Chapter 5

51908.

VIA TOUR OF THE ITALIAN LAKES

Wecaught our first glimpse of Maggiore from a window in Stresa, late in the afternoon of a charming day in early spring. In spite of the lateness of the hour, with all the enthusiasm of amateurs, we proceeded to make a photograph of the charming scene. Ruskin was right when he declared Maggiore to be the most beautiful of all the Italian lakes;—at least, we felt willing to admit this, even though we had not yet seen the others. In the foreground were the green lawns and white paths of a well-kept park, skirting the lake; then a wide stretch of water, roughened by the wind so that its surface, usually smooth, was now dotted with whitecaps, dancing and sparkling in the afternoon sun; across the water to the left, the village of Pallanza, pushing itself far out into the lake, and thrown into strong relief by the high mountains at its back; far away in the distance, the white-capped summit of some Alpine range; and above it all, the most beautiful of blue Italian skies.

We gazed long upon the scene, until the twilight began to deepen. Soon two figures appeared at the entrance to the park, one a womanin a green velvet gown, the other a man in a long flowing mantle of the style peculiar to Italy. They seemed in earnest conversation, now approaching each other with vigorous but graceful gestures, now falling back a step or two and again advancing. The man would throw his cloak over his left shoulder; then, when his earnestness caused it to slip away, he would throw it back again, repeating the movement over and over. We could almost fancy overhearing Lorenzo say:—

“In such a nightDid Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,And with an unthrift love did run from VeniceAs far as Belmont”;

“In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice

As far as Belmont”;

and hearing Jessica reply:—

“And in such a nightDid young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,And ne’er a true one.”

“And in such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,

Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,

And ne’er a true one.”

The little pantomime seemed all that was needed to complete the romance of the scene, while the gathering twilight lent its aid.

The Lago di Maggiore, known to the Romans as Lacus Verbanus, is the westernmost as well as the largest of three lovely lakes which lie on the southern slope of the Alps, in an area not greater than that of the State of Rhode Island. The Lago di Como, or Lacus Larius, is the easternmost of the group, while the Lago diLugano, smaller, but not less beautiful, lies between the other two.

There is a peculiar delicacy of beauty about these lakes like an exquisitely tinted rosebud or the perfume of apple blossoms. The ruggedness of aspect common to most mountain lakes is here lost in the soft luxuriance of the green shores, the sparkling waters, and the rich blue sky. The hills are lined with terraces of green vineyards, interspersed with the pink of peach and almond blossoms. Camellias and azaleas brighten the gardens. Mulberry trees, olives, and cypresses, mingling with their sturdy Northern companions, the spruces and pines, cast their varied foliage against the brown of the near-by mountains. In the distance the snow-clad peaks of the Alps interpose their white mantles between the blue of the sky and the warmer tones of the hillsides, while here and there picturesque villages stand out on projecting promontories to lend an additional gleam of whiteness to the landscape.

Mingling with the charm of all this natural beauty and intensifying it are the atmosphere of poetry and romance which one instinctively feels, and the more tangible associations with history, literature, science, art, and architecture which are constantly suggested as one makes the tour of the lakes.

In the morning we found our places on theupper deck of the little steamer that makes a zigzag journey through Maggiore. No sooner had the boat started than we heard sweet strains of music and a chorus of well-modulated male voices. The night before we had had a miniature play for our special benefit. Can it be possible that now we are to have Italian opera? They were only a party of native excursionists, but we were genuinely sorry when they disembarked at the next landing.

Leaving Stresa, famous as the home of Cavour, when that great statesman was planning the creation of a united Italy, we soon came in sight of Isola Bella. As it lay there in the bright sunlight, its green terraces and tropical foliage, its white towers and arcaded walls reflected in the blue waters of the lake, the snowy mountains forming a distant background and a cloudless blue sky surmounting the whole, we thought it beautiful. But in this, it seems, our taste was at fault, and while admiring we ought to have been criticizing. It was like spending an evening with genuine enjoyment at the theater, only to find out the next morning from the critic of the daily newspaper that the play was poor, the acting only ordinary, and the applause merely an act of generosity. Southey wrote of it, “Isola Bella is at once the most costly and the most absurd effort of bad taste that has ever been produced by wealth and extravagance.” A morerecent English writer condemns its “monstrous artificialities.” He declares that “the gardens are a triumph of bad taste,” and that “artificial grottoes, bristling with shells, terrible pieces of hewn stone, which it would be an offense to sculpture to term statuary, offend the eye at every turn.” Another says that it is “like a Périgord pie, stuck all over with the heads of woodcocks and partridges,” while some one else thinks it “worthy the taste of a confectioner.”

On the other hand, our own distinguished novelist, Mrs. Edith Wharton, found much to be admired:—

The palace has ... one feature of peculiar interest to the student of villa architecture, namely, the beautiful series of rooms in the south basement, opening on the gardens, and decorated with the most exquisite ornamentation of pebble-work and sea-shells, mingled with delicate-tinted stucco. These low-vaulted rooms, with marble floors, grotto-like walls, and fountains dripping into fluted conches, are like a poet’s notion of some twilight refuge from summer heats, where the languid green air has the coolness of water: even the fantastic consoles, tables, and benches, in which cool glimmering mosaics are combined with carved wood and stucco painted in faint greens and rose-tints, might have been made of mother-of-pearl, coral, and seaweed for the adornment of some submarine palace.

It was the fashion to admire the island before it became the rule to condemn its artificiality.Bishop Burnet visited Maggiore in 1685, fourteen years after the Count Vitaliano Borromeo had transformed the island from a barren slate rock into a costly summer residence. He thought it “one of the loveliest spots of ground in the world,” and wrote, “there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared with it.” At a much later time, Lord Lytton allowed himself to rise to the heights of enthusiasm:—

“O fairy island of a fairy sea,Wherein Calypso might have spelled the Greek,Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury,Culled from each shore her zephyr’s wings could seek,—From rocks where aloes blow.“Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise:The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon;An India mellows in the Lombard skies,And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun,Smile to yon Alps of snow.”

“O fairy island of a fairy sea,

Wherein Calypso might have spelled the Greek,

Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury,

Culled from each shore her zephyr’s wings could seek,—

From rocks where aloes blow.

“Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise:

The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon;

An India mellows in the Lombard skies,

And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun,

Smile to yon Alps of snow.”

The charge of artificiality must be admitted. A bare rock cannot be transformed into a thing of beauty and escape the charge. The ten terraces are a series of walls, built in the form of a pyramid and covered with earth, transported from the mainland at great expense. Orange and lemon trees, amid a profusion of tropical foliage, are thus made to wave their fragrant branches in the face of Alpine snows. Is not this worth while? The truth is that Lake Maggioreis so rich in the kind of beauty which the hand of Nature has provided that the creations of man—the villas, the gardens, the vineyards, the villages nestling close to the water’s edge, and the pilgrimage churches high up on the mountain-sides—seem only to accentuate the charm.

