The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

And yet in the choice of these words and this
fashion there lies something more, we suspect,
than a mere effort at questionable wit. The
truth is, that the entrance of a woman into the
literary arena is, in Italy, a step not only rare
enough, but irregular enough, to suggest in her
who takes it some of that self-mistrust which so
closely simulates self-condemnation. The posi-
tion of the fair sex in this, the Garden of Europe,
smacks still not a little of the Oriental. And if
this is true, more or less, for the whole of the
Ausonian peninsula, from the Alps to Cape
Spartivento, it is specially true for the favoured
region of which our friend Virginia is a native--
the region which suns itself in the warm blessings
poured from that fountain of enlightened freedom
and incorruptible justice, the throne, namely, of
Rome's most pious and worthy son, servant, and
stay, King Bomba.
The toilet and the kitchen are generally con-
sidered by, orthodox Italians as representing the
two foci of the female orbit, and it is round these
alone that the woman can decorously revolve.
Cookery she may study in all its branches, both
theoretical and practical. Here even the eccle-
siastical censor forgets his dread office, and inno-
vation itself may win acceptance and approval.
The cultivation of the decorative arts, again—in
their personal applications—is thrown open to
the Italian female intellect ; and it must be
allowed that, here, opportunity and material are
generally supplied with a liberal hand.
But further than this, society is neither exigent
nor even indulgent. Reading and writing, for
instance—particularly the latter—are by no means
regarded (unless in the upper circles) as necessary
parts of a girl's education. In the great majority
of female schools for the middle and lower
classes, sewing, repeating. the " Pater Noster "
and the " Ave Maria " in Latin, and perhaps
just enough familiarity with the printed words of
the Breviary to recognize at sight the prayers
already learnt by heart, comprise the whole cur-
riculum.* As for writing and arithmetic, both
are, although peradventure borne upon the pro-
spectus, as essentially " extras " as music or
drawing. The lady who presides over such an
establishment rarely, if ever, pretends to impart
these recondite studies herself. It is her son, her
brother, or her cousin, the Pretino, the young
candidate for Orders, who undertakes this arduous
duty, if any among the fair scolarine are revolu-
tionary enough in their aspirations to claim his
services. _ _

This statement may, very possibly, be regarded
with considerable scepticism by many—as it will
assuredly be denied point-blank by some. The
sceptics will be rife among those numerous
loungers in the Florentine Cascine and on the
Roman Monte Pincio, who fondly believe that
the periodical respiration of Italian air and con-
templation of Italian scenery supply all that is
required to constitute an intimate acquaintance
with Italy. The denials will proceed from a far
more formidable phalanx—from the Italians them-
selves ! With nations, as with individuals, there
is no more trying humiliation than the contrast of
present debasement with past grandeur ; and in
the finely organized and sensitive Italian we
must not be surprised if a feeling like this begets
an emulous concealment of home shortcomings
which would throw Caleb Balderstone quite into
the shade. During a residence of many years in
Italy, and a familiar intercourse with various
classes of society, we found this invariably the
case. Only by personal observation or indirect
admission could the many plague-spots be de-
tected which sully that social frame, so rich in
all the elements of perfection, and yet so sadly, so
strikingly imperfect. Any direct questioning—
any show, even, of inquisitiveness—awoke at once
the feeling alluded to ; and from that moment all
reliance upon statements and replies was at
an end.
In the matter above touched upon—the stan-
dard of female education even up to the middle
classes in Italy—we find an unexpected as unim-
peachable witness, ready to band, in the work
before us. " Carlo Guelfi " stands pretty nearly
alone among Italian novels, inasmuch as in it the
historical walk is abandoned to which these, from
Manzoni to Canal, have been hitherto exclusively
confined, and an attempt is made to place the
scenes and actors of our own day before us. Let
us see, then, in what colours the author draws the

• We may judge from this the real value of the imposiug
educational statistics given in Morichin:'s otherwise excellent
work "Degl' latituti di 13011011000Z11 publics a Rona."

