Madrid, October 25, 1853.

... Our colony has broken up, the duchess having given birth to a daughter. Her mother has constituted herself the nurse, and the rest of us have come in a body to Madrid. I have caught an odious cold, and to make it worse there is a cursed sirocco blowing.

Notwithstanding this beastly weather, and my sneezing, I went yesterday to see Cucharis, the best matador since MontÈs. The bulls were so bad that they had to give one to the dogs and excite half of the others with streamers of fire. Two men were tossed into the air, and for a moment we thought they had been killed, which lent a momentary excitement to the fight. Otherwise it was abominable. The animals no longer have any spirit, and the men are little better.

As soon as the weather becomes settled, I wish to set out on my archÆological journey. People keep predicting a Martinmas summer, which never comes. If you will send me your instructions, I shall receive your letter probably in time to fulfil them. Unfortunately, I do not know what is worth buying in this country. At all events, I have bought you some handkerchiefs of a very ugly design; but it seems to me that you enjoyed carrying off one of those handkerchiefs which came to me somehow, I do not know how.

One no longer sees any other than French costumes here. At the bull-fight yesterday the women wore hats. Would you like garters and studs? If they are still worn, tell me what kind you wish, but do not delay your reply.

I am reading, or rather I am re-reading, Wilhelm Meister. It is a strange book, in which the most beautiful things and the most ridiculous puerilities alternate. In all that Goethe has written, there is remarkable mingling of genius and German simplicity. Was he making game of himself or of others? Remind me when I return to give you the Elective Affinities. Of all his writings, I consider this the most whimsical and anti-French.

I have had a letter from Paris, speaking in high terms of a book of Alexandre Dumas fils called Un Cas de Rupture, or something of the sort. In Madrid, no one reads. I have wondered how the ladies spend their time when they are not occupied in love-making, but I find no reasonable answer. All of them dream of being an empress. A young lady of Grenada was at the theatre, when some one in her box announced that the countess Teba was to marry the emperor. She rose impetuously, exclaiming: “In this country there is no future!”

Among my diversions, I forgot to mention an Academy of History, of which I am a member. It is almost as amusing as ours.

Good-bye.