The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-25
BEAUTY THAT KILLS.
Cities of Parasites--ItaIy's Historic
and other Beauties.

and Other Beauties.
Cecil Chesterton, in the outlook.
I have only just returned from Wis
ting Florence and Venice for the first
time. After all that has been said
of their incompatible loneliness I did
not find myself disappointed. And yet,
when brought back to the gray eddies
of my native city, there was certain
feeling of relief mingled with regret
at leaving so much beauty. Let me
try to explain.
No one passing through the great
show-cities of modern Italy can fail,
IL he is a careful observer, to be struck
by two things: firstly the unexampled
splendor of their past, and secondly
the devitalized sadness of their pres
ent condition. From end to end Flor
ence and Venice are cities Of para
sites-rich parasites who keep hotels,
and poor parasites who exhibit physi-
cal deformities at street corners. Sell
dom is one of the citizens to be seen
doing any vigorous or useful work.
Shopkeepers there are and touts and
beggars, and ciceroni, but apparently
no producers. And, as a result, signs
of the inevitable decentralization follow
the servility to the rich, the insincer-
ity, the idle gambling spirit of a race
of MASTERS.
What is the cause of all this? One
thing is certain--it is no question of
racial degeneracy. Much nonsense is
talked about the decadence of the Lat
in races. Go outside the show cities
and look at the men in the fields. and
more especially at their splendid, dark
skinned, deep-bosomed womenfolk; a
no rfc At Ca II. T..
own agricultural laborers will strike
you. No; there is nothing wrong with
the Italians as a race. In Southern
Italy, no doubt, where the corrupt
leaVings of the Roman Empire still
linger, they seem degenerate enough,
but the Lombard or the Tuscan is.
on the whole, as fine a type physically
and morally as Europe can show.
Again, the theory that bad govern
ment is responsible for all the evils
OF modern Italy is not entirely salts
flying. No doubt the government has
many serious faults: the taxation, for
example, is terribly severe. and the
people are consequently reduced to a
state of deplorable poverty. But this
does not touch the question under dis
cussion. Taxation presses with espe-
cial severity on the rural districts,
where the evils I speak of are not to
be found, and the curse of the cities
is not that money is scarce, but rather
that it is too plentiful and too easily
acquired. The cause, in fact, lies deep
er than any system of government,
good or bad, can penetrate,
Florence and Venice and the rest
are cursed with the burden of a most
dangerous legacy from their past-the
legacy Of beauty. Because of this
beauty (Which the people themselves
do not enjoy the rich Of all nations
flock to them, bringing full purses and
disposition to spare no expense. The
native begins to regard these visitors
as his natural prey. Why should he
work when foreigners are so easily
fieeced? Accordingly, he does not
work--at least in the productive sense;
he touts and begs and sells ornaments
at three times their real value. The
victory instead Of going to strength
goes to weakness. Parents OF the poor
er class look upon a deformed or Grip
pied child as a blessing, since its pitt
full helplessness makes it a more eff
cient beggar. Into these cities, where
such fine harvest can be gathered on
such easy terms, the strong industrious
peasantry are sucked till they become
idle, demoralized gamblers. And all be-
cause they are the most beautiful
places in the world; because their past
is so glorious that strangers come from
the ends of the earth to see it's grave.
Thus the modern F'lorentlne lives, like
some horrible cannibal, upon his own
dead.
And the irony goes further; for a
sense of beauty is one of the fruits of
the healthy life of a people, and can
have no existence apart from such life
So that the beauty of the great towns
Of Italy in destroying their life has
committed a kind of matricide, de-
stroying the love of beauty in the
heart of the people which had created
1t. The modern Italian is the most
indrtistic person in the world. Look at
his gibbering gimcrack sculpture and
his gaudy snoShish decorations, and
ask yourself If the art-sei sc Of Lon
don stockbroker would not be revolted
by them. And these are the things
he really thinks beautiful. He XII, ws
that foreigners admire his cities,
though he cannot conceive why; but
since their beauty brings money to his
pocket he is delighted and strives to
beautify them-with indescribable re-
suits. Thus has the splendor of Italy
killed not the life only but itself.
Do not let the argument be misun-
derstood. am no Puritan enemy
of the arts. Beauty of form and color
are more necessary to me than to
most people, but a people in a healthy
condition will always produce as much
of these as 1t wants for itself Nor
do 1 regard the relics of the past as
generally demoralizing to their inherit |