Sentimental Italian
immigrants came with fig branches
I am no Italian immigrants who, in the earlier days, would
bring a branch of their fig trees inside their suitcase, and plant as soon as
they set foot on their adapted country in the New World. Fig trees are their belongings, their
family. They could leave the Old World
behind, but not their fig trees. But,
unlike peach, apple, plum trees or any run-of-the-mill fruit trees in our
garden, fig trees often evoke sentimental emotion in me for various reasons.
I am writing this post with a grateful heart for our fig
trees came from Dr. Liang, our garden teacher, 4 or 5 years ago. This year is the first time that figs bear
the fruits. I am beginning to imagine
what we can do with the fig fruits when ripe.
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| our fig fruits |
Exotic Italian fig
dishes
These two dishes come from an article on August 28, 2012 NY Times (“From Italy to Brooklyn: Fig
by Fig”): Lamb and fig kebabs with honey and rosemary and hazelnut
financiers. I wonder why Oliver Garden
is not serving these fig delicacies.
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| Lamb and fig kebabs with honey and rosemary and hazelnut financiers |
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| hazelnut financiers |
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| figs at Monticello |
Our pilgrimage to
Monticello
We visited Monticello and the restored Jefferson’s garden
four years ago; it was more of a pilgrimage than of touring for us gardeners. We ate his Marseilles fig, which he brought
back from France in September 1789.
He wrote to Dr. William
Thornton (a close friend and architect of the Capitol in Washington) in 1809, “I
will take some occasion of sending you some cuttings of the Marseilles fig,
which I brought from France with me; it is unquestionably superior to any fig I
have ever seen.”
Seeing the fig trees in our
garden, I often think about Thomas Jefferson, not the one penned the
Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, American
Minister to France, Vice President and President, but the man with passion, the
gardener/farmer, the man with “head and heart” (see below) and the man in love.
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| Maria Cosway |
Thomas Jefferson smitten by Maria Cosway when they first
met
Jefferson met Maria Cosway,
born in Italian of English parents (whose husband, Richard Cosway, was an
artist) while serving as the American Minister (now called Ambassador) in
Paris. We read in Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,
“She was a
golden-haired, languishing Anglo-Italian, graceful . . . and highly
accomplished, especially in music . . .Maria, twenty-seven, enchanted
Jefferson, then forty-three, from the first.
She had voluptuous lips, startling violet-blue eyes, and fashionably
coiffed golden hair. His infatuation
with her appears to have been instaneous.
In a way, he disappeared into those eyes and did not emerge for air for
nearly a month.”
So in the early autumn of 1786
Jefferson and Maria had Paris of their own, touring many places: “From
St. Germain to the Pont de Neuilly, from the hills along the banks of the Seine
to a number of elaborate, secluded gardens.”
Jefferson chose not to leave to
posterity any trace of his affection to Sally Hemings who is the half-sister of
his wife, Martha, who passed away [in 1782] before he went to Paris in
1784. I believe Sally and his daughter
joined him in Paris one year or so later.
But, when Maria returned to London, Jefferson was grief-stricken and
wrote a lengthy (12 pages) letter to Maria on October 12, 1786 at the end of
this frenzy month-long romance and whirlwind [We read Jefferson’s “My
poor head was simply whirled about my unruly heart.”], now known as “the dialogue
between my Head and my Heart”.
A dialogue between my Head and my Heart
Heart.
Oh!
my dear friend, how you have revived me by recalling to my mind the
transactions of that day! How well I remember them all, and that when I came
home at night and looked back to the morning, it seemed to have been a month
agone. Go on then, like a kind comforter, and paint to me the day we went to
St. Germains. How beautiful was every object! the Port de Neuilly, the hills
along the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of Marly, the terras of St.
Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the [statues] of Marly, the pavillon of
Lucienne. Recollect too Madrid, Bagatelle, the King’s garden, the Dessert. How
grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column! The spiral staircase
too was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels
of time moved on with a rapidity of which those of our carriage gave but a
faint idea, and yet in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the day, what
a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those scenes to me, my good
companion, and I will forgive the unkindness with which you were chiding me.
The day we went to St. Germains was a little too warm, I think, was not it?”
Head.
Thou art the most incorrigible of
all the beings that ever sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first
day, intending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you, but instead
of listening to these, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole
series with a fondness which shews you want nothing but the opportunity to act
it over again. . . .
If one reads this letter, one would agree this is a very
unique love letter by a passionate, yet “controlled” man. Of course, we know the head eventually won
out and Jefferson returned to the States without Maria in September 1789. A March 3, 1995 NY Times article, talking about the movie of “Jefferson in Paris”,
in which we read,
Jefferson in
Paris: To learn history in a movie may be perilous
“[Jefferson’s]
daughter Patsy, eager to discourage Maria Cosway from returning with the family
to Monticello as Jefferson’s new spouse, “Has he told you about our Negroes and
how they live?” she asks. “I’m sure he
is very good to them,” Maria replies.
“Oh, yes, Papa is the best master in Virginia,” Patsy goes on, “but he
is the master and they are the servants—the slaves. And I’m certain they hate us. Yes, I know they do.”
Reading “The Decline
and Fall of Roman Empire”, I consider Edward Gibbon is the gold-standard
and prototype of a historian. I tend to read history with a critical eye. I am at present not convinced the
above-mentioned conversation between Patsy and Maria indeed took place until or
unless I read the same reference in a more credible source other than in a
movie.
The epilogue of a
short love affair
There was sporadic exchange of letters in the years after
Jefferson’s return. Jefferson received a
letter from Maria Cosway (6/11/1790), “I fear my Dear friend have forgot me:
Not one line ever since your Departure from this part of the world!”
Two letters came from Maria in
1795 (the year between Secretary of State and vice-President), it took Jefferson
six months to reply, “I am eating the peaches, grapes and figs of
my own garden & I only wish I could eat them in your native country,
gathered on the spot & in your good company.”
He suggested a trip with her
to Italy, although he said he would also invite some other lady friends [Mrs.
Church and Madame de Corny] “We will leave the rest of the journey to
imagination, & return to what is real. I am become, for instance, a real
farmer, measuring fields, following my ploughs, helping the hay makers . . .
How better this, than to be shut up in the four walls of an office, the sun
ever excluded . . . the morning opening with the fable repeated of the Augean
stable, a new load of labours in place of the old. . . From such a life, good
Lord, deliver me!”
Jefferson: Patriarch of old and a loving grandfather
In a letter to Maria,
Jefferson said he was a “patriarch of old”; he often picked fruit for his
grandchildren, usually figs and cherries with a long stick topped with a hook
and net bag.
I hope, after reading this post,
you’ll see Jefferson with reverence and affection the way I do. What led me to the reading are the fig fruits
we ate at Monticello, the Marseilles figs he brought back from France,
the figs he wished to share with Maria, and the figs he picked for his
grandchildren.
This
is also a way to show gardening is a labor of body and mind.