The Isola dei Pescatori, or Island of the Fishermen, lying near the “Beautiful Island,” forms a striking contrast. If distance is needed to lend enchantment and conceal the lavish expenditure of wealth on the Isola Bella, it is needed still more to hide the squalor and avoid the odor of the poor fishermen’s island. Yet the latter, seen from the steamer’s deck, is far more picturesque than its more pretentious neighbor. The third of the Borromean group is known as the Isola Madre. It has seven terraces, surmounted by an unused villa. Its gardens are full of roses, camellias, and all kinds of beautiful plants, lemons, oranges, myrtle, magnolia, and semi-tropical trees in great profusion. Less popular than Isola Bella, it is considered by many far more attractive.

Two villages lying farther south on the western shore of the lake are worthy of at least passing mention:—Belgirate and Arona. The former was the home, in the late years of his life, of the great master of Italian prose, Manzoni, whose novel, “I Promessi Sposi,” was thought by Scott to be the finest ever written. He was a man ofthe people, greatly beloved by his countrymen for his benevolence, tender sympathy, and warmth of affection. Arona was the home of the patron saint of the Italian lakes, Carlo Borromeo. A colossal statue, sixty-six feet high on a pedestal of forty feet, built to his memory in 1697, is one of the sights of the region. St. Charles was born in 1537. At the age of twenty-three he was made a cardinal by his uncle, Pope Pius IV. Inheriting great wealth, he devoted his revenues to charity, sometimes living on bread and water and sleeping on straw. Traveling as a missionary, he visited the remotest villages and almost inaccessible shepherds’ huts high up on the mountains. He is best remembered for his self-sacrifice and heroic devotion to the people in the great plague at Milan in 1575. But the great saint was a hater of heretics and caused many of them to be put to death. Nor was he without enemies among those of his own faith. A Franciscan monk once fired upon him, but he escaped as if by miracle, the bullet glancing from the heavy gold embroidery of his cope—a demonstration that gold lace is not always a wholly superfluous decoration.

Our little steamer zigzagged back and forth, stopping at many villages, until finally Luino was reached. This busy little town was the birthplace of Bernardino Luini, the illustrious disciple of Leonardo da Vinci, whose frescoesadorn many of the Italian churches. It was also the scene of one of Garibaldi’s brave exploits, though an unsuccessful one. Here we left the steamer for a short ride by tramway to Ponte Tresa, on Lake Lugano, where another little boat was waiting. Although usually regarded as one of the Italian lakes, the greater portion of Lugano is in Swiss territory. Most tourists make it the gateway from the north into Italy, passing through its most populous town, Lugano, which, with its neighbor, Paradiso, lines the shores of a beautiful blue bay, guarded on either side by high mountains, clothed with groves of oak and chestnut set off by vineyards and gardens on the lower slopes. To the front Monte Caprino rises straight up from the water like one huge, solitary rock, keeping stern watch over the soft luxuriance of the towns. San Salvatore is the sentinel on the right, while Monte Bri and Monte Boglia are on duty at the left. Lugano was the home of the Italian patriot, Mazzini, who has been called the prophet of Italian unity, as Garibaldi was its knight-errant and Cavour its statesman.

On the eastern side of the lake and farther to the south is Monte Generoso. We saw it only from the steamer, but it ought to be seen at close range, for it is covered with woods and pastures and commands a view of the chain of lakes that is said to be unsurpassed in all Italy. We maintainedour zigzag journey, however, until Porlezza was reached, where another little train stood ready to carry us over to Lake Como.

For kaleidoscopic revelations of Nature’s choicest scenes and rarest beauties, the descent from the highlands to the town of Menaggio could scarcely be equaled. The train moved slowly through the vineyards and gardens, gradually descending, until with a sudden turn the whole northern end of Como burst gloriously into view. Never was sky a lovelier blue and never did water more splendidly reflect its azure hue. Far away the snowy Alps gave a touch of the sublime to a view of surpassing grandeur. In a moment the scene changed, and Bellagio with its white villas stood before us, separating the two arms of the lake. Then Varenna with its solitary tower, and finally, at the edge of the water, the village of Menaggio itself.

“How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greetsThy open beauties or thy lone retreats,—Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scalesThy cliffs: the endless waters of thy vales:Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,Each with its household boat beside the door.”

“How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets

Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats,—

Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales

Thy cliffs: the endless waters of thy vales:

Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,

Each with its household boat beside the door.”

So sang Wordsworth in the days of his youth.

Slowly winding our way down the precipitous slopes, we reached at last the end of the railway, and a third steamer closed the experiences of the day by carrying us safely to Cadenabbia. “Thatwas Italy! and as lovely as Italy can be when she tries.” So the poet Longfellow wrote to James T. Fields in 1868. And every one who has been there can appreciate the poet’s feeling when he wrote:—

“I ask myself, Is this a dream?Will it all vanish into air?Is there a land of such supremeAnd perfect beauty anywhere?Sweet vision! Do not fade away;Linger until my heart shall takeInto itself the summer dayAnd all the beauties of the lake.”

“I ask myself, Is this a dream?

Will it all vanish into air?

Is there a land of such supreme

And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away;

Linger until my heart shall take

Into itself the summer day

And all the beauties of the lake.”

Above Cadenabbia and reached by a winding path through terraces of vineyards, there is a bit of woods, made brilliant at this time of the spring by a wealth of wild cherries, peaches, and almonds in full blossom, and by the tall, luxuriant growths of rhododendrons, now covered in thick profusion with huge clusters of splendid pink and purple blossoms. A shady spot near the edge of the woods, where there was a table and some chairs, made a convenient place where we could rest after our climb, and view Longfellow’s vision of “supreme and perfect beauty.” The grand and majestic beauty of Maggiore and the more modest but sweeter loveliness of Lugano were but the preparation for the glorious, satisfying perfection of Como, the most beautiful of all the lakes, “a serene accord of forms and colors.”

Lake Como is famous, not alone for its beauty, but for the many associations of history, science, art, and literature. For centuries its shores have been thickly set with costly villas—the homes of wealth and luxury, and not infrequently of learning and culture. The elder Pliny, whose habits of industry were so great that he worked on his prodigious “Natural History” even while traveling at night in his carriage, was born at the city of Como, as was also his gifted nephew. Volta, the great physicist and pioneer in electrical science, Pope Innocent III, and Pope Clement XIII were all natives of the same place. The Cathedral of Como is one of the most splendid in northern Italy. The churches scattered all along the shores of the lake, as well as the villas, are a delight to students of art and architecture. They are filled with paintings of great interest and valuable works of sculpture.

