The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1882-02-08
Country Life in Italy.

A lady living in a country village in
Italy writes, in the CornhM Magazine.
of her neighbors and their habits. She
says:
It is amazing how smart the very
poorest lady who has any pretentions
to being such will turn out on occa-
sions, however dilapidated her home
attire. Two young ladies belonging to
an old but utterly ruined family, whose
parents were too poor to keepa servant,
would dress themselves for their even
ing walk in the most fashionable hats
and costumes, with their fans, smelling
bottles, lace handkerchiefs and gloves,
all complete. Ia 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 veal on feast
days. The attempts IT being high
" fashionable. combined with an en-
tire ignorance of the ways of the
fashionable world, produce sometimee
the strangest inc~ongruities. The laos
veil is now almost confined to the class
called artisti"-that is, shopkeepers
and skilled workpeople; but a few OF
the 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-
tanning considerable pride in their an
cient lineage, whom generations of idle
ness ard unthriftiness have reduced to
extrenl, poverty. They are not
educated for any profession, and
when starvation stares them IN
the face they have no resource
but to earn their bread by manual II bor.
One noble count of my acquaintance is
a carpenter; another a bricklayer:
have seen the granddaughters Of a
countess working in the fields. With
their fortunes, their manners deteri-
crate, until nothing but a remnant OF
pride remains to distinguish them from
the peasants between whose class and
theirs so great a gulf was once fixed. ]
remember nothing mCre melancholy
than the a~ssemblage of these poverty
stricken mobiles I once met at the
house OF the rich man of a village.
We were at supper; and as one
ragged and dirty old man after
another came shambling in, each
in turn was, to my great sur.
prise, introduced as the descendant OF
an ancient and noble family. but fallen
-"caduto"-added my host, with a
gesture of compassion. The old man
would then bow his head in melan-
choly acquiescence, and casting q rueful
glance at his shabby cloak with the
faded green lining, would stink into o
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. I was prepared to feel
quite a romantic interest in this un.
fortunate %nobleman, and to be en-
ehanted with his artistic genius; but
he was so uncommonly dirty,
and bis manner were so little removed
from those Of a 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 o adorned each corner of our
ceiling, and in the center, from amid
clouds and wreaths of roses, q rather
shapeless Cupid began to be delineated.
In the middle of the work the artist,
whose temper was short and whose
feelings were sensitive, took offense las
We supposed) at some u%nintentional
slight on our part. Without the slight
est explanation he departed n day,
leaving the Cupid minus n leg and
one arm, and returned no more. Poor
Cupid