Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

Eyam,
Saturday [1825].

MY DEAR MISS VILLIERS, What a shame it is that I should have been so long writing to you, particularly after Mrs. Villiers had made the discovery that my letters amused her. My sister Louisa [Colvile] and four of her children passed a fortnight here at the end of last month, and our whole time was spent in “exploring in the barouche landau,” as Mrs. Elton observes.

By the time I have had nine or ten more of my sisters here, and thirty or forty of their children, I shall be tired of my own enthusiasm in the great picturesque cause; but at present all other employments are sacrificed to it. However, it may amuse you.

I shall continue to think a visit to Chatsworth a very great trouble. You are probably right in thinking the Duke[194] takes pleasure in making people do what they don’t like, and that accounts for his asking me so often. We have now made a rule to accept one invitation out of two. We go there with the best dispositions, wishing to be amused, liking the people we meet there, loyal and well affected to the King of the Peak himself, supported by the knowledge that in the eyes of the neighbourhood we are covering ourselves with glory by frequenting the great house; but with all these helps we have never been able to stay above two days there without finding change of air absolutely necessary,—never could turn the corner of the third day,—at the end of the second the great depths of bore were broken up and carried all before them: we were obliged to pretend that some christening, or a grand funeral, or some pressing case of wedding (in this country it is sometimes expedient to hurry the performance of the marriage ceremony) required Robert’s immediate return home, and so we departed yawning. It is odd it should be so dull. The G. Lambs are both pleasant, and so is Mr. Foster and Mrs. Cavendish and a great many of the habituÉs of Chatsworth; and though I have not yet attained the real Derbyshire feeling which would bring tears of admiration into my eyes whenever the Duke observed that it was a fine day, yet I think him pleasant, and like him very much, and can make him hear without any difficulty, and he is very hospitable and wishes us to bring all our friends and relations there, if that would do us any good. But we happen to be pleasanter at home. However private vices may contribute to public benefit, I do not see how private bore can contribute to public happiness, do you?

Pray give my love to your mother, and believe me, your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to her Sister, Lady Buckinghamshire.

LANGLEY,
July 15, 1825.

MY DEAREST SISTER, Do you recollect my asking you whether you would give us a dinner in the course of the year? Well, at one of our pleasant dinners the other day we were all so mortal agreeable that we settled we should go to Astley’s on the 18th. The party consisted of Maria Copley, Lord Henry Thynne,[195] Colonel Arden,[196] Mr. Wall,[197] Henry Eden,[198] and our three selves. To that it was necessary to add for decency’s sake Sir Joseph and Coppy.[199] It occurred to me this afternoon whilst murmuring over the heat, which is extremely unpleasant, that Astley’s would be the death of us all, and that if the weather continued in its present state, it would be better to change it for a water party.

It would be very pleasant if your carriage and two or three of those nice little poney-carriages you keep on the heather were to meet us at the water-side to bring us to your nice little place, and you receive us in your nice little way, and give us a nice little collation at about 6 o’clock, and let us walk about the place and then leave you, and talk you well over in the boat, as we go back again.

In the first place, these are all the people whom you have read about over and over again, and whom you are dying to see. Then, though they are ten now, yet by the end of the week they will not be above seven or eight.

Sir Joseph hates the water, so as I mean to make a vacancy for the present list I will ask your own Mr. G. Villiers to come with us, and he will be such a support to you. Well, what do you think?

My own interest in the question is this: that I am going to establish a coolness between myself and Lord Henry, who is exposing me to the remarks of the invidious public without any earthly purpose; and I had all the advantage at Burlington House on Thursday of being supposed to be honoured by a proposal from him in the face of many curious spectators, when he was imparting to me his intentions of admiring another person more than me. I do not know whether it was fun or spite, or a tryal of my feelings, or whether he is serious; but as I found that I did not care which it was, I do not mean to favour the world with the sight of any more such long conversations. It amuses them more than it does me, and henceforth I mean not to let him go tagging after me as he has done lately. The Astley party was made before this wise resolution, and I want to change it to a water-party, which will cut him out without offending him, as he never goes on fresh water, and we will ask Mr. Villiers in his place.

Don’t let yourself be frightened, you will find us so pleasant.

Good-night. I can’t help laughing when I see myself introducing the Colonel to you. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

SPROTBRO’,
Sunday, 1825.

You must have got hold of some other family in the same street. It is not my story you are telling me. I am Emily Eden, of No. 30 [Grosvenor Street], who has been marrying a brother[200] in Derbyshire; then has been to Kent to visit a married sister; then found another sister setting off into Yorkshire, and took advantage of an offered place in her carriage and was deposited yesterday at Sprotbro’. I am really delighted that Mrs. Villiers is getting better. Is not Doctor Pidcock the man who cured Mr. H. Greville and whom Mrs. Villiers abused with unusual injustice, first because he was a doctor and no doctor could be of any use to anybody, and next because he was a quack and therefore no doctor. He is taking such a generous revenge! heaping such large coals of fire on her head! I hope he will go on, dear man!—skuttle-full after skuttle-full of fiery coals till she is quite well.

I saw your brother riding up the deep solitudes of Parliament Street the day I drove through London. It was an awful sight. The street so quiet you might have heard a pin drop.

Sister and I left Eastcombe last Monday and went to Gog Magog. I invited myself of course, but Charlotte[201] bore it very well. I was there fifteen years ago in the capacity of a child: I therefore did not see much of her, or know anything of her, and except that, have not seen her but for two or three morning visits per annum; so it was a voyage of discovery, in the style of a North Pole expedition. The Frost intense—and a good deal of hummocky ice to sail through. However, I really liked it much better than I expected. Lord Francis is particularly pleasant in his own house, and young Charlotte[202] very civil and good-natured. I found nine letters yesterday here and have had two more to-day, all requiring answers. I mean to put my death in the papers. It would be cheaper than if I really were to die from the over-exertion of writing eleven letters.

