Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/83

1885.] lowed by four short stories collected in a volume, of which 'La Famiglia del Signor Onorato' gives a picture of family happiness, though the happiness here is one whose poetic charm lies in resignation. A brother and sister make to themselves a family that has not come to them in the ordinary way, by the care of orphaned children. "Fante di Picche" shows us a light-natured lad, whom a true love saves from gambling destruction. It is a delicate psychological humoresque, containing some delicious figures, such as Uncle Martin, the youth's guardian and preserver. "Una separazione di letto e di mensa" is a tenderly treated psychological problem, – an old couple of fifty-five years' standing, who have shared joy and sorrow together, and yet often fall out so seriously that they vow to separate. Of course they are always reconciled again, – at last by a young couple, who thus find their own happiness; and in the end, when she dies, he cannot outlive his grief, and a few hours after they find him dead, with a smile on his face that seemed to say, "Even death has not been able to separate us." Farina is never happier than in these little genre pictures, taken from common life, which by his amiable humour, his inclination to look at the bright side, his rich faith in the ultimate triumph of good, he lifts into an ideal sphere. Sketched with a light hand, and full of happy touches, is also the humoresque "Fra le corde d'un Contrabasso," a character-study of the various manifestations of the great passion, to which we must all succumb, as it shows itself in the love of a father and two sons, one a grown man, the other a cub, to a bewitching young girl, who has lost her heart to the elder son, who, in his turn, is so absorbed in music, that at first he knows nothing of his feelings.

We must not linger over these shorter tales, and can only mention "Il Signor Io," a masterly sketch, showing how egotism must be vanquished ere true happiness can be found; "Un Tiranno ai bagni di Mare," and "Della Spuma del Mare," a story of artistic life – three touching, graceful, airy sketches, which, under a light surface, cover the very depths of the human heart, though the hero of the latter is no one more mighty than "the celebrated Bartolomeo Profumo," who deems himself an artist, because many a time at the Scala in Milan he has played the part of first wave in the representation of an agitated sea. Though, with one exception, Farina is at his happiest in these shorter tales, we must speak of his longer and more ambititious works. Of these, 'Capelli Biondi' belongs to the vicious French school, and requires no comment; but in 'Ora Nascosto,' a transcript from middle-class Italian life, he is upon his own ground. The story in itself is nothing, the working out of the characters is everything, and gives Farina's brain and tender heart full play to develop all their gentleness. His genial humour would almost run riot in this novel if the Southerner's fine native taste did not hold it in check. In 'Amore ha cent'occhi,' the author's longest work, there is the same love for humanity, the same sympathetic desire to bring to light the hidden gold that is buried, often deeply buried, in every human breast. The scene in this case is laid in Farina's native isle, and gives him opportunity to paint customs that strike us as quite Homeric in their naïve simplicity. But taken as a whole, the work fails artistically;