MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Italian Mode of Living 
When this is finished, it, is covered with a ooat- 
is like that of the French, in apartments, so ing of plaster, that applying directly to the 
OUR EUROPEAN LETTER. 
Venice, June, 1873. 
The railway from Rome to Florence runs 
through a delightful valley between the Apen¬ 
nines, and for miles on the day I left the “ Eter¬ 
nal City," the track was bordered as far as one 
could see on either side with fields of scarlet 
oppios. Nothing could have 
been brighter and gayer than 
such a sea of color against ooca- 
sional backgrounds of green 
sward. They seemed indigenous qfiScjfajsfHs 
to the soil, and In the fields of 
grain were droves of men, women P3 £0H5ga®i 
and children wooding out the rw gffS gS u efe 
flowers. The Italian farmer plants jS Bfi Sw SsS 
his grain in rows, a foot In width KK jmSS EK 
perhaps, so there Is sufficient 
space between each for persons fiff aSEHgjg 
to pass, as between the rows of 
corn in our American fields. At BSggagKgiy 
certain Intervals also, are a row 
of trees, to which arc festooned 
grapevines. As this mixture of Ib BTS? / 
grain and grape-raising prevails 58 J 6 §y 
all over Italy, at least on the rail- Kg urn/ 
way lines, the effect relieving and 8 g W/ 
brightening the beauty of the raw 
landscape, one is more and more 9 h 1 / 
impressed with the Idea of beau- rfSjl ^ V ' 
ty that is never in these south- §9W 
ern countries lost sight of. no jSV ; ^ 
matter in what connection, with ffl ^ ^ 
utility. The sooner the American §7 
farm >r learns its uttttty —for It lias SI ^ 
one—the better it will be both for J - y\' - : j? 
his heart and his purse. ! 
I have been eating straAvberries 
ever since, and before leaving Na- I , v -V, 
pies, and as yet have not found { k; : 
one anything equal to even the 
poorest I ever ate at home. They r v • ' 
are dry, flavorless, and utterly 1 B 
unsatisfactory. I sen people pour li¬ 
on wine, or lemon juice, to give S\ 
them some sort of taste, but in i\ 
vain. As 1 have oaten them in ; 
all sires and shades of color, and gs\ 
in a variety of places, 1 am forced Ema 
to believe that tho Oiver of good 
gifts withheld Irom Italy tlic 
choicest, ar.d most delicious of a Bj Bjav 
fruits-the strawberry in its 
American perfection. «Sa 
Florence as^wiSiSvSi 
that one bouse consists of one floor, which may 
bn the first, second or fifth. In Italy, these are 
called pianos. It seemed odd at first, when re¬ 
ceiving a friend’s card, to see printed in one 
corner, " 2 d Piano,” or whatever the number 
model receiving a shade of color. When the 
plaster becomes fully dry, the clay is carefully 
dug out and the inside thoroughly washed, a 
kind of soap being U 8 ed which leaves tho sur¬ 
face of the plaster mold somewhat oily. This 
might he; or in asking for an address.be told mold is thon lined throughout with plaster 
that such or such a person lived in the "first 
piano.” 
But I have formed a very good opinion of Ital¬ 
ian housekeeping and rooking. In all tho ho- 
regulariy plastered over—which, when tho sta- 
tue is complicated, is a difficult operation, and 
oftentimes necessitates a division of the mold. 
When dry, the mold is broken off, tho presence 
is the complete antithesis of 
Rome—sunny, bright and cheery. 
It was like coming from darkness §§SE£gK5^ 
Into light from death unto life. 
