Kitabı oku: «The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II», sayfa 9
I assure you, Tom, the way she used to come in of a morning to ask me how I was, and how I passed the night; her graceful stoop to kiss me; her tender little caressing twaddle, as if I was a small child to be bribed into black-bottle by sugar-candy, – were as good as a play. The little extracts, too, that she made from the newspapers to amuse me were all from that interesting column called fashionable intelligence, and the movements in fashionable life, as if it amused me to hear who Lady Jemima married, and who gave away the bride. Cary knew better what I cared for, and told me about the harvest and the crops, and the state of the potatoes, with now and then a spice of the foreign news, whenever there was anything remarkable. To all appearance, we are not far from a war; but where it 's to be, and with whom, is hard to say. There 's no doubt but fighting is a costly amusement; and I believe no country pays so heavily for her fun in that shape as England; but, nevertheless, there is nothing would so much tend to revive her drooping and declining influence on the Continent as a little brush at sea. She is, I take it, as good as certain to be victorious; and the very fervor of the enthusiasm success would evoke in England would go far to disabuse the foreigner of his notion that we are only eager about printing calicoes, and sharpening Sheffield ware. Believe me, it is vital to us to eradicate this fallacy; and until the world sees a British fleet reeling up the Downs with some half-dozen dismasted line-of-battle ships in their wake, they 'll not be convinced of what you and I know well, – that we are just the same people that fought the Nile and Trafalgar. Those Industrial Exhibitions, I think, brought out a great deal of trashy sentimentality about universal brotherhood, peace, and the rest of it. I suppose the Crystal Palace rage was a kind of allegory to show that they who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; but our ships, Tom, – our ships, as the song says, are "hearts of oak"! Here's Cary again, and with a confounded cupful of something green at top and muddy below! Apothecaries are filthy distillers all the world over, and one never knows the real blessing of health till one has escaped from their beastly brewings. Good-night.
Saturday Morning.
A regular Italian morning, Tom, and such a view! The mists are swooping down the Alps, and showing cliffs and crags in every tint of sunlit verdure. The lake is blue as a dark turquoise, reflecting the banks and their hundred villas in the calm water. The odor of the orange-flower and the oleander load the air, and, except my vagabonds under the window, there is not an element of the picture devoid of interest and beauty. There they are as usual; one of them has his arm in a bloody rag, I perceive, the consequence of a row last night, – at least, Paddy Byrne saw a fellow wiping his knife and washing his bands in the lake – very suspicious circumstances – just as he was going to bed.
I have been hearing all about our neighbors, – at least, Cary has been interrogating the gardener, and "reporting progress" to me as well as she could make him out. This Lake of Como seems the paradise of ci-devant theatrical folk; all the prima donnas who have amassed millions, and all the dancers that have pirouetted into great wealth, appear to have fixed their ambition on retiring to this spot. Of a truth, it is the very antithesis to a stage existence. The silent and almost solemn grandeur of the scene, the massive Alps, the deep dense woods, the calm unbroken stillness, are strong contrasts to the crash and tumult, the unreality and uproar of a theatre. I wonder, do they enjoy the change? I am curious to know if they yearn for the blaze of the dress-circle and the waving pit? Do they long at heart for the stormy crash of the orchestra and the maddening torrent of applause; and does the actual world of real flowers and trees and terraces and fountains seem in their eyes a poor counterfeit of the dramatic one? It would not be unnatural if it were so. There is the same narrowing tendency in every professional career. The doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the soldier, – ay, and even your Parliament man, if he be an old member, has got to take a House of Commons standard for everything and everybody. It is only your true idler, your genuine good-for-nothing vagabond, that ever takes wide or liberal views of life; one like myself, in short, whose prejudices have not been fostered by any kind of education, and who, whatever he knows of mankind, is sure to be his own.
They 've carried away my ink-bottle, to write acknowledgments and apologies for certain invitations the womenkind have received to go and see fireworks somewhere on the lake; for these exhibitions seem to be a passion with Italians! I wish they were fonder of burning powder to more purpose! I 'm to dine below to-day, so it is likely that I 'll not be able to add anything to this before to-morrow, when I mean to despatch it A neighbor, I hear, has sent us a fine trout; and another has forwarded a magnificent present of fruit and vegetables, – very graceful civilities these to a stranger, and worthy of record and remembrance. Lord George tells me that these Lombard lords are fine fellows, – that is, they keep splendid houses and capital horses, have first-rate cooks, and London-built carriages, – and, as he adds, will bet you what you like at piquet or écarté. Egad, such qualities have great success in the world, despite all that moralists may say of them!
