Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Leland, Charles Godfrey, 1824-1903
He travelled a great deal, was eighteen months in Rome and its vicinity,
visited Algeria, Egypt, and Cuba and the West, always spending so little
money that my father expressed his amazement at it. I regret to say that
in my youth I never astonished him in this way. But this morbid
conscientiousness or delicacy as to being dependent did him no good, for
he might just as well have been thoroughly comfortable, and my father
would never have missed it. The feeling that he could get no foothold in
life, which had long troubled me, became a haunting spectre which
followed him to the grave. His work "Americans in Rome" is one of the
cleverest, most sparkling, and brilliant works of humour, without a trace
of vulgarity, ever written in America. It had originally some such title
as "Studios and Mountains," but the publisher, thinking that the
miserable clap-trap title of "Americans in Rome" would create an
impression that there was "gossip," and possibly scandal, in it, insisted
on that. It was published in the weary panic of 1862 in the war, and
fell dead from the press. Though he never really laughed, and was
generally absolutely grave, my brother had an incredibly keen sense of
fun, and in conversation could far outmaster or "walk over the head" of
any humorist whom I ever met. He was very far, however, from showing off
or being a professional wit. He was very fond, when talking with men who
considered themselves clever, of making jests or puns in such a manner
and in such an unaffected ordinary tone of voice that they took no note
of the _quodlibets_. He enjoyed this much more than causing a laugh or
being complimented. But taking his life through, he was simply
unfortunate in everything, and his worst failures were when he made
wisely directed energetic efforts to benefit himself or others. He
rarely complained or grieved, having in him a deep _fond_ of what I, for
want of a better term, call _Indian nature_, or stoicism, which is common
in Americans, and utterly incomprehensible to, or rarely found in, a
European.
The death of my father left me a fifth of his property, which was
afterwards somewhat augmented by a fourth share of my poor brother's
portion. For one year I drew no money from the inheritance, but went on
living as before on my earnings, so that my wife remarked it really took
me a year to realise that I had any money. After some months I bought a
house in Locust Street, just opposite to where my father had lived, and
in this house I remained six months previously to going to Europe in
1869. We had coloured servants, and I never in all my life, before or
since, lived so well as during this time. The house was well furnished;
there was even the great luxury of no piano, which is a great condition
of happiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account