Robert’s new relations write to me, which is kind, but hard, as I must answer them. Lord Bexley[203] has given Robert the living of Hertingfordbury.[204] I have written so much about it lately, that I have at last forgotten how to spell it, and I am, beside, related to it, and am in the habit of familiarly terming it Hert.

Robert leaves this place next week. At first we thought he was going to be immensely rich, but dear Lord Bexley in a fit of conscientiousness divided from Hertingfordbury the living of St. Andrews, which has been given with it for the last 150 years. He thinks it will be a good example to his successors if he divides them in a case where he has a nearer interest, as in a brother-in-law. I can’t guess what his successor may think, and never shall know probably, as I never look to be Chancellor of the Duchy; but I can tell him that I think his relations think it extremely unpleasant, and it makes the benefit rather a doubtful one.

However, it is very good of him, only it is a pity where the principle is so good the result is not more agreeable. And he is so complacent and pleased with his decision! I have found out he is just what a sea-Captain said of one of Wesley’s preachers: “a heavenly-minded little Devil.” Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Monday.—I was prevented by a very long ride on Saturday from sending this. I am so grieved to see poor Captain Russell’s[205] death in the paper. It is not formally announced, but I see it in the Ship news mentioned by the captain of some other ship. Perhaps it may not be true, but yet I fear it is. I saw Eliza[206] the other day in her way from Scotland, as I believe I told you, and she talked with such pleasure of her brother George’s promotion. I had a letter from her a fortnight ago delighted that he had escaped the fever which his ship’s company had all had. Poor thing! I am so sorry for her. She was so fond of him, and the unexpected loss of a dearly loved brother is a grief that must, like all others, be endured, but one that, God knows, time itself cannot heal, and hardly mitigate. I wonder where Eliza is now—whether they are gone to Paris. If you hear anything of her or of Captain Russell’s death will you let me know? I suppose everybody feels most for the calamity under which they themselves have suffered, and from my very heart I pity Eliza, and it was impossible not to like Captain Russell for his own sake.

Good-bye, dear Theresa. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

HERTINGFORDBURY,
[December] 1825.

I say Theresa, I shall be in Grosvenor Street on Tuesday from twelve to four. Please, if you are in the land of the living, commonly called Knightsbridge, to come and see me and we will talk a few.

We (thereby meaning Robert, his wife, and me) arrived here from Derbyshire last night, and are quite delighted with this place. It is a real country place, not like a parsonage, with a little park something in the Irish class of parks, but with fine trees in it and a pretty garden, and everything very nice.

We are just come back from our first church here. There are a great many nervous points in a clergyman’s life, and I think the first interview with his parishioners rather awful. I remember the time when I used to think a clergyman’s life the most pitiable thing in the world. I am wiser now, and can see the numerous advantages a man has whose duties and pleasures must necessarily be one and the same thing.

Robert preached to-day a sermon I wrote, and to my horror I detected a disguised quotation from Shakespeare in an imposing part of it, which was not obvious till it was read aloud. However, it was probably not very apparent to anybody but myself. I was rather in hopes of seeing you in a corner of the Cowper pew, but it was quite empty. Well, I can’t stay chattering here all day. Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to her Sister, Fanny Eden.

LANGLEY FARM, BECKENHAM, KENT,
November 11, 1825.

MY DEAREST FANNY, Begin writing to me again forthwith. I have heard from the Copleys with fresh plans for my going there, so that I should not have been in want of a house.

Mary says Mr. H. Greville[207] is so cross she does not know what to do with him. What if it is love for Isabella Forester.[208] She is sorry he is so foolish, and if it is bile—she is sorry he does not take more pills.

Why, Foolish the 5th, don’t you remember my white muslin gown with tucks and blue stars between them, and the body done with blue braiding, and I wore it the Chatham day, and it smelt of the tobacco old gentlemen were pleased to smoke in our faces, so I would not let it be washed for their dirty sakes till Wright showed it me by daylight and told me I was probably not aware I had worn it 30 times. And to be sure it was not the cleaner for it. Still, it grieved me to have it washed. I shall go and see our Caroline [Vansittart] in town and shall come down with all my hair stroked up the wrong way by her remarks. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Lady Campbell to Miss Eden.

[CALNE,]
January 13, 1826.

MY DEAREST EMILY, I never was so provoked in my life at anything, and I cursed the aristocracy of the country, and I was told of it[209] as coolly as if it was a distress in Ireland. Seriously, what provoked me was her never telling me till after it was all given up, and put an end to, for thank Heaven I have a small house, and therefore can always make room, and I could perfectly have put up Fanny, and you, and your maid.

I had the gratification of seeing the whole party swamped in Crambo, and water-logged in Charades, and a large party writhing in the agonies of English Xmas conviviality, without any young ladies, without any music to break the awful solemnity of the evening, and no Lord Auckland to make them gamesome.

Lord Dudley was their wit, and as there was nobody to play with him, I saw he tried to domesticate himself, as he could make nothing of his jokes, or, what was worse, saw them torn to pieces before his eyes by the avidity with which the hungry society seized on them, to support themselves thro’ the day. But who could even domesticate in that drawing-room?

Sir Guy nearly died of Crambo, and was very near taking a Dictionary with him the next time. But as he is not at all of the go-along tribe he kicked, and would not cramb.

The event of the next time was Charades, and our enthusiasm knew no bounds when Lord Dudley joined the crew, and appeared with his coat turned inside out, and enacted a chimney-sweeper, and rattled a stick upon a bit of wood. Our rapture was indescribable, and it reminded me of the feelings of those who in ancient times beheld great men doing little things! Anecdotes which Historians always dwell on with that delight which human beings naturally feel on seeing a dry patch in a bog, or a green patch in a waste—the man who ploughed in Rome after heading the Yeomanry or Militia of the Republic; the man who picked up shells near the same place; that other who had the horticultural turn for sowing Lettuces—all these men were nothing in effect to Lord Dudley playing at sweep. I felt it deeply.

