I have been much interested by the _Letters from Lausanne_; I think them in some parts highly pathetic and eloquent, but as to the moral tendency of the book I cannot find it out, turn it which way I will. I think the author wrote merely with the intention of showing how well he could paint pa.s.sion, and he has succeeded. The Savage of Aveyron [Footnote: A little history of a boy found in France, "a wild man of the woods." He was brought to Paris, and the philosophers disputed much on his mental powers; but he died before they came to any conclusion.] is a thousand times more interesting to me than Caliste. I have not read anything for years that interested me so much. Mr. Chenevix will be here in a few days, when we will cross-question him about this savage, upon whom the eyes of civilised Europe have been fixed. Mr. Chenevix and his sister, Mrs. Tuite, and with them Mrs. Jephson, spent a day here last week: she is clever and agreeable. What did you think of M. Pictet"s account of Edgeworthstown?
Professor Marc-Auguste Pictet, of Geneva, visited the Edgeworths this summer, coming over from Mr. Tuite"s, of Sonna, where he was staying with Mr. Chenevix. He afterwards published an interesting account of his visit to Edgeworthstown in the _Bibliotheque Britannique_, as well as in his _Voyage de trois mots en Angleterre_, which was published at Geneva in 1802. Of Maria Edgeworth he says:
I had persuaded myself that the author of the work on Education, and of other productions, useful as well as ornamental, would betray herself by a remarkable exterior. I was mistaken. A small figure, eyes nearly always lowered, a profoundly modest and reserved air, with expression in the features when not speaking: such was the result of my first survey.
But when she spoke, which was too rarely for my taste, nothing could have been better thought, and nothing better said, though always timidly expressed, than that which fell from her mouth.
M. Pictet"s account of the society at Paris induced Mr. Edgeworth to determine on going there. He set out in the middle of September, with Mrs. Edgeworth, Maria, Emmeline, and Charlotte. Emmeline left the rest of the family at Conway, and went to stay with Mrs. Beddoes at Clifton, where she was married to Mr. King (or Konig, a native of Berne), a distinguished surgeon.
In London Mr. Edgeworth purchased a roomy coach, in which his family travelled very comfortably.
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
LOUGHBOROUGH, _Sept. 25, 1802._
I calculate, my dear Sophy, that you have accused me at least a hundred times of being lazy and good-for-nothing, because I have not written since we left Dublin; but do not be angry, I was not well during the time we were in Dublin, nor for two or three days after we landed: but three days" rest at Bangor Ferry recovered me completely, and thanks to Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman, I am now in perfectly good plight.
To take up things at the beginning. We had a tedious pa.s.sage, but Charlotte and I sat upon deck, and were well enough to be much amused with all the manoeuvring of the sails, etc. The light reflected upon the waters from the lighthouse contracted instead of diverging: I mention this, because there was an argument held upon the subject either at Black Castle or at Collon. As we were all sitting upon deck drinking tea in the morning, a large, very large, woman who was reading opposite to us, fell from her seat with a terrible noise. We all thought she had fallen down dead: the gentlemen gathered round her, and when she was lifted up, she was a shocking spectacle, her face covered with blood, she had fallen upon one of the large nails in the deck. She recovered her senses, but when she was carried down to the cabin she fainted again, and remained two hours senseless. "She has a mother, ma"am," said the steward, "who is lying a-dying at Holyhead, and she frets greatly for her." We were told afterwards that this lady has for twenty years crossed the sea annually to visit her mother, though she never could make the pa.s.sage without swooning. She was a coa.r.s.e, housekeeper-looking woman, without any pretence to sentimentality, but I think she showed more affection and real heroism than many who have been immortalised by the pen or pencil.
