Then and Now

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

HISTORIANS need not write heavy books to explain that times change: let them publish a few letters from each era, and the trick is done. A glance at the two letters which follow shows the truth of this statement. Both were written by young people, ‘in their teens,’ and both are descriptive of the places where they found themselves.

The first was in the mahogany sewing-box, inlaid with satinwood, lined with faded crimson satin, and furnished with tiny ivory sewing implements, which was left to us by our great-aunt. The yellowed pages are not complete; but as the writer refers to his twentieth birthday, and the date is 1857, we can place him fairly well.

The second letter was found on the street, evidently having blown off the ashman’s cart. Being unsigned and impersonal, it seems possible to publish it as a sign of the times.

The first letter is dated from ‘The Inn of the Lily of Laughing Tuscany,’ Pistoja, Italy, and runs: —

The morning of my twentieth Birthday May 1, 1857

It is such a pleasure, my dear Lucy, to be seated at my table, this lovely morning, with my books about me, and my brain refreshed by dreamless sleep. My cares in running the house in Cambridge before our dear Mother’s death did sit rather heavily upon my shoulders, and it is a joy to me to sit here and think that no calculations as to whether shad or sheep is cheaper today need bother me. The servants come and go in the courtyard below, but I am not disturbed by thoughts that later they must be fed, and the lights may burn all night for aught I care. I have no conscious agony over coming bills!

How many times I wish that you were here, dear Lucy; and my thoughts are not wholly unselfish, for you, and you alone, know how to trim my quills to a decent point. What struggles I have to keep myself supplied with anything comfortable or practicable, and how many times I have to fall back upon prosaic steel! Thoughts of the library at Cambridge, with my dear cousin seated by the open fire sharpening my pens, bring such thoughts of homesickness, that I think I will at once plunge into a description of my arrival at the Lily of Laughing Tuscany.

This is a charming Inn, one of the pleasantest I have as yet encountered on the Grand Tour. I arrived here on a cheerless and rainy twilight evening, in a heavily-built, and somewhat shabby traveling coach, which may once have belonged to some Milord di Londra. It entered the gate of the ancient and stately city of Pistoja, with a flourish, and drew up at the doorway of the Inn. The vetturino was a beetle-browed, thick-set, thick-headed countryman of Boccaccio and Macchiavelli, spattered with mud, and with a complexion no less muddy than his boots. As he opened the door, my fellow passengers alighted first. I had passed some six hours with these two, who were plainly husband and wife, and from the United States. The gentleman had slept most of the way in the swaying, jolting vehicle, and the only time he had addressed me had been in the language of the country. As I was wrapped in one of those large, brigandish cloaks which I had purchased at Bologna, and had answered him in the same tongue, he had no reason to think I was not what I seemed — a somewhat melancholy traveling Italian youth. I would have made myself known, had there been a good opportunity to do so; but the feeling of traveling incognito was very interesting.

The gentleman, then, alighted. He wore a cloak which looked like a dressing-gown, as it was blue and orange plaid, checked off in large squares with green and black. His temper seemed as infirm as his body, and as the coachman held the door open for him, touching his hat and murmuring something about ‘ buonamana’ the old gentleman pushed him sternly aside with a word or two of very pure English, in which a passerby might have caught ‘Scoundrel’ for one word, and, possibly, ‘Damned’ for another!

The next time I saw the elderly gentleman and his gentle spouse was when we met in the dining room of the trattoria for dinner. The gentleman was warming his feet before the small open fire, and complaining about the sheets on his bed, which he said were ‘damp, unaired linen, as he knew by just touching them.’ As it was necessary for us to join forces if all were to get the benefits of the fire, I introduced myself, and we were soon comfortably comparing notes on Italy and America, for the Stepgoods were themselves from Hingham, Massachusetts, and knew many of our Cambridge relatives. The gentleman was on a trip for his health, accompanied by his good wife who took every care of him, and whose patience I never saw equaled.

Mr. Stepgood declared that the wine would not be fit to drink and that he must have tea with his supper. He added in the next breath that there was no decent tea in Europe, and that he had been damnably cheated in London where he had paid half a guinea for a quarter of a pound of tea. He exclaimed irascibly, ‘I suppose Mrs. Stepgood has lost it by this time, too.’

Mrs. Stepgood said sweetly, ‘No, Mr. Stepgood, it is right here in my dressing bag. I always keep that with me until I feel sure of the servants in these European hotels.’

She produced the tea, and a pair of thin silver spoons, and rang the bell for a servant. None came, and she rang several times. Mr. Stepgood by this time had changed his mind, and thought he might like some mulled wine. I offered to try to discover the kitchen and raise a saucepan, a lemon and the wine itself.

‘And sugar,’ said Mr. Stepgood crossly; ‘Mrs. Stepgood never would remember the sugar if it were n’t for me!’

Mrs. Stepgood poked in the interior of the dressing bag again, and triumphantly produced several lumps of the commodity. She held them out to Mr. Stepgood. ‘Stolen from the last supper table, no doubt,’scolded the invalid; ‘but no matter, it will help me to warm my cold bed.’

I left the room, and hunted down various dark passages until I came to the Malebolge which serves for a kitchen to the Lily of Laughing Tuscany. It was a picturesque room, and if not underground, it seemed to be. The occasional beat of a horse’s hoof clattering on the stones of his stall, and the slight odour of hay indicated that the room was on the border land between man and beast. The hearth was raised three or four steps from the floor, and on it the fire flickered, casting long shadows into the surrounding gloom. At either end was a smokejack, some two yards in length; and at one side was a seat with a very high back for the convenience of late comers on a cold and rainy night. In the middle of the room was a long table, and at one end of it a picture composed itself which Correggio might have painted. Amid the blackness and vagueness which gave a certain sublimity to the smoky rafters sat a young man as handsome as Raffaelle, leaning his hand upon his arm, and lighted by the dim radiance of one of those tall brass lamps that travelers in Italy so greatly admire, and whose light is not equal to that of one good firefly. The youth was reading his dingy book with such rapt attention — (The letter ends here).

DEAR DICK:—
The All-American Girl has just blown in from her first trip on the Nile, and found your letter waiting. Say, Kid, you have no idea how good the little old U. S. A. stamp looked to yours truly. Have been on the go ever since we struck these shores. Took a look around Rome a couple of weeks ago, seeing more historical spots than I ever knew were in the world. None of them meant anything to me, so we won’t dwell on that much. Saw some swell ruins by moonlight — looked a lot like the Stadium; you know, the place where they used to run a freelunch counter for the lions, with Christians àla king. Then blew down here; nothing much doing, too many old fossils on board. One of the party who steers us around is beginning to take notice, and I must say he is very Sheik (get me, kiddo?), but I ’ll never have a chance so long as the Dame in charge of us girls has her eyesight. Bought a new ring yesterday which is easy to look at, one of those big bugs or something, mummified. I ’ll wear it the next time we take in a toddle party. Lord! Will I ever get back to the Big Country, and be a human being again! When I trip over the pond next time, I ’ll have a husband along to show me the sights. Fond of travel, Priceless?
Long about July 1st, have a brass band down to the station, for the AllAmerican will breeze over on the five o’clock that afternoon, and believe me, child, you ’ll look good to me. Your sea-going hack will have no terrors for me now I’ve ridden a camel, I ’ll tell the world. Farewell, Bozo, till we meet, and have lots of pinwheels and skyrockets ready for a big step-out on my return. Bye.