LETTER XVIII.
London, Sept. 7th, 1827.
Dear friend,
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.