Nothing new or entertaining from Holyhead to Bangor. A delightful day at Bangor, pleasant walk: Charlotte drew some Welsh peasants and children: we tried to talk to them, but _Dumsarzna_, or words to that effect, "I don"t understand English," was the constant answer, and the few who could speak English seemed to have no wish to enter into conversation with us: the farmers intrenched themselves in their houses and shut their doors as fast as they could when we approached. From Bangor Ferry we took a pleasant excursion to Carnarvon--do not be afraid, I shall not give you a long description of the castle--I know you have seen it, but I wish I knew whether you and I saw it with the same ideas. I could not have conceived that any building or ruin could have appeared to me so sublime. The amazing size! the distinctness of the parts! the simplicity of the design, the thickness of the walls, the air of grandeur even in decay! In the courtyard of the castle an old horse and three cows were grazing, and beneath the cornices on the walls two goats, half black half white, were browsing. I believe that old castles interest one by calling up ideas of past times, which are in such strong contrast with the present. In the courtyard of this castle were brewing vessels in vaults which had formerly perhaps been dungeons, and pitched sails stretched upon the walls to dry: the spirit of old romance and modern manufactures do not agree.
Mr. Waitman, the landlord of the Carnarvon Hotel, accompanied us to the castle, and he was indeed a glorious contrast to the enthusiastic old man who showed the ruins. This old man"s eyes brightened when he talked of the Eagle Tower, and he seemed to forget that he had a terrible asthma whilst he climbed the flights of stone stairs. Our landlord, a thorough Englishman, in shrewd, wilful independence, entertained my father by his character and conversation, and pleased him by his praises of Lovell, of whom he spoke with much grat.i.tude. We returned at night to Bangor Ferry. Early next morning my father and mother, on two Welsh ponies, trotted off to see Lord Penrhyn"s slate quarries. We had orders to follow them in a few hours. In the meantime who do you think arrived?
Mr. and Mrs. Saunderson, with all their children. They seemed as glad to see me as I was to see them. They had intended to go another road, but went on to Conway on purpose to spend the day with us. A most pleasant day we did spend with them. They were going to Bristol to see their son, and when they found that Emmeline was going there, they offered in the kindest and most polite manner to take her with them. We parted with Emmeline and with them the next morning; they went to Keniogy, which I can"t spell, and we went to Holywell, and saw the copper works, a vast manufactory, in which there seemed to be no one at work. We heard and saw large wheels turning without any visible cause, "instinct with spirit all." At first nothing but the sound of dripping water, then a robin began to sing amongst the rafters of the high and strange roof.
The manufactory in which the men were at work was a strong contrast to this desolate place, a stunning noise, Cyclops with bared arms dragging sheets of red-hot copper, and thrusting it between the cylinders to flatten it; while it pa.s.sed between these, the flame issued forth with a sort of screeching noise. When I first heard it I thought somebody was hurt: the flame was occasioned by the burning of the grease put between the rollers. There were a number of children employed drawing straight lines on the sheets of copper, ready for a man with a large pair of shears to cut. The whole process was simple.
Saw the famous well, in which the spring supplies a hundred tuns a minute. Went on to Chester and Newcastle, in hopes of finding Jos.
Wedgwood at Etruria: were told he was not in the country, but just as our chaise whips up, papa espied Wedgwood"s partner, who told him Jos.
_was_ at Etruria: came last night, would stay but one day. Went to Etruria, Jos. received us as you would expect, and all the time I was with him I had full in my recollection the handsome manner in which you told me he spoke of my father. The mansion-house at Etruria is excellent; but, alas! the Wedgwoods have bought an estate in Dorsetshire, and are going to leave Etruria. I do not mean that they have given up their share in the manufactory. Saw a flint mill worked by a steam-engine just finished, cannot stay to describe it--for two reasons, because I cannot describe it intelligibly, and because I want to get on to the Priory to Mrs. and the Miss Darwins. Poor Dr. Darwin!
[Footnote: Dr. Darwin died 17th April 1802.] It was melancholy to go to that house to which, in the last lines he ever wrote, he had invited us.