After spending a week there, one 
caunotliut understand the charm fflajS S 
the locality possesses as a place of 
residence, and that. Mrs. Brown- tfSffinttSgSM 
xno loved it so well. A marble jJg&ggS'gg 
slab placed over the door of the 
house in which she lived bears 
her name and records tho fact of 
her having Jived there. A gen- 
tleman who lived In the same 
house after her death told me that 
many people, especially English 
women, used often to come .and ask which wore 
her apartments, anxious to see oven the door 
through which she used to pass. Tho house is 
uf simple front, and looks upon a little piazza, 
or open space, near the PlttJ palace and near 
the gate of the city, called Porta Romana. I 
wont one day to visit her grave in tho Protes¬ 
tant Cemetery, which is a beam Ifni spot, now 
inside Mm city’s walls. I was disappointed to 
find It 80 uninteresting and severe. Her hus¬ 
band, Robert Browning, being a pont as well 
as was she, r hoped to find something tender 
and poetic; but found, Instead, a sturdy mar¬ 
ble sarcophagus resting on six short pedestals, 
which in turn stood on a marble slab. At either 
end of the sarcophagus was a harp carved in 
marble ; on one -ide was the inscription, “ E. 
B. IS.—O. JL, 1802.” Simply her initials and year 
of decease.. Tbcs > were put In in black enam¬ 
el, which was rapidly falll g out. There were 
no flowers nor plants, and t he place seemed too 
small and confined for any to grow The rem¬ 
nants of two or three faded bouquets attested 
to the loving remembrance of some visitors to 
the tomb of the great poet. Not far away is the 
grave of 
Theodore Parker, 
a simple slab in gray atone, with his name, eto., 
in full. About it are flowers and vines, those 
softening touches of nature that seem so in 
harmony with rest and quiet. Quantities of 
roses were lying on his grave, some of which 
had been freshly cut. A graveyard of this na¬ 
ture cannot but be of peculiar interest. In this 
are represented all nationalities—poople who 
have died away from friends and homo, but all 
sharing in the same religious faith and believ¬ 
ers in the same hope of immortality. 
Adjoining the tt mb of Elizabeth Barrett 
Buow.st.vo is that of the wife of VV. Holman 
Hunt, the eminent English artist- She was a 
beautiful, golden-haired girl, and died a few 
months after her marriage. One reads upon it, 
Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot 
quench Love; neither can the floods drown it.” 
Another tomb bore this solitary inscription, "A 
L’ariiie la plus digue d’Eternels Regrets" (to the 
fiend most worthy of uternal regrets). 
THE LATE HXE.^fkdVC POWERS. 
! t-®l« we have a table d'hote dinner, and often 
have our plates changed a dozen times for dif- 
s ferent courses. Mutton la universally good, as 
1 aie beefsteaks; but the Italian mind has not 
tho slightest conception of roast beef, unless 
beef first, “boiled” to death and afterwards 
baked dry may be termed roast beef. The but¬ 
ter is not so good as In France. 
Itailnn Women 
wear an amount of hair that is simply enor¬ 
mous, and just at this present fashion, with 
their mountain of hair, short-waisted dresses, 
trained skirts, large pannier and "Ragnbas" 
bonnets, they look like the veriest caricatures. 
They possess a certain sort of grace which, 
combined with their melodious tongue, make 
them, in spite of this, rather charming. The 
men, among the working classes, aro greatly 
given to earrings, and in all classes, to snuff¬ 
taking. 
Florence is a Creat Depot for Straw Work, 
and the Leghorn hats one can buy there from 
twenty to forty francs ($4 to $ 8 ), are largo enough 
and fine enough—all In one plait—to tempt one 
to empty her jjurso on the spot, to say nothing 
of the slippers and baskets, lined and orna¬ 
mented with gay silk, even to parasols, which 
novelties wore made for the Vienna Exposition. 
