ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OF PIEDMONT AND THE CANTON TICINO
By Samuel Butler
(From the 1913 A. C. Fifield edition with some portions taken from
the 1881 edition.)
Author's Preface to First Edition
I should perhaps apologise for publishing a work which professes to
deal with the sanctuaries of Piedmont, and saying so little about
the most important of them all - the Sacro Monte of Varallo. My
excuse must be, that I found it impossible to deal with Varallo
without making my book too long. Varallo requires a work to
itself; I must, therefore, hope to return to it on another
occasion.
For the convenience of avoiding explanations, I have treated the
events of several summers as though they belonged to only one.
This can be of no importance to the reader, but as the work is
chronologically inexact, I had better perhaps say so.
The illustrations by Mr. H. F. Jones are on pages 95, 211, 225,
238, 254, 260. The frontispiece and the illustrations on the
title-page and on pages 261, 262 are by Mr. Charles Gogin. There
are two drawings on pages 136, 137 by an Italian gentleman whose
name I have unfortunately lost, and whose permission to insert them
I have, therefore, been unable to obtain, and one on page 138 by
Signor Gaetano Meo. The rest are mine, except that all the figures
in my drawings are in every case by Mr. Charles Gogin, unless when
they are merely copied from frescoes or other sources. The two
larger views of Oropa are chiefly taken from photographs. The rest
are all of them from studies taken upon the spot.
I must acknowledge the great obligations I am under to Mr. H. F.
Jones as regards the letterpress no less than the illustrations; I
might almost say that the book is nearly as much his as mine, while
it is only through the care which he and another friend have
exercised in the revision of my pages that I am able to let them
appear with some approach to confidence.
November, 1881.
CHAPTER I - Introduction
Most men will readily admit that the two poets who have the
greatest hold over Englishmen are Handel and Shakespeare - for it is
as a poet, a sympathiser with and renderer of all estates and
conditions whether of men or things, rather than as a mere
musician, that Handel reigns supreme. There have been many who
have known as much English as Shakespeare, and so, doubtless, there
have been no fewer who have known as much music as Handel: perhaps
Bach, probably Haydn, certainly Mozart; as likely as not, many a
known and unknown musician now living; but the poet is not known by
knowledge alone - not by gnosis only - but also, and in greater part,
by the agape which makes him wish to steal men's hearts, and
prompts him so to apply his knowledge that he shall succeed. There
has been no one to touch Handel as an observer of all that was
observable, a lover of all that was loveable, a hater of all that
was hateable, and, therefore, as a poet. Shakespeare loved not
wisely but too well. Handel loved as well as Shakespeare, but more
wisely. He is as much above Shakespeare as Shakespeare is above
all others, except Handel himself; he is no less lofty,
impassioned, tender, and full alike of fire and love of play; he is
no less universal in the range of his sympathies, no less a master
of expression and illustration than Shakespeare, and at the same
time he is of robuster, stronger fibre, more easy, less
introspective. Englishmen are of so mixed a race, so inventive,
and so given to migration, that for many generations to come they
are bound to be at times puzzled, and therefore introspective; if
they get their freedom at all they get it as Shakespeare "with a
great sum," whereas Handel was "free born." Shakespeare sometimes
errs and grievously, he is as one of his own best men "moulded out
of faults," who "for the most become much more the better, for
being a little bad;" Handel, if he puts forth his strength at all,
is unerring: he gains the maximum of effect with the minimum of
effort. As Mozart said of him, "he beats us all in effect, when he
chooses he strikes like a thunderbolt." Shakespeare's strength is
perfected in weakness; Handel is the serenity and unself-
consciousness of health itself. "There," said Beethoven on his
deathbed, pointing to the works of Handel, "there - is truth."
These, however, are details, the main point that will be admitted
is that the average Englishman is more attracted by Handel and
Shakespeare than by any other two men who have been long enough
dead for us to have formed a fairly permanent verdict concerning
them. We not only believe them to have been the best men
familiarly known here in England, but we see foreign nations join
us for the most part in assigning to them the highest place as
renderers of emotion.
It is always a pleasure to me to reflect that the countries dearest
to these two master spirits are those which are also dearest to
myself, I mean England and Italy. Both of them lived mainly here
in London, but both of them turned mainly to Italy when realising
their dreams. Handel's music is the embodiment of all the best
Italian music of his time and before him, assimilated and
reproduced with the enlargements and additions suggested by his own
genius. He studied in Italy; his subjects for many years were
almost exclusively from Italian sources; the very language of his
thoughts was Italian, and to the end of his life he would have
composed nothing but Italian operas, if the English public would
have supported him. His spirit flew to Italy, but his home was
London. So also Shakespeare turned to Italy more than to any other
country for his subjects. Roughly, he wrote nineteen Italian, or
what to him were virtually Italian plays, to twelve English, one
Scotch, one Danish, three French, and two early British.
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