So I said in February last that I had not leisure for many works of fiction. Alas, poor human nature! since that time I have read Waverley, The Queen’s Wake, The Curse of Kehama, The Lord of the Isles, and skimmed over Guy Mannering, Discipline, and Charlemagne. The Lord of the Isles is a charming poem, as a full-length portrait of Bruce, whose dignity and sweetness are admirably portrayed; but the misses and masters of this work are too uninteresting. The Curse of Kehama is full of exquisite beauties, and I know nothing in the whole range of imaginative descriptive poetry that impresses me so much as the City under water. I was also charmed to meet my dear nursery friends, the Glumms and Gawries, who had so delighted me in Peter Wilkins.
May 11.—I wish I could tell you anything of the Queen of Prussia; but there are characters which defy description, and, if one attempts to give them colour, one falls into invention. She was beautiful; and well conducted in those points peculiarly exacted from women; in nothing distinguished. Dress and dancing she was fonder of than even the majority of her sex, and devoted to them to a later period. She was so uncommonly obliging to me that I feel as if I was ungrateful in mentioning these trifles; but I cannot resist your inquiry. Her beauty was not of a distinguished kind as to face, but her figure was fine and commanding.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.,
VIENNA.
May, 1815.
I am not surprised you admire the Prater. It is, I believe, the most beautiful public place in the world; and its first burst of spring, so prompt, so rapid, so rich, though not so delightful to a resident as a more gradual approach, is more splendid and striking. One would not wish it so always; but for once it is a beautiful coup de théâtre. And the great enjoyments of the labourer and artizan in their holiday summer evenings on this spot give a spectacle probably unique. The populace at Vienna seem the best and happiest I have seen. They are incomparably the best fed; and this forms no small praise of their superiors. Have you been presented to the Emperor? You ought; and there is no place where it is so little troublesome. It is a duperie not to be introduced to the most remarkable people, and particularly to those whose actions influence the destiny of thousands both existing and unborn. Never ‘lay the flattering unction to your soul’ of being presented, &c. &c., when you come back; for one hardly ever retraces one’s own path. Friends often say, ‘It is not worth the trouble—I am sure you would not like it;’ but one must cut this short, or may lose half what one travels for.
June 14, 1815.—One should be very cautious to prevent habitual politeness from degenerating into involuntary, or at least unintentional, dissimulation. The daughter of the landlady of the inn where I slept last night at Bagshot, at two years old, gave her sister of seven, without any provocation, so vigorous and well applied a slap, so perfectly aplomb, as proved the exercise habitual. The mother seemed delighted at this display of spirit before me; and instead of a timely word or hint of disapprobation, the vile habit of involuntary politeness led me to sanction it rather by a civil and approving smile.