I am, as you know, not strong in remembering anniversaries and the like;
but I know full well that to-morrow is the day on which I left my poor
Julia alone in B----. A year has rolled over us, and we insects are
still creeping on in the old track. But we love each other as much as
ever, and that is the main thing. We shall work our way in time through
those great heaps under which we are now forced to toil so wearily; and
perhaps reach the fresh grass and the beautiful flowers on which the
morning has scattered her diamonds, and the gay sunbeams dance
glittering in the wet crystal. 'Soyez tranquille, nous doublerons encore
un jour le Cap de bonne espérance.'
For some days I have written nothing about my sayings and doings,
because they amounted only to this,--that I worked and wrote daily with
B----, dined with L---- at the Travellers' Club, and went to bed.
Yesterday we had the company of another German at dinner, Count ----, who
is come to buy horses. He seems to have a good deal of money, and is
young enough to enjoy it; 'au reste,' the perfect picture of a
good-natured country gentleman (_Landjunker_,)--of a truth, a most happy
sort of man:--I only wish I were one.
As to your opinion about parks, I must remark that the extent of them,
especially when properly rounded, can never be great enough. Windsor
park is the only one which has fully satisfied me as a whole, and the
reason for that is its enormous size. It realizes all I would have;--a
pleasant tract of country, within the bounds of which you can live and
do what you like, without privation or constraint; hunt, fish, ride,
drive, without ever feeling cramped; in which you never see a point,
except just at the entrance-gates, at which you remark, Here is a
boundary; and to which all the beauties of the surrounding country to
the remotest distance have been rendered tributary by a cultivated
taste.
In other respects you are right: one must not throw away good and bad
together; and it is better to conceal many defects and limitations of
the ground by skilfully-planned paths and plantations, than to make
disproportionate sacrifices to them.
My horses are safe on board, and sail to-day; though the beautiful
Hyperion behaved like mad, dashed the box in which he was enclosed into
pieces like glass, and burst all the halters and straps that confined
him. He was within an inch of falling into the river, and will probably
give them a good deal of trouble on the passage, though we have bound
him like a wild beast. One can't blame the poor animal for being
frightened when the crane, like a giant's arm, seized him and bore him
into the air. Many, however, take it very quietly, for even among horses
there are Stoics.
There is nothing which needs really detain me now in London; but
Lady ---- is still here in the solitude,--and she is so attractive. To
quit such a friend were a sin,--the more so, as I have not the least
idea of falling in love with her. But is not the true unmixed friendship
of a charming woman something very sweet? I have often remarked how men
destroy all friendship with women, because they always think it
incumbent on them to play the adorer; they thus alarm their delicacy,
and check at once that unsuspecting confidence and ease which might
otherwise subsist between them. I am well contented with the mere
friendship of an amiable woman, especially when I can read it in her
soft blue eyes, hear it from a mouth of pearl and coral, and feel it in
the kind pressure of a velvet hand. To this portrait you have only to
add the innocent look of a dove, long dark-brown curling hair, a slender
form, and the most beautiful English complexion, and you have Lady ----
before your eyes.
_Doncaster, Sept. 16th._
I might almost have dated from London, so rapidly have I skimmed over
these hundred and eighty miles; and yet I have had time to get a sight
of two celebrated houses of the time of Elizabeth, though a transient
one.
The first, Hatfield, which belonged to herself, and which she frequently
inhabited, is less magnificent than the second, Burleigh House, which
was built by her great minister Cecil. Hatfield is built of brick; only
the eyebrows of the windows, the corners, &c. are of stone. The
proportions are good and grand. There is nothing remarkable in the park
and garden, but a fine avenue of oaks, which are reported to have been
planted by the Queen herself.
I could only see the outside of Burleigh House; for though the family
were all absent, the 'châtelaine' was in no way to be moved to desecrate
the sabbath by showing the house to a foreigner. I regretted this the
more, because there is a fine collection of pictures. The ancient park
is full of the finest trees; but the water, both here and at Hatfield,
stagnant and muddy. The house itself is in a confused style, Gothic
below, and with chimneys like Corinthian pillars. The great statesman
must have had a very corrupt taste in art.
