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.
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