CHAPTER XLVIENGLAND—(continued)

[1]This custom begins to give way a little in very good society, which is becoming French, as everywhere; but I'm speaking of the vast generality.[2]See Richardson: the manners of the Harlowe family, translated into modern manners, are frequent in England. Their servants are worth more than they.

[1]This custom begins to give way a little in very good society, which is becoming French, as everywhere; but I'm speaking of the vast generality.

[2]See Richardson: the manners of the Harlowe family, translated into modern manners, are frequent in England. Their servants are worth more than they.

I love England too much and I have seen of her too little to be able to speak on the subject. I shall make use of the observations of a friend.

In the actual state of Ireland (1822) is realised, for the twentieth time in two centuries,[1]that curious state of society which is so fruitful of courageous resolutions, and so opposed to a monotonous existence, and in which people, who breakfast gaily together, may meet in two hours' time on the field of battle. Nothing makes a more energetic and direct appeal to that disposition of the spirit, which is most favourable to the tender passions—to naturalness. Nothing is further removed from the two great English vices—cant and bashfulness,—moral hypocrisy and haughty, painful timidity. (See the Travels of Mr. Eustace(32)in Italy.) If this traveller gives a poor picture of the country, in return he gives a very exact idea of his own character, and this character, as that of Mr. Beattie(32), the poet (see his Life written by an intimate friend), is unhappily but too common in England. For the priest, honest in spite of his cloth, refer to the letters of the Bishop of Landaff.[2](32).

One would have thought Ireland already unfortunate enough, bled as it has been for two centuries by the cowardly and cruel tyranny of England; but now thereenters into the moral state of Ireland a terrible personage: thePriest....

For two centuries Ireland has been almost as badly governed as Sicily. A thorough comparison between these two islands, in a volume of five hundred pages, would offend many people and overwhelm many established theories with ridicule. What is evident is that the happiest of these two countries—both of them governed by fools, only for the profit of a minority—is Sicily. Its governors have at least left it its love of pleasure; they would willingly have robbed it of this as of the rest, but, thanks to its climate, Sicily knows little of that moral evil called Law and Government.[3]

It is old men and priests who make the laws and have them executed, and this seems quite in keeping with the comic jealousy, with which pleasure is hunted down in the British Isles. The people there might say to its governors as Diogenes said to Alexander: "Be content with your sinecures, but please don't step between me and my daylight."[4]

By means of laws, rules, counter-rules and punishments, the Government in Ireland has created the potato, and the population of Ireland exceeds by far that of Sicily. This is to say, they have produced several millions of degenerate and half-witted peasants, broken down bywork and misery, dragging out a wretched life of some forty or fifty years among the marshes of old Erin—and, you may be sure, paying their taxes! A real miracle! With the pagan religion these poor wretches would at least have enjoyed some happiness—but not a bit of it, they must adore St. Patrick.

Everywhere in Ireland one sees none but peasants more miserable than savages. Only, instead of there being a hundred thousand, as there would be in a state of nature, there are eight millions,[5]who allow five hundred "absentees" to live in prosperity at London or Paris.

Society is infinitely more advanced in Scotland,[6]where, in very many respects, government is good (the rarity of crime, the diffusion of reading, the non-existence of bishops, etc.). There the tender passions can develop much more freely, and it is possible to leave these sombre thoughts and approach the humorous.

One cannot fail to notice a foundation of melancholy in Scottish women. This melancholy is particularly seductive at dances, where it gives a singular piquancy to the extreme ardour and energy with which they perform their national dances. Edinburgh has another advantage, that of being withdrawn from the vile empire of money. In this, as well as in the singular and savage beauty of its site, this city forms a complete contrast with London. Like Rome, fair Edinburgh seems rather the sojourn of the contemplative life. At London you have the ceaseless whirlwind and restless interests of active life, with all its advantages and inconveniences. Edinburgh seems to me to pay its tribute to the devil by a slight disposition to pedantry. Those days when Mary Stuart lived at old Holyrood, and Riccio was assassinated in her arms, were worth more to Love (and here allwomen will agree with me) than to-day, when one discusses at such length, and even in their presence, the preference to be accorded to the neptunian system over the vulcanian system of ... I prefer a discussion on the new uniform given by the king to the Guards, or on the peerage which Sir B. Bloomfield(35)failed to get—the topic of London in my day—to a learned discussion as to who has best explored the nature of rocks, de Werner or de....

