SALISBURY, _Saturday, June 15, 1850_.
I am beginning to have enough of this country. I am exceedingly tired of
their perpendicular style of architecture, and of the equally
perpendicular manners of the natives. I spent two days at Cambridge and
at Oxford with some reverends, and, taking everything into
consideration, I prefer the Capucines. I am particularly incensed
against Oxford, where a _fellow_ had the insolence to invite me to
dinner. There was a fish four inches long in a large silver platter, and
a cutlet in another. All this, with potatoes in a carved wooden dish,
was served in magnificent style. Meanwhile I was nearly starved. This is
an indication of the hypocrisy of those people. They like to make a show
to strangers of their temperance, and if they have luncheon they do not
dine.
It is deuced windy and wretchedly cold. If it were not still bright
daylight at eight o’clock at night one could readily believe it was
December. This does not prevent all the women from carrying their
parasols raised. I have just committed a blunder. I gave a half-crown to
a person in black who showed me the Cathedral, and when I asked him for
the address of a gentleman to whom the Dean had given me a letter of
introduction, it turned out that it was to himself that the letter was
addressed. He looked confused, and so did I, but he kept the money.
I expect to revisit Stonehenge to-morrow, and if the fog lifts I shall
dine at night in London. Monday or Tuesday I am going to Canterbury, and
hope to reach Paris Friday. I wish you were here in Salisbury.
Stonehenge would astonish you greatly. Good-bye. I am going to return to
the Cathedral. My letter will start, God knows when! I have just been
told that on the Lord’s Day the post-office is closed. I have an
abominable cold and cough, and can get nothing but port wine to drink.
The women here wear hoops under their gowns. It is impossible to find
anything more ridiculous than an Englishwoman in a hoop-skirt. Who is
Miss Jewsberry, who has carroty hair and writes novels? I met her the
other evening, and she told me that all her life she had dreamed of a
pleasure which she never expected to realise, and this was to see me (I
quote). She has written a novel entitled _Zoë_. You, who read so much,
must tell me all about this person, to whom I am a book. In the
Zoological Garden there is a baby hippopotamus, which is fed on rice and
milk. In _Punch_, of the 15th, there is a portrait of him, which is a
speaking likeness.
Good-bye. Will you try to give me a good walk to make up for my three
weeks’ journey?