TO THE SAME.
Paris, Dec., 1804.
I was yesterday evening with all the English at Colonel ——’s. I played three rubbers of twenty sous casino with my Baroness and the Copes; never looked to the right hand or the left, and walked off. It is certain that being perfectly happy at home totally takes away one’s relish for the amusements one meets abroad. I always used to deny this, and conceived it was a vulgar error, and could argue very prettily upon the delight of mixing a certain degree of dissipation with the highest domestic happiness; but my mind is not expansive enough for both; and I now begin to see the truth of the commonplace observation, that people become less gay, and agreeable to the world, by being married and fond of each other. It is not because one loses one’s spirits, but because one makes involuntary comparisons between the gêne and the unsatisfactoriness of common life, and the perfect confidence and fulness of pleasure in the company of those one loves.
The complaint here that the race of good servants is extinct, is not, I believe, ill-founded. The equalizing education of the Revolution, and the idea instilled so industriously into that class that servitude was at an end, and that the relation of master and servant was not that of a bargain, but of usurpation, together with the deep and growing love of spectacle and contempt of religion, must all unite to give grounds for this complaint.
TO THE SAME.
Paris, Dec., 1804.
I never saw anything so affecting on any stage as the despair of Antiochus when he finds his brother assassinated, and doubts whether his mother or his bride was the murderer. It is the most déchirante situation I ever saw; and the whole last act of Rodogune is the finest display of theatrical effect and of the art of moving the passions. I now yield Racine up for Corneille. Mˡˡᵉ Raucourt, in my little opinion, is as far above Mˡˡᵉ Duchesnois as Mˡˡᵉ Duchesnois is above Mˡˡᵉ George. She bears the stamp of the character impressed on her whole air. She is always Rodogune, never Mˡˡᵉ Raucourt. You see her front rongé de remords, and wrinkled with artifice. You find her eye speak as much as her lips, nay, more; and she has the uncommon power of giving dignity to the blackest crimes. I wished much for you.
I saw Mrs. S—— this evening. I was surprised to see how much less well-looking her pretty daughter is at home than au bal. I am sure this is in the air of France; for in London a fine girl is prettier at home, at her ease, in her white dress and in her hair, than ever she is abroad; but this young lady had the lounge, the home-stoop, the loose dress, the big shawl, and the neglected hair, of a French beauty chez elle.
L—— has grown ten years older since I was last here. I believe, in spite of his apparent insouciance, he frets inwardly about the total want of all that domestic comfort which results from affection. Indeed, men or women who afficher indifference on that subject often do it to hide strong feelings.