SEMINARY PERIOD (1864 - 1868) LETTERS 1--16B

1

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

Transfer of the Capital from

Turin to Florence.

Feast of the Holy Rosary.

Military conscription.

[San Martino Tanaro, after October 5, 1864]

From the hills of San Martino on the Tanaro

Sixth period of the autumnal Era

divided into six twenty day periods.

Dear Friend from Montafia

             The other day Riccio wrote me a terrible threatening letter, summoning me to render account of my strange behavior towards my friends. In your regard he wrote me that you wrote that I never wrote you. As you see I cannot free myself from this thicket of writings without writing my defense: similia similibus curantur says the medical proverb.

             Well then, as an excuse I’ll give you a view of my situation this past month. I will be brief because time is limited and I still have to send circular letters of my excuse to others including Riccio and Motta.

             From the first half of September my house saw the beginning of the parade of visitors from Turin wanting to enjoy the delights of the country -- more solito. Now imagine what a strain it must have been for me to live amidst all the commotion these new people brought into my life. It was up to me to do the honors of the house. It was up to me to arrange for all those poor tourists to be satiated with the joys of the country, so as not to return to Turin bored and disappointed. So I had to accompany them to visit the town’s points of interest, the trigonometric and the topographical points of the principal heights, in short the most noteworthy places of this microscopic village. And then add (cursed word -- it slipped from my pen before I 1realized it) terrible news of the Capital’s transfer to Florence that fell upon us. Oh this was ugly! Imagine disorder, scuffle, frenzy, anxiety, in short a Babel-like confusion, and you will not be wandering far from the truth in judging my situation in those days. From the Religious House of the Mission, Fr. Vandero frightened me with talk of the violent attacks, of nights of St. Sulpice, and of so many similar diabolical acts. My cousins from Turin made me nervous by mailing me the well-known booklets Rome and Turin -- Is Florence Rome? -- Osvaldo Osvaldi. My pastor’s fears made me terribly apprehensive as he substantiated his feelings of terror by displaying the evidence of a dozen newspapers of every persuasion. Friends and relatives besieged me from all sides with letters portraying the carnage of the Provisional Government in the darkest possible light. Another cause for fear was the sight of my former teacher’s signature at the bottom of the declaration made by the Committee of Public Welfare, on the level of the Parisian Revolutionaries of last century. Add to all this a little concern from my perspective as an owner of a house and land in Turin. Add also the madness of the politician in me which made me sweat bullets for fear of economic upheavals and then judge for yourself whether or not I was possessed by the devil in those crucial moments. Now the question of the Capital has been laid to rest, yet that has not brought me peace of heart regarding the economic future of poor Piedmont which has been sacrificed to an idea.

             Let us now enter into another class of events which involve only local rather that national interests. I mean the arrival of certain gentlemen to San Martino: the Lawyer Arrò; the Canon Penitentiary, the Canon Spiritual Director, Bishop John Balma, secretary Guigonis, etc. But to honor what Saint are so many priests at San Martino, you will ask. Listen and learn.

             I forget if some time back I already told you that my Pastor had prepared a most solemn spiritual celebration for the feast of the Rosary. Now let me tell you that the Honorable Arrò the lawyer came to grace the pulpit with his heartfelt preaching of a triduum to prepare the people of San Martino for the visit of the Prelate of Tolemaide to confirm in the faith the young Christians of San Martino on the Tanaro. The two Canons came to lend assistance for the Bishop’s pontifical service and to dispel for awhile the anomaly of having a Bishop without Canons and Canons without a Bishop. This having been duly noticed, you should know that for the five or six days preceding the Feast of the Rosary, San Martino really looked like a Capital City preparing for the celebration of the Nation’s holiday. All the Municipal, Ecclesiastical, Educational, and other Officials were in perpetual motion. The Pastor was in high gear preparing the Rectory, the Sacristan preparing the Church, the gardener preparing the triumphal arch, the municipality preparing the welcoming greeting, the pyrotechnicians preparing the fireworks, and the seminarian Marello preparing the Inscriptions, the clergy preparing the people for Confirmation, the teachers preparing the students for the customary reception songs (parenthetically, excuse me for the huge ink blot that just now fell from the pen in the great passion of my writing), all the town workers busy lending a hand with the wall hangings, decorations, ornamental works, etc. To give you an idea of the immensity of these various tasks, I will just say that the inscriptionist (sem. Marello) had to work on his inscriptions until midnight for two consecutive days.

             The festivities for the Bishop’s arrival and during his stay were such that they can be better envisioned with the aid of the imagination than through written description. So I think it more timely to leave the details inside the inkwell and to move on to the third page.

             However, I do not want to leave the subject of the San Martino festivities without telling you something about the civil persecution the poor inscriptionist had to undergo. God save you from ignorant people, and especially from the half-educated and know-it-all. After having composed the inscriptions for the triumphal arch and the church door, I was careful to submit them to the Municipal and Ecclesiastical Officials who had given me this commission, so that they might review them before I transcribed them in block letters onto the rectangular boards. Since they had nothing to say about them, I followed through with my task by writing them, assembling them and sending them to be set in place. What do you expect?

             The town phlebotomist, accustomed as he is to sticking his blades everywhere, that is wherever there are boils to be lanced, had the amazing audacity to thrust his sharp lancets even into my inscriptions, horribly misinterpreting them. Imagine him persistently blabbing to the four corners of the earth and in his Barbershop headquarters, that the Arch’s inscription was a battle cry for subversion, a subversive motto, a threat to the fatherland, and it was only a great act of clemency that saved the author from being branded a public outcast by the boorish commoners who swallowed the Barber’s bait and took his words as Gospel truth. Oh you lazy phlebotomist! This is too much. You saw on the inscription the words Fatherland, tireless, and zealot and you dare to say that the Bishop was an enemy of the defenseless fatherland. Oh you people, you people were also crying “throw him to the wolves” and with your crude comments you joined in the chants intoned by that licensed beast... Oh Rossetti my friend, even now I am still panting and shivering for fear of undergoing martyrdom, a casualty of misunderstanding!

             Now we come to the question of the draft. I seem to have bad luck in everything. Saturday evening I heard the rumor flying through town that the seminarian Marello has drawn his number from the lottery... take a quick guess... number five. What anger -- I go to benediction, and with poorly concealed smiles and badly feigned compassion everyone tells me that my number was five. This is really something. I go to sleep and dream five. Everyone in town drew over one hundred and I am the only one who has to swallow the bitter pill of five. Sunday morning I go to Mass -- I go to a burial, I pass close to someone who hands me a little rolled up piece of paper. At first glance I think it must have something to do with a relative of the deceased passing me the offering, but raising my eyes I realize my mistake, for I am facing the Mayor who is handing me the ticket with my number. I barely have time to offer him cynical thanks for his wicked five... I shove the ill-fated ticket into my pocket and I go to the burial. I felt such abhorrence for that cursed number five that I didn’t want to even see it printed on the ticket. On returning home that evening I was just about to throw it away, when I had the inspiration to look at it... Holy Mother of God...128... I rub my eyes convinced that I’m dreaming... Wow... one..hun..dred..twen..ty..eight. I guarantee you that at that moment I really fell out of the clouds... It could be... There is no other possibility: either it was a cruel trick purposely spreading the rumor that I had drawn the five, or it was an even crueler trick of the Mayor to give me someone else’s ticket. As I write to you, I still have been unable to resolve this tremendous dilemma. I pray God that this trick come from the people avenging themselves for my inscription!!!

             I have really applied myself to study Theology and I will not stop until the day I leave here.

             Thursday I will have the two Damiassis and Fr. Vandero here in San Martino. They come to repay my Saturday visit.

             Do I have anything else to tell you? Yes. The main thing. I have to beg you to always keep your most precious friendship with me and to hold me excused for having put off until now my duty to answer your very kind letter of a month ago. I await a letter from Montafia bringing me news of your present state and telling me if you still continue to love your old friend with the same affection.

             Your friend

Joe M.

             I beg you to kindly overlook my poor and hurried writing -- what counts is there -- my heart, I mean.

Good-bye.

2

TO SEMINARIAN JOSEPH RICCIO

Capital at Florence.

Feast of the Holy Rosary.

Military conscription.

[San Martino Tanaro, after October 5, 1864]

My Riccio, most dear and most pungent ,

             ... and so I offer you a million reasons. I’ve been lazy, it’s true. I’ve sinned by neglect, I grant you. There is no satisfactory excuse I can offer -- Here I make a distinction: an excuse that would be sufficient to totally protect me from your every censure, yes, but one that could be sufficient to gain me a tiny bit of compassion, no... So? So, without going into lengthy details along the lines of the scholastic and Socratic method, I will go right to the heart of the matter with an honest explanation of my past and present situation. Are you satisfied? Come on, quit being such a rigidus exactor. We always need a little compromise, and much more so when friends are involved. It’s agreed then.

             I received your first letter at the end of August. That was just when all the commotion began in my house. An interminable line of visitors then began to besiege me without respite. It was a continuous processing to my doorstep: Binelli, Vincent Marello, Marescotto, the soldier Molino, the seminarian Molino, uncles from Turin, friends of the family, cousins from the capital, the Parochial Vicar, the Theologian Elia., Vandero and his cousins, etc. Add to all this an unending series of letters and newspapers coming from all over + the question of the Capital which filled my house with an enormous number of newspapers of every persuasion, booklets, newsletters, frightened outsiders + Binelli’s Mass + the arrival of Bishop Balma, the lawyer Arrò the Canons Cerruti and Molino, etc... + being in charge of the inscriptions on the triumphal arch and on the church + the matter of the draft + a thousand other things which for the sake of brevity I’ll leave in the inkwell. You’ll say that this enumeration of disparate events smells of exaggeration even from a mile away. No, my dear friend, it is the unadulterated truth. The question of the provisional government was really a terrible double blow, striking both the politician in me and my personal self-interest -- a politician and an amateur in political economy, I saw my theories of economic rotation thrown off balance -- as the interested landlord of a house in Turin, I was burdened by fear of the reduction of rent rates. So as you see, the French-Italian agreement was a matter of considerable consequence for me; it was enough to keep me apprehensive for over a week until I received news of compromises and compensations. Binelli’s Mass also played its part. For almost two weeks Bishop Balma’s visit transformed the most ordinary and peaceful town of San Martino into a motion-filled city preparing for some type of centenary celebration. Everyone was busy doing his part-- the Municipality drawing up the welcome greeting -- the Pastor preparing the Rectory -- the Sacristan cleaning the Church -- the Gardeners, the Masons, Blacksmiths, Hangers, Detailers to prepare the Triumphal arch and ornamental decorations -- the Seminarian Marello to be the inscriptionist -- all the clergy to prepare the people -- the school officials to teach the children the customary songs. In short everything was in motion... The solemn celebrations were a stupendous success -- imagine, the pastor’s dinners seemed just like the second revised and corrected edition of Apicius’s supper “in the times of the false and deceitful gods.” What spoiled the fun a little was a certain phlebotomist who came around trying to interpret my inscription in the same way he lances boils, and the lazy wretch lanced it for me in barbarous fashion. Lazy wretch! Go “shave beards and treat buboes” for that is your real profession, but stop displaying your extraordinary stupidity -- you Beast! Because you read on the inscription the words fatherland, tireless, and zealot, you dare to tell the four corners of the earth that it is a battle cry, an anti-nationalist motto, a... You must be nursed by the devil or by a beast of burden. If you don’t know how to read, go back to grammar school and start trying the alphabet with the children again, but don’t come out with the asinine idea that the fatherland is defenseless and that Balma is therefore an enemy of the fatherland... Let’s end this because my blood is beginning to reach the boiling point -- in any case the storm has now blown over, the persecution did not draw blood, and thanks be to God, I slipped out of this without the crown of Martyrdom.