I say nothing about the terrible Scottish Sunday, after which a Sunday in London looks like a beanfeast. That day, set aside for the honour of Heaven, is the best image of Hell that I have ever seen on earth. "Don't let's walk so fast," said a Scotchman returning from church to a Frenchman, his friend; "people might think we were going for a walk."[7]

Of the three countries, Ireland is the one in which there is the least hypocrisy. See theNew Monthly Magazinethundering against Mozart and theNozze di Figaro.[8]

In every country it is the aristocrats, who try to judge a literary magazine and literature; and for the last four years in England these have been hand in glove with the bishops. As I say, that of the three countries where, it seems to me, there is the least hypocrisy, is Ireland: on the contrary, you find there a reckless, a most fascinating vivacity. In Scotland there is the strict observance of Sunday, but on Monday they dance with a joy and an abandon unknown to London. There is plenty of love among the peasant class in Scotland. The omnipotence of imagination gallicised the country in the sixteenth century.

The terrible fault of English society, that which in a single day creates a greater amount of sadness than the national debt and its consequences, and even than thewar to the death waged by the rich against the poor, is this sentence which I heard last autumn at Croydon, before the beautiful statue of the bishop: "In society no one wants to put himself forward, for fear of being deceived in his expectations."

Judge what laws, under the name of modesty, such men must impose on their wives and mistresses.

[1]The young child of Spenser was burnt alive in Ireland.[2]To refute otherwise than by insults the portraiture of a certain class of Englishmen presented in these three works seems to me an impossible task. Satanic school.[3]I call moral evil, in 1822, every government which has not got two chambers; the only exception can be when the head of the government is great by reason of his probity, a miracle to be seen in Saxony and at Naples.[4]See in the trial of the late Queen of England(33), a curious list of the peers with the sums which they and their families receive from the State. For example, Lord Lauderdale and his family, £36,000. The half-pint of beer that is necessary to the miserable existence of the poorest Englishman, is taxed a halfpenny for the profit of the noble peer. And, what is very much to the point, both of them know it. As a result, neither the lord nor the peasant have leisure enough to think of love; they are sharpening their arms, the one publicly and haughtily, the other secretly and enraged. (Yeomanry and Whiteboys.)(34).[5]Plunkett Craig,Life of Curran.[6]Degree of civilisation to be seen in the peasant Robert Burns and his family; a peasants' club with a penny subscription each meeting; the questions discussed there. (See the Letters of Burns.)[7]The same in America. In Scotland, display of titles.[8]January, 1822,Cant.

[1]The young child of Spenser was burnt alive in Ireland.

[2]To refute otherwise than by insults the portraiture of a certain class of Englishmen presented in these three works seems to me an impossible task. Satanic school.

[3]I call moral evil, in 1822, every government which has not got two chambers; the only exception can be when the head of the government is great by reason of his probity, a miracle to be seen in Saxony and at Naples.

[4]See in the trial of the late Queen of England(33), a curious list of the peers with the sums which they and their families receive from the State. For example, Lord Lauderdale and his family, £36,000. The half-pint of beer that is necessary to the miserable existence of the poorest Englishman, is taxed a halfpenny for the profit of the noble peer. And, what is very much to the point, both of them know it. As a result, neither the lord nor the peasant have leisure enough to think of love; they are sharpening their arms, the one publicly and haughtily, the other secretly and enraged. (Yeomanry and Whiteboys.)(34).

[5]Plunkett Craig,Life of Curran.

[6]Degree of civilisation to be seen in the peasant Robert Burns and his family; a peasants' club with a penny subscription each meeting; the questions discussed there. (See the Letters of Burns.)

[7]The same in America. In Scotland, display of titles.

[8]January, 1822,Cant.

Andalusia is one of the most charming sojourns that Pleasure has chosen for itself on earth. I had three or four anecdotes to show how my ideas about the three or four different acts of madness, which together constitute Love, hold good for Spain: I have been advised to sacrifice them to French refinement. In vain I protested that I wrote in French, but emphatically not French literature. God preserve me from having anything in common with the French writers esteemed to-day!

