The next communication which I find is two days later, and it will speak for itself:—
"Saturday.
"Dear Sir,
"Love and fear are the greatest principles of human existence. If you owed my letter of yesterday to the first of these, you owe that of to-day to the last. What, in the name of all that is dreadful in the way of postage, could induce you to put the 'Gazette' in your letter? welcome as it was, it has cost me dear, nearly six shillings. I was so glad to see your hand-writing that the shock was lost in the pleasure; but truly, when I come to reflect and put it down in my pocket-book, I am 'in a state.' The 'Gazette' alone would have only cost twopence, and the letter deux francs; but altogether it is ruinous. Please when you next write, let it be on the thinnest paper, and put a wafer. Still I was delighted to hear from you, and a most amusing letter it was. The 'Gazette' is a real treat. It is such an excellent one as to make me quite jealous. I have, however, given but a hurried glance, having lent it to Colonel Fagan. I am now pretty well recovered from the fatigue of my journey, and have this evening sent round my letters. I was this morning à l’exposition, an admirable exhibition, a great stimulus to national industry. Such shawls! and the carpets are beautiful, and velvets which made into waistcoats would be too destructive.*[1] Thence we went to the Louvre, certainly the most superb gallery in the world. I cannot but notice the politeness of the French to strangers; it
- ↑ * This waistcoat became a sore jocular subject; for my kind friend tried to smuggle a "destructive" for me, but was detected flagrante delicto at Dover, stript to the skin, and divested not only of the male garment, but of other less fiscally obnoxious articles concealed in its vicinity.
