Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden. BOWOOD, HUSH, hush, Emmy, the King is dead, My hair is on tip-toe. I have heard with my outward ears to-day, that there hangs a possibility in Fate of my not getting home for a month. Not that I am uncomfortable here, but only I do so wish to see you again, my dearie, and poor dear Lu! I enjoyed myself so very much indeed while your brother and Mr. Fazakerly were here. As for the others, I wished them hanged, for I had to make company to them, and they did not make amusement for me. We are quite alone, and have been ever since Wednesday. After I have made breakfast, and Lord Lansdowne has engulphed as much Tea as he can carry, I take my mornings to myself and bask in the Library. I do not mean this as a figurative allusion to the sunshine of the mind, but that the room stands South, as all rooms should stand, or walk off. I then at about two, lunch, and see Lady Lansdowne for half-an-hour, take my walk till five, come in, and write an empty line to Lucy to while away her time. Lady Lansdowne dines with us, goes to bed before eleven, and I stay on talking till near one with the Wilt. I do, I will like him, tho’ I have run very near hating him, that Wilt wise man! He goes next Monday to Woburn Tell me something of Mary, and above all, tell me about yourself. Your last letter made me laugh so much! Do it again. I ever remain, your affectionate old PAM. Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden. BOWOOD, It is now settled we are to be in Town the 20th.... We do not mean to be in London this year at all to remain, Emmy; it is not worth while. I need not say it to you, for we compared notes last year upon the emptiness of existence in that Town—gaiety as it is called. You will come to Thames Ditton, where we have the certainty of being comfortable together. Lord Lansdowne set off to-day for Middleton. I miss him shockingly. He has crept into my affections Emmy, you know the brother, William Strangways? She and I get on charmingly. I like her more than I ever did, more than I ever thought I could love anybody who has the misfortune of not being one of us. Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden. March, 1820. Your letter gave me such delight, the laugh of other days came o’er my soul. My dear, rums is ris, and sugars is fell. My cold is gone, but Aunt is sick, in short, barring myself who am very well thank you, the house is an Hospital. Aunt has been quite ill, shut up, and the Apothecary busy, all over pocket handkerchiefs and Ipecacuanha. All my neighbours far gone in liver complaints and What a retention of correspondence this cessation of franks seems to have caused: when shall we see our wholesome days again? Emkins, Holland will never do. Why? When, shall I see you? Why can’t you stay where you are? Your brother George is like an Âme en peine; he can’t abide nowhere. I suppose you will like the junket, you Beast.... So you have your Grantham. Emmy, only think Danford is going to-day! A woeful day that such a Dan should go. There’s been a grand inventory to do, and glass and china, etc. Aunt was aghast at the mortalities among the rummer glasses. He denied having crackt their noble hearts, when, oh Providence! oh, juste ciel! their glassy relics rose in judgment, and from the cupboard called for vengeance. There lay their bottoms, which, like the scalps of his enemies, had accumulated in evidence of his deeds. His wen grew pale when he thought of his wages. “Conceive his situation!” What a climacteric! Good-bye, write to me much and often, but if you don’t, never mind, for I know what London is. I do long to see Matthews, April, 1820. ...Poor Aunt gets no worse, but I see no great amendment.... I assure you, Emmy, I take great care of myself; we only sit up every other night, and my spirits are quite good. I am screwed up like a machine, and get through day and night very quickly indeed. I eat and drink and laugh and don’t let myself think. You must come again, when you can, to see me, Emmy. I have no scruple in asking you to come and see me in the fullness of my dullness, out of the fullness of your gaiety, because when we get together, we get into our element, my darling. Your visit quite refreshed me the other day. I send you some flowers to brighten up your room, and you will put them into the Christening bowls, which lie about your tables. April 30, 1820. I have given up the hopes of seeing you, nobody is going to Town, unless I take a cling to some carriage footboard as the beggar boys do. I have given up all prospects of bonnets for the future, and so have ordered one at Kingston. I had an obliquity the other day, and awful longing to be in London for a leetle, a very leetle while. I tried and tried what you call to reason myself out of it, and I partly succeeded, but the getting out of that folly cost me a great deal, and made me rather rough and uncomfortable. Brushing up one’s reason is just as disagreeable as having one’s teeth cleaned, it sets one on edge for the while.... I am sure you will be obliged to me for telling you, that in a shower in London, a man was running If Aunt gets better soon, I will go up in a week or two, and have a look at you, and get a hat. Your Leghorn sounds well, but I never yet found home brewed bonnets answer, they are always ill-disposed, full of bad habits, and get awkward crics about them. Good-bye. Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden. May, 1820. I should have written directly to wish you joy of Mary’s job being so prosperously accomplished, Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden. June, 1820. I am quite so much better to-day, I entertain some hopes of prolonging my precarious existence a little longer. Company to dinner yesterday. Humbug EDINBURGH, We sailed Tuesday and arrived this morning by 5 o’clock at Leith. Our journey was most prosperous and very amusing. Our Society of Passengers also kept me in great amusement. I must just mention that their meals amused me as much as any part of their proceedings. One poured whisky over cold pie for sauce, and one ate raspberry jam with bread and butter, all ate peas with their knives. We shall see the sights between this and Tuesday, when we go to Bonnington. Write to me my own Emmy, and direct at Lady Mary Ross, BONNINGTON, ...Your letter amused me. The geographical happiness which has befallen us in being born near one another is indeed inestimable. That horrible supposition of my being the amiable Laplander made me shudder. You always do hit the funniest ideas in the world. You darling, I require something to keep up my spirits, for if I don’t laugh I shall cry when I tell you it is more than probable I shall not see you till next May. Mary Ross has put it into Aunt’s head that it would be the best plan in the world for us to pass the winter in the Isle of Bute. Living is for nothing. As this is a plan of economy I dare say nothing, but I am very unhappy, I am very unhappy indeed, for I feel my heart sink into my shoes when I think how long it may be before I again see you or any of you.... Miss Eden to Miss Villiers. GROSVENOR STREET, DEAREST THERESA, Please to write again directly to say how you are going on. I take your Grove He and I go on such different tacks about town and country, that we make our plans, and talk them over for half-an-hour before I recollect that we are working for different aims. He thinks every day spent in the country by anybody who does not shoot is so much time wasted, and I happen to think every day spent in London is a mistake, and I was roused to the sense of our different views by his saying, “Well, but I want you to gain another day in London, and you can write to Louisa that you were not well yesterday, and then stay here, and I will go to the play with you to-night.” Such an iniquitous plot! And I am about as fit to go to the play as to go in a balloon. George liked Middleton very much. Lady Jersey I have not been out of the house, except once, to see Elizabeth Cawdor, Lady Bath is at Rome again and not the least anxious to come home, which is odd. One of [In October 1820 Emily Eden suddenly received from her friend Pamela in Scotland the news of her engagement to a widower with one child—Sir Guy Campbell, and a month later the wedding had taken place. Pamela, in her characteristic way, wrote and announced the event.] Before you read thro’ this letter call your maid, and get the smelling bottle, for you will certainly faint away with surprise and wonder. Who would have thought it! I don’t believe it myself so I cannot expect you to believe it, but I am going to be married perfectly true in about a month or six weeks. I am going to be married to Sir Guy Campbell [On her wedding-day, November 20, Pamela wrote to say the Catholic priest had married them at half-past twelve, and that she was to be married again by the Presbyterian minister, and a long dinner was to be given for them in the evening for all the Family to contemplate her. A week later she wrote again to Miss Eden.] Just like you, and quite tactful not to cool our affection for each other by sending me a wet blanket I cannot say how pretty it was of you to send that pretty cap, which I think the prettiest cap that ever was prettied. Pat your Grantham for she did that commission well. So she was very brimful of London and the ways and means of the place? You wonder at her liking it so much after having had so much of it; but it grows upon them like a description I read somewhere of some part of the Infernal Regions, where the damned were condemned to misery and dirt, wallowing in mire and sand, but they were so degraded they had lost the sense of misery, and had no wish to leave the darkness for light. I wear your dear cap often and often, and occasionally Sir Guy wears it when he is not very well. He says he is sure you will be gratified by the attention. I have had a very neat silk pelisse trimmed with fur, sent without the donor’s name, and as the poor thing is a very pretty pelisse, but can’t tell me its business or where it comes from, I have a silent great-coat here, and thanks I can’t impart. I