STONE TONGUE.

HAVE received great assistance lately in this examination of Neapolitan churches from our new friend Mr. Luini.

does not seem new to me.

New friend? He

It is not more than

two months since I first met him at the Folhams, and yet I feel as if I had known him years instead of weeks. There are many reasons to be offered for the close intimacy which is fast growing up between us. We are of the same faith, and hold similar views about our grand old religion. Then we are travellers, not residents, and acquaintances ripen into friendships on journeys much more quickly than by firesides.

Janet rallies me playfully on my enthusiasm about him once in a while, although she also likes him very much; but I retort quite good-humoredly by quoting Jean Paul to her.

"There is a sacred fault noble maidens have of forming too enthusiastic conceptions of their friends. Married women rarely do this, because ordinary men check and discourage all feminine enthusiasm which is not for themselves, and sometimes they weary of that."

Mrs. Rochester teasingly says, " Are you not afraid of spoiling Mr. Luini ? ”

And I reply, with one of my strong human faiths,

"It is the way to test him. Great natures are never injured by appreciation and preference, even when frankly and openly expressed; on the contrary, they are encouraged by it, and grow nobler, nor do they ever misunderstand it. It is only the petty, inferior mind which puts a wrong construction on such regard, and wounds us by its vanity and conceit."

He appears to have made Naples his home, for the present, at least. He has a pleasant suite of apartments in a palazzo on the Chiaja, near the Church of San Pasquale, not far from our friends the Rochesters. He has a very fine library, judging from the nice works he lends me: indeed I cannot mention a book of reference, without receiving it from him immediately, handsomely il

lustrated old folios, such as St. Non and Montfaucon, together with modern works like Cicognara, and all the standard histories, Guicciardini, Giannone, and the like.

He is very intimate with that excellent man, the Saint Charles Borromeo of the present day, the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Duke Sforza; and when any surprise is felt by his acquaintances at his perfect independence of life and opinions, his intimacy with this prelate seems to be the satisfying reason. I fancy, however, that the intimacy has no more power than this; the Cardinal knows him to be a prudent, wise, good man, and such men command independence of mind and action everywhere.

There is some mystery, I believe, about his "antecedents," as we Americans say; and, although an Italian by birth, he has very little intercourse with resident Neapolitans. His intimacies are mostly with foreigners, especially the English. This arises, I suppose, from the fact of his mother's having been an Englishwoman. She must have been a person of high culture and great love

liness, for he has spoken of her to me with an affection amounting to veneration. She died while he was quite young; for he has passed the age of early manhood, being now about thirty, or may be a little older.

There is a rumor that he was interested in the Milanese political troubles of 1848, and this same rumor makes the story complete by supposing him to be one of the discontented noblemen, who preferred withdrawing from a rule they could not endure to keeping up a disturbed condition of affairs in the present unripe state of the times. Whatever may have been his past, it is shrouded in impenetrable silence, which in him is not at all melodramatic. I suppose that rumor has some foundation for its stories about him. He has tasted of the enchanted plant of our day, Liberty, and, like the Chevalier of the Saint Esprit in the old legend, has dreamed of finding the lost Grayle, and bestowing on all humanity the blessed draught of Love, Fraternity, and Equality.

nay,

I know

After his political disappointments he retired from the world for some time, and found peace and consolation in meditation and books. Like Kenelm Digby, Montalembert, and De Broglie, he is a thoroughly educated, devoted Catholic, but unlike them, he has no desire, it may be he has no power, to express himself to the world. He has by degrees passed into the rôle of an intelligent spectator, and has lost all taste for action, while he has gained more capability for, and pleasure in, thought. He often quotes Goethe's expression, "Thought expands, action

narrows."

His study of, and belief in, human individual liberty, have led him to prefer almost the tyranny of the masses, sooner than accept the old rule of the privileged. Only certain urgent circumstances, I am sure, could make a

prominent political man of Luigi Luini. It may be he is deficient in political instinct. But I think, under different and happier circumstances, he might have been useful to his kind, and covered himself with distinction, for he has the calm, self-poised, honorable nature of a wise ruler.

He began life as a politician,—that is, in the highest sense of the word, — he devoted himself to the study of governing. While analyzing men and making himself familiar with the general laws which rule their mobile natures, his far-seeing mind displayed to him a higher, wider scope of thought and labor: it showed to him

"The very pulse of the machine."

Gradually as his pure nature has soared aloft from one range of mighty thoughts to another, he has become indifferent to the passing struggles of the day. He sees a mighty moral law which is unceasingly governing Na

ture.

66

Beautiful, careless, ever fertile Nature!" he ex

claims sometimes in our conversations. "She is like a lovely Undine. She displays her exquisite resources under a million of forms. She feels in herself unexhaustible powers, and therefore throws off failures and successes with the same bewitching indifference; sometimes it seems she loves the fascinating wrong the best. But, my friend, her vagaries are all divinely corrected. There is a power which follows her as a loving mother does a charming child, purifying, governing her, directing even her follies to good, and in some blessed future she will possess herself and gain her soul, as did the lovely creation of the German."

But such speculations, while they enrich his mind and

heart, take from him the desire for action or creation. He loves to hear all great acts and doings in the world, to gather from all sources the works of men in every quarter of the globe, having some sublime consolatory word to offer for the fearfulest human folly; but he no longer thinks of playing a part in the life-drama, — his work seems ended, -he only remains, as he says, in the present existence. Luigi,

for this is his beautiful first name, — viewing thus all things from an elevated point, is happily relieved from that curse of clever men, - ambition. There is a calm, tranquil look from his blue eyes which is as limpid and smooth as the surface of deep waters. His moderation is not timidity or caution, but a quiet consciousness of interior strength too deeply felt to need assertion. He is enthusiastic too, quite enough so to satisfy even me; but his enthusiasm has no feverishness, and his fine imagination, quick taste, and keen appreciation of the beautiful are tempered by that rare gift, good sense. He is practical without being narrow, and self-contained without being cold or selfish. In society he must always command the love as well as respect of his associates. He startles the most artificial, and even the most doubtful and desponding into human faith. He possesses that powerful magnetism which enables some persons to pierce through the cold surface with which society, like the globe, is enveloped; and he touches the warm current which flows burning in every one's heart, though covered over as with a lava crust, by the conventionalities of out-door existence.

I have known him but a little while, to be sure; the instincts of a woman, however, are as quick as they are keen in action, and stand her in lieu of reason, which is