The ink has come back, but it is I am dry now! The fact is, Tom, that very little exertion goes far with a man in this climate! It is scarcely noon, but the sultry heat is most oppressive; and I half agree with my friends under the window, that the dorsal attitude is the true one for Italy. In any other country you want to be up and doing: there are snipe or woodcocks to be shot, a salmon to kill, or a fox to hunt; you have to look at the potatoes or the poorhouse; there 's a row, or a road session, or something or other to employ you; but here, it's a snug spot in the shade you look for, – six feet of even ground under a tree; and with that the hours go glibly over, in a manner that is quite miraculous.
It ought to be the best place under the sun for men of small fortune. The climate alone is an immense economy in furs and firing; and there is scarcely a luxury that is not, somehow or other, the growth of the soil: on this head – the expense I mean – I can tell you nothing, for, of course, I have not served on any committee of the estimates since my illness; but I intend to audit the accounts to-morrow, and then you shall hear all. Tiverton, I understand, has taken the management of everything; and Mrs. D. and Mary Anne tell me, so excellent is his system, that a rebellion has broken out below stairs, and three of our household have resigned, carrying away various articles of wardrobe, and other property, as an indemnity, doubtless, for the treatment they had met with. I half suspect that any economy in dinners is more than compensated for in broken crockery; for every time that a fellow is scolded in the drawing-room, there is sure to be a smash in the plate department immediately afterwards, showing that the national custom of the "vendetta" can be carried into the "willow pattern." This is one of my window observations. I wish there were no worse ones to record.
"Not a line, not another word, till you take your broth, papa," says my kind nurse; and as after my broth I take my sleep, I 'll just take leave of you for to-day. I wish I may remember even half of what I wanted to say to you tomorrow, but I have a strong moral conviction that I shall not It is not that the oblivion will be any loss to you, Tom; but when I think of it, after the letter is gone, I 'm fit to be tied with impatience. Depend upon it, a condition of hopeless repining for the past is a more terrible torture than all that the most glowing imagination of coming evil could ever compass or conceive.
Sunday Afternoon.
I told you yesterday I had not much faith in my memory retaining even a tithe of what I wished to say to you. The case is far worse than that, – I can really recollect nothing. I know that I had questions to ask, doubts to resolve, and directions to give, but they are all so commingled and blended together in my distracted brain that I can make nothing out of the disorder. The fact is, Tom, the fellow has bled me too far, and it is not at my time of life – 58° in the shade, by old Time's thermometer – that one rallies quickly out of the hands of the doctor.
I thought myself well enough this morning to look over my accounts; indeed, I felt certain that the inquiry could not be prudently delayed, so I sent for Mary Anne after breakfast, and proceeded in state to a grand audit. I have already informed you that all the material of life here is the very cheapest, – meat about fourpence a pound; bread and butter and milk and vegetables still more reasonable; wine, such as it is, twopence a bottle; fruit for half nothing. It was not, therefore, any inordinate expectation on my part that we should be economizing in rare style, and making up for past extravagance by real retrenchment. I actually looked forward to the day of reckoning as a kind of holiday from all care, and for once in my life revel in the satisfaction of having done a prudent thing.
Conceive my misery and disappointment – I was too weak for rage – to find that our daily expenses here, with a most moderate household, and no company, amounted to a fraction over five pounds English a day. The broad fact so overwhelmed me that it was only with camphor-julep and ether that I got over it, and could proceed to details. Proceed to details, do I say! Much good did it do me! for what between a new coinage, new weights and measures, and a new language, I got soon into a confusion and embarrassment that would have been too much for my brain in its best days. Now and then I began to hope that I had grappled with a fact, even a small one; but, alas! it was only a delusion, for though the prices were strictly as I told you, there was no means of even approximating to the quantities ordered in. On a rough calculation, however, it appears that my mutton broth took half a sheep per diem. The family consumed about two cows a week in beef; besides hares, pheasants, bams, and capons at will. The servants – with a fourth of the wine set down to me – could never have been sober an hour; while our vegetable and fruit supply would have rivalled Covent Garden Market.
