Intermezzo

“ It is a rather [83] march-like strain in regular form, having three sections, the last of which is a repetition of the first, with fresh harmony and instrumentation. There are nominally fourteen variations;—including the finale, actually thirteen, for No. 10, described as intermezzo, is not a variation. Each of the variations, and the intermezzo, bears initials, or a nickname, which are commonly assumed to represent the composer's friends. Why any such thing should be assumed we do not know. It is both possible and allowable to portray persons who are not one's friends, and some of Mr. ”

“ It is now used as a museum. The gardens adjoining it are of the formal type so dear to, and so characteristic of, the eighteenth century.
5 One of the main routes through the Dolomites, leading from Southern Tirol into Italy. It is in part identical with the route outlined by Albert in "Intermezzo," but parts from it at Cortina to run straight south.
6 Former villages, now suburbs of Vienna, lying still nearer the city limits than Dornbach, where Sala is living.
INTERMEZZO
1 A small Bohemian city near the border of Upper Austria. ”

“ If Trieste participates largely, as is to be hoped, in the advantages of the Isthmus Company, if her neighbour of the Adriatic finds therein a new life, Great Britain will lose nothing thereby. Has it ever been seen that a capital city, brought into communication with a great market by a railroad, has had to regret the shortening of the distance and the amelioration of its own relations, because some secondary towns on the line were nearer to the market and participated in the common benefit? ”

“ Not every hurried traveller who flies by express train from Florence to Rome puts foot to earth and makes acquaintance with Arezzo. The automobilist does better, he stops here, for one reason or another, and he sees things and learns things hitherto unknown to him.
Arezzo should not be omitted from the itinerary of any pilgrim to Italy. It was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan federation, and made peace with Rome in 310 A. D. and for ever remained its ally. ”

“ I have received certain orders on the matter, which I shall put into execution without giving any warning to the Venetian Government.
“In future all goods for Lombardy will be embarked here and disembarked at Mezzola without troubling the Republic. Mezzola is in the territories of the Duke of Modena; a ship can cross the gulf in the night, and our goods will be placed in storehouses, which will be erected. ”

“ We were obliged to stay three days to get the coach repaired; and, providentially, Arezzo was the place, as it is the most loyal city in Tuscany; and every care, attention, and kindness that humanity can dictate, and cordiality and good manners practise, were employed in our favour.... Just as we were going to set 321off, we received accounts of the French being very near the road where we had to pass, and of its being also infested with Neapolitan deserters; but at the same moment arrived a party of Austrians, and the officers gave us two soldiers as a guard. ”

“ It is as though the dream of some Attic poet, for I cannot think that the heavy-eyed people of Etruria imagined such gods, lingers on in this little Tuscan town, and the echo of its ancient music vibrates in the stillness of the museum [5] like the murmur of waves in a shell. Or perhaps it is a magic in the air, the subtle air of Tuscany, that poets sing of, which has inspired more genius than we can find in all the rest of Italy.
For Arezzo, like Florence, has been the mother of great men. ”

“ I who had cut a path across Europe like a shaft, and seen so many strange places!--now to have to recite all the litany of the vulgar; Bellinzona, Lugano, and this and that, which any railway travelling fellow can tell you. Not till Como should I feel a man again ...
Indeed it is a bitter thing to have to give up one's sword.
I had not the money to wait; my defeat had lowered me in purse as well as in heart. I started off to enter by the ordinary gates--not Italy even, but a half-Italy, the canton of the Ticino. It was very hard. ”

“ The King of Sardinia openly announced his intention to take the field against Austria, should war break out. English and French warships appeared at Naples. In Sicily and southern Italy the attitude of the patriots grew threatening. Italy aroused Apprehensions of a general revolution throughout Italy at length induced Metternich to agree with the neutral powers on a compromise concerning the occupation of Ferrara. ”

“ The Italians claim that Istria should be theirs because of the undoubted Latin character of the towns along its coasts, because their Roman and Venetian ancestors established their outposts here long centuries ago, because the only culture that the region possesses is Italian, and, above all else, because its possession is essential to the safety of Italy herself. ”

“ This evening we crossed again to visit other seats on the opposite bank. Villa Melzi is a very pleasant country house; its marble halls and stuccoed drawing-rooms are the picture of Italian comfort—cool, shady, and airy. The garden has had pains taken with it; there are some superb magnolias and other flowering trees, but one longs for English gardening here. What would not some friends of mine make of a flower-garden in Italy; how it would abound and run over with sweets—no potting and greenhouses to check, no frost to decimate. The Italians here know not what flowers and a flower-garden are. ”

“ When the French look to-day with joy upon Italian irredentism as the hopeless barrier between Italy and Austria-Hungary, they should not forget that, even though fifty years have passed, Italian irredentism includes also Savoy and Nice. ”

“ A town wall standing free, as those of Arezzo stand in nearly their whole range, is always a striking object, and one whose circuit 5 it is pleasant and instructive to make. And it has a special interest in some cities, of which Arezzo is one, which have, so to speak, a show side. One side lies open to the world; the ancient roads, the modern railway, approach it; the city dies away into the country by gradually descending suburbs. ”

