It is much cooler to-day, yet still delicious; for be it known to you that I have enjoyed weather worthy of Africa,(853) and yet without swallowing mouthfuls of musquitos, nor expecting to hear hyenas howl in the village, nor to find scorpions in my bed. Indeed, all the way I came home, I could but gaze at the felicity of my countrymen. The road was one string of stage-coaches loaded within and without with noisy jolly folks, and chaises and gigs that had been pleasuring in clouds of dust; every door and every window of every house was open, lights in every shop, every door with women sitting in the street, every inn crowded with jaded horses, and every alehouse full of drunken topers; for you know the English always announce their sense of heat or cold by drinking. Well! it was' impossible not to enjoy such a scene of happiness and affluence in every village, and amongst the lowest of the people; and who are told by villanous scribblers, that they are oppressed and miserable. New streets, new towns, are rising every day and every where; the earth is covered with gardens and crops of grain.
How bitter to turn from this Elysiurn to the temple at Paris! The fiends there have now torn her son from the Queen!(854) Can one believe that they are human beings, who 'midst all their confusions sit coolly meditating new tortures, new anguish for that poor, helpless, miserable woman, after four years of unexampled sufferings? Oh! if such crimes are not made a dreadful lesson, this world might become a theatre of cannibals!
I hope the checks in Bretagne are legends coined by miscreants at Paris. What can one believe? Well, I will go to bed, and try to dream of peace and plenty; and though my lawn is burnt, and my peas and beans, and roses and strawberries parched, I will bear 4 with patience till the harvest is got in. Saint Swithin can never hold his water for forty days, though he can do the contrary. Good night!
(853) Bishop Porteus, writing to Miss More on the 12th of August says, "Your friend Lord Orford and myself are, I believe, the only persons in the kingdom who are worthy of the hot weather— the only true genuine summer we have had for the last thirty years: we both agreed that it was perfectly celestial, and that it was quite scandalous to huff it away as some people did. A few days before it arrived, all the world was complaining of the dreadfully cold northeast wind; and in three days after the warmer weather came in every body was quarrelling with the heat, and sinking under the rays of the sun. Such is that consistent and contented thing called human nature!"-E.
(854) Marie Antoinette was separated from her sister, her daughter, and her son, by virtue of a decree which ordered the trial. Weber, in his memoirs of her, states, that the separation from her son was so touching, so heartrending that the very gaolers who witnessed the scene confessed, when they were giving an account of' it to the authorities, that they could not refrain from tears.-E.
Letter 404 To The Miss Berrys.(855)
Tuesday night, 8 o'clock, Sept. 17, 1793. (page 542)
My beloved spouses, whom I love better than Solomon loved his one spouse—or his one thousand. I lament that the summer is over; not because of its uniquity, but because you two made it so delightful to me, that six weeks of gout could not sour it. Pray take care of yourselves-not for your own sakes, but for mine: for, as I have just had my quota of gout, I may, possibly, expect to see another summer: and, as you allow that I do know my own, and when I wish for any thing and have it, am entirely satisfied, you may depend upon it that I shall be as happy with a third summer, if I reach it, as I have been with the two last.
Consider, that I have been threescore years and ten looking for a society that I perfectly like; and at last there dropped out of the clouds into Lady Herries's room two young gentlewomen, who I so little thought were sent thither on purpose for me, that When I was told they were the charming Miss Berrys, I would not even go to the side of the chamber where they sat. But, as Fortune never throws any thing at one's head without hitting one, I soon found that the charming Berrys were precisely ce qu'il me fallait; and that though young enough to be my great-grand-daughters, lovely enough to turn the heads of all our youths, and sensible enough, if said youths have any brains, to set all their heads to rights again. Yes, sweet damsels, I have found that you can bear to pass half your time with an antediluvian, without discovering any ennui or disgust; though his greatest merit towards you is, that he is not one of those old fools who fancy they are in love in their dotage. I have no such vagary; though I am not sorry that some folks think I am so absurd, since it frets their selfishness. The Mackinsys, Onslows, Miss Pelham, and Madame de Cambis have dined here; and to-morrow I shall have the flamptonians and other Richmondists. I must repeat it; keep in mind that both of you are delicate, and not strong. If you return in better health, I shall not repine at your journey. Good night!
(855) The Miss Berrys were at this time in Yorkshire.
Letter 405 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Wednesday, 3 o'clock, Sept. 25, 1793. (page 543)