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. elder brother.
FRANK LESLIE'S. NEW YORK JOURNAL. . . 13
Story of the Young Italian.
. I was born at Naples: my parents, though of
noble rank, were limited in fortune; or, rather, my
father was ostentatious beyond his means, and ex-
pended so much on his palace, his equipage, and
- his retinue, that he was continually straightened in
his pecuniary circumstances. I was a younger son,
and looked upon with indifference by my father,
who, from a principle of family pride, wished to
leave all his property to my elder brother. I show-
ed, when quite a child, an extreme sensibility.
Everything affected me violently. While yet an
infant ‘in’ my mother’s arms, and ‘before I had
learnt to talk, I could be wrought upon to a won-
derful degree of anguish or delight by the power of
music. As I grew older, my feelings remained
equally acute, and I was easily transported into
paroxysms of pleasure or rage. __ It was the amuse-
ment of my relations and of the domestics to play
upon this irritable temperament. I was moved to
tears, tickle1 to laughter, provoked to fury, for the
entertainment of company, who were amused
. such a tempest of mighty passion in a pigmy frame
—they little thought, or, pezhaps, little hecded, the
dangerous sensibilities they were fostering. I thus
became a little creature of passion before reason was
developed. In a short time I grew too old .to bea
plaything, and then I became a torment. The
- tricks and passions I had been teased into became
irksome, and I was disliked by my teachers for the
very lessons they had taught me. My mother died,
and my power a3 a spoiled child was’ at an end.
There was no longer any necessity to humor or
tolerate me, for there was nothing to be gained by
it, as Iwas no favorite of my father. » I therefore
experienced the fate of a spoiled child in such situ-
ation, and was neglected or noticed only to be
crossed and contradicted.” Such was the early treat-
ment of a heart which, if I.can judge of it at all,
- was naturally disposed to the extremes of tenderness
- and affection. ° :
My father, as I have already said, never liked me,
‘—in fact, he never understood me; he looked upon
me as wilful ard wayward, as deficient in natur:
affection. 'It was the stateliness of his own manner,
- the loftiness and grandeur of his own look, that had
repelled me from his arms. I always pictured him
: to myself as I had seen him, clad in his senatorial
robes, rustling with pomp and pride. The magni-
ficence of his person had daunted my young imagi-
nation. - I could never approach him with the con-
fiding affection of a child.
My father’s feelings were wrapped up in my
Ile was to be the inheritor of the
family title and the family dignity, and everything
“was sacrificed to him—I, as well as everything else.
It was determined to devote me to the church, that
so my humors and myself might be removed out of
. the way, either of tasking my father’s time and
~ trouble, or interfering with the interests of my bro-
- ther.
‘had dawned upon‘ the world and its delights, or
t an carly age, therefore, before my mind
known anything of it beyond the precincts of my
father’s palace, I was sent to a convent, the superior
of which was my uncle, and was confided entirely
: to his care.
~My uncle was a man totally estranged from the
world; he had never relished, tor he had never
tasted, its pleasures; and he considered rigid self-
denial as the great basis of Christian virtue. He
_ considered ’ every - one’s ‘temperament like, his
- own, or at least he made them conform to it. Tis
» character and habits had an influence over the fra-
. ternity of which he was superior—a more gloomy,
saturnine sct of beings were never assembled to-
gether, The convent, too, was calculated to awaken
. sad and ‘solitary thoughts. It was situated, in a
. gloomy gorge of those mountains away south of
esuvius. All distant views were shut out by
sterile volcanic heights. A mountain stream raved
. beneath its walls, and cagles screamed about its
turrets... : . ,
Ihad been sent to this place at so tender an age
as soon to lose all distiuct recollection of the scenes
I had left behind. As my mind expanded, there-
fore, it formed its idea of the world from the convent
. and its vicinity, and a dreary world it appeared to
me. An éarly tinge of melancholy was thus infused
into my character; and the dismal stories of the
monks, about devils and evil spirits, with which
they affrighted my young imagination, gave me a
tendency to superstition which I could never effect-
ually shake off. They took the same delight to
work upon my ardent feelings that had been so mis-
chieyously executed by my father’s houschold, I
can recollect: the horrors with which they fed my
heated fancy during an cruption of Vesuvius. We
were distant from that’ yolecano, with mountains
between us; but its convulsive throes shook the
solia toundation of nature, Earthquakes threatened
to topple down our convent towers. A lurid, bale-
ful light hung in the heavens at night, and showers
of ashes, borne by the wind, fell in our narrow yal-
ley. The monks talked of the earth being honey-
combed beneath us; of streams of molten lava rag-
ing through its veins; of caverns of sulphurous
ame roaring in the centre, the abodes of demons
and the damned; of fiery gulfs ready to yawn be-
neath our feet. All these tales were told to the
doleful accompaniment of the mountain’s thunders,
whose low bellowing made the walls of our convent
vibrate.
