Chapter I: Front Matter

Riverside Edition

THE WRITINGS OF
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

_WITH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONS,
PORTRAITS, AND OTHER
ILLUSTRATIONS_

IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES
VOLUME VII

The Writings of
Harriet Beecher Stowe

Riverside Edition

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

AGNES OF SORRENTO

BY
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1899

Copyright, 1862 and 1890,
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

Copyright, 1896,
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

_All rights reserved._

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii

I. THE OLD TOWN 1

II. THE DOVE-COT 8

III. THE GORGE 14

IV. WHO AND WHAT 19

V. IL PADRE FRANCESCO 29

VI. THE WALK TO THE CONVENT 42

VII. THE DAY AT THE CONVENT 57

VIII. THE CAVALIER 75

IX. THE ARTIST MONK 82

X. THE INTERVIEW 107

XI. THE CONFESSIONAL 125

XII. PERPLEXITIES 133

XIII. THE MONK AND THE CAVALIER 152

XIV. THE MONK'S STRUGGLE 165

XV. THE SERPENT'S EXPERIMENT 189

XVI. ELSIE PUSHES HER SCHEME 194

XVII. THE MONK'S DEPARTURE 213

XVIII. THE PENANCE 226

XIX. CLOUDS DEEPENING 238

XX. FLORENCE AND HER PROPHET 255

XXI. THE ATTACK ON SAN MARCO 264

XXII. THE CATHEDRAL 273

XXIII. THE PILGRIMAGE 290

XXIV. THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS 301

XXV. THE CRISIS 313

XXVI. ROME 328

XXVII. THE SAINT'S REST 337

XXVIII. PALM SUNDAY 347

XXIX. THE NIGHT-RIDE 355

XXX. "LET US ALSO GO, THAT WE MAY DIE WITH HIM" 366

XXXI. MARTYRDOM 372

XXXII. CONCLUSION 375

The frontispiece ("The Cavalier stood in the moonlight before Agnes," page 92) and the vignette were drawn by Malcolm Fraser.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

In the summer of 1859, Mrs. Stowe made her third and last journey to Europe. During the summer, the whole family was abroad, save the youngest; but in the autumn Mr. Stowe and one of the daughters returned to America, leaving Mrs. Stowe with two daughters and a son to spend the winter in Italy. The residence there was mainly to establish the health of the family; but Mrs. Stowe had entered into engagements with the New York _Ledger_ and the New York _Independent_ to furnish contributions, with a design ultimately of collecting the papers and recasting them for a volume to be published in the spring of 1860 in America and England, under the title of _Leaves from Foreign Books for Home Reading_. She had indeed entered into an agreement with Sampson Low & Co., the London publishers of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and _Dred_, for the publication of the volume, but a sudden change of plans brought her home before she had perfected her book, and it was never published.

Meanwhile her dramatic instinct had begun to work upon the material thus gathered. It was impossible for her, with her strong religious nature and her active interest in structural Christianity to avoid subjecting the great church so constantly in evidence to those tests of personal religion which had been familiar to her from childhood. Her stay in Florence brought vividly before her the figure of Savonarola, and her imagination, in seeking to recover the life of his day, instinctively invested it with the spiritual struggles so well known to her and her circle. There was no conscious protestantizing of the life, as one may say, but the story which she told naturally reflected the color of her own religious training. _Agnes of Sorrento_ was begun in this Italian winter, and had its immediate origin, as she herself explains in the following note, in a friendly contest of story telling. It was not completed until some time after the return to America, finding its first publication in _The Atlantic Monthly_ in America and _The Cornhill Magazine_ in England. In _The Atlantic_ it was begun in May, 1861, and finished in April, 1862.

In the party with Mrs. Stowe were Mr. and Mrs. Howard of Brooklyn, and their children. When the tale made its final appearance in book form, it was accompanied by the following passages from a letter to the publishers by Mrs. Stowe. The "Annie" referred to was Miss Annie Howard.

"The author was spending some weeks with a party of choice
and very dear friends, on an excursion to southern Italy.
Nothing could have been more fabulously and dreamily bright and
beautiful than the whole time thus employed. Naples, Sorrento,
Salerno, Pæstum, Pompeii, are names of enchantment which will
never fade from the remembrance of any of that party. At
Salerno, within a day's ride of Pæstum, the whole company were
detained by a storm for a day and a night. The talents of the
whole company were called in requisition to make the gloomy
evening pass pleasantly with song and jest and story. The first
chapters of this story were there written and read, to the
accompanying dash of the Mediterranean. The plan of the whole
future history was then sketched out. Whether it ever find much
favor in the eyes of the world or not, sure it is, the story
was a child of love in its infancy, and its flowery Italian
cradle rocked it with an indulgent welcome.

"The writer and the party were fresh from strolls and rambles
about charming Sorrento; they had explored the gloomy gorge,
and carried away golden boughs of fruits and blossoms from her
orange orchards. Under the shadow of the old arched gateway
they had seen, sitting at her orange stand, a beautiful young
girl, whose name became Agnes in the story; and in the shadows
of the gorge they met that woman straight and tall, with silver
hair, Roman nose, and dark eyes, whose name became Elsie. The
whole golden scene receded centuries back, and they saw them in
a vision as they might and must have been in other days.

"The author begs to say that this story is a mere dreamland,
that it neither assumes nor will have responsibility for
historical accuracy. It merely reproduces to the reader the
visionary region that appeared to the writer; and if some
critic says this date be wrong, or that incident out of place,
let us answer, 'Who criticises perspective and distances, that
looks down into a purple lake at eventide? All dates shall give
way to the fortunes of our story, and our lovers shall have the
benefit of fairy-land; and whoso wants history will not find it
here, except to our making, and as it suits our purpose.'

"The story is dedicated to the dear friends, wherever
scattered, who first listened to it at Salerno. Alas! in
writing this, a sorrow falls upon us,--the brightest, in youth
and beauty, and in promise of happy life, who listened to that
beginning, has passed to the land of silence.

"When our merry company left Sorrento, all the younger members
adorned themselves with profuse knots of roses, which grew
there so abundantly that it would seem no plucking could
exhaust them. A beautiful girl sat opposite the writer in the
carriage and said, 'Now I will count my roses; I have just
seven knots, and in each seven roses.' And in reply, another
remarked, 'Seven is the perfect number, and seven times seven
is perfection.' 'It is no emblem,' she said gayly, 'of what a
perfect time of enjoyment we have had.' One month later, and
this rose had faded and passed away.

"There be many who will understand and tenderly feel the
meaning, when we say that this little history is dedicated to
the memory of ANNIE."

AGNES OF SORRENTO