In the midst of this ‘trouble’ I received another letter from you through L——, and rejoiced in the hundred-thousandth assurance of your love, an assurance of which I shall certainly not be tired before the millionth, and shall then exclaim, ‘L’appétit vient en mangeant!’ Just as little tired, it seems, are people here with these fêtes. While the dark clouds are gathering heavier and heavier around their horizon, our diplomates dance and dine, and meet the threatening storm with jests and laughter; and the great and the elevated are mingled with the vulgar and the common place, as in Shakespeare’s faithful mirrors of life.
My own spirits are favourably excited by all this, and my mind is in a healthy and vigorous state. My masculine soul (for I have a feminine one of my own, besides yours, which belongs to me) is just now ‘du jour;’ and when that is the case, I always feel more free and independent, and less sensitive to external influences. This state of mind is quite the right one for a residence here, for Englishmen are like their flints,—cold, angular, and furnished with cutting edges; but the steel succeeds in striking live sparks out of them, thus producing light by a friendly antagonism.
Generally speaking, I am too indolent, or rather, too little excited by them, to be either willing or able to act as steel to any of the individuals who surround me; but I have, at least, opposed to their pride still greater pride, and thus softened some and repulsed others. Both were just what I wished; for the craniologist said of me very truly, that I was endowed with a strong tendency to creativeness; and such minds can only love those which act with the same elective affinities as themselves; or those which, in a subordinate station, are useful instruments on which to play the melodies of their own composition. All others are either opposite to, or remote from them.
Jan. 11th.
The last party given in honour of Don Miguel took place to-night at the Dutch Ambassador’s, to which little incident one might hang all sorts of interesting historical reminiscences. Both Portugal and Holland, though so small in territorial extent, were once great powers. The one took the road of freedom, the other that of slavery, and yet both are become equally insignificant; nor does their internal prosperity and happiness seem very greatly to differ. But I will leave these considerations, and substitute for them a few words in praise of the amiable Ambassadress, whose French vivacity has not yet given place to the melancholy, ponderous follies of English fashion. Her house, too, is one of the few which one may visit in an evening in the Continental fashion, uninvited, and be sure to find conversation. When Madame de F—— was living in Tournay before her marriage, my beloved ‘chef,’ the old Grand Duke of W——, lived in her parents’ house for some time during the war of deliverance,[77] and used jestingly to call the charming daughter his favourite aide-de-camp. As I had filled that post, I had to plead a sort of comradeship, an honour I am the less disposed to forego my claim to, as her husband is a very agreeable man, equally distinguished for the goodness of his heart and the soundness of his head.
I ate a German dinner to-day at Count Münster’s, who from time to time regales us with a wild Hanoverian. To-day it was a noble boar, with that royal sauce invented by George the Fourth, of which it is written in the Almanac des Gourmands, ‘qu’avec une telle sauce on mangérait son père.’ Over and above this delicacy, we were treated with a good anecdote by Sir Walter Scott. He said he one day met an Irish beggar in the street, who asked him for six-pence; Sir Walter could not find one, and at last gave him a shilling, saying, with a laugh, “But mind now, you owe me six-pence.” “Och, sure enough!” said the beggar, “and God grant you may live till I pay you.”
Before I went to bed I read over your last letter again. You have entered completely into my view of the character of Macbeth, and the few words you say about it and about the performance of our actors are masterly. It is strange, but true, that acting is every where degenerated. Surely this lies in the selfish, mechanical, unpoetical spirit of our times.
Equally true is your remark on the high society of B——; that the wit, and even the learning, which display themselves so ostentatiously there have nothing of that good-humoured attaching character which is necessary to give to both the true social charm. The warm heart’s pulse is wanting in that arid soil;—the people can’t help it:—and when they hunt after Fancy, she always appears to them, as she did to Hofmann, in the form of a horrible lay-figure, or of a spectre. Your friend, who does not fare much better, was also, unhappily, born in the sand: but I think the metallic exhalations which issued from the shafts, the flaming breath of the gnomes from beneath, the dark solitude of the pine-forests above, and the whisper of the Dryads from amid their thick branches, surrounded his cradle, and shed over the poor child some foreign and beneficent influences.
The ‘parforce’ members of the new Parforce hunt[78] made me laugh heartily. They are the best contrast to the volunteers of the Landwehr. I am myself a sincere advocate of the latter, because I love our King from my heart; and to serve him is not only a duty, but a real enjoyment, in my estimation. When I return, therefore, I shall very willingly suffer ‘une douce violence,’ and accompany the ‘parforce’ hunt, were it only from respect and attachment to the elegant and amiable Prince who is the leader of it. The field horsemanship, almost forgotten among us, will thus be revived; and England daily teaches me, that habit and amusements connected with danger and hardship have a very favourable effect on the youth of a nation, and consequently on its whole character.
January 14th.