"I crossed the Alps by Mont Cenis. The toil of this achievement is a different thing now from what it was in the time of Pompey, who has the honor of being set down as the first that made the passage. From his time till 1811 the journey must have had its difficulties, since it could only be performed on foot, or with a mule or donkey. Napoleon then came upon the scene, and—presto, change—in five months a carriage-road wound by an easy ascent from the base to the cloud-capped summit, and thence down into the sunny lap of Italy. Napoleon! wherever he passed
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he has left traces of his greatness stamped in indelible characters. A thousand imperishable monuments attest the magnificence of his genius. Here, now, at all seasons, a practicable road traverses Mont Cenis, running six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and uniting the valley of the Arck in Savoy to that of Doria Ripuaria in Piedmont. What a bugbear the passage of the Alps is to the uninitiated! and all travellers seem disposed to encourage the deception. For my own part, the tales I had heard prepared me to anticipate an encounter with all sorts of difficulties, and that I should avoid them only by 'hair-breadth 'scapes.' When I first mentioned my intention of crossing Mont Cenis in the month of February, a laugh of incredulity was the only answer I received from certain 'holiday and silken fools.' And yet, when I came to test the nature of those perils which seemed so formidable viewed from Paris, judge my surprise at finding one of the best roads I was ever wheeled over, stealing up into mid-heaven by such a gentle ascent, that, were not one continually reminded of his whereabout by the roar of foaming waters, as they leap from fragment to fragment of the huge, dissevered rocks, and tumble into 'steep-down gulfs,' he might almost fancy himself gliding smoothly over one of those modern contrivances which have realized, in some measure, the wish of Nat Lee's hero, and 'annihilated time and space.'
"A Kentuckian once riding with me on the Albany and Troy turnpike, after an interval of silence, in which he was probably comparing that smooth road with the rough-hewn ways of his own State, suddenly broke out, 'Well, this road has the leetlest tilt from a level I ever did see!' The odd expression occurred to my mind more than once in crossing the Alps. It may do to talk of the terrors of the Alps to certain lap-nursed Europeans, who have never surmounted any but mole-hill difficulties; but to Americans—or such Americans, at least, as have seen something of their own magnificent country before hastening to examine the miniature features of Europe—the Alps have no terror in their threats. Land-Admiral Reeside or honest Joe Webster of Albany would enjoy a hearty laugh to see for himself what Alpine dangers are, and with one of his fast teams would contract to take you over the mountains in no time at any season of the year.
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"I should possess a graphic pen, indeed, were I able to communicate to you, by the faint coloring of words, anything like an adequate idea of the lofty grandeur of the scene which was spread out beneath me as I paused on the summit of the mountain to cast back one more lingering look on France. The sun was just setting, and the slant rays lighted with dazzling lustre the snowy peaks around me, and bathed in a flood of light like molten gold the crags and flinty projections of the lightning-scathed and time-defying rocks. A dark cloud, like a funeral pall, overhung the valley; the mountain-torrent hoarsely brawled along its devious channel half choked with thick-ribbed ice; and a thousand features of rude magnificence filled me with admiration of the sublimity which marks this home of the tempest and avalanche. At the hotel where I supped, a number of the peasantry were making the most of the Carnival-time with music, masking, and dancing,—and all this above the clouds!
"Day was just breaking when we entered Turin. The hum and stir of busy life were just beginning, and the laborer, called from his pallet to resume his toil, jostled in the street the sons of revelry, returning jaded and worn out from the scenes of merriment. The traveller who would view the Carnival in its most attractive guise should not break in upon it with the pale light of morning, as what I saw on entering Turin fully satisfied me. The lamps were still burning in the streets, and the maskers wearily returning to their several homes. Poor Harlequin, with sprained ankle, limped tediously away. Columbine hung listlessly upon the arm of Pantaloon, whose chalky visage was without a smile, and whose thoughts, if he thought at all, were probably running much upon the same theme as honest Sancho's when he pronounced a blessing on the man who first invented sleep. These exhausted revellers, a weary sentinel here and there half dozing on his post, and a houseless beggar wandering on his unappointed course, were the sights that first drew my attention on entering the gates of Turin.
