_In rebellious mood_
Bologna, 24 _Aug_. 1819.
I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for
publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper
to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the
midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that
there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of
small acid punch:--you will tell me. Keep the _anonymous_, in any
case: it helps what fun there may be. But if the matter grow serious
about _Don Juan_, and you feel _yourself_ in a scrape, or _me_ either,
_own that I am the author. I_ will never _shrink_, and if _you_ do,
I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his
minister--each being on his own coals.
I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out
of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All
this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all you, and your
climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a
Bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among
you: your people will then be proper company.
I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England,
either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present
pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And, after all, they
are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the
country for three days (at Capofiume). But as I could never live but
for one human being at a time (and, I assure you, _that one_ has never
been _myself_, as you may know by the consequences, for the _selfish_
are _successful_ in life), I feel alone and unhappy.
I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in
a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and
talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's,
and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the
party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo
Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two--but _one_ the prettiest
daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful
and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled
several cells, and particularly with that of one skull, dated 1766,
which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely
features of Bologna--noble and rich. When I look at these, and at
this girl--when I think of what _they were_, and what she must be--why
then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is
little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men', but I don't like the
notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree--than
her own picture--her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun
as her face to the mirror. I must leave off, for my head aches
consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the
representation of Alfieri's _Mirra_, a fortnight ago.