Transcription
Madrid Saturday October 28th 1843.
Dear E:
The letters by the Caledonia, several days delayed, arrive / yesterday. Your short note finished by George, giving an account of the / excursion and frolic in the Dream was the best proof that you were all / well and enjoying yourselves, and was all the news from the Hudson / river. _ Bow’s letter was from Boston just before starting for New York _ / How I envied you the neighborhood of Staatsberg, where I passed so many / days waiting the young lady’s coming, and after seeing her _ as if that / were happiness enough for this world _ had like to have been drowned / off Wilke’s the same afternoon!
Bow and George both speak of my letters not having / been received, while you mention that you were going to Nevis, where / you expected to find them _ I write from Biarrits [sic] after my illness, and / the Agent in London said they arrived in time for the steamer _ I can’t / imagine where the delay could have taken place.
The town is filling rapidly; grandees are returning from / their excursions; diplomats from their leaves of absence, and every body / anticipates a gay + busy winter: There is to be a wedding or two in high / life, which will open the old, dusty palaces, hermetically closed during / the upstart reign of Espartero _ The French Ambassador De Bresson is / expected shortly and Bulwer from London will arrive soon after the / declaration of the Queen’s majority, which it is said will [^ also] decide the / northern powers, (now unrepresented) to send their crosses and red / ribbons. _ I hope all this may come to pass and that this winter /
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Probably my last, will exhibit all the pomp and circumstance of royalty _ / a commission of both branches of the legislature are now considering the / proposal of the gov’t to declare the Queen of age at once, and as Olozaga, Spanish Ambassador in Paris and the ruling spirit in these troubled times, / arrived yesterday, the question will probably be decided without delay.
The Belgian Minister Count Marnix, who arrived last / Evening, met Mr. Irving “aux Italiens” in Paris on the 12th or 13th _ Uncle Geoffrey / was still obliged to use a carriage when he left the house, and said not a / word about his return : he is doubtless having rare enjoyment in the way he / likes best _ a quiet little famly + corner at the Opera _ and I hope will remain / some time to repay himself for the dull _ disagreeable months of confinement here : /
Jasper Livingston, announced with a flourish in all the papers as “Mr. Livingston, / Attache +c. With despatches for this Legation” passed through Bayonne a week ago, / but has not yet presented himself here : I have a decided interest in his safe arrival / as his the bearer of various little articles for me form Paris :
After about ten years striving and remonstrance, a great improve - / ment has been recently made in the Spanish Mails by which we have letters one day / earlier from Paris and London, + of course from U.S. _ The Coaches are to travel / rather faster, so that the while 24 hours are gained between here + Bayonne : The / ladrones, as was to be expected, have not allowed this departure from the good / old times to pass unmolested _ The first night of the new arrangement the Courier / was attached during the first part relay, five miles from Madrid, at a place / on the road called the “Calabozas” or Dungeons, by 13 armed men; two horses / were shot; one before the Carriage, the other, of one of the escort but the robbers / were finally beaten off after a sharp skirmish _ In the South, the “partidas” / as they are called seem to have things pretty much their own way _ I was / amused a few days since by a suggestion in an Andalusian paper, which pro - / posed, as if acting against a regular enemy, that the boats should be removed / and the fords guarded on the river Genil, as the most effectual way of /
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Putting a stop to their incursions; It is surprising after these things that the / Spaniards should be called the Bedouins of Europe; or that the French should say / with a sneer that Africa begins on the other side of the Pyrenees?
I will give you a little [trait?] of Court gossip which came to me / [crossed out] tolerably direct: Under the liberal rile, the etiquette of the Court was / somewhat relaxed, and the Queen + her sister [^ were] served at table by hired attendants. This / has been changed by the new order of things and the ladies of the Court as in the olden time / now wait upon her little Majesty who has been taught to consider them her servants - the / affect upon a child has been been, as might have been expected, to raise too high her ideas / of royalty _ a few days ago she was taking her lesson of embroidering, when / she began to amuse herself by throwing the worsteds our of the window; the / [Maestra berdadora?] remonstrated _ the Queen answered quickly - “The grandees can / pick ‘em up” and when this produced an “Oh, your Majesty” from the governess / the reply was - “Why don’t they prick em up, they’re my criadas?” _ In these peri - / lous times fo it will require a paragon of all perfections to steer safely through / all the dangers and preserve the just powers of the crown; and tho the second / Isabella has already shewn some amiable points of character, her education / in so many different hands has been badly calculated to prepare her to meet / and contend with the difficulties of her position.
Saturday evening _ We have had a dull, heavy, drizzling day, and after reading / + writing for some hours in the morning, I set out thro’ the rain and mud to sure / a headache by a walk : I met with no novedad whatever, tho I visited queer / corners, and out of the way districts, returning be the street of Cervantes, whom I / admire more + more every day to look at the [^ his] profile and inscription on the medal: / :lion: I copy it for your benefit: “Aqui visio y murio, Miguel Cervantes de Sau: / :vedra, cuyo ingenis admira el mundo: Fallecio en MDCXVI.” It is simple / and just:
As a very great secret, above all from Papa _ I must tell you that / I have lapsed into homopathy [sic]; which does not find much favor here. _ / It is rather select therefore at present, them being but one qualified physician / a clever man, and one apothecary as yet: I am taking little white tasteless /
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Powders at the most mysterious intervals _ sometimes one, sometimes two or three / days apart _ with unbounded faith, and I already imagine that I am impro - / ving + gaining strength : The old introducer of ambassadors, conde del asalto, / (his ancestor stormed Barcelona; hence his title), and I are recent converts and / we talk ever our ailments and praise homopathy, a l‘envi l’un de l’autre.
Mad’e Calderon improves upon acquaintance _ she writes kind / notes, inviting me to a sociable evening and I sometimes stay till towards the / small hours; a well pleased listener : the lady likes to talk which she does / very agreeably and without any affectation or pretension : there is a great / deal of Mexican gossip + scandal circulated here, when they speak more / evil of thier neighbours than in all other places I have seen taken together _ / she has a miniature of Prescott, not very good, and keeps up with him an / active correspondence. Don Angel is very heavy and preaches to the end of the / chapter _
Sunday morn’g _ More last words _ I broke off last evening to see / Belisario at the circo, well sun + splendidly acted by Salvatori; our premier / basso absoluto, who was a great favorite at N. Orleans + Havana last winter : he / drew down thunders of applause as well as a little rain in the shape of tears, / from the bright eyes in the boxes, where handkerchiefs were in great demand. /
The Courier sets off at 10 this morning, and at the same hour I am / going to the Royal Chapel to hear grand mass; where one can say one’s / protestant prayers in the intervals of Catholic music.
Vigo, a sea port near Corunna, has pronounced, just / as the rebellion of Leon has been suffocated _ all these little places are of no / importance unless the insurrection becomes general _ Barcelona + Saragossa are / the dangerous points and there the rebellion seems drawing to a close.
It is funny to see this [Inse??ite] excitement lulled for a time / in England, coming back so fiercely from the US. _ It is like reading the English / papers a few months old : by the bye _ now that you are established in Laight / Street, send me when there is anything interesting, a bundle of Americans either / by Packet to Havre or steamer to London : love to Aunt
Yours affectionately
H.Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