"Do you understand this, Mary Anne?" said I.
"No, papa," said she.
"Does your mother?" said I.
"No, papa."
"Does Lord George understand it?"
"No, papa; but he says he is sure Giacomo can explain everything, – for he is a capital fellow, and honest as the sun!"
"And who is Giacomo?" said I.
"The Maestro di Casa, papa. He is over all the other servants, pays all the bills, keeps the keys of everything, and, in fact, takes charge of the household."
"Where did he come from?"
"The Prince Belgiasso had him in his service, and strongly recommended him to Lord George as the most trustworthy and best of servants. His discharge says that he was always regarded rather in the light of a friend than a domestic!"
Shall I own to you, Tom, that I shuddered as I heard this? It may be a most unfair and ungenerous prejudice; but if there be any class in life of whose good qualities I entertain a weak opinion, it is of the servant tribe, and especially of those who enter into the confidential category. They are, to my thinking, a pestilent race, either tyrannizing over the weakness, or fawning to the vices, of their employers. I have known a score of them, and I rejoice to think that a very large proportion of that number have been since transported for life.
"Does Giacomo speak English?" asked I.
"Perfectly, papa; as well as French, Spanish, German, and a little Russian."
"Send him to me, then," said I, "and let us have a talk together.
"You can't see him to-day, papa, for he is performing St. Barnabas in a grand procession that is to take place this evening."
This piece of information shows me that it is a "Festa," and the post will consequently close early, so that I now conclude this, promising that you shall have an account of my interview with Giacomo by to-morrow or the day after.
Not a line from James yet, and I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable about him.
Yours ever faithfully,
Kenny I. Dodd.
LETTER XIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
Como
My dear Tom, – This may perchance be a lengthy despatch, for I have just received a polite invitation from the authorities here to pack off, bag and baggage, over the frontier; and as it is doubtful where our next move may take us, I write this "in extenso," and to clear off all arrears up to the present date.
At the conclusion of my last, if I remember aright, I was in anxious expectation of a visit from Signor Giacomo Lamporeccho. That accomplished gentleman, however, had been so fatigued by his labors in the procession, and so ill from a determination of blood to the head, brought on by being tied for two hours to a tree, with his legs uppermost, to represent the saint's martyrdom, that he could not wait upon me till the third day after the Festa; and then his streaked eyeballs and flushed face attested that even mock holiness is a costly performance.
"You are Giacomo?" said I, as he entered; and I ought to mention that in air and appearance he was a large, full, fine-looking man, of about eight-and-thirty or forty, dressed in very accurate black, and with a splendid chain of mosaic gold twined and festooned across his ample chest; opal shirt-studs and waistcoat buttons, and a very gorgeous-looking signet-ring on his forefinger aided to show off a stylish look, rendered still more imposing by a beard a Grand Vizier might have envied, and a voice a semi-tone deeper than Lablache's.
"Giacomo Lamporeccho," said he; and though he uttered the words like a human bassoon, they really sounded as if he preferred not to be himself, but somebody else, in case I desired it.
"Well, Giacomo," said I, easily, and trying to assume as much familiarity as I could with so imposing a personage, "I want you to afford me some information about these accounts of mine."
"Ah! the house accounts!" said he, with a very slight elevation of the eyebrows, but quite sufficient to convey to me an expression of contemptuous meaning.
"Just so, Giacomo; they appear to me high, – enormously, extravagantly high!"
"His Excellency paid, at least, the double in London," said he, bowing.
"That's not the question. We are in Lombardy, – a land where the price of everything is of the cheapest. How comes it, then, that we are maintaining our house at greater cost than even Paris would require?"
With a volubility that I can make no pretension to follow, the fellow ran over the prices of bread, meat, fowls, and fish, showing that they were for half their cost elsewhere; that his Excellency's table was actually a mean one; that sea-fish from Venice, and ortolans, seldom figured at it above once or twice a week; that it was rare to see a second flask of champagne opened at dinner; that our Bordeaux was bad, and our Burgundy bitter; in short, he thought his Excellency had come expressly for economy, as great "milors" will occasionally do, and that if so, he must have had ample reason to be satisfied with the experiment.
