After having escaped safe and sound from the water, I was near suffering a sad calamity from fire. I had gone for a minute into another room, and a candle which had burned down in the socket set fire to the papers on my writing-table: before I could extinguish it, many things very interesting to me were destroyed. Copies of letters, prints and drawings, an unfinished novel, (what a pity!) numberless addresses, a part of my journal,—all became the prey of the flames. I could not help laughing when I saw that all the receipts were left untouched, while the unpaid bills were consumed to the last vestige. That’s what I call an obliging fire. The great packet of your letters is burnt round the edges, so that they look as if they were written on mourning paper:—right again, for letters between people who love each other, always mourn over the necessity for writing them. The Vienna courier you wot of, who came charged with a hundred thousand blessings, is turned negro; but his life is happily saved, and his cinq-foil leaf is in full preservation. I send him back to you as a witness and a messenger of the fire.
August 21st.
There is such an extent and variety of ‘terra incognita’ in this illimitable London, that with no other guide than chance one is sure to fall upon something new and interesting. In this way I found myself to-day in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a noble square, almost a German mile from my lodging, surrounded with fine buildings, and adorned with lofty trees and beautiful turf. The most considerable edifice is that of the College of Surgeons, and contains a very interesting museum. One of the gentlemen showed me the establishment with great civility. The first thing which claimed my attention was a very pretty little mermaid which had been exhibited here for money some years ago, and was afterwards sold for a thousand pounds, when it was discovered that she was a deceptive contrivance made out of a small ourang-outang and a salmon, joined together in a most workmanlike manner. The existence of such creatures remains, therefore, as much a problem as ever. Near to it stood a real large ourang-outang, who lived here for a long time, and performed many domestic services in the house. Mr. C—— (so my informant was called) assured me that he must regard this animal as of a distinct genus, nearer to man than to the ape. He had long and attentively observed this individual, and had found in him the most certain proofs of reflection and combination, evidently far beyond the reach of instinct. Thus, he remarked that Mr. Dick (as he called him) felt in gentlemen’s pockets, if he were permitted, for eatables; but if his search was unsuccessful, carefully replaced every thing that did not answer his purpose, instead of throwing it away or letting it fall, as all other monkeys do. He was so sensitive to the slightest mark of displeasure, that he was depressed and unhappy for days after being unkindly spoken to. He was observed, too, to try of his own accord to assist the servants, if he saw them unusually oppressed with work.
There were some preparations exhibiting almost incredible cases of recoveries from wounds. The most extraordinary among them was the breast of a man (which Mr. C—— showed me, preserved in spirits,) who had been so completely spitted by the shaft of a carriage, that he could only be dragged from it by the efforts of several persons. The shaft had passed close to the heart and lungs, which, however, it only gently forced aside, without doing them the least injury, and had broken the ribs before and behind. After the man had been extricated from his horrible situation, he had strength enough left to walk up two flights of stairs, and to lie down on a bed. He lived fourteen years after the accident, sound and well; but the surgeons had kept their eye upon him, and got possession of his body as soon as he was dead. They have placed him in their museum, together with the shaft, which had been kept in his family as a relic.
I was struck by a small, beautifully-formed greyhound, which was built up in a cellar, and was found, after the lapse of many years, perfectly dried. He looked as if carved out of gray sandstone, and presented an affecting image of resignation,—rolled up as if in sleep, and with such a mournful expression of his little head, that one could not look at it without pity. A cat, starved and dried in the same manner, looking on the contrary savage and fiendish. Thus, thought I, is gentleness beautiful even in suffering! It was a picture of the good and the wicked in a like situation; and yet how different the effects!
I must mention the skeleton of the Frenchman who was exhibited here as ‘the living skeleton,’ his bones being really covered with little more than skin. His stomach was smaller than that of a new-born child; and the unhappy creature was condemned to a prolonged starvation, for he could not eat more than half a cup of broth a-day. He was twenty years old,—died in London, and sold himself, while yet alive, to the museum.
As I was driving home, I had taken a quantity of small money in change at the turnpikes, and I amused myself in an odd humour by letting a penny fall quietly out of the carriage every time I saw a poor, ragged person. Not one of them perceived it; all passed over it. And just so does Fortune with us! She drives continually through the world in her chariot, and throws out her gifts blindfold. How seldom do any of us see them, or stoop to pick them up! We are generally seeking elsewhere at the lucky moment.
On my return home, I found a real gift of fate, and a very precious one,—a long letter from you * * *
Herr von S——, whom you mention as one of the recent arrivals at the baths, is an old acquaintance of mine, a strange original whom we all liked, and yet could not resist making a butt of, and who was continually meeting with adventures the most ludicrous and the most serious. You have seen what a caricature he looks, and that he is of all men the least formed to be a man ‘à bonnes fortunes.’ When a young lieutenant, however, he was madly in love with one of the most beautiful women of her time, Baroness B——; and one evening, on her torturing him to the utmost by some biting jest, he ran a sword through his body before her eyes. The weapon went through his lungs, so that a candle held to the wound was blown out. Nevertheless our tragic madman was cured, and Frau von B—— was so touched by this proof of passion, that she became less cruel to so desperate a lover. * * *
Salthill, August 25th.