The servants in deep mourning: Mrs. Darwin and her beautiful daughters in deep mourning. She was much affected at seeing my father, and seemed to regret her husband as such a husband ought to be regretted. I liked her exceedingly; there was so much heart, and so little constraint or affectation in all she said and did, or looked. There was a charming picture of Dr. Darwin in the room, in which his generous soul appeared and his penetrating benevolent genius. How unlike the wretched misanthropic print we have seen! While I am writing this at Loughborough, my father is a few miles off at Castle Donnington. I forgot to tell you that we spent a delightful day, or remnant of a day, on our return from the Priory, at Mr. Strutt"s.
_To_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.
LONDON, NEROT"S HOTEL, _Sept. 27, 1802._
We have been here about an hour, and next to the pleasure of washing face and hands, which were all covered with red Woburn sand and Dunstable chalk, and London dust, comes the pleasure of writing to you, my dear good Aunt Mary. How glad I should be to give you any proof of grat.i.tude for the many large and little kindnesses you have shown to me.
There is no one in the world who can deserve to be thought of more at all times, and in all situations, than you; for there is no one thinks so much of others. As long as there is any one worth your loving upon earth, you cannot be unhappy. I think you would have been very apt to make the speech attributed to St. Theresa: "Le pauvre Diable! comme je le plains! Il ne peut rien aimer. Ah! qu"il doit etre malheureux!"
But whilst I am talking sentiment you may be impatient for news. The first and best news is, that my father is extremely well. Travelling, he says, has done him a vast deal of good, and whoever looks at him believes him. It would be well for all faces if they had that effect on the spectators, or rather perhaps it would be ill for the credulous spectators. Isabella of Aragon, _or_ Lord Chesterfield, or both, call a good countenance the best letter of recommendation. Whenever Nature gives false letters of recommendation, she swindles in the most abominable manner. Where she refuses them where they are best deserved, she only gives additional motive for exertion (_vide_ Socrates or his bust).[Footnote: An alabaster bust of Socrates, which stood on the chimney-piece in the drawing-room at Black Castle.] And after all, Nature is forced out of her letters of recommendation sooner or later.
You know that it is said by Lavater, that the _muscles_ of Socrates"
countenance are beautiful, and these became so by the play given to them by the good pa.s.sions, etc. etc. etc.
Charlotte tells me she carried you in her last as far as Loughborough and Castle Donnington, will you be so good to go on to Leicester with me? But before we set out for Leicester, I should like to take you to Castle Donnington, "the magnificent seat of the Earl of Moira." But then how can I do that, when I did not go there myself? Oh! I can describe after a description as well as my betters have done before me in prose and verse, and a description of my father"s is better than the reality seen with my own eyes. The first approach to Donnington disappointed him; he looked round and saw neither castle, nor park, nor anything to admire till he came to the top of a hill, when in the valley below suddenly appeared the turrets of a castle, surpa.s.sing all he had conceived of light and magnificent in architecture: a real castle! not a modern, bungling imitation. The inside was suitable in grandeur to the outside; hall, staircase, antechambers; the library fitted up entirely with books in plain handsome mahogany bookcases, not a frippery ornament, everything grand, but not gaudy; marble tables, books upon the tables; nothing littered, but sufficient signs of living and occupied beings. At the upper end of the room sat two ladies copying music: a gentleman walking about with a book in his hand: neither Lord Moira nor Lady Charlotte Rawdon in the room. The gentleman, Mr. Sedley, not having an instinct like Mademoiselle Panache for a gentleman, did not, till Lord Moira entered the room and received my father with open arms, feel sure that he was worthy of more than monosyllable civility. Lord Moira took the utmost pains to show my father that he was pleased with his visit, said he must have the pleasure of showing him over the house himself, and finished by giving him a letter to the Princess Joseph de Monaco, who is now at Paris. She was Mrs. Doyle. He also sent to Mrs.
Edgeworth the very finest grapes I ever beheld. I wished the moment I saw them, my dear aunt, that you had a bunch of them.