Historically, although not conspicuous in the great events of the world’s progress, the lake has been the theater of many stirring scenes, particularly in mediæval times. Halfway between Menaggio and the northern end of the lake lies a rocky promontory known as Musso, the site in the sixteenth century of a great and almost impregnable castle. It was the center of the activities of one of the ablest, wickedest, and most picturesque figures in the history of Italy. His name was Gian Giacomo de Medici, although hewas not related to the famous Florentine family. He is best known by the name of “Il Medeghino.” He is described as a man of medium stature, broad-chested, and of pallid but good-humoured countenance, and possessed of a keen and searching glance. He was kind to his family and possessed the affection of his soldiers; he was temperate and not given to the indulgence of the senses; and he gave liberally to charity and to the encouragement of art. But he was a murderer, traitor, liar, and all-round villain of the first magnitude. If San Carlo Borromeo was the patron saint of the Italian lakes, his uncle, Il Medeghino, was their presiding demon. He began his career at the age of sixteen by killing another youth—an act for which he was banished from Milan, but which became the stepping-stone to a successful campaign of ambition, based upon crime and bloodshed.

In those days of violence the capacity to do murder was a recommendation, and Il Medeghino soon rose to a position of power. He helped Francesco Sforza, the last of that famous house, to regain the Duchy of Milan by taking the life of a French courier and stealing his documents, for which services he demanded the Castle of Musso. The price asked by the duke was another murder, and the victim this time was a personal friend and fellow soldier. Il Medeghino did not hesitate, but brutally assassinated his friend. Theduke, no longer able to refuse, sent him to the castle with a letter to the governor, ordering the latter to turn the fortress over to the young adventurer, but also with a sealed letter requesting the governor to cut his throat. Il Medeghino took no chances on the secret letter. He broke the seal and destroyed this message, presenting the open letter and obtaining possession of the stronghold. Immediately he made his power felt. He strengthened the walls of the fort and made the cliffs inaccessible. He made himself feared and his authority respected. He began a career of piracy and plunder, continuing until he became the master, not only of Lake Como, but of Lugano and much of the adjacent territory. His fleet of seven large ships and many smaller ones swept the lake from end to end.

Although but thirty years of age, he was now a power to be reckoned with. The Spaniards, finding him dangerous and not to be conquered by force, finally succeeded in winning him by concessions. Charles V created him Marquis of Musso and Count of Lecco, and induced him to begin a vigorous warfare against his former master, the Duke of Milan. But the end was near. A great force of Swiss attacked from the north and the Duke of Milan sent a large fleet and great army to subdue the rebel. A battle off Menaggio was lost by the pirate. He made a desperate fight, but was compelled to yield tosuperior forces. But he nevertheless retired with honors. He was given an enormous sum of money and the title of Marquis of Marignano, together with free pardon for himself and all his followers. The rest of his days were spent in the service of Spain. When he died, in his sixtieth year, his brother, Pope Pius IV, erected a magnificent tomb to his memory in the Cathedral of Milan, where all who feel so disposed may pause to honor this prince of pirates and most unscrupulous of plunderers, conspicuous for his wickedness, even in an age ruled by violence.

It is a relief to turn from the history of one of the wickedest of men to that of one of the noblest of women, by merely crossing the lake to the village of Varenna—a town known to tourists for its milk-white cascade, the Fiume Latte, a waterfall which leaps in spring-time from a height of a thousand feet. Here the remnant of the castle of the good Queen Theodelinda may still be seen.

In the sixth centuryA.D., the Langobards, or Long-Beards, taking advantage of the weakness and desolation following the long wars against the Goths, descended into Italy to take possession of the land. A powerful race of Teutons, renowned for daring and love of war, they met with little resistance. Their king, soon after, met a tragic death at the hands of his wife, and his successor reigned only two years. After ten yearsof experiments with a national confederacy, composed of some thirty-five dukes, constantly at war with each other, and resulting in a condition of anarchy, the first real king of the Lombards was chosen, Authari the Long-haired, known also by his Roman name of Flavius. The chief event in the life of this monarch was his courtship and marriage. Having decided, probably for reasons of state, upon the daughter of Garibald, Duke of Bavaria, as his future wife, he sent ambassadors to arrange the union. But becoming possessed of a strange and unaccountable desire to catch a glimpse of the lady before taking the final step, he is said to have accompanied his messengers in disguise. Fortunately for the romance of the incident, he was charmed with her beauty while the princess promptly fell in love with him.

The Christian Theodelinda became the honored queen of the Lombards and so won the confidence of their leaders that after the death of Authari, shortly after their marriage, she was invited to choose her own husband, who would thereupon become the king. She chose Agilulf, Duke of Turin. Through the influence of Theodelinda, the Lombards were brought into the Catholic Church, and the queen herself built at Monza the first Lombard cathedral. Pope Gregory the Great is said to have recognized her services by sending her a precious relic, one of the nails of the Cross, wrought into a narrow band or fillet ofiron. Sometime later, probably in the twelfth century, this ancient relic, combined with a broad band of gold set with many jewels, was converted into the celebrated Iron Crown of Lombardy, with which the German Emperors in mediæval times were crowned Kings of Italy. It was used at the coronation of Napoleon at Milan in 1805, and by the present King of Italy upon his accession. Theodelinda’s name was held in reverence by her people, not only for her great public and private charities, but for her kindliness of heart. The castle at Varenna is said to have been her home during the last years of her life.

If this story of the Larian Lake, to use its Roman name, is being told backwards, it is because we first saw it at the northern end, where the interest centers in the events of the Middle Ages. But having jumped from the sixteenth back to the sixth century, it requires no greater agility to skip a few more hundreds of years until we get back to the time of Julius Cæsar, who as governor of Cisalpine Gaul sent five thousand colonists to the shores of the lake to protect the region against the depredations of the Gauls. Five hundred of them settled at the ancient town of Comum. The city never played an important part in the history of Rome, but remained a comparatively quiet yet prosperous municipality.

In the Golden Age of Rome, the shores of the Lacus Larius became lined with costly villas,where wealthy men sought a retreat from the too strenuous life of the Imperial City. The need of such a refuge must be apparent to any one having even the most superficial knowledge of Roman municipal life in the first century of the Christian era. To escape the corruption of official life, the endless feasts of extravagance and immorality, and even the public amusements, where, as in the Flavian amphitheater, 87,000 people were wont to gather to witness vast spectacles of cruelty, obscenity, and bloodshed, there was need enough, and the moral, self-respecting, and refined people of Rome fully realized it. For there were such people, though the fact has been obscured by history, which has to deal chiefly with the excesses of the ruling classes.

