No More Learning

It was
1-22


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(
“I do not want to seem inquisitive,” I said to the landlord,
as he was fastening up the bar, which, by the way, was the
salle à manger and general sitting-room — "I do not want to
seem inquisitive, but your friend Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark
this morning at breakfast which – which was not altogether
clear to me. "
«About Mehetabel ? ” asked Mr. Sewell, uneasily.
Yes. ”
“Well, I wish he wouldn't! »
"He was friendly enough in the course of conversation to
hint to me that he had not married the young woman, and
seemed to regret it. ”
“No, he didn't marry Mehetabel. ”
“May I inquire why he didn't marry Mehetabel ? »
“Never asked her. Might have married the girl forty times.
Old Elkins's daughter, over at K—, She'd have had him
quick enough. Seven years, off and on, he kept company with
Mehetabel, and then she died. ”
“And he never asked her ? »
“He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he didn't think of it. When
she was dead and gone, then Silas was struck all of a heap-
and that 's all about it. ”
Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to tell me anything
more, and obviously there was more to tell.
The topic was
plainly disagreeable to him for some reason or other, and that
unknown reason of course piqued my curiosity.
As I was absent from dinner and supper that day, I did not
meet Mr. Jaffrey again until the following morning at break-
fast. He had recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of
a mysterious assassination that had just taken place in New
York, all the thrilling details of which were at his fingers' ends.
It was at once comical and sad to see this harmless old gen-
tleman, with his naïve, benevolent countenance, and his thin
hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the footlights at a theatre,
reveling in the intricacies of the unmentionable deed.
«You come up to my room to-night,” he cried, with horrid
glee, and I'll give you my theory of the murder. I'll make it
as clear as day to you that it was the detective himself who
fired the three pistol-shots. ”
It was not so much the desire to have this point elucidated
as to make a closer study of Mr. Jaffrey that led me to accept


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
339
his invitation. Mr. Jaffrey's bedroom was in an L of the
building, and was in no way noticeable except for the numer-
ous files of newspapers neatly arranged against the blank
spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old magazines which
stood in one corner, reaching nearly up to the ceiling, and
threatening to topple over each instant, like the Leaning Tower
at Pisa. There were green paper shades at the windows, some
faded chintz valances about the bed, and two or three easy-
chairs covered with chintz. On a black-walnut shelf between
the windows lay a choice collection of meerschaum and brier-
wood pipes.
Filling one of the chocolate-colored bowls for me and an-
other for himself, Mr. Jaffrey began prattling; but not about
the murder, which appeared to have flown out of his mind. In
fact, I do not remember that the topic was even touched upon,
either then or afterwards.
« Cozy nest this,” said Mr. Jaffrey, glancing complacently
over the apartment. “What is more cheerful, now, in the fall
of the year, than an open wood-fire ? Do you hear those little
chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood ?
Those are the ghosts of the robins and bluebirds that sang
upon the bough when it was in blossom last spring.
In sum-
mer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees
under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.
I take it very easy here, I can tell you, summer and winter.
Not much society. Tobias is not, perhaps, what one would
term a great intellectual force, but he means well. He's a
realist - believes in coming down to what he calls the hardpan’;
but his heart is in the right place, and he's very kind to me.
The wisest thing I ever did in my life was to sell out my grain
business over at K- thirteen years ago, and settle down at
the Corners. When a man has made a competency, what does
he want more? Besides, at that time an event occurred which
destroyed any ambition I may have had. Mehetabel died. ”
«The lady you were engaged to ? ”
«N-o, not precisely engaged. I think it was quite under-
stood between us, though nothing had been said on the subject.
Typhoid,” added Mr. Jaffrey, in a low voice.
For several minutes he smoked in silence, a vague, troubled
look playing over his countenance. Presently this passed away,
and he fixed his gray eyes speculatively upon my face.
>
>>