“ And one of the deacons remembered among this slave-gang an old man who resembled the description given of Demetrius.
To Milan, therefore, crossing again the Appenines, and riding up the broad, rich valley of the Po, went Isidorus. He was surprised to find a city, almost rivalling in extent Rome itself, and with a history reaching back to the times of the Etruscans, well-nigh a thousand years. First he sought the Jewish slave-dealer, who kept a regular mart for the sale or hire of human beings, just as one now-a-days keeps a livery-stable for the sale or hire of horses. ”

“ A revolution in Naples was almost sure to be followed by an Italian uprising in the Austrian possessions of Venice and an insurrection in the Papal States. Had Metternich felt free to follow his own devices, he would forthwith have [Pg 666] marched an Austrian army into southern Italy to put an end to the troubles there. With all his exasperation he did not feel free to Convention of Troppau cut loose from joint action with the Czar and with the other sovereigns of Europe. ”

“ THE long seething discontent of the lower classes in Italy, fomented by the national aspirations of such radical leaders as Mazzini and Manin, had reached its culmination by this time. The centenary of the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa had just been celebrated with such enthusiasm throughout central Italy that Austria was forewarned of the storm that was Revolution in Palermo about to burst. ”

“ For what Campania is to Rome, Istria is to Ravenna—a fruitful Province abounding in corn, wine, and oil; so to speak, the cupboard of the capital. I might carry the comparison further, and say that Istria can show her own Baiae in the lagunes with which her shores are indented [871] , her own Averni in the pools abounding in oysters and fish. The palaces, strung like pearls along the shores of Istria, show how highly our ancestors appreciated its delights [872] . The beautiful chain of islands with which it is begirt, shelter the sailor from danger and enrich the cultivator. ”

“ A common sight enough, heaven knows, in the Middle Ages, when every little city sought to rule itself, and the populace and the petty lords alike cloaked their ambitions under the old war-cry of Guelph and Ghibelline!
There is an air of gaiety in Arezzo, a simple, almost pastoral, joy. The philosopher felt it at once.
'We are like flowers,' he said, as we sat on a bench outside the inn after our first breakfast in Tuscany. 'In London our roots spread in the ground, and they [4] get knotted and twisted in the darkness. ”

“ Florence at one time (1478, as Fabroni says in his life of Lorenzo the Magnificent) , from which one may conclude that work of a certain sort was plentiful and lucrative, and panels of intarsia were certainly sometimes exported, but it may be observed that all the most celebrated intarsiatori practised some other form of art also, and generally abandoned intarsia sooner or later; the exceptions being those who belonged to the Olivetan and Dominican orders, and therefore had no [Pg 121] anxiety about their living. ”

“ Innspruck, or, rather, Innsbruck, is an exceedingly picturesque little town; but for one who has been to Switzerland, it is not worth the trouble of going out of one’s way; neither are the bronze statues in the cathedral. Trent alone, of all the places on your route, seems to me worthy of your interest.
Why should you not go to Sicily to see Etna, which is said to be at his pranks again? You are never sea-sick, and it is probable that boats leave Naples especially to view the spectacle. In about a week’s journey you will have been able to see Etna, Palermo, and Syracuse. ”

“ It had been decided in the War Office for some time that a small exploring and surveying expedition should be sent up the country from the Italian colony at Massowah with the idea of planning some permanent means of inland communication with the British possessions. Giovanni's father had seen a chance for him to distinguish himself and to obtain more rapid promotion, and by using all the considerable influence he possessed in high quarters he had got him appointed to be the engineering officer of the party. ”

“ Yesterday came news that Metternich had resigned. If this is true, the forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize too warmly for its own peace and quiet. ”

“ Prince Metternich declared soon after the peace of 1815 that Italy was ‘only a geographical expression.’ The taunt was true at the time, but even then there was a young dreamer living who was destined to render it false. ‘Great ideas,’ declared Mazzini, ‘create great nations,’ and his whole career was devoted to the attempt to bring about a united Italy. The statesmanship of Cavour and the sword of Garibaldi were enlisted in the same sacred cause. ”

“ The Carso, therefore, presented the chief point of interest after the fall of Gorizia, as every advance there means progress towards the main objective, Trieste. Scarcely a day passed now without a car from the Censorship going in the direction of the fighting line. I was therefore constantly able to make excursions, and was gradually filling up my sketch book with interesting subjects. ”

“ Predazzo, which stands in a broad valley at the junction of the Val Travignolo and Fleims Thal, is a prosperous town, mainly owing to the mineral wealth in the immediate neighbourhood, which of late years has been developed and worked, and the fertile nature of the valley. The inhabitants are principally iron workers, farmers, and hay or timber merchants, and their sphere of trade is a far wider one than the uninitiated would imagine, extending as it does throughout the Austrian Empire, to Germany, Switzerland, and other countries. ”

“ Next day the rain became snow, but I set out nevertheless for Mezzovo. We had to ford the river several times, and for the last hour to Mezzovo were up to our middles in snow. The scenery was magnificent, and the country is well cultivated. Mezzovo is a Vlaki or Wallachian village; the people speak a sort of mixed Greek. They are exceedingly industrious and well-to-do. ”

“ The soldiers were all clustered together at the prow, among piles of bags and barrels, some sitting, some lying down, others standing, and all singing at the top of their voices to the dull accompaniment of the paddles as the steamer glided straight towards that background of sky, against which rose the pointed hills of Ispra, dividing the immense expanse of water from the Ticino beyond. The young men would soon be crossing the Ticino, probably to the cry of "Savoy for ever!" ”

“ Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from 400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works, its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a result of the conflict. ”