It was that day too he said when they offered him toasted cheese, “Ah! yes; to-day is Toasted-cheese day, and yesterday was Herring day!!”

How we all laughed!!!

How goodly is it to earn fair Fame! Once get your charter for a Wit, and you may sit down with all the comfort of being a fool for the rest of your life. One joke a year—not so much—even one bad joke now and then, is a better tenure than all those forms of carrying a Hawk, or the King’s Pepper-box, at the Coronation, for an estate.

We had a ball at Bowood the night before Twelfth Night. It went off very well indeed. I had the pleasure of cramming my small Pam[210] into a pink body and seeing it dance, and seeing everybody make a fuss with it because it was by many degrees the smallest thing in the room....

No; there never, never, never, was anything so cross as your not coming to Bowood this year, because I had looked to it just as you did, and had even distressed myself about how I should manage to see enough of you, and whether Lady Lansdowne would facilitate our intercourse, and I meant to show you all my new editions of children, and even make you superintend the new one, for certainly the one you picked up in Cadogan Place is the prettiest of the whole set. I cannot tell you how kind Lady Lansdowne is to me, and she need be so after putting you off; but she does really load me with kindnesses. However, we are not to stay in this house. It smokes and is too dear for us, so alas! I am again hunting a domicile. We get poorer and poorer, but as Guy bears it better and better, I don’t mind.

I am glad you see William.[211] He is so dear a creature! His Family cannot forgive him for having picked out a little happiness for himself his own way.... Your affectionate

Pamela C.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

March 30 [1826].

MY DEAR THERESA, Robert and his wife are coming for a week to Grosvenor Street, and I must be there to order their dinner and sweep their room, so I shall go there on Saturday and stay in town ten days. I shall be very glad to see you again. Pray come as soon as you can—Saturday afternoon if possible. I want you to come in the light of something good, to take the taste of going back to London out of my mouth. It is an ugly place, is it not? Probably I shall forget my troubles to-morrow if I do not fix them by mentioning them to you to-day. I always find that when I have withstood a strong temptation to mention to my friend the worry of the moment, it ceases to be a worry much sooner than the grief which has gone through the process of discussion. But the struggle is unpleasant.

I liked Malachi particularly.[212] I have not seen the answers, but hear they are very amusing, which is a pity. I have long vowed never to be amused by anything Mr. Croker should say or do, be it ever so entertaining, and “shall I lay perjury on my precious soul?” as Shylock says, for a mere pamphlet?

I have been trying to read The Last of the Mohicans and have come to a full stop at the end of the first volume. I am sure you will not like it. Those vulgar Mohicans only wear one long scalp-lock of hair—they don’t crÊper! Nasty savages! And so far from wearing full sleeves, it is painfully obvious that they wear no sleeves at all, and not much else in matter of cloathes.

Have you been uneasy about Sarah? Sister would have been if she could, but it came out unfortunately by the admission of those who saw her, that she had not been quite so ill as angry, and Sister weakly goes backwards and forwards to London on the chance of being admitted, and then hears Sarah is gone out airing. They say it is a fine sight to see the preparations for her airing. She “plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven” and the clerks of the Treasury; but whether she has succeeded in making any “angel weep” but dear Robin,[213] I do not know. However, it is wrong to laugh, because I believe nervous complaints are great suffering, and at all events poor Mr. R. was frightened.

Good-bye, my love to your mother. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, Sunday, August 6 [1826].

DEAREST THERESA, I had such a desire to write to you yesterday because it was not post day and I had no frank, and to-day it goes all against the grain, because I have plenty of time and George is come back to give me a frank and my letter can go. But you always make me write first; why, I never make out. Have you any good reason for it?

Our Tunbridge speculation is answering so well to us. I always knew I should like it, but George’s content, indeed actual enjoyment of the place and way of life, surprises me. We have such a clean house, just finished, and we are its first inhabitants, so we run no hazard of being devoured by a flea hacknied in the arts of devouring and tormenting. I was just going to bother myself by inventing a description of our way of life, when George showed me his answer to a vain-glorious description of the joys of Worthing, which Mr. Wall, who is living there, has just sent, meaning to put us out of conceit with Tunbridge by the vulgar notion of the Agar-Ellis’[214] man-cook and carriage and four, and so I shall copy part of George’s answer.

It opens with a moral: “We are better off and happier than is properly compatible with a life of innocence and vegetation. Our house is delightfully clean and comfortable. The living very good. Fish caught at eight in the morning at Hastings is devoured here at three. The eggs, cream, and butter, are brought to us in an hourly succession of freshness. All the material of the kitchen excellent, and the appetite too pure to think that it is a female that cooks it. Then a few glasses of hock and some coffee, and an hour’s repose, and we meet at Lady C. Greville’s,[215] Alvanley[216] and his sisters, and the F. Levesons.[217] We assort ourselves upon horses, into barouches, etc., and start for some of our inexhaustible lions; and we end our evening together with the feast of nonsense and the flow of tea.” He ends his letter with a promise to be at Norman Court the 1st of September, and adds, “My guns are at home and the locks click sweetly. Water the turnips when it does not rain.”

How much more foolish men are than women, particularly about their amusements. We none of us write to each other about our white sattin gowns that are hanging sweetly up at home.

George does not mention what is I think the most curious part of our life—that I am actually dressed and down at the Wells every morning before half-past eight, and he generally arrives only five minutes later. We dine at three and go to bed at eleven, and are in a ravenous state of hunger at all hours; and the consequence is that I can already walk three or four miles without being tired.

