Read Ebook: The Delafield Affair by Kelly Florence Finch Dixon Maynard Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 854 lines and 86050 words, and 18 pages

In 1846, the Jesuits made an impudent attempt to convince the public that Leopardi died repenting of his philosophical views, and that he had previously expressed a desire to enter the Society of Jesus. A long letter from a certain Francesco Scarpa to his Superior, giving a number of pretended details of Leopardi's history, conversion, and death, appeared in a Neapolitan publication, entitled "Science and Faith." Ranieri came forward to show the entire falsity of these statements; and to give a more authoritative denial to them, he engaged the willing help of Vicenzo Gioberti. The latter in his "Modern Jesuit" contested their truth in every respect. He said: "The story put forward in this letter is a tissue of lies and deliberate inventions; it is sheer romance from beginning to end." It is thought by some people that Leopardi's father was concerned in this Jesuit manifesto. But, although the Count was doubtless shocked beyond measure that his son did not hold the same beliefs as himself, it is scarcely credible that he should concoct a series of such absurdities as were contained in Scarpa's letter.

Leopardi anticipated that posterity, and even his contemporaries, would endeavour to explain the pessimism of his philosophy by his personal misfortunes and sufferings. Accordingly, in a letter to the philologist Sinner, he entered a protest against such a supposition:

"However great my sufferings may have been, I do not seek to diminish them by comforting myself with vain hopes, and thoughts of a future and unknown happiness. This same courage of my convictions has led me to a philosophy of despair, which I do not hesitate to accept. It is the cowardice of men, who would fain regard existence as something very valuable, that instigates them to consider my philosophical opinions as the result of my sufferings, and that makes them persist in charging to my material circumstances that which is due to nothing but my understanding. Before I die, I wish to make protest against this imputation of weakness and trifling; and I would beg of my readers to burn my writings rather than attribute them to my sufferings."

Ranieri thus describes Leopardi's personal appearance:

"He was of middle height, inclined to stoop, and fragile; his complexion was pale; his head was large, and his brow expansive; his eyes were blue and languid; his nose was well formed , and his other features were very delicately chiselled; his voice was soft and rather weak; and he had an ineffable and almost celestial smile."

His friend here scarcely even suggests what others have perhaps unduly emphasised, that is, Leopardi's deformity. He was slightly humpbacked; doubtless the consequence of those studies which simultaneously ruined him and made him famous.

It were an omission not to refer to the influence which love exerted over Leopardi's life. So strong was this, in the opinion of one of his critics, that he even ascribes his philosophy to an "infelicissimo amore." Another writer says of him that "his ideal was a woman." Ranieri asserts that he died unmarried, after having twice felt the passion of love as violently as it was ever realised by any man. His poems also testify how omnipotent at one time was this bitter-sweet sensation.

"I recall to mind the day when love first assaulted me; when I said, Alas! if this be love, how it pains me!"

Again:

"It was morning, the time when a light and sweeter sleep presses our rested lids. The sun's first grey light began to gleam across the balcony, through the closed windows into my still darkened chamber. Then it was that I saw close by, regarding me with fixed eyes, the phantom form of her who first taught me to love, and left me Weeping."

His poem to Aspasia is a frank confession of love, and the humiliation he suffered in its rejection. It is a noble, yet a terrible poem. Opening with a description of the scene that met his eye as he entered the room where his charmer sat, "robed in the hue of the melancholy violet, and surrounded by a wondrous luxury," pressing "tender and burning kisses on the round lips?" of her children, and displaying "her snowy neck," he saw as it were "a new heaven, and a new earth, and the lustre of a celestial light."

"Like a divine ray, O woman, thy beauty dazzled my thought. Beauty is like such music as seems to open out to us an unknown Elysium. He who loves is filled with the ecstasy of the phantom love conceived by his imagination. In the woman of his love he seeks to discover the beauties of his inspired vision; in his words and actions he tries to recognise the personality of his dreams. Thus when he strains her to his bosom, it is not the woman, but the phantom of his dream that he embraces."

Then comes the awakening. He vituperates the reality for not attaining to the standard of his ideal.

"Rarely the woman's nature is comparable with that of the dream image. No thought like ours can dwell beneath those narrow brows. Vain is the hope that man forges in the fire of those sparkling eyes. He errs in seeking profound and lofty thoughts in one who is by nature inferior to man in all things. As her members are frailer and softer, so is her mind more feeble and confined."

He betrays his position, and gives the key to his unjust censure of woman's powers.

"Now, boast thyself, for thou canst do so. Tell how thou art the only one of thy sex to whom I have bent my proud head, and offered my invincible heart. Tell how thou hast seen me with beseeching brows, timid and trembling before thee , watching thy every sign and gesture, beside myself in adoration of thee, and changing expression and colour at the slightest of thy looks. The charm is broken; my yoke is on the ground, sundered at a single blow."

Who were the real objects of Leopardi's affection, is not at all clear. Certain village girls of Recanati, immortalised in his verse as Nerina and Silvia, were the inspirers of his first love; but his brother Carlo bears witness to the superficial nature of his affection in their cases. They merely served as the awakeners of the sensation; his own mind and imagination magnified it into a passion. True it is that his nature was one that yearned and craved for love in no ordinary degree. When at Rome, isolated from his family, he wrote to Carlo: "Love me, for God's sake. I need love, love, love, fire, enthusiasm, life." He addressed similar demands to Giordani and others with whom he was on the most intimate terms. Indeed we are tempted to conjectures as to what might have been the fruit of Leopardi's life had he found a helpmate and a consoler in his troubles.

A brief consideration of the general nature of Leopardi's poetry and prose may not be out of place in this short summary.

His poems are masterpieces of conception and execution. Their matter may be open to criticism; but their manner is beyond praise. His odes are of the nobler kind. Full of fire and vigour, they reach the sublime where he stimulates his fellow-countrymen to action, and urges them to aspire to a freedom, happily now obtained. His elegies breathe out an inspired sorrow. They are the pro-duct of a mind filled with the sense of the misery that abounds on earth, and unable, though desirous, to discern a single ray of light in the gloom of existence. His lyrical pieces are the most beautiful and emotional of his poems. The following, entitled "The Setting of the Moon," though pervaded with the spirit of sadness that is so predominant a characteristic of Leopardi's verse, contains some charming imagery:--

"As in the lonely night, over the silvered fields and the waters where the zephyrs play, where the far-off shades take a thousand vague appearances and deceitful forms, amid the tranquil waves, the foliage and the hedges, the hill-slopes and the villages, the moon arrived at heaven's boundary descends behind the Alps and Apennines into the infinite bosom of the Tyrrhenian Sea; whilst the world grows pale, and the shadows disappear, and a mantle of darkness shrouds the valley and the hills; night alone remains, and the carter singing on his way salutes with a sad melody the last reflection of that fleeing light which hitherto had led his steps: So vanishes our youth, and leaves us solitary with life. So flee away the shadows which veiled illusive joys; and so die too the distant hopes on which our mortal nature rested. Life is left desolate and dark, and the traveller, trying to pierce the gloom, looks here and there, but seeks in vain to know the way, or what the journey yet before him; he sees that all on earth is strange, and he a stranger dwelling there.... You little hills and strands, when falls the light which silvers in the west the veil of night, shall not for long be orphaned. On the other side of heaven the first grey light of dawn shall soon be followed by the sun, whose fiery rays shall flood you and the ethereal fields with a luminous stream. But mortal life, when cherished youth has gone, has no new dawn, nor ever gains new light; widowed to the end it stays, and on life's other shore, made dark by night, the gods have set the tomb's dark seal."

"I compose only when under an inspiration, yielding to which, in two minutes, I have designed and organised the poem. This done, I wait for a recurrence of such inspiration, which seldom happens until several weeks have elapsed. Then I set to work at composition, bub so slowly that I cannot complete a poem, however short, in less than two or three weeks. Such is my method; without inspiration it were easier to draw water from a stone than a single verse from my brain."

Leopardi's reputation was firmly established by the appearance of his "Operette morali," as his prose writings were termed. Monti classed them as the best Italian prose compositions of the century. Gioberti compared them to the writing of Machiavelli. Giordani, with his usual tendency to extravagance, gives his friend the following pompous panegyric:--"His style possesses the conciseness of Speroni, the grandiloquence of Tasso, the smoothness of Paruta, the purity of Gelli, the wit of Firenzuola, the solidity and magnificence of Pallavicino, the imagination of Plato, and the elegance of Cicero." Leopardi has been aptly termed an aristocrat in his writing. Too much of a reasoner to be very popular with the masses, who do not care for the exertion of sustained thought, his logic is strikingly clear to the intelligent. His periods are occasionally as long as those of Machiavelli or Guicciardini, but their continuity and signification are never obscure. Ranieri bears witness to the fact that his prose was the fruit of very great labour.

