Read Ebook: The Atlantic Monthly Volume 04 No. 25 November 1859 A Magazine of Literature Art and Politics by Various

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

When Napoleon fell, Foresti was a student at the University of Bologna, whence he returned to his native capital, after obtaining the degree of Doctor of Laws. His earliest forensic labors, like those of our young advocates, were in the defence of accused criminals; and, limited as is this sphere, he must have displayed unusual maturity of judgment and natural eloquence, to have received successively the eminent appointments of Provisory Assistant Judge in the Court of Justice of Ferrara, Supplementary Professor of Eloquence and Belles Lettres in the Lyceum, and Judge of the Peace, by virtue of which latter office he crossed the Po to practise at Polesino,--wisely preferring the Austrian to the Papal jurisdiction. In Crespino, in the province of Rovigo, in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, Foresti was made Praetor under the Emperor's warrant. Coincident with this recognition of his judicial knowledge and skill, was a kindred appreciation on the part of his liberal and patriotic countrymen; they beheld in the vigorous and disciplined mind and generous heart of Foresti, in his civic wisdom and courage, the representative and ally they sought in this portion of their beautiful and unhappy land. To disseminate the principles and secure the cooperation of Venice became the special office of the Carbonari leaders of Ferrara, and they had only to reveal the high and holy object they cherished, to one who so well knew the wants and woes of his country as Foresti, to enlist his adventurous sympathy. The delicate and difficult mission, fraught with the dearest prospects of Italy, was nearly consummated, when a treacherous colleague revealed to the accredited agents both of Austria and the Pope the system of this mysterious revolutionary combination in and around Ferrara. The latter shrank from extreme measures, and was content with an oath of retraction; but the Austrian government gave instant orders to the chiefs of police, both there and at Venice, to arrest those whom the perjured Count Villa named as adherents of Carbonarism. The decree was executed with military force; and, without warning, preparation, or even a parting interview with their families and friends, the suspected were hurried off to the Piombi, that Venetian prison so graphically described by Pellico. All correspondence and personal intercourse was denied. Meantime, an ingenious and persevering investigation went on, to ascertain the scope of the enterprise thus summarily baffled, the means proposed, and the individuals implicated. To complicate still further the situation of the victims, in other quarters the flame they had secretly fed burst forth conspicuously; Naples and Piedmont were in arms; and Austria conceived an alarming idea of the national spirit she had partially contravened. The rigor of espionage towards the imprisoned and their friends increased; the prosecution was insidiously prolonged; privation and solitude, vigilance and suspense were made instruments for subduing the resolution and invading the confidence of the captives; they pined in desolation, ignorant of their fate, uninformed of the welfare of those most dear to them, without resources of defence or consolation, except what the strength of individual character yields; physically weakened, morally isolated; sometimes roused from sleep and bewildered with questions; at other times told they were to die, that some companion had confessed, or that some loved one had ceased to exist;--and all these crises of feeling and anxiety, of surprise and despair, induced with a fiendish deliberation, to startle honor into self-betrayal, wring from exhausted Nature what conscious rectitude would not divulge, or agonize human love into inadvertent disloyalty.