The two Plinys and their friends were brilliant examples of the Romans of the better sort. Though an aristocrat, Pliny the younger was a charitable, good-natured man, who loved the quiet of a home where he could combine study with fishing, hunting, and the companionship of congenial friends. He possessed several villas on the shores of Como, but two particularly interested him, one of which, in a somewhat whimsical letter, he called “Tragedy” and the other “Comedy”; the high boot worn by tragedians suggesting the name of the one on a high rock over the lake, while the sock or slipper of the comedian applied to the villa down by the water’s edge.The latter had the great advantage that one might fish from his bedroom, throwing the line out of the window while he lay in bed. Pliny does not tell how many fish he caught under these conditions.

The Villa Pliniana, just above Torno, on the eastern side of the lake, was built in 1570 by Count Giovanni Anguisola, whose claim to distinction lies in his participation in the murder of Pierluigi Farnese. The villa was erected as a safe retreat, where he might escape vengeance. Its feature of greatest interest is a curious stream which flows through the central apartment of the house. Fifteen centuries before the villa was constructed, Pliny described this stream in one of his most interesting letters. “A certain spring,” he writes, “rises in a mountain and runs down through the rocks till it is inclosed in a small dining-parlor made by hand; after being slightly retarded there, it empties itself into the Larian lake. Its nature is very remarkable. Three times a day it is increased or diminished in volume by a regular rise and fall. This can be plainly seen, and when perceived is a source of great enjoyment. You recline close to it and take your food and even drink from the spring itself (for it is remarkably cold): meanwhile with a regular and measured movement, it either subsides or rises. If you place a ring or any other object on the dry ground it is gradually moistened and finallycovered over: then again it comes to view and is by degrees deserted by the water. If you watch long enough you will see both of these performances repeated a second and even a third time.”

Another famous villa at the southern end of the lake, near the city of Como, was erected by Cardinal Gallio, the son of a fisherman, who achieved high honors in his Church and amassed great wealth. This villa was later the home of the discarded Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, who gave it the name of Villa d’Este and made great additions to its elegance. It is now a fashionable hotel. Cardinal Gallio seems to have had a passion for extensive villas. His palace at Gravedona, at the head of the lake, was one of the most splendid in Europe. It is said that he could make the journey to Rome, requiring six days, and stop at one of his own palaces every night.

The Villa Carlotta now the property of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, is at Tremezzo, a village adjoining Cadenabbia on the south. Its chief beauty lies in the garden, filled with a profusion of plants of every variety—roses, camellias, azaleas, magnolias, oranges, lilies—all arranged in charming walks, with here and there a vista of the lake and Bellagio in the distance, reflecting the bright sunlight from its white walls. Above are the woods and the little round table overlooking the water, where we began our survey of the Larian shores. The interior containsa large collection of sculptures, but most visitors remember only two pieces,—Thorwaldsen’s “Triumphant Entry into Babylon of Alexander the Great,” and Canova’s lovely “Cupid and Psyche.”

After seeing some of these palaces merely as tourists, and learning the history of others of an earlier day, particularly the homes described by Pliny, we could not help wishing to see an Italian palace which is not a show place but a home, and typical of modern life on the shores of this wonderful lake, for so many centuries sought by men of wealth as the place where they could realize their dreams of comfort and delight.

The opportunity of gratifying this desire came sooner than we expected. We had started one morning to make a call at the summer home of Mrs. Humphry Ward, who had leased the Villa Bonaventura for a season. Mistaking the directions, we entered the gate of the Villa Maria, a large house in the classical lines of the Italian Renaissance, standing high above the road and reached by winding paths through a garden of surpassing loveliness. Our ring was answered by the Italian butler, who in response to our inquiries nodded pleasantly, not understanding a word we said, and disappeared. In a few moments we were most cordially greeted by an American gentleman, who assured us he was delighted to see us, and would be happy toshow us the villa. In another moment, and before we could make explanations, another ring of the doorbell announced two other callers, who, as it happened, were really expected at the hour of our arrival, by invitation to see the villa. We had made a mistake, and in turn had been mistaken for two other people, but our friendly host insisted that we, too, should see his beautiful home.

We were standing in the atrium before a large marble vase—a restoration of the so-called Gaeta vase, by Salpion, a Greek sculptor of the time of Praxiteles. The original was thrown into the Bay of Gaeta, where for centuries it remained partially embedded in the mud. The fishermen of many generations used it as a convenient post for mooring their boats, and did much damage with their ropes. It was finally rescued and taken to a church for use as a baptismal font, and later transferred to the Naples Museum. The theme of the vase is the presentation of the infant Bacchus, by Mercury, to one of the Nymphs—a favorite subject with ancient sculptors. Mr. Haines, our courteous host, was justly proud of this—the first complete restoration of this beautiful work of art. The decoration of the atrium, including the eight lunettes, as well as of the entire villa, are by the hand of Pogliaghi, who now stands at the head of the Lombard decorators. He is the young sculptor who in 1895 was commissionedto design the magnificent bronze doors of the Cathedral of Milan, a work requiring seven years.

One striking feature of the villa is its harmony of color. Glance out the doorway, from the atrium across the lake, or from the dining-room toward Menaggio, or through the library windows into the garden, and everywhere you see the blue Italian sky, the brown of the distant mountains, the green of the freshly budding trees, the sparkle of the lake, and the brilliant tints of the camellias, hyacinths, and cineraria, combining to make a scene of splendor rarely equaled in this good old world of ours. Then, glancing back into the rooms of the villa, you find the same tints and shadings in the walls and ceilings, the paintings, tapestries, and upholstery. Perfect harmony with Nature at her best seems to have been Pogliaghi’s motive.

Passing to the right of the atrium, we entered the music saloon, decorated and furnished in the style of Louis XIV, a large and beautiful room, noteworthy, not only for its acoustic properties, but also for extreme richness and harmony of design and color. An arched opening reveals a portion of a fine piece of tapestry by Giulio Romano, dating from the sixteenth century, which covers the rear wall of the dining-room. This tapestry, formerly owned by the Duke of Modena, is a representation of the old Greeklegend of the presentation of Bacchus, the same theme as that of the Gaeta vase. Indeed, it was the possession of this tapestry which suggested to Mr. Haines the idea of obtaining a restoration of the famous vase. A striking feature of the dining-room is the frieze of Poliaghi representing young Bacchantes in the midst of fruit and flowers, so cleverly painted that it seems to be done in high relief, completely deceiving the eye.

On the left of the atrium is the library, with two life-size portraits by De La Gandara, one of Mr. Haines and the other of his wife. Mrs. Haines was an accomplished musician as well as an enthusiastic collector of works of art. The Villa Maria was designed by her as a fitting shrine for her valuable collections as well as with a view to musical entertainments. Since her death, in 1899, Mr. Haines, with equal enthusiasm and taste, has added to the collections and improved the villa. His study is in the rear of the library. Its distinguishing feature is a life-size portrait of the children of Catherine de Medici, by Federico Zuccheri. This painting is seven hundred years old, but the colors are still fresh, and although life-size it has the exactness of a miniature. It was formerly in the Borghese collection.

