Costa

“ If all of these republics have their turbulent moments, they quickly recover.
After the flight of Tinoco, Costa Rica settled quickly into its accustomed routine. Through the narrow Moorish streets the oxen plodded slowly behind the driver’s goad-pole, their noses to the ground, their massive shoulders swaying from side to side. In the coffee fields outside the capital the peons laughed and chatted as they filled their baskets with red berries. In the plaza the military band played on Sunday evenings, while youths and maidens strolled beneath the palm trees. ”

“ After a brief silence, Casanova laughed and then said softly in my ear: 'The rogue is right.' He went into the cafe and motioned to Costa to come out; they began to walk together calmly, as if nothing had happened, and they parted shaking hands repeatedly and seemingly calm and friendly. Casanova returned to me with a cameo on his little finger, which by a strange coincidence, represented Mercury, the god-protector of thieves. ”

“ In the earlier portion of his artistic career, Costa exhibited at Paris (with Corot, Troyon, and others) ; afterwards he found in England his chief patrons, and many of his pupils. In 1853, at Rome, he made the acquaintance of Leighton, whose intimate friend he remained until the President's death. Another celebrated English artist with whom Costa was intimate was Mason; there is considerable affinity in some respects between the work of the two men. The Italian painter has depicted almost every part of his beautiful country. ”

“ Holding up the lantern, Da Costa turned to me and said, "I had hoped to find Pinheiro here, but he has not come. We cannot wait for him. Now, Mr. Phenays, this is the room. Start your work at once. What do you think of it? Here is the cipher." ”

“ People would naturally ask, “If he becomes popular, where will our compositions be?”
I proved this at Covent Garden, where a crew of Italians nearly wrecked Benvenuto Cellini by hissing from beginning to end. Costa was credited with this cabal, since I had fallen foul of him in newspaper articles for the liberties he took with the scores of the great masters. However, guilty or not, he knew how to quiet my doubts by doing his best to help me during my rehearsals. ”

“ The well was from fifteen to sixteen feet in depth. Its walls were smooth and glistening. I noticed that about half way down, bulging into the wall, was an old piece of piping. Before I had time to say anything about this, the man who had helped Da Costa brought forward a rope, put it round the waist of the Portuguese, and lowered him into the well. He reached the bottom, fumbled about there, and presently I heard him utter a shout.
Mademoiselle, bending forward, asked him if he had found it.
"Yes!" he cried. "Yes! Enough treasure to keep us rich for the remainder of our lives. ”

“ The extraordinary predilection of the more ancient Portuguese for this species of pastoral poetry, had therefore descended from one generation to another, down to these latter times. One of Da Costa’s eclogues is dedicated to the prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, or as he was then still called, the Count of Oeyras, with a warmth of feeling which seems to have been the genuine effusion of the poet’s heart. ”

“ Republics are famous for their superstitious attachment to old customs; they are afraid that changes for the better may destroy the stability of the state, and the government of aristocratic Venice still preserves its original Greek character.
My Spaniard was delighted when I dismissed Costa and proportionately sorry when I took him back.
“He’s no profligate,” said Le Duc; “he is sober, and has no liking for bad company. But I think he’s a robber, and a dangerous robber, too. I know it, because he seems so scrupulously careful not to cheat you in small things. Remember what I say, sir ”

“ On entering the first town I had visited in Central America, I had of course looked about me for strange sights. That men should be found with their heads under their shoulders, or even living in holes burrowed in the ground, I had not ventured to hope. But when a man has travelled all the way to Costa Rica, he does expect something strange. He does not look to find everything as tame and flat and uninteresting as though he were riding into a sleepy little borough town in Wiltshire. ”

“ Information that is novel or absurd attracts attention and spreads widely, and is slow to be corrected by reason and accurate observation. Natural science still has many entertaining absurdities to eliminate from its teachings.
But now that I am within sight and touch of the land of promise, the beautiful Costa Rica, I find myself in a sad plight. I can not get in. I sailed from New Orleans a week earlier than the other delegates in order to spend the holiday week at San José, the capital of Costa Rica and the Paris of Central America, and practice my Spanish and participate in the revelry. ”

