or a day's
meditation. The green colour and the crimson athwart it, and higher up
the pinky lights, flamingo feathers, on a warm half-circle of heaven, in
hue between amethyst and milky opal; then the rim of the sun's disc not
yet severe; and then the monstrous shadow of tall Schwartz darting at me
along the sand, then the princess. This picture, seen at sunrise, lasted
till I slept. It stirred no thoughts, conjured no images, it possessed
me. In the afternoon the margravine accompanied the princess to a point
facing seaward, within hearing of the military band. She did me the
favour to tell me that she tolerated me until I should become efficient
in German to amuse her, but the dulness of the Belgian city compared
with her lively German watering-places compelled her to try my powers of
fun in French, and in French I had to do duty, and failed in my office.

'Do you know,' said she, 'that your honourable papa is one in a million?
He has the life of a regiment in his ten fingers. What astonishes me is
that he does not make fury in that England of yours--that Lapland! Je ne
puffs me passer de cet homme! He offends me, he trifles, he outrages, he
dares permit himself to be indignant. Bon! we part, and absence pleads
for him with the eloquence of Satan. I am his victim. Does he, then,
produce no stir whatever in your England? But what a people! But yes,
you resemble us, as bottles--bottles; seulement, you are emptied of your
wine. Ce Monsieur Peterbooroo'! Il m'agace les nerfs. It cannot be blood
in his veins. One longs to see him cuffed, to see if he has the English
lion in him, one knows not where. But you are so, you English, when not
intoxicated. And so censorious! You win your battles, they say, upon
beer and cordials: it is why you never can follow up a success. Je
tiens cela du Marechal Prince B-----. Let that pass. One groans at your
intolerable tristesse. La vie en Angleterre est comme un marais. It is a
scandal to human nature. It blows fogs, foul vapours, joint-stiffnesses,
agues, pestilences, over us here,--yes, here! That is your best side:
but your worst is too atrocious! Mon Dieu! Your men-rascals! Your
women-rascals!'

'Good soul!' the princess arrested her, 'I beg that you will not abuse
England.'

'Have I abused England?' exclaimed the margravine. 'Nay, then, it was
because England is shockingly unjust to the most amusing, the most
reviving, charming of men. There is he fresh as a green bubbling well,
a