Women and girls sit in the street doors, or walk 
in the streets, weaving the straw with their 
fingers in a magical way, only equaled by the 
rapidity of those wonderful girls over the sea 
who make tatting in a fashion that you woixld 
swear was only a make-believe, and that tl^ev 
never once actually sent their shuttle through 
a loop of thread. Florence is also a popular 
place for artists, and among them aro many t 
American sculptors. Mr. Storv— whose studio 
is in Rome—had the kindness to tel) me one I 
day, just 
The Process an Idea Passed Through | 
from the brain until it stood out crystalized in ! 
mtlFh A Tho rTA. .,l„l .1 • » it* 
1 | Of the color introduced indicating the approach 
- to the east within. Tho thickness of the walls 
5 of tho cast of course correspond to the size of 
!■ the statue—the plaster statuettes often seen in 
i country houses commonly being from throe- 
1 fourths to an inch and a half thick. The cast 
■ thus obtained- and which is a lac simile of what, 
the model in clay wils, and what the statue in 
marble is to bo—forms the copy for the marble 
. cutter, who duplicates It in marble by the 
means of measurement. To facijitate the meas¬ 
urement, the cast is dotted all over with black 
spots an inch apart, perhaps. Corresponding 
dots on tho marble form the basis for the car¬ 
ver’s work. A number of different men are 
usually employed upon the samo statue in the 
different, degrees of its progress toward comple¬ 
tion. One blocks it out, leaving the outlines 
roughly deflued; another carves the hair; an¬ 
other tlie drapery’, or the parts of it; another 
carves in such delicate fashion as making veins 
or wrinkles, and each and all have their speeial- 
| ty. The sculptor’s work ends with the model, 
the rest being merely mechanical, although 
very necessarily skillful. The reason the model 
in clay may not be used as a copy for the out- 
tors and thus dispense with the necessity of , 
taking a cast, is that in drying, it shrinks so 
much as to affect the proportions of its sym- [ 
metry, while the process of baking it—which 
converts the clay Into wbat is known as terra 
cotta (often seen In statuettes) is too dangerous 
to subject a lino, large model to. Very few stat- 
ues are wrought from the marble in less than a 
year’s time, and as for the model, the time the 
j artist spends in fashioning it is indefinite. Mr. 
| Hart, a Kentuckian, showed me a model—the 
figure of a woman and Cupid, from whom she 
1 had taken his arrow — upon which he had been I 
j at work, I was told, for xixt.ee,a, yews, and It was 
| not yet finished, one ol’ his countrywomen— 
1 Makv Curtis Lee, a daughter of the lato 
t- been completed after thirty or forty years of 
16 labor. 
10 But f shall never get to Venice, where I actu- 
ly ally am, if I linger longer in Florence, and must 
a omit entirely an account of a visit I enjoyed In 
r- a vorltable castle, going all through it, from 
is kitchen to chapel and turret,, and feasting my 
- eyes upon all the antique furnishings of the 
1 - incdlffivai stylos, and for how many hours we 
,1 rude to roach it, winding around and around a 
i. hill spiral fashion ; neither stop to telt a doleful 
| tale of the rid® from Florence to Bologna, which 
________ is through tho Appenlne Moun- 
liiitis, and how it wusune sucees- 
* i<>n tUMn0,f ' and tremendous- 
ly fuiiguelng, and of arriving in 
Bologna, whore the streets aro 
covered by arcades and where 
R 3 jggS& SeRgg 1 Bo women wear three-cornered 
rajyfip shawls for bonnets, with such a 
«$§ crashing headache tha t 1 couldn't 
cat any Bologna sausage. How- 
e ' f;r ’ a * ter 1,1 Right’s rest, we 
§ S The 8ologna Cemetery, 
^a5c5jS IflSs! i'B® Bolognians claim to be 
SaS| finest in Europe ami which is 
Y 0 OTW certainly tho perfection of artistic 
The plan is entirely 
WgHgS! like that of a city, if tho city was 
\vh28w a' 1 of marble with a magnificent 
Mg® roof. The walls of those streets, 
Wmj Instead of being the fronts of 
wftgg houses for the living, aro those 
wgo for the dead—the coffins being 
ml placed in van Its for these streets 
vm are a series of galleries bonty- 
\a coined with vaults. Tho end of 
n the vault Is sealed, a slab set In 
► | and numbered like a door. It is 
5 light and airy and elegant every- 
| where, the statuary beforh some 
of the tombs most exquisite, and 
' j bouquets of flowers, wreaths of 
immortelles, and olVntlmes por- 
| traits of tho dead when living, 
I adding interest to the tombs. In 
J an upon court, around which the 
gallery runs, are burled the poor, 
in the ground. When tho snow 
and rain fall upon newly made 
graves, friends often feel a shiver 
'fflsf of ptlirl at t * 10 thought or a loved 
one lying out in the damp and 
cold. Bui from this Bologna 
- cemetery no such thought can 
arise—there is no damp nor mold, 
neither green grass nor growing 
: .vflowers nor singing birds. The 
expense for burial in this real city 
,,f *'Bo dead is comparatively 
trilling. A long, wi tilling arcade 
/ifijOWSpigSOT connects the cemetery with a 
church a considerable distanco 
removed and situated or, a high 
hill, from which eminence my 
pen must take otic grand leap 
TCifl a °ros 8 a charming landscape. 
