Chapter LXXXI: Letter 351: To Mr. Hoppner

"Ravenna, Dec. 31. 1819.

"I have been here this week, and was obliged to put on my armour
and go the night after my arrival to the Marquis Cavalli's, where
there were between two and three hundred of the best company I have
seen in Italy,--more beauty, more youth, and more diamonds among
the women than have been seen these fifty years in the
Sea-Sodom.[66] I never saw such a difference between two places of
the same latitude, (or platitude, it is all one,)--music, dancing,
and play, all in the same _salle_. The G.'s object appeared to be
to parade her foreign friend as much as possible, and, faith, if
she seemed to glory in so doing, it was not for me to be ashamed of
it. Nobody seemed surprised;--all the women, on the contrary, were,
as it were, delighted with the excellent example. The vice-legate,
and all the other vices, were as polite as could be;--and I, who
had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to take the lady under
my arm, and look as much like a cicisbeo as I could on so short a
notice,--to say nothing of the embarrassment of a cocked hat and
sword, much more formidable to me than ever it will be to the
enemy.

"I write in great haste--do you answer as hastily. I can understand
nothing of all this; but it seems as if the G. had been presumed to
be _planted_, and was determined to show that she was
not,--_plantation_, in this hemisphere, being the greatest moral
misfortune. But this is mere conjecture, for I know nothing about
it--except that every body are very kind to her, and not
discourteous to me. Fathers, and all relations, quite agreeable.

"Yours ever,

"B.

"P.S. Best respects to Mrs. H.

"I would send the _compliments_ of the season; but the season
itself is so complimentary with snow and rain that I wait for
sunshine."

[Footnote 66:

"Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom!"
MARINO FALIERO.
]

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