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(C
“If I had married Mehetabel,” said Mr. Jaffrey, slowly, and
then he hesitated. I blew a ring of smoke into the air, and,
resting my pipe on my knee, dropped into an attitude of
attention. "If I had married Mehetabel, you know, we should
have had -ahem! -- a family. ”
“Very likely,” I assented, vastly amused at this unexpected
turn.
“A Boy! ” exclaimed Mr. Jaffrey, explosively.
“By all means, certainly, a son. ”
«Great trouble about naming the boy. Mehetabel's family
want him named Elkanah Elkins, after her grandfather; I want
him named Andrew Jackson. We compromise by christening
him Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey. Rather a long
name for such a short little fellow,” said Mr. Jaffrey, musingly.
Andy isn't a bad nickname,” I suggested.
« Not at all. We call him Andy, in the family. Somewhat
fractious at first-colic and things. I suppose it is right, or it
wouldn't be so; but the usefulness of measles, mumps, croup,
whooping-cough, scarlatina, and fits is not clear to the parental
eye. I wish Andy would be a model infant, and dodge the
whole lot. ”
This suppositious child, born within the last few minutes,
was plainly assuming the proportions of a reality to Mr. Jaffrey.
I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I am, as I have said, a
civil engineer, and it is not strictly in my line to assist at the
births of infants, imaginary or otherwise. I pulled away vigor-
ously at the pipe, and said nothing.
"What large blue eyes he has,” resumed Mr. Jaffrey, after
a pause; “just like Hetty's; and the fair hair, too, like hers.
How oddly certain distinctive features are handed down in
families! Sometimes a mouth, sometimes a turn of the eye-
brow. Wicked little boys over at K— have now and then
derisively advised me to follow my nose. It would be an inter-
esting thing to do. I should find my nose flying about the
world, turning up unexpectedly here and there, dodging this
branch of the family and reappearing in that, now jumping
over one great-grandchild to fasten itself upon another, and
never losing its individuality. Look at Andy. There's Elkanah
Elkins's chin to the life. Andy's chin is probably older than
the Pyramids. Poor little thing,” he cried, with sudden inde-
scribable tenderness, “to lose his mother so early! ” And Mr.


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341
come
Jaffrey's head sunk upon his breast, and his shoulders slanted
forward, as if he were actually bending over the cradle of the
child. The whole gesture and attitude was so natural that it
startled me. The pipe slipped from my fingers and fell to the
floor.
“Hush! ” whispered Mr. Jaffrey, with a deprecating motion
of his hand. “Andy's asleep! ”
He rose softly from the chair, and walking across the room
on tiptoe, drew down the shade at the window through which
the moonlight was streaming. Then he returned to his seat,
and remained gazing with half-closed eyes into the dropping
embers.
I refilled my pipe and smoked in profound silence, wonder-
ing what would
next. But nothing came next. Mr.
Jaffrey had fallen into so brown a study that, a quarter of an
hour afterwards, when I wished him good-night and withdrew,
I do not think he noticed my departure.
I am not what is called a man of imagination; it is my
habit to exclude most things not capable of mathematical
demonstration: but I am not without a certain psychological
insight, and I think I understood Mr. Jaffrey's case. I could
easily understand how a with an unhealthy, sensitive
nature, overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take refuge in
some forlorn place like this old tavern, and dream his life
away. To such a man – brooding forever on what might have
-
been, and dwelling wholly in the realm of his fancies— the
actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing
seem real but his illusions. I dare say that thirteen years of
Bayley's Four-Corners would have its effect upon me; though
instead of conjuring up golden-haired children of the Madonna,
I should probably see gnomes and kobolds, and goblins engaged
in hoisting false signals and misplacing switches for midnight
express trains.
“No doubt," I said to myself that night, as I lay in bed,
thinking over the matter, “this once possible but now impos-
sible child is a great comfort to the old gentleman, –a greater
comfort, perhaps, than a real son would be. Maybe Andy will
vanish with the shades and mists of night, he's such an unsub-
stantial infant; but if he doesn't, and Mr. Jaffrey finds pleasure
in talking to me about his son, I shall humor the old fellow.
It wouldn't be a Christian act to knock over his harmless fancy. "
man
(