The City of Venice, 
with the sunset gilding it, rises 
like enchantment from the sea. 
Tired and sick as I was, the sight 
EMBBfltt aBfiSBSq of its towers and musts, the fresh 
sea air of the Adriatic, thrilled 
mo like an elixir, and I felt that 
1 had come to,what had never come to me—rest. 
1 If you remember well your geographies, you 
I will recall the fact that Vunee is built upon 
three large islands and 111 small ones, connect¬ 
ed by various bridges. A long bridge connects 
tho city to tho main land, and over this rolled 
| tho rail-cars, leaving land behind and spinning 
on toward a visionary-looking city sitting on 
the water. Leaving the cars at the depot, there 
were Innumerable gondolas to transport pas¬ 
sengers to their various destinations, and you 
may well imagine how grateful it was, after 
weeks of travel and dust and filthy carriages 
and unwholesome streets and tangle of horses 
and cursings of drivers, to step into an airy 
boat, neatly carpeted, softly cushioned and be 
borne, with scarcely a motion, to a hotel, 
through the windows of which came no sounds 
hut the plash of the gondolier’s oars, the pleas¬ 
ant talk of people riding by and the singing of 
birds. 
After a fortnight’s resting here I can conceive 
of no earthly comfort to be compared with six 
months of complete leisure to spend In a con- 
dola. There is no glare on the water to pain 
the eyes, no fear of unmanagable horses—for 
j there is not a horse in Venice, except a few on 
some ol the neighboring islands kept for riding 
l a nd f, )r show ! and one can ride all day, seeing 
pleasant things on either side, and suffering 
from not the slightest fatigue. A gondola with 
one gondolier costs five francs (one dollar) a 
marble. The model is first made In clay, which Southern general was in his studio at the samo 
must be kept constantly moist. The first model 
or sketch is made small. This, when worked to 
suit the sculptor. Is reproduced in clay to the 
size the statue is intended to be, and for solid¬ 
ity, rods of iron or sticks are used, to form a 
sort of frame work on which to put the clay. 
time, and she archly scolded him for wasting a 
moment’s time until it was finished, while the 
sculptor, who looked for all the world like an 
animated Leonardo da Vinci, seemed to be 
the most leisurely person in the world, and in¬ 
dulged in accounts of b reat ivorks that had only 
One can walk all over Venice as well as ride 
all through it. The streets are very narrow', hut 
at every' church there is an open square, Avhile 
tho Piazza 5au Marco, a very l&rge square aur- 
rounded by the royal palaco and elegant shops, 
u the rendezvous for all the world every eveiv 
mg. The band plays, people promenade or sit 
at their coffee and ices under the colonnades or 
In front of the cafes. Sometimes there Is music 
on the Grand Canal and fine Illuminations, 
which make It very charming. Just notv the 
moon is nearly' full and a ride toward and hack 
from the Lido, or public gardens. Is like an 
| outiance Into the netv Jerusalem. It ia a beauty 
so weird, so falry-ilke, so like an ideal picture 
never before realized, that you doubt if you 
are really a human being and have not by some 
suddf n transformation slid unperceived into 
immortality and into the eujoyment of celestial 
I scenes. Mart A. E. Wager. 
