The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-09-17
THE BIRTHPLACE OF Leo
PAEsDI.

books OF religious anu polltical cnar-
acter; the religion very bigoted. the
politics very reaciionary His library
was the largest anywhere in that re-
gion, but he seems not TO have learned
wisdom in it, and though otherwise 4
blameless man, he used his son, who
grew to manhood differing from him
in all his opinions, with rigor that
was scarcely less than cruel. He was
bitterly opposed to what was called
progress, to religion and civil liberty;
he was devoted to what was called
order, which merely meant the exist
ing order of things, the diyinely APP
pointed prime, the infallible priest.
He had a medi9ya taste, aud ne made
his palace at Recanati as much like
feudai castle as he could with all sort
of baronial bricabrac. An armed vas
sal at his gate was out of the question,
but at the door of his own chamber
stood an effigy in rusty armor, bearing
a furnished halberd He abhorred the
fashions of our century, and wore those
of an earlier epoch; his wife, who shar-
ed his prejudices and opinions, fantas-
tically appareled herself to look like
the portrait of some gentlewoman OF
as remote date. Halls hung in dam
ask, vast mirrors in carven frames,
and stately furniture of antique form
attested throughout the palace ''the
splcndor of a race which, il its fortunes
had somewhat declined. still knew how
to maintain its ancient decorum."
In this home passed the youth and
manhood of poet who no sooner began
20 think for himself than he began to
think the things most discordant to his
fathers principles and ideas. He be-
lieved in neither the religion Aor the
politics of his race; he cherished with
the desire of literary achievement that
vague faith in humanity, in freedom,
in the future, against which the Count
Monaldo had so sternly set his face; he
chafed under the restraints of his faith
er's authority, and longed for some es-
cape into the world. The Italians
sometimes write of Leopardfs unhap-
piness, with passionate condemnation
of his father; but neither was Count
Monaldo's part an enviable one, and it
was certainly not at this period that
he had all the wrong in his differences
with his SON. Nevertheless, it is pa
thetic to read how the heartsick, frail,
ambitious boy, when he found some ar
ticle in a newspaper that greatly pleas
ed him, would write to the author and
ask his friendship. When these Jour
nalists, who were possibly not the
wisest pubiicists of their time, so far
responded to the young scholars adj
yances as to give him their personal
acquaintance as we'll as their friend
n11 |,
a courteous tolerance, which had no
kindness in it for their progressive
ideas. He lived in dread of his sons
becoming involved in some of the
many plots then Matching against
order and religion, and he repressed
with all his strength Leopardns revo-
lutionary tendencies, which must al
ways have been mere matters of senti-
ment, and not deserving of great rig
or.
He seems not so much to have loved
Italy as 10 have hated Recanati. 1t is
Il small village high up in the Apen-
mines, between Loreio and Macerata,
and Is chiefly accessible in oX-carts.
Small towns everywhere are dull, and
perhaps are not more deadly SO in
Italy than they are elsewhere, but
there they have u peculiar obscure,
narrow Lie indoors. Outdoors there
is little lounginE around the cafe,
little stir on holidays among the lower
classes and the neinhboring peasants,
great deal Of gossip at all times, and
hardly anything more. The local no.
bleman, perhaps, cultiVates literature,
as Lcopardi's father did; there is al
ways some G65ute housing around in
the local archives and writing pamph-
lets on disputed points of the local his
tory; anu there is the parish priest, to
form the polite society OF the place.
As if this social barrenness were not
enough, Recanati was physically hurt
ful to Leopard: the climate was very
tickle; the harsh, damp ar was cruel
to his nerves. He says il seems to him
a den where no good or beautiful thing
ever comes, he bewails the common
ignorance; in Recanati there is
no love for letters, for the human
izing arts; nobody frequents his
fathers great library, nobody buys
books, nobody reads the newspa-
pers. Yet this forlorn and detest-
able little town has one good thing: it
has pre-emlnentiy good Italian ac-
cent, better even, he thinks, than the
Roman; which would be greater con-
ISOLATION to an Italian than we can well
understand. Nevertheless it was not
society, and it did not make his fellow
townsmen endurable to him; he recoil-
ed from them more and more, and the
solitude in which he lived among his
books filled him with a black melan-
choly, which he describes as q poison,
corroding the life of body and soul
alike. To friend who tries to recon-
Gle him to Recanati he writes: at is
very well to tell me that Plutarch and
Alteri loved Cheronea and Asst: they
loved them but they left them; and so
shall | love my native place when l am
away from it. Now say hate it be-
cause | am in it. To recall the spot
where ones childhood days were pass
ed is dear and sweet; it is a fine say
ing, Here you were born, and here
Providence wills you to stay All
very well. Say to the sick man striv-
ing to be well that he is flying in the
face of Providence; tell the poor man
struggling to advance himself that he
is defying heaven; bid the Turk beware
of haDtisn for Cod has mazda him, a