Ascending the marble stairway we were ushered into the “Porcelain” room, containing the most unique and valuable portion of the art treasures of the villa. There are four cabinetsin the style of Louis XV, containing what is probably the best collection to be found in Europe of rare Ancienne, Porcelain de Saxe, Old Chelsea, Nymphenberg, Dresden, Meissen, Ludwigsburg, and Sèvres pieces in endless variety and bewildering richness of design. There are fans painted by Nicolas Poussin, and others by French and Italian artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is a fine portrait of the Duchess de Chevreuse by La Guillière and an original painting of Louis le Grand by Le Fèvre. A rare clock of the period of Louis XV, made about 1750, with miniature allegorical paintings, surrounded by pearls, stands upon a Louis XIV desk, ornamented with elaborate carved bronzes by Reisinger. On either side of the clock is a fine old Bohemian vase, while near by is a miniature of Napoleon by Isabey. The decoration of the room is completed by a fine old piece of Gobelin tapestry, bearing the signature of Boucher and the date 1747, originally presented by Louis XV to one of the queens of Spain.

These are a few of the treasures shown to us in a very brief visit to the Villa Maria. The enthusiasm of its owner for art goes hand in hand with a love of nature. If the interior decorations have been done with the eye of a discriminating artist, no less has the exterior received the same careful attention. The fine fountain, just within the gates, the flower-beds with theirwell-harmonized tints, the olives and cypresses, the camellias, the cherry tree in full blossom, all add their charm to a view which would be unsurpassed even without their aid. For the villa is situated at one of the loveliest points on beautiful Como, commanding on all sides a panorama of distant mountains, with here and there a snow-capped peak, of peaceful water glistening in the warm April sun, of little white villages dotting the shores of the lake, of quaint little chapels in nooks and corners of the mountains, of peach trees and almonds adding a touch of pink to the landscape, of blue skies and fleecy clouds surmounting the whole like a brilliant canopy. No wonder that our genial host, after showing all the beauties of his palace, stood by the open window and waving his hand exclaimed, “I call this my J. M. W. Turner.” But the window framed a lovelier work of art than the hand of man will ever paint.

VIILITERARY LANDMARKS OF NEW ENGLAND

Thequest for literary landmarks is always a fascinating pursuit, particularly to the amateur photographer who likes to take pictures that mean something. I have always found a certain exhilaration in seeing for myself and reproducing photographically the places made memorable by some favorite author. To look into the ground glass of my camera and see the reflected image of some lovely scene that has been an inspiration to poet or novelist, is like suddenly coming into possession of a prize that had ever before been thought unattainable. It brings the author of a by-gone generation into one’s own time. It deepens the previous enjoyment—makes it more real. When I stand before the house in which some great author has lived, I seem to see more than a mere dwelling. The great man himself comes out to meet me, invites me in, shows me his study, presents me to his wife and children, walks with me in his garden, tells me how the surroundings of his home have influenced his literary work, and finally sends me away with a peculiar sense of intimacy. I go home, reachout my hand for a certain neglected book on my shelves, and lo! it opens as with a hidden spring, a new light glows upon its pages, and I find myself absorbed in conversation with a friend.

ICONCORD

Forthis kind of hunting I know of no better place in America than New England, and no better town in which to begin than the sleepy old village of Concord, twenty miles northwest of Boston. On the occasion of a recent visit, we walked out Monument Street and made our first stop at a point in the road immediately opposite the “Old Manse.” A party of school-children were just entering. Had we been looking at the grove on the hillside, at the opposite end of the town, where Hawthorne used to walk to and fro, composing the “Tanglewood Tales,” we might have supposed they had come to catch a few echoes of the famous story-teller’s voice, and I should have made a photograph with the children in it. But here they did not seem so appropriate, and we waited until they had gone. When all was quiet again, it did not require a very vigorous imagination to look down the vista of black-ash trees seen between the “two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone,” and fancy a man and woman walking arm in arm down the avenue toward the weather-stained old parsonage, its dark sides scarcely visible beneath the shadows of the overarching trees. The man is of medium height, broad-shouldered, and walks with a vigorousstride, suggesting the bodily activity of a young athlete. His hair is dark, framing with wavy curves a forehead both high and broad. Heavy eyebrows overhang a pair of dark blue eyes, that seem to flash with wondrous expressiveness, as he bends slightly to speak to the little woman at his side. His voice is low and deep, and she responds to what he is saying with an upward glance of her soft gray eyes and a happy smile that clearly suggest the sunshine which she is destined to throw into his life.

Thus Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody, his bride, on a day in July, 1842, passed into the gloomy old house where they were to begin their honeymoon. I say “begin” because it was not like the ordinary honeymoon that ends abruptly on the day the husband first proposes to go alone on a fishing excursion. Nor was it like that of a certain “colored lady” whom I once knew. On the day following the wedding she left William to attend to his usual duties in the stable and the garden while she started on a two weeks’ “honeymoon” trip to her old Virginia home, explaining afterward that she “couldn’t afford to take dat fool niggah along, noway.”

The Hawthorne honeymoon was one of that rare kind which begins with the wedding bells and has no ending. They were married lovers all their days. Hawthorne had seen enough ofsolitariness in his bachelorhood to appreciate the rare companionship of his gifted wife, and he wanted nothing more. The dingy old parsonage was a Paradise to them and the new Adam and Eve invited no intrusions into their Eden. Some of their friends came occasionally, it is true, but Hawthorne records that during the next winter the snow in the old avenue was marked by no footsteps save his own for weeks at a time. And his loving wife, though she had come from the midst of a large circle of friends, found only happiness in sharing this solitude.

During the three years in which Hawthorne lived in this “Old Manse,” he seldom walked through the village, was known to but few of his neighbors, never went to the town-meeting, and not often to church, though he lived in a house that had been built by a minister and occupied by ministers so long that “it was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been written there.”

Let us peep through the windows of the parlor at the end of the dark avenue and indulge in another flight of fancy. It is an unusual day at the Manse, for two visitors have called to greet the new occupant. The elder of the two, a man in his fortieth year, is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lives in the other end of the town in a large, comfortable, and cheery house, which we expect to see a little later. He knows the OldManse well. His grandfather built it shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution and witnessed the battle of Concord from a window in the second story. This good man, who was the Revolutionary parson of the village, died in 1776 at the early age of thirty-three, and a few years later his widow married the Reverend Ezra Ripley, who maintained, for more than sixty years, the reputation of the Manse as a producer of sermons, being succeeded by his son, Samuel, also a minister. In October, 1834, Emerson came there with his mother and remained a year, during which he wrote his first, and one of his greatest essays, “Nature.”

The other visitor is Henry D. Thoreau, a young man of twenty-five, then living with the Emersons. The two guests and their host are sitting bolt upright in stiff-backed chairs. The host speaks scarcely a word except to ask, for the sake of politeness, a few formal questions, which Thoreau answers with equal brevity. Emerson alone talks freely, but his words, however much weighted with wisdom, are those of a monologuist and do not beget conversation. Yet there is something in the manner of all three that seems to betray the unspoken thought. Hawthorne’s observing eyes seem to be saying, “So this is Emerson, the man who, they say, is drawing all kinds of queer and oddly dressed people to this quiet little village,—visionaries,theorists, men and women who think they have discovered a new thought, and come to him to see if it is genuine. Perhaps he might help solve some of my problems. What a pure, intellectual gleam seems to be diffused about him! With what full and sweet tones he speaks and how persuasively! How serene and tranquil he seems! How reposeful, as though he had adjusted himself, with all reverence, to the supreme requirements of life! Yet I am not sure I can trust his philosophy. Let me admire him as a poet and a true man, but I shall ask him no questions.”

Then while Thoreau is talking, Emerson gazes at Hawthorne and reflects: “This man’s face haunts me. His manner fascinates me. I talk to him and his eyes alone answer me; and yet this seems sufficient. He does not echo my thoughts. He has a mind all his own. He says so little that I fear I talk too much. Yet he is a greater man than his words betray. I have never found pleasure in his writings, yet I cannot help admiring the man. Some day I hope to know him better. I have much to learn from him.”

Meanwhile Hawthorne’s gaze has turned upon the younger visitor. “What a wild creature he seems! How original! How unsophisticated! How ugly he is, with his long nose and queer mouth. Yet his manners are courteous and even his ugliness seems honest and agreeable. I understandhe drifts about like an Indian, has no fixed method of gaining a livelihood, knows every path in the woods and will sit motionless beside a brook until the fishes, and the birds, and even the snakes will cease to fear his presence and come back to investigate him. He is a poet, too, as well as a scientist, and I am sure has the gift of seeing Nature as no other man has ever done. Some day I must walk with him in the woods.”

Every man in the room loves freedom, and hates conventionalities. The ordinary formalities of polite society are unendurable. Therefore the four walls seem oppressive and the straight-back chairs produce an agonizing tension of the nerves. They are all glad when the call is over.

Now let the scene change. It is winter and the river behind the house is frozen. In the glory of the setting sun, its surface seems a smooth sea of transparent gold. The edges of the stream are bordered with fantastic draperies, hanging from the overarching trees in strange festoons of purest white. Once more our three friends appear, but the four walls are gone and the wintry breeze has blown away all constraint. All three lovers of the open air are now on skates. Thoreau circles about skillfully in a bewildering series of graceful curves, for he is an expert at this form of sport and thinks nothing of skating up the river for miles in pursuit of a fox or otherwild creature. Emerson finds it harder; he leans forward until his straight back seems to parallel the ice and frequently returns to the shore to rest. Hawthorne, if we may recall the words of his admiring wife, moves “like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave,” as though acting a part in some classic drama, yet fond of the sport and apparently indefatigable in its pursuit.

Once more let the scene change. Summer has come again. The icy decorations have given place to green boughs and rushes and meadow-grass which seem to be trying to crowd the river into narrower quarters. A small boat is approaching the shore in the rear of the old house. In the stern stands a young man who guides the craft as though by instinct. With scarcely perceptible motions of the single paddle, he makes it go in whatsoever direction he wills, as though paddling were only an act of the mind. The boat is called the Musketaquid, after the Indian name of the river. Its pilot, who is also its builder, quickly reaches the shore, and we recognize the man of Nature, Thoreau. Hawthorne, who has been admiring both the boat and steersman, now steps aboard and the two friends are soon moving slowly among the lily-pads that line the margin of the river. Hawthorne is rowing. He handles the oars with no great skill, and as for paddling, it would be impossible for him to makethe boat answerhiswill. Thoreau plucks from the water a white pond-lily, and remarks that “this delicious flower opens its virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the magic of that genial kiss.” He says he has “beheld beds of them unfolding in due succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower”; and this leads Hawthorne to reflect that such a sight is “not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to a proper focus with the outward organ.” We fancy that under these conditions their talk “gushed like the babble of a fountain,” as Hawthorne said it did when he went fishing with Ellery Channing.

But we must not linger at the gate of the Old Manse indulging these dreams, for we have other pleasures in store. A hundred yards beyond, we turn into the bit of road, at right angles with the highway, now preserved because it was the scene of the famous Concord fight. A beautiful vista is made by the overarching of trees that have grown up since the battle, and in the distance we see the Monument, the Bridge, and the “Minute Man.” The Monument marks the spot where the British soldiers stood and opened fire on the 19th of April, 1775, while the “Minute Man” stands at the place where the Americans received their order to return the fire. The Monument was dedicated on the sixty-first anniversary of the battle, Emerson offering hisfamous “Concord Hymn,” the opening stanza of which, thirty-nine years later, was carved on the pedestal of the Minute Man, erected in commemoration of the centennial of the event:—

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.”

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.”

The bridge is of no significance. It is a recent structure of cement, the wooden bridge over which the Minute Men charged having disappeared more than a century ago.

Hawthorne took little interest in the battlefield, though he did express a desire to open the graves of the two nameless British soldiers, who lie buried by the roadside, because of a tale that one of them had been killed by a boy with an axe—a fiendish yarn which we may be glad is not authenticated. The great romancer confessed that the field between the battlefield and his house interested him far more because of the Indian arrow-heads and other relics he could pick up there—a trick he had learned from Thoreau.

On our way back to the village we made a turn to the left, for a visit to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Never was such a place more appropriately named. An elliptical bowl, bordered by grassy knolls, with flowering shrubs and green groves, forms a perfect cradle among the hills in which sleepgeneration after generation of the inhabitants of old Concord. On the opposite side of the hollow, well up the slope of the hill and shaded by many trees, we came to the graves of the Emersons, the Thoreaus, and the Hawthornes, in neighborly proximity. The Emerson grave seemed eminently satisfactory. A rough-hewn boulder at the foot of a tall pine marks the resting-place of a strong, sincere, and unpretentious character, who lived close to Nature. By his side lies Lidian, his wife, with an inscription on her tombstone, which few, perchance, stop to read, but which ought to be read by all who can appreciate this rare tribute to a woman’s worth:—

In her youth an unusual sense ofthe Divine Presence was granted herand she retained through lifethe impress of that high Communion.To her children she seemed in hernative ascendancy and unquestioningcourage, a Queen, a Flower inelegance and delicacy.The love and care for her husband andchildren was her first earthly interestbut with overflowing compassionher heart went out to the slave, the sickand the dumb creation. She rememberedthem that were in bonds as bound with them.