The Duchess of Kent arrived two days ago, and we live in a transport of loyalty. We insisted on illuminating for her and dragging her into the town, which naturally alarmed her, so she put off coming, meaning to step in unobserved. But that our loyalty could not suffer; and I never stepped out without 50 yards of rope in one pocket, and a Roman candle in the other, for fear of accidents. However, I believe she was allowed to drive up to her own door, but there were some fine illuminations afterwards.

Lord Alvanley is an amusing incident at this sort of place, and it is a pity he is not more likeable, because there is certainly nobody more amusing. He goes away Tuesday, but he liked it so much he means to come back again. We all parted yesterday evening, quite worn out with laughing, and yet I cannot recollect what he said. But it was very delightful. Except these tea-drinkings we could not be quieter or more independent in a country home of our own. Nobody visits of a morning, and in the evenings they are all in their coloured morning dresses.

You will be happy to hear that our three-shilling coarse straw bonnets are only a shade too good for the style of dress here.

I wish you were here. The man who built this house might have guessed we should like to have you. The upholsterer knew it, for there are more beds than enough, two in each room, but there are only three good bedrooms, and neither Fanny nor I could sleep except in a room by ourselves. But you must let me know your plans, because George will be obliged to go away in a fortnight more, and unless any of my sisters mean to take his place, which I do not suppose they will do, I think you might give us a visit. It is the sort of life you would like. I have not done so much drawing for years as during the last week. I have copied those six Prints on six cards for that tiresome Hertford fair, and they looked so pretty in that small shape I was quite sorry to send them to Robert.

What nice weather you have for your Gravesend expedition. Is the great review of Tide-waiters[218] taking place to-day? I have not the least idea what they are, what are the origin, manners, and customs of the nation of Tide-waiters? If they are people who wait till the tide serves they will flourish for ever. The poor dear tide never serves anybody, and if they gain their bread by tide-waiting, what floods of tears they must shed at Othello’s description of the Pontic Sea, which knows no retiring ebb....

I am decidedly in what Swift calls “a high vein of silliness” this afternoon; but it is the fault of the weather and of being in the country, which, after all, is the only thing that makes actual happiness. Your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

THE GRANGE,[219]
Sunday, 1826.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I should have written sooner to tell you where to write to me, but I was rather in hopes George would let me stay another month at Tunbridge. Everybody was going away, so we might have had a very small house for half the price we gave for ours, and as the servants will eat whether they are there or in Grosvenor Street, I thought we might have lived more economically than in posting all over England. However, after much correspondence, George, who terrifies me by the way in which he spends his own money, settled that the expenses were nearly equal, and that being the case that he would rather have us with him. “I never met with such an instance of politeness all my life,” as the immortal Collins observes,—not the Professor Collins, but the far greater “Pride and Prejudice” Collins. And so we packed up and came here, and I expect George and Mr. Wall to arrive every minute.

In shooting season they only travel on Sundays, I observe. We lived at Tunbridge almost entirely with the F. Levesons. I had a great idea that I should dislike her, which was a mistake, and if I were given to engouements, I should suppose I were suffering under one now for her, only it came very gradually, which is not the case with that complaint, I believe. First a decrease of dislike, and then not caring whether she were in the room or not, and then a willingness to walk towards her house, and then an impossibility to walk in any other direction.

The last fortnight we had the de Roos’s, who dined with the F. Levesons’s as often as we did, or else we all dined with the Peels;[220] and if we dined early, we rode after dinner and met again for tea. I can ride four hours at a time now without the least fatigue and walk in proportion. I like the Peels too, only I wish Lady Jane would bind him apprentice to a tinker, or a shoemaker, or to anybody who would make him work, as he seems to have an objection to the liberal professions. From mere want of employment, he has fancied himself into bad health, and does nothing but hold a smelling-bottle to his nose all day, even at dinner. How it would annoy me if I were his wife!—because he has talents enough, and can be pleasant when he is roused. I cannot think how any clever man who has not estate enough to find his property an occupation, can consent to be thrown by his own choice out of all professions. I should be a lawyer to-morrow if I were Lawrence Peel, or a lawyer’s wife if I were Lady Jane. She might persuade him into it I am sure, if she would try, and it would be so much better economy than consulting Doctor Mayo three times a day, which he does sometimes.

There is nobody here but Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, and Mr. Newton the painter, and one of the sons of the house. This is such a delicious house now it is finished, and heaps of new books and good pictures.

I intend to make much of a friendship with Newton. Mr. Baring tells me he has seen a great deal of you, which is an additional reason why I should make his acquaintance. He seems to me clever and paradoxical and a little Yankeeish and perhaps conceited, but that picture of Macheath[221] is a great set off against any faults he may have. It is impossible, too, that I can know anything about him, as I only saw him for five minutes at the other end of the breakfast-table; but I like to state my first impressions. They are invariably wrong, and now I know that, they are just as good as if they were right, I may believe with much assurance the contrary of what I think.

Is your brother George in town? And did I fancy, or could he have told me that I might enclose to him at the Custom House a parcel above the usual weight. I want to send to my sister-in-law some interesting little caps I have been making which will not be much above weight. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

HERTINGFORDBURY,
Monday, September, 1826.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your account of yourself pleases me, partly because it is evident the proper remedy for your illness has been found out, and also because you write so much more legibly, which is a good sign....

I do not know what state of appetite you are in or how much you eat, but could not you live lower, and so require fewer leeches? Give up that egg you mix so neatly with your tea and put on the leeches less.

You ask if I care about the present state of politics? Why, dear child, I never cared for anything half so much in my life,—almost to the pass of being sorry I am out of town this week. I am trying to subside, simply because I do not think any of our people will get anything in the scramble; but still it is amusing to see such a mess as all the other side is in, and any change must be for the better, you know we think....