The Moors, when they abandoned Andalusia, left it their architecture and much of their manners. Since it is impossible for me to speak of the latter in the language of Madame de Sévigné, I'll at least say this of Moorish architecture:—its principal trait consists in providing every house with a little garden surrounded by an elegant and graceful portico. There, during the unbearable heat of summer, when for whole weeks together the Réaumur thermometer never falls below a constant level of thirty degrees, a delicious obscurity pervades these porticoes. In the middle of the little garden there is always a fountain, monotonous and voluptuous, whose sound is all that stirs this charming retreat. The marble basin is surrounded by a dozen orange-trees and laurels. A thick canvas, like a tent, covers in the whole of the little garden, and, while it protects it from the rays of the sun and from the light, lets in the gentlebreezes which, at midday, come down from the mountains.

There live and receive their guests the fair ladies of Andalusia: a simple black silk robe, ornamented with fringes of the same colour, and giving glimpses of a charming ankle; a pale complexion and eyes that mirror all the most fugitive shades of the most tender and ardent passion—such are the celestial beings, whom I am forbidden to bring upon the scene.

I look upon the Spanish people as the living representatives of the Middle Age.

It is ignorant of a mass of little truths (the puerile vanity of its neighbours); but it has a profound knowledge of great truths and enough character and wit to follow their consequences down to their most remote effects. The Spanish character offers a fine contrast to French intellect—hard, brusque, inelegant, full of savage pride, and unconcerned with others. It is just the contrast of the fifteenth with the eighteenth century.

Spain provides me with a good contrast; the only people, that was able to withstand Napoleon, seems to me to be absolutely lacking in the fool's honour and in all that is foolish in honour.

Instead of making fine military ordinances, of changing uniforms every six months and of wearing large spurs, Spain has generalNo importa.[1]

[1]See the charming Letters of M. Pecchio. Italy is full of people of this wonderful type; but, instead of letting themselves be seen, they try to keep quiet—paese della virtù scunosciuta—"Land of mute, inglorious virtue.

If the Italian, always agitated between love and hate, is a creature of passion, and the Frenchman of vanity, the good and simple descendants of the ancient Germans are assuredly creatures of imagination. Scarcely raised above social interests, the most directly necessary to their subsistence, one is amazed to see them soar into what they call their philosophy, which is a sort of gentle, lovable, quite harmless folly. I am going to cite, not altogether from memory, but from hurriedly taken notes, a work whose author, though writing in a tone of opposition, illustrates clearly, even in his admirations, the military spirit in all its excesses—I speak of the Travels in Austria of M. Cadet-Gassicourt, in 1809. What would the noble and generous Desaix have said, if he had seen the pure heroism of '95 lead on to this execrable egoism?

Two friends find themselves side by side with a battery at the battle of Talavera, one as Captain in command, the other as lieutenant. A passing bullet lays the Captain low. "Good," says the lieutenant, quite beside himself with joy, "that's done for Francis—now I shall be Captain." "Not so quick," cries Francis, as he gets up. He had only been stunned by the bullet. The lieutenant, as well as the Captain, were the best fellows in the world, not a bit ill-natured, and only a little stupid; the excitement of the chase and the furious egoism which the Emperor had succeeded in awakening, by decorating it with the name of glory, made these enthusiastic worshippers of him forget their humanity.

After the harsh spectacle offered by men like this, whodispute on parade at Schoenbrunn for a look from their master and a barony—see how the Emperor's apothecary describes German love, page 188:

"Nothing can be more sweet, more gentle, than an Austrian woman. With her, love is a cult, and when she is attached to a Frenchman, she adores him—in the full force of the word.

"There are light, capricious women everywhere, but in general the Viennese are faithful and in no way coquettes; when I say that they are faithful, I mean to the lover of their own choice, for husbands are the same at Vienna as everywhere else" (June 7, 1809).

The most beautiful woman of Vienna accepts the homage of one of my friends, M. M——, a captain attached to the Emperor's headquarters. He's a young man, gentle and witty, but certainly neither his figure nor face are in any way remarkable.