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
((
I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would
stand the test of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew
Jackson Jaffrey was, so to speak, alive and kicking the next
morning On taking his seat at the breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey
whispered to me that Andy had had a comfortable night.
«Silas! ” said Mr. Sewell, sharply, “what are you whispering
about ? »
Mr. Sewell was in an ill humor; perhaps he was jealous
because I had passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but
surely Mr. Sewell could not expect his boarders to go to bed at
eight o'clock every night, as he did. From time to time during
the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me unkindly out of the corner of
his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips he poniarded them
with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did not prevent
me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery when
night came.
"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how's Andy this evening ? »
“Got a tooth! » cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.
“No!
“Yes, he has! Just through. Give the nurse a silver dollar.
Standing reward for first tooth. ”
It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an
infant a day old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected
that Richard III. was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on
unfamiliar ground, I suppressed my criticism. It was well I
did so, for in the next breath I was advised that half a year
had elapsed since the previous evening.
“Andy's had a hard six months of it,” said Mr. Jaffrey, with
the well-known narrative air of fathers. "We've brought him
up by hand.
His grandfather, by the way, was brought up by
the bottle and brought down by it, too, I added mentally,
»
I ,
recalling Mr. Sewell's account of the old gentleman's tragic
end.
Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's
first six months, omitting no detail however insignificant or
irrelevant. This history I would in turn inflict upon the reader,
if I were only certain that he is one of those dreadful parents
who, under the ægis of friendship, bore you at a street-corner
with that remarkable thing which Freddy said the other day,
and insist on singing to you, at an evening party, the Iliad of
Tommy's woes.


## p. 343 (#373) ############################################

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
343
But to inflict this enfantillage upon the unmarried reader
would be an act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part
of Andy's biography, and for the same reason make no record
of the next four or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey.
It
will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme
infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity — at the rate
of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and — must I
confess it ? — before the week came to an end, this invisible
hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than
to Mr. Jaffrey.
At first I had lent myself to the old dreamer's whim with a
keen perception of the humor of the thing; but by and by I
found that I was talking and thinking of Miss Mehetabel's son
as though he were a veritable personage. Mr. Jaffrey spoke of
the child with such an air of conviction ! as if Andy were
playing among his toys in the next room, or making mud-
pies down in the yard. In these conversations, it should be
observed, the child was never supposed to be present, except
on that single occasion when Mr. Jaffrey leaned over the
cradle. After one of our séances I would lie awake until the
small hours, thinking of the boy, and then fall asleep only to
have indigestible dreams about him. Through the day, and
sometimes in the midst of complicated calculations, I would
catch myself wondering what Andy was up to now! There was
no shaking him off; he became an inseparable nightmare to me;
and I felt that if I remained much longer at Bayley's Four-
Corners I should turn into just such another bald-headed, mild-
eyed visionary as Silas Jaffrey.
Then the tavern was a grewsome old shell any way, full of
unaccountable noises after dark — rustlings of garments along
unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied
chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without
these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty,
dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against
the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted
in the air like the elbow of the late Mr. Clem Jaffrey. Some.
times,
«In the dead vast and middle of the night,
I used to hear sounds as if some one were turning that rusty
crank on
the sly. This occurred only on particularly cold


