Without Dogma | Page 7

begin a new life when I am so tired of the old one!
Finally, there is another vexatious element in my relations with my aunt.
As formerly my father's friends looked upon him as a genius, so she
persists in regarding me as one exceptionally gifted, from whom great
things are to be expected. To allow her to remain of this opinion seems
an abuse of her good faith; to tell her that nothing is to be expected
from me would be a more likely conclusion, but at the same time inflict
upon the dear old lady a cruel blow.
To my misfortune many of those near me share my aunt's opinion, and
this brings me to the point of drawing a sketch of my own character,
which is by no means an easy task, as my nature is rather a complicated
one.
I brought with me into the world very sensitive nerves, nerves perfected
by the culture of generations. During the first years of my childhood I
remained under the care of my aunt; after her departure, according to
the custom of our country, a nursery governess was engaged for me. As
we lived in Rome, among foreign surroundings, and my father wished
me to be well grounded in my own language, he engaged a Polish
governess. She is still with us as housekeeper at Babuino. My father
also bestowed some pains upon me, especially after my fifth year. I
used to go to his room to talk with him, and this developed my mind
prodigiously, too much so perhaps for my age. Later on, when his
studies and archaeologic researches took up his whole time, he engaged
a tutor, Father Calvi. This was an old man, with a mind and faith
exceedingly serene. He loved art beyond everything. I believe religion
even reacted upon him through its beauty. In the galleries before the old
masters, or listening to the music in the Sistine Chapel, he lost himself
altogether. There was nothing pagan in these feelings, as they were not
based upon sybaritism or sensual enjoyment. Father Calvi loved art
with the pure, serene feeling as maybe a Da Fiesole, a Cimabue, or
Giotto loved it. And he loved in all humility, as he himself had no gifts
that way. I could not say which of the fine arts he loved best, but I
believe he leaned mostly towards harmony, which responded to the
harmony of his own mind.
Whenever I think of Father Calvi, I am reminded at the same time of

the old man that stands beside Raphael's Saint Cecilia listening intently
to the music of the spheres.
Between my father and the priest sprang up a friendship which lasted
unto the latter's death. It was he who confirmed my father in his
archaeologic researches, especially about Rome. There was another
bond between these two,--their love for me. Both considered me as an
exceptionally gifted child, and of a God knows what promising future.
It strikes me at times that I formed for them a kind of harmony,--a
rounding of and completion to the world in which they lived; and they
loved me with the same absorbing passion with which they loved Rome
and its antiquities. Such an atmosphere, such surroundings, could not
fail to impress my mind. I was brought up in an original way. With my
tutor,--sometimes with my father,--I visited galleries, museums, villas,
ruins, catacombs, and the environs of Rome. Father Calvi was equally
sensitive to the beauties of nature and to those of art, and taught me at
an early age to understand poetic melancholy. The Roman Campagna,
the harmony of the arch-line on the sky of the arches in the ruined
aqueducts, the fine tracery of the pines,--I understood all this before I
could read or had mastered the first rudiments of arithmetic. I was able
to set English tourists right to whom the names of Carracci and
Caravaggio caused confusion. I learned Latin early and without effort,
from being familiar with the Italian language. I gave my opinion about
Italian and foreign masters,--which, however unsophisticated, made
both my father and my tutor look at each other in astonishment. I did
not like Ribera,--there was too great a contrast of color in his pictures,
and he frightened me a little; but I liked Carlo Dolce. In short, my tutor,
my father, and his friends considered me a very prodigy; I heard myself
praised, and it flattered my vanity. But, all the same, it was not the
healthiest of educations; and my nervous system, developed too early,
always remained very sensitive. It seems strange that these influences
were neither so deep nor so lasting as might have been expected. That I
did not become an artist is owing, may be, to a lack of