For some days past his young mistress has made a very great sensation among our brilliant staff officers, who pass their life ferreting about in every corner of Vienna. It has become a contest of daring. Every possible manœuvre has been employed. The fair one's house has been put in a state of siege by all the best-looking and richest. Pages, brilliant colonels, generals of the guard, even princes, have gone to waste their time under her windows, and their money on the fair lady's servants. All have been turned away. These princes were little accustomed to find a deaf ear at Paris or Milan. When I laughed at their discomfiture before this charming creature: "But good Heavens," she said, "don't they know that I'm in love with M. M....?"

A singular remark and certainly a most improper one!

Page 290: "While we were at Schoenbrunn I noticed that two young men, who were attached to the Emperor, never received anyone in their lodgings at Vienna. We used to chaff them a lot on their discretion. One of them said to me one day: 'I'll keep no secrets fromyou: a young woman of the place has given herself to me, on condition that she need never leave my apartment, and that I never receive anyone at all without her leave.' I was curious," says the traveller, "to know this voluntary recluse, and my position as doctor giving me, as in the East, an honourable pretext, I accepted a breakfast offered me by my friend. The woman I found was very much in love, took the greatest care of the household, never wanted to go out, though it was just a pleasant time of the year for walking—and for the rest, was quite certain that her lover would take her back with him to France.

"The other young man, who was also never to be found in his rooms, soon after made me a similar confession. I also saw his mistress. Like the first, she was fair, very pretty, and an excellent figure.

"The one, eighteen years of age, was the daughter of a well-to-do upholsterer; the other, who was about twenty-four, was the wife of an Austrian officer, on service with the army of the Archduke John. This latter pushed her love to the verge of what we, in our land of vanity, would call heroism. Not only was her lover faithless to her, he also found himself under the necessity of making a confession of a most unpleasant nature. She nursed him with complete devotion; the seriousness of his illness attached her to her lover; and perhaps she only cherished him the more for it, when soon after his life was in danger.

"It will be understood that I, a stranger and a conqueror, have had no chance of observing love in the highest circles, seeing that the whole of the aristocracy of Vienna had retired at our approach to their estates in Hungary. But I have seen enough of it to be convinced that it is not the same love as at Paris.

"The feeling of love is considered by the Germans as a virtue, as an emanation of the Divinity, as something mystical. It is riot quick, impetuous, jealous, tyrannical,as it is in the heart of an Italian woman: it is profound and something like illuminism; in this Germany is a thousand miles away from England.

"Some years ago a Leipsic tailor, in a fit of jealousy, waited for his rival in the public garden and stabbed him. He was condemned to lose his head. The moralists of the town, faithful to the German traditions of kindness and unhampered emotion (which makes for feebleness of character) discussed the sentence, decided that it was severe and, making a comparison between the tailor and Orosmanes, were moved to pity for his fate. Nevertheless they were unable to have his sentence mitigated. But the day of the execution, all the young girls of Leipsic, dressed in white, met together and accompanied the tailor to the scaffold, throwing flowers in his path.

"No one thought this ceremony odd; yet, in a country which considers itself logical, it might be said that it was honouring a species of murder. But it was a ceremony—and everything which is a ceremony, is always safe from ridicule in Germany. See the ceremonies at the Courts of the small princes, which would make us Frenchmen die with laughter, but appear quite imposing at Meiningen or Koethen. In the six gamekeepers who file past their little prince, adorned with his star, they see the soldiers of Arminius marching out to meet the legions of Varus.

"A point of difference between the Germans and all other peoples: they are exalted, instead of calming themselves, by meditation. A second subtle point: they are all eaten up with the desire to have character.

"Life at Court, ordinarily so favourable to love, in Germany deadens it. You have no idea of the mass of incomprehensibleminutiæand the pettinesses that constitute what is called a German Court,[1]—even the Court of the best princes. (Munich, 1820).

"When we used to arrive with the staff in a German town, at the end of the first fortnight the ladies of the district had made their choice. But that choice was constant; and I have heard it said that the French were a shoal, on which foundered many a virtue till then irreproachable."