believe it comes from those Lady Hills, those bosom friends I never could bear, and if I have thanked the Gods amiss, I can’t help it. Have you seen your Elliots? Aunty is in the grumps with the rheumatism, and the winds and draughts. You know the sort of silent-victim appearance of suffering innocence some people take and wear, which increases when the meat is tough, and the pudding burnt, and which is all more or less aimed at me, till I feel so culprit, as if I blew the winds, and made the cold, and toughed the meat, and burnt the dish. However, I don’t mind it now and go on doing my best for all of them, particularly as she desired not to be troubled with housekeeping, and as I recollect she always keeps a growl at the cold at home. Sir Guy behaves like an angel to her.... I hear they have a large party at Bowood, I suppose the usual routine. I heard of Truval at Longleat, not doing anything particular. That small Ealing address with all the little Truvals of the grove, babes and sucklings, amused me. He was bored at Longleat and deserves to be bored thro’ life. I can only wish him a continuance of H. Montagu’s friendship. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. BUTE, Many thanks, my darling Emmy, for your delightful letter. Till you are shut up for six months in an old rambling house on the coast of the Isle of Bute in January, you cannot know the value, the intrinsic sterling, of such a letter as yours.... I am sorry poor Mary’s Charing-Cross purgatory has begun again. I think, if God grants us life, we are very likely to settle, when we do settle, somewhere near London. It is bad for the mind to live without society, and worse to live with mediocrity; therefore the environs of London will obviate these two evils. But I like the idea. I cannot bear Scotland in spite of every natural beauty, the people are so odious (don’t tell Mrs. Colvile). Their hospitality takes one in, but that is kept up because it is their pride. Their piety seems to me mere love of argument and prejudice; it is the custom to make a saturnalia of New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day they drown themselves in whisky. Last New Year’s Eve being Sunday, they would not break the Sabbath, but sat down after the preaching till 12 o’clock; the moment that witching hour arrived, they thought their duty fulfilled, seized the whisky, and burst out of their houses, and ran about drinking the entire night, and the whole of Monday and Monday night too. This is no exaggeration, you have no idea the state they are in—men lying about the streets, women as drunk as they,—in short, I never was more disgusted.... Lady Lansdowne did not send the Pelisse. She sent me ribbons, an Indian muslin gown, quantities of French-work to trim it, four yards of lace, a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs; and that touching Lord Lansdowne sent me a beautiful set of coral. She also sent me a white gros de Naples gown. In short, she has done it uncommon well, and I love her as much as I can, and who can do more? Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. January 21, 1821. Many many thanks, my Dearest, for your kind letter. We certainly do understand one another extraordinair well, as they say in Scotland. Your I enter into your dinner and house bothers. I don’t find that variety in the beef of to-morrow and the mutton of to-day, which the Anti-Jacobin expatiates upon with such delight, and the joints diminish in sheep when we eat mutton. As for puddings, they are one and the same, and only one, and then when one has tortured one’s brain and produced a dinner, and that it is eaten, my heart sinks at the prospect that to-morrow will again require its meal, et les bras me tombent .... Lord Good-bye, Dearest, have you been drawing and what? I don’t mean just now in London, but in your lucid intervals, and are you well? So far London is a place that cures or kills. Your own PAMELA. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [MOUNT STUART,] Don’t go out during this pestilential month of March, people may call it east wind and sharp, but it is neither more or less than a plague, that regularly blows thro’ the Islands, and it is nonsense to brave it, just because it is not called pest, or yellow or scarlet, or pink fever, so don’t go out. I am spending a few days here at Mount Stuart, You are quite right, one is a better human creature, when one has seen a mountain and it does one good. I only wish I could see a mountain with you. Your Feilding fuss is so described, that I laughed over it for an hour; my Dear, I see it, and enter into your quiescent feelings on the occasion; things settle themselves so well I wonder other people always, and we sometimes, give ourselves any trouble about anything. This is a good enough house, but somehow they go out of the room and leave one, and yet one has not the comfort of feeling alone and easy, and I caught myself whispering and Lucy too; I can’t account for it, except by the great family pictures, that are listening all round in scarlet cloaks, and white shoes, and red heels and coronets. Kitty I hope you will taste this saying, for I am partial to it, it gives one a comfortable idea, that in these days, when the Whigs complain of Ministerial extravagance, the Navy establishment will escape censure. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. March 3, 1821. Much to say I can’t pretend, but something to say I can always find when I write to you. We left Mount Stuart to-day. Sir Guy, Lucy and I delighted to be at home. Aunt rather missing the cookery dishes, claret, champagne, and a sound house. My mind is grown much more easy since I have clearly ascertained, weighed, and measured that I don’t like Lord Bute, and of course I have a whole apparatus of reasonable reasons, to support my dislike She is pleasant enough in a middling way, no particular colour in her ideas. She never moots or shocks, or pushes one back, but she don’t go any further, content to dwell in decencies for ever. She likes a joke when it is published and printed for her, but I suppose a manuscript joke never occurred to her. They never have anybody there, except now and then Mr. Moore, his man of business, who is in the full sense of the word corpulent, red-faced, with a short leg with a steel yard to it, and a false tuft; and he is Colonel of the Yeomanry. But I like him for a wonderful rare quality in any Baillie, but above all in a Scotch Baillie; he is independent and no toad-eater. He found fault with his patron’s potatoes at the grand table, with a whole row of silver plates dazing his eyne; and he as often as occasion occurs quietly contradicts him.... General Way I go on writing in case you are still shut up, it may amuse you tho’ I have no event. An occasional mad dog spreads horror thro’ the district; no wonder I enter into the poor dog’s feelings, he belonged to the steam boat, and that was enough to send any Christian out of their senses, let alone a dog. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. March 10 [1821]. What a delightful letter, and I feel perfectly agonised, not an idea, not a topic, not a word to send you in return. Sir Guy says I may do as I please, so I shall send the Highlands to the right about, and go south to you as soon as the weather is travellable, and that we have seen Sir Guy’s old Scotch aunt I send you, my Darling, a small Heart with my hair in it. Put it on directly and wear it. I know it is a comfort to have a little something new when one is ill, as I learnt when I had the chicken-pox, and found great benefit in some gilt gingerbread Kings and Queens. Lucy used to bring me them twelve years ago; they were hideous, useless, and not eatable, but still they made a break in the day.... I wish I could instil in you a little of that respect and mystic reverence which I never could feel myself I am sorry they have made you have hysterics, and won’t let you have the Elliots, and conversation. That bluff Chilvers, Write, or don’t write, as it suits you. Lucy and Sir Guy are such friends, they quite doat on one another, and understand each other. Therefore wipe away all I said for nothing. That is my comfort with you, I can tell you and then scratch it out again as I please, and that is the only way to be constant in this changeable world, to be able to follow the changes of those we love, so as to be always the same with them. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [BUTE,] ...We have been a day at Mount Stuart since I wrote, to meet a Sir Gregory and Lady Way—such bores! Oh! no, never. His brother is the great Jew-converter, and has now left his wife and house and estate and is gone a converting-tour into Poland. Some Israelites played him an ungrateful trick. He invited them to his house in Buckinghamshire to render thanks in his private Chapel for their redemption, but alas! they had not cast off their old man, for they stole all Mr. Way’s plate, which he has found it impossible to redeem, they having most probably converted it into money and made off. These people are strictly pious characters, and on Lucy saying she had heard of Mr. Way, Sir Gregory replied: “An instrument, Madam, merely an instrument! Lady Way is too heavy, and so dressed out—all in a sort of supprimÉ way, and wears a necklace like a puppy’s collar.... Did you see those pretty nice Feilding children Have you had Mary Drummond in comfort since you have been shut up and ill?—like the indulgence of barley sugar with a cough; no remedy, but yet it is pleasant. Does Fanny still keep up “brother and sister” with Edward Drummond? Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. March 22, 1821. ...Jane Paget’s I forget to tell you a good idea of Lucy’s, about We are doing our Mount Stuart again. We have a Mr. and Mrs. Veetchie (a Commissioner of the Customs and has been in the army) and Lady Elizabeth and Mr. Hope. Mr. Hope can be pleasant now and then, but as dulness was paramount during our intercourse, I suspect the agreeableness to be a little gilding he has got from living with the wits of Edinburgh. There seems no source—mere cistern work. Your old Burgomaster Chilvers is clever, and I think as much of him as of any of them. But go on mentioning all he does, whether you are drenched in drugs. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. April 1, 1821. ...Tho’ I know they are all taking care of you with all their might, I feel I should do it better, because I want to be with you so very too much, that I feel cross with those who can be about you. Sir Guy thinks you are a lucky woman in being allowed only ten minutes of everybody’s company; at least the chances are in your favour for escaping bores. I hear of nothing but crash upon crash in London. Leinster I think you are right about William, It is a crooked corner in him, I have often observed he has a childish respect to the opinion of London; and Paris has done him no good in giving him a notion that it don’t signify what people do, so they keep it quiet, and make no open scandale. I have often wondered at this, because we mortals always try and trace a consistency in character, which is an ingredient never to be found in any composition, foreign to human nature altogether, which we still hunt after, and refer to and talk of, as if it was not as ideal as the philosopher’s stone, a tortoise-shell Tom cat, or any other impossibility you like to think of. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. April 10, 1821. I have been again at Mount Stuart. Saw a civil Mr. Campbell of Stonefield, whom of course I ought Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. THAMES DITTON, DEAREST EMMY, I have been so pestered and worried. I should only have worried you if I had written to you in the midst of my various bothers. I find I have about one half of my baby linen to get made, Aunt Charlotte I have had scene after scene to undergo with Aunt [Lady Sophia FitzGerald] upon the unkindness of my not remaining to be confined here within the compass of a sixpence, and taking everybody’s advice, sooner than hers, and, in short, not having her in the room with me. As I should have died of that, self-preservation gave me firmness to resist, and I declared I could not. All this was to be kept smooth to Sir Guy, for Aunt chose to be sulky with him. In short I have found the kindness of the house the cruellest thing on earth. I have not had a quiet moment, the PAM. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. Tuesday, August 14, 1821. ...I am settled in Town since Saturday evening, and if Eastcombe has had reminiscences of me for you, Grosvenor Square has reminisced you to me, our evening walks, and Lady Petre, and Penniwinkle. Every valuable Bore I possess has by instinct discovered me in Town, and I have been surrounded with Clements, It is quite impossible to give an idea of the hurry and scurry of the people in every direction, and as if the rain only increased their ardour. Women with drooping black bonnets and draggled thin cotton gowns, and the men looking wet and radical to the skin. I catch myself twaddling and moralising to myself just as I went on about poor Buonaparte. They say fools are the only people who wonder, and I believe there is something in it, for I go on wondering till I feel quite imbecile. However I own I am shocked (not surprised in this instance) that not a single public office or government concern should be shut. No churches at this end of the town either open, and no bells tolling. Your small parcel delighted me and is the smartest I had. I have given every direction as to that being the first article worn, for I should not love my child unless it had your things on. Miss Eden to Miss Villiers. WOBURN, 1821. MY DEAR THERESA, There never was a house in which writing flourished so little as it does here, partly that I have been drawing a great deal, and also because they dine at half-past six instead of the rational hour of seven, and in that lost half-hour I know I could do more than in the other twenty-three and a half. After all, I like this visit. It was clever of me to expect the Duchess We have had the Duncannons. Eliza E. E. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. D’ARQUES, PRÈS DIEPPE, MY DEAREST EMILY, I have been robbed and pillaged and bored and worried, and hate France as much as ever I did, and so does Guy. Mama It would be existence to me. Oh Emmy, I have so much to unburthen and talk over with you—and you only. I am much pleased with what I have seen of Mama, and Guy likes her.... Conceive the fuss we have had! My Lansdowne recommended Bridget as my maid; Bridget turned out a thief and has robbed me to the amount of 70 Pounds, and acknowledged the fact before the Police, which is no consolation, her candour not replacing the articles. We declined the other consolation of On searching her things, a fine brodÉe handkerchief appeared, with Harriet embroidered in the corner, and as she lived with Lady H. Drummond PAMELA. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [17 CADOGAN TERRACE,] MY OWN EMILY, Here have I been settling myself to my infinite satisfaction, after having endured the ordeal of France which I went through. Where are you? What are you doing? Remember I have bespoke you, October I expect to lay my egg. I understand Lord Worcester Tell me you are at hand or coming, for I downright long to see you, and in my position you should not let me long, though it would be no great punishment OLD PAM. November 22, 1822. Emily, these trembling lines, guided by a hand weakened by confinement, must speak daggers and penknives to you, for never having taken any written notice of me since you chucked me my child in at the window and went your way. As you come on Monday, I refer all to our meeting. I want you shockingly.... Come to me soon, dear. Your affectionate PAMELA. Lord Auckland to his sister, Miss Eden. NORMAN COURT, Thank you for your two letters which I would have answered sooner, but we shoot all day and are lazy all the evening. I am not sure that you knew that Wall My trip to Fonthill Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [1822.] MY DARLING EM, Your letter has revived me, for I was smothered with Fog and so obfuscated I found myself growing callous of the density of the gloom, and my perception of my own dirt and my neighbour’s grimness was diminishing. I was getting hardened, when your letter and a gleam of dingy yellow sun showed me the state of myself and the children, and I went up and washed myself and repented of my filth. The fog prevented Mrs. Colvile coming, which is provoking. I wanted to show her my boy; she has put so many of them together, she has an experienced eye on the subject The Ladies Fitz-Patrick, old Mrs. Smith, etc., are cooking up a match between Vernon Smith and Mary Wilson, old Lord Ossory’s natural daughter with much money. Emily does it strike you that vices are wonderfully prolific among the Whigs? There are such countless illegitimates among them, such a tribe of Children of the Mist.... Your own PAM. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. January 6, 1823. MY DARLING EMMY, Thank God you have written at last, I have worked myself into a fright this day or two that you were very ill. I have been very poorly, but am better. You are mistaken about that sucking lump being a favourite. I esteem him; he is a man of strict probity and integrity with steady principles, and he is a man would make any reasonable woman very happy in domestic life; but there is a refinement and charm in that Cain that makes a fool of me,—a great fool, for she We have got a house between Reading and Basingstoke, a mile from Strathfieldsaye, at a village called Strathfield Turgess:—delightful prospect, well furnished, roomy, with Cow and poultry included, garden meadow, for £84 per annum. Lady Louisa Lennox had rather taken my fancy, and that negative mind of being Anti-Bathurst is a jewel in their favour. Emily, to have it gravely told me Lady Georgina Bathurst How is your Grantham? My Lansdowne is playing at de petits jeux innocents. I am of a guilty inclination and cannot taste those social innocences, besides, Emmy, we don’t do such things well in England, it don’t suit well, and to fail in a triviality is failure indeed, but the Wilt loves a caper. All this is very well, but I want to talk to you, Emmy. I have such quantities I cannot even tap in a letter, that I could talk out just in one ½ hour. Louisa Napier She seems as if determined there shall be no change. This may be fortitude, to me it is frightful. That habits should be so cherished and so rooted as to withstand such a shock as the disappearance of the only object she is ever supposed to have loved by I dined with the Wellesleys yesterday. Mr. Wellesley Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [STRATHFIELD TURGESS,] Thank you for your last letter, thank you for Lord Lansdowne’s after laugh, but thank you above all, for being still my own Emmy just the same as ever. I suppose you are going to Captain Parry’s I had a letter from Sister, written at Lady Sarah’s May, 1824.—There is some saying, Chinese I believe, about not letting grass grow between friends, or words to that effect. Now, you must allow I have mowed it twice, but you will not keep it down, and if you will not, what’s to be done? Lucy is coming to me to-morrow in spite of her resolutions never to be with me during a groaning. Mrs. Napier, too, who is staying at Farm House with her husband and a few children, wishes much to be with me, and it will, I know, end in my running away into some Barn, like a Cat, to kitten in peace. No, my dear Emmy, you are the only person that can be agreeable to me even in a lying-in—c’est tout dire. Lucy tells me she saw dear Robert, Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. TURGESS, DEAREST EMMY, I was quite sorry I had sent my letter when the day after I found I was at liberty to talk about William de Roos’s marriage. I believe she is improved, and I liked her once, when first she came out, and you know we certainly sober in this world unless we go mad; perhaps she may have taken that turn. In short there is much in her favour, but while he was marrying a beggar he might have had a pleasanter, but opportunity does all those things, there is no choice in the case. One negative advantage I have never lost sight of, she is not a Bathurst. I do regret bitterly not seeing Robert. If I was not childing, I could have had a room for him, but somehow I shall be lying-in in every room and all over the place. Give my love to him and ask him seriously, if he knows of a family house that could Is not it so like William de Roos to go to Ireland to avoid the wishing joy? He had business certainly, but still nobody but him could do such a thing. Many thanks for solving Sister’s acidities for me. Your own PAMELA. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. [STRATHFIELD TURGESS,] DEAR EMMY, Yes, yes, you may still show pleasure, surprise, emotion, on seeing my handwriting again. Here, alas, my reign is over, my rÔle of lying-in.... One month, one little month, was scarce allowed me; and I was again dragged into the vulgar tumult of common barren life. Provoking and vexatious events are no longer kept from my knowledge, the hush and tiptoe are forgotten, the terror of my agitation has ceased, the glory of Israel is departed! The truth is I am too well; there is no pathos, no dignity, no interest, in rude health, and consequently I meet with no respect. I have not even been allowed to read Redgauntlet in seclusion, and chickens and tit-bits have given way to mutton chops and the coarse nutrition adapted to an unimpaired constitution. Emily! let me be a warning if you wish to preserve the regard of your friends, the respect of your acquaintance, consideration, attention, in short, all social benefits, don’t get well—never know an hour’s health. I have got into a fit of nonsense, as you will perceive, a sort of letter-giggle; seriously now I want to hear from you, to know how you are.... Sir Guy is gone to Town to see his sister off to France. He is to sleep to-night in Water Lane, which sounds damp, PAMELA. Lady Campbell to Miss Eden. STRATHFIELD TURGESS, I wish I knew how you are, and where you are. William de Roos is the happiest of men, and Lady G. has won Uncle Henry’s As I stood looking over a heap of weeds that were burning, they struck my own mind, as being somewhat like itself, you could see no flame, you could see no fire, and yet it was surely tho’ slowly consuming to ashes. Now you see my indolence does just the same to my better qualities. There is no outraged sin, no crying vice, and yet this indolence eats into my life. If you will but keep me in order, and pity my infirmities, when can you come to me?... The great House is a bore, selon moi, but I will tell you all about it when you come. I have just read Hayley; July 9, 1824. Many thanks for your letter. It did indeed make my country eyes stare, and put me in such a bustle as if I had all you did—to do. I have had a great combat, but pride shall give way, and candour shall cement our friendship. The paragraph in your letter about Lord E. threw me into consternation, as well I believe I should make your city hair friz again, if I were to detail my country week’s work. However, I will be cautious. I won’t speak too much of myself, which for want of extraneous matters, I might be led to do.... You keep very bad company with them Player-men, those Horticultural Cultivators of the Devil’s hot-bed. I suppose I shall hear you talk of the Sock and Buskin; it is all that Cassiobury connexion that makes you so lax. Miss Eden to her Niece, Eleanor Colvile. SPROTBOROUGH [DONCASTER], MY DEAR ELEANOR, Your Mamma seems to think you may like to have a letter, and I am vainly trying to persuade myself I like to write one. The Miss Copleys have their Sunday School just the same as ours, with the Butcher’s daughter and the Shop-woman for teachers; not quite so many children as we have; but in all other respects the two schools are as like as may be, and they are there all Sunday, which gives me time for writing. Maria [Copley] Good-bye, dear Eleanor, E. E. Miss Eden to Miss Villiers. [EYAM RECTORY], STONEY MIDDLETON, MY DEAR MISS VILLIERS, George has gone to Scotland to kill the poor dumb grouse (or grice), as they ought to be in the plural, but I will transmit your direction to him, and if he can do what you wish I daresay he will, though I have an idea it is the sort of thing about which people chuse to look really important, and say they cannot interfere. ...Dear Lady Chichester! We are so settled here that it seems as if we had never gone away, I believe one changes one’s self as well as Horses at Barnet, I lose all my recollections of London, “that great city where the geese are all swans and the fools are all witty” and take up the character of the Minister’s sister, as I hear myself called in the village. Robert’s house is very comfortable, and I think this much the most beautiful country I have seen since I saw the Pyrenees. Some people might think it verging on the extreme of picturesque and call it wild, but I love a mountainous country. I go sketching about with the slightest success, the rocks are too large and obstinate and won’t be drawn. Mrs. Lamb E. E. |