has a wonderful talent for mimicking, not without a certain spice of malice, the voices and the tricks of his friends. ”

“ It is useless to pretend that he is as popular with the Russian people as he is with foreigners. Many of the ignorant peasantry regard him as the Antichrist, and they worship his utterly worthless son, the Czarevitch, because they consider that he respects and embodies their ancient customs. In spite of this there is no danger that what the Czar has accomplished will be overturned in the immediate future. He has done something which cannot be undone, like putting salt into a pudding. ”

“ Yesterday I went to the theatre to see a Tragedy played by the Lord Chamberlain, his servants, called “The Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” I was taken thither by Guasconi, who is attached to the Italian Ambassador, and who desired that I should not miss any of the curiosities of the city. The play was new, and the theatre was crowded with people, many of whom were of high rank, since noblemen in this country are fond of visiting the playhouse. They sit in places kept for them on the stage, and encourage the players by applause, and they express their approval and their blame. ”

“ The festival was not over when a slave arrived breathless, and told us what Narcissus had done. The Emperor, he said, was on his way home. The Empress knew she must meet him face to face. She also knew that Narcissus would do everything in his power to prevent it. The courtiers, scenting the Empress’s overthrow, deserted her, and she set out on foot to meet the Emperor. But Narcissus prevented the meeting, and the Empress fled to Lucullus’ Villa, which Valerius Asiaticus had bequeathed to her. ”

“ I am glad to have travelled in foreign countries, and this is a clean country and the people are friendly and all right; but I shall be glad to get back to my native land, for which my heart is weary, and to a place where a man can do as he pleases. We always heard much of English freedom, but a man in prison in our country is freer than a man at large here. ”

“ After dinner the Czar goes from room to room and talks to everybody, especially with the masters of foreign trading vessels. The Dutch and English skippers treat him with familiarity, and call him by no other name than Skipper Peter, which delights him, and the whole time he marks down any points which interest him in a note-book.
In conversing with these men, various in rank and condition, he never appears to be courting popularity or to be ingeniously fencing with subjects of which he is ignorant. ”

“ When I am with people like you they think I am an old professor, and when I am with professors they consider I am a frivolous mondain. When I am with Conservatives I am reckoned a Revolutionary, and by Revolutionaries I am considered a Reactionary. ”