The young Germans whom I have met at Gottingen, Dresden, Koenigsberg, etc., are brought up among pseudo-systems of philosophy, which are merely obscure and badly written poetry, but, as regards their ethics, of the highest and holiest sublimity. They seem to me to have inherited from their Middle Age, not like the Italians, republicanism, mistrust and the dagger, but a strong disposition to enthusiasm and good faith. Thus it is that every ten years they have a new great man who's going to efface all the others. (Kant, Steding, Fichte, etc. etc.[2])

Formerly Luther made a powerful appeal to the moral sense, and the Germans fought thirty years on end, in order to obey their conscience. It's a fine word and one quite worthy of respect, however absurd the belief; I say worthy of respect even from an artist. See the struggle in the soul of S—— between the third [sixth] commandment of God—"Thou shalt not kill"—and what he believed to be the interest of his country.

Already in Tacitus we find a mystical enthusiasm for women and love, at least if that writer was not merely aiming his satire at Rome.[3]

One has not been five hundred miles in Germany,before one can distinguish in this people, disunited and scattered, a foundation of enthusiasm, soft and tender, rather than ardent and impetuous.

If this disposition were not so apparent, it would be enough to reread three or four of the novels of Auguste La Fontaine, whom the pretty Louise, Queen of Prussia, made Canon of Magdeburg, as a reward for having so well painted the Peaceful Life.[4]

I see a new proof of this disposition, which is common to all the Germans, in the Austrian code, which demands the confession of the guilty for the punishment of almost all crimes. This code is calculated to fit a people, among whom crime is a rare phenomenon, and sooner an excess of madness in a feeble being than the effect of interests, daring, reasoned and for ever in conflict with society. It is precisely the contrary of what is wanted in Italy, where they are trying to introduce it—a mistake of well-meaning people.

I have seen German judges in Italy in despair over sentences of death or, what's the equivalent, the irons, if they were obliged to pronounce it without the confession of the guilty.

[1]See the Memoirs of the Margrave de Bayreuth andVingt ans de séjour à Berlin, by M. Thiébaut.[2]See in 1821 their enthusiasm for the tragedy, theTriumph of the Cross,(38)which has causedWilhelm Tellto be forgotten.[3]I have had the good fortune to meet a man of the liveliest wit, and at the same time as learned as ten German professors, and one who discloses his discoveries in terms clear and precise. If ever M. F.(39)publishes, we shall see the Middle Age revealed to our eyes in a full light, and we shall love it.[4]The title of one of the novels of Auguste La Fontaine. The peaceful life, another great trait of German manners—it is the "farniente" of the Italian, and also the physiological commentary on a Russian droski and on the English "horseback."

[1]See the Memoirs of the Margrave de Bayreuth andVingt ans de séjour à Berlin, by M. Thiébaut.

[2]See in 1821 their enthusiasm for the tragedy, theTriumph of the Cross,(38)which has causedWilhelm Tellto be forgotten.

[3]I have had the good fortune to meet a man of the liveliest wit, and at the same time as learned as ten German professors, and one who discloses his discoveries in terms clear and precise. If ever M. F.(39)publishes, we shall see the Middle Age revealed to our eyes in a full light, and we shall love it.

[4]The title of one of the novels of Auguste La Fontaine. The peaceful life, another great trait of German manners—it is the "farniente" of the Italian, and also the physiological commentary on a Russian droski and on the English "horseback."

Florence,February12, 1819.

This evening, in a box at the theatre, I met a man who had some favour to ask of a magistrate, aged fifty. His first question was: "Who is his mistress?Chi avvicina adesso?" Here everyone's affairs are absolutely public; they have their own laws; there is an approved manner of acting, which is based on justice without any conventionality—if you act otherwise, you are aporco.

"What's the news?" one of my friends asked yesterday, on his arrival from Volterra. After a word of vehement lamentation about Napoleon and the English, someone adds, in a tone of the liveliest interest: "La Vitteleschi has changed her lover: poor Gherardesca is in despair."—"Whom has she taken?"—"Montegalli, the good-looking officer with a moustache, who had Princess Colonna; there he is down in the stalls, nailed to her box; he's there the whole evening, because her husband won't have him in the house, and there near the door you can see poor Gherardesca, walking about so sadly and counting afar the glances, which his faithless mistress throws his successor. He's very changed and in the depths of despair; it's quite useless for his friends to try to send him to Paris or London. He is ready to die, he says, at the very idea of leaving Florence."

