Carnival

“ With the Carnival came the mistral, which generally seems to be waiting round the corner ready to leap out upon the flower-throwers, to blight their bouquets, and blow dust into the eyes of beauty, and make the feeble health-seekers cower in the corners of their rose-decked carriages. ”

“ They dance and flash their jewels, as they hold carnival in the Northern Lights. Even after the sun is set they peer at us through the parted clouds and leap at us from their hiding places in the moon. ”

“ The city's great holiday is the Mardi Gras carnival, which is celebrated just before Lent. The keys of the city are then given over to the King of the Carnival, and all day long high revelry holds sway. Brilliant floats, representing scenes of wonderful quaintness and loveliness, parade through flower-garlanded avenues thronged with people who have come from every quarter of the globe. ”

“ As for the carnival, which once lasted six months of the year, charming hither all the idlers of the world by its peculiar splendor and variety of pleasure, it does not, as I said, any longer exist. It is dead, and its shabby, wretched ghost is a party of beggars, hideously dressed out with masks and horns and women’s habits, who go from shop to shop droning forth a stupid song, and levying tribute upon the shopkeepers. The crowd through which these melancholy jesters pass, regards them with a pensive scorn, and goes about its business untempted by the delights of carnival. ”

“ It was the last evening of Carnival. The same masks, the same yells, the same mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity blowing about the streets in the great gusts of mistral that seemed to make them dance like dead leaves on an earth where all joy is watched by death.
It was exactly twelve months since that other carnival evening when I had felt a little weary and a little lonely but at peace with all mankind. ”

“ There are things in the world which allow of no description, and of such things a true Roman carnival is one. You might as well seek to analyze champagne, or expound the mystery of melody, or tell why a woman pleases you. The strange web of colour, beauty, mirth, wit, and folly, is tangled so together that common hands cannot unravel it. To paint a carnival without blotching, to touch it without destroying, is an art given unto few, I almost might say to none, save to our own wondrous word-wizard, who dreamt the “dream of Venice,” and told it waking. ”

“ It is the same welcome to the spring that gives its charm to the Carnival in the minds of the Italians themselves. To the priest of course Carnival is simply a farewell to worldly junketings and a welcome to Lent, but like every other Church festival it is flinging off its ecclesiastical disguise and donning among the people themselves its old mask as a sheer bit of nature-worship. ”

“ The little tables come out on to the pavement, and the society of the place forms itself afresh into buzzing groups of energetic conversers. The dormouse-life of winter is over, and the spring and the Carnival has come.
Carnival in a little Italian town, as we have said, is no very grand thing, and as a mere question of fun it is no doubt amusing only to people who are ready to be amused. ”

“ Carnival time is just before the beginning of Lent, and is a season of great merriment. Under a turquoise sky, with no clouds to mar its fairness, there is a pageant almost like those of the days of chivalry, and Fernando and Juanita, attended by their faithful Manuel and Dolores, saw it all. ”

“ And so, dancing and flirting and jesting, the hours grow old again into day, the gas-lights burn yellow in the grey light of morning, the paint and the powder have lost their excellence, the dresses are marred and tarnished. But are spirits grown weary, is merriment spent, though the Last of the Carnival is dead, and the sun has risen on Ash-Wednesday? ”

“ It is no small confirmation of this theory that the last day of the Carnival, namely Shrove Tuesday, is still, or was down to recent times, the customary season in Central Europe for promoting the growth of the crops by means of leaps and dances.787 The custom fits in very well with the view which derives the Carnival from an old festival of sowing such as the Saturnalia probably was in its origin. ”

“ But to the world in general, the mighty million, to the professional classes, to all men of business whatever, the end of the season is the beginning of carnival. It is the fulfilment of the dream over which they have been brooding for ten months, which has sustained them in toil, lightened anxiety, and softened even loss. It is air, it is health, it is movement, it is liberty, it is nature—earth, sea, lake, moor, forest, mountain, and river. ”

“ It was an admirable custom of our ancestors, in some districts, to celebrate the exequies of the carnival with a fit of pure genuine extravagance, to let their spirits once more run wild at the end of the holidays, and surfeit themselves with mirth, that they might afterwards indulge their devotion uninterruptedly, and without the slightest scruple of conscience. ”

“ It was the last day of carnival, which is the most noisy festival of the year, when a fever of joy, a mania of amusement, unparalleled in any other country, seized the Roman people. Everybody is disguised; hardly does there remain at the windows, an unmasked spectator: the scene of gaiety commences at a given hour on a certain day, and scarcely ever does any public or private event of the year hinder any person from joining the sports of the season. ”

“ It is a day, however, and an age, that appears to be remarkably barren, when compared with the prolific originality of former times, in productions of a scenic and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. To own the truth, the Carnival is alive, this present year, only because it has existed through centuries gone by. ”

“ All carnivals are vulgar and the line between mirth and horse-play is easily crossed, but it is a pity not to see the carnival at Nice at least once, and not to enter into the spirit of the thing, without a handicap of aristocratic prejudices. ”

“ March 7th.—I, as well as the rest of the family, have followed up the Carnival pretty faithfully, and enjoyed it as well, or rather better than could have been expected; principally in the street, as a more looker-on,—which does not let one into the mystery of the fun,—and twice from a balcony, where I threw confetti, and partly understood why the young people like it so much. ”

“ On Tuesday, all those who, through want of money, time, or enthusiasm, have not been to see the Carnival before, mingle in the gayety, and contribute to the noise and excitement. From two o'clock till five Franz and Albert followed in the fete, exchanging handfuls of confetti with the other carriages and the pedestrians, who crowded amongst the horses' feet and the carriage wheels without a single accident, a single dispute, or a single fight. ”