One of the monks had been a painter, who had
retired from the world, and embraced this dismal
life, in expiation of some crime, Ile was a melan-
choly man, who pursued his art in the solitude of
his cell, but made it a sort of penance to him, His
employment was to portray, either on canvass or in
waxen models, the human face and human form, in
the agonics of death, and in all the stages of disso-
lution and decay. I turn with shuddering even
from the recollection.of his works. Yet, at the
time, my strong but ill-directed imagination seized
with ardor upon his instructions in his art. .Auy-
thing was a variety from the dry studies and mono-
tonous duties of the cloister. In a little while I
became expert with my pencil, and my gloomy pro-
ductions were thought worthy of decorating some
of the altars of the chapel.
In this dismal way was a creature of feeling and
fancy brought up. Everything genial and amiable
in my nature was repressed, and nothing brought
out but what was unprofitable and ungracious. I
was ardent in my temperament; quick, mercurial,
impetuous; formed to be a creature all love and
adoration ;*but a leaden hand was. laid on all my
finer qualities. I was taught nothing but fear and
hatred. Ihated my uncle. I hated the monks. I
hated the convent in which I was immured. I
hated the world; and I almost- hated myself for
being, as I supposed, so hating and hateful an
al | animal, .
When I had nearly attained the age of sixteen, I
was suffered, on one oecasion, to accompany one of
the brethren on a mission to a distant part of the
country. We soon left behind us the gloomy valley
in which I had been pent up for so many years,
and, after a short journey among the mountains,
emerged upon the voluptuous landscape that spreads
itself about the Bay of Naples. Heavens! how
transported was I when I stretched my gaze over a
vast reach of delicious sunny country, gay with
groves and vineyards; with Vesuvius raising its
forked summit to my right; the blue Mediterranean
to my left, with its enchanting coast, studded with
shining towns and sumptuous villas; and Naples,
my native Naplei, gleaming far, far in the dis-
tance
And was this the lovely world from which I had
been excluded? I had reached that age when the
sensibilities are in all their bloom and freshness.
Mine had been checked and chilled. They now
burst forth with the suddenness of a retarded spring.
My heart, hitherto unnaturally shrunk up, expanded
into a riot of vague but delicious emotions. The
beauty of nature intoxi¢ated—bewildered me. The
song of the peasants, their cheerful looks, their
happy avocations, the picturesque gaicty of their
dresses, their rustic music, their dances—all broke
upon me like witchcraft. My soul responded to
the music, my heart danced in my bosom, All the
men appeared amiable, alk the women lovely.
I returned to the convent, that is to say, my body
returned, but my heart and soul never entered there
again. I could not forget this glimpse of a beautiful
and a happy world—a world so suited to my natural
character; I had felt so happy while in it, so differ-
ent a being from what I felt myself when in. the
convent—that tomb of the living. -I contrasted the
countcenances of the beings I had scen,’full of fire
and freshness and enjoyment, with the palhd, leaden,
lack-lustre visages of the monks; the music of. the
dance with the droning chant of the chapel. I had
before found the exercises of the cloister wearisome ;
they now became intolerable. The dull round of
duties wore away my spirit; my nerves became
uritated by the fretful tinkling of the convent-bell,
evermore dinging among the mountain echoes, ever-
more calling me from my repose at night, my pencil
by day, to attend to some tedious and mechanical
ceremony of devotion, °°: oo
I was not of a nature to meditate long without
putting my thoughts into action, My spirit had
been suddenly aroused, and was now all awake
within me. I watched an oppertnnity, fled from
As L entered its gay and crowded strects, and beheld
the yariety and stir of life around me, the luxury of
palaces, the splendor of equipages, and the panto-
mimic animation of the motley populace, I seemed
as if awakened to a world of enchantment, and so-
Iemnly vowed that nothing should force me back to
the monotony of the cloister.