             The question of the draft was not less complicated. Now I am at peace, but a few days ago I was still under the curse of not knowing the outcome of the lottery. Here too persecution was involved, and it was a persecution incited by that ugly stump of a phlebotomist who right from the headquarters of his boasting -- his barbershop -- had the audacity to make everyone (including me) believe that my Number for the draft was...5. Imagine my affliction... and for two whole days I was under the cruel deception that the Number drawn from the fatal lottery had been 5. Now I have found out the truth -- my number has not fewer than three digits...one..hun..dred..twen..ty..eight -- and that impudent wretch had the temerity to spread the story about five -- May God save you from certain oddballs.

             On top of all these things, add the visit of Vandero and Surra -- the fatiguing preparation for the upcoming theology examination -- my brother’s tertian fever and 100 other similar perplexities.

3

TO SEMINARIAN JOSEPH RICCIO

Vacation -- Peace of conscience

Third War of Independence

In praise of the mail.

[San Martino Tanaro, after June 20, 1866]

Dear Little Joe,

             I hasten to answer your dearest letter after a period of some days -- I didn’t have any stamps -- now I am well provided. So? By this time the decision must have been made already, and with what rectitude.

             I have always known you to be inexorable and very firm in your resolutions; I suppose therefore that also in this new circumstance you have shown yourself in the fullness of that iron and tenacious will of yours. You have described to me in all their detail the particulars of the case. Even from a minute report of a matter which is so delicate, it is not really possible for a person far away and outside, that is, outside the situation in question, even with cognition of cause, to come up with a judgment. However, everything considered, it seems to me that the best way to avoid innumerable possibilities of unknown consequences, was exactly reasonable and dignified refusal.

             Long live the refusals! The refusals, let us understand each other, of dangerous things, because if it is the case of a friend who tells you he will come for a visit after the threshing of the grain, oh, in this case things would change radically and one should rather cry out: Down with refusals and up with approvals. Ha! Ha! Ha! While I go about making a defense of your refusal, you may have been already conquered and convinced in Agliano by the brilliant and persuasive reasons of that lady and her daughter to abdicate from your resolve to refuse. If this is the case, I would still be well covered because, as I said above, the essence of the fact is entirely in the eventual concurrence of certain small circumstances which would render very opportune, indeed necessary, a conduct on your part different from that which you spoke of in your letter to me.

             Enough. We will talk about it after everything is over. Besides, you are not the type of person to allow yourself to be fooled so easily. Keep your eyes open, use a little craftiness of the fox, a little prudence of the Christian: behold, these are the precautions you may use to protect yourself from all the eventualities, both present and future. And so I will now proceed to something else, with the hope that you will explain everything later in your next letter.

             You tell me of the thing you did in the first day of vacation in Agliano. Here on my part is my story: having said “goodbye” to you at the gate of San Quirico, I took note of the train schedule and returned to the Seminary. Oh how many memories -- I visited once again the study hall; I gave once more a sad farewell to those silent corridors and to my little dear room, witness to so many things; I embraced once again some classmates who were still there; and I began to walk slowly and with a heavy heart toward the railroad station.

             I had plenty of time and so I forced myself to enter a barbershop. I asked the “beard cutter” for his services, which he offered with the solicitude and especially with an ability which would have shamed a cutthroat. With a face red from the recent battle scars, I boarded the train, and made the trip to Vaglierano. From here, an old bus made me make an hour of solitary penance in its uncomfortable seat. At San Damiano I descended, and I had to swallow the bitter pill of a trip on foot in the sun for the rest of the way to the longed for San Martino.

             Finally I arrived! The heart is filled with joy as we see our relatives in good health, our ancestral home, our private room, and all those thousand things that remind us of so many happy events of past vacations. In the midst of all these recollections, it was nice to remember you and all the other dear friends -- imagining all of you here with me, anticipating with longing the time when I would actually enjoy the pleasure of your presence.

             One thing that in the past years was a source of sadness or callousness, this year was instead a source of great consolation to me: to be at peace with my conscience.

             And so it is: when in the midst of earthly joys we are able to bring in also a ray of light of the joy that comes from heaven, oh, then our hearts are certainly more satisfied and our happiness more complete.

             Last Sunday (the first), we did nothing less than a military march in search of cherries. I will explain. The Superintendent of Schools, the Rev. G.B. Torchio, pastor of San Martino, extended a formal invitation to the teacher to take the students on a military excursion. The provisions of wine and bread came from the parish rectory; the goal of the trip, that is, the cherry trees to climb were designated and provided for by the assistant pastor (the same who tells me to thank you courteously for the service of your good inkwell which has helped him find, if not a parish of his own, at least a second best.)

             Therefore, the clergy, the faculty representative, and the students in good order and perfect discipline made their march, performed scrupulously the maneuvers on those fortunate trees, exhausted the program which required a bellyful of good time, and returned triumphantly to town with songs and “hails.” I assure you, the thousand incidents of that wonderful trip have given me much joy.

             In passing, in order not to cause you melancholy with unpleasant news, I will tell you in a hurry that if we had delayed for another day our departure, the Vicar General would have postponed it to the twentieth, according to the permission he had just obtained from the Ministry of Public Schools. We escaped by the skin of our teeth, didn’t we?

             We are at war. Who is able to predict at this time into what terrible sea we are embarking. May God grant that this may not be a war of ruin and of death for the poor king and for poor Italy. The fortunes of war so far hang precariously and uncertainly; courage and numerical superiority do help, but up to a point; and then begins that secret play of factors which are always hidden in the hand of God. Oh, may He not allow that this poor country of ours, after the sacrifice of so much material and of so much blood, be forced into a shameful peace. For, as bad as a government may be, it is never licit to wish that the government of one’s own nation would pass into the hands of foreigners. Rather, we ought to beg heaven that, after the victory over foreign enemies, it may make us conquerors also over the dangerous systems which have been inaugurated by internal enemies -- “ut e manibus inimicorum nostrorum liberati serviamus illi” -- Perhaps when you write me again this thing may have already taken a more determined turn; any prediction would be immature and too uncertain -- therefore, until then, we shall not speak of it any further.

             Now let us return to ourselves. Have you then started your vacation well also? And Aluffi, what is his situation? Assuredly it is not a beautiful alternative to have to choose between paying several thousand lire or having to march off to war with a rifle. You, also, poor guy, must feel the consequences of all this, since you will not have your dear and faithful vacation companion at your side any more. When shall we see each other? I hope that it will be possible this year to finally realize that so longed for and dreamed of reunion of the two continents, that is, of the banks of the Tanaro. Heck, they, don’t work any harder at the Isthmus of Suez to cut a way between the two seas than we here to join those two blessed shores, which awaits nothing else than a nod from us to embrace each other. About this we will make plans later. For now we ought to be satisfied with shortening the distance with writings and news.

             What great thing is the mail! It makes us pass heavenly hours together; it joins us in spirit with our most dear friends; it gives us the opportunity of speaking to them at our own leisure the sweet and gentle words of friendship; it gives a means of communicating all the sentiments, all the beats of our heart. Oh, let us often make use of this divine messenger, the mail; let us use it to communicate to one another the joys and sorrow, to laugh and to cry together, to share our hopes and our fears, to encourage and strengthen each other in the difficult path of virtue.

             Now I feel a pain to have to say goodbye -- but I have to put an end to this writing because I have to give time to other answers which require of me care and urgency. This is also the reason why I have answered you, as the saying goes, in apostolic manner. I am reassured, though, by the thought of having written it as one would write in the language of the heart -- God be with you -- Remember your Joe during the day and in the moments in which you raise your soul to God in prayer. I have done it and will continue to do the same for you, desirous that in heaven as on earth may be united the names of the two

Joseph

P.S. Remember me every time in the evening you look upon the Tanaro Valley.

4

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

Reading of Fenelon-Trip to

Turin -- Sickness -- Collection of

notes -- Bardessono -- Recollections

[San Martino Tanaro, August 1, 1866]

My dear friend,

             I have received with the greatest pleasure your most polished letter written in the grand language -- that is, in the worldwide language of France. Apart from French self-conceit, I have to tell you that this language pleases me and that having written to me in French, you have given me the satisfaction of reading four pages from a friend written in the clear and attractive style of the inimitable Fenelon. You are smiling? Let me give you then a few words of clarification. I never could set my mind to begin reading this golden book, Adventure of Telemachus, but this is exactly what I did and, after the boredom of the first pages, I began to experience in my reading something which was not boredom any more and little by little this something was approaching the pleasure of enjoyable reading. By the end, my heart was full of emotion and my mind was inebriated with the story of those great things so ineffably depicted.

             Oh, what richness of wisdom, what strength of counsel, what gentleness of love in that book! I bless the great French prelate who conceived such a stupendous poem of ancient greatness, but I also bless the French language which not always dresses itself in whore’s clothing, prostituting itself in trivialities and does not always offer itself to be used to express the impudence and the aberrations of a shameless coterie of demagogues, but dressed in beautiful and heavenly splendor, sings of triumphs of virtue and magnificently expresses the counsels of wisdom...