Though every sentiment the fellow uttered was an impertinence, he bowed and smiled, and demeaned himself with such an air of humility throughout, that I stood puzzled between the matter and the manner of his address. Meanwhile he was not idle, but running over with glib volubility the names of all the "illustrissimi Inglesi" he had been cheating and robbing for a dozen years back. To nail him to the fact of the difference between the cost of the article and the gross sum expended, was downright impossible, though he clearly gave to understand that any inquiry into the matter showed his Excellency to be the shabbiest of men, – mean, grasping, and avaricious, and, in fact, very likely to be no "milor" at all, but some poor pretender to rank and station.
I felt myself waxing wroth with a weak frame, – about as unpleasant a situation as can be fancied; for let me observe to you, Tom, that the brawny proportions of Signor Lamporeccho would not have prevented my trying conclusion with him, had I been what you last saw me; but, alas! the Italian doctor had bled me down so low that I was not even a match for one of his countrymen. I was therefore obliged to inform my friend that, being alone with him, and our interview having taken the form of a privileged communication, he was a thief and a robber!
The words were not uttered, when he drew a long and glistening knife from behind his back, under his coat, and made a rush at me. I seized the butt-end of James's fishing-rod, – fortunately beside me, – and held him at bay, shouting wildly, "Murder!" all the while. The room was filled in an instant; Tiverton and the girls, followed by all the servants and several peasants, rushing in pell-mell. Before, however, I could speak, for I was almost choked with passion, Signor Giacomo had gained Lord George's ear, and evidently made him his partisan.
Tiverton cleared the room as fast as he could, mumbling out something to the girls that seemed to satisfy them and allay their fears, and then, closing the door, took his seat beside me.
"It will not signify," said he to me, in a kind voice; "the thing is only a scratch, and will be well in a day or two."
"What do you mean?" said I.
"Egad! you'll have to be cautious, though," said he, laughing. "It was in a very awkward place; and that too is n't the handiest for minute anatomy."
"Do you want to drive me mad, my Lord; for, if not, Just take the trouble to explain yourself."
"Pooh, pooh!" said he; "don't fuss yourself about nothing. I understand how to deal with these fellows. You 'll see, five-and-twenty Naps, will set it all right."
"I see," said I, "your intention is to outrage me; and I beg that I may be left alone."
"Come, don't be angry with me, Dodd," cried he, in one of his good-tempered, coaxing ways. "I know well you 'd never have done it – "
"Done what, – done what?" screamed I, in an agony of rage.
He made a gesture with the fishing-rod, and burst out a-laughing for reply.
"Do you mean that I stuck that scoundrel that has just gone out?" cried I.
"And no great harm, either!" said he.
"Do you mean that I stuck him? – answer me that."
"Well, I 'd be just as much pleased if you had not," said he; "for, though they are always punching holes into each other, they don't like an Englishman to do it. Still, keep quiet, and I 'll set it all straight before to-morrow. The doctor shall give a certificate, setting forth mental excitement, and so forth. We 'll show that you are not quite responsible for your actions just now."
"Egad, you 'll have a proof of your theory, if you go on much longer at this rate," said I, grinding my teeth with passion.
"And then we 'll get up a provocation of some kind or other. Of course, the thing will cost money, – that can't be helped; but we'll try to escape imprisonment."
"Send Cary to me, – send my daughter here!" said I, for I was growing weak.
"But had n't you better let us concert – "
"Send Cary to me, my Lord, and leave me!" and I said the words in a way that he could n't misunderstand. He had scarcely quitted the room when Cary entered it.
"There, dearest papa," said she, caressingly, "don't fret. It's a mere trifle; and if he was n't a wretchedly cowardly creature, he 'd think nothing of it!"
"Are you in the conspiracy against me too?" cried I; "have you also joined the enemy?"
"That I haven't," said she, putting an arm round my neck; "and I know well, if the fellow had not grossly outraged, or perhaps menaced you, you 'd never have done it! I 'm certain of that, pappy!"
Egad, Tom, I don't like to own it, but the truth is – I burst out a-crying; that's what all this bleeding and lowering has brought me to, that I have n't the nerve of a kitten! It was the inability to rebut all this balderdash – to show that it was a lie from beginning to end – confounded me; and when I saw my poor Cary, that never believed ill of me before, that, no matter what I said or did, always took my part, and, if she could n't defend at least excused me, – when, I say, I saw that she gave in to this infernal delusion, I just felt as if my heart was going to break, and I sincerely wished it might.