At length their fate was decided. Foresti's companion in prison was the son of a judge of Ferrara; and, one November midnight, their conversation was interrupted by the unexpected entrance of the jailer, who bade Foresti follow him. The hour and the manner of the official convinced both him and his comrade that his sacrifice was resolved upon; they embraced, and he left the cell to find himself strictly guarded by six soldiers. This nocturnal procession marched silently through the vast, lonely, and magnificent rooms of the Ducal Palace to the door which leads to the Bridge of Sighs: it was the old road to destruction,--the mysterious process, made familiar by novelists and poets, by which the ancient and sinister republic made more fearful the vengeance of government. As the unfortunate youth passed through a labyrinth of gloomy corridors, he recognized the haunts of the ancient Inquisition; the atmosphere was clogged with damp; moisture dripped from the stones. A dungeon, lighted only by a lamp suspended from the vault, and narrow, humid, and unfurnished, except with a pile of straw and a rude table, proved the dreary goal of their heavy steps. Left to his own reflections, Foresti contemplated his prospects with deliberate anguish; that he had been found guilty was apparent; if the fact of his direct agency in initiating the oath of self-emancipation, the sacred compact of national self-assertion in the Austrian dominions, had transpired, he felt that his prominence as a judicial officer, and the firmness with which he had refused to explain the purposes or betray the associates of this memorable league, made him the most probable victim of extreme measures, should one be chosen from the Carbonari of Ferrara. At that period of his life he entertained the opinion that suicide was justifiable to avoid an ignominious death at the hands of arbitrary power. Believing his fate sealed, he gave a few moments of tender reminiscence to his dead mother and his living father and sisters, to the dreams of his youth, and the patriotic aspirations to which he was about to fall a sacrifice. The jailer returned, bringing a book and a bottle of wine, for which he had asked; a few tears were shed, a prayer for forgiveness breathed, and then he plunged a knife into his breast; the blade broke; he shattered the bottle at his side and swallowed the fragments, and then fell bleeding and exhausted on the straw. If left long alone, life would have ebbed away; but, probably in anticipation of such a catastrophe, the officer ere many hours revisited the cell to put chains upon the prisoner. Discovering his condition, a surgeon was called, remedies were applied, and two Austrian sentinels carried Foresti into the presence of the judge. It was scarcely dawn; the venerable and courteous, but inflexible representative of the Emperor expressed solicitude and sympathy; a secretary and physician, with the guard and their prisoner, confronted each other by the dim light of two candles. Irritated by the conventional politeness of this arbiter of his destiny at such a crisis, having vainly sought death, and bitterly conscious of the long outrages perpetrated under the name of justice, Foresti burst forth into stern invectives, and boldly declared his liberal sentiments, his allegiance to the principles for the sake of which he thus suffered, and his absolute enmity to the usurpers of his country's freedom. The Cavalier Mazzetti treated this overflow of emotion as the ebullition of a youthful mind, romantic and intrepid, but unreasonable; he professed the sincerest pity for so gifted and brave a youth, lamented his delusion, painted in emphatic words his want of gratitude and allegiance, treated his political creed and organization as chimerical, and wound up by informing Foresti that he was condemned to die on the public square of Venice, and that nothing would save him but a complete revelation of the true plan, arrangements, and members of the secret conclave to which he belonged. Threats and blandishments failed to move the prisoner; he was silent, accepted his doom, and was remanded with two allies,--one of whom purchased a remission by treason to his vows. Such was the climax of two dreary years of imprisonment, aggravated by ingenious moral torture.

This entire ceremony was characteristic of Austrian despotism, aware of the profound sympathy among the Italians for their patriot martyrs, of the widespread disaffection, of the necessity of exciting vague and terrible apprehension,--and at the same time conscious that policy forbade arousing the fury of despair. The accused were thus kept more than two years alternating from hope to desperation, the people in ignorance of the issue, and then, when led out, as they supposed, to die, they served as a warning to those who dared imperial vengeance, while, by a sudden act of apparent clemency, the government at once rid itself of formidable opponents and assumed the character of merciful executors of law! It was rumored that the consideration of his youth saved the life of Foresti;--he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment.

These scenes in Venice were reenacted, with unimportant modifications, within a few months, at Rome and Turin, at Modena, Parma, and Naples. The rolls of victims embraced the most highly endowed and heroic men of the day. Many of them, after years of incarceration, distinguished themselves in civil and literary life; some perished miserably in durance; and a few yet survive and enjoy social consideration or European fame. Among them were representatives of every rank, vocation, and section of the land,--noblemen, professors, military officers, advocates, physicians, priests, men of wealth, of genius, and of character. Those known in America, either personally or by their writings, are Count Gonfalonieri of Milan, Silvio Pellico, Castilla, Borsieri, Maroncelli, and Foresti. The abortive revolutions of 1831 and 1848 sent other refugees to our shores, and canonized other saintly heroes in the Calendar of Freedom; but these were the original, and, as a body, the remarkable men, who, imbued with the intelligent and progressive Liberalism of the nineteenth century, practically established in Italy by Napoleon, bravely initiated the vital reaction invoked by humanity as well as patriotism, before which European despotism has never ceased to tremble, and which, however baffled, postponed, and misunderstood, by the law of God as well as the development of man, is absolutely destined to an ultimate triumph.

