CHAPTER XIX
July 1823-December 1824
Mary’s journey extended over a month, one week of which was passed in Paris and Versailles, for the sake of seeing the Horace Smiths and other old acquaintances now living there. Her letters to the Hunts, describing the incidents and impressions of her journey, were as lively and cheerful as she could make them. A few extracts follow here.
To Leigh Hunt.
Asti, 26th July.
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Percy is very good and does not in the least annoy me. In the state of mind I am now in, the motion and change is delightful to me: my thoughts run with the coach and wind, and double, and jerk, and are up and down, and forward, and most often backward, till the labyrinth of Crete is a joke in comparison to my intricate wanderings. They now lead me to you, Hunt. You rose early, wrote, walked, dined, whistled, sang and punned most outrageously, the worst puns in the world. My best Polly, you, full of your chicks and of your new darling, yet sometimes called “Henry” to see a beautiful new effect of light on the mountains.... Dear girl, I have a great affection for you, believe that, and don’t talk or think sorrowfully, unless you have the toothache, and then don’t think, but talk infinite nonsense mixed with infinite sense, and Hunt will listen, as I used. Thorny, you have not been cross yet. Oh, my dear Johnny (don’t be angry, Polly, with this nonsense), do not let your impatient nature ever overcome you, or you may suffer as I have done—which God forbid! Be true to yourself, and talk much to your Father, who will teach you as he has taught me. It is the idea of his lessons of wisdom that makes me feel the affection I do for him. I profit by them, so do you: may you never feel the remorse of having neglected them when his voice and look are gone, and he can no longer talk to you; that remorse is a terrible feeling, and it requires a faith and a philosophy immense not to be destroyed by the stinging monster.
28th July.