48

MADAME DE STAEL.

Stael, who knew her well and loved her warmly, gave the name of Delphine to the heroine of her first

romance.

At the age of fifty-six years she still retained a beauty that struck even those who had not known her in her youth, and were not, therefore, seduced by the charms of memory.

PECULIARITIES IN THE RUSSIAN CHARACTER. 49

CHAP. IV.

CONVERSATION AT LUBECK ON PECULIARITIES IN THE RUSSIAN CHARACTER. JOURNEY FROM BERLIN TO LUBECK. — IMAGINARY CHARACTER OF NORTHERN LAND

EVILS.

TRAVEMUNDE.

SCAPES. HOLSTEIN FISHERMEN. SUBLIMITY OF FLAT SCENERY. NIGHTS OF THE NORTH. - IT IS CIVILISATION WHICH HEIGHTENS ADMIRATION OF THE SCENES OF NATURE. THE STEPPES OF RUSSIA. BURNING OF THE STEAMER NICHOLAS I.ROAD FROM SCHWERIN TO LUBECK. A GERMAN STATESMAN. THE FAIR BATH-WOMAN OF TRAVEMUNDE.

- REFLECTIONS.

THIS morning, at Lubeck, the landlord of the hotel, hearing that I was going to embark for Russia, entered my room with an air of compassion which made me laugh. This man is more clever and humorous than the sound of his voice, and his manner of pronouncing the French language, would at first lead one to suppose.

On hearing that I was travelling only for my pleasure, he began exhorting me, with the goodhumoured simplicity of a German, to give up my project.

"You are acquainted with Russia?" said I to him. "No, sir; but I am with Russians; there are many who pass through Lubeck, and I judge of the country by the physiognomy of its people."

"What do you find, then, in the expression of their countenance that should prevent my visiting them ?” "Sir, they have two faces. I do not speak of the valets, who have only one; but of the nobles. When they arrive in Europe they have a gay, easy, contented

50

JOURNEY FROM BERLIN TO LUBECK.

air, like horses set free, or birds let loose from their cages: men, women, the young and the old, are all as happy as schoolboys on a holiday. The same persons when they return have long faces and gloomy looks; their words are few and abrupt; their countenances full of care. I conclude from this, that a country which they quitted with so much joy, and to which they return with so much regret, is a bad country."

66

"Perhaps you are right," I replied; "but your remarks, at least, prove to me that Russians are not such dissemblers as they have been represented."

66

They are so among themselves; but they do not mistrust us honest Germans," said the landlord, retiring, and smiling knowingly.

Here is a man who is afraid of being taken for a goodnatured simpleton, thought I: he must travel himself in order to know how greatly the description, which travellers (often superficial and careless in their observations) give of different nations, tends to influence these nations' character. Each separate individual endeavours to protest against the opinion generally established with respect to the people of his country.

Do not the women of Paris aspire to be simple and unaffected? It may be here observed, that nothing can be more opposite than the Russian and the German character.

My journey from Berlin to Lubeck was very melancholy. An imaginary trouble (at least I still hope that there is no foundation for it) has produced in me one of those nervous agitations, that are more disquieting than the best founded grief.

The imagination well knows how to torment itself.

IMAGINARY EVILS.

51

I shall die, without comprehending why, under the same circumstances, persons whom I love appear to me in danger, and those who are indifferent to me in safety. I have a visionary heart. The silence of a dear friend, after a letter in which he had promised. me another by the next courier, suddenly became to me a certain proof that some great misfortune had happened. When once this idea had possessed my mind, I became its prey; my solitary carriage peopled itself with phantoms. In this fever of the soul, fears are no sooner conceived than realised. All is possible; therefore the misfortune is undoubted: thus it is that despair reasons. Who has not felt this torment? but no one feels it so often, so forcibly, as myself. Alas! it is the troubles of the mind that make us fear death; for death only puts an end to those of the body. All this is a dream, yet dreams are warnings: they are more to me than realities, for there is a closer affinity between the phantoms of the imagination and the mind that produces them, than between that mind and the external world.

This morning the fresh air of the fields, the beauty of the heavens, the smooth and tranquil aspect of the landscape on the sweet shores which border the Baltic at Travemunde, have quieted these secret forebodings, and dissipated, as if by enchantment, the unbroken dream which had tormented me for these three days past. It is not because I have wisely reflected What can reason do against the influences of a supernatural power? but, fatigued with causeless fear, I have become re-assured also without a cause. This repose, therefore, cannot be security. An evil, apprehended without cause, and dissipated without rea

on, may return; a word, a cloud, the flight of a bird, may persuade me irresistibly that I have no right to The same arguments may convince me

be at ease.

that I am wrong to be uneasy.

Travemunde has been undergoing improvements for the last ten years, and, what is more, the improvements have not spoilt it. A magnificent road has been completed between Lubeck and the sea; it forms one embowered avenue, under the shade of which the postilions convey you through orchards and hamlets, thinly scattered among the fields, to the mouth of the river. I have seen nothing so pastoral on any other coast. Though the town is lively, the surrounding country is silent and rural; it is a meadow, level with the sea, whose pastures, enlivened by numerous flocks, terminate only where the green turf is bathed by the salt water.

The Baltic here has the appearance of a lake, and its shores have an aspect of tranquillity that appears supernatural. One fancies one's self in the midst of happy shades, in Virgil's Elysian fields. The view of the Baltic Sea, notwithstanding its storms and rocks, inspires me with the idea of security. The waters of the most dangerous gulfs do not convey to the imagination the impression of extension without bounds. It is the idea of infinity which awes the man who stands on the borders of the great ocean.

The tinkling of the sheep-bell mingles with the ringing of the bells on board the steam-boats, in the port of Travemunde. This sudden reminiscence of modern industry, in the midst of a country where a pastoral life is still that of a great part of the population, appears to me poetical without being ex