MAURICE DE GUÉRIN TOM. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS,AU VAL SAINT POTAN.AU PARC, July 9th, 1834.
I wrote to you on leaving Paris a short letter, of which I begged you not to take any notice. To-day, dear Hippolyte, when I have all possible leisure, and the untroubled peace of the country is around me, I resume our talk with every intention of carrying my confidence to the utmost limits; that is, to the point where I shall begin to fear that my chattering bores you.
I announced to you a complete account of my affairs and my position during these five months past. Now I am going to begin and you must listen. You know what my hopes were when I left Le Val; I felt a decided taste for literary life, the profession of a journalist smiled upon me, and I was hugging some bright phantom or other of the future that had sprung up in my imagination; and in spite of the distrust that you know I mingled with my love, I had given myself up to this dream with intense ardor. For, let me tell you,en passant, that I throw myself impetuously into every new project that can modify my existence; and whether a walk is proposed to me for the next day, or whether I am told, "To-morrow your destiny is to be completely altered," I feel equally excited, and rush to meet the two events with equal impatience. A strange activity of thought possesses me, and I shake myself and champ my bit because time prevents me from seizing at a bound what I am already devouring with my eyes. You may imagine that, with a soul subject to such ardent cravings, I reached Paris full of enthusiasm and seized the journalist's pen with a quiver of delight. But, as usual, my enthusiasm did not last long, and difficulties, personal as well as external, made themselves felt. I saw the entrance to the journals bolted and barred by that selfishness which guards the gates of everyplace against the approach of poor young fellows who come to Paris full of innocent hopes. Catholic France alone admitted me within its circle; but this journal, notwithstanding the good-will of its directors, could not satisfy my needs. My articles were favorably received,{695}but the narrow frame of the journal cut me off from frequent contributions, and in four months I had only appeared four times.
In the mean time expenses were not behindhand, and, although I lived in a very small way, my expenditure was large in comparison to my resources. I was exhausting fruitlessly time and money, my own patience and my father's. For several months I persisted in this disposition, holding my ground against adverse fortune in order to save appearances and not yield the field without making fight. But at last everything went so badly that I had to decide promptly upon a plan suggested by the extremity of the ease. If I had been alone, I don't know what would have become of me in my utter failure of strength and courage; but God, as if for my preservation, has placed around my wavering soul friends who prop and sustain it, restoring me to myself with touching solicitude. I went to Paul, and laid before him the whole story of my painful position. I proposed to him the terrible enigma of my destiny and asked him for a solution. Without an effort he untied the Gordian knot with these words: "If you leave Paris, the future will slip through your hands. Do not let go your hold at any cost. Make your father feel that this concerns your whole life, that our last effort may save everything, and a first refusal may ruin everything." And thereupon we set to work to compute article by article all the necessities to be satisfied, all the debts to be paid, all the most threatening possibilities of the future; and the whole account, amounting to the sum of twelve hundred francs, I sent to my father, with a petition written by my cousin in order to give it more weight.
At the end of a fortnight my father returned it with his approbation and a gift of the sum I had asked. What happiness it was to go in search of Paul that I might thank him, triumph with him, overwhelm him with joy for my joy; for I knew his kindness too well to doubt that he would share all my transports. I was not mistaken; his rejoicings over my success were sweeter to me than my own, and I had the inestimable pleasure of seeing it communicated to my other friends, François, Elic, etc. How delightful it is to receive such proofs of pure, heartfelt sympathy! In short, my dear Hippolyte, here I am launched upon the waves, provisioned with money and courage, and walking with assured step to meet the future; I feel as if a light were guiding me, and as if I were advancing toward an unknown goal. For the present this is what I mean to do: I shall spend the end of August and the whole of September at the College Stanislas, where I shall have a class during vacation: when the term begins, I shall establish myself in the college if there is a place for me; if not, I can have quite an advantageous situation at my cousin's, by helping him to keep his littlepension d'elèves. This is an abridged history of these last five months; it gives only a superficial view, but you are well enough acquainted with my inner life to understand the course of my thoughts during the time. Here I am at rest, dreaming of the future, giving myself up to the pleasures of friendship and conversation, and drinking in the country-life and all the dear idleness that one can never fully enjoy except in the fields. Our solitude is so profound that we do not even know the result of the elections. Another ignorance, harder to bear, is concerning all that is going on among our friends and affairs in Paris. I know nothing more than when I left them, and it is a very long time also since I heard from my sister.
Pray, present my respectful compliments to Madame Morvonnais, and my remembrances at Mordreux and Saint-Malo. I am going to write to Amédée. Ask Marie, who can answer me now, if she remembers M. Guérin, who sends her a thousand kisses.
TO M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.PARIS, Sept. 21st, 1834.
