GENOA, _September 10, 1858_.
On my arrival here I found your letter of the 1st, which I acknowledge
gratefully. You make no mention of one which I wrote you from Brescia
about the first of this month. In it I said that I had left Venice with
regret, and that I was thinking of you constantly.
Lake Como was charming. I stopped at Bellagio. In a little villa by the
lake shore I found Madame Pasta, whom I had not seen since the days of
her triumphs in the Italian Opera. She has increased singularly in
width. She is now cultivating her cabbages, and says she is as happy as
when we used to throw crowns and sonnets to her. We talked of music, the
drama, and she said something that struck me as very true, which was
that since Rossini no one had written an opera of any unity, of which
all the parts held together. All that Verdi and his associates have done
resembles a harlequin’s costume.
The weather is magnificent, and this evening the boat leaves for
Leghorn. I am tempted strongly to go to Florence for a week, returning
by way of Genoa, and probably by the Corniche. If, however, I should
receive any letters of importance, I might take the Turin route, and
reach Paris in thirty hours. In any case, I shall expect to see you
there October 1st. Be kind enough not to forget, or you will put me to
the necessity of going to search for you along your sea-shore.
You say nothing about Grenoble spinach, or the fifty-three ways of
serving it, customary in Dauphiny. Is any one left who used to know
Beyle? I received some time ago a very witty letter, full of anecdotes
about him, from a man whose name I have forgotten, but who, I believe,
is registrar of the Imperial Court. Formerly, there was still some sense
of humour in the provinces, as in the period of the president _de
Brosses_; now, however, not even an idea is to be found there. The
railroads are hastening the process of mental paralysis, and I am
confident that, in twenty years from now, reading will be a lost art....