I doubt if the Chancellor[222] is safely out yet. He writes such characteristic letters to an old sister-in-law of his who lives in this village, talking of his release from fatigues that were too much for him, and rest for his few remaining days, etc.

We dined at Panshanger yesterday. Lady Cowper[223] is miserable at being out of all the ferment of London. She is a Whig only by marriage, I suspect, and a regular courtier at heart, but talks bravely just now, with only occasional regrets that the Duke of Wellington should have been so ill-advised....

I saw Lady Ouseley yesterday and she is quite aware how ill you have been, and that you could not write to her. I never can give my mind to her conversation, but she looked very melancholy, and yet I cannot recollect that she mentioned any misfortune except that Sir Gore[224] had the rheumatism. Janie looked to me like a standing misfortune. She is so very plain, and she does not pay the slightest attention to her poor melancholy mother.

I am glad you are reading those books. To be sure, you are reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson only now. I knew that, the Memoires de Retz, Shakespeare, and a great part of the Bible, almost by heart before I was eleven years old; so then there was not a thought left for me to think upon manners, men, imagination, or morals. Everything is in those books. On scientific subjects I never could understand other people’s thoughts, and am guiltless of having had one of my own even on the simplest question. My sentiment, later in life, I took by the lump, in absolute cwts. out of Corinne[225] and Lord Byron’s Poems, and so, as I said before, I have never had a thought of my own and I do not believe any of us can, in the way we are all educated; and I suppose it is lucky, as they would be foolish thoughts probably if they came.

God bless you, dear, and go on getting better. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

BOWOOD,
September 24, 1826.

MY DEAR THERESA, I am in such a bad mood for writing, that I could not set about it with a worse grace, only you will not write to me if I do not write to you.

I am devoted to the arts just now, and to the improvement of my small mind, which I have brought to a high state of cultivation by studying fifteen books at a time, some of them amazingly abstruse, such as the Life of James Mackoul the Housebreaker—very improving. Also I have finished my Denham’s Travels, and the Life of Professor Clarke and Les Barricades,[226] a diluted sort of history, partly history and partly dialogue, which Lord Lansdowne likes because it is the fashion at Paris, but it is uncommonly stupid. And I have been dipping into Pothier’s Histoire de l’Eglise,—and in short, if we stay here a week there is no saying how much I shall read, or how little I shall remember.

Think of the agonies of coming here last Monday doubtful if we were expected or not! Il Fanatico per la Musica (by which form of words I opine that the Italians translate: Lord Lansdowne) passed last week at the Gloucester music meeting, so he did not receive George’s letter in proper time, and of course there was some mistake about his answer, as there always is about any letter that signifies, and so we did not know if this week suited them. A warm reception from her is in the best of times doubtful, and arriving against her wish would have been horribly degrading. George never will enter into those sort of feelings, but that only makes them worse. However, he promised, if he found we had not been expected, to go on to Bath, and then we had a beautiful wild scheme, if I could have made my mind up to twelve hours’ steam-boat, of going from Bristol to see Elizabeth Cawdor.[227] But unfortunately we found our rooms here all ready, so we shall not see Wales this year. The Lansdownes were quite alone, expecting us, and she in the most cordial affectionate state; the place, which I have never seen but at Christmas, quite beautiful, and in short, I never liked Bowood half so much before. That was sure to be the consequence of expecting to dislike it.

Our Newton we have overtaken here again. He left the Grange rather in a huff some days ago, affronted somehow about his singing (at least so I heard, for I was not in the room to hear it); but he went away suddenly and ungraciously. I certainly don’t like him, he is so argumentative, and talks so much of himself. His opinion of your brother George amused me particularly. He raves about you, but sensibly and properly, and calls you Miss Villiers. I have not a notion what line you take when you praise me, but he will distrust your judgment in future whatever you said, for he is one of the people to whom I must be odious. I go and look at his picture of “Macheath,” which is in the drawing-room here, and which I think one of the best modern pictures I know, and collect a large mass of esteem and admiration for the painter, and rush into the library and address myself to him while it is all smoking hot; and before I have been five minutes there, all my good opinion turns sour and bitter and tough and cold, and he might just as well never have painted the picture at all.

Moore[228] has been here the last three days, singing like a little angel. He has some new songs that make one perfectly and comfortably miserable, particularly one, set to a very very simple air, and with a constant return of the words, “They are gone,” etc. He was singing it here on Friday, and there was a huge party of neighbours, amongst others a very vulgar bride who is partly a Portuguese, but chiefly a thorough vulgar Englishwoman, calls Lord Lansdowne “Marquis” when she speaks to him, and turns to Lady Lansdowne all of a sudden with “Law, how ‘andsome you look.” Just as Moore had finished this, and we were most of us in tears, she put her great fat hand on his arm and said, “And pray, Mr. Moore, can you sing Cherry Ripe?” George and I, who were sitting the other side of him, burst out laughing, and so Moore was obliged to make a good story out of it afterwards; else he owns he was so angry he meant to have sunk it altogether. Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

EASTCOMBE,
October 1826.

MY DEAR THERESA, I must be come to my second childishness and mere oblivion, for I cannot recollect whether I have answered the letter you wrote to me at Shottesbrook, and which followed me here, or not. If I have written, you had better put this in the fire, because it must be the same thing over again. One thing I know: That I have written above twenty letters since I came here. My family are all dispersed, and I have unwisely enlarged my list of friends, and my acquaintances have been uncommonly troublesome; and in short, I have been ill-used in the article of letter writing.

