Charles (in which Madame T----'s is included) should be excepted from the
decree in favour of foreigners. The Convention were weak enough to
accede; but the exception will, doubtless, be over-ruled.
The weather is severe beyond what it has been in my remembrance. The
thermometer was this morning at fourteen and a half. It is, besides,
potentially cold, and every particle of air is like a dart.--I suppose
you contrive to keep yourselves warm in England, though it is not
possible to do so here. The houses are neither furnished nor put
together for the climate, and we are fanned by these congealing winds, as
though the apertures which admit them were designed to alleviate the
ardours of an Italian sun.
The satin hangings of my room, framed on canvas, wave with the gales
lodged behind them every second. A pair of "silver cupids, nicely poised
on their brands," support a wood fire, which it is an occupation to keep
from extinguishing; and all the illusion of a gay orange-grove pourtrayed
on the tapestry at my feet, is dissipated by a villainous chasm of about
half an inch between the floor and the skirting-boards. Then we have so
many corresponding windows, supernumerary doors, "and passages that lead
to nothing," that all our English ingenuity in comfortable arrangement is
baffled.--When the cold first became so insupportable, we attempted to
live entirely in the eating-room, which is warmed by a poele, or German
stove, but the kind of heat it emits is so depressive and relaxing to
those who are not inured to it, that we are again returned to our large
chimney and wood-fire.
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