“ Neither am I concerned with Costa’s uncomprehending attitude toward the Russian novel, in which he can find only folly, cruelty and delirium! It is a large world, and we must each write what is in ourselves, not what preceptive critics would order to fit in with their clamping theories. But I wish to point out that Costa’s employment of the word esthetic in his term for the novel of Brazil’s future indicates, for all his praise of the Aranha book, a sense of something lacking in Chanaan. ”

“ About the same time the Costa Rican brig which was at anchor nearer the shore (a smart craft she was, straight in the bends and all black, save a yellow streak) , also got ready for sea with great expedition and worked out of the harbor; and when the hot sun, which erewhile had lit up the vast continent of Africa to the eastward of us rose from the ocean, we saw her black hull and white canvas shining in his morning rays about a mile astern.
"You say, Marc, that craft is a Costa Rican?" said Weston, doubtfully.
"Yes, sir," replied Hislop. ”

“ I gave some money to her mother to get us a good supper, and I took the girl out on pretence of going for a walk. I went with her to my lodging, and left her with Poinsinet, and going to another room I summoned Costa and Vannini. I told Costa in Vannini’s presence to go on with Le Duc and my luggage the following day, and to call for me at the “Pilgrim” at Bologna. I gave Vannini my instructions, and he left the room; and then I ordered Costa to leave Florence with Signora Laura and her son, and to tell them that I and the daughter were on in front. ”

“ Unlike de Costa, he spoke English with a strong accent, which it would be extremely difficult to reproduce. For all that, he had a good command of words.
"And now," he went on, "I must offer you such hospitality as I can. I notice the men in your canoes are Fans. I must confess I have never found the Fan a good worker. He is too independent. They are all prodigal sons."
"I like the Fan," said Edward.
"Each man to his taste," said Cæsar. "In the kraal yonder," he continued, pointing to the village, "I have about two hundred boys. ”

“ He was sent away along that stream with some men he'd brought. 'Come and finish our game of billiards, Billums,' Gerald sang out. Honestly I don't know whether he was showing off, or was nervous, or whether he did really want to finish it, but we heard a heavy carriage splashing through that stream, and the new President—de Costa himself—appeared. They both went into the Casino and, I was thankful to see, into an upstairs room, where they couldn't be shot at. ”

“ The Spaniards themselves are not in their own country at all famous for their inns. No European nation has probably advanced so slowly towards civilization in this respect as Spain has done. And therefore, as these Costa Ricans are Spanish by descent and language, and as the country itself is so far removed from European civilization, we did not expect much. ”

“ Similarity goes even deeper, for it is found in ideas and in mental habits. A Costa Rican and an Argentine differ less than a Texan does from a Vermonter, or a Caithness man from a Devonshire man. All remain in a sense Spanish; that is, they are much more like Spaniards and more like one another than they are like Frenchmen or Italians. They are nearer to one another than North Americans are to Englishmen. ”

“ On the central plain of that portion of Central America which is called Costa Rica stands the city of San José. It is the capital of the Republic,—for Costa Rica is a Republic,—and, for Central America, is a town of some importance. It is in the middle of the coffee district, surrounded by rich soil on which the sugar-cane is produced, is blessed with a climate only moderately hot, and the native inhabitants are neither cut-throats nor cannibals. ”

“ My brother, the Chevalier Mengs, and the Abbé Winckelmann were all in good health and spirits. Costa was delighted to see me again. I sent him off directly to His Holiness’s ‘scopatore maggiore’ to warn him that I was coming to take polenta with him, and all he need do was to get a good supper for twelve. I was sure of finding Mariuccia there, for I knew that Momolo had noticed her presence pleased me.
The carnival began the day after my arrival, and I hired a superb landau for the whole week. The Roman landaus seat four people and have a hood which may be lowered at pleasure. ”

