Aennchen (reflectively to herself, sotto voce): "Nicht fur Kinder!"
...
What here follows from Divonne--of fourteen months later--is too full
and too various to need contribution or comment.
You must have envied within the last few weeks my revisiting of the
sacred scenes of our youth, the shores of Leman, the Ecu de Geneve,
the sloping Corraterie, etc. My only pang in it all has been caused
by your absence, or rather by the fact of my presence instead of
yours; for I think your abstemious and poetic soul would have got
much more good of the things I've seen than my hardening and
definite-growing nature. I wrote a few words about Nuernberg to
Alice from Montreux. I found that about as pleasant an impression
as any I have had since being abroad--and this because I didn't
expect it. The Americans at Dresden had told me it was quite
uninteresting. I enclose you a few stereographs I got there--I
don't know why, for they are totally irrelevant to the real effect
of the place. This it would take Theophile Gautier to describe, so
I renounce. It was strange to find how little I remembered at
Geneva--I couldn't find the way I used to take up to the Academy,
and the shops and houses of the Rue du Rhone visible from our old
windows left me uncertain whether they were the same or new ones.
Kohler has set up a new hotel on the Quai du Mont-Blanc--you
remember he's the brother of our old Madame Buscarlet there; but I
went for association's sake to the Ecu. The dining-room was
differently hung, and the only thing in my whole 24 hours in the
place that stung me, so to speak, with memory, was that kind of
chinese-patterned dessert-service we used to have. So runs the
world away. I didn't try to look up Ritter, Chantre or any of ces
messieurs, but started off here the next morning, where I have now
been a week.
[Illustration: "The cold water cure at Divonne--excellent for
melancholia."--From a letter of William James (page 447)]
My impression on gradually coming from a German into a French
atmosphere of things was rather unexpected and not in all respects
happy. I have been in Germany half amused and half impatient with
the slowness of proceeding and the uncouthness of taste and
expression that prevail there so largely in all things, but on
exchanging it for the brightness and shipshapeness of these
quasi-French arrangements of life and for the tart
fire-cracker-like speech of those who make them I found myself
inclined to retreat again on what I had left, and had for a few
days quite a homesickness for the easy, ugly, substantial German
ways. The "'tarnal" smartness in which the railway refreshment
counters, for example, are dressed up, the tight waists and
"tasteful" white caps of the female servants, the everlasting
monsieur and madame, and especially the quickness and snappishness
of enunciation, suggesting such an inward impatience, quite
absurdly gave on my nerves. But I am getting used to it all, and
the French people who sit near me here at table and who repelled me
at first by the apparently cold-blooded artificiality of their
address to each other, now seem less heartless and inhuman. I am
struck more than ever I was with the hopelessness of us English,
and a _fortiori_ the Germans, ever competing with the French in
matters of form or finite taste of any sort. They are sensitive to
things that simply don't exist for us. I notice it here in manners
and speech: how can a people who speak with no tonic accents in
their words _help_ being cleaner and neater in expressing
themselves? On the other hand the limitations of _reach_ in the
French mind strike me more and more; their delight in rallying
round an official standard in all matters, in counting and dating
everything from certain great names, their use and love of
catchwords and current phrases, their sacrifice of independence of
mind for the mere sake of meeting their hearer or reader on common
ground, their metaphysical incapacity not only to deal with
questions but to know what the questions are, stand out plainer and
plainer the more headway I make in German. One wonders where the
"Versoehnung" or conciliation of all these rival national qualities
is going to take place. I imagine we English stand rather between
the French and the Germans both in taste and in spiritual
intuition. In Germany, while unable to avoid respecting that
solidity of the national mind which causes such a mass of permanent
work to be produced there annually, I couldn't help consoling
myself by the thought that whatever, after all, they might _do_,
the Germans were a plebeian crowd and could never _be_ such
gentlemen as we were. I now find myself getting over the French
superiority by an exactly inverse process of thought. The Frenchman
must sneer at us even more than we sneer at the Germans--and which
sneer is final, his at us two, or ours at him, or the Germans' at
us? It seems an insoluble question, which I fortunately haven't got
to settle.
I've read several novels lately, some of the irrepressible
George's: La Daniella and the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Dore. (Was it
thee, by the bye that wrotest the Nation notices on her, on W.
Morris's new poem and on The Spanish Gypsy? They came to me
unmarked, but the thoughts seemed such as you would entertain, and
the style in some places like yours--in others not.) George Sand
babbles her improvisations on so that I never begin to believe a
word of what she says. I've also read The Woman in White, a couple
of Balzac's, etc., and a volume of tales by Merimee which I will
send you if I can by Frank Washburn. He is a big man; but the
things which have given me most pleasure have been some sketches of
travel by Th. Gautier. What an absolute thing genius is! That this
creature, with no more soul than a healthy poodle-dog, no
philosophy, no morality, no information (for I doubt exceedingly if
his knowledge of architectural terms and suchlike is accurate)
should give one a finer enjoyment than his betters in all these
respects by mere force of good-nature, clear eyesight and felicity
of phrase! His style seems to me perfect, and I should think it
would pay you to study it with love--principally in the most
trivial of these collections of notes of travel. T. S. P. has a
couple of them for you, and another, which I've read here and is
called Caprices et Zigzags, is worth buying. It contains wonderful
French (in the classic sense, I mean, with all those associations)
descriptions of London. I'm not sure if you know Gautier at all
save by the delicious Capitaine Fracasse. But these republished
feuilletons are all of as charming a quality and I should think
would last as long as the language.
There are 70 or 80 people in this etablissement, no one of whom I
have as yet particularly cottoned up to. It's incredible how even
so slight a barrier as the difference of language with most of
them, and still more as the absence of local and personal
associations, range of gibes and other common ground to stand on,
counts against one's scraping acquaintance. It's disgusting and
humiliating. There is a lovely maiden of _etwa_ 19 sits in sight of
me at the table with whom I am falling deeply in love. She has
never looked at me yet, and I really believe I should be quite
incapable of conversing with her even were I "introduced," from a
sense of the above difficulties and because one doesn't know what
subjects or allusions may be possible with a jeune fille. I suppose
my life for the past year would have furnished you, as the great
American nouvelliste, a good many "motives" and subjects of
observation--especially so in this place. I wish I could pass them
over to you--such as they are you'd profit by them more than I and
gather in a great many more. I should like full well an hour's, or
even longer, interview with you, and with the Parents and the
Sister and the Aunt and all; just so as to start afresh on a clean
basis. Give my love to Wendell Holmes. I've seen ---- ---- several
times; but what a cold-blooded cuss he is! Write me your impression
of T. S. P., who will probably reach you before this letter. If
Frank Washburn ever gets home be friendly to him. He is much aged
by travel and experience, and is a most charming character and
generous mind.