BONN, _September 18, 1846_.
I have been for six days in this beautiful land--not of Bonn, I mean,
but of Rhenish Prussia--where civilisation is very advanced, except in
the matter of beds, which are always four feet long, while the sheets
are only three. I am leading a German life, that is, I rise at five
o’clock and go to bed at nine, after having eaten four meals. So far,
this sort of life agrees with me very well, and it is not a bad thing to
do nothing but open my mouth and bat my eyes. The German women have
become horribly ugly since my last visit.
Here is a sketch of the prettiest hat I have seen; it was while on a
steamboat going between Trèves and Coblenz; the surroundings are not
shown in the illustration, which I give on the next page. It is a
capote, around which is draped a piece of plaid stuff, falling over the
edge, and one corner of which is looped up on the left side of the hat
by means of a small green, white, and red rosette. The capote is black,
the German lady very fair, with feet like those in the drawing.
N. B.--The drawing is made to the scale of a centimètre for a mètre. I
wish you would introduce these hats. You would make them fashionable.
Speaking of monuments, I have seen none that I cared for; the German
architects seem to me worse than ours. The Münster at Bonn has been
looted, and the Abbey of Laahr painted a colour calculated to make one
gnash his teeth. The scenery on the Moselle is much overdrawn. In
reality it is not remarkable. Since passing the Tmolus I have seen
nothing to stir my sense of the beautiful. My admiration extends no
farther than its shade trees, and the way in which cookery is
understood; in this land the all-important business is _zu speisen_.
After having dined at one o’clock, all good people have tea and cake at
four, then at six they take a roll with sliced tongue, out in the
garden; this enables them to exist until eight o’clock, when they go to
the hôtel for supper. What becomes of the women during this time I can
not imagine; what is certain is that from eight until ten o’clock not a
man is at home. Every one goes to his favourite hôtel to drink, eat, and
smoke. The explanation is found, I fancy, in the feet of the women and
the excellence of the Rhine wine.
I suppose you will be in Paris in a few days. When I see the woods along
the Rhine and the Moselle still green, I picture to myself those of our
climate as bare as broomsticks. This, unfortunately, is only too
probable. It is as you wished it. Good-bye. I regret that I did not ask
you to write to me at Cologne, but it is now too late.