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sixty years of age, and a widow. I own I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this cast. After dinner she threw herself upon a settee, where she showed more than her feet. She had a little lap-dog, who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite, and whom she kissed. This is one of the Doctor's most intimate friends, with whom he dines once every week, and she with him. She is rich, and is my near neighbour; but I have not yet visited her. Thus you see, my dear, that manners differ exceedingly in different countries. I hope, however, to find amongst the French ladies manners more consistent with my ideas of decency, or I shall be a mere recluse.

You must write to me, and let me know all about you; marriages, births, and preferments; every thing you can think of. Give my respects to the Germantown family. I shall begin to get letters for them by the next vessel. Good night. Believe me

Your most affectionate aunt,

A. A.

Celia Thaxter loses her heart and exhausts her adjectives in Milan

...

G

(To Mrs. Annie Fields)

OLD carnations! Yes, just as true as you live, cloth-of-gold carnations! I saw them heaped in a shop-window; the color of those great gold roses at home (Marshal - what do you call them ?). With these eyes I saw them just now!

Oh this place! it is so charming! One eternal and chronic Italian opera all day and all night. Such great basses and tenors superbly sounding through the night;

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The Pathos of It All

all sorts and sizes, all wearing long cloaks with one end cast over the shoulder with a grace which is indescribable; and women wearing over the head a square of black lace, one corner gathered over the head, the rest falling over the shoulders and down the back — oh, so lovely! Every woman wears this headgear, of poorer or richer materials, and to the older and more scraggy it gives a kind of dignity and grace; but on the young and fair, ye gods! how beautiful it is! Oh, the sights in the streets! how fascinating! Last night we went out, soon after we arrived, into the splendid arcade through the square, where the colossal statue of Leonardo da Vinci loomed white in the moonlight, with the four pupils at the corners of the lofty pedestal. Through the wonderful arcade we passed, - it was all glittering with shops and royal stuffs and jewels, and out into the square beyond, where the cathedral lifted its forest of white marble spires, like frostwork, to the moon; wonderful, wonderful! This morning we climbed up and out on its roof in the midst of those exquisite spires, each with its statue atop. The city lay half in soft haze below, half revealed - a lovely picture. This afternoon we went to a great performance in the cathedral. The immense interior was filled with a great multitude. There were clouds of incense, and cords of golden crosses and tons of candles flaring. The long procession moved round the church among the people with singing, chanting, and organ-playing, I saw a priest the living image of John G. Whittier, and a younger one who looked like my Roland. But a great many of them were very piggy indeed. Oh, their laces, their silks, their gold and silver and precious stones, their bowing and courtesying, how tedious! how like the dancing of the common Lancers of our country! But the people! Oh, the pathos of it all! Every face a study! Such devotion, such love

and sorrow and fearful hope! In all the service in England and everywhere there is but one cry to which my heart responds. It seems the one significant utterance. It is, "Lord have mercy upon us," helpless and defenseless that we are. It seems to me the whole thing might be simplified into that one cry.

Washington Irving visits a German "Bracebridge

Hall"

THE

(To C. R. Leslie)

DRESDEN, March 15, 1823

“HE place where I am now passing my time is a complete study. The court of this little kingdom of Saxony is, perhaps, the most ceremonious and oldfashioned in Europe, and one finds here customs and observances in full vigor that have long since faded away in other courts.

The king is a capital character himself. A complete old gentleman of the ancient school, and very tenacious in keeping up the old style. He has treated me with the most marked kindness, and every member of the royal family has shown me great civility. What would greatly delight you is the royal hunting establishment, which the king maintains at a vast expense, being his hobby. He has vast forests stocked with game, and a complete forest police, forest masters, chasseurs, piqueurs, jägers, &c., &c. The charm of the thing is, that all this is kept up in the old style; and to go out hunting with him, you might fancy yourself in one of those scenes of old times which we read of in poetry and romance. I have followed him thrice to the boar hunt. The last we had extremely good sport. The boar gave us a chase of upwards of two hours, and was not overpowered until it had killed one dog, and des

Helter Skelter

perately wounded several others. It was a very cold winter day, with much snow on the ground; but as the hunting was in a thick pine forest and the day was sunny, we did not feel the cold. The king and all his hunting retinue were clad in an old-fashioned hunting uniform of green, with green caps. The sight of the old monarch and his retinue galloping through the alleys of the forest, the jägers dashing singly about in all directions, cheering the hounds; the shouts; the blasts of horns; the cry of hounds ringing through the forest, altogether made one of the most animating scenes I ever beheld. . .

Being an account of the way in which Charles Godfrey Leland "took Europe like a pie "

MY

(To Henry Perry Leland)

PARIS, LATIN QUARTER (cheap and fly!)

le 18 Nov. cold and clear

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Y OWN BRAVE HARRY, God bless you a thousand times for your letter, dated nothing at all, which came by the last steamer. I feel warmed to the soul to think what a good friend I have at home in thee. Oh, a thousand blessings on thy warm, true heart! . . As for my Polish business, it was a wild, adventurous, nightmare piece of business which makes me shudder when I think of it. Oh, that silent, dead, ghastly land, with its long dead levels and moaning pine forests and mud - mud! It was dreary and witchlike and wild. But that delicious rainy morning, at four o'clock, at the mercy of a pack of Russians in a wilderness! How jolly Vienna was! Oh, the theatre and cafés, etc., etc. Won't I talk when I return! And the whole journey, helter skelter, pipe in mouth, and devil take the odds. Didn't we go it! I was the individ. as enjoyed myself.

Sometimes half

dead with fatigue, cold and hunger, and then, plump, slap into the fat of the land. And such a companion! Didn't he travel into the tobacco and wine and beer! We took Europe like a pie between us and helped ourselves. Then came Berlin, and the American students, and a public ball, and all sorts of fun, and the glorious gallery, and then Hanover and an adventure, and then Westphalia, and Cologne, and Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. Holland is a mean sort of a snobbish land, devilish dear, and I travelled through it to say I'd been there, for it is terribly deficient in all attractions or curious articles. It's 4. I'm off to dinner, cheap and common, and then - Don Giovanni with Lablache and Grisi. Don't you (and don't 7) wish you were with me?

Why travel?

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(Catharine Sedgwick to Mrs. K. S. Minot)

LENOX, September 28, 1851

is good, as the burdens of age accumulate, to shake them all off; to change old, tiresome ideas for new ones; to take a world of fresh impressions; to fill the store-house of imagination with new and beautiful images; to gain assurance to uncertain opinions; to verify old fancies; to throw off some of your old social burdens while you extend the social chain; in short, to go to Italy and come home again! And I think it would be a good plan, Kate, to send out one of the family every year to bring home "bread and fruit" for those that must stay at home. Plowshares and reaping-hooks are grand things, but one would like some of the delectations of life. It was a convenient way of watering the earth in the old times of Adam and Eve by dews, but the clouds and rainbows are the fine arts of Nature.

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