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
nights, and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that it was the
thin family ghosts, from the neglected graveyard in the corn-
field, keeping themselves warm by running each other through
the mangle. There was a haunted air about the whole place
that made it easy for me to believe in the existence of a phan-
tasm like Miss Mehetabel's son, who, after all, was less un-
earthly than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an
inhabitant of this globe than the toothless ogre who kept the
inn, not to mention the silent Witch of Endor that cooked our
meals for us over the bar-room fire.
In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed upon me by Mr.
Sewell, who let slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation
of the intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings to-
gether— those long autumnal evenings, through the length of
which he talked about the boy, laying out his path in life and
hedging the path with roses. He should be sent to the High
School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be edu-
cated like a gentleman, Andy.
“When the old man dies,” remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night,
rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, “Andy
will find that the old man has left him a pretty plum. ”
“What do you think of having Andy enter West Point, when
he's old enough? ” said Mr. Jaffrey on another occasion. “He
needn't necessarily go into the army when he graduates; he can
become a civil engineer. ”
This was a stroke of flattery so delicate and indirect that
I could accept it without immodesty.
There had lately sprung up on the corner of Mr. Jaffrey's
bureau a small tin house, Gothic in architecture and pink in
color, with a slit in the roof, and the word BANK painted on
one façade. Several times in the course of an evening Mr.
Jaffrey would rise from his chair without interrupting the con-
versation, and gravely drop a nickel into the scuttle of the
bank. It was pleasant to observe the solemnity of his counte-
nance as he approached the edifice, and the air of triumph with
which he resumed his seat by the fireplace. One night I missed
the tin bank. It had disappeared, deposits and all, like a real
bank. Evidently there had been a defalcation on rather a large
scale. I strongly suspected that Mr. Sewell was at the bottom
of it, but my suspicion was not shared by Mr. Jaffrey, who,
remarking my glance at the bureau, became suddenly depressed.


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345
"I'm afraid,” he said, “that I have failed to instill into Andrew
those principles of integrity which -- which » and the old gen-
tleman quite broke down.
Andy was now eight or nine years old, and for some time
past, if the truth must be told, had given Mr. Jaffrey no incon-
siderable trouble; what with his impishness and his illnesses, the
boy led the pair of us a lively dance. I shall not soon forget
the anxiety of Mr. Jaffrey the night Andy had the scarlet-fever
- an anxiety which so infected me that I actually returned to
the tavern the following afternoon earlier than usual, dreading
to hear that the little spectre was dead, and greatly relieved on
meeting Mr. Jaffrey at the door-step with his face wreathed in
smiles. When I spoke to him of Andy, I was made aware that
I was inquiring into a case of scarlet-fever that had occurred
the year before!
It was at this time, towards the end of my second week at
Greenton, that I noticed what was probably not a new trait-
Mr. Jaffrey's curious sensitiveness to atmospherical changes.
was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm
sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair
he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant.
When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew rest-
less and despondent, and was afraid that the boy was not going
to turn out well.
On the Saturday previous to my departure, which had been
fixed for Monday, it rained heavily all the afternoon, and that
night Mr. Jaffrey was in an unusually excitable and unhappy
frame of mind. His mercury was very low indeed.
“That boy is going to the dogs just as fast as he can go,
said Mr. Jaffrey, with a woeful face. "I can't do anything with
him. ”
"He'll come out all right, Mr. Jaffrey. Boys will be boys.
I would not give a snap for a lad without animal spirits. ”
“But animal spirits,” said Mr. Jaffrey sententiously, "shouldn't
saw off the legs of the piano in Tobias's best parlor. I don't
know what Tobias will say when he finds it out. ”
«What! has Andy sawed off the legs of the old spinet? ” I
returned, laughing.
« Worse than that. ”
"Played upon it, then! ”
“No, sir. He has lied to me! ”


