Kissingen, 10th July.
As I was sitting at breakfast this morning I had a visit from my physician. He looked with consternation on the table. “Butter!” he exclaimed; “strawberries! tea! milk!” There was a crescendo of horror in his voice. One by one, these slender luxuries were withdrawn, and I was left with a little bread, and water (the staple of the place) ad libitum.
Though the cur of these waters is not an agreeable process, I have great faith in the advantages that accrue. There is a day or two called the crisis, which I have just passed—about the fifteenth or sixteenth after beginning the waters—which, indeed, resembles the crisis of a serious illness. The body becomes inert and languid, with a sense of illness pervading the frame; the mind is haunted by apprehension of evil, and is disturbed by a nervous restlessness and irritability of the most distressing kind. After a day or two these symptoms disappear. I experienced it most painfully, and am now quite well, but rather eager to get away: I am heartily tired of the waters, the promenade, the dinners, the sick; and the surrounding scenery is by no means interesting enough to compensate for our disagreeable style of life.
Generally, the assembling at a German bath is a signal for gaiety; but the physicians here discountenance every sort of excitement, and their malades are very obedient. The Queen of Wurtemburg is here incog. as Frau Grafinn von Teck, with two Grafinnin her daughters—fine girls, with all the beauty of youth and health. The artificers of Kissingen celebrated her arrival by walking in procession, with torches, into the court-yard of her hotel, where the band played, and the torches flared and smoked, till everybody was blinded and begrimed. The Queen walks in the morning early to drink the waters, and the centre allée of the gardens is left free for her. Such persons as have been presented, she has asked to dinner, but gives no further sign of life. Once a week there takes place what they call a reunion, when everybody meets in the Conversationhaus built by the King of Bavaria for the benefit of the baths. It is as good a ball-room as that of Almack, or in the palace of the King of Holland at the Hague; but the miserable use they made of it shocked us. At half-past eight the room is crowded; but the company do not dance, although there is a good band playing quadrilles, waltzes, and galoppes, the whole evening; sometimes two couples may be seen turning in the midst of the crowd; sometimes these may augment to six—but it is rare—and this in a room where several hundred people are assembled. The cause is the despotic decree of the triumvirate of doctors above-mentioned, who maintain dancing to be absolutely incompatible with drinking the waters.
They tried to get up the appearance of a fête on the birthday of the Queen of Bavaria. They dressed the salle a manger at the Kurhaus with boughs of trees; the Governor dined at our table, and gave a toast, “the Queen;” while the band (we always have music at dinner) played our National Air, which the Bavarians claim for their own. The ceremony of dining was thus longer and more tiresome than usual. There was an illumination in the evening; and the canopy to the mineral springs looked pretty, picked out in lamps.
July 13th.
The King of Bavaria came over this morning. He is popular as a good king and a clever man, fond of the arts; but is esteemed to have “a bee in his bonnet,” which “bee” appears to have degenerated into a wasp with his son Otho. The Crown Prince of Bavaria is much respected, and has the reputation of being gifted with his father’s talents, with judgment superadded. The appearance of the King is droll enough; tall, with long legs and arms, he walks furiously fast, talks earnestly and loud, and gesticulates violently; he dresses shabbily, and his thin, adust face is inconceivably wrinkled.
The baths which he particularly patronises are those of Brukenau, about twenty miles distant, where he has a palace: these are steel waters, and most people go to strengthen themselves there, after being diluted by the Kissingen springs. The King has perceived the flow of money brought into other States by the resort of strangers to the baths, and is very anxious that his should be celebrated. For this reason, he decorated Dr. Granville’s button-hole with a bit of ribbon, much to the disgust of the native physicians, who are provoked to remark, “Our King is sometimes one fool.” Dr. Granville is practising here, also to the discontent of the native medical people, who see the rich current of English guineas turn away from themselves. However, as he is the cause of many coming here, he has certainly a right to profit by their visits. The King is very fond of receiving the English; he understands our language, and asks, in royal style, a thousand rapid questions; being somewhat deaf, he does not always hear the reply, and droll equivoques have taken place.
Now that the Queen of Wurtemburg, who changes her dress three times a day, and never wears the same gown twice, promenades the gardens, the ladies pay more attention to their toilettes; but there is a great absence of beauty among us. There are no good-looking Germans,—and the handsomest women are one or two Russians. The English do not shine as much as usual. As yet, few persons of rank are arrived; the season for touring with us is not yet commenced, and the good people of Kissingen will hail a second harvest when we hurry across the channel at the end of the London season. Most of the men here are really ill, and come to take care of their health. Accordingly, they obey the physicians, who forbid gambling. It is only on Sunday, when it is the fashion for all our neighbours, from many miles round, to come over to dine at Kissingen, and that gaming-tables are opened in some rooms of the Kurhaus, but they are thinly attended. No gaiety goes on in the Conversation House, with the exception of the réunions; but it is always open—a retreat and a lounge from the promenade in the gardens. There is a piano in it; and it is a specimen of German manners, that ladies go in all simplicity to practise, and even exercise their voices in a public room, without any of the false shame, or vanity, or modesty that an Englishwoman would experience, and also without exciting any observation.
I am ashamed to say I make no progress in German; my eyes and health have both held me back, and our master does not lead me on. Yet, though it is the fashion of his pupils to rebel, he has a practice which I am sure is a good one for any person desirous to speak the language quickly. With perseverance, and a haughty sense of our duty towards him, he gathers us together (about six or eight) in the rooms of some one of us, to read aloud a play of Schiller—we each having a copy of the play with a literal translation on the other side. It is strange how quickly the eye can turn from the original to the translation, and the ear get habituated to remember the words and phrases; it is a royal road to a smattering of the language to which I shall certainly have recourse again, so to try to acquire a better knowledge of this crabbed, and to my memory, antipathetic German.