We consider Leopardi to have been a man of the grandest intellectual powers, capable originally of almost anything to which the human mind could attain; but that his reason, later in life, became somewhat perverted by his sufferings. Were human life as absolutely miserable a thing as he represents it to be, it would be insupportable. That he should so regard it does not seem remarkable when we consider his circumstances; he was poor, seldom free from pain, and unsupported by a creed. For the sufferings of his life, he could see no shadow of atonement or compensation: a future state was incomprehensible to him. He bestows much gratuitous pity on the human race, which we, though revering his genius, may return to him as more deserving of it than ourselves. His heart was naturally full of the most lively affection; but he could never sufficiently satisfy the yearnings of his nature. Like Ottonieri, whose portrait is his own to a great extent, his instincts were noble; like him also he died without effecting much in proportion to his powers.

The conclusions of Leopardi's philosophy may be thus summed up. The universe is an enigma, totally insoluble. The sufferings of mankind exceed all good that men experience, estimating the latter in compensation for the former. Progress, or, as we call it, civilisation, instead of lightening man's sufferings, increases them; since it enlarges his capacity for suffering, without proportionately augmenting his means of enjoyment.

How far are these conclusions refutable? It may be regarded as indubitable that the first two cannot be refuted without the aid of revelation. Science is incompetent to explain the "why" and the "wherefore" of the universe; it is yet groping to discover the "how." Still less can any satisfactory explanation be given of the purpose for which suffering exists, unless we rely on revelation. Religion, which modern philosophers somewhat contemptuously designate as "popular metaphysics," can alone afford an explanation of these problems. <<,kyamuni, nearly 2500 years ago, asked, "What is the cause of all the miseries and sufferings with which man is afflicted?" He himself gave what he considered to be the correct answer: "Existence;" and then he traced existence to the passions and desires innate in man. These last were to be conquered in the condition of insensibility to all material things called "Nirvana," Truly his remedy was a radical one, and had he succeeded in procuring universal acceptance for his doctrines, the human race would have become extinct a few generations later than his own time. But "Nirvana" is unnatural if it be nothing else; unnatural in itself and in the steps that lead up to it. And although it is due to Schopenhauer, and his more or less heterodox disciples, that this Buddhistic dogma is regarded theoretically by some people with a certain amount of favour, we think the instincts of life are strong enough within them all to resist any decided inclination on their part to carry it into effect.

As for the third conclusion, it must be admitted that man's susceptibilities of suffering are enlarged with increasing culture. Leopardi has shown us that the more vividly we realise the evils that surround and affect us, so much the more keenly do they arouse in us sensations of pain. Knowledge of them makes us suffer from them. The bliss of ignorance is rudely dispelled by the cold hand of science. But must this necessarily continue? May not the same progress which exposes the wound find the salve to heal it? We trust and think so, in spite of all assertions to the contrary. There is nothing in the near future of humanity that need alarm us: men will not work less because they think more; nor is there any sufficient reason to show that increasing knowledge must represent increasing sorrow. As Johnson has said: "The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical but palliative." For the material means of palliation we look to science. We hope and think that there is good to be gained from these writings of Leopardi, in spite of the tone of despair that rings throughout them. His theory of the "infelicit?" of things, cheerless though it be, often suggests ideas, sublime in themselves and noble in their effect; and the very essence of his philosophy resolves itself into a recommendation to act, rather than by contemplation to lose the power of action; for, as he says, "A life must be active and vigorous, else it is not true life, and death is preferable to it."