This observation was sagacious. It was by calm resolution and philosophic self-possession, through faith in the ultimate triumph of justice and freedom, that Foresti kept at bay the corrosive despair which irritated less noble characters into melancholy or wasted spirits of gentler mould to insanity. Yet his physical torture was extreme. Of robust frame and in the plenitude of youthful vigor when arrested, the want of food during the earlier years of his captivity made serious and permanent inroads upon a naturally powerful constitution. We have heard him relate, with a humorous emphasis indicative of brave endurance, yet suggestive of the keenest pangs, how eagerly he one day seized a pudding, thrust under his dress, as he passed the lodge of an official in the court, by a compassionate woman,--how ingeniously he concealed it from the sentinels, at the risk of burning his hands,--with what triumph he unfolded and with what voracity he devoured it in the solitude of his cell. Sometimes an indignity overcame his self-possession, as, on one occasion, when the jailer's attendant rudely awoke him with a kick, as he deposited a basin of hot broth, which Foresti indignantly seized and dashed its scalding contents into the face of the brutal menial, who thenceforward was more respectful in his salutations. But it was the moral suffering against which all his wisdom and courage were invoked to struggle,--the resolute maintenance of healthful mental activity, without an object or motive underived from will,--the repression of hopeless, vague, self-tormenting reverie, which perverts intellect and drains moral energy,--the habitual exercise of memory, reflection, and fancy, to preserve their functions unimpaired. Such expedients were of special necessity at Spielberg; for never were educated men so barbarously deprived of the legitimate resources of mind and heart; thought and love were left uninvited, unappeased. Sir Walter Raleigh had the materials, at the Tower, to write a history; Lafayette, at Olmutz, lived in perpetual expectancy of release; Moore and Byron, children, flowers, birds, and the Muses cheered Leigh Hunt's year of durance: but in this bleak fortress, innocent and magnanimous men beheld the seasons come and go, night succeed day, and year follow year, with no cognizance of kindred or the world's doings,--no works of bard or sage,--no element of life,--but a grim, cold, deadly routine within stone walls,--all tender sympathies, the very breath of the soul, denied,--all influx of knowledge, the food of the mind, prohibited, experience a blank, existence a void!

"To such sad pitch their gathering griefs were wrought, Life seemed not life, save when convulsed by thought."

How much had occurred while these years of arbitrarily imposed monasticism crept heavily by, to excite the speculative thought and kindle the sympathies of educated men! To what new aspects of civilization and fresh phases of contemporaneous history their liberation suddenly introduced them!

Their journey from Brunn to Gradisca was a perfect contrast to that melancholy transit, so many years before, from Venice to Spielberg. It was near the beginning of April, 1836, when they started in carriages with a commissary and a few guards; in every town and village through which they passed, crowds surrounded them with gratulations; the inns where they stopped were besieged with well-wishers; Nature, too, seemed to hail their release with vernal beauty; and so they journeyed on, to be received as honored guests rather than prisoners-of-state at the Castle of Gradisca. Their sojourn here was as recreative as was consistent with that degree of supervision necessary to prevent escape; they were at liberty to walk about, to make and receive visits, to bathe in the sea, to attend the fairs, and examine the local celebrities of Friuli; a single commissary often accompanied their excursions, and personally the most delicate consideration was paid them. Here, too, the most affecting reunions of long-severed kindred and friends took place; their relatives hastened hither to embrace them.

