ghted with stone, which the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt was sending down
from his quarries, to help the people of Cologne to finish their
beautiful cathedral; and as this cargo came along their shores they were
saluting it with royal honors. The crane which was to lift the blocks
from the boat had its great iron arm all wreathed with flowers, and
flags and streamers floating from its top, which peaceful half-religious
jubilee pleased me greatly, and affected me too.

At Cologne, six weeks before, we had seen the King of Hanover, Ernest
Augustus, the wicked Duke of Cumberland, received just in the same way,
except that the cannonading was closed on that occasion, in an
exceedingly appropriate manner to my mind, by a sudden fierce peal of
derisive thunder.

We went, while at Cologne, to the Museum, and there saw another
beautiful thing of another sort, Bendermann's picture of the Jews
weeping by the waters of Babylon--a very striking picture, sad and
harmonious in its coloring, and full of feeling and expression; I was
greatly impressed by it. And thus, you see, from only one of the places
I have visited, I have brought away two living recollections, perpetual
sources of pleasant mental contemplation. Two such treasures in one's
storehouse of memory would have been worth the whole journey; but I have
had many more such, and I incline to think that it is very often in
retrospect that travel is most agreeable--the little annoyances and
hindrances, which often qualify one's pleasure a good deal at the time
one receives it, seldom mix themselves with the recollection of it in
the same vivid manner; and so, as the American widow said she thought it
was a charming thing "to have been married _and be done with it_," I
think it is a charming thing to have been up the Rhine and be back
again.

I forget whether I wrote you word of my father's joining us for a single
day at Frankfort, and then returning immediately to England.... He was
not at all well, and the hurried journey was, I fear, a most imprudent
one. My sister is at present at Liege with Henry, Liszt, and our friend
Chorley....

Good-bye, my dearest H----.

I am ever yours,
FANNY.

[My friend Miss S---- came to us in London, and witnessed with me
my sister's coming out at Covent Garden, which took place on
Tuesday, the 2nd of November, 1842, in Bellini's opera of