I have just received your manuscript, my dear friend, and the letter{696}it enclosed; it has only this moment arrived, and I write before reading, that my despatch may be ready for Paul, who leaves day after to-morrow in the morning. You are to possess this inestimable treasure of friendship, freshness of soul, and warmth of heart. He will rest from his busy, devoted life in the fair sanctuary of peace and friendship, of which you are the priest; he will bathe in the current of those easy, limpid days that murmur beneath your roof. What an interruption and vacuum in my life will be between his departure and the day of his return with the other brothers! What will become of me in myennui. Tomorrow evening we shall have our farewellsoirée. Do you know what evenings we have now and then? We meet at dinner-time and have a cosy dinner, intimate talks, long wandering walks under the chestnut-trees of the Tuileries, through the perfume of orange-blossoms and flower-beds in the gleams of the setting sun. These talks come and go between Paris and Le Val, from one friend to another, from present to future, from melancholy to the liver, philosophy to poetry, weak sadness to firm and manly resolutions, from one thing in life to another. To paint these conversations for you would be like trying to render with a style the colors of twilight, the vague nonchalance of the breezes, or, a still more difficult task, what comes more softly shaded to our hearts. Tomorrow will be the farewell evening, the close of these melodious evenings. How many things come to an end under our eyes! I will not speak of my own affairs; Paul will tell you where I stand, and how my hopes ebb and flow, rising to the chair of rhetoric of Juilly, and falling to a little schoolroom. He will tell you about my firm resolutions and the manly efforts of my will to seize the empire of my soul. It would be a long story to relate the history of my interior revolutions, changes of government, civil wars, anarchy, despotism, gleams of liberty. These are annals that write themselves in rude characters upon the soul and in wrinkles on the brow. Sometimes I feel that Ican no more, like an old empire. O my charming hermit, my sea-swan, my poet-philosopher, how shall I express the jumble there is in my soul at this moment of pleasure and pain, the pell-mell of joyful and sad tears that rush from my eyes and roll over each other down my cheeks? I see you in my soul; I see Paul's departure and embrace him in farewell; I see Le Val, your meeting, the charm of your life, the isolation of mine, and my longings after my dear Brittany. My friend, sometimes the soul wanders out of sight, and is restless and troubled like the sea.
MAURICE DE GUÉRINTO M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.PARIS, Oct. 19th, 1834.
At last, my dear friend, I can be with you, I can open my heart and confide my soul to you; a doubtful privilege, perhaps you think, but unluckily I cannot keep it to myself. Today, then, this gray Sunday, a calm day, a day of decline quite suited to the fall of leaves and the emigration of souls, my busy life, heated with action, pauses to recover its strength, and resume its confidential intercourse so long interrupted; to give itself up to the genius of autumn and lend its ear to the memories whose rustling we hear so distinctly on certain days; and, all laden with impressions, reminiscences, and autumnal melodies, to retire into some lonely corner far from chances of interruption, and pour itself out to you. But I have left behind me the mystery that I wish to unveil to you:My busy life, heated with action. What! I a man of action! Some potent voice must have bade me take up my bed and walk! The day after Paul left me I was to go to Versailles, where I had reason to hope I could have a place as teacher in an institution. I went to Versailles, and this was what I found: four hours of teaching{697}every day,des salles d'études, recreations, walks with the pupils, and a salary of 400 francs. The position I had hoped for in the College Stanislas having failed me also, there remained only my last plan, that of going to my cousin's. But, as if to complete and crown the lesson that she was resolved to give me, fortune decreed that my cousin should all of a sudden be absolutely without scholars. Thus for a time was I trampled beneath the feet of destiny. Then indeed I had time to write to you, I had a superabundance of leisure. To punish me for my sins—me, so long a rebel against the ancient condemnation to labor, God took from me the possibility of doing anything. He turned aside and removed from my reach all working tools at the moment when my hands were eager for them. Leisure on every side, far stretching, never ending, condemned to bury myself in unlimited leisure as in a doleful desert. Why did I not write to you when my whole life lay before me at my own disposal? My friend, I had nothing to tell but misfortunes, and my recital would only have grieved you. I preferred waiting for the wind to blow away these black days and clear my atmosphere. The tempest was short; the sky of my little world is tinged anew in the east, and it is by the light of its first gleams that I write to you. The professor of the fifth class at Stanislas asked leave of absence for a month; I have taken his place and shall have 100 francs for the work. I am looking for private lessons and have found several. Classes and recitations occupy my day from half-past seven in the morning until half-past nine in the evening; I sleep at my cousin's, the college dinner serves me for breakfast, and in the evening I get a dinner for twenty-four sous like adébutant. Such has been my life for the last three weeks; a sudden revolution in my existence, an abrupt transition from careless revery to breathless action. An urgent pressure, a little reason, a few grains of irritating self-love, supply fresh strength to my soul, which is exhausted at the first tug. However, I must say that in the deepest and most hidden recesses of my being, in the sanctuary of the will, lives a resolution, that is, I believe, firm and steady, to sacrifice half my existence to external things, in order to insure repose to the inner man; and therefore I have decided to prepare myself for theagrégation(corresponds to the expression, master of arts). I have explained to you the facts, accidents, and external circumstances; let us go deeper. Latin, Greek, and all the bustle of laborious life, absorb a certain portion of my thoughts; but it is that floating and least, valuable portion which, without regret, I let flutter in the wind like the fringe of a cloak. These are the waves that break upon he beach; the sand drinks them in, men gather their spoils, the sea tosses them to any one who wants them. Thus, as I tell you, my mind near its shores is occupied by the cares and duties of active life; but far out at sea nothing touches it, nothing passes over it, nothing is lost from its waves, except by the continual evaporation of my intelligence drawn up by some unknown star.
