I Have Remained More At Home Since I Arrived At Copenhagen Than I
Ought To Have Done In A Strange Place, But The Mind Is Not Always
Equally Active In Search Of Information, And My Oppressed Heart Too
Often Sighs Out -
"How dull, flat, and unprofitable
Are to me all the usages of this world:
That it should come to this!"
Farewell! Fare thee well, I say; if thou canst, repeat the adieu in
a different tone.
LETTER XXII.
I arrived at Corsoer the night after I quitted Copenhagen, purposing
to take my passage across the Great Belt the next morning, though
the weather was rather boisterous. It is about four-and-twenty
miles but as both I and my little girl are never attacked by sea-
sickness - though who can avoid ennui? - I enter a boat with the same
indifference as I change horses; and as for danger, come when it
may, I dread it not sufficiently to have any anticipating fears.
The road from Copenhagen was very good, through an open, flat
country that had little to recommend it to notice excepting the
cultivation, which gratified my heart more than my eye.
I took a barge with a German baron who was hastening back from a
tour into Denmark, alarmed by the intelligence of the French having
passed the Rhine. His conversation beguiled the time, and gave a
sort of stimulus to my spirits, which had been growing more and more
languid ever since my return to Gothenburg; you know why. I had
often endeavoured to rouse myself to observation by reflecting that
I was passing through scenes which I should probably never see
again, and consequently ought not to omit observing. Still I fell
into reveries, thinking, by way of excuse, that enlargement of mind
and refined feelings are of little use but to barb the arrows of
sorrow which waylay us everywhere, eluding the sagacity of wisdom
and rendering principles unavailing, if considered as a breastwork
to secure our own hearts.
Though we had not a direct wind, we were not detained more than
three hours and a half on the water, just long enough to give us an
appetite for our dinner.
We travelled the remainder of the day and the following night in
company with the same party, the German gentleman whom I have
mentioned, his friend, and servant. The meetings at the post-houses
were pleasant to me, who usually heard nothing but strange tongues
around me. Marguerite and the child often fell asleep, and when
they were awake I might still reckon myself alone, as our train of
thoughts had nothing in common. Marguerite, it is true, was much
amused by the costume of the women, particularly by the pannier
which adorned both their heads and tails, and with great glee
recounted to me the stories she had treasured up for her family when
once more within the barriers of dear Paris, not forgetting, with
that arch, agreeable vanity peculiar to the French, which they
exhibit whilst half ridiculing it, to remind me of the importance
she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys
by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and
stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true
Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless
vanity, which thus produced a gaite du coeur worth all my
philosophy!
The man I had hired at Copenhagen advised me to go round about
twenty miles to avoid passing the Little Belt excepting by a ferry,
as the wind was contrary. But the gentlemen overruled his
arguments, which we were all very sorry for afterwards, when we
found ourselves becalmed on the Little Belt ten hours, tacking about
without ceasing, to gain the shore.
An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious,
nay, almost insupportable. When I went on board at the Great Belt,
I had provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining
untouched I thought not then any such precaution necessary for the
second passage, misled by the epithet of "little," though I have
since been informed that it is frequently the longest. This mistake
occasioned much vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so
bitterly for bread, that fancy conjured up before me the wretched
Ugolino, with his famished children; and I, literally speaking,
enveloped myself in sympathetic horrors, augmented by every fear my
babe shed, from which I could not escape till we landed, and a
luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed the spectres of fancy.
I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part
for ever - always a most melancholy death-like idea - a sort of
separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom
fate separates us seems to be something torn from ourselves. These
were strangers I remember; yet when there is any originality in a
countenance, it takes its place in our memory, and we are sorry to
lose an acquaintance the moment he begins to interest us, through
picked up on the highway. There was, in fact, a degree of
intelligence, and still more sensibility, in the features and
conversation of one of the gentlemen, that made me regret the loss
of his society during the rest of the journey; for he was compelled
to travel post, by his desire to reach his estate before the arrival
of the French.
This was a comfortable inn, as were several others I stopped at; but
the heavy sandy roads were very fatiguing, after the fine ones we
had lately skimmed over both in Sweden and Denmark. The country
resembled the most open part of England - laid out for corn rather
than grazing. It was pleasant, yet there was little in the
prospects to awaken curiosity, by displaying the peculiar
characteristics of a new country, which had so frequently stole me
from myself in Norway. We often passed over large unenclosed
tracts, not graced with trees, or at least very sparingly enlivened
by them, and the half-formed roads seemed to demand the landmarks,
set up in the waste, to prevent the traveller from straying far out
of his way, and plodding through the wearisome sand.
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