Foresti used to relate many anecdotes illustrative of the sympathy and respect felt and manifested by strangers during this interlude between prison and exile. One deserves record here. Two travelling-carriages arrived at a village-inn, one evening, where they were resting. While the gentlemen were inspecting the apartments, a lady of distinguished appearance inquired of a bystander, who the strangers were towards whom so many friendly glances were directed; soon after, the landlord bore to them her request for an interview; they rose at her entrance; she attempted to speak, but her voice faltered, and, with tears, she turned to her little boys and said, "Kneel, my darlings, to these brave Italian patriots; they are illustrious victims in the great cause of Liberty; and you, gentlemen, bless my sons; your blessing will be fruitful to them of good; it will make them love their country and die for it, if need be. I am a Pole. My country is oppressed like yours. I have two brothers compromised in the last insurrection in Cracow. May God preserve them!"--and weeping bitterly, she retired. They afterwards learned that her husband was Counsellor of State to the King of Prussia.

On the 1st of August, 1836, they were transported by night to Trieste, and, by a singular coincidence, placed on board the same brig-of-war whence Kozsta was subsequently taken at Smyrna,--an incident memorable in our subsequent diplomacy, as having occasioned the celebrated letter of Webster to the Austrian envoy. Provided by that government with warm clothing, the money they had taken to Spielberg was restored to them, not, however, in the original gold coin, but in the Vienna bills for which it had been then exchanged by the police, diminished nearly two-thirds in value during the interval of fourteen years. The vessel was uncomfortably crowded; the voyage occupied three months; but they fared alike with the officers. Towards the close of October, they beheld the noble bay of New York; and so intense was the satisfaction with which they first trod American soil, the goal and terminus of such protracted suffering, that, ever after, the Battery, where they landed, was hallowed to their memories as consecrated ground.

Of the many Italian exiles who have found an asylum in the United States, Foresti was preeminently the representative man. The period of his arrival, the circumstances of his life, and the traits of his character united thus to distinguish him even among the best educated and most unfortunate of the political refugees from Southern Europe. At the time of his arrest, the vilest modern despotism of the Continent had reached its acme; and the patriotic movements it then sought to annihilate by a cruelty unparalleled since the Middle Ages were justified even by conservative reformers, on account of their stringent moral necessity, the intelligent scope of their advocates, and the high and cultivated spirit of their illustrious martyrs. As scholars, citizens, gentlemen, and, in more than one instance, authors of real genius, these Liberals stand alone, and are not to be confounded with the perverse Radicals of a subsequent epoch. Moreover, their aspirations were, as we have seen, more reactionary than experimental; for the rights for which they conspired had been in a great measure enjoyed under Europe's modern conqueror, then impotent in action, but most efficient in remembrance, although isolated on his prison-rock. Foresti's companion in misfortune has made their mutual wrongs "familiar as household words"; and to be associated in captivity with the author of "Le Mie Prigioni" was of itself a passport to the sympathy of the civilized world.

Whoever enjoyed Foresti's hospitality, in the conversations as well as the viands has found an epitome and reflex of his most genial hours in Italy: brave soldiers, like Avezzana and Garibaldi, scholars, artists, every form of the national character, were gratefully exhibited in reunions, of which he was the presiding genius, and to which his American friends were admitted with fraternal cordiality. It was then that his clear and strong mind often displayed itself with the spontaneity of his race.

Chastened, though unsubdued by misfortune, Foresti cherished a truly Christian spirit of forgiveness, and the liberality which large experience invariably fosters in enlightened minds: it was the system, rather than its agents, which he ever held up to condemnation in discussing the Austrian policy. Familiarity with American and English politics and the modern history of Europe induced a wise modification of his opinions on government; a fervent republican in sentiment, he yet recognized the radical benefits of a constitutional monarchy, like those of England and Sardinia. He was a natural orator, and, on several occasions, memorably addressed the public with rare eloquence and power on subjects of national or beneficent interest. During his long sojourn in New York, he was not merely the acknowledged representative of Italy, but her eloquent advocate, her wise expositor, her illustrious son, whose literature he memorably unfolded, whose history he sagaciously analyzed, whose misfortunes he tenderly portrayed, whose glory he proudly vindicated, and whose nationality he incessantly affirmed. Well did one of the leading Turin journals indicate the prevalent graces of his character:--"A pure and just man, he knew always how to appreciate those who dissented from him about forms of government, because he could discover in them the true love of nationality, to which Italy aspires. Wise without pretension, beneficent without ostentation, chaste in deed and word, exquisitely tender-hearted, he tempered the harsh lessons of experience by the unchanged serenity of his bearing."

