My dear Friend,
The first fruits of my pen in a foreign land, shall be dedicated to you. Though you have only travelled by the fire-side, there is not any thing in the route that we are to trace which could afford you the slightest pleasure from its novelty. The appearance of Dieppe, the country, the posting, Rouen, the windings of the Seine, the chateaux, what is there that I have yet seen, which is not as familiar to you in description, as the map of Dublin? We left Brighton on Monday, and I felt as I took a farewell view of Beachy-head, an undefined sensation, which I dare say that thousands have felt before me, compounded of pride, pleasure, and sorrow. To go abroad, though become so common, that the difficulty is to find any one now who stays at home, has something in the very sound of the words inspiring to one’s spirits; a vague hope of adventure, a sort of self-applause at having commenced an enterprise; and a kind of nameless triumph in touching a foreign shore, and finding oneself understood when speaking a strange tongue; all these circumstances elevate the mind to enthusiasm, while the parting pang on quitting home, country, friends, though but for a limited season, must chequer the gladness of any heart, in whatever breast it may reside. I wish for your company always, but I particularly desired to have you at my elbow when I passed St. Germain en Laye, Rosni, and Malmaison. What a crowd of recollections rushed upon my mind, as Sully, Louis the Fourteenth, Madame de Maintenon, James the Second, and Napoleon, pressed upon my thoughts, and struggled for a precedence, which the different ages in which they played their parts, arranged in an order very unlike that in which they rose to my imagination; the wonderful Corsican contriving generally to jostle out every reminiscence that was not connected with his astonishing appearance upon earth.
I wanted you also at my side as we approached Paris, the coup d’œil of which as you enter the Place Louis Quinze is superb. In one point of view the eye takes in, as if in an immense panorama the entire circle of those objects which at once exalt and degrade man, exhibit his power, and prove his nothingness. Palaces that have stood for ages, the great triumphal pillar which records the conquests of that preternatural chief who frowned the world into fetters at his feet, then that spot where the martyred Bourbons ascended the scaffold, where that angel Elizabeth exchanged the horrors of her prison for the crown of glory that awaited such faith, such love, such heroism as her’s! But whither is my pen straying? What is there in Paris that you have not at your finger’s ends? Aye, you could direct me to the very shelf in the Royal Library on which any book is placed which you desired to consult. You could send me north, south, east, or west, in the Jardin des Plantes for this, that, or the other class of Linnæus. You could take a wand, and, pointing to the pictures of the Louvre, give me a history of every subject which they exhibit, and name the master who executed each. In short, the only thing which you at this moment in the county of Kerry could not describe much more accurately to me than I to you is precisely that which no pen is capable of conveying, namely, the direct impression made upon the senses by the objects themselves; and this is so exhilarating, that I seem to myself to tread on air, and to breathe an atmosphere, like that which Saussure found on the summit of Mont Blanc, almost threatening delirium by its rarefaction. How striking the difference between history and fiction in the effects produced upon the mind while we are visiting the several theatres allotted to the drama of one or the other! All the charms of association, the powers of memory, the magic of imagination, are called into vivid action as we take our seat in a chair which had held Henry the Fourth, or place ourselves at a table on which Sully wrote; but when we look upon a Prior Park as the seat of Mr. Allworthy, Tom Jones vanishes from the scene, and we feel almost ashamed when fictitious personages lay claim to any region of the brain except that which is inhabited by fancy. “Unreal mockery hence” is the sentiment which I felt on viewing the scene of Fielding’s tale, and being desired to mark the wood, the pond, the garden, which are supposed by the author to have witnessed the early squabbles of Bliffield and the youthful hero. Is not this an argument for keeping truth and fiction separate?
With few exceptions, I hate historical novels, which, losing the sobriety of fact, are equally divested of the grace which attaches to invention, and present all the whalebone and starch of ruffs and farthingales without being faithful to costume; thus producing a chaos in the memory, and blending incidents and people till we can no longer trace the line between substance and shadow.
Emily is the pupil who does you most credit; Charlotte and Fanny are very intelligent, and see their way so well, that if Em. were not of our party, the others would perhaps astonish; but old and young, we all flock to your Pulcheria, as you have called her from her childhood, to tell us whatever we want to know. Her memory is so admirable that nothing seems to run through it, and she has the whole story of every thing that we see by heart, while, as you know, she cannot imagine herself to be superior to any one with whom she converses.
I must tell you, that nothing could exceed the admiration which these amiable, unartificial sisters of mine have excited in Hampshire. How is it that people can relinquish all right and title to understanding or good feeling, in their own case, and yet retain enough of each to admire both when they have met with them in others?
I hope that George Bentley has received all my letters, and that he may turn in his thoughts the proposal which I made in my last, that he should meet us at Turin. My uncle talks of remaining here not less than a fortnight.
Stanley improves upon us every day: he is a very fine young man, and equally a favourite with us all.
I am on the tip-toe of expectation till the post comes in, which will decide whether Arthur and his friend Falkland can come here. It will be delightful if they can join us; and fortunately our hotel is large enough for us to be all together.