GERMANY AND ITALY.
PART I.—1840.
LETTER I.
Project for spending the Summer on the Banks of the Lake of Como.—Fine Spring.—Stormy Weather.—Passage from Dover to Calais.—The Diligence.—Paris.—Plan of our Route.
Brighton, June 13, 1840.
I am glad to say, that our frequent discussions of this spring have terminated in a manner very agreeable to every one concerned in them. My son and his two friends have decided on spending their summer vacation on the shores of the lake of Como—there to study for the degree, which they are to take next winter. They wish me to accompany them, and I gladly consent.
Can it, indeed, be true, that I am about to revisit Italy? How many years are gone since I quitted that country! There I left the mortal remains of those beloved—my husband and my children, whose loss changed my whole existence, substituting, for happy peace and the interchange of deep-rooted affections, years of desolate solitude, and a hard struggle with the world; which only now, as my son is growing up, is brightening into a better day. The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables. The hope of seeing it again recalls vividly to my memory that time, when misfortune seemed an empty word, and my habitation on earth a secure abode, which no evil could shake. Graves have opened in my path since then; and, instead of the cheerful voices of the living, I have dwelt among the early tombs of those I loved. Now a new generation has sprung up; and, at the name of Italy, I grow young again in their enjoyments, and gladly prepare to share them. You know, also, how grievously my health has been shaken; a nervous illness interrupts my usual occupations, and disturbs the ordinary tenor of my life. Travelling will cure all: my busy, brooding thoughts will be scattered abroad; and, to use a figure of speech, my mind will, amidst, novel and various scenes, renew the outworn and tattered garments in which it has long been clothed, and array itself in a vesture all gay in fresh and glossy hues, when we are beyond the Alps.
I have been spending the last two months at Richmond. What a divine spring we have had! during the month of April not a drop of rain fell—the sun shone perpetually—the foliage, rich and bright, lent, before its time, thick shadows to the woods. No place is more suited than Richmond where to enjoy the smiles of so extraordinary a season. I spent many hours of every day on the Thames—days as balmy as midsummer, and animated with the young life which makes fine weather in spring more delicious than that to be enjoyed in any other season of the year: then the earth is an altar, from which fresh perfumes are for ever rising—not the rank odours of the autumnal fall, but those attendant on the first bursting of life, on the tendency of nature in springtide to multiply and enjoy. I visited Hampton Court, and saw the Cartoons—those most noble works of the Prince of Painters. All was delightful; and ten times more so, that I was about to break a chain that had long held me—cross the Channel—and wander far towards a country which memory painted as a paradise.
We are to leave England at the conclusion of the Cambridge term, and have agreed to rendezvous at Paris in the middle of June. Towards the end of May I came here, intending at the appointed time to cross to Dieppe. The weather, at first, continued delightful; but after a time a change has come, and June is set in cold, misty, and stormy. A morbid horror of my sea-voyage comes over me which I cannot control. On the day on which we were to cross, I had an attack of illness which prevented my going on board. It becomes a question whether we shall remain for the next packet in the middle of next week, with the chance of a long, tempestuous passage, or proceed along the coast to Dover. I prefer the latter.
Paris, June 22.
We left Brighton for Hastings, and arrived on a fine evening; the sea was calm and glorious beneath the setting sun. On our way we drove through St. Leonard’s-on-Sea. Some years ago I had visited Hastings, when a brig, drawn high and dry on the shore near William the Conqueror’s stone, unlading building materials, was all that told of the future existence of this new town. It has risen “like an exhalation,” and seems particularly clean, bright, and cheerful.