_York, Sept. 17th._
Doncaster races are the most frequented in England, and the course is
far preferable to any in the country for elegance, fitness, and
commodious sight of the whole. The view of the race is more agreeable,
and less brief and transient; for from the lofty and elegant stand you
distinctly overlook the whole course from beginning to end. The horses
run in a circle, and the same point serves as starting-post and goal.
The concourse of people, of handsome women and fashionable company, was
extraordinary. All the great neighbouring nobility came in their gala
equipages,--a very interesting sight to me, because I thus learned one
sort of state observed here in the country, which is very different from
that in town. The most distinguished equipage was that of the Duke of
Devonshire, and I describe his train to you as a notice for M----. The
Duke's party were seated in a full-bodied carriage drawn by six horses,
the harness and hammercloth of moderate richness, and the coachman in
intermediate livery, flaxen wig, and boots. The carriage was escorted by
twelve outriders: namely, four grooms mounted on horses of different
colours, with light saddles and bridles, four postillions on
carriage-horses exactly like those in the carriage, with harness-reins,
and postillions' saddles; lastly, four footmen in morning jackets,
leathern breeches and top-boots, with saddle-cloths and holsters
embroidered with the Duke's arms. The order of the train was as follows:
first, two grooms; then two postillions; then the carriage with its six
beautiful horses which the coachman drove from the box, a postillion
riding the leader. On the left rode a footman; another somewhat further
back on the right; behind the carriage two more postillions, then two
grooms, and lastly, two more footmen. The little fellow who rode the
leader was the only one in full state livery,--yellow, blue, black and
silver, with a powdered wig,--rather a theatrical dress, with the arms
embroidered on his left sleeve.
The St. Leger race, which took place to-day, has probably caused many a
sleepless night, for enormous sums have been lost. A little mare, which
was so lightly esteemed that the bets were fifteen to one against her,
was in first of twenty-six horses that ran. An acquaintance of mine won
nine thousand pounds, and had he been unsuccessful, would have lost
hardly as many hundreds. Another is said to have lost nearly every thing
he had, and, as it is asserted, through the trickery of the owner of one
of the horses.
Immediately after the races, which with their animated crowd and
thousand equipages afforded me a most striking exhibition of English
wealth, I drove further north, towards some object yet unknown to
myself, and arrived at one o'clock in the morning at this city of York.
During the whole ride I read by my lamp Madame de Maintenon's Letters to
the Princess des Ursins, which entertained me extremely. Many passages
are remarkably illustrative of the manners of her age. The incognito
Queen of course understands court-life to the very bottom; and often
reminded me strongly of a good friend of yours, especially by her manner
of affecting complete ignorance of all that was passing, and of
undervaluing her own influence. She however shows great mildness and
prudence, and such extraordinary tact and good-breeding in all she says
and does, that one is constrained to think her more amiable than history
represents her. It is indeed always a bad thing to let an old woman
govern, whether in petticoats or breeches; but it was easier then than
now, for all ranks of people were obviously far more like great 'naïfs'
children. They even made war in that spirit. Nay, they regarded Almighty
God as a Louis the Fourteenth in the highest '_potenz_;' and, like true
courtiers, when they were 'in articulo mortis,' they left their earthly
king in a moment,--taking no further notice of him,--to devote
themselves exclusively to that mightier Ruler, whom they had hitherto
neglected as too distant. One can distinctly perceive in these old
'Mémoires,' that those who had been tolerably successful at Court went
out of the world with considerable confidence in their 'savoir faire' in
heaven; while those who were in disgrace suffered much greater fear of
death, and severer stings of conscience. It is quite impossible, now, to
represent to oneself such a Court or such an existence, faithfully; but
perhaps for our particular class, it was not such a bad state of things.
I fell into many reflections on this eternal change in human affairs;
and at length breathed upon by that invisible spirit which pervades the
Whole, turned with loving greetings to the brilliant star of eve, which
from endless years had looked down upon all this struggle with pitying
tolerance and untroubled peace.
_September 19th._