. I saw her first
standing with a knot of roses in her hand under a cedar-tree, at one of
their afternoon clubs on the river. She was drinking a cup of tea: they
are always drinking tea. And she is so white. I never saw anything so
white except the snow on the Leonessa. She is not in the least like the
fast young ladies of England of whom one sees so much in the winter at
Rome. I do not like their fast young women. If you want a woman who is
fast, a Parisienne is best, or even an American. Englishwomen overdo it.
She is just like a primrose; like a piece of porcelain; like a soft,
pale star shining in the morning. I write all kinds of poetry when I
think of her. And then there is something _Sainte-Nitouche_ about her
which is delicious because it is so real. The only thing which was
wanting in her was that she ought to have been shut up in a convent, and
I ought to have had to imperil my soul for all eternity by getting her
over a stone wall with a silken ladder. But it is a prosaic age, and
this is a very prosaic country. London amuses me; but it is such a
crowd, and it is frightfully ugly. I cannot think how people who are so
enormously rich as the English can put up with such ugliness. The houses
are all too small, even the big ones. I have not seen a good ball-room.
They say there are good ones in the country houses. The clubs are
admirable; but life in general seems to me hurried, costly, ungraceful,
very noisy, and almost entirely consecrated to eating. It is made up of
a scramble and a mass of food. People engage themselves for dinners a
month in advance. Everybody's engagement-book is so full that it is the
burden of their days. They accept everything, and, at the eleventh hour,
pick out what they prefer, and, to use their own language, "throw over"
the rest. I do not think it is pretty behavior; but nobody seems to
object to it. I wonder that the women do not do so; but they seem to be
afraid of losing their men altogether if they exact good manners from
them. People here are not at all well-mannered, to my taste,--neither
the men nor the women. They are brusque and negligent, and have few
_petite soins_. You should have come over for my marriage to show them
all what an exquisite creature a Venetian patrician beauty can be. Why
_would_ you marry that Piedmontese? Only two things seem to be of any
importance in England: they are eating and politics. They eat all day
long, and are always talking of Mr. Gladstone.