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A strange fellow—a half-Italian, half-English priest,—who was recommended to me by my guardians, partly as a spiritual, partly as a temporal guide, has let me into a secret or two; he is fond of a glass of gin and water—and over a glass of gin and water cold, with a lump of sugar in it, he has been more communicative, perhaps, than was altogether prudent.
The two are Sismondi and Foscolo. Two or three years after Alfieri's death, somewhere about the year 1806 or 1807, there was introduced to Mme. d'Albany a sort of half-Italian, half-French Swiss, a man young in years and singularly young with the peculiar earnestness, gravity, purity which belongs sometimes to youth in spirit, Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi.
In Henry III. she had as pliant an instrument for her will as in the two brothers preceding him; and, like them, his reign was spent in alternating conflict with the Protestants and the Duke of Guise. At last, wearied and exasperated, this half-Italian and altogether conscienceless king quite naturally thought of the stiletto.
That had been a record rainy season, and the organ-grinder and the monkey had both sickened for the sun, and would have died if old Lady O'Gara, who was half-Italian herself, had not heard the tale and sent the man back to his own country. "He'd be askin' Mr. Terence to forgive him because maybe he was vexed wid him about poor Bridyeen," Patsy had often thought since.
The houses are mostly of that curious half-Italian, half-Oriental style which we find in almost all Southern and Eastern seaports. They are usually painted white, with green shutters to the windows, and are often surrounded by broad verandas.
And writing these words makes me hear those readings again—makes me hear, through the open casement of the quaint old house, the blackbirds from the home field trying in vain to rival the music of that half-Italian, half-English voice. To have been admitted into such a charmed circle I look upon as one of the greatest privileges of my life.
The next woman who took a stand that revealed genuine social consciousness was that half-French, half-Italian woman, Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet. She seceded from court because the court was swaggering and hurly-burly, with florid Marie-de-Medicis at its head.
The half-French, half-Italian Vetturino, who undertook, with his little rattling carriage and pair, to convey us thither in three days, was a careless, good-looking fellow, whose light-heartedness and singing propensities knew no bounds as long as we went on smoothly.
With little respect for the carved work of the panels, the walls were covered with pictures brought by Sir Miles from Italy; here and there marble busts and statues gave lightness to the character of the room, and harmonized well with that half-Italian mode of decoration which belongs to the period of James the First.
The Misses Holland were interested in his story, pleased with the idea of softening and refining the child, half-Italian, half-Londoner, and made things easy for the bronzed and handsome father; with the result that from that time Toni's connection with the Council School ceased, and she became a boarder, on surprisingly low terms, at the aforesaid School for Young Ladies; where she remained until she was close on seventeen.
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