We proceeded to Leicester. Handsome town, good shops: walked whilst dinner was getting ready to a circulating library. My father asked for _Belinda, Bulls_, etc., found they were in good repute--_Castle Rackrent_ in better--the others often borrowed, but _Castle Rackrent_ often bought. The bookseller, an open-hearted man, begged us to look at a book of poems just published by a Leicester lady, a Miss Watts. I recollected to have seen some years ago a specimen of this lady"s proposed translation of Ta.s.so, which my father had highly admired. He told the bookseller that we would pay our respects to Miss Watts, if it would be agreeable to her. When we had dined, we set out with our enthusiastic bookseller. We were shown by the light of a lanthorn along a very narrow pa.s.sage between high walls, to the door of a decent-looking house: a maid-servant, candle in hand, received us. "Be pleased, ladies, to walk upstairs." A neatish room, nothing extraordinary in it except the inhabitants. Mrs. Watts, a tall, black-eyed, prim, dragon-looking woman in the background. Miss Watts, a tall young lady in white, fresh colour, fair thin oval face, rather pretty. The moment Mrs. Edgeworth entered, Miss Watts, mistaking her for the auth.o.r.ess, darted forward with arms, long thin arms, outstretched to their utmost swing, "OH, WHAT AN HONOUR THIS IS!!" each word and syllable rising in tone till the last reached a scream. Instead of embracing my mother, as her first action threatened, she started back to the farthest end of the room, which was not light enough to show her att.i.tude distinctly, but it seemed to be intended to express the receding of awestruck admiration--stopped by the wall. Charlotte and I pa.s.sed by unnoticed, and seated ourselves by the old lady"s desire: she after many twistings of her wrists, elbows, and neck, all of which appeared to be dislocated, fixed herself in her armchair, resting her hands on the black mahogany _splayed_ elbows. Her person was no sooner at rest than her eyes and all her features began to move in all directions. She looked like a nervous and suspicious person electrified.
She seemed to be the acting partner in this house to watch over her treasure of a daughter, to supply her with worldly wisdom, to look upon her as a phoenix, and--scold her. Miss Watts was all ecstasy and lifting up of hands and eyes, speaking always in that loud, shrill, theatrical tone with which a puppet-master supplies his puppets. I all the time sat like a mouse. My father asked, "Which of those ladies, madam, do you think is your sister auth.o.r.ess?"--"I am no physiognomist"--in a screech--"but I do imagine that to be the lady," bowing as she sat almost to the ground, and pointing to Mrs. Edgeworth. "No, guess again."--"Then that must be _she_" bowing to Charlotte. "No."--"Then this lady," looking forward to see what sort of an animal I was, for she had never seen me till this instant. To make me some amends, she now drew her chair close to me, and began to pour forth praises: "Lady Delacour, O! Letters for Literary Ladies, O!"
Now for the pathetic part. This poor girl sold a novel in four volumes for ten guineas to Lane. My father is afraid, though she has considerable talents, to recommend her to Johnson, lest she should not _answer._ Poor girl, what a pity she had no friend to direct her talents; how much she made me feel the value of mine!
_To_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
BRUSSELS, _Oct. 15, 1802._
After admiring on the ramparts of Calais the Poissardes with their picturesque nets, ugly faces, and beautiful legs, we set out for Gravelines, with whips clacking in a manner which you certainly cannot forget. The stillness and desolation of Gravelines was like the city in the Arabian Tales where every one is turned into stone. Fortifications constructed by the famous Vauban, lunes, and demi-lunes, and curtains, all which did not prevent the French from trotting through it.
We left Gravelines with an equipage at which Sobriety herself could not have forborne to laugh: to our London coach were fastened by long rope traces six Flemish horses of different heights, but each large and clumsy enough to draw an English waggon. The nose of the foremost horse was thirty-five feet from the body of the coach, their hoofs all s.h.a.ggy, their manes all uncombed, and their tails long enough to please Sir Charles Grandison himself. These beasts were totally disenc.u.mbered of every sort of harness except one strap which fastened the saddle on their backs; and high, high upon their backs, sat perfectly perpendicular, long-waisted postillions in jack-boots, with pipes in their mouths. The country appeared one vast flat common, without hedges, or ditches, or trees, tiled farmhouses of equal size and similar form at even distances. All that the power of monotony can do to put a traveller to sleep is here tried; but the rattling and jolting on the paved roads set Morpheus and monotony both at defiance. To comfort ourselves we had a most entertaining _Voyage dans les Pays Bas par M. Breton_ to read, and the charming story of Mademoiselle de Clermont in Madame de Genlis"s _Pet.i.ts Romans._ I never read a more pathetic and finely written tale.
