"I wish to propose to Holmes, the miniature painter, to come out to me this spring. I will pay his expenses, and any sum in reason. I wish him to take my daughter's picture (who is in a convent) and the Countess G.'s, and the head of a peasant girl, which latter would make a study for Raphael. It is a complete peasant face, but an Italian peasant's, and quite in the Raphael Fornarina style. Her figure is tall, but rather large, and not at all comparable to her face, which is really superb. She is not seventeen, and I am anxious to have her face while it lasts. Madame G. is also very handsome, but it is quite in a different style—completely blonde and fair—very uncommon in Italy; yet not an English fairness, but more like a Swede or a Norwegian. Her figure, too, particularly the bust, is uncommonly good. It must be Holmes; I like him because he takes such inveterate likenesses. There is a war here; but a solitary traveller, with little baggage, and nothing to do with politics, has nothing to fear. Pack him up in the Diligence. Don't forget."
LETTER 417. TO MR. HOPPNER.
"Ravenna, April 3. 1821;
"Thanks for the translation. I have sent you some books, which I do not know whether you have read or no—you need not return them, in any case. I enclose you also a letter from Pisa. I have neither spared trouble nor expense in the care of the child; and as she was now four years old complete, and quite above the control of the servants—and as a man living without any woman at the head of his house cannot much attend to a nursery—I had no resource but to place her for a time (at a high pension too) in the convent of Bagna-Cavalli (twelve miles off), where the air is good, and where she will, at least, have her learning advanced, and her morals and religion inculcated.[34] I had also another reason;—things were and are in such a state here, that I had no reason to look upon my own personal safety as particularly insurable; and I thought the infant best out of harm's way, for the present.
"It is also fit that I should add that I by no means intended, nor intend, to give a natural child an English education, because with the disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement would be doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of five or six thousand pounds, she might and may marry very respectably. In England such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity. I have now explained my notions as to the place where she now is—it is the best I could find for the present; but I have no prejudices in its favour.
"I do not speak of politics, because it seems a hopeless subject, as long as those scoundrels are to be permitted to bully states out of their independence. Believe me,
"Yours ever and truly.
"P.S. There is a report here of a change in France; but with what truth is not yet known.
"P.S. My respects to Mrs. H. I have the 'best opinion' of her countrywomen; and at my time of life, (three and thirty, 22d January, 1821,) that is to say, after the life I have led, a good opinion is the only rational one which a man should entertain of the whole sex—up to thirty, the worst possible opinion a man can have of them in general, the better for himself. Afterwards, it is a matter of no importance to them, nor to him either, what opinion he entertains—his day is over, or, at least, should be.