The pleasure expressed at Foresti's consular appointment, as well as the high order of applicants in his behalf, afforded the best evidence of the friendship and interest he had awakened and maintained in a foreign land. On the shores of the Hudson, by the cliffs of Newport, under the elms of New Haven, as well as in the metropolis where he had so long dwelt, faithful hearts rejoiced at the announcement. "Few are aware," said Hillhouse, in his Eulogy on Lafayette, "how hallowed and how deep are their feelings who worship Liberty as a mistress they may never possess." And it was the constancy and intelligence of his devotion to her which won for him such peculiar regard; for he did not belong to the sentimental and spasmodic, but to the resolute and philosophic devotees at her shrine; his native taste was more wedded to the wise satire of Casti and the acute generalities of Vico than satisfied with the soft beauties of Petrarch or the luxurious graces of Boccaccio; the stoical Alfieri, more than the epicurean Metastasio, breathed music to his soul. "You belong," wrote Pellico to him, "you belong to those who to a generous disposition unite an intellect to see things wisely; never can I forget the gifts of genius and of courage developed in you in the days of misfortune." It was an auspicious sign of the times when the land which protected such an exile was represented by him in that of his nativity.

LARVAE.

My little maiden of four years old Came, quite in disgust, one day, to me.

Rubbing her shoulder with rosy palm,-- As the loathsome touch seemed yet to thrill her, She cried,--"Oh, mother, I found on my arm A horrible, crawling caterpillar!"

And with mischievous smile she could scarcely smother, Yet a glance, in its daring, half-awed and shy, She added,--"While they were about it, mother, I wish they'd just finished the butterfly!"

They were words to the thought of the soul that turns From the coarser form of a partial growth, Reproaching the Infinite Patience that yearns With an unknown glory to crown them both.

Ah, look thou largely, with lenient eyes, On whatso beside thee may creep and cling, For the possible beauty that underlies The passing phase of the meanest thing!

What if God's great angels, whose waiting love Beholdeth our pitiful life below, From the holy height of their heaven above, Couldn't bear with the worm till the wings should grow?

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.

THE QUILTING.

As the meal waned to its close, the rattling of wheels was heard at the gate, and Candace was discerned, seated aloft in the one-horse wagon, with her usual complement of baskets and bags.

"Well, now, dear me! if there isn't Candace!" said Miss Prissy; "I do believe Miss Marvyn has sent her with something for the quilting!" and out she flew as nimble as a humming-bird, while those in the house heard various exclamations of admiration, as Candace, with stately dignity, disinterred from the wagon one basket after another, and exhibited to Miss Prissy's enraptured eyes sly peeps under the white napkins with which they were covered. And then, hanging a large basket on either arm, she rolled majestically towards the house, like a heavy-laden Indiaman, coming in after a fast voyage.

"Good-mornin', Miss Scudder! good-mornin', Doctor!" she said, dropping her curtsy on the door-step; "good-mornin', Miss Mary! Ye see our folks was stirrin' pootty 'arly dis mornin', an' Miss Marvyn sent me down wid two or tree little tings."

Setting down her baskets on the floor, and seating herself between them, she proceeded to develop their contents with ill-concealed triumph. One basket was devoted to cakes of every species, from the great Mont-Blanc loaf-cake, with its snowy glaciers of frosting, to the twisted cruller and puffy doughnut. In the other basket lay pots of golden butter curiously stamped, reposing on a bed of fresh, green leaves,--while currants, red and white, and delicious cherries and raspberries, gave a final finish to the picture. From a basket which Miss Prissy brought in from the rear appeared cold fowl and tongue delicately prepared, and shaded with feathers of parsley. Candace, whose rollicking delight in the good things of this life was conspicuous in every emotion, might have furnished to a painter, as she sat in her brilliant turban, an idea for an African Genius of Plenty.

"Why, really, Candace," said Mrs. Scudder, "you are overwhelming us!"

"Ho! ho! ho!" said Candace, "I's tellin' Miss Marvyn folks don't git married but once in der lives, an' den dey oughter hab plenty to do it wid."

