of ways. She sends me tea when I wake in the morning—orange-flower water when I go to bed—grapes—and her maid to wait on me. She says if I like she will spend the winter after this at Paris with me, and introduce me to her friends there; but she does not mean to attach herself to me, because I shall never like her long. I shall be tired of her when I have sifted her, etc. She says I have more intellect than morale, and other things more true than agreeable; however, she is "greatly interested" in me; has told me her troubles and her feelings, she says, in spite of herself; for she has never been able before in her life to say so much even to her old friends. It is a mystery she cannot unravel. She is a person of high culture, according to the ordinary notions of what feminine culture should be. She speaks French and German perfectly, plays well, and has the most perfect polish of manner—the most thorough refinement, both socially and morally. She is tall and handsome, a striking-looking person, but with a sweet feminine expression when she is with those she likes; dresses exquisitely; in fine, is all that I am not. I shall tire you with all this, but I want you to know what good creatures there are here as elsewhere. Miss F. tells me that the first day she sat by my side at dinner she looked at me and thought to herself, "That is a grave lady; I do not think I shall like her much;" but as soon as I spoke to her, and she looked into my eyes, she felt she could love me. Then she lent me a book written by her cousin—a religious novel—in which there is a fearful infidel who will not believe, and hates all who do, etc. Then she invited me to walk with her, and came to talk in my room; then invited me to go to the Oratoire with them, till I began to be uncomfortable under the idea that they fancied I was evangelical, and that I was gaining their affection under false pretences; so I told Miss F. that I was going to sacrifice her good opinion, and confess my heresies. I quite expected, from their manner and character, that they would forsake me in horror—but they are as kind as ever. They never go into the salon in the evening, and I have almost forsaken it, spending the evening frequently in Mme. de Ludwigsdorff's room, where we have some delightful tea. The tea of the house here is execrable; or, rather, as Mrs. A. says, "How glad we ought to be that it has no taste at all; it might have a very bad one!" I like the A.'s; they are very good-natured. Mrs. A., a very ugly but lady-like little woman, who is under an infatuation "as it regards" her caps—always wearing the brightest rose-color or intensest blue—with a complexion not unlike a dirty primrose glove. The rest of the people are nothing to me, except, indeed, dear old Mlle. de Phaisan, who comes into my room when I am ill, with "Qu'est ce que vous avez, ma bonne?" in the tone of the kindest old aunt, and thinks that I am the most amiable douce creature, which will give you a better opinion of her charity than her penetration.
Dear creatures! no one is so good as you yet. I have not yet found any one who can bear comparison with you; not in kindness to me—ça va sans dire—but in solidity of mind and in expansion of feeling. This is a very coarse thing to say, but it came to the end of my pen, and litera scripta manet—at least, when it comes at the end of the second page. I shall certainly stay at Geneva this winter, and shall return to England as early as the spring weather will permit, always supposing that nothing occurs to alter my plans. I am still thin; so how much will be left of me next April I am afraid to imagine. I shall be length without breadth. Cara's assurance that you are well and comfortable is worth a luncheon to me, which is just the thing I am generally most in want of, for we dine at six now. I love to imagine you in your home; and everything seems easy to me when I am not disturbed about the health or well-being of my loved ones. It is really so; I do not say it out of any sort of affectation, benevolent or otherwise. I am without carefulness, alas! in more senses than one. Thank Sara very heartily for her letter. I do not write a special sheet for her to-day, because I have to write to two or three other people, but she must not the less believe how I valued a little private morsel from her; and also that I would always rather she wrote "from herself" than "to me"—that is my theory of letter-writing. Your letters are as welcome as Elijah's ravens—I thought of saying the dinner-bell, only that would be too gross! I get impatient at the end of the ten days which it takes for our letters to go to and fro; and I have not the least faith in the necessity for keeping the sheet three or four days before Mr. Bray can find time to write his meagre bit. If you see the Miss Franklins, give my love to them; my remembrances to Mr. and Mrs. Whittem; love to Miss Sibree always. Hearty love to Clapton27 and Woodford;28 and a very diffusive benevolence to the world in general, without any particular attachment to A or B. I am trying to please Mr. Bray. Good-bye, dear souls. Dominus vobiscum.
Letter to the Brays, Thursday, 4th Oct. 1849.
I am anxious for you to know my new address, as I shall leave here on Tuesday. I think I have at last found the very thing. I shall be the only lodger. The appartement is assez joli, with an alcove, so that it looks like a sitting-room in the daytime—the people, an artist of great respectability, and his wife, a most kind-looking, lady-like person, with two boys, who have the air of being well educated. They seem very anxious to have me, and are ready to do anything to accommodate me. I shall live with them—that is, dine with them; breakfast in my own room. The terms are fr. 150 per month, light included. M. and Mme. d'Albert are middle-aged, musical, and, I am told, have beaucoup d'esprit. I hope this will not exceed my means for four or five months. There is a nice, large salon and a good salle à manger. I am told that their society is very good. Mme. de Ludwigsdorff was about going there a year ago, and it was she who recommended it to me.
I hope Sara's fears are supererogatory—a proof of a too nervous solicitude about me, for which I am grateful, though it does me no good to hear of it. I want encouraging rather than warning and checking. I believe I am so constituted that I shall never be cured of my faults except by God's discipline. If human beings would but believe it, they do me the most good by saying to me the kindest things truth will permit; and really I cannot hope those will be superlatively kind. The reason I wished to raise a little extra money is that I wanted to have some lessons and other means of culture—not for my daily bread, for which I hope I shall have enough; but, since you think my scheme impracticable, we will dismiss it. Au reste, be in no anxiety about me. Nothing is going wrong that I know of. I am not an absolute fool and weakling. When I am fairly settled in my new home I will write again. My address will be—M. d'Albert Durade, Rue des Chanoines, No. 107.
Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 4th Oct. 1849.
The blessed compensation there is in all things made your letter doubly precious for having been waited for, and it would have inspired me to write to you again much sooner, but that I have been in uncertainty about settling myself for the winter, and I wished to send you my future address. I am to move to my new home on Tuesday the 9th. I shall not at all regret leaving here; the season is beginning to be rather sombre, though the glorious chestnuts here are still worth looking at half the day. You have heard of some of the people whom I have described in my letters to Rosehill. The dear little old maid, Mlle. de Phaisan, is quite a good friend to me—extremely prosy, and full of tiny details; but really people of that calibre are a comfort to one occasionally, when one has not strength enough for more stimulating things. She is a sample of those happy souls who ask for nothing but the work of the hour, however trivial; who are contented to live without knowing whether they effect anything, but who do really effect much good, simply by their calm and even maintien. I laugh to hear her say in a tone of remonstrance—"Mme. de Ludwigsdorff dit qu'elle s'ennuie quand les soirées sont longues: moi, je ne conçois pas comment on peut s'ennuyer quand on a de l'ouvrage ou des jeux ou de la conversation." When people who are dressing elegantly and driving about to make calls every day of their life have been telling me of their troubles—their utter hopelessness of ever finding a vein worth working in their future life—my thoughts have turned towards many whose sufferings are of a more tangible character, and I have really felt all the old commonplaces about the equality of human destinies, always excepting those spiritual differences which are apart not only from poverty and riches, but from individual affections. Dear Chrissey has found time and strength to write to me, and very precious her letter was, though I wept over it. "Deep, abiding grief must be mine," she says, and I know well it must be. The mystery of trial! It falls with such avalanche weight on the head of the meek and patient. I wish I could do something of more avail for my friends than love them and long for their happiness.