Every year there are twenty such cases of despair in high circles; some of them I have seen last three or fouryears. These poor devils are without any shame and take the whole world into their confidence. For the rest, there's little society here, and besides, when one's in love, one hardly mixes with it. It must not be thought that great passions and great hearts are at all common, even in Italy; only, in Italy, hearts which are more inflamed and less stunted by the thousand little cares of our vanity, find delicious pleasures even in the subaltern species of love. In Italy I have seen love from caprice, for example, cause transports and moments of madness, such as the most violent passion has never brought with it under the meridian of Paris.[1]

I noticed this evening that there are proper names in Italian for a million particular circumstances in love, which, in French, would need endless paraphrases; for example, the action of turning sharply away, when from the floor of the house you are quizzing a woman you are in love with, and the husband or a servant come towards the front of her box.

The following are the principal traits in the character of this people:—

1. The attention, habitually at the service of deep passions, cannot move rapidly. This is the most marked difference between a Frenchman and an Italian. You have only to see an Italian get into a diligence or make a payment, to understand "la furia francese." It's for this reason that the most vulgar Frenchman, provided that he is not a witty fool, like Démasure, always seems a superior being to an Italian woman. (The lover of Princess D—— at Rome.)

2. Everyone is in love, and not under cover, as in France; the husband is the best friend of the lover.

3. No one reads.

4. There is no society. A man does not reckon, inorder to fill up and occupy his life, on the happiness which he derives from two hours' conversation and the play of vanity in this or that house. The wordcauseriecannot be translated into Italian. People speak when they have something to say, to forward a passion, but they rarely talk just in order to talk on any given subject.

5. Ridicule does not exist in Italy.

In France, both of us are trying to imitate the same model, and I am a competent judge of the way in which you copy it.[2]In Italy I cannot say whether the peculiar action, which I see this man perform, does not give pleasure to the performer and might not, perhaps, give pleasure to me.

What is affectation of language or manner at Rome, is good form or unintelligible at Florence, which is only fifty leagues away. The same French is spoken at Lyons as at Nantes. Venetian, Neapolitan Genoese, Piedmontese are almost entirely different languages, and only spoken by people who are agreed never to print except in a common language, namely that spoken at Rome. Nothing is so absurd as a comedy, with the scene laid at Milan and the characters speaking Roman. It is only by music that the Italian language, which is far more fit to be sung than spoken, will hold its own against the clearness of French, which threatens it.

In Italy, fear of the "pacha"(29)and his spies causes the useful to be held in esteem; the fool's honour simply doesn't exist.[3]Its place is taken by a kind of petty hatred of society, called "petegolismo." Finally, to make fun of a person is to make a mortal enemy, a very dangerous thing in a country where the power and activity of governments is limited to exacting taxes and punishing everything above the common level.

6. The patriotism of the antechamber.

That pride which leads a man to seek the esteem of his fellow-citizens and to make himself one of them, but which in Italy was cut off, about the year 1550, from any noble enterprise by the jealous despotism of the small Italian princes, has given birth to a barbarous product, to a sort of Caliban, to a monster full of fury and sottishness, the patriotism of the antechamber, as M. Turgot called it,à proposof the siege of Calais (theSoldat laboureur(40)of those times.) I have seen this monster blunt the sharpest spirits. For example, a stranger will make himself unpopular, even with pretty women, if he thinks fit to find anything wrong with the painter or poet of the town; he will be soon told, and that very seriously, that he ought not to come among people to laugh at them, and they will quote to him on this topic a saying of Lewis XIV about Versailles.

At Florence people say: "our Benvenuti," as at Brescia—"our Arrici": they put on the word "our" a certain emphasis, restrained yet very comical, not unlike theMiroirtalking with unction about national music and of M. Monsigny, the musician of Europe.

In order not to laugh in the face of these fine patriots one must remember that, owing to the dissensions of the Middle Age, envenomed by the vile policy of the Popes,[4]each city has a mortal hatred for its neighbour, and the name of the inhabitants in the one always stands in the other as a synonym for some gross fault. The Popes have succeeded in making this beautiful land into the kingdom of hate.

