My first visit to Brighton was made in a very cold day in summer, and I saw it through most unfavorable spectacles. But I should think that along the cliffs, where there are no trees or verdure to be seen, there is very little apparent difference between summer and winter; and coming here with the additional clothing of a severer season, the temperature of the elastic and saline air is not even chilly. The most delicate children play upon the beach in days when there is no sunshine; and invalids, wheeled out in these convenient bath chairs, sit for hours by the seaside, watching the coming and retreating of the waves, apparently without any sensation of cold—and this in December. In America (in the same latitudes with Leghorn and Venice) an invalid sitting out of doors at this season would freeze to death in half an hour. Yet it was as cold in August, in England, as it has been in November, and it is this temperate evenness of the weather throughout the year which makes English climate, on the whole, perhaps the healthiest in the world.
In the few days I was at Brighton, I became very fond of the perpetual loud beat of the sea upon the shore. Whether, like the “music of the spheres,” it becomes at last “too constant to be heard,” I did not ask—but I never lost the consciousness of it except when engaged in conversation, and I found it company to my thoughts when I dined or walked alone, and a most agreeable lullaby at night. This majestic monotone is audible all over Brighton, in-doors and out, and nothing overpowers it but the wind in a storm; it is even then only by fits, and the alternation of the hissing and moaning of the blast with the broken and heavy plash of the waters is so like the sound of a tempest at sea (the whistling in the rigging, and the burst of the waves) that those who have been at Brighton in rough weather, have realized all of a storm at sea but the motion and the sea-sickness—rather a large, but not an undesirable diminution of experience.
Calling on a friend at Brighton, I was introduced casually to a Mr. Smith. The name, of course, did not awaken any immediate curiosity, but a second look at the gentleman did—for I thought I had never seen a more intellectual or finer head. A fifteen minutes’ conversation, which touched upon nothing that could give me a clue to his profession, still satisfied me that so distinguished an address, and so keen an eye, could belong to no nameless person, and I was scarcely surprised when I read upon his card at parting—Horace Smith. I need not say it was a very great pleasure to meet him. I was delighted, too, that the author of books we love as much as “Zillah,” and “Brambletye House,” looks unlike other men. It gratifies somehow a personal feeling—as if those who had won so much admiration from us should, for our pride’s sake, wear the undeniable stamp of superiority—as if we had acquired a property in him by loving him. How natural it is, when we have talked and thought a great deal about an author, to call him “ours.” “What Smith? Why our Smith—Horace Smith”—is as common a dialogue between persons who never saw him as it is among his personal friends.
These two remarkable brothers, James and Horace Smith, are both gifted with exteriors such as are not often possessed with genius—yet only James is so fortunate as to have stumbled upon a good painter. Lonsdale’s portrait of James Smith, engraved by Cousens, is both the author and the man—as fine a picture of him, with his mind seen through his features, as was ever done. But there is an engraved picture extant of the author of Zillah, that, though it is no likeness of the author, is a detestable caricature of the man. Really this is a point about which distinguished men, in justice to themselves, should take some little care. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits, and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, are a sort of biography of the eminent men they painted. The most enduring history, it has been said, is written in coins. Certainly the most effective biography is expressed in portraits. Long after the book and your impressions of the character of which it treats have become dim in your memory, your impression of the features and mien of a hero or a poet, as received from a picture, remains indelible. How often does the face belie the biography—making us think better or worse of the man, after forming an opinion from a portrait in words, that was either partial or malicious! I am persuaded the world would think better of Shelley, if there were a correct and adequate portrait of his face, as it has been described to me by one or two who knew him. How much of the Byronic idolatry is born and fed from the idealized pictures of him treasured in every portfolio! Sir Thomas Lawrence, Chalon, and Parris, have composed between them a biography of Lady Blessington, that have made her quite independent of the “memoirs” of the next century. And who, I may safely ask, even in America, has seen the nice, cheerful, sensible, and motherly face which prefaces the new edition of “The Manners of the American Domestics,” (I beg pardon for giving the title from my Kentucky copy) without liking Mrs. Trollope a great deal better and at once dismissing all idea of “the bazar” as a libel on that most lady-like countenance?
I think Lady S—— had more talent and distinction crowded into her pretty rooms last night, than I ever before saw in such small compass. It is a bijou of a house, full of gems of statuary and painting, but all its capacity for company lies in a small drawing-room, a smaller reception room, and a very small, but very exquisite boudoir—yet to tell you who were there would read like Colburn’s list of authors, added to a paragraph of noble diners-out from the Morning Post.
The largest lion of the evening certainly was the new Persian ambassador, a man six feet in his slippers; a height which, with his peaked calpack, of a foot and a half, super-added, keeps him very much among the chandeliers. The principal article of his dress does not diminish the effect of his eminence—a long white shawl worn like a cloak, and completely enveloping him from beard to toe. From the twisted shawl around his waist glitters a dagger’s hilt, lumped with diamonds—and diamonds, in most dazzling profusion, almost cover his breast. I never saw so many together except in a cabinet of regalia. Close behind this steeple of shawl and gem, keeps, like a short shadow when the sun is high, his excellency’s shadow, a dwarfishly small man, dressed also in cashmere and calpack, and of a most ill-favored and bow-stringish countenance and mien. The master and man seem chosen for contrast, the countenance of the ambassador expressing nothing but extreme good nature. The ambassador talks, too, and the secretary is dumb.
T—— H—— stood bolt upright against a mirror door, looking like two T—— H——s trying to see which was taller. The one with his face to me looked like the incarnation of the John Bull newspaper, for which expression he was indebted to a very hearty face, and a very round subject for a buttoned up coat; while the H—— with his back to me looked like an author, for which he was indebted to an exclusive view of his cranium. I dare say Mr. H—— would agree with me that he was seen, on the whole, at a most enviable advantage. It is so seldom we look, beyond the man, at the author.
I have rarely seen a greater contrast in person and expression than between H—— and B——, who stood near him. Both were talking to ladies—one bald, burly, upright, and with a face of immovable gravity, the other slight, with a profusion of curling hair, restless in his movements, and of a countenance which lights up with a sudden inward illumination. H——’s partner in the conversation looked into his face with a ready-prepared smile for what he was going to say, B——’s listened with an interest complete, but without effort. H—— was suffering from what I think is the common curse of a reputation for wit—the expectation of the listener had outrun the performance.
H—— B——, whose diplomatic promotion goes on much faster than can be pleasing to “Lady Cheveley,” has just received his appointment to Paris—the object of his first wishes. He stood near his brother, talking to a beautiful and celebrated woman, and I thought, spite of her ladyship’s unflattering description, I had seldom seen a more intellectual face, or a more gentlemanly and elegant exterior.