Dearest Kitty,--If anything could divert the mind from sorrow,--from the
"grief that sears and scalds,"--it would be the delightful existence of
this charming city, where associations of the past and present pleasure
divide attention between them. We are stopping at the Bellevue, the
great hotel of the upper town; but my delight, my ecstasy, is the old
city,--the Grande Place, especially, with its curious architecture,
of mediaeval taste, its high polished roofs, and carved architraves. I
stood yesterday at the window where Count Egmont marched forth to the
scaffold; I touched the chair where poor Horn sat for the last
time, whilst his fainting wife fell powerless at his knees, and I
thought,--yes, dearest Kitty, I own it,--I thought of that last dreadful
parting in the summer-house with poor Peter.--My tears are blotting out
the words as I write them. Why,--why, I ask, must we be wretched? Why
are we not free to face the humble destiny which more sordid spirits
would shrink from? What is there in narrow fortune, if the heart soars
above it? Papa is, however, more inexorable than ever; and as for mamma,
she looks at me as though I were the disgrace of our name and lineage.
Cary never did--never could understand me, poor child!--may she never
know what it is to suffer as I do! But why do I distress you with my
sorrows?--"let me tune my harp to lighter lays," as that sweet poet,
Haynes Bailey, says. We were yesterday at the great ball of Count
Haegenstroem, the Danish Ambassador here. Papa received a large packet
of letters of introduction on Monday last, from the Foreign Office. It
would seem that Lord P. thought pa was a member, for he addressed him as
M.P.; but the mistake has been so far fortunate, that we are invited on
Tuesday to dine at Lord Gledworth's, our ambassador here, and we
have his box for to-night at the Opera,--not to speak of last night's
invitation, which came from him. I wore my amber gauze over the satin
slip, with the "jonquilles" and white roses, two camellias in my hair,
with mamma's coral chain twined through the roll at the back. Count
Ambrose de Roncy called me a "rose-cameo," and I believe I _did_ look my
best. I danced with "Prince Sierra d'Aguila Nero," a Sicilian that ought
to be King of Sicily, and will, they say, if the King of Naples dies
without leaving seven sons. What a splendid man, Kitty! not tall, rather
the reverse; but such eyes, and such a beard, and so perfumed,--the very
air around him was like the garden of Attarghul! He spoke very little
English, and could not bear to talk French; he said the French betrayed
"_la sua carissima patria;_" and so, my dear Kitty, I did my best in the
syllables of the sweet South. _He_, at least, called my accent "divina,"
and said that he would come and read Petrarch with me tomorrow.
Don't let Peter be a fool when he hears this. The Prince is in a very
different sphere from poor Mary Anne! he always dances with Queen
Victoria when he's at Windsor, and called our Prince Consort "_Il suo
diletto Alberto_;" and, more than all, he's married, but separated from
the Princess. He told me this himself, and with what terrible emotion,
Kitty! I thought of Charles Kean in Claude Melnotte, as he spoke in a
low guttural voice, with his hand on his bosom. It was very dreadful,
but these temperaments, moulded alike by southern climes and ancient
descent, are awful in their passionate vehemence. I assure you, it was a
relief to me when he stopped one of the trays and took a pineapple ice.
I felt that it was a moment of peril passed in safety. You can form no
notion, dearest, of the fascination of foreign manners; something there
is so gently insinuating, so captivating, so bewitching, and withal
so natural, Kitty,--that's the very strangest thing of all. There is
absolutely nothing a foreigner cannot say to you. I almost blush as
I think of what I now know must have been the veriest commonplace of
society, but which to my ears, in all their untutored ignorance, sounded
very odd.
Mamma--and you know her prudery--is actually in ecstasy with them. The
Prince said to me last night, "Savez-vous, Mademoiselle! Madame votre
mère est d'une beauté classique?" and I assure you ma was delighted with
the compliment when she heard it. Papa is not so tractable: he calls
them the most atrocious names, and has all the old prejudices about the
Continent that we see in the old farces. Cary is, however, worse again,
and thinks their easy elegance, is impertinence, and all the graceful
charm of their manner nothing but--her own words--"egregious vanity."
Shall I whisper you a bit of a secret? Well, then, Kitty, the reason
of this repugnance may be that she makes no impression whatever,
notwithstanding her beauty; and there is no denying that she does not
possess the gift--whatever it be--of fascination. She has, besides, a
species of antipathy to everything foreign, that she makes no effort
to disguise. A rather unfortunate acquaintance ma made, on board the
steam-packet, with a certain Mr. Krauth, who called himself sub-consul
of somewhere in Holland, but who turned out to be a Jew pedler, has
given Cary such an opportunity of inveighing against all foreigners that
she is positively unendurable. This Krauth, I must say, was atrociously
vulgar, and shockingly ugly; but as he could talk some broken English,
ma rather liked him, and we had him to tea; after which he took James
home to his lodgings, to show him some wonderful stuffed birds that he
was bringing to the Royal Princesses. I have not patience to tell you
all the narrative; but the end of it was that poor dear James, having
given all his pocket-money and his silver pencil-case for a tin musical
snuff-box that won't play Weber's last waltz, except in jerks like a
hiccough, actually exchanged two dozen of his new shirts for a box of
Havannah cigars and a cigar-case with a picture of Fanny Elssler on it!