"Well, I must say," said Miss Prissy, taking out the loaf-cake with busy assiduity,--"I must say, Candace, this does beat all!"

"How is Mrs. Marvyn?" said Mrs. Scudder.

"Kinder thin and shimmery; but she's about,--habin' her eyes eberywar, 'n' lookin' into eberyting. She jes' touches tings wid de tips ob her fingers an' dey seem to go like. She'll be down to de quiltin' dis arternoon. But she tole me to take de tings an' come down an' spen' de day here; for Miss Marvyn an' I both knows how many steps mus' be taken sech times, an' we agreed you oughter favor yourselves all you could."

"Well, now," said Miss Prissy, lifting up her hands, "if that a'n't what 'tis to have friends! Why, that was one of the things I was thinking of, as I lay awake last night; because, you know, at times like these, people run their feet off before the time begins, and then they are all limpsey and lop-sided when the time comes. Now, I say, Candace, all Miss Scudder and Mary have to do is to give everything up to us, and we'll put it through straight."

"Dat's what we will!" said Candace. "Jes' show me what's to be done, an' I'll do it."

Candace and Miss Prissy soon disappeared together into the pantry with the baskets, whose contents they began busily to arrange. Candace shut the door, that no sound might escape, and began a confidential outpouring to Miss Prissy.

Miss Prissy responded with a sympathetic groan.

Candace was not versed enough in the wisdom of the world to know that she belonged to a large and respectable school of philosophers in this particular mode of testing evidence, which, after all, the reader will perceive has its conveniences.

"Anoder ting," said Candace; "as much as a dozen times, dis yer last year, when I's been a-scourin' knives, a fork has fell an' stuck straight up in de floor; an' de las' time I pinted it out to Miss Marvyn, an' she on'y jes' said, 'Why, what o' dat, Candace?'"

"Ah, I tell ye what," said Candace, looking mysterious, "dogs knows a heap more'n dey likes to tell!"

Candace drew near to Miss Prissy, dark with expressive interest, as her voice, in this awful narration, sank to a whisper.

"Well," said Candace, after Miss Prissy had made something of a pause.

"Well, I told Miss Andrews I didn't think there was anything in it," said Miss Prissy; "but," she added, impressively, "she lost a very dear brother, six months after, and I laid him out with my own hands,--yes, laid him out in white flannel."

"Well, I tell you," said Miss Prissy, "there are a great many more things in this world than folks know about."

"So dey are," said Candace. "Now, I ha'n't neber opened my mind to nobody; but dar's a dream I's had, tree mornin's runnin', lately. I dreamed I see Jim Marvyn a-sinkin' in de water, an' stretchin' up his hands. An' den I dreamed I see de Lord Jesus come a-walkin' on de water, an' take hold ob his hand, an' says he, 'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?' An' den he lifted him right out. An' I ha'n't said nothin' to nobody, 'cause, you know, de Doctor, he says people mus'n't mind nothin' 'bout der dreams, 'cause dreams belongs to de ole 'spensation."

"Well, well, well!" said Miss Prissy, "I am sure I don't know what to think. What time in the morning was it that you dreamed it?"

"Why," said Candace, "it was jest arter bird-peep. I kinder allers wakes myself den, an' turns ober, an' what comes arter dat is apt to run clar."

"Well, well, well!" said Miss Prissy, "I don't know what to think. You see, it may have reference to the state of his soul."

"Why, how do you know?" said Miss Prissy, looking astonished at the confidence with which Candace expressed her opinion.

At this moment Mrs. Scudder opened the pantry-door and put an end to this mysterious conversation, which had already so affected Miss Prissy, that, in the eagerness of her interest, she had rubbed up her cap border and ribbon into rather an elfin and goblin style, as if they had been ruffled up by a breeze from the land of spirits; and she flew around for a few moments in a state of great nervous agitation, upsetting dishes, knocking down plates, and huddling up contrary suggestions as to what ought to be done first, in such impossible relations that Mrs. Katy Scudder stood in dignified surprise at this strange freak of conduct in the wise woman of the parish.

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