             Allow me then to tell you that, in reading your opinion of Michelet, the mind still excited by the beautiful pages of Telemachus, I felt like I was reading one of those beautiful passages of the French novel in which the great writer with the powerful flight of an eagle rises to meditate upon the various contingencies of the human family. If you have not as yet suspected it, I may now tell you the reason for which I do not answer you in French... Everything considered, if by writing to you what I am writing now will take me a couple of hours, by writing to you in French, it would take me at least two days. I am not far from the truth, am I? A couple of days ... and then? And then I would not be able to say everything I wanted to, nor half of it, ruining, corrupting, abusing a language in which I am worse than a beginner... Let us not waste time: let’s go on. It is ten thirty p.m.; I am writing in my little bedroom while the others are asleep in the placid sleep of the night. The shame of having delayed, as you have done, to write to a friend giving him the latest news, has forced me to answer you immediately as soon as I received your letter, without wasting any time. The reason why I did not write to you are the following. The fundamental reason: chronological summary of all the things that happened after our separation at Villafranca: arrived in Turin; met Motta; on Thursday met Gay; on Friday, Vandero, Faggiani, Lusana, etc., on Saturday, the departure of Motta; on Sunday, did not see anybody; on Monday, departure of Lusana, visit to Elia and general confession; on Tuesday, sickness which obliged me to defer my departure to Wednesday; departure and arrival at San Martino after various travel incidents; sickness; visit to the doctor and prognosis of a relapse of typhoid fever; eight days of strict medical care; peace of mind, water and diet; get well visits, other formalities and various annoyances, etc., etc. So this is my fundamental reason. After my recovery I was unable to write immediately to my friends (you are the first) and I tried first of all to fill that great moral void in which my sickness had left me and the disconcerted feeling of having left Turin without having been able to say goodbye to anyone. Let’s not even speak of the physical void because it was just horrible. It took me no less that a week of jaw work to get over it and during this time I dismantled almost a kilo of bread a day.

             You should also know that the absolute rest from any mental occupation during that one week period made my poor brain wander continually in some state of semi-consciousness dreaming of friends, trips, conversations, plans, hopes, doubts, uncertainties, difficulties, emotions, sorrows, and vicissitudes of this wretched human life.

             At time this lethargy was complete , and the sleep which would come to lift me out from this semi-consciousness would hurl me into a vortex of visions more fantastic and more strange than the first. I was dreaming about being with Motta; we were talking and then we would go far, far away, as the words faded, the eyes became brilliant and seemed to reveal the harmonizing internal light of our thoughts. I dreamed I was with you on top of the highest mountain gazing into breathtaking depths of the abysses, and all of a sudden we were seated next to our beds late at night. Our voices were animated and our hearts were beating hard in the allurement of golden hopes in a future not too far away... And then you would disappear from my side, I was alone, the solitude would increase even more; everything would fade, I would hear nobody anymore around me, I would feel no need for anybody; and finally I would fall into a peaceful and tranquil sleep until I would wake to make an inventory of the visions I had dreamed.

             You can easily imagine therefore, how difficult it was to get back to my books, to old habits, and to regain my former state. How many difficulties! I didn’t feel like doing anything. I had planned to do some reading in French, Ah, I was not able to get started in any way. I had planned to make an inventory of all my papers and to put them in order, but I did not have any stomach for this either.

             I had brought with me from Turin a new French book in six volumes on the spirit of history and on the method to study it (if you want to read it... Do I have to tell that it is at your disposal?). It was like trying to make a hole in the water: over one simple page I distorted my mouth in a hundred yawns and I finally put it in a corner of the bookshelf so that I would not have it under my eyes any more.

             Vandero used to send me regularly The Turin, The Emporium The Illustrated, The Devil and sometimes The Cavour, The Ass, etc. ... No sir, there was no way I could get interested in anything. Do you know where all my pleasures were? I’ll give you a hundred guesses... They were in my bed, sleeping like a log. I spent some days in this state of pure and sheer vegetation and then to ask myself “Oh, my Pinottino , what game are we playing? If you have in mind to spend your life by doing nothing you are greatly mistaken; this is a novelty which must have its end. Now then, take courage; you have to do something -- make your choices but hurry and start doing something. From a small beginning greater things will come; what is important is that you begin...” And I began and I succeeded: I have already read Telemachus and many other books and now I am working full speed on more important things; you have read Michelet and I am now gathering notes for a project of which what the French philosopher and historian is treating is only a part and a single episode.

             I expressed myself badly by saying that I am now gathering, because actually I have already gathered the notes for a long tine. See, the last three years, I have been examining the ills of society and now I am only coordinating these notes into a great principle, into one fundamental idea which should be like the soul, like the center of the canvas.

             When I went to Turin, I gathered the last notes which are connected to the first of two years back. Therefore, by the end of this vacation I hope I will be able to complete my research on this matter and have a finished work, if God will give me strength, courage and patience.

             Now I will give you some news from Turin. Gay passed two of his exams successfully: those of college and those for his license -- lucky him. I met Parruccati and, interpreting your wishes, I gave him your regards. I went to listen to Bardessono the courageous, the terrible Bardessono, the oracle of the ladies of Turin. Your eyes are wide open...Then let me tell you. Bardessono is a young priest, noble and good looking; noble not of a first class nobility but yet of that kind which is sufficient, conjointly with his ministry, to give him an opening into the best families of Turin; handsome with the beauty, as they say, of youth: freshness and liveliness. His conferences have a mixture of Lacordaire (from whom he has adopted the name of conferences), of the Dominican Romanini and of Giordano ; add to it a little touch of studied rhetoric, delivered with courage and energy.

             He describes in true colors the life of the high society (since he preaches to the high society). He moralizes like a Savanarola and castigates the vices of the present generation with a frankness which is quite original. If you would have heard him when he spoke of calumny (I heard him preaching this sermon)... -- He depicted it as the terrible subverter of public peace and turns on the calumniators threatening them with the tremendous responsibility of their evil whispered words -- oh, you would take him for the terrible friar of Florence when he was turning the people away from their vices with the threat of the wrath of God.

             But, when you see him, all sweetness and honey, appealing to endearing words for the ladies’ self-respect, begging them to donate their pendants, bracelets, and watches to adorn the church (he collected from them once in rings, bracelets, watches, etc., more than five thousand lire); when you see him from time to time move his intense and penetrating gaze from place to place and touching on his breast the tassel of his stole to show that delicate and well shaped hand of his, oh, then you too would say that the exalted and spiritualized minds of the female sex have to sympathize with that beautiful creature, who, from that pulpit with those moving and warm words makes their breasts beat with the emotions of everything that is good and beautiful. Things have gone so far that the gentle Turinese ladies in the last day of the month of Mary in the church of the Martyrs had the parapet of the pulpit covered by thousands upon thousands of sweet-smelling roses patterned in a beautiful harmony of colors and alternating at intervals with roses of greater size.

             Oh, gentle thought to make sure that that delicate little hand would not rest on the rough wood but upon a soft patter of intertwining flowers put together with long labor and great love by his adoring listeners. Things went so far that one day, to honor our Lady, at one point in his talk he commanded everybody to kneel and he was obeyed; on another occasion he commanded all to bring with them to the sermon on the next day a rose and he was obeyed -- on another time he commanded that for the feast of Corpus Christi all the families of Doragrossa street must put out [on their windows and balconies as a sign of festivities] their tapestries and woe to those who did not; he would have had them shamed in public, and he was obeyed. To such a point did things come that under the porticoes are displayed his pictures portrayed in large and small sizes, in one pose and in another, in color and not in color. Do you have enough of this little piece of history? The time passes: it is now sometime since the eleventh hour has struck slowly through the space which separates the hill and the belfry of Govone from my little room; from my mouth has exhaled little by little the smoke of a cigar which reminds me of the brevity of time in which fate unrolls the thread of our life. From the room next to mine comes the light sound of breathing of one sleeping there... I go to the window and I see nature, or rather do not see nature, tacitly intent on her work of vegetation, of the great gestation which takes place within her womb.

             Rossetti, let us come back to us. Your letter reminds me of something which I consider as one of my most beautiful remembrances.

             Some months back at this time we were working under a little light encouraging each other to patiently put up with and face the hardship of our lack of rest. At times we talked for awhile; at other times we were lost in our thoughts.

             Oh, those talks and meditations were not useless! I treasure within my heart all the words which are said between friends and I will print them there so as never to forget them.

             Now God be with you, my dear friend; I will not say good night because it is too late for that and I'm allowed to think that by this time your head is already resting on the pillow of repose; I will await that your eyes will open to the kiss of the morning; I will say “good morning” and I will wish you a good beginning in the tasks of the day. Goodbye. Write to me soon and open to me confidently your heart because you already know that the letters of Rossetti are always well received as messages of peace.

Your Devoted Friend,

Joe

P.S. Forgive me if I have made any mistake and perhaps did not make any sense at times. I hastily put down on paper the string of the thoughts that were crowding my mind in a confused manner. I will write soon to Faggiani and we will make plans for the outing; I will bring then the volume of Assedio. Say “hello” for me to those whom you will see. Write right away and at length. Goodbye. I received your letter on the evening of August 1st -- I have not received yet the books which you say you have mailed with the letter; I believe, however, that this is only a postal delay.

5

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

Humanitarianism and Catholic

Apostolic -- Vacation news -- The

Christian woman -- Reading of the

Bible and of Balbo.

[San Martino Tanaro, after August 2, 1866]

              ...Having given up being for God, I began to live for an idol of flesh and then for another more jealous and demanding end -- ambition. The seductive images and caressing promises of this deceptive goddess had led me to the point of not thinking and not desiring anything else but one thing: the humanitarian apostolate (note what kind of big words the inventive imagination of ambition can come up with). In this regard the intellect had a great master-plan to develop, the will had its own faith to put forward, and the human person a great work to put into action.

             The first step would have been journalism; this would have been followed by the step of public exposure; and then doctrinal proselytism followed by the practical one which would be the last phase of propaganda and the beginning of the new system of social organization. Prince Napoleon, on May 15th, 1865, proclaimed solemnly this system in Ajaccio perhaps in spite of and perhaps with the connivance of his cousin. The same Prince, in July 1866, stated in Paris: “France must be the support of Prussia, the Fatherland of the great Luther (sic), which attacks Austria with its arms and its ideas.”

             The Baron Ricasoli, still dictator of Italy, in July 1866, published a letter addressed to the humanitarian associations, calling them the mirror and the reflection of the sentiment of all the Italians. As you can see, having to do with this kind of people, it is easy to propagate revolutionary doctrines. Priests and friars in jail, liberal thinkers elevated to the status of heroes. Guerrazzi never knew how to find the beast “monk” in any natural history, the beast “monk” in deference to the Guerrazzian affirmation, was erased from the list of the other beasts as an empty name. Civinini calumniated evangelical morality as contrary to the warlike spirit and to the pursuit of heroism. By now in the Italian army the things used for worship have become useless junk in the ambulances of the medical corps and the chaplains have become social entertainers of officers.

