The Highland air is doing me good. It seems to me that my breathing is
better than it was before I came. I can not reconcile myself to eating,
which is the principal amusement in this rainy, foggy weather. Our
hunters kill mountain deer, and sometimes grouse, for us, and every day
we have choice birds. I am pining for a thin soup, or to dine at home
alone, or at Saint Chéron with you; the last wish will not be realised,
I fear.
I forget whether I told you that I have a blue veil for you. I have had
the courage not to wear it, in order to bring it to you fresh; and if
you knew what mountains the midges raise on my face, you would
appreciate the strength of mind of which I have given signal proof.
Good-bye.
CCXXIII
PARIS, _September 14, 1860_.
I received your letter, dear friend, and confess that I think you might
have remained one day less at Lestaque and spent it in Paris....
For nearly two weeks Panizzi has been here with me. I am acting as his
guide, and showing him everything worth seeing, from the cedar unto the
hyssop. There is not a living creature in Paris, which pleases me
mightily; however, the evenings begin to lengthen.
I should like to tell you something of the huge muddle that has just
begun, but I know and understand nothing about it. My guest believes
the pope and the Austrians will be driven out. So far as the first is
concerned, the chances look very gloomy; as for the Austrians, if
Garibaldi interferes with them I fear he will repent of it. Some one in
Naples wrote me of a philosophical remark of the king, who was receiving
every five minutes the resignation of a general or an admiral: “To-day
there are too many Italians to fight against Garibaldi; in a month there
will be too many Royalists to fight against the Austrians.”
It is impossible to picture the rage of the Carlists and the Orleanists.
A very sensible Italian tells me that M. de Cavour entered the Papal
States with the Sardinian army because Mazzini was preparing to organise
a revolution there. To my mind, this has a semblance of probability.
You have seen, perhaps, the fête at Marseilles. It was, I am told,
unusually beautiful, and the enthusiasm was both circumspect and
tumultuous. I hear also that, notwithstanding an immense multitude of
people excited to the highest degree, and of hot Southern temperament,
perfect order prevailed. To find something to eat seemed to be the
greatest problem, and somewhere to sleep almost as difficult. The
spectacle of the Marseillais in their ordinary condition always amuses
me; to see them in a state of enthusiasm must be still more
entertaining. On this account, and for another reason which you may
guess, I regret not having been in Marseilles or in the neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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