"The streets of Turin are spacious and clean, and cross each other at right angles. Their regularity and airiness were quite refreshing after being so long confined to the dungeon-like dimensions and gloom of the byways of a French town. But these spacious streets, like those of all other Italian cities, are overrun
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with mendicants, and I have already had occasion to observe that where palaces most abound so also do beggars. The foundations of the lordly structures of aristocracy everywhere alike are laid on the rights of man, and the cement which holds them together is mixed with the tears of human misery.
"Going to the church of St. Philip this morning, I encountered an old man sitting on the pavement, supplicating for alms in heart-rending tones. He could not have been less than eighty years of age, and his long locks, of silvery whiteness, strayed thinly over his shrivelled neck. His eyes were out,—those pure messengers of thought no longer twinkled in their spheres,—but he still turned the orbless sockets to each passer, imploring charity in the name of Him whose crucified image he grasped in his attenuated fingers. I was touched by the spectacle, and as I approached to drop my dole into his hand, I noticed a brass plate hanging on his threadbare garment, the inscription on which denoted that this mendicant had been regularly examined by the police, and had taken out his license to beg! What a source this from which to derive public revenue! What a commentary on the nature of government in this oppressed country! What a contrast it suggested, in turning my thoughts to my own land, where government is the people's choice, the rulers their servants, and laws nothing more than recorded public opinion!
"On entering the church of St. Philip, I found before an altar blazing with lights and enveloped in clouds of incense a priest performing the impressive service of the Catholic Church. But the thing that struck me was the democratic spirit which seemed to govern the congregation in their public worship. I saw kneeling and mingling in prayer the sumptuously clad and the ragged, the clean and the unclean, the prince and the beggar. On the pavement at a little distance from me lay extended a strapping mendicant, reduced in point of clothing almost to the condition of Lear's 'unaccommodated man,' and groaning out his prayers in tones that sounded more like curses than supplications, while at his side, with graceful mien and placid brow, knelt a Sardinian sylph, looking more like an angel interceding for the prostrate wretch than a being of kindred nature asking mercy for herself.
"The museum of Turin is of great extent, and contains vast
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apartments devoted to natural history, mineralogy, and other sciences. There are here, besides, some rare specimens of antique Greek and Egyptian sculpture. The finest collection of paintings is in the palace of the duchess, among them pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, Teniers, Murillo, and other 'approved good masters.' I was much struck with a full equestrian portrait of his present majesty Charles Albert, by Horace Vernet. Vernet is one of the very few whose horses live on the canvas. The one to which I now allude is not only exhibited in all his fair proportions, with muscles, thews, and sinews that seem swelling with life, but actual, not counterfeit, spirit shines in the sparkle of his eye and is seen in the breath of his distended nostrils.
"The Grand Opera House of Turin is very spacious, containing six rows of boxes, dimly lighted by a single small chandelier suspended over the centre of the pit. The rest of the lights are reserved for the stage, by which the scenic effects are greatly heightened; but I doubt if what is gained in that respect would reconcile an American audience to sit in a sort of twilight so dim as scarcely to allow one to know the complexion of the person sitting at his side. The performances were very ordinary, and presented nothing worth mentioning or remembering."
He rode into beautiful Genoa over that magnificent Corniche road whose left side is diversified with stretching fields and olive-orchards and soaring cliffs, whose right side the blue ocean fringes. The city has a charm to the imagination of an American from its connection with Columbus, and a charm to the eye from that lovely semicircle of mountains embracing it, and which so slope to the waves of the sea in front and blend with the clouds of the sky in the rear that it is often impossible for the gazer to tell where earth ends and heaven begins. It was Sunday when Forrest entered Genoa. Looking out into the glorious bay, he saw an American ship of war riding proudly at anchor, the beautiful banner of stars and stripes hanging at her peak, every mast and spar and rope mirrored in the glassy flood below. His breast thrilled at the sight. He hired a boatman to row him out. Clambering up the side, he asked permission of the commander to come on deck and to stand underneath the flag. It was granted, and, looking up at the silken folds floating between him and heaven, he breathed deeply in pride and joy. "The ship,"
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he said, "was a fragment of my country floated away here, and in touching it I felt reunited to the whole again."