             Jurists of the new school declared the state a moral entity without religion; the King as the personification of the state, in his appeal for the national war, reviews all the elements of human power and leaves out the greatest power of all which is God. Cialdini, the thunderbolt of war, the first soldier of Italy, gives to the press a communiqué in which he declares he abandons himself into the hands of destiny. Garibaldi, who is called “the heart of Italy” by the best expression of Italian adulation, declared that he adores God in spirit and truth under the vaults of heaven, but hates priests to the death (what a tender little heart!). Mazzini, the personified wisdom of Italy, the inspiration of youth in the their twenties, proclaims himself the Apostle of the idea (an idea very complex!). Napoleon, the political sphinx of Europe, in 1866, declares solemnly in France his determination to develop to the fullest the principles of '89.

             Now you can see how many theoretical supporters my master-plan had, how many assurances of growth and of diffusion. Prescinding from the decrees of God, all human circumstances smiled upon our hopes: free speech, freedom of action, rather encouraged the one and the other, the crowds ready and easily swayed, the open road ahead leading toward a very attractive goal. I said “prescinding from the degrees of God,” because in this alone the men of good will should put their trust now, because humanly speaking they are totally unable to stop the ever growing wave of irreligion and license.

             I have given you a resume of all the resources which the revolutionary system may gather for its purposes and I have described to you the social question from studies made of actual facts. Oh, that God would grant that, as I was full of energy and shrewdness in carefully studying and running the ways of iniquity, so now I would have the will and courage to put into action all the counter-projects; to devise a counter-attack; to destroy that which I have built; to build that which I have destroyed; to look for new ideas; to change, to cut, renovate, purify, in order to rise again all at once afterward to new and more solid convictions, to a faith more beautiful and vigorous; to the apostolate par excellence which is humanitarian as no other can be (because Catholic) and more than any other conducive to the liberty and prosperity of the people, to the great apostolate which for eighteen centuries has been proclaiming from East to West, from North to the South: the alliance of nations, the principle of free association, the emancipation of the masses, the equality of the races, the practical toleration (not doctrinal, that is another thing), the equitable distribution of riches, the priority of personal capabilities instead of the privileges of birth (for example, the ecclesiastical hierarchy), the equality of the powerful with the weak, the monarch with the subject before the fundamental law of the justice truth, the rights of nationality and of race (recognized also in the liturgies and rituals), the cooperation among all the nations guaranteed by one principle of authority (the teaching Catholic Church), the progress of human intelligence, the apotheosis of heroism and of sacrifice (“This is my command, that you love...There is no greater love than that of laying down one's life for his friends.” St. John, the Evangelist.) .

             The humanitarian program of the Christian Religious, without considering that it is a little more brilliant than that of the associations set up just for this purpose, has also the advantage of antiquity over the latter and the merit of having applied it on a vast scale, a scale with which nobody in the world will ever be able to compete. Oh, enslaved liberal thinkers who pass yourselves for the delight of the human race and are rather its greatest shame. Oh, you parasite bugs who so generously go about sucking the marrow of poor humanity, tell me if you please, for how much is your apostolate for sale? Your party is legion, but tell me how many in this legion of yours, by assuming the priesthood of truth, have made the oath to conquer the terrible enemies of truth, error and human passions more with word than with example? Oh, go away, because if ever the masses whom you wish to instruct would follow your example just for a moment, Europe would find itself immediately in the hands of the most powerful. European civilization would certainly have more to gain if you would yield it to an invasion of Japanese monks who, although they preach a doctrine obscured by error, teach, however, a morality a thousand times more pure and closer to perfection than yours, oh, you native propagandists.

             Oh, yes, go also into the regions of the East to teach and promote the emancipation of women, to cover them afterward with the shame of your lewd conduct. Go there to teach the redistribution of wealth which for you always means a new way of getting at the purse of the poor. Go, go and proclaim the right to work, the supremacy of personal abilities, the freedom of production, but at the same time continue as well to live off the sweat of someone else, take advantage of someone else's work, and to become the manipulators of public opinion. Would that instinct of self-preservation be able to suggest to you counsels of prudence and of self-reserve in the midst of these people who, perhaps, would not surrender themselves immediately to all your subtleties; would that the courage of precipitous flights save you in the hour of danger from the rods and clubs of those people without education.

             These are my wishes for you leaving everything else up to the judgment of God who in His mercy is able to make grace super-abound where the sin is greater and who may have, perhaps, decreed that you, persecutors of Damascus, will become the martyrs of Rome.

             Beloved friend, forgive me for all these long-winded discourses which help me to counterbalance the rigid solitude in which I find myself. I have no one with whom I can exchange a few words, and now that I can do it, I may abuse it. But you are so good that you'll put up with me and will understand that the in special conditions in which I find myself there is indeed a need to lift the imagination with beautiful and comfortable thoughts. The great Beccaria wrote that the souls of men, like fluids, always put themselves at the same level of the objects which surround them. This truth describes my situation perfectly: talking about good and useful things I feel in me as it were a force which draws me up and up in a region more serene and pure than this earth of ours; I feel an instinct, I dare say, of progression, a desire of perfection, an aspiration for heaven.

             Therefore, if by speaking, writing and meditating about beautiful things, our soul also is embellished and becomes better, why not to speak or write or meditate always, no matter how, even at the cost of violating the law of aesthetics and of provoking the censures of rhetoricians and the idle talk of pedantic grammarians? Yet there are many hours in the day and perhaps even many days in the week in which we find ourselves in such a cold and dull mood of sloth that all the faculties of our soul become hardened. We are really fortunate if, when reading or writing a letter the first noxious vapors of sloth appear, we are able to dissipate them and thus avoid a lowering of temperature which is always harmful to our moral vegetation (if I am allowed to use this expression).

             Now, I will pass to some more contemporary things. My vacations are going by very fast. I have received from Severino a short letter which was like a humble traveling companion to a great and long letter from Motta. Even Perruccati has written to me a long letter before crossing the Po River. Riccio has not written to me anymore. Probably he is in the process of attempting a great moral revolution which will correct him of all those weaknesses that you well know. Oh, if it were possible to send a petition to the Father who is in Heaven so that He would remove from the earth that evil beast which is called selfishness, it would be beautiful to live here. But, if God does not allow us to kill this monster, he does not refuse us, however, the strength to free ourselves from its venomous bites when it attacks us.

             I hope that Riccio as he grows all the more in his good resolutions will be able to value all the more also that supreme duty of charity by which we ought to love each other and to love each other with a growing measure of affection according to the requirements derived from sharing the same vocation and from the homogeneity of behavior which come from sharing the same age and the same common life. I stayed at the home of Vandero for two days: he came up from Turin alone and with the task of checking if everything was ready for the trip to the country by all the family. Now he has gone back to Turin and will come with the family later. The Professor Elia has already arrived with his mother and sister. The latter is truly an angel from paradise for her beautiful qualities of mind and soul. Even at the time when I used to look at women more like a George Sand would than a Silvio Pellico, it never crossed my mind to call her a pious humbug, like I used to call many other women. That aura of reserve that radiates from her face, that gentle and tranquil look of hers have always aroused in me whenever I saw her a feeling of veneration as to a superior being. As in the past, so also now I’m reminded of the truth of those words of Dante. “just by looking at them I myself am lifted up.”

             Oh, virgin fortunate, may God in heaven give you credit for all the good thoughts which your reserve has always aroused in my mind. Every morning, whenever I see you at church in an act of profound prayer, I ask the Lord to be able to possess a pure heart, a humble and faithful soul as your, and I wish our country’s women were like you in the observance of the most difficult duties and in the pursuit of the most lofty virtues. The moral decadence of Italy comes in great part from the lax status of women in society. Let there be born again in them in an instant the consciousness of their ancient dignity and with modest young ladies, with faithful spouses, with mothers dedicated to teaching their children, will come a generation of serious and well-behaved young men, of temperate husbands dedicated to their homes, of model fathers of families.

             You ask me what books you should read. My poor opinion is this: few but good. The effects of what we read are not immediately felt and this makes us many times doubt the fruitfulness of our reading. Let us persuade ourselves that everything we read with conviction and with love imprints itself indelibly within us and will never be erased. Let us not be disturbed if, in trying to trace the origins of our ideas, we are not able to find their original form. The seed is transformed and produces a fruit which does not at all resemble the first embryo. If we are capable of carrying on a thought pattern with synthesis, analysis, induction, and analogy, we ought to be grateful to those good books which have given us the know-how.

             Would you know to which book, to what kind of books specifically you owe your debt of gratitude for this progress? All of them and none of them. Time makes possible the aggregation of many vagrant atoms and the result is a body. Which atom can call itself the progenitor of the whole? Every book which we read is an atom we aggregate to the whole. Credit should be given to time or better to God who makes the assimilation fruitful. Coming to the concrete: read the Bible which is an inexhaustible fountain of truth. Oh, if everybody would read it, there would not be such petulance in the learned who know so well how to mislead people.

             Become familiar with the thoughts of Balbo who will give you good criteria for judging many questions which are debated today. Here is the very reason why we should not be discouraged if there are no immediate effects. There are seeds that rot for a year in the ground and then sprout without anybody knowing how.

             If you find in the rectory other books which treat of contemporary questions with authority and depth of judgment, put yourself to the task of studying them thoroughly. I don’t have to prove to you that it is our duty to always keep the supernatural sciences on the same level as and in concordance with the natural sciences both experimental and speculative. I do not know Wiseman, but he cannot be but good under this point of view.

             I recommend to you above all to write out on paper the reasoning you develop in your mind. Our intellect is like one of those phenomena which we observe so many times in the animal order: the more we take from it, the more it wants to give and the more production is increased....

6

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

Pascal, Chateaubriand,

Massillon; In praise

of Manzoni.

[ San Martino Tanaro, August 20, 1866]

              ...But, let the will of God be done Who, as St. Paul says, will not let you be tested beyond your strength. Along with the test He will give you the strength to endure it. So pray for me.

             Concerning my third driving thought, Riccio is at the root of it because for two months he has not sent me any news at all. As you can tell, my friends keep me on my toes. In seventy days, four correspondents of your caliber have sent me four letters in all. And I instead, during the same period of these four letters, have sent bravely double the amount. Ah, I understand the irony of it, you want to make me pay in kind my past year’s negligence. If this is the case, I will bow my head mumbling that I deserve it. But, getting back to Riccio, he is a special case. To write to me eight days after the departure and then not to write me at all in two months smells a little of a mystery. Anyway, I want to interpret everything in the best light and I wrote him a very long letter which will stir him, I hope, from his two months’ lethargy.

             Free from these three stones which were weighing heavenly in my stomach, I will tell you about some other little things of secondary interest. Do you remember when we met Borio under the Pogliani colonnade and he told us he would come to see me one day? Well, he did come the day before yesterday on his way to Govone. I stayed with him no more than half an hour, but with all my best attempts and skirmishes to force him to open up I did not succeed in making the slightest breech in him, so valiant is he in fending off the rapier-thrusts of the curious. I saw him go as he came, leaving me behind in a total ignorance of his past, present and future activities.

             I am turning over in my mind the Pensées of Pascal. How correct and truthful is the portrait which Chateaubriand gives us of this immortal son of Catholic France! How consoling it is to see a man, so well versed in all the sciences, exclaim at the age of thirty -- five the biblical saying “vanity of vanity...”, and give himself with childlike simplicity to the study of Scriptures. The Engineer, Mathematician, Philosopher, and the man of letters senses in a flash the tremendous truth that our life is an expiation of an ancient sin and withdraws into solitude, there consecrating himself to the love of God and to the service of his neighbor; there he conceives the plan of a book which ought to compel by way of persuasion and of love all those who in good faith misbelieve to enter into the bosom of the Church, he prepares the material by writing on pieces of paper his daily thoughts, and he dies at the age of thirty-nine with the regret of having left only a rough draft of his work, but happy to go to heaven to receive the reward of his long sufferings. On reading the thoughts of Pascal one has the feeling of visiting the ruins of eastern civilizations: a feeling of marvel and pain. Oh, when will a new vigorous and courageous mind come who will be able to pick up the heritage of Pascal and hurl a new challenge to our all-pervasive Rationalism?

             I have also read the Martyrs of Christianity by Chateaubriand. Would you believe it? In the hundred times I have taken it up to read it, I have never been able to read more than a few pages at the beginning. But now I have read it with ever increasing satisfaction and I have come to agree with all the applause that the author of this stupendous Christian poem has received from everybody. I would like to encourage all those assiduous adorers of pagan literature to read it, all those people who have persecuted Manzoni, the creator of that new literary school, who, making good use of both classicism and romanticism, was able to avoid the too liberal elements of the former without falling into excessive proclamations of the latter. Oh, may we see to it that the generation coming up would be able to recognize in Manzoni the man who found a happy medium between the two warring schools; may we see to it, as Gioberti used to say, that he be recognized as the standardbearer of a new conciliatory school to put an end once and for all to the poetic worshippers of the wasteland of Venus and to the nebulous, vacuous utterance of a thousand Byrons magnified a hundred times. These are the thoughts that came to me while reading the graceful pages of the French Viscount.

             The other day, I had the opportunity of reading that terrifying sermon of Massillon on the elect which made the audience suddenly stand up in panic thinking that perhaps the end of the world had already come. I found the sermon the most beautiful experiment in the efficacy of religious speech, dark and terrifying in the style of Isaiah, sad and mournful as in Jeremiah, ingratiating and persuasive as in all the biblical writers.

7

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

Naval defeat at Lissa -- Italian politics --

 Communion in prayer -- Invitation to San Martino

[San Martino Tanaro, after August 25, 1866]

             ... our vacations are quickly coming to an end. We had one hundred and fifty days of vacation and we have already spent half. What can we do? Peruccati wrote to me again saying that he is now near Cividale in the mountains among the Slavic people and the Slovenians. Now I know that they had to evacuate the area because of political events there; with little honor, and the poor Boggio had to drink a doubly bitter dosage of the waters of Lissa without being able to sing with the French poet: “...has lived too long who for the fatherland has died.”

             Now we have every reason to be satisfied. Dishonored already beforehand throughout Europe for our misadministration, for our bankrupt financial condition, for our diplomatic servitude, for our ill-advised political maneuvers, we were lacking yet this occasion to be dishonored fully, even in our military pride. Defeated on all fronts, in the mountains, on the plains and on the sea, the Supreme Command had to tell the king’s Government that our army is not in condition to withstand the Austrian Army.

             Oh, I feel rising within me flashes of shame just thinking about the dishonest language with which our newspapers and press not long ago were publicizing in shameful terms the political testament of Franz Joseph. Impotence is not contemptible except when it goes along with bragging as well. Italy knows all about it. I will not write any more about this sorrowful history, but if I were to tell the whole truth I would never be able to finish. Never mind. God has put a limit to the arrogance of the fool as to the violent waves of the sea: ultra non preteribit. Let us accept with humble brow the decrees of His Eternal Wisdom.

             I have no news from our friends. I stayed with Vandero for two days at San Luigi where I was on some business. His family is still in Turin. Torchio, the ex-cleric of the Penitentiary, is a prisoner of war. Botto, the editor of the “Turin Gazette” has died. The political opponent of Ricasoli, Farini , the lunatic, has gone to rejoin his friend Cavour. The same has happened to Senator Sforza Cesarini. Did your uncle pick up a good number (for the military service)? The armistice and the probability of peace are manna from heaven. There is no way one can instill confidence into these recruits, even by pointing out all the probabilities of a physical discharge. My brother trembles already at the thought of just passing the physical exam and calls upon God to free him from this great infamy (sic).

             There is a thirty-month old child in the neighborhood who, because of the richness of his mother’s breasts to which he is still very much attached, is so round, smooth, and ruddy that he looks like a cupid. When I pass by his house and I see him smile mischievously, a mischievousness that I interpret as a request for a search in my pockets (often the repositories of some well liked sweets) he reminds me of your Nicolaus (I was about to write “little Nick”). From what you tell me, he must be a carbon copy of our Petie (this is his name).

             Spoil him a little bit for me and tell him that I am in love with his innocence and that I envy those beautiful years of his which once passed will not return anymore.

             Here I end. The letter to Riccio and yours have exhausted my letter writing resources and I feel tired. Goodbye. When you offer your homage to the Almighty, remember also your poor friend.

             The communion of prayer, after the Eucharist, is the most consoling truth of our Faith to be found in the Creed. All the others cause us to fear, but this one places in our hands the powerful means to do violence, so to speak, to the mercy of God. Oh, let’s make use of it, my dear friend, let us interweave our prayers, and may the Angel of forgiveness keep count of it in that frightful record book of things to be expiated.

             It is the season of joyful get togethers and I am happy in the hope of having you here for a few days with me among the joyful hills of San Martino Tanaro. Make sure that my hopes will not be in vain and at your arrival you will receive a million thanks.

             I give you a sad farewell and I declare with my whole heart that I am your unending friend

Joseph Marello

             Be mindful that our current accounts show a credit on my part of twenty pages. Send me at least a half of them. I insist on the invitation of your coming here to San Martino. How many things to see and to say! Write to me quickly and don’t say “no.”

8

TO SEMINARIAN JOSEPH RICCIO

Invitation to San Martino – Desire for good --

Egoism and Christian unselfishness -- Seminary news.

[ San Martino Tanaro, August 28, 1866 ]

My very good Riccio,

             I am writing to you a few things in a hurry. I enjoyed your letter very much because I learned from it many things, and precious news. I admire and praise your great industriousness. Since laziness is the father of vice, so too is industriousness the mother of virtues. After having read many times the first page of your letter, I came to the conclusion that I could not understand anything about your correspondence with Rossetti. By the way: we have a nice opportunity to unravel the knot. I have invited Rossetti to come here for a get-together with Motta. He has accepted my invitation and has told me that (as long as Motta was agreeable) he would be in Asti on Monday, September 3rd, ready for his trip to San Martino. Why don't you set the date of your outing for Monday also? In this way we will bring together the same little gathering we used to have in your room at the seminary. The difficulty in finding a place to sleep would be no problem at all if you are satisfied with sleeping double and a little uncomfortable at night. What do you think of it? We will put together such a rambling caravan the like of which has never been seen. I do not want to influence your freedom in deciding about it. I leave you completely free in this regard.

             If the circumstances would not allow you to change the plans you have already made, I will simply fall back on the status quo, that is, the promises made in your last letter. Is it alright with you? You tell me in your letter how difficult it is for you to understand how it is possible to write a letter like my last one. If I have well grasped the meaning of your words, you are amazed by the Christian devotion you seemed to perceive in a part of my writing. Oh dear! It is only too true that our heart in pouring itself out to friends opens itself to noble sentiments and makes the pen write in a language full of love, hope, and faith the most ineffable yearnings toward the great ideals of virtue. At the same time our will, weak and poor, does not know how to put into practice even minimally its sublime impulses, its own generous resolutions. Experience tells us everyday, that in our action we come up always short of what we have resolved in words.

             Therefore, do not think of me more than what I am... Consider me as a miserable little Christian who aspires to his own betterment, but who walks forward with a vacillating and faltering step. What is the use of trying to cover it up? At every instant we find something to humble us, at every instant we feel stirring in us the evil tendency of our original sickness and are we to raise with haughty ridiculousness our proud brow? Oh why not confess rather our weaknesses when the Sacred Word tells us: Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam...!

             My dear Riccio, let us revive our faith; this is the flame which ought to open for us the new and difficult paths of virtue. May not the thought of our insignificance daunt us; it ought to give us instead a reason for greater trust in Him who is a help for everything and for all. Let us love each other. St John the Evangelist, old and unable to carry on his ministry any longer, used to have himself carried on the arms of his disciples and never ceased to repeat these words: Diligite alterutrum ut salvemini. And St. Augustine used to say: Ama et fac quod vis. All the distractions of this world tend to neutralize this heavenly sentiment of love and to replace it with the personal spirit rooted in the egotistical instincts which we carry with us from nature.

             Our ministry, on the contrary, places continuously under our eyes the most splendid examples of abnegation and of love, beginning with the God-man, who sacrificed his very self as a victim of love, up to the little lady who offers to God her humble prayer interceding for her sinful brothers—Ama et fac quod vis.⁸⁹ Let us love and then, by all means, let us do what pleases us most. In this way, after having completed peacefully our humble career down here, we may be able to arrive to the glorious reward which God has prepared for us up there.

