Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE,
Tuesday[1845].

MY DEAREST THERESA, I can write to no one in all the nervous flurry of these first meetings but yourself, my poor afflicted friend. Amongst all the happiness of others your hard trial[512] haunts me, and shocked me more, much more than I can say, when I heard it at Southampton.

I had dwelt so much on seeing you, as I was told you were unaltered, and then to hear of this! I will not write more now, but even the first moments of arrival cannot pass away without my telling you how heartily I feel for you and love you.

We are all well. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Francis Egerton.

MONTAGU HALL,
Tuesday [1846].

MY DEAREST LADY F., I have been meaning to write to you constantly, but once caught again in the trammels of civilised life the thing was impossible.

We spent a great deal of time (very pleasantly, so there is nothing to repent of) at Penrhyn Castle. We went there for two days last Thursday week, and somehow stayed on till yesterday. Every time we talked of pursuing our Welsh researches, Colonel Pennant[513] declared that that particular sight was one of the drives from the Castle, and there came round a jaunting-car with four great black horses, and we went off to Conway.

There was no end to the sights, besides the Castle itself, which I think one of the finest things I ever saw. The arches over the staircase looked just like so much guipure lace carved in stone. Every table and cabinet is carved either in slate, marble, or oak, till it is a curiosity of itself. I slept in the State room, an enclosed field of blue damask and carved oak. The bed, which I should imagine did not cover more than an acre and a half, is said to have cost £1500. I never had an opportunity of judging whether there was work enough for the money, having slept generally near the edge.

Old Mr. Pennant spent £28,000 a year for twelve years in building this Castle, and died just as it was finished. Everything from the Keep to the inkstand on the table was made by his own Welsh people; and I never saw a more wealthy-looking peasantry, and I suppose he spent his money well according to Miss Martineau’s principles of doing good; that of getting as much work done for one’s self as one’s money will pay for. I daresay that is all right, but it always sounds like a suspicious system, and against all the early ideas of self-denial and alms-giving that were so carefully dinned into one; but the result in the instance of Penrhyn Castle has been highly satisfactory, and I do not really mean that he did not do a great deal of good besides. There never was a more charitable man.

The present Col. Pennant, too, seems very anxious to do all that is right, but he is oppressed, I think, by his immense wealth, and is not quite used to it yet. He seems quite wretched still for the loss of his poor little heiress of a wife. I like him for that, and also for that, having like Malvolio had greatness thrust upon him, he has not set up any of the yellow-stocking men or cross-garters Malvolio thought necessary, but is just as simple and unpretending as he was in his poor days.

We had a very large party and a pleasant one, Edwin Lascelles amongst others. What a man! If there happens to be any one day in which he does not say or do anything absolutely rude, everybody takes a fit of candour, and says: “After all, I like Edwin Lascelles. I think we are all wrong about him; he did not shut the drawing-room door in my face when I was coming across the hall, and if you observed, he said before he shut all the windows that he hoped nobody minded a hot room. I do not think him selfish.”

We came here yesterday; rather a change from Penrhyn Castle. The house was built in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and furnished, I should suppose, by his own upholsterer, and has not been touched up since apparently. And there is a window from which Henry the Seventh escaped, and another at which Oliver Cromwell looked out, and in short, every window has its legend, but none of them have any shutters or curtains, and the doors are all on the latch and never shut, and the weather has turned cold, and in short, it is a relief to my feelings to say that I am bored to death and wretchedly uncomfortable, and think seriously of following Henry the Seventh’s example, and of escaping out of one of the windows, to which my interesting legend will henceforth be attached.

It is very wrong, I know, to say I am so bored, but it is only to you—and I might have an illness if I did not mention it—and though it is extremely kind of them to have us here, I wish they wouldn’t, and we had never meant to come. But when we were on our way yesterday to Pengwern (Lord Mostyn’s) this Mr. and Lady H. Mostyn[514] brought him over here, and then sent out letters and ordered post-horses to bring us too, and I always knew how it would be. However, it is so very dull it is almost amusing, particularly when I look at Lord Auckland, who has always declared he should like the Mostyns. Indeed, he was the only one of us who knew them, and I am happy to say that he sank into a sweet slumber after coffee, from which he was roused with difficulty at bed-time. One good of age and of hard practice in India is that one does not mind being bored so much as one did in youth, though then, to be sure, it hardly ever happened. The sediment at the bottom of the cup is decidedly thicker whenever I am reduced to swallow a spoonful; but still, I am more used to the taste of it, and as Dickens says of orange peel and water, if you make believe very much, it is not so very nasty. I am in a strong course of mutiny between them. But there is the luncheon bell happily; that is always a cheerful incident. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.[515]

BONCHURCH, 1845.