“ But before we go further, pray inform me what means all this parade attendant upon the visit of the French ambassador here to-day? I am not aware that we are in the carnival; nor have I an unmarried daughter for whom any French prince can have sent you to propose. "
"Surely your majesty would not compare the follies of the carnival with the solemnity of an imperial betrothal," said the archbishop, deferentially.
"Be so good as not to evade my question. I ask why you came to the palace with a procession just fit to take its place in a carnival?" ”

“ As we are obliged all the year to be decent, orderly, and reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint during the Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies and wishes that have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain. ”

“ Some of them, with an air of perfect nonchalance, as if fearing no power on earth, and knowing no anxiety beyond the present moment, improved the season as a holyday, a sort of carnival extraordinary, devoted to visiting, dancing, and all kinds of sports. ”

“ And the birds and the beasts gathered together to the horrible carnival, and soon there was nothing left but the bare bones, saving one arm, which none of them would touch, and it remained entire and perfect as in life. ”

“ Sunday is a weekly recurring carnival here, on which occasions the races and the military reviews take place, and all Paris seeks to amuse itself by open air pleasures. Fifty thousand people and more throng the Champs Elysées; the toy and refreshment booths drive a lucrative business; the numerous goat and pony wagons for children are in constant use. ”

“ And yet do what you will you can’t really elude the Carnival. As the days elapse it filters down into the manners of the common people, and before the week is over the very beggars at the church-doors seem to have gone to the expense of a domino. ”

“ We have seen that in Italy, Spain, and France, that is, in the countries where the influence of Rome has been deepest and most lasting, a conspicuous feature of the Carnival is a burlesque figure personifying the festive season, which after a short career of glory and dissipation is publicly shot, burnt, or otherwise destroyed, to the feigned grief or genuine delight of the populace. ”

“ The last year of the Carnival is always being predicted, but it seems never to come; and, certainly, as a truly popular amusement, bringing all classes together in perfect good humour, and on the same footing, it would be a pity it should cease to be, for we think that seldom is the fun and frolic converted into riot or unlawful excesses. ”

“ A true carnival can only be a success in a perpetual "summer-land," "within a lovely landscape on a bright and laughing seacoast." Taine said, "Give me the race, the surroundings, and the epoch, and I show you the man." ”

“ For months previous to the merry-making time, preparations are made for the approaching ‘carnival;’ we can assure our readers that never were the real ‘carnivals’ ushered in with greater festivities at Rome or Venice, in the zenith of their glory, than is observed here at Christmas. ”

“ Subject to these slight restraints, the wild revel and the joyous licence of the Carnival was to rule unbridled. In the words of a Papal writer in the government gazette of Venice: “The festival is to be celebrated in full vigour, except that no masks are allowed, as the fashion for them has lately gone out. There will be, however, disguises and fancy dresses, confetti, bouquets, races, moccoletti, public and private balls, and, in short, every amusement of the Carnival time.” What more could be required by a happy and contented people? ”

“ It really resembles an Italian carnival; there is nothing lacking, neither masks nor the comedy of private life; they play, they laugh, they dance, they dine, they listen to music, they don costumes, they get up picnics (fêtes-champêtres) , they indulge in gossip and gallantries. ”

“ It was now the beginning of Carnival. Our [Pg 431] recent loss left us no disposition, and our mourning dress made it unsuitable for us, to appear in large societies. I used to go, without any of my family, and stay for about an hour at those parties to which we were invited, that I might not be wanting to attentions thus paid us. Promenades in the delightful environs of Nice, lessons in music and Italian, and small companies in the evening, occupied and amused us till the beginning of Lent. ”

“ In former years every day on carnival week the paseo was crowded with masked men and women in historic and comic garb, and battles were fought with empty egg-shells and queerly constructed things for the same purpose. ”

“ We went to the street pageants, we went to the balls at the French Opera House, we saw the masking on the streets, and when the carnival was finished we were finished, too.
The great thing about the carnival, it seems to me, is that it bears the relation to the life of the city, that a well-developed hobby does to the life of an individual. It keeps the city young. It keeps it from becoming pompous, from taking itself too seriously, from getting into a rut. ”

“ The Carnival proper, with its processions of decorated coaches and symbolical cars, its battles of flowers, and its comparsas, or companies of masqueraders, lasts only throughout the first week of February, but for a fortnight or more in advance and for a good fortnight afterwards, every boy in the town possesses himself of a tin can and a stick, and as single spies or in battalions, they make night hideous. ”

“ The humble village fête has become a means of making money and an opportunity for clamour, licence and display. Reverence of any kind or for anything is not a notable attribute of the modern mind; while with the advance of a pushing democracy gentle manners inevitably fade away.
It is pitiable that the Carnival has to do with flowers and that it is through them that it seeks to give expression to its loud and flamboyant taste. ”

“ Few places on the continent have been so celebrated a locality, for so long a period, of wild and unlicensed enjoyment, for both burgeois and voyageur engaged in the perilous and adventuresome business of the fur trade. Those who speak of its history during the last half of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, depict the periods of the annual return of the traders from their wintering stations in the great panorama of the wilderness, east, west, north, and south, as a perfect carnival, in which eating and drinking and wild carousals prevailed. ”

“ It is well known that the Carnival of modern times is an imitation of the Saturnalia of the ancients, and that the celebration of those festivals was remarkable for the liberty which universally prevailed ”

“ But though the Usurper is dull, we reach a lower depth and muddier lees of wit in the Carnival, a comedy by Major Thomas Porter, of 1664. It is odd, however, that the very worst production, if it be more than two hundred years old, is sure to contain some little thing interesting to a modern student. The Carnival has one such peculiarity. Whenever any of the characters is left alone on the stage, he begins to soliloquise in the stanza of Gray's Churchyard Elegy. ”