LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
"At Home in Italy." By Mrs. E. D. R. Bianciardi. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
"There is a large class of Americans," Mrs. Bianciardi writes, "who desire for themselves, and still more for their children, the privileges of observation and culture which European life affords, and the number is increasing every year." And her book is full of suggestions for those who desire to find something better in the way of homes than the occasional and transient quarters the mere tourist accepts as most convenient. Practical experience is, nevertheless, the one thing which it is beyond the prevision of even the wisest to transmit. Every one's circumstances are exceptional, and one of the best results perhaps of foreign life or travel is that what one actually gains is at first hand. If one could get what one wants out of books, there would be few marked results of all these endless journeyings to and fro. And one of the chief advantages of these pleasant little books about foreign life is the opportunity they afford the returned traveller to quietly compare his own experiences with those here described. Mrs. Bianciardi is fairly just in her survey of the pleasures and advantages of Italian life, although disposed to glide over many of the crying evils and dangers, for instance, like the bad drainage, and the necessity for an almost inspired insight into what may threaten the health and lives of strangers. The bad reputation of the Italian climate she is inclined to attribute to the insular prejudice of the British, who find nothing fit to breathe save their own damp, cold air. She considers summer the season above all others for Italian residence, except, of course, in Rome and Naples, and draws a delightful picture of the villa-life just outside of Florence, where for twenty to fifty dollars a month a family may have a whole house to themselves in the midst of the most delightful surroundings.
Mrs. Bianciardi has her little word to say about Mr. Henry James and his persistent disparagement of his own country, which has aroused a prejudice against us abroad. Any outburst of honest indignation against his misleading statements she declares to be worse than useless, since every refutation is met by "the more or less politely signified assertion that naturally we are prejudiced against him." Clever as Mr. Henry James is, we had not hitherto supposed that his neat and pithy sayings had done more than to delight a small part of the civilized world. But we now see that his strictures are felt most by those who possibly deserve them least,—that is, by those half-expatriated Americans of whom he is a "conspicuous representative." Mr. James does not suffer from this "thin-skinned sensitiveness to foreign misconception," the author goes on to say, "because he is not troubled with any impedimenta in the shape of affections. To him the Fourth of July is merely 'the day on which, of all days in the year, the great republic has her acutest fit of self-consciousness!' He has not a 'miasmatic conscience,' perhaps, but he has an asphyxiated heart. No wonder that the New England air is too 'cold and thin' for his breathing."
The average American has too little individuality or preference for particular ideas and pursuits outside of his everyday routine to be impelled toward new and untried places when he seeks summer recreations. He cherishes an unsatisfied ambition until he has seen the famous resorts of the world, and, finding so much to do that others have done, he has neither time nor inclination to seek out new places and explore fresh fields of interest. Hence, when, as in Professor Rothrock's book, the beaten track is departed from, the public ought to feel grateful for an opportunity to gain a clear glimpse of a part of the world which lies very close to us, yet is far more remote from our imaginations than the larger part of Europe. Chesapeake Bay is, however, an interesting bit of water, even on a map, and any child who has a bright fancy or has been well enough taught to understand the charm of geography will have wondered what those far reaches lead to which indent the shores. Professor Rothrock has given us