1087

aeconda donna of her dramatis persona—the
daughter of Don Francesco Saverio, a Neapolitan
barrister of influence and repute, in the year of
grace 1837 :

Filomena was eighteen years old, blooming, attractive'
and gsy, with superb bltek hair, black eyebrows, long eye-
lashes, and black eyes, sparkling with almost a phosphatic
lustre. And in their impetuous passions, the movement of
these eyes was so rapid and decided, that their flashes
glanced light upon the rising thought, ere the girl's heedless
words had time openly to express it. Her stature was about
the average; her figure voluptuously rounded, with rosy
cheeks and vermillion lips—the latter somewhat full, and
naturally fashioning themselves into a smile, which dis-
played a row of brilliantly white and even teeth.
" I don't wish her to be taught reading and writing,"
Don Francesco hed deci.led—" because girls who can read
and write can easily keep up an epistolary correspondence
with their sweethearts, and I don't mean to allow either
sweethearts or epistles."+ Filomena therefore remained
innocent of the alphabet (ancifabela is the concise
Greecism used by our author), and all the more hopelessly
from the shudder of horror awakened in her mother by the
term " epistolary," which had been proffered by the
learned advocate with a gravity and emphasis sufficient
alone to ratify for ever his exalted prohibition.
Thus the instruction which Filomena might have drawn
from good books was honourably bartered for that commu-
nicated to her by the juvenile womankind who on various
pretexts frequented the house. As for the finishing touch
to this instruction, that also was self supplied—in the
time when these fair damsels,—some a little more,
some a little less ignorant than herself,— managed,
unknown to their anxious mothers, to bring their small
heads together in secret council. It was grand on these
occasions to see, amid so much wisdom, what noble emula-
tion in experience was manifested among them. Things
might be heard in those assemblies of which no well
educated girl knows anything—or, if she does know, will
make mention to anybody.
Among these young ladies the possession of a lover was
an absolute necessity. Not to possess one was regarded as
proof positive of deficient merit. And by dint of egging
each other on, of mutual taunts, of affecting to regard such
deficiency, or rather such a scandalous anomaly, as impos-
sible, they came at last to turn every thought to the duty
of conforming themselves to the general rule, and giving
proof of their merit.
Filomena was not long in following the example of her
friends. She too must needs take as a lover the first
youth who cast an admiring glance at her—that glance
which, with its headstrong impetuosity, says to the inex-
perienced girl, " I love you! I have need of your love ; I
must have it." And she, poor child ! was touched by that
glance, felt convinced that he would be miserable without
her love--and loved him. She loved him, received a note
from him—a facsimile of many others,— got it read to her,
and shut up its every word in her heart. Poor heart ! it
had such a wealth of affection !
But what is she to do P She wishes to reply and cannot.
She mistrusts others, and is ashamed to confess her own
ignorance ; and, with the dread that accident may some day
reveal her canning, she chooses the shortest road, and
invites her lover to come privately, at certain hours, to
speak with her through a little grating in the house•door.
Measuring the youth's affection by the force of his
words and their effect upon herself, she holds the former
to be true and infallible because the latter are warm,
profuse, and bold.
Trusting in the love of her William (such is the youth's
name), every interview brings her nearer to ruin. The
mother knows nothing of this passion, and the daughter
has already made of it the very element of her life.
The self-defeat of Don Francesco's " analpha-
betical " theory of female education is not ill
worked out here. Indeed, the character of
Filomena is drawn, through all its phases of pas-
sion, repentance, and purification, with a truth to
nature (Italian nature, mind !) which redeems
many serious defects in the book. Let us hasten,
in justice to Filomena's fair fame, to explain that
the " repentance " alluded to is not consequent
upon that disastrous issue of the " passion ' which
our last-cited paragraph would seem to antici-
pate. " William ' turns out a far more moral
youth than is often found among his confraternity
of medical students either at home or abroad.
Dissecting his own feelings—for, like Descartes,
he seems to handle with equal skill both the phy-
sical and the metaphysical scalpel—he detects the
entire absence of the matrimonial element therein,
and, by an honourable impulse, declares off at
once. In the anguish of her despair, Filomena—
urged on by that inevitable evil Genius of
enamoured young ladies, a wicked and designing
servant-girl—seeks the aid and counsel of a
renowned witch, who, finding the case a difficult
one, recommends a personal application to the
fountain-head of all unhallowed lore—his Satanic
Majesty himself.
Noteworthy testimony to the genuineness of
the colours in which our author dips her pencil
is borne by the fact that no one of the personages
to whom this fearful step of Filomena becomes
afterwards known expresses any other feeling

4. It may be worth while to mention that thir is pi etisei) the
reason for not teaching girls to write, which the reviewer
has heard assigned in a far more advanced province of Italy
than Naples—in the birth•land of Dante and of Petraroh.