“Yesterday we entered Switzerland, and reached this place after a week’s journey from Paris without let, hindrance, accident, or inconvenience of any kind.
“It is with the greatest difficulty that I find time to keep a journal. We rise at five, and have travelled from ten to twelve hours every day, going about twenty miles before breakfast. Hunger would hardly permit us to do anything in the way of writing before dinner, if there were not always something to see while dinner is preparing; and after dinner it requires an effort of heroic virtue to resist the pleasures of wine and conversation, and it becomes almost impossible upon taking the pen in hand to resist sleep. This morning we lay in bed till seven, that we might have the full enjoyment of a whole holiday. I remember at Westminster the chief gratification which a whole holiday on a Sunday afforded, was that of lying abed till breakfast was ready at nine o’clock.
“Our windows are within a stone’s throw of the
Lake, and we see the Alps across it. The Lake is like a sea in its colour, its
waves, and its voice, of which we are of course within hearing. The Alps, of
which we have the whole extent in view, cannot be less than fifty miles distant
in the nearest point, directly across the Lake, and Mont Blanc, which is at the
extremity on the right, about fourscore. If
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 265 |
“We hear dismal stories of famine and distress; but the scene continually recedes as we approach it, nor have we seen any indication of it whatever. From all that I can collect, the bad harvest of last year has acted here as it does in England, and must everywhere; it presses severely upon that class of persons who stood in need of economy before, and who, with economy, had a little to spare for others. There are plenty of beggars throughout France, and
* Across the Jura. |
| 266 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 43. |
“Nothing surprised me more in France than that there
should be no middle-aged women among the peasantry; they appear to pass at once
from youth to bagged old age, and it is no exaggeration to say that they look
like so many living and moving mummies. Fond as they are of finery in youth
(for they are then tricked out in all the colours of the rainbow), in old age
their dress is as wretched and squalid as their appearance. I see nothing among
them of the gaiety of which we have heard so much in former times. Not a single
party have we seen dancing throughout the whole journey. The weather, indeed,
has been unusually cold, but certainly not such as would check the propensities
of a light-heeled generation, if they ever were as fond of a dance as their
light-hearted progenitors. I must say, to their credit, that we have uniformly
met with civility; not the slightest insult or incivility of any kind has been
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 267 |
“God bless you! Give my love to all.