             In your letter you give me a lot of important news. What you tell me about Professor Leone has already been confirmed, that is, it was confirmed by the Theologian Elia, who, by all appearances, does not give me any indication he will soon follow suit. I am sorry about Canta who has wasted his time in the seminary: he did not take care of things when he should have and, vice versa, he should have provided for things when he did not. May God help him and keep him from evil. I heard, I have been told that Ciattino has been putting more irons in the fire than he can handle. Poor fellow! He could have taken care of his own affairs and “let the waters run down the river.” Instead, he gets mixed up in those accursed female problems which will end by ruining him. Poor seminary! How badly you reflect the purpose for which Charles Borromeo instituted you and the Bishop of Asti built you. Satan has made his nest in you and corruption has erected its pulpit there for the diffusion of its evil teachings. Let us pray. Let us bear patiently the evils which God permits to conform us to his will. I repeat, let us purify our souls in love, in the love of God, in the love of friends... and also of those who hate us. My dear Joseph, goodbye, pray for your namesake, who will in his turn remember you.

9

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN DELAUDE

Plan for a trip to Rome -- Combination of powers --

Ideals of the last six years -- War against compromise.

[ San Martino Tanaro, July -- August 1866 ]

             Silence — with everyone —

             Scripta manent — words fade away, but what is put in writing remains. I have a thousand things to tell you, but since God alone has the prerogative of exhausting a subject at one time, I shall have to resign myself, like everyone else, to filtering my thoughts through time and space successively and by degrees. Now to jot down the points.

             The trip to Rome has brought to the surface many chemical affinities previously unknown. Here’s what I mean: in our personalities there are many points of contact, a fact that will be clearly experienced once we have reduced our individual selves to a common denominator. Human potential is without limit. I'll spare you the proof of this, which is easily found in the S.S. themselves. It all depends on the value of the coefficient, and for human beings every occasion, every event, however accidental it may appear, can constitute a good and beautiful coefficient. Happy the person who can reach under the shell of things. Arithmetic is a shell, it is the mysterious language of a science of which we have as yet penetrated only the material elements. Two factors that are multiplied, fused, and then transformed into a great Product: this indeed is a mortal phenomenon that can lay the foundation of a vast system -- -- the system of combined powers. Here on earth everything is the work of combination; and were it not for fear of falling into heresy, I would say that God himself is a combination -- -- the first and ultimate combination of all perfection that blend together, complete, multiply, and elevate each other exponentially, thus attending to an infinite value. But getting back down to earth: music is a combination of arid notes; and seven sounds combine by Rossini, that is, seven factors of Rossini, result in a product that has the power to stir an entire people and to make this people burst forth into cries of enthusiasm that cannot find expression in any tongue. A little minium, carmine, sepia, etc. correctly mixed, that is, four or five factors handled by Sanzio and you have a Madonna straight from Heaven. Some chemical agents when properly combined can produce the ferment of the entire earthly mass; and a few figures combined and recombined by a great person like Newton can unfold the laws of universal gravitation. Hurrah for combination! Notice, God himself confirmed this great truth when He taught us to combine ourselves (as far as it is possible) with His very self by bonding us with His flesh. And Gregory VII, the son of a poor barrel-maker, was able to shake up the world and found a new civilization over the ruins of barbarism; it was because he felt the power of this daily combination with his God, which gave him, human though he was, a mettle that you would call divine. Oh Paul, you before all others and better than all others have been able to express the needs of poor human power. You said that the universal combination of powers is necessary, and you added these words that I wish were written in letters of gold: ut simus consummati in unum. Delaude, did you understand? Instead of sticking to my points, I see I’m straying away from them. At any rate, did you understand? It is a question of fighting war to the finish against the spirit of compromise, which tends to infiltrate everywhere and it is the fatal solvent of the fondest projects and the greatest resolutions. To will – always – and at all costs. Each person pitted against himself. The good ego locked in struggle with the bad ego; the ego of a moment, a sublime moment, rising in combat against the ego of every hour, the ego of the past, the ego of the old system; the ego that makes an act of the will once and for all, and yet multiplies itself at every moment by that powerful act of volition; the ego which, like the Phoenix, destroys itself only to be born again out of its own ashes. Will power: that is our motto; but it must be the kind of will power that is entire, unfailing, effective. In Dante's words, it was this will power that

“...kept Lawrence on the gridiron

And rendered Mucius cruel to his hand”,

the kind of will power that caused the poetic vein to gush forth from that shiftless, eccentric aristocrat.

             I have described to you the ideal that has been whirling through my mind for the past six years or more. This ideal has already undergone many changes, but I am aware that in its present form it can at any moment undergo a metamorphosis bringing it out of the chrysalis state and into the stage of realization. The ideal I had in 1861, when my dream of a future in society prompted me to cross the Rubicon. The ideal taking shape in ’62-63, amid the excitement of the meetings of Masonic Lodges (ss), political friendship, work of preparation, etc. The ideal during the two years of recollection and indecision, ’64-65. The ideal finally emerging into reality in 66, when the fervor accompanying the rebirth of my religious feeling was followed by the calm state of conviction and the restoration of conscience as my competent court of judgment... Now consider what a wealth of experience in so many vicissitudes! How many pages, how many notes, how many memoirs! All material for a great, solemn inventory of the human heart. Poor youth! How easy it is to shipwreck! Happy the one who was tossed about on the angry billows and returned to shore. And so it is true, Delaude, that we have certain points of contact and that we can be reduced to a common denominator. Hard work and good will, and the past can serve as a tool of the future. We must coordinate all our thoughts, all our affections, all our potential in a set plan. We must live that plan, elevate, sublimate, multiply ourselves in that plan. We must will always and at all costs. We must will with courage, with firmness, with constancy. We must make war on compromise; the one who compromises is lost. But first of all, if we want to have the power and the strength necessary for our resolution, we must profit by that couplet of the poet Prati:

“Hold yourself together in Him, proud dust,

Strength comes from the Almighty, not from mortal flesh.”

             We must draw our fortitude from above... Without faith there is no charity, without charity there remains nothing, absolutely nothing. So then: renovamini spiritu, etc., let us be renewed in the spirit, every day, every hour. A human being can elevate himself like the fluids, because our power is in proportion to our will, and our will is in proportion to our knowledge. At the age of twenty Mazzini toiled day and night at nailing into his heart and brain an idea that perhaps even then was strange and rested on sophism. So?... let us take a good look at history and say like those who were once in our shoes: si ille, cur non ego? I close this letter, which to tell you the truth, is a little disconnected and betrays a little too much the haste in which it was written. At any rate, this is only the beginning, and we shall have occasion to exchange ideas in every shade and tone. For the time being, it’s a confessional secret. Everything I said must be kept buried. I’ve cast the die, and you will pick up in reply. Meanwhile, accept the wish of your comrade in arms: Win or die.

Yours through thick and thin,

Marello

10

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN DELAUDE

Firmness in convictions --

The devil of concupiscence --

Plans for common work

[San Martino Tanaro, August 1866]

             I’ve just come back from the Sacrament of confession with a purified soul and with palpitating heart full of heavenly joy: therefore I send to you a word of love, of that kind of love which renders us, as I already told you quoting the Apostle Paul, consummati in unum.

             I don't have the time to make a word for word commentary on your letter as I would have wanted to do; maybe another time. For now, I will send you only a few disconnected thoughts as they cross my mind.

             Youthful enthusiasm like ether when left in an unsealed vase, volatilizes and disappears. Therefore, we ought not to confuse the passing whims which are temporary with the persevering will which is therefore also efficacious. He who wavers in his convictions is always weak and inept: and vice versa. We must believe always uniformly, logically, and tenaciously. The great geniuses are useless; the great men of character are the ones who stir the world. Pico della Mirandola is much less of a person than Gregory VII. Descartes is nothing compared to a Vincent de Paul. Gioberti does not even come close to the glory of Pius IX.

             Napoleon had a fixed idea which he used to call his faith. Pius VII also had his fixed idea which with greater reason he could call his faith. Let the philosophers say that man is able to do as much as he wants to do; we would rather say with the language of the scripture: Faith moves mountains.

             A writer once said that every man in certain circumstances becomes pure power. Well, to think about it, men are like innumerable points on the periphery of a wheel and each one of them in turn reaches the highest tangential point. Using this truth as a basis, we can explain many things which would remain unexplainable in the conflict of human passions. I have a lot of notes in this regard but we can talk about it at length and at our leisure... We will then find the clue we need and see to it that the many potentialities which are out of focus or are simply wasted may come to produce their intended results. Be mindful of the fact that all comes down to mathematical precision and to the precision of a formula (of course, with the correct interpretations of the various relative values), and he who wants to sustain the contrary denies all natural, divine, and human laws which regulate with inalterable uniformity the created world which in substance is only a reflection of the Creator's mind.

             My dear friend Delaude, remember that we have to fight a great enemy in our modern society, a Hydra with a hundred heads. Asmodeus, the demon of concupiscence, breaths in the midst of youth. The enticement to sexual pleasures are the plague of the 19th century. If I were to list all the devices, all the sophisms of science which prostitutes itself to the passions of the flesh... Oh, how many things: music, paintings, theater, etc.;... the chemical substances which act as stimulants... War, therefore, war to the death against Onanism, that is, the solitary sin, to plastic pictures in the human flesh, to photographic groups (made by the thousand and arranged in album form as one would in a progressive art course) to enervating and stimulating music, to lewd poems, to erogenous substances, etc. We can no longer point them out to public opinion for condemnation, since public opinion is affected by the same sickness. It is necessary to attack the malady at its roots. Oh, my dear, these things that I have seen with my own eyes and I can tell you about them through painful personal experience.

             The time set aside for my studies is coming to an end and for now, I cannot tell you anything else. I am working on a program of common plans. I will tell you more and in detail about my convictions, my desires, and my hopes. But for now what is needed is faith, an unshakable faith, not an ephemeral but a sturdy will power, a strength of character which may resist all trials, all hardship. Serenity of mind which is above all passing annoyances, all the little inconveniences, all the useless occupations which through human weakness may come to worry us throughout the day.

             When the goal has been set, let the world fall apart: We must keep our eyes on our goal always. Man is transformed by his will. Are we not aware of a certain divine quality within us that, in spite of the confusions of the flesh, lifts us up and sublimates us to the very core of our being? Don’t we have in certain moments of moral discouragement the power of rising suddenly through the word of a friend or through an act of generosity admired in secret, the power, I say, of rising suddenly to new hopes and sublime desires? Remember the verse of Dante: “just looking at you I myself am lifted up.”

             Let us take our inspiration from great models and let us act.

             Goodbye. Pray, think, and love.

Your confrere, M.

