"Since Thursday,çoisRené I have passed in front of your house every day on my way to church; I prayed hard for you there. Your windows are constantly open, that touches me: who pays you that attention to follow your tastes and instructions, in spite of your absence? It occurs to me sometimes that you have not gone away; that business detains you, or that you want to keep off intruders, so as to finish it at your ease. Do not believe that that would mean a reproach: it is the only way; but, if that be so, pray tell me, in confidence."
"It is so prodigiously warm to-day, even in church, that I cannot take my walk at the usual time: that is all the same to me now. The dear little wood has no charm left for me, everybody bores me there! This sudden change from cold to heat is common in the North; the inhabitants, with their moderation of character and sentiments, do not resemble the climate."
"Nature has grown much more beautiful; all the leaves have come out since your departure: I should have liked them to come two days earlier, so that you might have carried away in your memory a more smiling picture of your stay here."
"Thank God, here is a letter from you at last! I knew quite well that you could not write to me earlier; but in spite of the calculations which my reason made for me, three weeks, or rather twenty-three days, are very long for friendship in privation, and to remain without news is like the saddest exile: still, memory and hope remained to me."
"It is not from my stirrup, like the Grand Turk, but still from my bed that I write to you; but this retreat has given me all the time to reflect on the new dietary which you propose to make Henry V. observe. I like it much; the roast lion can only do him great good; only I advise you to make him begin with the heart. You will have to make your other pupil[132] eat lamb, lest he should play the deuce too much. It is absolutely necessary that this plan of education should be realized and that George and Henry V. should become good friends and good allies."
[Illustration: Frederica Queen of Hanover.]
H.R.H. the Duchess of Cumberland continued to write to me from the waters at Ems, next from the waters at Schwalbach, and afterwards from Berlin, where she returned on the 22nd of September in the year 1821. She wrote to me from Ems: