Alessandro Volta

“ This year he was elected a Corresponding Member of the 1st class of the French Institute, who had previously awarded to him their prize of 3,000 livres for his treatise on 'Chemical Affinities.' In the spring of 1814 he reached Rome, where he spent a month; and thence visited Naples; all the while filling his note-books with interesting entries, personal, scientific, and poetic. On his return homeward he made the acquaintance of Volta, then seventy years old, at Milan, and he records his pleasure at conferring with the ingenious and amiable old man. ”

“ It is said that even the degraded Mantuans blushed to be ruled by so dull and ignorant a wretch; but in his time, nevertheless, Mantua was all rejoicings, promenades, pleasure-voyages, and merry-makings. "The Duke recruited women from every country to stock his palace," says an Italian author, "where they played, sang, and made merry at his will and theirs." "In Venice," says Volta, "he surrendered himself to such diversions without shame, or stint of expense. ”

“ From Vicenza and Rivoli, to Sommacampagna, and across Monte Godio to Custozza, to Volta on the right of the Mincio, up to the gates of Milan, the line of fire travelled, with a fantastic overbearing swiftness that, upon the map, looks like the zig-zag elbowing of a field-rocket. ”

“ The Volta itself has been found to be navigable to the falls of Klatchie, from 300 to 350 miles from Addah; but it is by its principal confluent, the Afram, that Coomassie should be approached. The Afram discharges into the Volta at the town of Ourahei on the western bank of the latter, about 130 miles from the sea, and to this town, prior to the invasion of [Pg 315] Crepe by the Ashanti general Adu Buffo in 1869, great numbers of Ashantis used to resort for purposes of trade, Ourahei itself being only six days’ journey from Coomassie through an open grassy country. ”

“ In sciences and arts the native country of Volta, Cialdi, Secchi, Rossini, Verdi, and Vela occupies even now a position of equality with the most advanced nations of Europe. The Italian of the present day is able to refer without shame to the two great centuries of the Renaissance, for he has entered upon a second period of regeneration, and the names of contemporaries can be mentioned by the side of the great names of the past. Italy has its skilful painters and sculptors, its celebrated architects and unrivalled musicians. ”

“ They have Volpone brought in, like a dying man; manufacture false "testimony," to which Voltore gives weight with his advocate's tongue, with words worth a sequin apiece. They throw Celia and Bonario into prison, and Volpone is saved. This public imposture is for him only another comedy, a pleasant pastime, and a masterpiece. ”

“ The neurotic modern vulgarity which, misinterpreting the doctrines of Nietzsche, worships force and bows down in the dust before the great unscrupulous man, finds no support in Voltaire. Honest people, cultivating their gardens and keeping the prophets away from their backyards, find in the Voltairian spirit their perpetual refuge. ”

“ If she makes any fresh attempts to gain entrance into Italy it is thought she will begin by establishing herself at Venice; and that she will take up her abode in the kingdom of Naples, in spite of the liquefaction of the saint's blood in that country, which awakens in her mind mournful reflections on human credulity. It is pretended that she has an infallible secret for untying the strings of a crown, which are entangled, nobody knows how, in those of a mitre. ”

“ You killed Vincenzo, you have killed me. I am a dying man. I shall not live to accomplish what I most desire. But I should like to die knowing that what I most desire will be brought to pass after I am dead. If you will swear to carry out my instructions you shall not hang to-day. You shall have a respite until such time as you hand Vola over to your successor. You shall have a chance, a small chance, one chance in a million, but still a chance, of living after you hand over Vola to your successor. Meantime, be it days or years, you will be Bauro Disvola, living and lord of Vola. ”

“ Glad to have their gold, but still more glad to deceive them, artistic in wickedness as in avarice, and just as pleased to look at a contortion of suffering as at the sparkle of a ruby.
The advocate Voltore arrives, bearing a "huge piece of plate." Volpone throws himself on his bed, wraps himself in furs, heaps up his pillows, and coughs as if at the point of death:
"Volpone. I thank you, signior Voltore,
Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad.... ”

“ The Venetians thought the bargain too good to be refused, and the Pope, in the interest of the Church, accorded all the demands of the Bacha. When Vatteville was quite assured that his conditions would be complied with, he took his measures so well that he executed perfectly all he had undertaken. Immediately after he threw himself into the Venetian army, and passed into Italy. ”

“ It is said that his anxious friends in Paris recommended the action as an answer to the charges of unbelief brought against him. But a Voltaire must have known well enough that such an answer as that would impose on no one. Besides, it was not like him to be governed by the advice of fools—even if they happened to be his friends. The reasons he himself gave for the action were that at Rome one must do as Rome does. “When men are surrounded by barbarians ... one must imitate their contortions.... Some people are afraid to touch spiders, others swallow them.” ”

“ I believe every man of honour should put his own nation first.
A moment after, Voltaire turned to me again and said that as I was a Venetian I must know Count Algarotti.
“I know him, but not because I am a Venetian, as seven-eighths of my dear countrymen are not even aware of his existence.” ”

“ And Votini, who thought himself sure of the first medal—I like Votini well enough, although he is rather vain and does polish himself up a trifle too much,—but it makes me scorn him, now that I am his neighbor on the bench, to see how envious he is of Derossi. He would like to vie with him; he studies hard, but he cannot do it by any possibility, for the other is ten times as strong as he is on every point ”

“ Of the gay and social habits and constitution of her country, the Italian was not disposed to suffer the astrologer to dwell only among the stars. She sought, playfully and kindly, to attract him towards human society; and Volktman could not always resist—as what man earth-born can do?—the influence of the fair presider over his house and hearth. ”

“ You know the family history. The Disvole have always been vengeful, but they have never been satisfied with any brutal and obvious revenge; they have had a pretty taste in retaliation and their vengeances have been delicate, fantastic, recondite.
"I must now tell you, Messer Melozzo, what I have never told any man, what I shall never tell any man but you.
"After our father's death Vincenzo neglected me, ill-treated me, insulted me. I had no reason to expect any better treatment from Romualdo. Vola, you should know, is not a fief held from the Emperor, from the Pope, from any overlord. ”

“ There was, however, no tinge of ascetic principle in Voltairism. Pascal had remarked that relaxed34 opinions are naturally so pleasing to men, that it is wonderful they should ever be displeasing. To which Voltaire had thus retorted: ‘On the contrary, does not experience prove that influence over men’s minds is only gained by offering them the difficult, nay the impossible, to perform or believe? Offer only things that are reasonable, and all the world will answer, We knew as much as that. But enjoin things that are hard, impracticable; paint the deity as ever armed with the thunder ”

“ Then, gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,—it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,—feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: “At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! ”

“ Nobis and Franti alone look askance at him, and Votini darts envy from his eyes; but he does not even perceive it. All smile at him, and take his hand or his arm, when he goes about, in his graceful way, to collect the work. He gives away illustrated papers, drawings, everything that is given him at home; he has made a little geographical chart of Calabria for the Calabrian lad; and he gives everything with a smile, without paying any heed to it, like a grand gentleman, and without favoritism for any one. It is impossible not to envy him, not to feel smaller than he in everything. ”

“ Italy is probably not the only country where men powerful in politics and finance can induce the law to act with something more than normal promptitude, and Volterra, as usual, was not going to do anything illegal. ”

“ Carlo Nobis envies him also; but he has so much pride in his body that, purely from pride, he does not allow it to be perceived. Votini, on the other hand, betrays himself: he complains of his difficulties at home, and says that the master is unjust to him; and when Derossi replies so promptly and so well to questions, as he always does, his face clouds over, he hangs his head, pretends not to hear, or tries to laugh, but he laughs awkwardly. ”

“ Let us remember that Voltairism was primarily and directly altogether an intellectual movement, for this reason, that it was primarily and directly a reaction against the subordination of the intellectual to the moral side of men, carried to an excess that was at length fraught with fatal mischief. Are our opinions true, provably answering to the facts of the case, consistent with one another; is our intelligence35 radiant with genuine light and knowledge ”

“ Towards the end of March I went from Pisa to Volterra. This you know is a very ancient city, one of the strongholds of Etruria when Rome was in its cradle; and, in more modern times, in the age of Italian republics, large enough to form an independent community of considerable importance. It is now a decayed town, containing about four thousand inhabitants, some of whom are families of the poor and proud nobility common enough over all Italy, who are said to quarrel with each other more fiercely in Volterra than almost anywhere else. ”

“ When he chooses, however, he can individualize his figures, like Angelica, or Orlando and Alcina, with great success, and many observations interspersed throughout the work, show keen insight into human nature. Voltaire, an ardent admirer of this poet, said he had more knowledge of the human heart than is to be found in all epics and novels from Homer's Iliad down to Richardson's Pamela. He regretted Madame du Deffand had not learnt Italian in order to read so admirable a poet. ”

“ Mechanically he fastened the belt about him. The feel of the sword at his thigh half restored him to sentience. He heard Bauro speak aloud:
"Hearken all men. Here before you stands Messer Melozzo Carpineti, lord of Vola. He has been lord of Vola since the death of Ser Romualdo. For six years I have been his deputy holding his castle for him, awaiting his return that I might deliver to him his own. From this moment you are to take orders from him as you took orders from Ser Romualdo, from Ser Vincenzo, from Ser Zenone. Salute the lord of Vola!" ”

“ In Galvani’s view the motions of the muscle were the result of the union, by means of the metallic arc, of its exterior or negative electrical charge with positive electricity which proceeded along the nerve from its inner substance. Volta, on the other hand, attributed them solely to the effect of electricity having its source in the junction of the two dissimilar metals of the arc, and regarded the nerve and muscle simply as conductors. ”

“ By now Vittore felt and showed respect.
"Then we will not enter Milan either," said the stranger, "since Visconti has not."
The boy gazed on him, struck by his tone, and Tomaso's eyes, half-closing, reopened and fixed themselves upon the stranger's face.
"Messer, you hate Visconti?" whispered Vittore.
The man laughed shortly. "There are many in Lombardy who hate Visconti," he said. "Perhaps I not less than others. Boy," he added, with sudden intensity, "I have only two things to live for: one is to tell Visconti to his face what one man's hatred is." ”

“ The aged faithful attendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by negro pirates, remembers [Pg ix] that she is the daughter of a pope, and that in honor of her approaching marriage with a Prince of Massa-Carrara all Italy wrote sonnets of which not one was passable. We do not need to know French literature before Voltaire in order to feel, although the lurking parody may escape us, that he is poking fun at us and at himself. ”

“ That we may be impartial, we quote the opinion expressed of this poem by a modern French critic. Barante, in his "Essay on French Literature of the Eighteenth Century," remarks, "Voltaire has most fallen in his reputation as an epic poet. He flattered himself in vain that he had bestowed an epic on France. Such a work could not be produced in the times in which he lived, nor with a character like his. For epic poetry we need the lively and free imagination of the first ages: knowledge must not have weakened faith, enthusiasm of feeling, nor the variety and vigour of character. ”