Dunkirk is an ugly, bustling town. Strange-looking _charettes_, driven by thin men in c.o.c.ked hats,--the window-shutters turned out to the streets and painted by way of signs with various commodities. A variety of things, among them little shifts, petticoats, and corsets, were fairly spread upon the ground on the bridges and in the streets. The famous basin, about which there have been such disputes, is little worth. Voltaire wonders at the English and French waging war "for a few acres of snow"; he might with equal propriety have laughed at them for fighting about a _slop-basin._ The _pont-tournant_ is well worth seeing, and for those who have strong legs and who have breakfasted, it is worth while to climb the two hundred and sixty-four steps of the tower. Whilst we were climbing the town clock struck, and the whole tower vibrated, and the vibration communicated itself to our ears and heads in a most sublime and disagreeable manner.
At Dunkirk we entered what was formerly called L"ancien Brabant, and all things and all persons began to look like Dutch prints and Dutch toys, especially the women with their drop earrings, and their necklaces like the labels of decanters, their long-waisted, long-flapped jackets of one colour, and stiff petticoats of another. Even when moving the people all looked like wooden toys set in motion by strings--the strings in Flanders must be of gold: the Flemings seem to be all a money-making, money-loving people: they are fast recovering their activity after the Revolution.
The road to Bruges, fifty feet broad, solidly paved in the middle, seems, like all French and Flemish roads, to have been laid out by some inflexible mathematician: they are always right lines, the shortest possible between two points. The rows of trees on each side of these never-ending avenues are of the ugliest sort and figure possible: tall poplars stripped almost to the top, as you would strip a pen, and pollarded willows: the giant poplar and the dwarf willow placed side by side alternately, knight and squire. The postillions have badges like the badges of charity schools, strapped round their arms; these are numbered and registered, and if they behave ill, a complaint may be lodged against them by merely writing their names on the register, which excludes them from a pension, to which they would be ent.i.tled if they behaved well for a certain number of years. The post-houses are often lone, wretched places, one into which I peeped, a _grenier_, like that described by Smollett, in which the murdered body is concealed. At another post-house we met with a woman calling herself a _servante_, to whom we took not only an aversion, but a horror; Charlotte said that she should be afraid, not of that woman"s cutting her throat, but that she would take a mallet and strike her head flat at one blow. Do you remember the woman in _Caleb Williams_, when he wakens and sees her standing over him with an uplifted hatchet? Our _servante_ might have stood for this picture.
Bruges is a very old, desolate-looking town, which seems to have felt in common with its fellow-towns the effects of the Revolution. As we were charged very high at the Hotel d"Angleterre, at Dunkirk, my father determined to go to the Hotel de Commerce at Bruges, an old strange house which had been a monastery: the man chamber-maid led us through gallery after gallery, up stairs and down stairs, turning all manner of ways, with a bunch of keys in his hand, each key ticketed with a pewter ticket. There were twenty-eight bed-chambers: thank heaven we did not see them all! I never shall forget the feeling I had when the door of the room was thrown open in which we were to sleep. It was so large and so dark, that I could scarcely see the low bed in a recess in the wall, covered with a dark brown quilt. I am sure Mrs. Radcliffe might have kept her heroine wandering about this room for six good pages. When we meet I will tell Margaret of the night Charlotte and I spent in this room, and the footsteps we heard overhead--just a room and just a night to suit her taste.
In the morning we went to see the Central School; it is in what was an old monastery, and the church belonging to it is filled with pictures collected from all the suppressed convents, monasteries, and churches.