## p. 346 (#376) ############################################

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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
came
me
«I can't believe that of Andy. ”
“Lied to me, sir,” repeated Mr. Jaffrey, severely. «He
pledged me his word of honor that he would give over his
climbing The way that boy climbs sends a chill down my
spine. This morning, notwithstanding his solemn promise, he
shinned up the lightning-rod attached to the extension, and sat
astride the ridge-pole. I saw him, and he denied it!
When a
boy you have caressed and indulged and lavished pocket-money
on lies to you and will climb, then there's nothing more to be
said. He's a lost child. ”
“You take too dark a view of it, Mr. Jaffrey. Training and
education are bound to tell in the end, and he has been well
brought up. ”
“But I didn't bring him up on a lightning-rod, did I? If
he is ever going to know how to behave, he ought to know
now. To-morrow he will be eleven years old. ”
The reflection
to that if Andy had not been
brought up by the rod, he had certainly been brought up by
the lightning. He was eleven years old in two weeks!
I essayed, with that perspicacious wisdom which seems to be
the peculiar property of bachelors and elderly maiden ladies, to
tranquillize Mr. Jaffrey's mind, and to give him some practical
hints on the management of youth.
"Spank him," I suggested at last.
"I will! ” said the old gentleman.
“And you'd better do it at once! I added, as it flashed
upon me that in six months Andy would be a hundred and
forty-three years old ! --an age at which parental discipline
would have to be relaxed.
The next morning, Sunday, the rain came down as if deter-
mined to drive the quicksilver entirely out of my poor friend.
Mr. Jaffrey sat bolt upright at the breakfast-table, looking as
woe-begone as a bust of Dante, and retired to his chamber the
moment the meal was finished. As the day advanced, the wind
veered round to the northeast, and settled itself down to work.
It was not pleasant to think, and I tried not to think, what
Mr. Jaffrey's condition would be if the weather did not mend
its manners by noon; but so far from clearing off at noon, the
storm increased in violence, and as night set in, the wind
whistled in a spiteful falsetto key, and the rain lashed the old
tavern as if it were a balky horse that refused to move on.


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
347
The windows rattled in the worm-eaten frames, and the doors
of remote rooms, where nobody ever went, slammed to in the
maddest way.
Now and then the tornado, sweeping down the
side of Mount Agamenticus, bowled across the open country, and
struck the ancient hostelry point-blank.
Mr. Jaffrey did not appear at supper.
I knew that he was
expecting me to come to his room as usual, and I turned over
in my mind a dozen plans to evade seeing him that night. The
landlord sat at the opposite side of the chimney-place, with his
eye upon me. I fancy he was aware of the effect of this storm
on his other boarder; for at intervals, as the wind hurled itself
against the exposed gable, threatening to burst in the windows,
Mr. Sewell tipped me an atrocious wink, and displayed his
gums in a way he had not done since the morning after my
arrival at Greenton. I wondered if he suspected anything about
Andy. There had been odd times during the past week when
I felt convinced that the existence of Miss Mehetabel's son was
no secret to Mr. Sewell.
In deference to the gale, the landlord sat up half an hour
later than was his custom. At half-past eight he went to
bed, remarking that he thought the old pile would stand till
morning
He had been absent only a few minutes when I heard a
rustling at the door. I looked up, and beheld Mr. Jaffrey
standing on the threshold, with his dress in disorder, his scant
hair flying, and the wildest expression on his face.
“He's gone! ” cried Mr. Jaffrey.
«Who? Sewell ? Yes, he just went to bed. ”
“No, not Tobias — the boy! »
« What, run away? ”
“No-- he is dead! He has fallen from a step-ladder in the
red chamber and broken his neck! »
Mr. Jaffrey threw up his hands with a gesture of despair,
and disappeared. I followed him through the hall, saw him go
into his own apartment, and heard the bolt of the door drawn
to.
Then I returned to the bar-room, and sat for an hour or
two in the ruddy glow of the fire, brooding over the strange
experience of the last fortnight.
On my way to bed I paused at Mr. Jaffrey's door, and in
a lull of the storm, the measured respiration within told me
that the old gentleman was sleeping peacefully.