Ihad to inquire my way to my father’s palace,
for I had been so young on leaving it that I knew
not its situation. I found some difficulty in getting
admitted to my father’s presence, for the domestics
scarcely knew that there was such a being as myself
in existence, and my monastic dress did not operate
in my favor. Even my father entertained no recol-
lection of my person. I told him my name, threw
myself at his feet, implored his forgiveness, and
entreated that I might not be sent back to the con-
vent.
Ife received me with the condescension of a pa-
tron rather than the fondness of a parent; listened
patiently, but coldly, to my tale of monastic griev-
ances and disgusts, and promised to think what else
could be done forme. This coldness blighted and
drove back all the frank affection of my nature, that
was ready to spring forth at the least warmth of :
parental kindness. All my early feelings towards |
my father revived. I again looked up to him as the ;
stately, magnificent. being that had daunted my
childish imagination, and felt as if I had no preten- |
sions to his sympathics. My brother engrossed all .
his care and love; he inherited his nature, and car-
ried himself towards me with a protecting rather :
than a fraternal air. It wounded my pride, which ;
was great. I could-brook condescension from my
father, for I looked up to him with awe, as a supe-
rior being; but I could not brook patronage from a
brother who I felt was intellectually my inferior.
The servants perceived that I was an unwelcome
intruder in the paternal mansion, and, menial-like, ”
they treated me with neglect. Thus baffled at every
point, my affections outraged wherever they would
attach themselves, I became sullen, silent, and de-
sponding. My feelings, driven back upon myself,
entered and preyed upon my heart. I remained for
some days an unwelcome guest rather than a re-
stored son in my father’s house. I was doomed
neyer to be properly known there. Iwas made, by
wrong treatment, strange even to myself, and they
judged of me from my strangeness. . .
I was startled one day at the sight of one of the
monks of my convent gliding out of my father’s
room, He saw me, but pretended not to notice me,
and this yery hypocrisy made me suspect something.
I had become sore and susceptible in my feelings ;
everything inflicted a wound on them, In thi
state of mind I was treated with marked disrespect
by a pampered minion, the fayorite servant of my
father, All the pride and passion of my nature rose
in an instant, and I struck him to the earth.
father was passing by; he stopped not to inquire
the reason, nor, indeed, could he read the long
course of mental sufferings which were the real
cause. IIe rebuked me with anger and scorn; he
summoned all the haughtiness of his nature and
grandeur of his look to give weight to the con-
tumely with which he treated me. I felt I had not
deserved it. I felt that Iwas not appreciated. I
felt that I had that within me which merited better
treatment; my heart swelled against a father’s in-
justice. I broke through my habitual awe of him;
I replied to him with impatience; my hot spirit
flushed in my cheek and kindled in my eye, but my
sensitive heart swelled as quickly, and, before I had
half yented my passion, I felt it suffocated and
quenched: in my tears. My father was astonished
and incensed at this turning of the worm, an
ordercd me to my chamber. I retired in silence,
choking with contending emotions.
I had not been long there when I overheardvoices
in an adjoining apartment. It was a consultation
between my father‘and the monk about the means
of getting me back quietly to the convent. My
resolution was taken. I had no longer a home nor
a father. That very night I left the paternal roof.
I got on board a vessel about making sail from the
harbor, and abandoned myself to the wide world.
No matter to what port she steered; any part of so
Deautiful a world was better than my convent. No
matter where I was cast by fortune; any place
would be more a home to me than the home I had
left behind. The vessel was bound to Genoa. We
arrived there after a voyage of a few days. wa
As I entered the harbor between the moles which
embrace it, and beheld the amphitheatre of palaces,
and churches, and splendid gardens, rising oue
above another, I felt at once its title to the appella-
tion of Genoa the Superb, _I landed on the mole an
the conyent, and made my way on foot to Naples,
utter stranger, without knowing what to do, oF