This patriotism of the antechamber is the greatest moral sore in Italy, a corrupting germ that will still show its disastrous effects long after Italy has thrown off the yoke of its ridiculous little priests.[5]The form of this patriotism is an inexorable hatred for everything foreign.Thus they look on the Germans as fools, and get angry when someone says: "What has Italy in the eighteenth century produced the equal of Catherine II or Frederick the Great? Where have you an English garden comparable to the smallest German garden, you who, with your climate, have a real need of shade?"

7. Unlike the English or French, the Italians have no political prejudices; they all know by heart the line of La Fontaine:—

Notre ennemi c'est notre M.[6]

Aristocracy, supported by the priest and a biblical state of society, is a worn-out illusion which only makes them smile. In return, an Italian needs a stay of three months in France to realise that a draper may be a conservative.

8. As a last trait of character I would mention intolerance in discussion, and anger as soon as they do not find an argument ready to hand, to throw out against that of their adversary. At that point they visibly turn pale. It is one form of their extreme sensibility, but it is not one of its most amiable forms: consequently it is one of those that I am most willing to admit as proof of the existence of sensibility.

I wanted to see love without end, and, after considerable difficulty, I succeeded in being introduced this evening to Chevalier C—— and his mistress, with whom he has lived for fifty-four years. I left the box of these charming old people, my heart melted; there I saw the art of being happy, an art ignored by so many young people.

Two months ago I saw Monsignor R——, by whom I was well received, because I brought him some copies of theMinerve. He was at his country house with Madame D——, whom he is still pleased, after thirty-four years, "avvicinare," as they say. She is still beautiful, but there is a touch of melancholy in this household. Peopleattribute it to the loss of a son, who was poisoned long ago by her husband.

Here, to be in love does not mean, as at Paris, to see one's mistress for a quarter of an hour every week, and for the rest of the time to obtain a look or a shake of the hand: the lover, the happy lover, passes four or five hours every day with the woman he loves. He talks to her about his actions at law, his English garden, his hunting parties, his prospects, etc. There is the completest, the most tender intimacy. He speaks to her with the familiar "tu," even in the presence of her husband and everywhere.

A young man of this country, one very ambitious as he believed, was called to a high position at Vienna (nothing less than ambassador). But he could not get used to his stay abroad. At the end of six months he said good-bye to his job, and returned to be happy in his mistress's box at the opera.

Such continual intercourse would be inconvenient in France, where one must display a certain degree of affectation, and where your mistress can quite well say to you: "Monsieur So-and-so, you're glum this evening; you don't say a word." In Italy it is only a matter of telling the woman you love everything that passes through your head—you must actually think aloud. There is a certain nervous state which results from intimacy; freedom provokes freedom, and is only to be got in this way. But there is one great inconvenience; you find that love in this way paralyses all your tastes and renders all the other occupations of your life insipid. Such love is the best substitute for passion.

Our friends at Paris, who are still at the stage of trying to conceive that it's possible to be a Persian(71), not knowing what to say, will cry out that such manners are indecent. To begin with, I am only an historian; and secondly, I reserve to myself the right to show one day, by dint of solid reasoning, that as regardsmanners and fundamentally, Paris is not superior to Bologna. Quite unconsciously these poor people are still repeating their twopence-halfpenny catechism.

12July, 1821. There is nothing odious in the society of Bologna. At Paris the role of a deceived husband is execrable; here (at Bologna) it is nothing—there are no deceived husbands. Manners are the same, it is only hate that is missing; the recognised lover is always the husband's friend, and this friendship, which has been cemented by reciprocal services, quite often survives other interests. Most love-affairs last five or six years, many for ever. People part at last, when they no longer find it sweet to tell each other everything, and when the first month of the rupture is over, there is no bitterness.

January, 1822. The ancient mode of thecavaliere servente, imported into Italy by Philip II, along with Spanish pride and manners, has entirely fallen into disuse in the large towns. I know of only one exception, and that's Calabria, where the eldest brother always takes orders, marries his younger brother, sets up in the service of his sister-in-law and becomes at the same time her lover.

Napoleon banished libertinism from upper Italy, and even from here (Naples).

The morals of the present generation of pretty women shame their mothers; they are more favourable to passion-love, but physical love has lost a great deal.[7]

[1]Of that Paris which has given the world Voltaire, Molière and so many men of distinguished wit—but one can't have everything, and it would show little wit to be annoyed at it.[2]This French habit, growing weaker every day, will increase the distance between us and Molière's heroes.[3]Every infraction of this honour is a subject of ridicule in bourgeois circles in France. (See M. Picard'sPetite Ville.)[4]See the excellent and curiousHistoire de l'Église, by M. de Potter.[5]1822.[6][Our enemy is our Master.—Fables, VI, 8.—Tr.][7]Towards 1780 the maxim ran:Molti averne,Un goderne,E cambiar spessoTravels of Shylock [Sherlock?—Tr.].

[1]Of that Paris which has given the world Voltaire, Molière and so many men of distinguished wit—but one can't have everything, and it would show little wit to be annoyed at it.

[2]This French habit, growing weaker every day, will increase the distance between us and Molière's heroes.

[3]Every infraction of this honour is a subject of ridicule in bourgeois circles in France. (See M. Picard'sPetite Ville.)

[4]See the excellent and curiousHistoire de l'Église, by M. de Potter.

[5]1822.

[6][Our enemy is our Master.—Fables, VI, 8.—Tr.]

[7]Towards 1780 the maxim ran:Molti averne,Un goderne,E cambiar spessoTravels of Shylock [Sherlock?—Tr.].

[7]Towards 1780 the maxim ran:

Molti averne,Un goderne,E cambiar spesso

Travels of Shylock [Sherlock?—Tr.].

A free government is a government which does no harm to its citizens, but which, on the contrary, gives them security and tranquillity. But 'tis a long cry from this to happiness. That a man must find for himself; for he must be a gross creature who thinks himself perfectly happy, because he enjoys security and tranquillity. We mix these things up in Europe, especially in Italy. Accustomed as we are to governments, which do us harm, it seems to us that to be delivered from them would be supreme happiness; in this we are like invalids, worn out with the pain of our sufferings. The example of America shows us just the contrary. There government discharges its office quite well, and does harm to no one. But we have been far removed, for very many centuries, thanks to the unhappy state of Europe, from any actual experience of the kind, and now destiny, as if to disconcert and give the lie to all our philosophy, or rather to accuse it of not knowing all the elements of human nature, shows us, that just when the unhappiness of bad government is wanting to America, the Americans are wanting to themselves.

One is inclined to say that the source of sensibility is dried up in this people. They are just, they are reasonable, but they are essentially not happy.

Is the Bible, that is to say, the ridiculous consequences and rules of conduct which certain fantastic wits deduce from that collection of poems and songs, sufficient to cause all this unhappiness? To me it seems a very considerable effect for such a cause.

M. de Volney related that, being at table in the country at the house of an honest American, a man in easy circumstances, and surrounded by children already grown up, there entered into the dining-room a young man. "Good day, William," said the father of the family; "sit down." The traveller enquired who this young man was. "He's my second son." "Where does he come from?"—"From Canton."

The arrival of one of his sons from the end of the world caused no more sensation than that.

All their attention seems employed on finding a reasonable arrangement of life, and on avoiding all inconveniences. When finally they arrive at the moment of reaping the fruit of so much care and of the spirit of order so long maintained, there is no life left for enjoyment.

One might say that the descendants of Penn never read that line, which looks like their history:—

Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

The young people of both sexes, when winter comes, which in this country, as in Russia, is the gay season, go sleighing together day and night over the snow, often going quite gaily distances of fifteen or twenty miles, and without anyone to look after them. No inconvenience ever results from it.

They have the physical gaiety of youth, which soon passes away with the warmth of their blood, and is over at twenty-five. But I find no passions which give pleasure. In America there is such a reasonable habit of mind that crystallisation has been rendered impossible.

I admire such happiness, but I do not envy it; it is like the happiness of human beings of a different and lower species. I augur much better things from Florida and Southern America.[1]

What strengthens my conjecture about the North is the absolute lack of artists and writers. The United States have not yet(42)sent us over one scene of a tragedy, one picture, or one life of Washington.

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