Buonaparte has lately restored some of their pictures to the churches, but those by Rubens and Raphael are at Paris. In the cabinet of natural history there is the skeleton and the skin of a man who was guillotined, as fine white leather as ever you saw. The preparations for these ecoles Centrales are all too vast and ostentatious: the people are just beginning to send their children to them. Government finds them too expensive, and their number is to be diminished. The librarian of this ecole Centrale at Bruges is an Englishman, or rather a Jamaica man, of the name of Edwards. Brian Edwards was his great friend, and he was well acquainted with Johnson the bookseller, and Dr. Aikin, and Mr. and Mrs.
Barbauld. Mr. Edwards and his son had often met Lovell at Johnson"s, and spoke of him quite with affection. The two sons spent the evening with us, and they and their father accompanied us next morning part of our way to Ghent. We went by the ca.n.a.l barque, as elegant as any pleasure-boat I ever was in. My father entertained the Edwards with the history of his physiognomical guesses in a stage-coach. The eldest son piques himself upon telling character from handwriting. He was positive that mine could not be the hand of a woman, and then he came off by saying it was the writing of a _manly_ character! We had an extremely fine day, and the receding prospect of Bruges, with its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills, the tops of their giant vanes moving above the trees, gave a pleasing example of a Flemish landscape, recalling the pictures of Teniers and the prints of Le Bas. We had good and agreeable company on board our barque, the Mayor of Bruges and his lady; her friend, a woman of good family; and an old Baron Triste, of a sixteen-quartering family. At the name of Mayor of Bruges, you probably represent to yourself a fat, heavy, formal, self-sufficient mortal--_tout au contraire_: our Mayor was a thin gentleman, of easy manners, literature, and amusing conversation: Madame, a beautiful Provinciale. M. Lerret, the Mayor, found us out to be the Edgeworths described by M. Pictet in the _Journal Britannique._ Since we came to France we have found M. Pictet"s account very useful, for at every public library, and in every ecole Centrale, the _Journal Britannique_ is taken, and we have consequently received many civilities. It was Sunday, and when we arrived at Ghent, all the middling people of the town in their holiday clothes were a.s.sembled on the banks of the ca.n.a.l according to custom to see the barque arrive: they made the scene very cheerful. The old Baron de Triste, though he had not dined, and though he had, as he said of himself, "un faim de diable," stayed to battle our coach and trunks through an army of custom-house officers. We stayed two days at Ghent, and saw pictures and churches without number. Here were some fine pictures by that Crayer of whom Rubens said, "Crayer! personne ne te surpa.s.sera!" Do not be afraid, my dear Sophy, I am not going to overwhelm you with pictures, nor to talk of what I don"t understand; but it is extremely agreeable to me to see paintings with those who have excellent taste and no affectation. At the ecole Centrale was a smart little librarian, to whom we were obliged for getting the doors of the cathedral opened to us _at night_: we went in by moonlight, the appearance was sublime; lights burning on the altar veiled from sight, and our own monstrous shadows cast on the pillars, added to the effect.
The verger took one of the tall candles to light us to some monuments in white marble of exquisite sculpture. There were no pictures, but the walls were painted in the manner of the Speaker"s room at the Temple, and by the master who taught De Gray. This kind of painting seems to suit churches, and to harmonise well with sculpture and statues.
My dear friend, I have not room to say half I intended, but let me make what resolutions I please, I never can get all I want to say to you into a letter.
_To_ MISS CHARLOTTE SNEYD.
CHANTILLY, _Oct. 29, 1802._
I last night sent a folio sheet to Sophy, giving the history of ourselves as far as Brussels, where we spent four days very much to our satisfaction: it is full of fine buildings, charming public walks, the country about it beautiful. In the Place Royale are two excellent hotels, Hotel d"Angleterre and Hotel de Flandres, to which we went, and found that Mr. Chenevix and Mr. Knox were in the other.
