The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1883-08-24
DREAMY ITALIAN DAYS.
MUSINGS on Como's Cool aud Lovely Shores
Beneath the Soft and Azure Skies
of Sunny Italy.
Modern Italians Abandon Old Religious and
Political Creeds Tor Free Thought
and Republicanism.
American Artists in Rome Making Use of the
Brains and Skill OF Others Tor rr.
Masterpieces.

Masterpieces.
BELIAeIo. Lake Como. Italy, Special Core
spoDdence, July COL have retreated bither
to this mountain region to write my weekly
letter--an exercise for which Central Italy is
at present rather too warm. Four DAYS of
Venice and four of Rome are quite enough al
thls particular season. even when one does not
go entirely for pleasure, but partly in the per
iormance of journalistic duty. / write YOU
sotdAy from the most picturesque town on the
prettisss lake in the world. Bel
lssio is in the very middle of
Lake Como, on the northern point Of
the fifteen mile long peninsula that divides the
lake in twain. This hotel sits steeply on the
hillside, the shore terraced and lowor-coyered
down 10 the lake in front, and a garden full Of
bloom and fruitage rising along the slope be-
hind, through olives, orange trees, gigantic
aioes, rhodolendrous and oica lders growa
into trees, and ,nagnolias bearing great bios
SONS as large as my hat, full of delicious fra
GRANGE, The horizon is thick. set with mount
aims from 5000 to IL, 900 feet high, those to
the north covered with snow and bearing icy
rivulets suspended on their sides, which
glisten in the monday sun. NV
north window looks upon these
mountains and the lake between which, as the
hours pass, turns from blue TO a peacock
green, from green to purple, according to the
varying light and the reflection of the hills.
The water-surface is no more changesble or
opalescent than that Of our Lake George, to
which Lake Como is ofton compared; and, in
deed, the two sheets OF water have many
points of resemblance. Lake George is su-
perlor IN possession Of a hundred islands,
an element of beauty which Como wholly
lacks; but the cliffs here are far higher and
more precipitous, sometimes overhanging the
water up a sheer ACTIVITY Of three or
four thousand feet, aud the torch of
fire and the moulding fingers of storm
have been here. supplemented by the skillful
hand of man, till every mountain scar seems
masked with vines, every lettering crag stayed
by a pretty arch, and every hoyden rivulet
turned into a creature of grace and loveliness.
Nature nnadorned, spite of the poet, is often
very ugly. l am sure that the sight Of these
Alpine peaks around, with glacier-brooks
caughtin their descent and hung aloft like
jewelry, with tired clouds resting in the hol-
lowe half way down, and little white villages
bore aud there, and Invisible shepherds tend
ing invisible cattle, and churches hanging over
cliffs without any obvious congregation, and
vineyards trailing lower still, and the dainty
manipulation Of art and culture every
whore along the shore, revealing gar
dens, orchards, mounting terraces. rustic
bridges, romantic viaducss, mimic b~astions,
turrets and Iowers-I am sure this is superior
to the majestic but still barbarous framing of
Americas most beautiful lake. There are not
many people at Bellagio now, the season being
A mil Nov anH TNnn Sn,l,,,lar n,t,lar a.l
November But we do not find it very warm,
and the lakes are call that can be desired" A
lady of our party is badly mashed on the sub
feet of mountains. She insists on a constant
diet of mountains; in this respec. she is a
+. G.-perfectly Unsuitable girl. When che
gets home she will insist on having a mountain
IA volcano, if p~ossible) to set in the front yard.
Coming through the Mt Gents pass she stood
up almost all the way for nine hours and
rhapsodi2ed about the snow-capped mountains
that lanked the way. Any suggestion that she
sit down and rest was resented as fiat bias
phemy. So we shall stay here for s week and
take one lofty range for a daily ration and an
extra peak Through a field glass; for lunch,
ART N RELIGION IN ROME.
There is not much new to write you about
the ruins Of Rome which is not so su-
perfuous s sentence as it frat appears. More
than half of the classic ruins have been dis
closed to view within the last twenty-five years,
when Napoleon III. seriously began the work
of excavation. Since his detilronement it has
been carried forward languidly, aud at present
the remainder of the Roman forum is being
uncovered at the rate Of half an acre a year.
a few good statues have been found this year,
but nothing of primary importance aud little
that will be used TO illustrate the progress of
art Rome is the center of the study Of sculpt-
ure, as Paris is Of painting. There are here
more than 1000 artists and students of art,
from all quarters of the globe. There is one
student here from Patagonia; several from ia
pan and China aud the Sandwich and Society
islands. There are eight or ten Americana
none Of them studen!s, I am afraid, all of
them professors and practitioners People Of
other nationallties como to Rome to study;
Americans generally como to so to work and
tsculp" at once. An artist told me:
81 have never known but two Americans, beside
myself. who came here aud honestly went to study
ing. They generally come aud set up a studio the
drst thing: take q few lessons of some impecunious
Italian, sc. some clay. and go to work-fshing for
orders. II they got o commission. good luckl
They then hire an artist, generally au Italian. to
make a model for them, and then hire workmen to
make the statue. ] can mention half a dozen
artists whose names stand high in America, who
got their regulations on work conceived and exc
cu:ed almost wholly by Italians, aud I know SOM
Of the meu who did the work. Rogers has always
made his own models, 7 believe: so has Mrs. Phin-
ney. who received severe training in our schools
hcre; so has Bartlett. But a majority Of the
American %sculptors have been pretenders, when
Tor thirty francs q year for tuition they might have
thoroughly qualified themselves by a full course in
the Royal Institute"
"Religious?" he continued in reply to my question,
mo; no men in Italy are religious excepting the
priests and some of the peasants. I mean what I
say-aimos. literally none. l know scores Of art
lists, lawyers, doctors, educated men. hundreds,
perhaps, and l do not remember one single re-
lisious man among them all. There is, Of course.
now and then a religious man here who is not abso-
lutely i~lliternte, but be is regarded with astonish-'
ment. ii not with scoru. I heard two young artists
yesterday talk about a companion. There's Fig
zacio,' said one, a bright fellow, a fair artist, en-
lightened and respected-what can we hope for
Italy when such a man as he Is goes to church. to
prayer. and even to confession?' This shows the
feeling. The better class OF Italians-that is, the
educated and the propertyholders-say the church
is for women and children. q thing for the weak
and timi1, and for lawbreakers, but we will have
none of it So, though technically Catholics, be-
cause bora into the church, tSsy neglect allits rites,
defy its penalties, and call its priests and monks
baggarozZi'-that is. cockroacheS In France they
90 by the kindred name Of black slugs.' because
they do 40 good and yet help eat the crops
"salitics? Well, the men who hate tho priests
hate also the kings and mobiles Sksptics to the
church are also skeptics to royalty. They class the
soldiers with the priests-as the lazy devourers Of
the substance. of the working people. These are
Republicans. aud the Republican party Is con-
,stau.ly growing all over italy. Ths wisest Of the
party see that the hour has not yet como: that the
PEASANTS are too dull witted to see their own iE-
,rests At once: and Humbert and Marguerite are.
'udent and modest But 1t is tina general opinion
4 R,publicans in Italy that Humbsrt will mover
have a successor. Isay I do not know q religious
man among my friends, and 1t follows, Of course,
that / scarcely know q Royalist. The educated men