A brief reference to the most recent publications on Leopardi may be interesting as tending to throw light on his domestic relationships, and as giving us an idea of his own habits in private life. Antonio Ranieri in a book published at Naples in 1880 gives many interesting details of the poet's life. He first met him at Florence, and was touched with compassion for his unfortunate state. Ill and helpless, he was incapable of doing anything but weep in despair at the thought of being obliged to return to his native place. "Recanati and death are to me one and the same thing," he exclaimed through his tears. Ranieri in a generous moment replied: "Leopardi, you shall not return to Recanati. The little that I possess is enough for two. As a benefit to me, not to yourself, we will henceforth live together." This was the beginning of what Ranieri calls his "vita nuova." He conducted Leopardi from Florence to Rome; thence back to Florence; and finally from Florence to Naples. The doctors everywhere shrugged their shoulders at his case, and suggested, as delicately as possible, the mortal nature of his maladies. At Naples Ranieri and his sister Paulina did all they could for Leopardi, and from 1833 to his death in 1837 supplied all his wants. He could seldom see to read or write. "We used to read to him constantly and regularly, and were fortunately conversant with the languages he knew," says Ranieri. Occasionally he was able to go to the theatre, and enjoyed it greatly. In his habits he seems to have tried his friend's temper and patience considerably. He was wont to turn night into day, and day into night. Ranieri and his sister often did the same in order to read, work, and talk with him. He breakfasted between three and five o'clock in the afternoon, and dined about midnight. Like Schopenhauer, he delighted in after-dinner conversation, which he termed "one of the greatest pleasures of life." He was very obstinate in personal matters, disobeying the doctors in his diet and everything else. His fondness for his old clothes was remarkable; he loved them for their associations. Ranieri mentions "a certain very ancient overcoat which for seven years" had tormented him, and which he used to entreat Leopardi to lay aside, but which he clung to with an incredible affection, preferring it to a new one that he allowed the moths to destroy. The mere names of wind, cold, and snow were enough to pale him. He could not bear fire, and formerly used to pass the winters three parts submerged in a sack of feathers, reading and writing thus the greater part of the day. He was very terrified when the cholera appeared at Naples, to avoid which he and Ranieri went to a country house of the latter's on one of the slopes of Vesuvius. Here Leopardi wrote his poem "La Ginestra," inspired by the desolate scenes at the foot of the mountain. He died suddenly at Naples, as he and Ranieri's household were about to set off again for the country. The Neapolitan Journal "Il Progresso," in an article on Lis death, remarked of him that "such brilliancy is not allowed to illumine the earth for long."

ST. MARK'S PLACE, WOLVERHAMPTON,

The following works, amongst others, have been made use of in the preparation of this volume:--

Opere Leopardi. 6 vols. Firenze, 1845.

Opere inedite Leopardi. Cugnoni: Halle, 1878.

Studio di Leopardi. A. Baragiola: Strasburg, 1876.

Traduction compl?te de Leopardi. F. A. Aulard: Paris, 1880.

Opuscules et Pens?es de Leopardi. A. Dapples: Paris, 1880.

G. Leopardi: sa Vie et ses Oeuvres. Bouch? Leclercq: Paris, 1874.

Le Pessimisme. E. Caro: Paris, 1878.

Pessimism. Jas. Sully: London, 1877.

La Philosophie de Schopenhauer. Th. Ribot: Paris, 1874.

Il Buddha, Confucio, e Lao-Tse. C. Puini: Firenze, 1878.

Artide in Quarterly Review on Leopardi. 1850.

Artide in Fraser's Magazine, Leopardi and his Father: a Study, by L. Villari. November 1881.

It is said that the first inhabitants of the earth were everywhere created simultaneously. Whilst children they were fed by bees, goats, and doves, as the poets say the infant Jove was nourished. The earth was much smaller than it is at present, and devoid of mountains and hills. The sky was starless. There was no sea; and the world as a whole was far less varied and beautiful than it now is.

Yet men were never weary of looking at the sky and the earth, which excited within them feelings of wonder and admiration. They considered them both to be of infinite extent, majesty, and magnificence. Their souls were filled with joyous hopes, and every sensation of life gave them inexpressible pleasure. Their contentment daily increased, so that they at length thought themselves supremely happy. In this peaceful state of mind they passed their infancy and youth.

Arrived at a mature age, their feelings began to experience some alteration. As their early hopes, to which they had perseveringly adhered, failed of realisation, they no longer put faith in them. But, on the other hand, present happiness isolated from anticipation of the future, did not suffice them; especially seeing that, either from habit or because the charm of a first acquaintanceship had worn off, nature and all the incidents of life gave them much less pleasure than at first. They travelled over the earth, and visited the most distant lands. This they could easily do, because there were neither seas, mountains, nor obstacles of any kind to oppose them. After a few years, most men had proved the finite nature of the earth, the boundaries of which were by no means so remote as to be unattainable. They found too, that all countries of the world, and all men, with but slight differences, were alike. These discoveries I so greatly increased their discontent, that a weariness of life became prevalent among men even before they had passed the threshold of manhood. And as men grew older, this feeling gradually transformed itself into a hatred of existence, so that at length, seized by despair, they in one way or another hesitated not to abandon the light and life once so beloved.