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THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Slumber was coy with me that night. I lay listening to the
soughing of the wind, and thinking of Mr. Jaffrey's illusion.
It had amused me at first with its grotesqueness; but now the
poor little phantom was dead, I was conscious that there had
been something pathetic in it all along. Shortly after mid-
night the wind sunk down, coming and going fainter and
fainter, floating around the eaves of the tavern with an undulat-
ing, murmurous sound, as if it were turning itself into soft
wings to bear away the spirit of a little child.
Perhaps nothing that happened during my stay at Bayley's
Four-Corners took me so completely by surprise as Mr. Jaffrey's
radiant countenance the next morning. The morning itself was
not fresher or' sunnier. His round face literally shone with
geniality and happiness. His eyes twinkled like diamonds, and
the magnetic light of his hair was turned on full.
He came
into my room while I was packing my valise. He chirped, and
prattled, and caroled, and was sorry I was going away - but
never a word about Andy. However, the boy had probably
been dead several years then!
The open wagon that was to carry me to the station stood at
the door; Mr. Sewell was placing my case of instruments under
the seat, and Mr. Jaffrey had gone up to his room to get me a
certain newspaper containing an account of a remarkable ship-
wreck on the Auckland Islands. I took the opportunity to
thank Mr. Sewell for his courtesies to me, and to express my
regret at leaving him and Mr. Jaffrey.
“I have become very much attached to Mr. Jaffrey,” I said;
"he is a most interesting person; but that hypothetical boy of
his, that son of Miss Mehetabel's - »
“Yes, I know! ” interrupted Mr. Sewell, testily. « Fell off a
step-ladder and broke his dratted neck. Eleven year old, wasn't
he? Always does, jest at that point. Next week Silas will
begin the whole thing over again, if he can get anybody to
listen to him.
Our amiable friend is a little queer on that subject. ”
Mr. Sewell glanced cautiously over his shoulder, and tapping
himself significantly on the forehead, said in a low voice,-
«Room To Let -- Unfurnished ! »
“I see.
The foregoing selections are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
the author, and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers


## p. 349 (#379) ############################################

349
ALEARDO ALEARDI
(1812-1878)
(
HE Italian patriot and poet, Aleardo Aleardi, was born in the
village of San Giorgio, near Verona, on November 4th, 1812.
He passed his boyhood on his father's farm, amid the
grand scenery of the valley of the Adige, which deeply impressed
itself on his youthful imagination and left its traces in all his verse.
He went to school at Verona, where for his dullness he was nick-
named the mole," and afterwards he passed on to the University of
Padua to study law, apparently to please his father, for in the
charming autobiography prefixed to his collected poems he quotes
his father as saying:—“My son, be not enamored of this coquette,
Poesy; for with all her airs of a great lady, she will play thee some
trick of a faithless grisette. Choose a good companion, as one might
say, for instance the law: and thou wilt found a family; wilt par-
take of God's bounties; wilt be content in life, and die quietly and
happily. ” In addition to satisfying his father, the young poet also
wrote at Padua his first political poems. And this brought him
into slight conflict with the authorities. He practiced law for a
short time at Verona, and wrote his first long poem, Arnaldo, pub-
lished in 1842, which was very favorably received. When six years
later the new Venetian republic came into being, Aleardi was sent
to represent its interests at Paris. The speedy overthrow of the new
State brought the young ambassador home again, and for the next
ten years he worked for Italian unity and freedom. He was twice
imprisoned, at Mantua in 1852, and again in 1859 at Verona, where
he died April 17th, 1878.
Like most of the Italian poets of this century, Aleardi found his
chief inspiration in the exciting events that marked the struggle of
Italy for independence, and his best work antedated the peace of
Villafranca. His first serious effort was 'Le Prime Storie) (The Pri-
mal Histories), written in 1845. In this he traces the story of the
human race from the creation through the Scriptural, classical, and
feudal periods down to the present century, and closes with fore-
shadowings of a peaceful and happy future. It is picturesque, full of
lofty imagery and brilliant descriptive passages.
“Una Ora della mia Giovinezza' (An Hour of My Youth: 1858)
recounts many of his youthful trials and disappointments as a patriot.
Like the Primal Histories, this poem is largely contemplative and
philosophical, and shines by the same splendid diction and luxuri-
ous imagery; but it is less wide-reaching in its interests and more
(


## p. 350 (#380) ############################################

350
ALEARDO ALEARDI
specific in its appeal to his own countrymen. And from this time
onward the patriotic qualities in Aleardi's poetry predominate, and
his themes become more and more exclusively Italian. The Monte
Circello) sings the glories and events of the Italian land and history,
and successfully presents many facts of science in poetic form, while
the singer passionately laments the present condition of Italy. In
Le Citta Italiane Marinore e Commercianti' (The Marine and Com-
mercial Cities of Italy) the story of the rise, flourishing, and fall of
Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Genoa is recounted. His other note-
worthy poems are Rafaello e la Fornarina,' 'Le Tre Fiume) (The
Three Rivers), Le Tre Fanciulle' (The Three Maidens: 1858), I Sette
Soldati' (The Seven Soldiers: 1859), and 'Canto Politico' (Political
Songs: 1862).
A slender volume of five hundred pages contains all that Aleardi
has written. Yet he is one of the chief minor Italian poets of this
century, because of his loftiness of purpose and felicity of expression,
his tenderness of feeling, and his deep sympathies with his struggling
country.
"He has,” observes Howells in his Modern Italian Poets,' «in
greater degree than any other Italian poet of this, or perhaps of any
age, those merits which our English taste of this time demands,
quickness of feeling and brilliancy of expression. He lacks simplicity
of idea, and his style is an opal which takes all lights and hues,
rather than the crystal which lets the daylight colorlessly through.
He is distinguished no less by the themes he selects than by the
expression he gives them. In his poetry there is passion, but his
subjects are usually those to which love is accessory rather than
essential; and he cares better to sing of universal and national des-
tinies as they concern individuals, than the raptures and anguishes
of youthful individuals as they concern mankind. ” He was original
in his way; his attitude toward both the classic and the romantic
schools is shown in the following passage from his autobiography,
which at the same time brings out his patriotism. He says:-
«It seemed to me strange, on the one hand, that people who, in their
serious moments and in the recesses of their hearts, invoked Christ, should
in the recesses of their minds, in the deep excitement of poetry, persist in
invoking Apollo and Pallas Minerva. It seemed to me strange, on the other
hand, that people born in Italy, with this sun, with these nights, with so
many glories, so many griefs, so many hopes at home, should have the mania
of singing the mists of Scandinavia, and the Sabbaths of witches, and
should go mad for a gloomy and dead feudalism, which had come from the
North, the highway of our misfortunes. It seemed to me, moreover, that
every Art of Poetry was marvelously useless, and that certain rules were
mummies embalmed by the hand of pedants. In fine, it seemed to me that
there were two kinds of Art: the one, serene with an Olympic serenity, the