I have such miserable letters from my poor dear Pamela. It breaks one’s heart to read them, and yet she is very good. She wrote to tell me of Lucy’s death immediately after it occurred, and wrote in the greatest agony, but even then resigned, at least trying to be so, and thinking much of the life of trouble which poor Lucy would have had before her. Pamela said, “Think of her Aunt, think of her poor husband, think of all but her, for she was miserable and it was in mercy that God took her.” And I believe her death to have been in fact occasioned by the state of excitement and anxiety in which she had lived since her marriage; and she had little chance, with her strong feelings and the peculiar circumstances of her situation, of anything but an increase of anxiety. Pamela writes me word to-day that her four servants—all she keeps—are in the scarlet fever, and her eldest little girl had just begun with it, and she has had, ever since Lucy’s death, a sort of nervous pain in her throat that prevents her swallowing anything but liquids, and is grown very weak. I am telling you a long story, but I think you are interested about her, and it is such a melancholy situation that I can think of nothing else. To be sure, I have, as it is, a great many more blessings than I deserve; but it is hard that the want of a little foolish money should keep me from the best friend I have in the world at the only time in which I could be of use to her. However, if it had been possible, George would have taken me to her, and there is no use in murmuring at impossibilities. God knows I can enter into her feelings as a sister; and now that she has so much sickness in her home, it is cruel to leave her with a half-broken heart to struggle through it by herself. And yet I do not see how it is to be managed. Pamela writes but little of the scenes she has been through. She says she cannot endure to express her feelings in writing, though she thinks she would be better if she could talk it over.

Captain Lyon was coming home in January, but perhaps this will prevent him. Poor creature! What an arrival it will be if he has set off before this news reaches him.

You are quite right. I followed you in Berkshire, and next week I am going to Robert. It is doubtful whether his child[229] will live, and Mrs. Eden has hardly been allowed to see it; but she wrote yesterday in the greatest spirits saying there had been a great change for the better, and the baby was then in her room; so I trust now it must be thought out of danger. What a horrid piece of work a lying-in is! I am more and more confirmed in the idea that a life of single blessedness is the wisest, even accompanied, as Shakespeare mentions, by the necessity of chanting faint hymns to the cold lifeless moon, which, as I have no voice, rather discomposes me. I shall astonish the moon, poor fellow, when I set off, but as for going through all my sister-in-law has done this fortnight, I could not, and would not, for all the Roberts in creation.

I cannot come to Knightsbridge just now, I am sorry to say. It is highly flattering, my sisters are all fighting for me, and with a very superior cool air I allow them to divide me.

I will not say anything about Sarah; she is too bad, if she knows what she is about. Poor Mr. Robinson was summoned back from Wrest[230] yesterday, where he had been amusing himself three days. She sent him word she was dying, and when he arrived in the greatest haste yesterday, she was gone out airing. He was very cross, but too late. It relieves Sister from a very fatiguing attendance, and that is all the good I know.

I shall probably have to unsay all I have said of Newton, for George has discovered he thinks him pleasant, which is an unexpected blow. Do not twit me with inconstancy if I say so too. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

EASTCOMBE,
Sunday, 1 o’clock, October 30, 1826.

DEAR THERESA, I am sorry you had the trouble of sending for me yesterday, for Mary Drummond settled when I arrived that my remaining here would allow her to go home to her children, so she went home after dinner last night and I sent up to London for my things and all here was in such confusion, and there was so much to write that I could not write to you. The poor child[231] is still alive, and yesterday afternoon we had all talked ourselves into spirits about her, though Warren and West[232] continue to repeat that they cannot allow the slightest expectation of her recovery to be entertained. Since that, my sister’s maid writes me word this morning that she has had a most wretched night, constantly screaming and groaning without one moment’s quiet, and that the attendants all thought her very much worse, but that Warren did not think her materially so, as they did.

Think what it must be to witness. Sister has not been out of the room since seven yesterday morning, and with the exception of Tuesday night has sat up seven nights. She sees no one, but I had a composed letter from her last night. Sarah sat up on Friday, and from fatigue and anxiety gave way yesterday morning entirely, and had several fainting fits. Nobody can tell what he goes through, and he is, I think, as nearly angelic in his feelings and conduct as it is possible for man to be. The doctors speak of him with tears in their eyes. Fanny and I are going to walk there now and may perhaps see him, but at all events some of the doctors. You have no idea what it is the waiting here, expecting every hour to have directions to have this house prepared to receive them. They will all come here as soon as it is over. Yours affectionately

E. E.

Lord Auckland to Miss Eden.

LONDON,
October 30, 1826.

I have not been able to hear anything about you to-day, and am almost fearful I shall go out of town without doing so. At all events direct to me at Pixton, Dulverton. Your last note was far more cheerful, but yet it is a frightful and wretched state of things.[233] I saw Mrs. Villiers yesterday, and Newton to-day; he is putting Theresa’s monkey into one of his pictures, and goes to Knightsbridge to draw him. She seems to be ill.

November 21, 1826.

I saw your de Roos yesterday, and he begged me to tell you that Sir Guy Campbell has an appointment in Ireland which will put him and Pam more at their ease—£600 a year. It is very satisfactory.

Little Macdonald is going to be married to an Irish widow, an old acquaintance and attachment with a very small jointure. He is going over to be married, and returns to attend the January Sessions. John Murray, too (you may remember him at Edinbro’), is going to be married. He was on his way to Bowood, and passed a week at Sydney Smith’s on his road, who had to meet him a fat Yorkshire lady of forty, with £60,000, and rather blue. Just the thing for him, and it was all arranged, and Sydney Smith is delighted, and expects visits from Scotchmen without end.

Lansdowne is in town, but she is not, and the Lambs are here, and the Duke of Devonshire,[234] who says he is too poor after Russia to go to Chatsworth. But he has a cloak of black Fox worth £500 and is happy.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

EASTCOMBE,
Tuesday night, November 1826.

DEAREST THERESA, You will have heard before this that all is over. I could not write sooner, and I knew you would hear. To the last the poor dear child’s sufferings were dreadful, and she never had one moment’s consciousness....

Lord Grantham[235] arrived at the moment she expired. I wrote to him on Saturday to say he had better come, or rather to ask him if he did not think so, and he came off instantly, and I am so glad now, for you have no idea of the good effect it had on Mr. R.

Poor Sarah surprised me more than anybody. She cried a great deal, but was perfectly reasonable in her grief, and has fortunately taken the turn of feeling that it is only by her exertions her poor husband can be supported at all, and she kept repeating all the morning how much worse her calamity might have been, that at all events she had him left and ought not to repine. She thanked Sister, and, in short, nothing could be better than her conduct.

All hours come to an end at last; all griefs find, or make, a place for themselves. Don’t you know what I mean,—how they work themselves into the mind, and so, by degrees, the surface of life closes over and looks smooth again, and I always think what a blessing it is in these cases there are so many little things that must necessarily be talked over and done. It fills up the time.

Sarah and Mr. R. come here to-morrow, and then go to Nocton[236] for the funeral.

I think this day has lasted a year, and I cannot see to read, and my eyes are sore, and Sister cannot bear the light. In short, you must bear with me to-night. I am tired to death in my mind, and it rests me writing to somebody.

It was such a house of misery—the poor little French girl and the governess crying in one room; Warren[237] with his cold sarcastic manner talking to West, who was crying like a child. And yet he need not. He was right from the first, and perhaps that is a painful feeling, to think that all the misery he saw, might have been spared if he had not been thwarted....

There is nothing I would not have given to escape the journey to Nocton. I had a sort of cowardly wish that George would not let me go (though I would have gone too, at all events), and I was almost sorry when his letter began, “You are quite right, and so go.” And yet I have been often pretending to wish that I had more positive duties to do. We are such horrid hypocrites to ourselves. I am going to Nocton, I suppose, from the same feelings that lead Catholics to go up the Scala Sancta on their knees—a sort of superstition. It must be right, it is so unnatural and disagreeable; and yet I am very fond of Sister, and Sarah was once very kind to me, and is now again. It is very wrong; when you praised me in your letter it smote my conscience. Almost everybody but me has a pleasure in doing right. I have often thought how much you must have to learn on the subject of calamity for the loss of friends, but do not learn it before you must.

Lord Grantham has been such a comfort to them all. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

Nocton, Lincolnshire,
Monday evening, December 13, 1826.

Bless your foolish heart! No, child, there is nothing the matter—never was anything worth mentioning. We have ruralized some time in this rustic Bedlam, and some of us got loose on Wednesday; but we are all caught and shut up again, and there is no harm done except 250 guineas gone and spent in post-horses, and we are all thin and exhausted with anxiety and shame, some for themselves, and some for others. I believe I sent you, at the time of Clarke’s[238] last visit, my farce of the new “Mayor of Garratt,” with the plot made out into scenes, and specimens of the dialogue; but a good five-act comedy has written itself since Wednesday. Sarah is willing to laugh at it all herself now, and does so, I hear;—and after all, poor thing, it is no wonder she is nervous about health just now. All her fears I can excuse, with the death of her child from mismanagement constantly weighing on her mind; and the folly she is betrayed into, her fear is responsible for; but as she knows that her mind is beyond her own control, the provoking thing is that from the moment she begins to be ungovernable, she refuses to see anybody except servants who cannot contradict her.

As long as Mr. Robinson is forthcoming that does not signify, as to a certain degree he prevents her doing anything outrageously foolish; but he was took with a bad headache on Wednesday, such as he often has, a regular case of Calomel and black dose which the Lincoln doctors prescribed, and said he would be better the next day. But in the meanwhile Sarah worked herself into such a state that she sent off at eight in the morning two expresses, one for Clarke who lives in Norfolk, and another for Henry Ellis, Doctor Warren, West, and I fancy any others of the profession who chose to come. She would not see Sister, or rather speak to her; for Sister once went into her room and found her (who has not had her feet to the ground since I was here) walking about like anybody else, and actually running into the library to write her letters.

Poor dear Mr. Robinson got quite well as the day went on and the dose went off, and then Sarah began to be frightened at what she had done; and then she saw Sister and was content to be advised, and a third messenger was sent off to stop all the doctors he could find on the road. He turned back Warren in his chaise and four at Biggleswade; and West in his chaise and four, a few miles beyond. Before the express came back, we were living in the pleasing expectation of going in to dinner,—Sister, Anne,[239] Mary, and I—each arm in arm with a doctor—Clarke, Warren, West, and Swan—the Lincoln man. I wanted to make a pleasant evening of it, as there was not much sickness about, and after dancing a quadrille with them that we should take a little senna tea, and then have a good jolly game at Snap-dragon with some real Epsom Salts.

I forgot to mention that Sarah, with fatigue and worry, had made herself so ill that a fourth express went on Thursday to fetch Clarke again. She makes all these people travel in chaises and four par parenthÈse; Clarke came on Saturday night, and then it was to be broke to that dear good gull Mr. Robinson that any doctor whatever had been sent for. I had no idea before that she could have been enough afraid of him to have kept anything from him; but he even read that paragraph in the paper about himself and wondered what the mistake could be.

However, Sister, as usual, was persuaded to take a great deal of the scrape on her shoulders, and Clarke, who seems clever enough, undertook to announce and explain the rest. Mr. R. was, I heard, horribly annoyed at first, but is resigned now, and it is all smothered up in her dressing-room where she has shut him up, and I do not know when he will be allowed to call himself well again.

I hear she is very low now the excitement is over, but wisely declares she shall do just the same next time, and he begs he may go as his own express. Poor man! he has a bad prospect before him, but I do not think that he minds it.

