‘Vous avez sans doute cuit toutes sortes de bouillons amers, ainsi que moi.’ Nevertheless I rose in better health and spirits than yesterday, and immediately set to work making all the little arrangements necessary at the beginning of a long journey. In the evening I felt extremely depressed, and as I dreaded an attack of my nervous hypochondriacal disorder, which you christened my ‘maladie imaginaire,’ I sent for Hofrath (Court-counsellor) W——, the favourite physician of the strangers who pass through Dresden, because, independently of his skill, he is an amusing and merry companion. You know the use I make of physicians. Nobody can be of a more homœopathic nature than I am; for the mere conversing with a medical man on my complaint and its remedies, generally half cures me; and if I take any of his prescriptions, it is only in thousandth parts. This was the case to-day; and after some hours, which W—— passed by my bedside, and seasoned with many a piquant anecdote, I supped with better appetite, and slept tolerably till morning. On opening my eyes, they lighted on a letter from you, which the honest B—— had laid upon my bed, well knowing that I could not begin the day so joyfully. Indeed, after the pleasure of hearing from you, I have only one other—that of writing to you.
Do but continue thus unrestrainedly to give utterance to all your feelings, and fear not to wound mine. I well know that your letters must long resemble a sad and dreary landscape. I shall be tranquil, if I do but see an occasional gleam of sunlight throw its rays across it.
Leipsig, Sept. 11th.
In a very pretty room, with well waxed parquet, elegant furniture, and silken curtains, all in their first ‘fraicheur,’ the waiter is now laying the table for my dinner, while I employ these few minutes in writing to you.
I left Dresden at ten o’clock this morning, in tolerably good spirits,—that is, painting fancy pictures for the future. But my lingering regrets at leaving you, dear Julia, and the comparison of my insipid and joyless solitude with the exquisite pleasure I should have had in taking this journey under more happy circumstances, with you, fell heavily upon my heart.
Of the road hither, there is not much to be said; it is not romantic,—not even the vineyards, which extend to Meissen, and which present to the eye more sand than verdure. Yet the country, though too open, sometimes excites agreeable feelings by its freshness and fertility: this is the case at Oschatz, where the pretty bushy Culmberg looks down upon the plain, like the rich-locked head of youth. The ‘chaussée’ is good, and it appears that the post is improving even in Saxony, since the excellent Nagler created a new post-era in Prussia. Nothing amuses me more than the energetic zeal with which B—— drives on the willing as well as the phlegmatic: he behaves to them as if he had already made the tour of the globe with me, and had—of course—found things better everywhere than at home.
In the delicate state of my health, the comfortable English carriage is a real blessing. I rather hug myself on understanding the art of travelling better than my neighbours; particularly as far as the maximizing of comfort is concerned: in this I include the taking the greatest possible number of things (often dear, accustomed memorials) with the least possible ‘embarras’ and loss of time,—a problem which I have now perfectly solved. In Dresden, before I packed up, you would have taken my room for a broker’s shop. Now all my wares have vanished in the numerous receptacles of the carriage: yet without giving it that heavy, overloaded look, at which our postilions so readily take fright; and which marks a man, to the discriminating eye of innkeepers, as one embarked on the grand tour. Every article is at hand, and yet perfectly distinct, so that when I reach my nightly quarters, my domestic relations are quickly re-established in a strange place. On the road, the transparent crystal windows of the largest dimensions obstructed by no luggage or coach-box, afford me as free a view of the country as an open ‘calèche,’ while they leave me lord of the temperature.
The men on their lofty seat behind overlook the luggage and the horses, without the power of casting curious glances into the interior, or of listening to the conversation which may be passing there; if, perchance, on our arrival in the country of the Lilliputs or the Brobdignags, secrets of state should come under discussion. I could deliver a course of lectures on this subject,—one by no means unimportant to travellers; but I have been thus diffuse here only for the sake of furnishing you with a complete picture of myself as you are to think of me, wandering over the face of the earth, while my nomadic dwelling and the ever changing post-horses daily bear me further from your sight.
The host of the Hotel de Saxe, unquestionably one of the best inns in Germany, is an old acquaintance of mine, and established many strong claims on my gratitude when I was a student at Leipsig. Many a joyous and sometimes rather riotous repast was given at his house; and I now invited him to partake of my solitary one, that he might talk to me of the past, and of the wild days of my youth. The present times are, alas! become more serious everywhere. Formerly, pleasure was almost raised into a business,—men thought of nothing else—studied nothing else; and feet, so ready to dance, were lightly set in motion. Now-a-days, people find their pleasure only in business, and stronger excitements are required to make us merry—if that ever be the end proposed.
Weimar, Sept. 13th.—Evening.