He made a long tarry in Florence, studying the treasures of art for which that city is so renowned. He became intimate with Horatio Greenough, for whose genius—hardly yet appreciated as it deserves—he felt the warmest admiration. "He favored me," writes Forrest, "with a sight of his yet unfinished model for the statue of Washington, which was ordered by our government. He has represented the Father of his Country in a sitting posture, his left hand grasping the sword intrusted to him by the people for the achievement of their liberties, and his right pointing upward, as if to express reliance on the God of battles and the justice of his cause. With what different emotions did I regard this statue from those created by the marble honors paid to the Cæsars of the olden time! How my heart warmed with patriotic ardor and my eyes moistened as I looked on the reverend image of the great sage and hero! As an American I felt allied to him,—as an American I felt, too, with a consciousness that diffused a warm and grateful flush upon my cheek, that I was an heir to that sacred legacy of freedom which he and his compatriots bequeathed to their country."
After visiting Rome, Naples, Venice, Verona, and other places of the greatest interest in Italy, Forrest proceeded to Spain, where he spent several delightful weeks. He made Seville his chief headquarters, remembering the old Spanish proverb he had often heard, "Who sees not Seville misses a marvel." One day, while riding on horseback in the suburbs,—it being in the harvest-season,—he passed a vineyard in which the peasants were at work. He saw one man standing with upturned breast and outstretched arms to receive a bunch of grapes which another man was cutting from a vine loaded with clusters so enormous that a single one must have weighed forty or fifty pounds. At this sight he reined in his horse, and his head sank on his bosom. The years rolled back, and he was a boy again. Once more it was a Sunday afternoon in summer, and through the open window of a house in Philadelphia the sunshine was streaming across the floor where a young lad, with a Bible in his hands, was laughing at the picture of two men carrying a bunch of the grapes of Eshcol slung on a pole between them. Again the
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hand of the mother was on the shoulder of the boy, and her dark eyes fixed on his, and in his soul he heard, as distinctly as though spoken audibly to his outward ear, the words, "Edwin, never laugh at the fancied ignorance and absurdity of another, when perhaps the ignorance and absurdity are all your own." The tears ran down his cheeks as, starting up his horse, he said to himself, "Ah, mother, mother! dear good soul, how wise and kind you were! What a fool I was!"
From Spain Forrest returned for a flying visit to Paris, where he wrote the following letter to his mother, which may be taken as a specimen of the large number he sent to her during his absence:
"Paris, July 3d, 1835.
"My dear Mother,—Your letter of the 27th of May has this moment reached me. How happy has the perusal of it made me! You write that you have been sick, but that now you are well. How glad I am to hear that you are restored! It is the dearest wish of my heart that health and happiness may always be preserved to you,—to you and to my dear sisters. Your welfare makes existence doubly sweet to me. I bear a 'charmed life' so long as you live and smile. All that I am I owe to you. Your necessities prompted my ambition; your affection led me on to triumph,—the harvest is your own, and my choicest wish is that you may long live to enjoy it. I was in Naples the 9th of March last, the anniversary of my birthday, and you were not forgotten. I drank a cup of wine to you, and my heart grew proud while it acknowledged you the source of its creation.
"It gives me great pleasure to hear that James Sheridan Knowles called to see you, and I regret that your indisposition prevented you from seeing him. I am told he is a sincere and warm-hearted man; and when such estimable qualities are joined to the rare talents which he possesses, the individual who combines them is as 'one man picked out of ten thousand.'
"Mr. Wemyss, in sending to you the season-tickets (though you may never use them), has acted like himself, and I most gratefully acknowledge his politeness and courtesy. You say you are anxiously counting the months and days until my return. In two months more we shall have been parted for a year,—a whole
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year. That is a long time in the calendar when hearts that love become the reckoners of the hours. But the day draws on when we are to meet again; and after the first moments of our happy greetings, when your blessing has confirmed my return, and the emotions of the first hours shall be subdued into the serene content that must surely follow, then will we regard our present separation as a short dream of the past, and wonder that we thought we were divided so long.