It will soon be a year since from the heights of Créhen I hailed Le Val, lying all golden on the hillside beneath the beautiful autumn sun. Dear anniversary, full of gentle melancholy like the season that brings it. Every morning, on the way to college, I cross the Tuileries where the ground is covered with the heaps of autumn leaves, the wind sighs through the branches as in a desert, and, like the ring-doves that build their nests in ancient chestnut-trees, a few of the poems of solitude flutter about in these city groves. Sometimes the murmur of a breeze among the boughs recalls to me the sound of the sea, and I pause to possess myself of the delusion, and isolate myself with it from the whole world: these are the waves, I am walking along the shore with you, wandering over headlands in the evening twilight; I am sitting on La{698}Rôche-Alain. Then when I feel the illusion is fading away, I resume my walk, all full of emotion, all full of you, and cry like theYoung Bard: "Good God, give us back the sea!"
MAURICE DE GUÉRINTO M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.PARIS, Dec. 5th, 1835.
Your impatience to know how I dispose of my time, and all the turnings of the roads I am following, that you may go with me in thought, roused in me a very delightful feeling, and one that does not easily find expression in words. But your idea of my life is quite too elevated; you attribute to it a dignity with which it is not invested when you speak of my sufferings and the courage with which I bear them. No, my dear Hippolyte, my lot is not so beautiful as you would make it out. The difficulties of my life consist in a few material fatigues, to which the body easily becomes hardened, even deriving a certain strength from contending with them; and in the distaste for a profession which is conquering my antipathy through the slow but irresistible action of habit, which tames the wildest spirits, and reduces them to complete submission almost without their knowledge, everything becomes deadened, everything dissolves insensibly. The firmest revolutions yield each day something to the progress of the hours. All rebellions are absorbed again by degrees into the common soul. All things lie upon a declivity which opposes itself to continued ascent. I have chosen my course in life; I come and go in the leading-strings of habit, keeping my mind in the middle of the road, restraining it carefully from those thoughts that would draw it aside, and mar the blessed monotony which lends something to the pettiest existence. Being reduced to this state, I have no need of courage. I required, of course, some resolution to arrive at it, but it was not worth much and was borrowed from circumstances.
These are the principal features of my day: I set forth on foot at seven o'clock to give a lesson in the neighborhood; then I go to the College Stanislas; at the other end of Paris, and remain there until six in the evening. That leaves me an hour and a half to dine and retrace my steps again to the further extremity of Paris, where my last lesson awaits me, which ends at half past eight. My liberty claims possession of the night. Custom having worn away the asperities of this life, only one defect remains, but a capital one; and that is the difficulty of using the fragments of time that are left to me after using the larger portions for studies that are to raise me above my present condition. How to make the cares of self-subsistence agree with these exacting labors seems to me an insoluble problem in Paris. But time is so fertile in good advice, and sometimes unties knots so easily that would have defied a sword, that I await its solution in patience. You wish me to compose, to unveil the gifts which you think I possess. My friend, why interrupt the course of a wise resolution and mar a work that is so slow of formation and so costly? Let the waters flow in their natural hidden course, following their tranquil destinies in a narrow, nameless bed. My mind is a domestic animal, and shuns adventure; that of the literary life is especially repugnant to its humor, and excites its contempt, speaking without the least self-sufficiency. I see delusion in the career, both in its essence and in the prize we seek, charged often with the venom of a secret ridicule. Looking at life with the naked eye, in the severe, monotonous expanse she presents to some of us, seems to me more conformable to the interest of the mind, and more in accordance with the laws of wisdom, than unceasingly applying one's eyes to the prism of art and poetry. Before I embrace art and poetry, I wish to have them demonstrated with an eternal solemnity and certainty, like{699}God. They are two doubtful phantoms, and wear a perfidious gravity that conceals a mocking laugh. That laugh I will not bear.
MAURICETO MLLE. EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN.PARIS, Feb. 9th, 1836.
I saw Madame ——— (name illegible) day before yesterday. She is to leave Paris in a fortnight, and offered very obligingly to take charge of my commissions to Gaillae. I shall profit by her kindness to send you what you ask, the velvet neck-ribbons, the net for your hair (but, pray, why have you adopted this very ugly coiffure?) and the albe that Mimi asked me to send her. I hope the little articles I send will suit you both and fulfil your expectations exactly. But why be afraid of being indiscreet in drawing upon my purse a little? Think, dear friends, that I am your treasurer here, and that I wish you to consider me as such. If you had reminded me sooner of the cloaks, you would have had them now. I would gladly have deferred getting one for myself until next year, and should not now be regretting the fact that my shoulders are well covered, while I know that cold and damp air are penetrating to yours as you go to Andillac. I am quite provoked with myself for not having thought of it. Am I not very ungracious, never beforehand with any idea, but waiting to be urged out of what looks like indifference? Are you annoyed with me for this, and could you ever judge me by mere external signs? Never, I am sure. You have too much penetration to deceive yourselves for a moment about my affection, when it is most hidden or most ungainly.
I am glad to know that the union which has been so long uncertain is at last secured. I have no doubt that all the conditions of happiness will be found in it, if only health can be added to them.
The lime of papa's journey is drawing near. From a distance it is difficult to judge his course correctly; the moment itself must have arrived before one can appreciate it truly.
I am trying to find out at this moment what I may count upon in the future for the accomplishment of my dearest hopes.
The last sentences in this letter refer to Guérin's marriage with Mlle. de Gervain, which is so fully described in Eugénie's letters from Paris that it needs no comment here. Then followed a few months of tranquil success, a lingering illness at Le Cayla, a happy death-bed; and our story ends, as all true stories must end, in a graveyard. By the gateway of that old cemetery of Andillac, where Eugénie sunned herself one day sitting on a tombstone, while waiting for her turn to go to confession, is a white marble obelisk surmounted by a cross. Caroline placed it there as her last gift to her husband, and it bears these words:
Here rests my friendWho was my husbandOnly eight months. Farewell.Pierre George MauriceDe Guérin du Cayla.Born August 4th, 1810,Died at Le CaylaJuly 19th, 1839.
Close by stands the little church whose chief ornament is a delicately wrought statue of the Blessed Virgin, presented by Queen Marie Amélie at Eugénie's petition. The belfry is crumbling to decay, and the tottering porch under which the dove of Le Cayla passed so often appeals pitifully to those who have a zeal for the preservation of God's house.
————
A record has been made of Eugénie's daily life by one who had hourly opportunities of watching her actions, and we cannot refrain from laying it before our readers. Nothing concerning the sister of Maurice can be inappropriate in an article devoted to him, and it will be well to see how holy and regular a life may be led in the world without singularity or narrowness.
{700}
"She rose at six in the morning when she was not ill. After dressing she made a vocal or mental prayer, and never failed when she was in a town to hear mass at the nearest altar. At Le Cayla, after saying her morning prayer, she went into her father's room, either to wait upon him, or to carry his breakfast in and read to him while he took it. At nine o'clock she went back to her room and followed mass spiritually. If her father was well and did not need her assistance, she occupied herself with reading and writing or with sewing, of which she was very fond (fairy in hands as she was in soul); or in superintending the household, which she directed with exquisite taste and intelligence. At noon she went to her room and said the Angelus; then came dinner. When it was over, if the weather was good, she took a walk with her father, or sometimes made a visit in a village if there was any invalid to see or any afflicted person to console. If she resumed reading on her return, she took up her knitting also and knitted while she read, not admitting even the shadow of idle hours. At three she went to her room, where she generally read the Visit to the Blessed Sacrament by St. Alphonsus Liguori, or the life of that day's saint. This ended, she wrote until five o'clock if her father did not call her to be with him. At five she said her rosary and meditated until supper time. At seven she talked with the rest of the family, but never left off working. After supper she went into the kitchen for evening prayers with the servants or to teach the catechism to some little ignorant child, as often happened during the vineyard times. The rest of the evening passed in working, and at ten o'clock she went to bed, after reading the subject of meditation for the next day, in order to sleep upon some good thought. And, finally, it should be added that every month she prepared herself for death and chose some saint whom she loved best that she might imitate his virtues. Every week she went to communion, and even oftener during the last years of her life, when her failing health would allow her to go to the church, which was at some distance from Le Cayla."
The hour of release came at last for her too, after a lingering illness of which we possess few details. After receiving the last sacraments, she gave a key to her sister, saying: "In that drawer you will find some papers which you will burn; they are all vanity." She died in 1848 on the last day of the beautiful month of Mary, which she and Mimin had always observed with such tender devotion in thechambrette.
"All was ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow,All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience."
The dear old father survived "his angel, his second self and much more," only six months. Grembert died in 1850. Three graves now surround Maurice's, and on one of them, which is already regarded with veneration by the country people, is a wooden cross, bearing a circular medallion that encloses a virginal crown with these few words:
"Eugénie de Guérin, died May 31st, 1843."
"Soft as the opals of the east at dawn, and sad as the gleams that die away so quickly in the twilight, she will be, for those who read her, the Aurora of her brother's day; but an Aurora who has tears too! May these tears fertilize the grave over which she wept, and make the flower of glory spring up rarer than ever now for poets! The materialism of our times has thickened the earth, so hard to break at all times. We know there is a flower that pierces the snow, but one that can penetrate the mind of an age devoted to matter is harder to find." (Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's unpublished notice of Mademoiselle de Guérin.)
