LETTER XIX
Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax, at Venice
Paris, Hotel de l'Université, près le Pont Royal
I write, Fairfax, according to promise, to inform you that I have been a fortnight in France, and four days in this city. The tract of country over which I have passed, within these three months, is considerable. From Naples to Rome; from Rome to Florence; from Florence to Venice, where we spent our carnival; from Venice to Modena, Parma, and Genoa; from thence to Turin; from Turin to Geneva; then, turning to the left, to Lyons; and from Lyons to Paris. Objects have passed before me in such a rapid succession, that the time I have spent abroad, though not more than a year and a half, appears something like a life. The sight of the proud Alps, which boldly look eternity in the face, imparts a sensation of length of time wholly inadequate to the few hours that are employed in passing them. The labour up is a kind of age; and the swift descent is like falling from the clouds, once more to become an inhabitant of earth.
Here at Paris I half fancy myself at home. And yet, to timid people who have never beheld the ocean, and who are informed that seas divide France and England, Paris appears to be at an unattainable distance. Every thing is relative in this world; great or small near or distant only by comparison. The traveller who should have passed the deserts, and suffered all the perils all the emotions of a journey from Bengal by land, would think himself much nearer home, at Naples, than I do, coming from Naples, at Paris: and those who have sailed round the world seem satisfied that their labour is within a hair's breadth of being at an end, when they arrive, on their return, at the Cape of Good Hope.
You, Fairfax, have frequently asked me to give you accounts of this and that place, of the things I have seen, and of the observations I have made. But I have more frequently put the same kind of questions to myself, and never yet could return a satisfactory answer. I have seen people whose manners are so different from those of my own country, that I have seemed to act with them from a kind of conviction of their being of another species. Yet a moment's consideration undeceives me: I find them to be mere men. Men of different habits, indeed, but actuated by the same passions, the same desire of self-gratification. Yes, Fairfax, the sun moon and stars make their appearance, in Italy, as regularly as in England; nay much more so, for there is not a tenth part of the intervening clouds.
When molested by their dirt, their vermin, their beggars, their priests, and their prejudices, how often have I looked at them with contempt! The uncleanliness that results from heat and indolence, the obsequious slavishness of the common people, contrasted with their loquacious impertinence, the sensuality of their hosts of monks, nay the gluttony even of their begging friars, their ignorant adoration of the rags and rotten wood which they themselves dress up, the protection afforded to the most atrocious criminals if they can but escape to a mass of stone which they call sacred, the little horror in which they hold murder, the promptness with which they assassinate for affronts which they want the spirit to resent, their gross buffooneries religious and theatrical, the ridiculous tales told to the vulgar by their preachers, and the improbable farces which are the delight of the gentle and the simple, all these, and many other things of a similar nature, seem to degrade them below rational creatures.
Yet reverse the picture, and they appear rather to be demi-gods than men! Listen to their music! Behold their paintings! Examine their palaces, their basins of porphyry, urns and vases of Numidian marble, catacombs, and subterranean cities; their sculptured heroes, triumphal arches, and amphitheatres in which a nation might assemble; their Corinthian columns hewn from the rocks of Egypt, and obelisks of granite transported by some strange but forgotten means from Alexandria; the simplicity the grandeur and beauty of their temples and churches; the vast fruitfulness of their lands, their rich vineyards, teeming fields, and early harvests; the mingled sublime and beautiful over the face of nature in this country, which is sheltered from invaders by mountains and seas, so as by a small degree of art to render it impregnable; their desolating earthquakes, which yet seem but to renovate fertility; their volcanos, sending forth volumes of flame and rivers of fire, and overwhelming cities which though they have buried they have not utterly destroyed; these and a thousand other particulars, which I can neither enumerate nor remember, apparently speak them a race the most favoured of heaven, and announce Italy to be a country for whose embellishment and renown earth and heaven, men and gods have for ages contended.
The recollection of these things appears to be more vivid, and to give me greater pleasure than I believe the sight of them afforded. Perhaps it is my temper. Impatient of delay, I had scarcely glanced at one object before I was eager to hunt for another. The tediousness of the Ciceroni was to me intolerable. What cannot instantly be comprehended I can scarcely persuade myself to think worthy of the trouble of enquiry. I love to enjoy; and, if enjoyment do not come to me, I must fly to seek it, and hasten from object to object till it be overtaken.
Intellectual pleasures delight me, when they are quick, certain, and easily obtained. I leave those which I am told arise from patient study, length of time, and severe application, to the fools who think time given to be so wasted. Roses grow for me to gather: rivers roll for me to lave in. Let the slave dig the mine, but for me let the diamond sparkle. Let the lamb, the dove, and the life-loving eel writhe and die; it shall not disturb me, while I enjoy the viands. The five senses are my deities; to them I pay worship and adoration, and never yet have I been slack in the performance of my duty.