Thoreau’s grave is not quite so satisfactory. It creates the impression that the poet and naturalist who brought fame to his family was onlyone of a considerable number of children and died in infancy with all the rest. It is marked with a small headstone and the single name, Henry. In the center of the lot a larger stone records the names of all the members of the family who lie buried there.

The Hawthorne grave is wholly unsatisfactory. It is not easily found by a stranger, even after careful directions. The small lot is inclosed by an ugly fence, only partially concealed by a poorly kept hedge. By making an effort one can peep through and see a simple headstone with the name Hawthorne. The most conspicuous object in the inclosure is a big sign warning the public not to pluck the leaves, etc., and ending with the curt injunction, “Have respect for the living if not for the dead.” The unsightly fence and the rudeness of the sign clang discordantly upon the sensibilities of those who have been taught to admire the gracious hospitality and courteous disposition of the man. We came to gaze reverently upon the grave of a man whom we had seemed to know for many years as a personal friend, but found ourselves treated with contempt as if we were merely vulgar seekers for useless souvenirs! Let us get back to the village and see the things of life.

Next to the Old Manse, the most interesting house in Concord is Emerson’s. It is southeast of the public square, at the point where theCambridge Turnpike joins the Lexington Road. When Emerson bought it in 1835, it was on the outskirts of the village and not prepossessing. He said, himself, “It is in a mean place, and cannot be fine until trees and flowers give it a character of its own. But we shall crowd so many books and papers, and, if possible, wise friends into it, that it shall have as much wit as it can carry.” In September of that year, Emerson went to Plymouth and was married to Miss Lydia Jackson, in a colonial mansion belonging to the bride, who suggested that they remain there. But Concord had charms which the poet could not sacrifice, so the couple established themselves in the big house at the southern edge of the village, where, ere long, the philosopher was dividing time between his study and the vegetable-garden, while Lidian, as her husband preferred to call her, set out her favorite flowers transplanted from the garden at Plymouth.

The first thing that strikes your eye, as you pass the Emerson house, is the row of great horse-chestnuts shading its front. Mr. Coolidge, of Boston, who built the house in 1828, remembered the lofty chestnuts of his boyhood home in Bowdoin Square and promptly set to work to duplicate them when he completed his new country house. Emerson added to his original two acres until he had nine, and planted an orchard of apple trees and pear trees, on which Thoreaudid the grafting. “When I bought my farm,” said Emerson, “I did not know what a bargain I had in the bluebirds, bobolinks, and thrushes, which were not charged in the bill. As little did I guess what sublime mornings and sunsets I was buying, what reaches of landscape, and what fields and lanes for a tramp.” To appreciate the full extent, therefore, of Emerson’s domain, we must next visit the favorite objective of his Sunday walks, Walden Pond, only a mile or two away.

Walden Pond is a pretty sheet of water, about half a mile long, completely inclosed by trees, which grow very near to the water’s edge. I fancy the visitors who go there may be divided into two classes: first, those who go for a swim in the cool, deep waters, as Hawthorne liked to do; and second, those who go to lay a stone upon the cairn that marks the site of Thoreau’s hut. It is well worth a pilgrimage, in these days, to see the place where a man actually built a dwelling-house at a cost of $28.12½ and lived in it two years at an estimated expense of $1.09 a month. One of his extravagances was a watermelon, costing two cents, and this was classified in his summary among the “Experiments which failed!” The site of the hut was admirably chosen. It overlooks a little cove or bay, and the still surface of the pond, glimpses of which could be seen through the trees, reflecting the blue sky overhead, made a beautiful picture.

We must now return to the village, for there are two more houses to be seen, both on the Lexington Road. The first is the Alcott house, now restored to something like its original condition and preserved as a memorial to the author of “Little Women.” A. Bronson Alcott came to live in Concord in 1840, having visited there for the first time five years earlier. Emerson at once hailed him as “the most extraordinary man and the highest genius of his time.” He marveled at the “steadiness of his vision” before which “we little men creep about ashamed.” The “Sage of Concord” was too modest and time failed to justify his enthusiasm for the new neighbor. He came to admit that Alcott, though a man of lofty spirit, could not be trusted as to matters of fact; that he did not have the power to write or otherwise communicate his thoughts; and that he was like a gold-ore, sometimes found in California, “in which the gold is in combination with such other elements that no chemistry is able to separate it without great loss.”

Alcott was a “handy man” with tools, could construct fanciful summer-houses or transform a melodeon into a bookcase, as a piece of his handiwork in the “restored” house will testify. But in intellectual matters he fired his bullets of wisdom so far over the heads of his fellow men that they never came down, and therefore penetrated nobody’s brain.

This lack of practical wisdom came near bringing disaster to the family. But his daughter came to the rescue with “Little Women,” a book that has had an astonishing success from the first. Originally published in 1868, it has had a circulation estimated at one million copies and is still in demand.

In the winter of 1862-63, Louisa M. Alcott marched off to war, carrying several volumes of Dickens along with her lint and bandages, determined that she would not only bind up the soldiers’ wounds, but also relieve the tedium of their hospital life during the long days of convalescence. When she was ready to start, Alcott said he was sending “his only son.” Girl visitors to the old “Orchard house” take great delight in the haunts of Meg, Amy, Beth, and Joe, and particularly in Amy’s bedroom, where the young artist’s drawings on the doors and window-frames are still preserved.

Just beyond the Alcott house is a pine grove on the side of a hill and then the “Wayside,” Hawthorne’s home for the last twelve years of his life. When Hawthorne left the Old Manse, he went to Salem, then to Lenox, and for a short time to West Newton. In the summer of 1852, he returned to Concord, having purchased the “Wayside” from Alcott.

While living in Lenox he had written “The Wonder-Book,” which so fascinated the children,including their elders as well, that his first task upon settling in the new home was to prepare, in response to many urgent demands, a second series of the same kind to be known as “The Tanglewood Tales.”

In the following spring the family sailed for Liverpool, where Hawthorne was to be the American Consul, and from this journey he did not return until 1860, seven years later. He was then at the height of his fame as the author of “The Scarlet Letter,” “The House of the Seven Gables,” and “The Marble Faun.” As soon as his family was settled in the Wayside, he began extensive alterations, the most remarkable of which is the tower, which not only spoiled the architecture of the building, but failed, partially at least, to serve its primary purpose as a study. It was a room about twenty feet square, reached by a narrow stairway where the author could shut himself in against all intrusion. A small stove made the air stifling in winter, and the sun’s rays upon the roof made it unbearable in summer. Nevertheless, Hawthorne managed to make some use of it and here he wrote “Our Old Home.” I fancy he must have composed most of it while walking back and forth in the seclusion of the pine grove which he had purchased with the house. And here in this pleasant grove we must leave him for the present, while we go back to Boston and thence to Salem, to search out afew more old houses, which would fall into decay and finally disappear without notice, like hundreds of others of the same kind, but for the one simple fact that the touch of Hawthorne’s presence, more than half a century ago, conferred upon these dingy old buildings a dignity and interest that draw to them annually a host of visitors from all parts of the United States.

