CHAPTER XX

MY MOTHER’S LAST ROMAN WINTER

When we had been living in Rome four years my mother resolved to come out and pass a winter with us. One of the things that drew her to Italy was the wish to see her sister Louisa again. She had contemplated this visit for some time, but although she was in her seventy-ninth year, found it so hard to break away from the cares and responsibilities of public life that I crossed the ocean to help her get away. For one of the anticipated joys she had delayed too long, alas! In the August of 1898, my aunt, who had long been drooping, faded quietly out of life.

My letters to my brother and sisters give glimpses of whom and what my mother saw in that Rome which in her youth she had apostrophized as “The City of my Love!”

Rome, December 26, 1898. Well, my dears, we had a merry Christmas. In the afternoon we drove to the Pincio, where we sunned ourselves, then to the Odescalchi, where we enjoyed the Christmas tree Daisy Chanler had prepared for her own and the Crawford children. It was Mama’s first visit; it seemed best that it was made on this occasion, when youth was to the fore in force. The four Crawford angels, and Daisy’s three sported and enjoyed themselves. In the evening young Richard Norton, son of Charles Eliot Norton, came to dine with his bride, a daughter of Professor White of Harvard. We had a real English plum pudding on fire with holly on the top.

We keep up our exercise faithfully. If it is rainy we play ball, “I put my Ugly Mug In”, and “The Barberry Bush.” Mama works at her desk just as if she were at home and is hard at it writing her “Reminiscences.” I don’t believe she could ever have found time to write them in Boston.

* * * * *

January 16. We have seen Mme. Duse in Goldoni’s “Locandiera”, and in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s “Primavera”, a rotten piece, with which the great little woman did all she could. To-night we see her in “Magda.” The flocking Bostonians are in mid-career; on Sunday afternoons we have a houseful of them. I overheard Mama say to one the other day that she found “Boston more interesting than Rome.” _Quand même_ she is really enjoying herself immensely and is ten years younger than when she sailed. The comfort of her presence is indescribable. The Richard Nortons are here for the winter; he lectures at the American School for Classical Studies. We may have the pleasure of hearing Courtland Palmer play at a concert to-day, but up till last night it was impossible to ascertain. The plays and the programmes of concerts are usually announced on the day of the performance. This is typical of the place and people. Yesterday we heard a good vesper service at St. Agnese in Piazza Navona, the music very fine. The other morning to St. Andrea della Valle to hear a mass by Chaldeans, according to their curious ritual. The Chaldeans looked remarkably like ordinary American negroes dressed in Oriental splendor.

Good luck is coming my way, for to-day I have an invitation to take tea with our friend Don R., the _gobbo_, a little South American humpback. You know, of course, that a _gobbo_ brings luck. You must touch him if you can; if you can only manage to rub his hump you are likely to win the prize in the lottery. They say the reason why such people are so vain is that everybody tries to fondle them. His friend who lives with him, Mr. M., is a man so enormous that in the streets of Boston a lady stopped him and asked, “Sir, why are you so fat?”

The _gobbo_ may weigh one hundred pounds; his friend the giant must weigh three hundred; they are a most diverting couple.

* * * * *

Rome. February 26, 1898. Hall Caine has been here for two hours. He got started talking on the subject of the Rossettis. He lived with Dante Gabriel Rossetti for the last eighteen months of his life. Rossetti died in his arms. The horror of the chloral habit which killed him was so indelibly impressed upon Caine’s mind that he could talk of little else, once the train of thought was started. Rossetti wrote the “White Ship” and the “King’s Tragedy” during this time and read both in manuscript to Caine. I am tingling with the pathos and the passion of it all!

* * * * *

Rome. February 11, 1896. To lunch with Mme. Labatt to meet Hall Caine again. He is a _rosso_, with no body, only a big head and consuming brown eyes. He is arranging “The Christian” for the stage and gave us the whole play from beginning to end in the rough, telling the great situations and giving fragments of the chief speeches. Caine talked to us from half-past twelve till four o’clock. He thinks the Roman campagna disgusting, says there isn’t a decent drive near Rome, also says the “Old Masters” are fakes. I said to him,

“Mr. Hall Caine, you have never learned to see. Stay in Italy till you have learned to use your eyes!” We had quite a fine row. We are to go for a drive and I am to try and teach him to _see_. It will be of no use, however!

