Chapter LXXII: Letter 342: To Mr. Hoppner

"October 25. 1819.

"You need not have made any excuses about the letter: I never said
but that you might, could, should, or would have reason. I merely
described my own state of inaptitude to listen to it at that time,
and in those circumstances. Besides, you did not speak from your
_own_ authority--but from what you said you had heard. Now my blood
boils to hear an Italian speaking ill of another Italian, because,
though they lie in particular, they speak truth in general by
speaking ill at all;--and although they know that they are trying
and wishing to lie, they do not succeed, merely because they can
say nothing so bad of each other, that it _may_ not, and must not
be true, from the atrocity of their long debased national
character.[58]

"With regard to E., you will perceive a most irregular, extravagant
account, without proper documents to support it. He demanded an
increase of salary, which made me suspect him; he supported an
outrageous extravagance of expenditure, and did not like the
dismission of the cook; he never complained of him--as in duty
bound--at the time of his robberies. I can only say, that the house
expense is now under _one half_ of what it then was, as he himself
admits. He charged for a comb _eighteen_ francs,--the real price
was _eight_. He charged a passage from Fusina for a person named
Iambelli, who paid it _herself_, as she will prove if necessary. He
fancies, or asserts himself, the victim of a domestic complot
against him;--accounts are accounts--prices are prices;--let him
make out a fair detail. _I_ am not prejudiced against him--on the
contrary, I supported him against the complaints of his wife, and
of his former master, at a time when I could have crushed him like
an earwig; and if he is a scoundrel, he is the greatest of
scoundrels, an ungrateful one. The truth is, probably, that he
thought I was leaving Venice, and determined to make the most of
it. At present he keeps bringing in _account after account_, though
he had always money in hand--as I believe you know my system was
never to allow longer than a week's bills to run. Pray read him
this letter--I desire nothing to be concealed against which he may
defend himself.

"Pray how is your little boy? and how are you?--I shall be up in
Venice very soon, and we will be bilious together. I hate the place
and all that it inherits.

"Yours," &c.

[Footnote 58: "This language" (says Mr. Hoppner, in some remarks upon the above letter) "is strong, but it was the language of prejudice; and he was rather apt thus to express the feelings of the moment, without troubling himself to consider how soon he might be induced to change them. He was at this time so sensitive on the subject of Madame * *, that, merely because some persons had disapproved of her conduct, he declaimed in the above manner against the whole nation. I never" (continues Mr. Hoppner) "was partial to Venice; but disliked it almost from the first month of my residence there. Yet I experienced more kindness in that place than I ever met with in any country, and witnessed acts of generosity and disinterestedness such as rarely are met with elsewhere."]

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