IISALEM

Onarrival at Salem we inquired of a local druggist whether he could direct us to any of the Hawthorne landmarks. He promptly pleaded ignorance, but referred us to an old citizen who chanced to be in the store and who admitted that he knew all about the town, having been “born and raised” there. Did he know whether there was a real “House of Seven Gables”? Well, he had heard of such a place, but it was torn down long ago. Could he direct us to the Custom House? Oh, yes, right down the street: he would show us the way. Any houses where Hawthorne had lived? Well, no,—he hadn’t “followed that much.” Had any of his family ever seen Hawthorne, or spoken of him? Yes—but he didn’t amount to much: kind of a lazy fellow. People here didn’t set much store by him.

We were moving away, fearing that the old fellow would offer to accompany us and thereby spoil some of our anticipated enjoyment of the old houses, when he called after us—“Say, there’s an old house right down this street that I’ve heard had something to do with Hawthorne. I don’t know just what, but maybe the folks there can tell you. It’s just this side of the graveyard.” We thanked the old man, and followinghis directions, soon stood before an old three-story wooden house, with square front, big chimneys, and its upper windows considerably shorter than those below—a type common enough in Salem and other New England towns. It stood directly on the sidewalk and had a small, inclosed porch, with oval windows on each side, through which one could look up or down the street. In all these details it agreed exactly with Hawthorne’s description of the house of Dr. Grimshawe. Adjoining it on the left was the very graveyard where Nat and little Elsie chased butterflies and played hide-and-seek among the quaint old tombstones, which had puffy little cherubs and doleful verses carved upon them. That corner room, no doubt, that overlooks the graveyard, was old Dr. Grim’s study, so thickly festooned with cobwebs, where the grisly old monomaniac sat with his long clay pipe and bottle of brandy, with no better company than an enormous tropical spider, which hung directly above his head and seemed at times to be the incarnation of the Evil One himself.

How could Hawthorne, in his later years, conceive such horrible suggestions in connection with a house which must have been associated in his mind with the happiest memories of his life? For here lived the Peabody family, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and his highly cultivated wife, their three sons, only one of whom lived to maturity, and their three remarkable daughters—ElizabethPalmer, who achieved fame as one of the foremost kindergartners of America and died at a ripe old age; Mary, who became the wife of Horace Mann; and the gentle, scholarly, and high-minded Sophia, who refused to come down to see Hawthorne, on plea of illness, the first time he called at the house, but fell in love with him at a subsequent visit. The calls were frequent enough after that, and before the family left the old house to reside in Boston, the lovers were engaged to be married.

During the period of the courtship, Hawthorne lived with his mother and two sisters in a house on Herbert Street not far distant, and the two families came into close neighborly relations. Of course, we walked over to Herbert Street to find this house, but what remains of it has been remodeled into an ordinary tenement house and no longer resembles the house to which Sophia Peabody once sent a bouquet of tulips for Mr. Hawthorne, only to have it quietly appropriated by his sister Elizabeth, who thought her brother incapable of appreciating flowers, though she kindly permitted him to look at them! In the rear of this building, fronting on Union Street, is the plain, two-story-and-a-half house, with a gambrel roof, where Hawthorne was born.

When the Hawthornes returned to Salem, after their residence in the Old Manse, they occupied the Herbert Street house, with Madam Hawthorneand her two daughters, Elizabeth and Louisa. This proved inconvenient for so large a family and they moved into a three-story house on Chestnut Street, well shaded by some fine old elms. This was only a temporary arrangement, and soon afterward, the family took a large three-story house on Mall Street, where the mother and sisters occupied separate apartments. Hawthorne’s study was on the third floor—near enough his own family for convenience, but sufficiently remote for quiet. It was to this house that he returned one day in dejected mood and announced that he had been removed from his position at the Custom House. “Oh! then, you can write your book!” was the unexpectedly joyous reply of his wife, who knew that he had a story weighing on his mind. And then she produced the savings which she had carefully hoarded to meet just such an emergency. “The Scarlet Letter” was begun on the same day.

It was to this same house that James T. Fields came in the following winter and found Hawthorne in despondent mood sitting in the upper room huddled over a small stove. The preceding half-year had been the most trying period in his life. Discouragement over the loss of his position and the prospect of meager returns for his literary work was followed by serious pecuniary embarrassment, for Mrs. Hawthorne’s store of gold was, after all, a tiny one. The illness and deathof his mother had left him in a nervous state from the great strain of emotion, and this was followed by the sickness of every member of the household, himself included. The story of how Fields left the house with the manuscript of “The Scarlet Letter” in his pocket is well known. The immediate success of the novel proved to be the tonic that restored the author to health and happiness, and when he left Mall Street in the following spring he was no longer the “obscurest man of letters in America.”

The old Salem Custom House is the best-known building in the town. As we stood before it and looked upon the great eagle above the portico, with “a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw” and a “truculent attitude” that seemed “to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community,” it seemed as though we might fairly expect the former surveyor, or his ghost, to open the door and walk down the old granite steps.

I have already mentioned the apparent indifference toward Hawthorne of a certain old citizen of Salem—a feeling which characterizes a large part of the population, particularly those whose ancestors have lived longest in the town. One would naturally expect Salem to be proud of her most distinguished citizen, to delight in honoring him, and to extend a cordial welcome to thousands of strangers who come to pay him homage.Shakespeare is the principal asset of Stratford-on-Avon, Scott of Melrose, Burns of Ayr, and Wordsworth of the English Lakes. Every citizen is ready to talk of them. Not so of Hawthorne and Salem. The town is quite independent, and would hold up its head if there had never been any Hawthorne. The later generation, it is true, recognize his greatness, but the prejudice of the older families is sufficient to check any manifestation of enthusiasm.

This old Custom House upon which we are looking furnishes the explanation. When Hawthorne took possession as surveyor, he found offices ornamented with rows of sleepy officials, sitting in old-fashioned chairs which were tilted on their hind legs against the walls. These old gentlemen made an irresistible appeal to his sense of humor, such that he could scarcely have avoided the impulse to write a description of their whimsicalities. After his “decapitation” he yielded to the impulse and prepared in the best of good humor the amusing description of his former associates in the “Introduction” to “The Scarlet Letter.” It brought the wrath of Salem upon his head. These old fellows did not fancy being caricatured as “wearisome old souls,” who “seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memories with thehusks.” Especially enraged were the family of the Old Inspector of whom Hawthorne said nothing worse than that he remembered all the good dinners he had eaten. “There were flavors on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast,” said Hawthorne with fine humor. “He called one of them a pig,” said a Salemite to me, indignantly.

Back to Index Next