{701}
Tourists bent on the ascent of AEtna leave Catania at the end of the long straight street which terminates in the Piazza Giorni. The ascent begins at once. On both sides of the road luxuriant groves of orange, citron, almond, and carouba trees alternate with vineyards and cornfields rich in the promise of future crops. Yet all are growing on the lava, and lava meets you at every turn: the walls, festooned with the "Bourgainviller," the passion-flower, and beautiful yellow roses, are still of lava; so are the pretty villas and theriantfarm-houses and the lodges in the vineyards—all are built of it. The streets through the villages are paved with it. There is a sort of allegorical beauty and poetical justice in the way in which the great common enemy has been, as it were, conquered and subdued—at least for a time—and forced to repair the terrible mischief it has wrought. As the road ascends higher and higher, the vegetation diminishes, and you come at last to a wild waste of rock sprinkled with broom and dwarf oak. A twelve-miles' drive brought our travellers to Nicolosi, where their first visit was paid to the kind old professor and geologist, Dr. Gemmellaro, from whom every kind of assistance is obtained for the ascent of the mountain, which is, as it were, both his child and his home. He is a most good-natured and agreeable old man, whose whole life has been devoted to this one great interest, and whose greatest pleasure seems to be to make others share in the knowledge which he himself possesses. His house a museum of curiosities, and contains a carefully arranged collection of all the geological phenomena of the mountain. Among other things, he showed the party a ptarmigan which had been "caught sitting" by the lava stream, and had been instantly petrified, like Lot's wife! the bird preserving its shape perfectly. The village of Nicolosi is composed of low houses built up and down a long straggling street, with a fine church in the centre. Horse-races were going on the day of our travellers' arrival, and causing immense excitement among the people, who were all in the street in holiday attire. The horses ran, as at the carnival in the Corso, without riders, and were excited to a pitch of madness by the shouts of their starters and thebandelerosstuck in their sides. After watching the races for some little time, our travellers returned to the kind professor's, who had seen the guides required for their ascent of AEtna, but who advised them to delay their expedition for two or three days to allow of a greater melting, of the snow, the season being backward, and to procure the requisite number of mules for so large a party. It was also necessary to send some one beforehand to clear out the snow from the Casa Inglese, the small house of refuge which the professor had built on the summit of the mountain, at the base of the principal cone, and where travellers rest while waiting for the sunrise, or before commencing the last portion of the ascent to the crater. He is very anxious to have this house better built and provided with more comforts, and tried to enlist the interest of our travellers with the English Government in its behalf. Having arranged everything with him, our party retraced their steps to Catania, having decided to visit Syracuse first, and take AEtna on their return.
{702}
The following morning, consequently, at half-past three, they started for Syracuse, so as to arrive there before the great heat of the day, and also in time for mass. A long marshy plain occupied the whole of the first stage; after which the road wound through limestone rocks and rich cultivation, till they reached the picturesque village of Lentini. The lake of Lentini is the largest in Sicily, famous for its wild fowl, but also for its malaria. There is a beautiful view of the little town, with its wooded cliffs and deep ravines, from the Capuchin convent above. The scenery increases in beauty as you approach Syracuse, the road descending into deep glens full of ilex, myrtle, oleander, and a variety of aromatic shrubs, and rising again over rocky hills scented with thyme and every kind of wild flower. From hence comes the delicious Hybla honey, which rivals that of Mount Hymettus. Over the wide downs which stretch seaward, the picturesque town of Augusta was seen, perched on the edge of the broad sandy bay.
Our travellers had excellent horses; so that it was not more than half-pas ten when they reached the gates of Syracuse and found themselves in the comfortable little hotel near the port. One of the party started off at once to find a mass; but the good people of Syracuse are very early in their habits, and the lady wandered half over the city before she found what she sought in the beautiful little church of St. Philip, where there happened to be on that day the exposition of the blessed sacrament, and in consequence masses all the morning. On her return she found that the vicar-general had been kindly sent by the archbishop to show her the curiosities of the place. He first took them to the temple of Diana, now converted into a private residence, and of which nothing remains to be seen but some very ancient Doric columns. From thence they proceeded to the world-famed fountain of Arethusa. The spring rises from an arch in the rock, and is protected by a bastion, which defends it from the sea. The papyrus grows here in great luxuriance, and the party gathered some as a specimen, having first duly drank the anciently sacred water. Resuming their carriages, their kind guide now conducted them outside the town to the interesting church and crypt of San Marzian, the first church of Sicily, built on the spot where St. Paul preached during his three days' stay in Syracuse. It is a simple, massive building, of the shape of a Greek cross, and contains the episcopal chair of St. Marzian. Here also is the tomb of the saint, who was the proto-martyr of Sicily. Near the tomb is the rude stone altar where St. Paul said mass. A column of gray granite is shown as that to which St. Marzian was attached for the scourging previous to his execution: it is tinged with his blood. The crypt, however, is the most sacred spot. Here came the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, with the evangelists St. Mark and St. Luke, on their successive visits to the holy bishop, St. Marzian; where also the local tradition affirms that St. Mark was martyred. The curious font now in the cathedral was found in this crypt, and was probably used for the baptism of many of the early Pagan converts. Adjoining is the place of St. Marzian's martyrdom. The church itself is built over the site of an ancient temple of Bacchus. Leading out of a side door is the entrance to the catacombs, which are more extensive than even those of Naples or Rome, and abound in Christian emblems: crosses, palm-branches, the dove, and other Catholic symbols, are rudely carved on all the vaults and niches, with here and there an early fresco of the Blessed Virgin and Child, or a Greek inscription.
From the catacombs our travellers crossed the plain, thickly studded with ancient columns, sarcophagi, and remains of Greek and Roman buildings, till they came to the little church of St. Nicolo. Underneath is a reservoir with an aqueduct, leading to the great amphitheatre; the principal monument left of Roman work in Syracuse, and{703}still in perfect preservation. Recent excavations have cleared the space, so that the seats and arena are clearly visible. From the amphitheatre, a five-minutes' walk leads to the Latomia del Paradiso—a quarry containing in its further recesses the famous Ear of Dionysius. This cavern was excavated by the tyrant for a prison, and so constructed that the faintest whisper could be heard in the chamber above, where he sat listening to the conversation of his victims. It is to be supposed that the listener, according to the proverb, rarely heard any good of himself. It is a wonderfully picturesque spot; the sides of the quarry being lined with fruit-trees and ferns and flowering shrubs, mingled with masses of fallen rock and fragments of ancient masonry. Pistols were fired off by the guides to let the party hear the full force of the echo, which is tremendous. Round a deep spring at the further end of the cavern grew the most beautiful maiden-hair fern. Close by is the Greek theatre, the largest in Sicily, hollowed out of the rock, and capable of containing more than 20,000 spectators.
Returning home to luncheon, the ladies visited on their way the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who are lodged in one of the fine old mediaeval palaces of Syracuse, with beautifully carved windows and doorways. But it is very much out of repair, and very inconvenient for their large orphanage. There are only six or seven sisters here. Their superior is a charming person, and only another proof, if one were needed in that wonderful religious order, of the way in which energy, zeal, and, above all, a burning charity can triumph over the sufferings entailed by a delicate frame and sickly constitution.
After luncheon our travellers started again to meet Monsignor B——— at the cathedral. It is built on the site of an ancient temple of Minerva, but has been ruined by modern church-wardenship and whitewash. There are two fine side chapels, however; one dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, the other to St. Lucia, in which, is exposed a large silver figure of the saint of great antiquity. The font, of which notice has been taken above, is of marble, supported by seven fine bronze lions. There is a beautiful renaissance doorway leading to the sacristy. A beautiful benediction service with litany was being sung; after which the relics and treasures were examined, which include a beautiful chalice of amber, cut out of one piece, and a pastoral ring of great size and value. In the Place, or court of the cathedral, are fourteen fine columns of Cipollino marble, supposed to have formed part of the ancient temple of Ceres. Opposite the north door of the cathedral is the museum, containing all the antiquities lately discovered in Syracuse and its neighborhood. The finest is a beautiful torso, a Venus of the best date of Greek art. There are also some very fine cameos and medals. The day was closed by a sweetly sung benediction at the orphanage of the Sisters of Charity.
The next morning, after a daybreak mass at the cathedral, one of the party breakfasted with the archbishop, who afterward showed her his palace and gardens, which are very fine. In the latter grew the largest citrons she had ever seen, very nearly equalling the gigantic oranges at Jaffa. Adjoining his garden-wall is a convent of Benedictine nuns, which was likewise visited. The good-natured prefect then insisted on taking the whole party in his carriages to the Franciscan convent of St. Lucia outside the town. There is an interesting Norman church attached to it, raised over the site of the saint's martyrdom; and a granite column is shown as that to which she was fastened on the occasion. Her tomb is cut in the rock at the back of the altar, underneath which is a fine statue of the saint by Bernini.
From this spot a narrow lane, traversing vineyards fenced by stone walls, leads to the convent of Sta. Maria di Gesù, in front of which is a fine stone{704}cross. Passing by an aqueduct in very tolerable preservation, and by a succession of old tombs cut in the cliff, our party arrived at the Capuchin convent—a fortified building, with fosse and drawbridge and machicolated battlements. A little gate at the side led them into the Latomie, or quarries, from whence the stone was taken to build the city. Here is one of the most beautiful spots in the neighborhood of Syracuse. It is a vast pit, about a hundred feet in depth; and of many acres in extent, planted with oranges, citrons, pomegranates, figs, and cypresses, with an undergrowth of roses, arums, acanthus, ferns, and creepers of every kind, and overrun with ivy and wild vine. The whole is walled in by lofty gray cliffs hung with creepers; and from the midst of this wilderness of beautiful and almost rank vegetation rise two tall insulated masses of rock, with an ancient flight of steps cut in the side of one of them, but now inaccessible. The cliffs are hollowed into vast halls or caverns, in one of which the prefect told our travellers that he had given afêteto Prince Alfred on his first visit to Syracuse. The kind old monk who had been their escort brought them fruit, bread, and wine in this deliciously cool retreat, and sat a long time talking of the Holy Land, where he had been, and which he was delighted to find was equally well known and appreciated by his guests. Here and there, embedded in the rocks, are traces of ancient sepultures; and one or two Protestant epitaphs on the cliffs prove that the quarries have, even in late days, been used for purposes of burial. Leaving this beautiful spot with great regret, and acceding to the request of the good old monk that they would first pray with him for a few minutes in the church for a blessing on the Holy Land Mission, our travellers visited one or two more of the antiquities in the neighborhood, including the recently excavated baths of Diana, full of beautiful marbles and mosaics; the sepulchral road, the perpendicular sides of which are lined, with niches for cinerary urns; the tombs of Archimedes and Timoleon, and other interesting remains of Greek and Roman times; after which they returned once more to the city and to the museum, where the collection of natural history had yet to be seen, which contains everything most interesting of the kind in Sicily, and also the library. The latter contains priceless treasures, of which the most remarkable are—a rare copy of the gospel of St. John, of the twelfth century; a Koran on paper, of 1199, brought from Egypt by Lord Nelson, and given by him to the Cavalier Landolina, who was the real founder of the library; a very fine block-book, a replica of one of those in the Wilton library; and many beautifully illuminated martyrologies and missals.
