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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, |
