As we are at last some way on our journey, I take a sheet of paper up, in despair of filling it, to tell you we are both well and hearty. Lord Byron's health is greatly improved, his stomach returning rapidly to its natural state. Exercise and peace of mind, making great advances towards the amendment of his corps délabré, leave little for medicine to patch up. His spirits, I think, are also much improved. He blithely carols through the day, 'Here's to you, Tom Brown': and, when he has done, says, 'That's as well as Hobhouse does it.' You and his other friend, Scrope Davies, form a great subject of conversation.
God! here I am at the end of all my thoughts. Oh no! Waterloo was ridden over by my Lord on a Cossack horse, accompanied by myself on a Flemish steed; Lord Byron singing Turkish or Arnaout riding-tunes, and your h[umble] s[ervant] listening. We had a very good day of it. Lord Byron visited Howard's (I think, Colonel) burying-place twice. We have had two days by preëminence in our tour—to-day and Waterloo. To-day we came from Bonn hither through the finest scenes I ever saw, modern and ancient; the 13th and 18th century forming an olla podrida with the bases given in the year 1. Towers and towns and castles and cots were sprinkled on the side of a.... But here I am on poetic stilts, cut short for prose ones.
They boast—the Ministerialists and others—of ours being the happy land. I should like to carry John Bull to Flanders and the Rhine: happiness, content, cleanliness (here and there), husbandry, plenty without luxury, are here bestowed on all. War has had no effect upon the fields; and even at Waterloo no one (except for the glittering button or less brilliant cuirass in beggar's hand) would imagine two such myriaded armies had met there. No sulkiness is seen upon the face here, and no impudence. On the Rhine and in Flanders there are hardly any beggars. To-day we had nosegays given us by little girls for centimes. But the other day, coming to Battice, we met the best beggars: three little girls, pretty though not well dressed, ran along our carriage, crying out—"Donnez-nous un sou, Monsieur le Général en chef"; and another, "Chef de bataillon." Having given these some, a boy followed, pulling faces comic enough to make such grave dons laugh, and crying out, "Vivent Messieurs les Rois des Hanovériens—donnez-moi un sou."
As I fear I have tried your eyes, and lost my pains after all on account of the illegibility of my accursed pen's scratches, I must end—assuring you at the same time I am with esteem
Yours etc.,
J. Polidori.
We count upon being at Geneva in ten days at best. Excuse the bad writing etc., for I am in a fever of digestion after my ride.—J. P.
To Gaetano Polidori.
September 20, 1816.
My dear Father,