My father thought it would be advantageous to us to see inferior pictures before seeing those of the best masters, that we might have some points of comparison; and upon the same principle we went to two provincial theatres at Dunkirk and Brussels: but unluckily, I mean unluckily for our _principles_, we saw at Brussels two of the best Paris actors, M. and Madame Talma. The play was Racine"s _Andromaque_ (imitated in England as the _Distressed Mother_). Madame Talma played Andromaque, and her husband Orestes: both exquisitely well. I had no idea of fine acting till I saw them, and my father, who had seen Garrick, and Mrs. Siddons, and Yates, and Le Kain, says he never saw anything superior to Madame Talma. We read the play in the morning, an excellent precaution, otherwise the novelty of the French mode of declamation would have set my comprehension at defiance. There was a ranting Hermione, who had a string too tight round her waist, which made her bosom heave like the bellows of a bagpipe whenever she worked with her clasped hands against her heart to pump out something like pa.s.sion.
There was also a wretched Pyrrhus, and an old Phoenix, whose gray wig I expected every moment to fall off.
Next to this beautiful tragedy, the thing that interested and amused me most at Brussels were the dogs: not lap-dogs, but the dogs that draw carts and heavy hampers. Every day I beheld numbers of these _traineaux_, often four, harnessed abreast, and driven like horses. I remember in particular seeing a man standing upright on one of these little carriages, and behind him two large hampers full of mussels, the whole drawn by four dogs. And another day I saw a boy of about ten years old driving four dogs harnessed to a little carriage; he crossed our carriage as we were going down a street called La Montagne de la Cour, without fearing our four Flemish horses. La Montagne de la Cour is a very grand name, and you may perhaps imagine that it means a MOUNTAIN, but be it known to you, my dear aunt, that in Le Pays Bas, as well as in the County of Longford, they make mountains of molehills. The whole road from Calais to Ghent is as flat and as straight as the road to Longford.
We never knew when we came to what the innkeeper and postillions call mountains, except by the postillions getting off their horses with great deliberation and making them go a snail"s walk--a snail"s gallop would be much too fast. Now it is no easy thing for a French postillion to walk himself when he is in his boots: these boots are each as large and as stiff as a wooden churn, and when the man in his boots attempts to walk, he is more helpless than a child in a go-cart: he waddles on, dragging his boots after him in a way that would make a pig laugh. As Lord Granard says, "A pig can whistle, though he has a bad mouth for it," [Footnote: A long argument on genius and education, between Lady Moira and Mr. Edgeworth, had been ended by Lord Granard wittily saying, "A pig may be made to whistle, but he has a bad mouth for it."] I presume that _by a parity of reasoning_ a pig may laugh. But I must not talk any more nonsense.
We left Brussels last Sunday (you are looking in your pocket-book, dear Aunt Mary, for the day of the month; I see you looking). The first place of any note we went to was Valenciennes, where we saw houses and churches in ruins, the effect of English wars and French revolutions.
Though Valenciennes lace is very pretty we bought none, recollecting that though Coventry is famous for ribbons, and Tewkesbury for stockings, yet only the worst ribbons, and the worst stockings are to be had at Coventry and Tewkesbury. Besides, we are not expert at counting Flemish money, which is quite different from French, and puzzling enough to drive the seven sages of Greece mad. Even the natives cannot count it without rubbing their foreheads, and counting in their hands, and repeating _c"a fait, cela fait._ For my part I fairly gave the point up, and resolved to be cheated rather than go distracted. But indeed the Flemish are not cheats, as far as I have seen of them. They would go to the utmost borders of honesty for a couronne de Brabant, or a demi-couronne, or a double escalin, or a single escalin, or a plaquet, or a livre, or a sous, or a liard, or for any the vilest denomination of their absurd coin, yet I do not believe they would go beyond the bounds of honesty with any but an English Milor: they are privileged dupes. A maid at the hotel at Dunkirk said to me, "Ah! Madame, nous autres nous aimons bien de voir rouler les Anglais." Yes, because they think the English roll in gold.
Now we will go to Cambray, famous for its cambric and its archbishop.