11

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN DELAUDE

Let us renew the apostolic times --

Christ, the infinite coefficient --

Invitation to Turin

[ San Martino Tanaro, July 1867 ]

My dearest friend,

             In succinct, telegraphic style... What can I say, I waited until the last moment and then for unforeseen circumstances I was not able to master more than a few minutes before the mailing deadline. Let this be a lesson for the next time.

             And what is new? We are really in bad shape. The political situation goes from bad to worse. The perfidious machinations of the man from Alexandria are now beginning to show themselves in a shameful nakedness. Oh you men of expediency, the terrible time will come when the devil will take his opportunity and take your carcasses away. The Lord does not pay on the Sabbath.

             What are we clerics going to do? Let us renew those beautiful times of old when the priesthood gained the respect of the people for its vibrant faith and profound charity. Today we have no more than a faint reflection of that apostolic faith and of that old charity. Saint Paul: Oh what a great and exemplary figure of Christianity! Delaude, let us embrace in the Lord and when we are about to become one with Him in the mystical union of the Eucharist, let us transform each other. Christ in our hearts can give great value to our nothingness, just as the number One before a string of zeros can make a very large number of their nothingness; eventually through Him we can be elevated to the Infinite. Prayer, meditation, and violence; continuous violence against ourselves... and at every hour that passes let us cry out with Saint Theresa: “Take courage, one hour less to fight.” The knights of the Middle Ages were always on guard lest a moment's cowardice would deprive them of the glory they had acquired in long years. We also must keep on guard all around, our hand on the hilt and our eye fixed in heaven. Take courage, my friend, and remember the day of Saint Peter's celebration.

All yours, Marello

P.S. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Sunday I will be in Turin for a visit to the city of my birth. If you can come, we may meet for sure either at the High Mass in the Cathedral or at any other time in a public place. If not, I will have you with me in spirit as I'll offer my prayers at the Shrine of Consolation where the Mother of God receives the vows and strengthens the resolutions of her beloved children. Remember me in your prayers. Goodbye.

12

TO A SEMINARIAN FRIEND

Wedding of his brother Victor

[ San Martino Tanaro July 28, 1867 ]

Dear Friend,

             I am writing just a note to confirm what we had agreed upon: that I will be in Turin on Tuesday the 30th. I am in a world of hustle and bustle and yet in full solitude. My brother is getting married: Imagine the consequences.

             I never forget my friends and I hope they will not forget me either. Please remember me in your prayers and love me always as I love you.

All yours,

J. Marello

             If we meet in Turin, I will tell you everything that I cannot tell you now. Goodbye.

13

TO SEMINARIAN JOSEPH RICCIO

Trip to Turin -- Victor's wedding

[Asti, August 15, 1867]

Our Dearest Riccio,

             There are three of us writing to you. What a coincidence! If you were here also, it would be possible to make a square out of a triangle; we would then have two sides going to Villafranca, one side going to this bank of the Tanaro, and one side going to the other. Well, what do you think? Marello is speaking for himself now. Please, forgive him if he is late in writing to you. The family affairs, a business trip to Turin that lasted eleven days, have taken away, one by one, even without his noticing it, the forty -- three days of vacation which have already gone by. Forgive him also in view of what he promised to do in the way of reparation in the future; but forgive him especially because the thousand headaches which the wedding of his brother has caused him has put him in such a state of abnormal behavior that, without forgetting his friends (heaven is his witness), he has not been able to write anyone. (Within parenthesis, the marriage of Victor will be next Tuesday. The bride is no longer the young lady of Vercelli. She has been replaced by a simple neighbor of ours. Enough, you shall see her.) It was just lucky to run into Rossetti in Turin and into both Faggiani and Rissone here in Asti. Motta, good soul, will have to be as generous in forgiving as you will. Within twelve days from now he [Marello] promises to do his duty and inform you minutely of everything that has happened. Agreed? Now I will yield the pen to a friend close by who is urging me...

Joseph Marello

Faggiani -- Rissone

14

TO SEMINARIAN JOSEPH RICCIO

News about Victor's wedding

Trips to Turin -- News of Asti

[San Martino Tanaro, September 6, 1867]

My Dear Joe,

             Now that the festivities are over, I may begin to relax. Could you imagine that in sixty-five days of vacation which are already gone by, the mailman has not delivered to me unam quidem epistolam amicorum? [not even one simple letter from friends?] This is the way it is. In the midst of so many headaches, which I may tell you were not a few, the words of friends would have been a source of comfort and of relief! Oh, if it were not wrong to take revenge... I would not be the first to write to the gentlemen Motta, Rossettti, Faggiani (who sent me a note from San Damiano a month ago and then nothing else). I received nothing! Absolutely nothing! Am I to believe that in the past, if I had not been the one to push them, the same thing would have happened to me as what happened this year? Because I was not able to find an hour of respite to write them, they considered themselves dispensed from writing too.

“O tempora! O mores!”

             What a connived conspiracy of silence! Enough, let's not think about it any more... Otherwise, instead of one page, four would not be enough to complete my philippic “Perge ad”. [Let's proceed to:]

             Res diei [Current news] -- do you want me to tell you in brief the history of my vacation? Wake up from your boredom and listen: When I found out that the wedding of my brother would take place during my vacation, I went into shock. There came suddenly to my mind (Oh, not to have the opportunity to talk about it in person)...there came to my mind suddenly a thousand things to fear. You know that the dangers are already too many and who would have guaranteed...? Enough of this, I placed myself in the hands of Him who knows how to turn all thing for the best; you can be assured that the thought of my delicate situation weighed on my shoulders daily, though.

             In the meantime, the tasks of preparation began: get the house ready, prepare the room for the newly wed, make provision for the gifts, get information about the wedding ceremony, think about the opportune instructions for my brother, rush to Asti to buy what was needed and to Turin for the same, dream up a way of making sure everything would come off smoothly, take care of the invitations etc., etc. How much money it took! It took eleven marenghi just for the nuptial bed! And all the other things: cabinet, wall decorations, water basin, mirror, etc....

             After I had taken care of the basic things at San Martino, I went to Turin for the purchase of other things of great import. I stayed there for almost eleven days. On the second day I bumped into Rossetti and Rinaudi who were strolling in front of the university. I attended the degree ceremony of the latter who became doctor of letters and of two other clerics who were getting doctoral degrees in theology. I visited the Oratory of Fr. Bosco, the Palace of the king, the Ducal Palace, and the church of the Capuchins, the Cemetery, the new churches, Saint Ambrose Church, the Sacra [Shrine] of Saint Michael, etc., Rossetti had iron feet. I heard Passaglia arguing with Rinaudi, I saw Parato, Ghiringhello, Vogliotti. I attended the sermons of the two famous preachers Bardessono and Pampirio. I saw the boat race on the Po. I made the acquaintance of Father Francesia and Father Cagliero, Ropolo, etc. (what a confused mess I'm making!)

             I was tireless: I was alternating visits and purchases with an inexhaustible energy which surprised me. From five in the morning to twelve: spiritual exercises and pastimes; from twelve to five in the afternoon: shopping; from five to midnight: joyful entertainment with the family. Placing all the expenses together of my father and mine we spent six hundred francs at the goldsmith, shops, knickknack dealers, stationary store, etc. Now you have an idea of what it means to prepare for a marriage! I came home and here I found more things to do: the sonnets, invitations, the banquet preparations. On the fifteenth of the last month I went to Asti. I wrote from there. Returning home we immediately began to prepare the pavilion in the midst of the courtyard and the necessary appurtenances for forty guests.

             The out-of-towners arrive and they have to be lodged. The day of the wedding arrives: hoc opus hic labor My father did not want to get involved in anything: the whole responsibility was on my shoulders, to direct the work of seven people who under my immediate supervision had the care of the wine, of the food and of the serving at tables, etc., etc.; to sing in church the relinquet homo; [“man leaves...” Gen. 2:24]; to extol at the banquet the God of holy love to make compliments on one side and receive them on the other, to sidetrack equivocal conversations, to make sure everybody has a good time: behold my multiple role on the 20th day of the month of August.

             On the 22nd of August, the guests at table changed, but the feminine party was not the lesser to discumbentibus of the two days before. We had out-of-towners for the whole week. Little by little things began to return to normal and now as I said I begin to breathe easier.

             And you, how are you doing? The theologian Elia has told me to tell you that permission to read the books at the “index” is not granted except to priests: the clerics cannot have all the privileges of Juvenal, and he who does not have this privilege must tow the line. And your little university? Do you pupils respond well to your program? Did Mr. Aluffi bring you up to date about the various events of life in Turin? What about your good Pastor? your aunt, Father, Brother, and the many others whom you already mentioned to me by name? What about Tonio Vespa? Besides the clerics of San Damiano and those who participated in the Pontifical Mass in Asti, I have not seen anyone yet. I know though that Arisio is not in too good a shape. Poor fellow! May God preserve him for the needs of His Church which has such a scarcity of good priests.

             Now I should spend a little time studying, but in a few days my relatives from Turin, both old and young, will fill my house and my head, for how long nobody knows, and I will be able to salvage only a few small pieces of time. You have already started to study, haven't you? You rogue, do you want to leave Bishop Savio speechless? All kidding aside -- -- I do not know how we will make out on All Saints Days. They say that the Bishop is strict; indeed they say that it is his intention to make us go through one or two tracts for every ordination in such a way that we shall have reviewed them all before we are ordained priests. By Jove! We sure don't need this one too, on top of everything else! We have always been the town's jackasses but now we will be doubly so. If there are roses they will blossom. [Let's wait and see.]

             By this time the twenty-five or thirty candidates of the Cathedral parish should have heard their sentence. Who will be the chosen one among the Ciattinis, Bagnaschis, Marchisios, Torchios, the Contis, etc.? Who will be the survivor in such a massacre? To which party will go the triumph? Concerning the dispositions of the seminary for the year 1867-68, I don't know anything yet. There will be some changes for sure, but for now they are kept in pectore [in the heart] of the master of the house. What is well known is that the opposing parties are locked in a dog fight and some day something will come out.

             Now I will close and will keep myself for another time when the house will be able to say to you: come to me and, if you show me the way, we will take a trip together into the hills of Agliano (by the way, did you receive the greetings I sent you from the Brother of Father Virando, the pastor of Agliano?). I will be waiting for a letter from you which may open new horizons for me and may tell me a million new things which will lift a little my spirit so downcast and tired because of the past activities and sufferings. Will you be so cruel as to deny me this comfort which I have not been able to have from anyone as yet? Oh, I know for sure that you will never do this to me; I know that within a few days, the mailman will bring me a thick letter and within it I will find a treasure of many beautiful things; I will find the one who bears my beautiful and dear name:

Joe.