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ALEARDO ALEARDI
351
Art of all ages that belongs to no country; the other, more impassioned, that
has its roots in one's native soil
. . . The first that of Homer, of Phidias,
of Virgil, of Tasso; the other that of the Prophets, of Dante, of Shakespeare,
of Byron. And I have tried to cling to this last, because I was pleased to
see how these great men take the clay of their own land and their own time,
and model from it a living statue, which resembles their contemporaries. ”
In another interesting passage he explains that his old drawing-
master had in vain pleaded with the father to make his son a painter,
and he continues:-
«Not being allowed to use the pencil, I have used the pen. And pre-
cisely on this account my pen resembles too much a pencil; precisely on this
account I am often too much of a naturalist, and am too fond of losing
myself in minute details. I am as one who in walking goes leisurely along,
and stops every minute to observe the dash of light that breaks through the
trees of the woods, the insect that alights on his hand, the leaf that falls on
his head, a cloud, a wave, a streak of smoke; in fine, the thousand accidents
that make creation so rich, so various, so poetical, and beyond which we ever-
more catch glimpses of that grand mysterious something, eternal, immense,
benignant, and never inhuman nor cruel, as some would have us believe,
which is called God. ”
The selections are from Howells's (Modern Italian Poets,' copyright 1887, by
Harper and Brothers
COWARDS
I
'N THE deep circle of Siddim hast thou seen,
Under the shining skies of Palestine,
The sinister glitter of the Lake of Asphalt ?
Those coasts, strewn thick with ashes of damnation,
Forever foe to every living thing,
Where rings the cry of the lost wandering bird
That on the shore of the perfidious sea
Athirsting dies, - that watery sepulchre
Of the five cities of iniquity,
Where even the tempest, when its clouds hang low,
Passes in silence, and the lightning dies,
If thou hast seen them, bitterly hath been
Thy heart wrung with the misery and despair
Of that dread vision!
Yet there is on earth
A woe more desperate and miserable, -
A spectacle wherein the wrath of God
Avenges Him more terribly. It is
A vain, weak people of faint-heart old men,
That, for three hundred years of dull repose,


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352
ALEARDO ALEARDI
Has lain perpetual dreamer, folded in
The ragged purple of its ancestors,
Stretching its limbs wide in its country's sun,
To warm them; drinking the soft airs of autumn
Forgetful, on the fields where its forefathers
Like lions fought! From overflowing hands,
Strew we with hellebore and poppies thick
The way.
From The Primal Histories. )
THE HARVESTERS
W"
HAT time in summer, sad with so much light,
The sun beats ceaselessly upon the fields ;
The harvesters, as famine urges them,
Draw hitherward in thousands, and they wear
The look of those that dolorously go
In exile, and already their brown eyes
Are heavy with the poison of the air.
Here never note of amorous bird consoles
Their drooping hearts; here never the gay songs
Of their Abruzzi sound to gladden these
Pathetic hands. But taciturn they toil,
Reaping the harvests for their unknown lords;
And when the weary labor is performed,
Taciturn they retire; and not till then
Their bagpipes crown the joys of the return,
Swelling the heart with their familiar strain.
Alas! not all return, for there is one
That dying in the furrow sits, and seeks
With his last look some faithful kinsman out,
To give his life's wage, that he carry it
Unto his trembling mother, with the last
Words of her son that comes no more. And dying,
Deserted and alone, far off he hears
His comrades going, with their pipes in time,
Joyfully measuring their homeward steps.
And when in after years an orphan comes
To reap the harvest here, and feels his blade
Go quivering through the swaths of falling grain,
He weeps and thinks — haply these heavy stalks
Ripened on his unburied father's bones.
From Monte Circello. '


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ALEARDO ALEARDI
353
THE DEATH OF THE YEAR
E
RE yet upon the unhappy Arctic lands,
In dying autumn, Erebus descends
With the night's thousand hours, along the verge
Of the horizon, like a fugitive,
Through the long days wanders the weary sun;
And when at last under the wave is quenched
The last gleam of its golden countenance,
Interminable twilight land and sea
Discolors, and the north wind covers deep
All things in snow, as in their sepulchres
The dead are buried. In the distances
The shock of warring Cyclades of ice
Makes music as of wild and strange lament;
And up in heaven now tardily are lit
The solitary polar star and seven
Lamps of the bear. And now the warlike race
Of swans gather their hosts upon the breast
Of some far gulf, and, bidding their farewell
To the white cliffs and slender junipers,
And sea-weed bridal-beds, intone the song
Of parting, and a sad metallic clang
Send through the mists. Upon their southward way
They greet the beryl-tinted icebergs; greet
Flamy volcanoes and the seething founts
Of geysers, and the melancholy yellow
Of the Icelandic fields; and, wearying
Their lily wings amid the boreal lights,
Journey away unto the joyous shores
Of morning.
From (An Hour of My Youth. ”
1-23


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