The Elgin Marbles I was glad enough to see again—one has never seen them too often,—and was sitting down to reflect upon them at my leisure, when my American friend, to whom, doubtless, they seemed but a parcel of discolored, dirty, decapitated bodies, proposed that we should pass on, which we accordingly did.
YOUNG AMERICANS. I am struck with the spirit of conformity by which this gentleman seems troubled, and which Adelaide tells me the young American people they saw in Rome constantly expressed,—the dread of appearing that which they are, foreigners; the annoyance at hearing that their accent and dress denote them to be Americans. They certainly are not comfortable people in this respect, and I always wish, for their own sakes as well as mine, that they had more or less self-love.
I was impelled to say to my young clergyman, whose fear of trespassing against English usages seemed to leave him hardly any other idea, "Sir, are you not a foreigner, an American? May I ask why it is to be considered incumbent upon you, either by yourself or others, to dress and speak like an Englishman?" ...
Good-bye, dear.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
18, Orchard Street, November 18th.
I do not know that I ever slept so near the sea as to hear it discoursing as loudly as you describe, though I have been where its long swelling edge was heard rolling up and tearing itself to ribbons on the shingly beach like distant thunder. As for night-sounds of any sort, you know my sound sleep is the only one I am familiar with.
In the hotel at Niagara, the voice of the cataract not only roared night and day through every chamber of the house, but the whole building vibrated incessantly with the shock of the mighty fall. I have still health and nerve and spirits to cope with the grand exhibitions of the powers of Nature: the majesty and beauty of the external world always acts as a tonic on me, and under its influence I feel as if a strong arm was put round me, and was lifting me over stony places; and I nothing doubt that the great anthem of the ocean would excite rather than overpower me, however nearly it sounded in my ears.
Your description of the terrace, or parade walk, covered with my fellow-creatures, appals my imagination much more. My sympathies have never been half human enough, and in the proximity of one of nature's most impressive objects I shrink still more from contact with the outward forms of unknown humanity. However, this is merely an answer to your description; I shall find, by creeping down the shingles, some place below, or, by climbing the cliff, some place above, these dear men and women, where I can be a little alone with the sea.