I tried very hard to summon strength to set her right; I suppose that a drowning man never struggled harder to reach a plank than did I to grasp one thought well and vigorously; but to no use. My ideas danced about like the phantoms in a magic lantern, and none would remain long enough to be recognized.
"I think I 'll take a sleep, my dear," said I.
"The very wisest thing you could do, pappy," said she, closing the shutters noiselessly, and sitting down in her old place beside my bed.
Though I pretended slumber, I never slept a wink. I went over all this affair in my mind, and, summing up the evidence against me, I began to wonder if a man ever committed a homicide without knowing it, – I mean, if, when his thoughts were very much occupied, he could stick a fellow-creature and not be aware of it. I could n't exactly call any case in point to mind, but I did n't see why it might not be possible. If stabbing people was a common and daily habit of an individual, doubtless he might do it, just as he would wind his watch or wipe his spectacles, while thinking of something else; but as it was not a customary process, at least where I came from, there was the difficulty. I would have given more than I had to give, just to ask Cary a few questions, – as, for instance, how did it happen? where is the wound? how deep is it? and so on, – but I was so terrified lest I should compromise my innocence that I would not venture on a syllable. One sees constantly in the police reports how the prisoner, when driving off to jail with Inspector Potts, invariably betrays himself by some expression of anxiety or uneasiness, such as "Well, nobody can say I did it! I was in Houndsditch till eleven o'clock;" or, "Poor Molly, I did n't mean her any harm, but it was she begun it." Warned by these indiscreet admissions, I was guarded not to utter a word. I preserved my resolution with such firmness that I fell into a sound sleep, and never awoke till the next morning.
Before I acknowledged myself to be awake, – don't you know that state, Tom, in which a man vibrates between consciousness and indolence, and when he has not fully made up his mind whether he 'll not skulk his load of daily cares a little longer? – I could perceive that there was a certain stir and movement about me that betokened extraordinary preparation, and I could overhear little scraps of discussions as to whether "he ought to be awakened," and "what he should wear," Cary's voice being strongly marked in opposition to everything that portended any disturbance of me. Patience, I believe, is not my forte, though long-suffering may be my fortune, for I sharply asked, "What the – was in the wind now?"
"We'll leave him to Cary," said Mrs. D., retiring precipitately, followed by the rest, while Cary came up to my bedside, and kindly began her inquiries about my health; but I stopped her, by a very abrupt repetition of my former question.
"Oh! it's a mere nothing, pappy, – a formality, and nothing more. That creature, Giacomo, has been making a fuss over the affair of last night; and though Lord George endeavored to settle it, he refused, and went off to the Tribunal to lodge a complaint."
"Well, go on."
"The Judge, or Prefect, or whatever he is, took his depositions, and issued a warrant – "
"To apprehend me?"
"Don't flurry yourself, dearest pappy; these are simply formalities, for the Brigadier has just told me – "
"He is here, then, – in the house?"
"Why will you excite yourself in this way, when I tell you that all will most easily be arranged? The Brigadier only asks to see you, – to ascertain, in fact, that you are really ill, and unable to be removed – "
"To jail – to the common prison, eh?"
"Oh, I must not talk to you, if it irritates you in this fashion; indeed, there is now little more to say, and if you will just permit the Brigadier to come in for a second, everything is done."
"I 'm ready for him," said I, in a tone that showed I needed no further information; and Cary left the room.
After about five minutes' waiting, in an almost intolerable impatience, the Brigadier, stooping his enormous bearskin to fully three feet, entered with four others, armed cap-à-pic, who drew up in a line behind him, and grounded their carbines with a clank that made the room shake. The Brigadier, I must tell you, was a very fine soldier-like fellow, and with fully half a dozen decorations hanging to his coat. It struck me that he was rather disappointed; he probably expected to see a man of colossal proportions and herculean strength, instead of the poor remnant of humanity that chicken broth and the lancet have left me. The room, too, seemed to fall below his expectations; for he threw his eyes around him without detecting any armory or offensive weapons, or, indeed, any means of resistance whatever.
"This is his Excellency?" said he at last, addressing Cary; and she nodded.
"Ask him his own name, Cary," said I. "I'm curious about it."
