March 22.—Dined and slept at Iglau, a neat-looking town. How much exaggerated is the account I have heard of the discomforts of a German journey. The post-boys are civil, and not in the least importunate. They seldom ask for more than they receive; a simple denial silences them, and what we call in England grumbling, I have never heard in this country. Even the beggars (and in Bohemia they abound) ask with mildness, and desist at the first refusal.
March 26, Vienna.—Arrived here two days ago, after making in six days a journey usually very much dreaded, without a single inconvenience or the smallest fatigue. I travelled about fifty miles daily, after leaving Prague, and with facility, as the roads are good. I set out usually about seven, and reached my gîte long before dark. Vienna, I fancy, cannot be a healthy residence; the houses are so high, the streets so narrow, and the population so disproportioned to the size of the town. One can walk round the walls in an hour; yet it contains 53,000 inhabitants. The best shops are far inferior to those even in the obscure parts of the city in London. Saw the Comtesse de Wayna, who returned my visit in less than an hour. She is very polite, empressée, and conversible; a very handsome woman, and still young.
March 28.—It grieves me to find travelling contribute so little to the improvement of my mind. A variety of causes operate to prevent the possibility of a woman reaping much benefit from a journey through Germany, unless she totally gives up the world. A certain enlargement of ideas must imperceptibly follow, and she corrects some erroneous notions; but she finds infinite difficulty in making any new acquirements. The multiplicity of visits, not confined to leaving a card, as in London, but real substantial, bodily visits, and the impossibility, without overstepping all the bounds of custom, of associating with any but noblesse, may be reckoned among the greatest obstacles. To make travelling subservient to improvement, it must be undertaken on a different plan from my present journey. I believe there is no undertaking whatever, in which the first attempt is not condemned to many gross and obvious imperfections. No foresight, no reflection, no sagacity, and, I had almost said, no advice, can supply the want of experience, even in situations where it appears least necessary. It is a melancholy consideration that we only know how to live, when the chief pleasures of life, those attendant on youth and youthful spirits, are vanished for ever.
Last night I went to an assembly at Lord Minto’s; the only difference between this meeting, and one of the same kind in London, was that here I saw infinitely less beauty, particularly among the men, less elegance of dress, and less of those abstractions of different pairs from the rest of the society, which I must call ‘flirtation,’ spite of the vulgarity of the term. Steibelt[17] played exquisitely on the pianoforte. So interesting a performer I never heard. After he had executed a delightful capriccio, he gave some jigs, in which his wife accompanied him on the tambourine; and these miserable trifles, in which he was quite subservient to her playing, and sacrificed himself to cover her little inaccuracies in point of time, were more admired than his scientific delightful compositions. Accompanying a fine pianoforte player on the tambourine is like daubing rouge over a Madonna by Raphael; but it shows a pretty woman to advantage, and suits the frivolous false taste of the age. The preference of all which is either frivolous or exaggerated to what is really excellent grieves me. I blush for my cotemporaries even in the moments when I most profit by their ignorance, and when they mistake my own superficial attainments for real talents.
The coarseness of the German language, and the patchwork made use of to conceal its poverty in some instances, displease me. Its beauties are said to be considerable. More study will lead me to a knowledge of them, but a little suffices to enable one to discover faults.
March 29.—I walked and drove in the Prater, that great boast of the Germans, who think those who have not seen it, have seen nothing. As far as I went to-day, I was on a straight wide road, shaded with trees, that led through an extensive plain, moderately wooded, and perfectly flat. In summer it must be very pleasant, but a complete flat excludes in my mind all ideas of pre-eminent beauty. I could as soon think in the living countenance that fine colours or features could be beautiful without expression, as that any verdure, any trees, or any river could make amends for the want of inequality of ground.
April 9.—I must correct my judgment of the Prater. The fashionable alley there is uninteresting; but when the whole is considered as a wood of near eight miles in length, commencing almost in a great city, it acquires respectability.
April 13.—Before I had been a week here, I had so many engagements I was only embarrassed in the choice of them. The pleasantest hours I have spent were at Lord Minto’s, Prince Schwarzenberg’s, and the Hanoverian Minister’s. There I sat by the famous General Bellegarde, to whom it is said the Archduke Charles is chiefly indebted for his most brilliant successes.[18] He is highly agreeable in conversation, polite, lively, pleasing, the best ton possible, and the most rational way of thinking. They say he is the person most in the confidence of Thugut, the Minister. He is about fifty, and his appearance gives a favourable impression of him. Lord Minto is very pleasing, when he does converse; but, like a ghost, will rarely speak till spoken to, unless to his most intimate friends. He is criticised here for not representing with sufficient dignity, and for confining himself to a small circle, composed chiefly of Poles and French. He is extremely absent. The Empress gives him audiences, and he forgets the day. He accepts invitations to formal dinners, invites company for the same day, and thinks no more of his engagement. A person here painted very happily in one sentence his absence, and his want of those manners in his own house which ought to distinguish him as the master of it, by saying, ‘Il se fera présenter, quelque jour, chez lui.’ On the whole, he is censured for his conduct in trifles; and of his political career I have heard no opinion, for politics are a subject scrupulously avoided. This is commanded by the laws, and they seem in this point exactly obeyed. Deep regrets for the loss of Joseph the Second are all that ever escapes, which has the most remote tendency that way. Yet many here think that he did much harm as well as good; that his spirit of improvement led him to risk too hasty innovations, and that he was so ardent in his desire de faire le bien, he did not give himself leisure de le bien faire.
At Prince Schwarzenberg’s I heard Haydn’s famous Creation, a very pleasing oratorio, but which I think is applauded here much above its merits. The Duchess of Giovine, authoress of several estimable works which display great learning and uncommon application, has distinguished me in a very gratifying way. I have met likewise with a very amiable woman to whom the Countess Münster recommended me. She is a Berlinoise, and the widow of Prince Reuss, but is received in very few of the first circles here, on account of her birth, her father having been a merchant. She was originally a Jewess. I went to Mad. Arnstein’s with her, which I fear was a breach of etiquette, Mad. Arnstein being a banker’s wife, and of the second class of noblesse. However, I found there a pleasant society, and an easier ton than in most houses at Vienna. She keeps open house every evening to a few women, and all the best company in Vienna as to men. She is a pretty woman with an excellent address. I supped once at the Prince de Ligne’s, whom I was prepared to fear and admire as a most aimable roué, plein d’esprit, et de talens. I have yet seen in him no resemblance to any part of this picture. In general, conversation at Vienna seems to me but meagre; little events are magnified, as in a small town; politics never, and literature very seldom, mentioned.