It seemed to the gods a shocking thing that living creatures should prefer death to life, and should destroy themselves for no other reason than that they were weary of existence. It also amazed them beyond measure to find their gifts held in such contempt, and so unequivocally rejected by men. They thought the world had been endowed with sufficient beauty, goodness, and harmony to make it not merely a bearable, but even a highly enjoyable place of residence for every living thing, and especially for man, whom they had fabricated with peculiar care, and a marvellous perfection. At the same time, touched with a deep feeling of compassion for the distress men exhibited, they began to fear lest the renewal and increase of these deplorable actions might not soon result in the extinction of the human race, contrary to destiny, and they would thus lose the most perfect work of their creation, and be deprived of the honours they received from men.

Jove determined therefore to improve the condition of men, since it seemed necessary, and to increase the means whereby they might obtain happiness. They complained of the deceitfulness of things; which were neither as great, beautiful, perfect, nor varied as they at first imagined them to be; but were, on the contrary, small, imperfect, and monotonous. They derived no pleasure from their youth; still less were they satisfied with the times of maturity, and old age. Their infancy alone gave them pleasure, and yearning for the sweetness of their early days, they besought Jove to make their condition one of perpetual childhood. But the god could not satisfy them in this matter; for it was contrary to the laws of nature, and the divine decrees and intentions. Neither could he communicate his own infinity to mortal creatures, nor the world itself, any more than he could bestow infinite happiness and perfection on men and things. It seemed best to him to extend the limits of creation, at the same time increasing the world's diversity and beauty. In fulfilment of this intention, he enlarged the earth on all sides; and made the sea to flow as a separation between inhabited places, so that it might vary the aspect of things, and by severing their roads, prevent men from easily discovering the confines of the world. He also designed the sea to serve as a vivid representation of the infinity which they desired. Then it was that the waters covered the island Atlantis, as well as many other vast tracts of country; but the remembrance of this island alone has survived the multitude of centuries that have passed since that time.

Jove formed valleys by lowering certain places; and by exalting others he created hills and mountains. He bespread the night with stars; purified the atmosphere; increased the brilliancy and light of day; intensified the colours of the sky and the country, and gave them more variety. He also mixed the generations of men, so that the aged of one generation were contemporaneous with the children of another. Above all, Jove determined to multiply resemblances of that infinity for which men so eagerly craved. He could not really satisfy them, but wishing to soothe and appease their imagination, which he knew had been the chief source of their happiness in childhood, he employed many expedients like that of the sea. He created the echo, and hid it in valleys and caverns, and gave to the forests a dull deep whispering, conjoined with a mysterious undulation of their tree-tops. He created also the gorgeous land of dreams, and gave men power to visit it in their sleep. There they could experience such perfect happiness as could not in reality be accorded to them. This served as a substitute for the vague unrealisable conception of felicity formed by men within themselves, and to which Jove himself could not have given any real expression, had he desired to do so.

But in process of time this novelty wore off, and men again became discontented and wearied with life. So despondent did they become, that then is said to have originated the custom attributed by history to certain ancient nations; the birth of a child was celebrated with tears, and the death of a parent was the occasion of rejoicing for his deliverance. At length wickedness became universal. This was either because men thought that Jove disregarded them, or because it is the nature of misfortune to debase even the noblest minds.

It is a popular error to imagine that man's misfortunes are the result of his impiety and iniquity. On the contrary, his wickedness is the consequence of his misfortunes.

The gods avenged themselves for their injuries, and punished mortals for their renewed perverseness, by the deluge of Deucalion. There were only two survivors of this shipwreck of the human race, Deucalion and Pyrrha. These unhappy ones were filled with the sense of their wretchedness, and far from regretting the loss of all their fellows, themselves loudly invoked death from the summit of a rock. But Jove commanded them to remedy the depopulation of the earth, and seeing that they had not the heart to beget a new generation, directed them to take stones from the hill-sides, and cast them over their shoulders. From these stones men were created, and the earth was again peopled.

The history of the past had enlightened Jove as to the nature of men, and had shown him that it is not sufficient for them, as for other animals, merely to live in a state of freedom from sorrow and physical discomfort. He knew that whatever their condition of life, they would seek the impossible, and if unpossessed of genuine evils, would torment themselves with imaginary ones. The god resolved therefore to employ new means for the preservation of the miserable race. For this purpose he used two especial artifices. In the first place, he strewed life with veritable evils; and secondly, instituted a thousand kinds of business and labour, to distract men as much as possible from self-contemplation, and their desires for an unknown and imaginary happiness.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet