Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
9, OSNABURGH TERRACE, NEW ROAD, _28th May, 1844._
MY DEAR SIR,
I regret to say that we are placed in the preposterous situation of being obliged to postpone our little dinner-party on Sat.u.r.day, by reason of having no house to dine in. We have not been burnt out; but a desirable widow (as a tenant, I mean) proposed, only last Sat.u.r.day, to take our own house for the whole term of our intended absence abroad, on condition that she had possession of it to-day. We fled, and were driven into this place, which has no convenience for the production of any other banquet than a cold collation of plate and linen, the only comforts we have not left behind us.
My consolation lies in knowing what sort of dinner you would have had if you had come _here_, and in looking forward to claiming the fulfilment of your kind promise when we are again at home.
Always believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Countess of Blessington.]
MILAN, _Wednesday, November 20th, 1844._
MY DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON,
Appearances are against me. Don't believe them. I have written you, in intention, fifty letters, and I can claim no credit for anyone of them (though they were the best letters you ever read), for they all originated in my desire to live in your memory and regard. Since I heard from Count D'Orsay, I have been beset in I don't know how many ways.
First of all, I went to Ma.r.s.eilles and came back to Genoa. Then I moved to the Peschiere. Then some people, who had been present at the Scientific Congress here, made a sudden inroad on that establishment, and overran it. Then they went away, and I shut myself up for a month, close and tight, over my little Christmas book, ”The Chimes.” All my affections and pa.s.sions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became as haggard as a murderer, long before I wrote ”The End.” When I had done that, like ”_The_ man of Thessaly,” who having scratched his eyes out in a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again, I fled to Venice, to recover the composure I had disturbed. From thence I went to Verona and to Mantua. And now I am here--just come up from underground, and earthy all over, from seeing that extraordinary tomb in which the dead saint lies in an alabaster case, with sparkling jewels all about him to mock his dusty eyes, not to mention the twenty-franc pieces which devout votaries were ringing down upon a sort of sky-light in the cathedral pavement above, as if it were the counter of his heavenly shop. You know Verona? You know everything in Italy, _I_ know.
The Roman Amphitheatre there delighted me beyond expression. I never saw anything so full of solemn ancient interest. There are the four-and-forty rows of seats, as fresh and perfect as if their occupants had vacated them but yesterday--the entrances, pa.s.sages, dens, rooms, corridors, the numbers over some of the arches. An equestrian troop had been there some days before, and had scooped out a little ring at one end of the arena, and had their performances in that spot. I should like to have seen it, of all things, for its very dreariness. Fancy a handful of people sprinkled over one corner of the great place (the whole population of Verona wouldn't fill it now); and a spangled cavalier bowing to the echoes, and the gra.s.s-grown walls! I climbed to the topmost seat, and looked away at the beautiful view for some minutes; when I turned round, and looked down into the theatre again, it had exactly the appearance of an immense straw hat, to which the helmet in the Castle of Otranto was a baby; the rows of seats representing the different plaits of straw, and the arena the inside of the crown. I had great expectations of Venice, but they fell immeasurably short of the wonderful reality. The short time I pa.s.sed there went by me in a dream.
I hardly think it possible to exaggerate its beauties, its sources of interest, its uncommon novelty and freshness. A thousand and one realisations of the Thousand and one Nights, could scarcely captivate and enchant me more than Venice.
Your old house at Albaro--Il Paradiso--is spoken of as yours to this day. What a gallant place it is! I don't know the present inmate, but I hear that he bought and furnished it not long since, with great splendour, in the French style, and that he wishes to sell it. I wish I were rich and could buy it. There is a third-rate wine shop below Byron's house, and the place looks dull and miserable, and ruinous enough. Old ---- is a trifle uglier than when I first arrived. He has periodical parties, at which there are a great many flowerpots and a few ices--no other refreshments. He goes about, constantly charged with extemporaneous poetry, and is always ready, like tavern dinners, on the shortest notice and the most reasonable terms. He keeps a gigantic harp in his bedroom, together with pen, ink, and paper, for fixing his ideas as they flow, a kind of profane King David, but truly good-natured and very harmless.
Pray say to Count D'Orsay everything that is cordial and loving from me.
The travelling purse he gave me has been of immense service. It has been constantly opened. All Italy seems to yearn to put its hand in it. I think of hanging it, when I come back to England, on a nail as a trophy, and of gas.h.i.+ng the brim like the blade of an old sword, and saying to my son and heir, as they do upon the stage: ”You see this notch, boy? Five hundred francs were laid low on that day, for post-horses. Where this gap is, a waiter charged your father treble the correct amount--and got it. This end, worn into teeth like the rasped edge of an old file, is sacred to the Custom Houses, boy, the pa.s.sports, and the shabby soldiers at town-gates, who put an open hand and a dirty coat-cuff into the coach windows of all 'Forestieri.' Take it, boy. Thy father has nothing else to give!”
My desk is cooling itself in a mail-coach, somewhere down at the back of the cathedral, and the pens and ink in this house are so detestable, that I have no hope of your ever getting to this portion of my letter.
But I have the less misery in this state of mind, from knowing that it has nothing in it to repay you for the trouble of perusal.
Very faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: The same.]
COVENT GARDEN, _Sunday, Noon (December, 1844)._
MY DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON,
Business for other people (and by no means of a pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony of my departure for Italy again, that I shall not even be able to reach Gore House once more, on which I had set my heart. I cannot bear the thought of going away without some sort of reference to the happy day you gave me on Monday, and the pleasure and delight I had in your earnest greeting. I shall never forget it, believe me. It would be worth going to China--it would be worth going to America, to come home again for the pleasure of such a meeting with you and Count D'Orsay--to whom my love, and something as near it to Miss Power and her sister as it is lawful to send. It will be an unspeakable satisfaction to me (though I am not maliciously disposed) to know under your own hand at Genoa that my little book made you cry. I hope to prove a better correspondent on my return to those sh.o.r.es. But better or worse, or any how, I am ever, my dear Lady Blessington, in no common degree, and not with an every-day regard, yours.
Very faithfully yours.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] On the occasion of a great meeting of the Mechanics' Inst.i.tution at Liverpool, with Charles d.i.c.kens in the chair.