She professes the degree of religious feeling that is seldom met with, and which appears to me inconsistent with any worldly feelings whatever, above all with her feelings for self. The quantity of her religion it is impossible to deny, but I doubt its quality being right; and when I see that her high-flown mystical ideas end in making everybody round her perfectly miserable, I go back to the suspicions I have entertained for some time that the old simple religion we were taught at four years old out of Watt’s catechism is the real right thing after all. “If you are good, you will go to Heaven, and if you are naughty, etc., etc.” You ought to know your Watt’s catechism. I shall learn mine over again, and begin quite fresh in the most practical manner.

Oh, by the bye, and another thing I have found out and meant to tell you is, that Virtue is not its own reward. It may be anybody’s else, but it is not its own. I take the liberty of asserting that my conduct here has been perfectly exemplary. I never behaved well before in my life, and I can safely add I never passed so unpleasant a month.

Well, my dear, good old George arrived to-night, which is payment for everything, and he has not blown his head off to signify.[240] There are no marks visible by candle-light, though he looks ill from starving. I have been very poorly myself with a cold caught by the open windows, and what it appears is called swelled glands. I never knew anything but a horse had that complaint or something like it, and that then they were shot; and as far as humanity goes that is a good cure. I went stamping and screeching about one day like an owl with the pain. If I get better we are going to Woburn, George says; but if I continue poorly I shall leave him there, and go home on Saturday. It is astonishing how kindly I feel towards Grosvenor Street. I am almost wishing to be settled there, for the first time in my life.

I am sorry to give up Sprotbro’, but if we had gone there, we must have done Erswick first where the Copleys will be, and where there is a great charity bazaar meeting and a ball, and all sorts of County troubles, and George prefers Woburn.

I am sorry not to see Maria Copley; Anne and Mary are still here, and I quite agree to all you say of Anne. I am so fond of her, and so is Sister. Mary is very dull, but seems amiable. I cannot tell you whether Sarah is kind to them. You must see her to understand the state she is in; but she is not unkind to anybody, and never now finds fault with anybody she speaks of. She very seldom speaks at all, unless she is excited to defend some religious point.

She sometimes smiles when Mr. Robinson and I have been talking nonsense, but does not say anything. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

NOCTON,
December 15, 1826.

MY DEAR THERESA, I wish to apprise you not to go in search of me in Grosvenor Street, because I am not there. “I am very bad with the ague,” as people must be in the habit of saying in these fenny districts. I ’ticed my poor dear George out of town into this horrid place, and here he is with nobody to play with and nothing to do, and missing his Woburn shooting.... Still the idea of another’s bore is a heavy weight on my mind.

You will be happy to hear that Mr. Robinson is very well. George says he never saw him better, and he makes a point of telling him so three times a day at least. The poor man is starving, as Sarah will not allow him to dine except in her dressing-room at two o’clock, because, as she does not dine down with the family, she says she cannot trust to his promises not to eat more than is right, as she is not there. He happens to have an immensely good appetite since his headache, and frets like a child about this; but has not courage to dine like a man on the most unwholesome things he can find. I would live on mushrooms and walnuts and fried plum-pudding if I were him.

This conversation passed verbatim yesterday, but do not for your life mention it again. He wanted to go to the stables when he was out walking, but said Sarah had told him not. However, he went boldly to her window and knocked at it. “Sarah, I wish I might go to the stables?”—“No, dearest, I told you before not to go.”—“Yes; but I want to see my horses. Mayn’t I go?”—“No, darling, you said you would not ask it if I let you go out.”—“Yes; but one of my horses is sick, and I want to see it.”—“Well, then, if Mama will go with you, you may.” So Sister actually had to go with him to take care of him. She told me this, and did not know whether he was ashamed of it; but I saw him in the evening and he repeated it, evidently rather pleased that he was made so much of. He is a poor creature after all, Theresa, though you are so fond of him. Your most affectionate

E.E.

Anne and Mary went on Wednesday. I did not see them the last two days, but Mr. Auckland still does not admire them. I wish Anne would be as pleasant in society as she is alone with one. I think she is nervous.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.

NOCTON,
December 1826.

DEAREST THERESA, There is a shameful substitution of the donkey for the poney who ought to take these letters to post, so allowing for the difference of speed, the letters go an hour and a half sooner than usual! and Mr. Robinson has just sent up the frank for you, he says the letter must go in ten minutes, so it is no use my trying to make a letter. I have mentioned your and Mrs. Villiers’s enquiries constantly to Sarah, and read her aloud bits of your letter yesterday. I think she likes enquiries.

It is more than I do; I pass my life answering them still, because people whom I never saw or wish to see, know dear Miss Eden will excuse them if they trouble her again, etc. I don’t excuse them at all, but I am obliged to answer their letters just as if I did.

It is difficult to know what to say.... When first we came down I thought her really low for two days, though it struck me as odd that she was so little attentive to him. However, I believe she thought him too cheerful, though God knows it was the falsest cheerfulness ever was acted.

Since Saturday she has been exactly in the state in which she was before poor Elinor’s death. She talks and thinks of nothing but her health, and I really believe (and I do not think it is want of charity that makes me so, for I pity her still) that a thought of her child does not cross her mind twice in the day.

She is absorbed in herself, and has been more animated since she has been—or called herself—ill, for she talks of her complaint without ceasing and without reserve. It will be said more than ever she is in the family way, for they have sent an express for Clarke, and we are expecting him to-night, and nobody knows what to say to him when he comes.

I think she is a little ashamed about Clarke, and I grudge the hundred guineas, which would be better bestowed on weavers, or the people in the village here.

Sister tried to be candid about it last night, and said that Clarke would probably stay a day or two when he came, and he would amuse Sarah; I suggested that for half the money I could have persuaded several pleasant men to come from London to stay double the time, so it must not be defended on the plea of economy.. She could not help laughing, because in fact she is less taken in than anybody. The cold of this place surpasses anything I have ever felt. Yours

E.E.