Papa was in a towering passion when he heard of it, and hastened off to
K.'s lodgings; but he had already decamped. This unhappy incident threw
a shade over our last few days at Ostend; for James never came down
to dine, but sat in his own room smoking the atrocious cigars, and
contemplating the portrait of the charming Fanny,--pursuits which, I
must say, seemed to have conduced to a most melancholy and despondent
frame of mind.
There was another _mésaventure_, my dearest Kitty. My thanks to that
sweet language for the word by which I characterize it! A certain Count
Victor de Lancy, who made acquaintance with us at the _table d'hôte_,
and was presuming enough to visit us afterwards, turned out to be a
common thief! and who, though under the surveillance of the police,
made away with ma's workbox, and her gold spectacles, putting on pa's
paletot, and a new plaid belonging to James, as he passed out. It is
very shocking; but confess, dearest, what a land it must be, where the
pedlers are insinuating, and the very pickpockets have all the ease and
breeding of the best society. I assure you that I could not credit the
guilt of M. de L., until the Brigadier came yesterday to inquire about
our losses, and take what he called his _signalement_. I thought, for
a moment or two, that he had made a mistake, Kitty, and was come for
_mine_; for he looked into my eyes in such a way, and spoke so softly,
that I began to blush; and mamma, always on the watch, bridled up, and
said, "Mary Anne!" in that voice you must so well remember; and so it
is, my dear friend, the thief and the constable, and I have no doubt,
too, the judge, the jury, and the jailer, are all on the same beat!
I have just been called away to see such a love of a rose tunic, all
_glacé_, to be worn over a dull slate-colored jupe, looped up at one
side with white camellias and lilies of the valley. Think of me, Kitty,
with my hair drawn back and slightly powdered, red heels to my shoes,
and a great fan hanging to my side, like grave Aunt Susan In the
picture, wanting nothing but the love-sick swain that plays the
flageolet at her feet!--Madame Adèle, the modiste, says, "not long to
wait for a dozen such,"--and this not for a fancy ball, dearest, but for
a simple evening party,--a "dance-able tea," as papa will call it. I
vow to you, Kitty, that it greatly detracts from the pictorial effect
of this taste, to see how obstinately men will adhere to their present
ungainly and ungraceful style of dress,--that shocking solecism in
costume, a narrow-tailed coat, and those more fearful outrages on shape
and symmetry for which no name has been invented in any language. Now,
the levelling effect of this black-coat system is terrific; and there is
no distinguishing a man of real rank from his tailor,--amongst English
at least, for the crosses and decorations so frequent with foreigners
are unknown to us. Talking of these, Kitty, the Prince of Aguila Nero is
splendid. He wears nearly every bird and beast that Noah had in the
ark, and a few others quite unknown to antediluvial zoology. These
distinctions are sad reflections on the want of a chivalric feeling in
our country; and when we think of the heroic actions, the doughty deeds,
and high achievements of these Paladins, we are forced to blush for the
spirit that condemns us to be a nation of shopkeepers.
How I run on, dearest, from one topic to another! just as to my mind
is presented the delightful succession of objects about me,--objects of
whose very existence I did not know till now! And then to think of what
a life of obscurity and darkness we were condemned to, at home!--our
neighborhood, a priest, a miller, and those odious Davises; our
gayeties, a detestable dinner at the Grange; our theatricals, "The
Castle Spectre," performed in the coach-house; and instead of those
gorgeous and splendid ceremonials of our Church, so impressive, so
soul-subduing, Kitty, the little dirty chapel at Bruff, with Larry
Behan, the lame sacristan, hobbling about and thrashing the urchins
with the handle of the extinguisher! his muttered "If I was near yeez!"
breaking in on the "Oremus, Domine." Shall I own it, Kitty, there is a
dreadful vulgarity about our dear little circle of Dodsborough; and "one
demoralizes," as the French say, by the incessant appeal of low and too
familiar associations.
I have been again called away to interpret for papa, with the police.
That graceless little wretch, Paddy Byrne, who was left behind by the
train at Malines, went to eat his dinner at one of the small restaurants
in the town, called the "Cheval Pie," and not finding the food to his
satisfaction, got into some kind of an altercation with the waiter, when
the name of the hostel coming up in the dispute, suggested to Paddy
the horrid thought that it was the "Horse Pie-house" he had chanced
upon,--an idea so revolting to his culinary prejudices that he smashed
and broke everything before him, and was only subdued at last by a
corporal's party of the gendarmerie, who handcuffed and conveyed him to
Brussels; and here he is, now, crying and calling himself a "poor boy
that was dragged from home," and, in fact, trying to persuade himself
and all around him that he has been sold into slavery by a cruel
master. Betty Cobb, too, has just joined the chorus, and is eloquently
interweaving a little episode of Irish wrongs and sorrows into the
tissue of Paddy's woes!
Betty is worse than him. There is nothing good enough for her to eat; no
bed to sleep upon; she even finds the Belgians deficient in cleanliness.
This, after Bruff, is a little too bad; mamma, however, stands by her in
everything, and in the end she will become intolerable. James intends
to send a few lines to your brother Robert; but if he should fail--not
improbable, as writing, with him, combines the double difficulties of
orthography and manuscript--pray remember us kindly to him, and believe
me ever, my dearest Kitty,