The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1882-01-28
Country Life IN Italv

a.oy living IN country village in
Hs'y writes, In the Corahiu Maoazine.
says: 11 AAD4''' Ao
lt is amazing how smart the very
y popl.s' iaoy who has any pretentions
70 being such will turn out on coca
sions' however dilapidated her home
AZURE: Two young ladies belonging to
an ola but utterly ruined family, whose
parents were too poor to keep q servant,
would dress themselves for their even.
ing walk In the most fashionable hats
ana costumes, with their fans. smelling
bottles, lace handkerchiefs and gloves.
All complete. In order to obtain these
dresses the young ladies had to con-
descend SO far as to work for the peas
ants, who paid them for the
manufacture of the smart stavs
and chemises they wear on feast
days. The attempts 1T being high
~ fashionable. combined with an en-
TIRE Ignorance of the ways of the
fasnlonable world, produce sometimee
the strangest incongruities. The laos
vel is now almost confined to the class
called " artist" that is, shopkeepers
and skilled workpeople; but a few of
tne old-fashioned ladies still keep to it.
curious specimens of decayed nobility
are to be found in these remote villages
people bearing grand names and re-
Sainlng considerable pride in their an
Client lineage, whom generations of idle
ness and unthriftiness have reduced to
extreme poverty. They are not
y
educated for any profession, and
when starvation stares them in
the face they have no resource
but to earn their bread by manual labor.
One noble count OF my acquaintance is
q carpenter another a bricklayer. I
have seen the granddaughter of
countess working in the fields. With
their fortunes, their manners deteri-
crate, until nothing but remnant of
pride remains to distinguish them from
the peasants between whose class and
theirs SO great a gulf was once fixed. I
remember nothing more melancholy
than the assemblage of these poverty
stricken mobiles I once met at the
house of the rich man of a village.
We we're at supper; and as one
ragged and dirty old man after
another came shambiing in, each
In turn was, to my great sur
prise, introduced as the descendant of
an ancient and mob family. but fallen
-"caduto" added my host, with
gesture of compassion. The old man
would then bow his head in melan-
choly acqaiescence, and casting rueful
glance at his shabby cloak with the
faded green lining, would sink into a
chair at the far end of the table. One
OF these fallen mobiles, who had taken to
house-painting, We thought it only
charitable to employ for the decoration
of our ceiling. was prepared to feel
quite a romantic interest in this un
fortunate nobleman, and to be en-
chanted with his artistic genius; but
he was SO upcommonly dirty,
and his manners we're SO little removed
from those of peasant, that
my illusions were dispelled at once
Neither did his style of decoration ex-
actly come up to my ideal, although it
was ambitious enough. A basket of
flowers soon adorned each corner of our
ceiling, and in the center, from amid
clouds and wreaths of roses, a rather
shapeless Cupid began to be delineated.
In the middle of the work the artist,
hose temper was short and whose
lings were sensitive, took offense las
eupposed) at some unintentional
ht on our part. Without the slight
EXPLANATION he departed one day.
ing the Cupid minus one leg and
arm, and returned no more. Poor
Cupid |!