Nothing can be kinder or more hospitable than the residents of Syracuse. The visit of our travellers was necessarily too limited in point of time to enable them to profit by it; but every one offered their carriage and horses, and put their palaces, not figuratively, but actuallyà leur disposition. There are still some beautiful medieval palaces in the town, especially the Palazzo Montalto, with its pointed windows and dog-tooth mouldings. It bears also some curious Gothic inscriptions, like the houses at Avila, and with the date 1397.
A charming boating excursion was made by one or two of the party from Syracuse to the fountain of Cyane, up the river Anapus, the only spot in Europe where the papyrus still grows wild. Nothing remains of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, which one visits by the way, but two broken columns. But there is a lovely sketch a little further on of a ruined bridge, with a date-palm overhanging the stream, and a foreground of magnificent tangled vegetation of reeds, sugar-cane, acanthus, iris, and every kind of aquatic plants, and which the slow progress of one's boat through the weeds enables one fully to enjoy. The Anapus{705}leads into the Cyane, which is a far clearer stream, but very narrow. Here the papyrus grows luxuriantly among flags and castor-oil plants. It was sent from Egypt by Ptolemy to King Hieron II., and has flourished ever since. Struggling up the narrow stream and through the choking mass of vegetation, which threatened to close the passage altogether, our travellers' boat at last arrived at a beautiful circular basin, fringed with papyrus and purple iris; the water, very deep, was clear as crystal, and swarming with fish. This was known in old times as the famous "dark-blue spring," converted by heathen mythology into a nymph; and an annual festival was held here in honor of Ceres. Now it is utterly deserted, save by an occasional traveller or sportsman seeking food for his gun from the multitude of snipes and wild fowl which resort to its banks and make their nests in its undisturbed arid reedy shores. That same evening our travellers returned to Catania, charmed with their expedition, and full of gratitude for all the kindness which had been showered upon them.
The following morning found one of the party very early at the convent of her old friends the Benedictines, where the superior received her with his usual fatherly kindness, and presented her, as a surprise, with the deed of affiliation to their order, which he had obtained for her from Monte Casino; together with a picture of the saint and the miraculous medal or cross of St. Benedict, with its mysterious letters,C.S.S.M.L.(Crux sacra sit mihi lux), a medal always given by St. Vincent de Paul to his Sisters of Charity, as a defence in the many perils of their daily lives. Once more the traveller heard that glorious music, which, beautiful at all times, is so especially thrilling at the benediction service. The organ begins with a low, sweet, wailing sound, which those beautiful and cultivated voices respond: and then bursts into thunder, expressing, as far as mortal instrument can, the glorious majesty of God. It was the feast of St. Monica—that saint so dear to every widowed mother's heart; and the fact, in connection with the English stranger, had not been forgotten by the kind abbate, who came up and whispered to her as she knelt before mass: "My child, the prayers and communions of the community this day will be offered up foryou, that you may follow in the steps of St. Monica, and finally reap her reward."
Returning at seven to the hotel, the whole party started once more for Nicolosi, on their way to undertake the more formidable ascent of AEtna. Arriving, after a four hours' drive, at the house of their old friend Professor Gemmellaro, they found he had kindly made every arrangement for their start; and after about an hour's delay in settling the pack-saddles, packing up provisions for the night, and arranging everything with the guides, they mounted their mules and began the ascent. For some miles they passed through a tract of lava, sprinkled here and there with broom and heather, till they reached a cattle-shed, called Casa di Rinazzi, where they came to a picturesque wood of dwarf oak looking like the outskirts of an English park. From thence to Casa del Bosco the road is both easy and pleasant, and our travellers began to think that the difficulties of the ascent (to people who had crossed, as they had done, the Lebanon in deep snow) would be comparatively trifling. They soon, however, discovered their mistake. At the Casa del Bosco they stopped to rest their mules and make some tea, while the guides advised them to put on as much additional clothing as they could for the coming cold. The peasants were at work round them collecting the snow in reservoirs close to the cavern called the Grotta delle Capre—that snow so invaluable to the dwellers in the plain, and the sole substitute for ice to the inhabitants of Catania.