P.S. Regards to all who love me.

15

TO SEMINARIAN STEPHEN ROSSETTI

News of Asti -- Political situation

Victor's wedding -- The upcoming

ordinations -- Trip to Turin

[San Martino Tanaro, September 16, 1867]

My dear friend,

             Would you believe it? In two and half months of vacation I have received the miserable amount of four letters all extracted by pliers: one from Delaude two months back, one from Faggiani, one likewise from Vandero, and recently one from Motta. To think that my brain in past days was so much in need to be restored by a friendly word and not a soul was there to do me the favor of a few lines. To leave me alone and abandoned in the vortex of the secular world? and with the most cruel cold -- bloodedness? To know exactly all the gravity of my danger and the efficacy of their help and have the courage to turn their backs on me with an inexorable: “Let it be so.”? Now that, thanks to God, I have come out from the sea to dry land, I forgive everyone with my heart, but I cannot help looking back from time to time at the perilous sea in which friends of lazy hand and weak frame had left me for so many days.

             What do you think of this tragic-comic philippic? Do you think that this Homer's humor comes from excessive concentration? These are things which would cause one to cry if they did not cause one to laugh, eh?

              Now I will tell you in a hurry all the news I know of. I found myself by accident at the pontifical mass for the Feast of the Assumption. Since they badly needed some altar servers, they picked me up in the market place on Wednesday, the day before. I feasted my eyes in contemplation of the beloved features of our bishop, always tranquil and always amiable.

             I heard about the collision of powers between the cathedral's canons and the Bishop in regard to the nomination of the administrator of the cathedral. I heard of the twenty or thirty candidates endorsed by the two parties and I found out that they have all been eliminated from the race except one who is the pastor of Cerro, a certain Sardi of Rocchetta Tanaro. I know that Ratti has married and that within days he will bring her to Asti (if he has not already done so) to begin a teacher's career at the College. I know that the bishop is short of money and that it could happen very well to him what has happened to those rulers who allow themselves to be eclipsed [in wealth] by their subjects. Oh, a canon with four or five thousand francs can certainly be more generous than a bishop penniless and without resources. I know that Gastaldi continues to stir controversies. I know that today begins the annual retreat for priests, given by the bishop with the help of the Director of the Missionaries of Genoa.

             Concerning the political situation then, I know that bankruptcy lies within a stone's throw of our door; that together with the ecclesiastical goods, the public fortune, the state, everything is in a state of liquidation (even this damned heat is in a position of liquidating our poor flesh); that the congress of Malines and that of Geneva are in the forefront with their parallel programs to accelerate the era of peace: Garibaldi and Falloux, Hugo and Dupanloup, Giulio Favre and Monsignor Verspergeu. They say that all roads lead to Rome; in this case, though, I confess that I have my doubts. Dupanloup declares war on error, on passions, on the vices of society to give it that peace which she has lost. Garibaldi preaches pacification, toleration, the liberty of all errors, of all passions, of all vices so that the satanic war of egotism of the individual against the community, of the atom which attempts to disengage itself from the molecule and from the mass may continue to flourish. Hurray to the congress of Geneva which will write the paragraphs of peace with the point of the customary dagger dipped in blood. You clowns. The free thinkers and humanitarians, those who wish to create a religion based solely on brotherhood and on love (liars) flee from a bed of a brother who calls for help, for a consoling word, and they leave him to the priest who brings life and calls himself Cardinal Alfieri, Bishop Charvaz, etc.. I know a thousand other things which you know better than I or which you can at least implicitly understand.

             Let us now talk about ourselves. First, however, I have to give you a summary report of our wedding. May heaven deliver you from the annoyances, the headaches, the chores of the situation in which I found myself. From five in the morning until midnight, I had to take care of everything, to speak to all, satisfy all. It is true that the job makes the man. To think about it dispassionately, I marvel at myself and I agree that the saying is true. Now that the affair is over, another one is getting started: the games that ladies and young people play who were not here on the great day; they will stay on, I may add, to make new friends, you may imagine with what pleasure of mine. Enough for now, I will tell you more when we see each other. Now let us pass to another time, to the future; the past has been stirred up enough.

             Motta says he wants to be at Asti for the day of the ordination and invites me to do likewise. I extend the invitation to you and to Delaude: thus we will be able to find ourselves for a moment in a concentric point and place our orbits on the same plane. Is it not true? How many things to talk about: a kind of miniature congress, a small part of congress, four lost sentinels, if these words express what I would like to say. Concerning the next ordinandi, I do not know anything. I believe Elia is slated for Fenera, Bigliani for St. Peter's, Viale for Villafranca, Surra for who knows where, and Massa for his benefice. And we? Oh, we poor fellows who walk with the great strides toward the terrible day of our ordinations. May God inspire us and assist us because woe to us if we turn out to be inept soldiers on the battlefield! Oh, if the five ordinandi (without diminishing their merit) would be all simple souls as Arisio who perhaps... I pray daily to God that He may preserve that holy young man for the decor of the sanctuary and the glory of the Catholic army; but they told me, the poor man, that he is in deep waters. Give me more up to date information and less discouraging if you can.

             And you, how are you doing? Do you think sometime of your friends? Do you remember the trip to the Sacra and the terrible siesta of St. Ambrose? Do you remember Passaglia, Levriero, Ghiringhello, Parato over seventy years old, Bardessono, Pampirio, Ferreri (sick to the point that they are making novenas for him in Turin)? In those ten days I have made such a collection of ideas and of impressions in my mind and heart that I have not been able as yet to sort out everything. The more one sees, the more one learns and life is a picture album full of photos in natural size. For example, what a beautiful view was that of “Giacon” in that solitary church of Sacra: I have talked about it to several people and all have felt exhilarated at the story; Chateaubriand would have written a beautiful page about it in his Genius. Be cheerful because one beautiful day when we will be priests we will take advantage of it by the banks of the Tiber, what do you think? Now it’s time to close. I'll be awaiting one of your letters that will break up for a time the monotony of my life. I want you to know that in spite of the noise of kids and women I keep myself invulnerable in my fortress with the drawbridges up and with flag unfurled.

             Throughout the whole week, I literally speak to no one; on Sunday, I spend time with the pastor and his associate: this is the sum of my life. If I did not have out-of-towners in my home who come and go from Turin and take over the house, I would say: come up and stay with me for awhile. But, if we cannot spend some time together at San Martino, we have to admit that we have not lost everything: we have enjoyed each other immensely at Turin, and now we have to toe the line. Therefore, to conclude the conclusion, I remind you of your obligation of a long letter telling me many wonderful things including that of getting together in Asti on the Sunday of the Ordinations.

             Love me always and remember me sometimes in your prayers. With all my heart I am your friend.

Joe Marello

             Be patient if you find in this letter not a letter but a preliminary outline, a draft of a letter.

16

TO A SEMINARIAN FRIEND

Trip to Savona -- News of Asti --

Sweetness of solitary life

[San Martino Tanaro, after Sept. 21, 1867]

             I have taken a trip: Alba -- Diano -- Millesimo -- Savona, which gives me so much to say: of the visit to the tunnel, of the Apennines, of the sea in semi-stormy weather, of the Shrine , of the birthplace of Julius II and of Gabrielo Chiabrera . I was also in Asti: an increase of five francs for room and board, diminution of personnel, other changes are being considered. Viale is already in Villafranca , the assignments of the others are uncertain. I have no news from anyone, everybody is asleep. Goria is chaplain at St Carl's. I am doing very well: the festivities are over and I am enjoying the ineffable sweetness of solitude.

             Forgive me if I have ruined your eyes . Do you want to know the reason? Because by writing a letter in a relaxed manner, I would not have been able to refrain from making the usual chitchat without end – Time is precious in these last days and I have already lost so much of it. Besides, within a few days we shall see each other – I hasten in desire that great moment. Stay healthy and always in the friendship of your

Marello.

16B

TO HIS FATHER, VINCENT

He stays in Asti with classmates to

prepare for ordination -- He has been

requested as associate pastor but

Bishop has denied request -- Will

visit Fr. Torchio soon -- Request

for a change of laundry

[Asti, July 12, 1868]

Dear Father,

             Without even noticing it, we have already spent half a month of our vacation in the most healthy and happy atmosphere imaginable. We have total control of the twenty-four hours to sleep, study, carry on a conversation, pray, eat, and be free from any distraction. Everything is proceeding in the best way possible: The Bishop is happy because he has heard no complaint about us, the staff of the Cathedral is also happy because we go there every day to offer our services; and we too are happy because we can see that everything goes exactly as we had planned. The manager of our boarding house two days ago was transferred to a better job in the country side and we are now well settled at the seminary table with lunch and supper for the modest price of thirty francs per month. This is what we had hoped for: to be left totally undisturbed.

             Binelli took possession of the parish last Wednesday. His pastor has come to ask the Bishop again to assign me as his associate pastor, but he was told that I would not be available. This caused all kinds of rumors, but nobody knows anything for sure.

             The pastor of Scurzolengo has died. The parish is one of the sickest in the Diocese for reason of its endowments. Therefore, soon there will be another associate pastor's post available.

             Our pastor, I suppose, should be back by now from his St. Ignatius' retreat. May I ask you to stop by for a visit, whenever convenient, to let him know why I'm not in town. Tell him I had hoped to see him as he was going to or coming back from the retreat and that I will pay him a visit very soon. Here there is no news except that the heat is making itself felt very fast after the last rain. I'm glad because it will do some good to the crops. I would like to ask you to send me by Wednesday by means of “putia” some bed sheets, towels, napkins, etc., to have a change of laundry. I don't think I will be able to see you next Wednesday because I suppose you will all be busy still with the threshing of wheat. In any case, I'll be waiting for a visit soon and it is not out of the question that I may make a short visit to San Martino myself. Don't forget to pay a visit to the pastor and then let me know about it.

             I have to close because my classmates are waiting for me for the Liturgy of the Hours and I've already taken too much advantage of their patience. Everything that I don't have time to say now we will talk about in person although nothing has changed from twelve days ago. May I ask you not to divulge the content of this letter for reason we already discussed on other occasions.

             Let nobody know anything until the facts are out in the open. One single word could stir up the curiosity of wanting to know what as of now is still in the hands of God. Therefore, please keep this letter under key as you would do for my previous one.

             Now I close for good and saying goodbye with my sincerest and heartfelt affection, I remain

your beloved son

Cleric Deacon Joseph

             I remind you again to send me some laundry because I am really down to nothing.