“ The sun was rapidly approaching the western horizon when we took our departure from the beautiful and picturesque harbor of the Queen of the Seas. In a short time the coast of what was once known as Castilla del Oro—Golden Castile—had disappeared from our view and the prow of our vessel was directed towards the historic land of Costa Rica—the Rich Coast—discovered by Columbus during his fourth voyage. ”

“ THIS monograph treats of the topography, geology, mineral wealth and soils of Costa Rica; it describes its climate and presents the details of its flora and fauna with reference to their economic value; it displays the distribution of population according to race, wealth, communities and social conditions; it examines the agricultural development of the Republic, including its live stock and forests ”

“ Costa Rica was peopled largely by Spaniards from Galicia, but the bulk of the folk are to-day Ladinos or Mestizos, and, where the native tribes have not been exterminated, there are Indians still in complete savagery. The land is one of the healthiest in the region we are treading, and its products of fruits and foods, of timber, tortoise-shell, rubber, cedar, mahogany, ebony, and great stores of bananas, give to the land a further claim to the name of the Rich Coast. ”

“ A costa is a line of separate [Pg 42] oases with their backs to the same slope. When the valle is narrow, the costas on either side of the sterile depression face each other, like two parallel roads. The water of the quebrada is never sufficiently abundant to irrigate the whole of the cone of the torrent. In order to create an oasis there, they have selected the most easily cultivable zone, which is usually the foot of the cone, where the deposits are finer and more fertile, retain the moisture better, and require less watering. ”

“ The military force stationed in Costa Rica about the middle of the eighteenth century was little short of one thousand men, and yet the magistrates throughout the province were unable to enforce their authority. ”

“ In weighing existing data there seems to be no room for doubt that the highlands of Costa Rica once formed part of a vast archipelago extending from Panama to Tehuantepec. The lowest inter-oceanic depressions between the Arctic Ocean and the Straits of Magellan are the divide between the two oceans at Panama which is 286 feet above the sea-level, and the narrow strip of land separating Lake Nicaragua from the Pacific, which has only about 150 feet elevation. ”

“ Here the old romantic inexhaustibility in the poetic amplification of a favourite idea, sustained by a constantly recurring burthen, is united with all the magic of Metastasio’s versification.364 In some poems of the same class which Da Costa composed in the Italian language, a certain degree of constraint is observable. But his Portuguese cantatas, spiritual as well as temporal, are not only free from that fault, but often bear the stamp of excellence. ”

“ DA COSTA, ISAAK (1798–1860) , Dutch poet and theologian, was born at Amsterdam on the 14th of January 1798. His father was a Jew of Portuguese descent, and claimed kindred with the celebrated Uriel D’Acosta. An early acquaintance with Bilderdijk had a strong influence over the boy both in poetry and in theology. He studied at Amsterdam, and afterwards at Leiden, where he took his doctor’s degree in law in 1818, and in literature in 1821. ”

“ Costa Rica is a peace-loving little state, prosperous, and enjoying a delightful climate. Much coffee and cocoa is grown, shaded by the Bois immortel or madre de Cacao. The live-stock industry is also a large one, and the animals seen on the high grassy plains are well grown [Pg 275] and apparently well bred enough. I visited Cartago, a city which soon afterwards was destroyed by an earthquake.
On the railroad trip up to and back from the capital we passed through lovely and romantic scenery, high hills, deep ravines and virgin tropical forest. ”

“ Now Don Crescenzio remembered having gone with him one evening, on leaving the meeting in Nardones Road, up Taverna Penta Road to a very ordinary house there, which Costa was reduced to, just opposite San Giacomo Road. He must find him, at any rate, whether alive or dead. Ninetto Costa would give him the eleven hundred francs he owed him, and at least a part of the debt to Government would be paid ”