"My name," said he, sonorously, to her question, – "my name is Alessandro Lamporeccho;" and with that he gave the word to his people to face about, and away they marched with all the solemnity of a military movement. As the door closed behind them, however, I heard a few words uttered in whispers, and immediately afterwards the measured tread of a sentry slowly parading the lobby outside my room.
"That's another formality, Cary," said I, "is n't it?" She nodded for reply. "Tell them I detest ceremony, my dear," said I; "and – and " – I could n't keep down my passion – "and if they don't take that fellow away, I'll pitch him head and crop over the banisters." I tried to spring up, but back I fell, weak, and almost fainting. The sad truth came home to me at once that I had n't strength to face a baby; so I just turned my face to the wall, and sulked away to my heart's content. If I tell you how I spent that day, the same story will do for the rest of the week. I saw that they were all watching and waiting for some outbreak, of either my temper or my curiosity. They tried every means to tempt me into an inquiry of one kind or other. They dropped hints, in half-whispers, before me. They said twenty things to arouse anxiety, and even alarm, in me; but I resolved that if I passed my days there, I 'd starve them out: and so I did.
On the ninth day, when I was eating my breakfast, just as I had finished my mutton-chop, and was going to attack the eggs, Cary, in a half-laughing way, said, "Well, pappy, do you never intend to take the air again? The weather is now delightful, – that second season they call the summer of St. Joseph."
"Ain't I a prisoner?" said I. "I thought I had murdered somebody, and was sentenced for life to this chamber."
"How can you be so silly!" said she. "You know perfectly well how these foreigners make a fuss about everything, and exaggerate every trifle into a mock importance. Now, we are not in Ireland – "
"No," said I, "would to Heaven we were!"
"Well, perhaps I might echo the prayer without doing any great violence to my sincerity; but as we are not there, nor can we change the venue – is n't that the phrase? – to our own country, what if we just were to make the best of it, and suffer this matter to take its course here?"
"As how, Cary?"
"Simply by dressing yourself, and driving into Como. Your case will be heard on any morning you present yourself; and I am so convinced that the whole affair will be settled in five minutes that I am quite impatient it should be over."
I will not repeat all her arguments, some good and some bad, but every one of them dictated by that kind and affectionate spirit which, however her judgment incline, never deserts her. The end of it was, I got up, shaved, and dressed, and within an hour was skimming over the calm clear water towards the little city of Como.
Cary was with me, – she would come, – she said she knew she did me good; and it was true: but the scene itself – those grand, great mountains; those leafy glens, opening to the glassy lake, waveless and still; that glorious reach of blue sky, spanning from peak to peak of those Alpine ridges – all soothed and calmed me; and in the midst of such gigantic elements, I could not help feeling shame that such a reptile as I should mar the influence of this picture on my heart by petty passions and little fractious discontents an worthy of a sick schoolboy.
"Is n't it enough for you, K. I.," says I, "ay, and more than you deserve, just to live, and breathe, and have your being in such a bright and glorious world? If you were a poet, with what images would not these swooping mists, these fleeting shadows, people your imagination? What voices would you hear in the wind sighing through the olive groves, and dying in many a soft cadence along the grottoed shore? If a painter, what effects of sunlight and shadow are there to study? what tints of color, that, without nature to guarantee, you would never dare to venture on? But being neither, having neither gift nor talent, being simply one of those 4 fruit consumers,' who bring back nothing to the common stock of mankind, and who can no more make my fellow-man wiser or better than I make myself taller or younger, is it not a matter of deep thankfulness that, in all my common-place of mind and thought, I too – even K. I. that I am – have an intense feeling of enjoyment in the contemplation of this scene? I could n't describe it like Shelley, nor paint it like Stan field, but I 'll back myself for a five-pound note to feel it with either of them." And there, let me tell you, Tom, is the real superiority of Nature over all her counterfeits. You need no study, no cultivation, no connoisseurship to appreciate her: her glorious works come home to the heart of the peasant, as, mist-begirt, he waits for sunrise on some highland waste, as well as to the Prince, who gazes on the swelling landscape of his own dominions. I could n't tell a Claude from a Canaletti, – I 'm not sure that I don't like H. B. better than Albert Durer, – but I 'd not surrender the heartfelt delight, the calm, intense, deep-souled gratitude I experience from the contemplation of a lovely landscape, to possess the Stafford gallery.