To-day Mama and I went out to a tea where we met Mr. Butler, the author of Flora McFlimsey--“Nothing to Wear.” He is coming to see us to-morrow; he and Mama had endless literary reminiscences together.--We are very angry about the _Maine_ tragedy. From the first moment I have been sure of foul play. I know too much of our naval men to believe in the possibility of such a hideous gigantic blunder--no, there’s malice in it.

March 26, 1898. We are living so much in ancient Rome that I can more easily tell you about Caligula and Caracalla, or even Numa Pompilius, than about modern politics and Crispi, upon whom the Chamber has passed a vote of censure. This is very sad, as no one believes that he was guilty of anything but that political dishonesty, which at home goes under the name of “campaign expenses”, but it was a cruel thing, though an act for which one must respect the Italian Government. The death of Cavalotti was a great misfortune for the liberal party. He was a remarkable man, the strongest and most honest of the radical deputies in the Chamber. He was a perfect firebrand, had fought thirty-eight duels and was killed in his thirty-ninth by a man with whom he had some political quarrel. The only good likely to come out of it is a generally increasing dislike of duels. Mama is so well that I don’t worry about her at all and hardly consider her more than I do myself. For the past hundred years the English doctors have been sending old people who wished to prolong their lives to Rome. This has to do with the effect of the climate on the action of the heart.

* * * * *

April 2, 1898. Raining again, this makes the fourteenth day. This is an old-fashioned rainy spring. We all keep well, for it is warm. Mama went out a little too much last week and so had one rather grievous day. She would drink champagne. It was a bang-up dinner, with dukes, ambassadors and princes, also, more interesting to her, Mrs. Pearse, the daughter of Mario and Grisi, who sang for us. The hostess sang and rather mangled the “Battle Hymn.” Mama recited her poem “The Flag” with great applause.--The tourist flood at its height; there will be one more month of it. I could not live without all these dear people from home, but the demands they make are sometimes pretty heavy.

* * * * *

April 29, 1898. The farewells are beginning for Mama. To-day I gave a tea and she a reading especially for the Ambassador and Mrs. Draper, who were in mourning when she

[Illustration: MY MOTHER, JULIA WARD HOWE]

read before and have asked to hear her. The little house is brave with green boughs and roses from the terrace and a big azalea in full bloom. Mama will read her “Plea for Humor”, the most popular of the papers she has with her for a society audience. We expect J.’s friend, Lady Kenmare, with her two nieces, Lady Beatrice and Lady Katherine Thynne (later Lady Cromer). Our Muse, Mrs. Stillman, will pour tea. In two weeks our darling will sail for home with the Arthur Terrys, unless the war news makes this dangerous; General Draper thinks it will not. I can’t get over the feeling that all the enthusiasm at home is excessive--if we were going to hit a man of our own size--you see I know Spain very well. It may be necessary for our lusty youth of a nation to put its heel on the neck of a broken and aged nation, but it should be done in the spirit I feel in McKinley, sternly and firmly and without fireworks or bunkum. This may sound like treason at home, but it looks so to every Roman American I have talked with. It’s awful; I wish I were at home and not away from it all and out of the magnetic current, for it is not likely that I can ever enter into what seems to be the national spirit at home. F.’s letters in abuse of McKinley remind me of the Chinese who flog their gods when things do not suit them.

My mother’s last winter in Rome was full of activities. She was instrumental in founding an important organization among the Roman ladies, somewhat in the nature of our Civic Leagues. She also organized a literary club where she and other liberal thinkers addressed a thoughtful audience made up about equally of Romans and members of the Anglo-American colony. Among the speakers I remember Richard Norton, who gave us a brilliant talk upon the worship of Vesta, who, he maintained, was the only really original deity in all Roman mythology, the other gods having all been borrowed from Egypt or from Greece; as he put it:

“The gods of Hellas came over to Rome in the chapman’s pack!”

Paul Loyson, the son of Père Hyacinthe, was a member of this club and more than once spoke to us. He was a handsome young man, full of poetic impulse and a pronounced liberal in his views.

On Sunday mornings Miss Leigh Smith, a cousin of Florence Nightingale’s and a stanch Unitarian, summoned a group of friends to her apartment in the Trinità dei Monti, where we held a little service conducted by my mother. Among those who took part was Paul Sabatier, the French author. Our hostess was one of the most interesting figures in the Rome of that day, and her house was a Mecca to American and English travelers.

The artists admired my mother, who was much in demand as a sitter. She consented to pose for Villegas, who made a quick, powerful portrait of her, excellent in everything save the expression, which to those who remember the extraordinary tenderness of her face