{706}
But here the real toil of the ascent begins. It is only nine miles from hence to the summit; but those nine miles are terribly severe, not only from their steepness, but from the nature of the ground, composed of a black loose ash, interspersed with sharply pointed lava rocks, on which you tread and stumble, and seem to recede two steps for every one you take. As you ascend higher the snow conceals the inequalities of the ground, but does not make them the less fatiguing. The cold, too, increases every instant, and our travellers regretted that they had not followed their guides' advice and brought both overstockings and gloves. After toiling up in this manner for two hours, they came to a pile of lava which marks the distance halfway between the Casa del Bosco and the Casa Inglese. The snow here increased in depth—the rarefaction of the air became painfully intense; while the clouds of sulphur from the eruption, which still continued on the opposite side of the mountain, driven in their faces by the wind, made some of the party so sick that they could scarcely proceed. The cold, too, became well-nigh intolerable. The mule of one of the ladies sank in a snowdrift, rolled and fell some way down the precipice, compelling her to continue the journey on foot; but her feet and hands were so numbed and so nearly on the verge of being frostbitten, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could go on. At last the Casa Inglese was reached. It is a low stone house, built on what is called the Piano del Lago, a small ledge of frozen water, 10,000 feet above the sea. In spite of the orders of the professor, it was still half full of snow when they arrived; and this had to be cleared out, and made into what the children call "snow men," before the frozen travellers could enter and endeavor to make a fire with the wood they had brought with them. The guides cautioned those who were still on their mules to descend very gently, as, in the semi-frozen state they were in, the least, jerk or slip might occasion a broken limb. One of the party was lifted off her horse at last and laid on some rugs by the fire, which for a long time resisted all efforts to light; and then her limbs had to be rubbed with snow to restore some kind of animation. When this object was attained, the overpowering smoke—for there was no chimney or fireplace—made the remedy almost worse than the disease. All this time they had been well-nigh deafened by the detonations from the mountain, which, at regular intervals, sounded like artillery practice on a large scale. Everything they had brought with them was frozen, including the milk they had got at Nicolosi, and of which they were obliged to break the bottle before they could melt any for their tea. After a time, the younger portion of the travellers lay down to rest on some straw arranged in wooden shelves or layers round the inner room, one at the top of the other, after the manner of pears and apples in a kitchen-garden house in England. A French geologist and two other professors had joined their party, and of course had no other place to go to; but the appearance of the company, roosting in this way on the shelves, was comical in the extreme.
At three o'clock, however, every one rose, and commenced the ascent of the cone, so as to reach the top by sunrise. The distance is short, but intensely steep; it is like going up the side of a house; and the difficulty is heightened by the loose ashes in which you sink at every step, and the hot fumes of sulphurous vapor which pour out of the sides of the cone. Only a portion of our travellers persevered to the top; the others being reluctantly compelled by faintness and violent sickness to retrace their steps. On reaching the crater, they at first saw nothing but a deep yawning chasm, full of smoke, which kept pouring out in their faces. The eruption, which one of the party had{707}seen in perfection two months before, was some miles off, and had burst out of a new crater on the Taormina side of the mountain. But with the dawning light the whole magnificent scene was revealed to them. It has been so admirably and accurately described by Mr. Gladstone, that any attempt at a fresh description could be but a poor repetition of his words. Sufficient, then, is it to say that the view at sunrise repaid all the sufferings of the ascent. AEtna, unlike other mountains, stands alone, rising straight from the plain, with no rivals to dispute her height, or intercept any portion of the glorious view below. The whole of Sicily is stretched out at your feet, the hills below looking like the raised parts of a map for the blind. Not only is the panorama unequalled in magnificence, but there are atmospherical phenomena in it which belong to AEtna alone. As the sun rises over the Calabrian coast, a perfect and distinct image of the cone is reflected—as on the sheet of a magic-lantern—on the horizon below, gradually sinking lower and lower as the sun becomes brighter, and finally disappearing altogether. As it was early in the season, the snow extended over the whole of the so-called desert region, while the wood below seemed to encircle the mountain as with a green belt, which added to the beautiful effect of the whole. Tired and exhausted, and yet delighted, our travellers descended the cone, and rejoined their companions at the Casa Inglese, who had been compelled to content themselves with seeing the sun rise from a green hillock just below the house. They determined on their way home to diverge a little from the straight route, in order to visit the Val del Bove, that weird and ghost-like chasm which had struck them so much when looking down upon it from the height of the cone. Floundering in the snow, which was a good deal deeper on that side of the mountain, their mules continually sinking and struggling up again, breaking their saddle-girths in the effort, and consequently landing their riders continually on the soft snow, the party arrived at last on the edge of this magnificent amphitheatre. It is of vast size, enclosed by precipices 3,000 feet in height, and filled with gigantic rocks, of wonderfully strange and fantastic shapes, standing out separately, like beasts—hence its name. The perfect silence of the spot reminds one of some Egyptian city of the dead. Smoke, explosion, dripping ice, or rushing torrents characterize the other extinct craters in this wonderful mountain; but in this one all is still and silent as the grave. It is stern as the curse of Kehama, and as if the lava had been cast up in these wonderful shapes in some extraordinary convulsion of nature, and then had been petrified as it rose. Our travellers lingered long, looking over the edge of the precipice, vainly wishing to be able to descend into the enchanted valley, and at last reluctantly turned their muels' heads in the direction of Nicolosi. The descent was intensely fatiguing, from the continual jerking and slipping of their beasts; and they arrived more dead than alive at the kind professor's house, after being more than eight hours in the saddle. A few hours later found them once more in the burning sunshine of Catania, where the thermometer in the shade, was 86°, while it had been 27° on the mountain, a difference in one day of 59° degrees of temperature. But no difficulties should discourage the traveller from attempting the ascent of AEtna, which is worth coming the whole way from England for itself alone. A few days later saw our party on the deck of the Vatican steamer,en routefor Naples, carrying away with them recollections of enjoyment and kindness such as will ever associate piety in their minds with pleasant thoughts and grateful memories.