Our post goes out now about half-past one, and we have had an immensely long sermon against the poor Babylonians, who have all been dead and gone so long that I for one have quite forgiven them their little errors; but the preacher here is always having a poke at the poor sinners in the Old Testament. It can do them no good, and it does none to us, and he preaches an hour extempore, and altogether I think he had better not be so spiteful.

Our Bonchurch has been a most successful experiment, and I have not enjoyed a summer so much for the last ten years. We have a beautiful little cottage in pretty grounds of its own. The country about you know well, and I must say it is a very kind dispensation that as the wear of life takes away or deadens the interests that seem so exciting in youth, and many of which are artificial, the love of nature becomes more intense. I am quite happy with shadows and clouds passing over beautiful hills. I wish I could read Wordsworth, but the actual food itself I cannot swallow.

Fanny has certainly been very much better since she came here. She is one of the people who cannot exist without constant excitement, and then, though it makes her quite well for the time, it affects her spirits still more afterwards. She never from a child was happy in a quiet home life, though with such high spirits in society, and of course that tells more in her present state of health. When the Bingham Barings and Lady Morley[516] were at Bonchurch for a week, she was in good spirits, and then seemed quite languid and thoroughly cheerless, and then all of a sudden went over to Ryde for two days, and George says walked and drove and paid visits, dined out both days, and seemed quite as well as ever, and she certainly looked all the better for it. Now again, she has sunk into a listless state, and I am afraid there will be no amusement she will care about for the rest of our stay. We have the R. Edens and 7 of their children perched on their little hill. Lady Buckinghamshire was nearly three weeks perched on hers, quite delighted with her life here. She had never before been on a railroad, nor on the sea since 1793 (when my father was Ambassador in Holland), and she left her carriage in England and rumbled about in a fly. She delights in pretty country and astonished us by her activity.

Then Maurice Drummond[517] suddenly appeared, walking about the Island with a young Grenfell, and they took a cottage for a week at Shanklin; and it is certainly satisfactory, as Mary says, to see how innocently the young men of the present day can amuse themselves. These boys walked about 20 miles a day and were in such a fuss to keep their expenses down,—ordering 4 lb. of mutton, and cutting off wine at luncheon, and really happy in a good, joyous, young way. And they settled when they went away that they should have a pilgrimage next year to their dear Rose Cottage—such a little hole you never saw.

Maurice made no allusion to the state of his affection, but he does not seem to pine. With a little mellowing he will turn out very agreeable; he has so much natural fun. We wanted him to stay on with us, but he had not time. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

EDEN LODGE,
Tuesday [1850].

MY DEAREST THERESA, Many thanks for your long amusing letter. I do not wonder you are pleased, both with the Election itself and the manner in which it went off; and I am not at all sorry you were spared the presence of F. O’Connor.[518] Even though he could have done no harm, I can’t abide these Chartists, and hate to be convinced that they are real live people, and particularly wish that they never may come between the wind and my nobility.

Of course you will drive about in London for a few months with your carriage as it appeared in the streets of Hereford, and by the courtesy of the real member, you will be favoured with the real bouquet used on that occasion. Great attraction, immense crowds, etc.

I know nothing more of Macaulay except that he unfeignedly rejoices at an opportunity for getting out of office,[519] an escape that he has unluckily wished to make for some time. There is of course a great struggle made to keep him, but I can imagine office must interfere materially with the pursuits and pleasures of his life.

I think Edinburgh,[520] which affects all sorts of classical and pedantic tastes and enthusiasm, turning off one of the first orators and cleverest men of the age for a tradesman in the High Street (both men having the same politics), must feel slightly foolish now it is over. They say the prejudice against Macaulay was entirely personal; he never would listen to a word any of his constituents had to say, which is hard, considering his demands on other people’s ears; but still they may look a long time before they find a member so well worth listening to. I wonder whether Cowan is agreeable.

I am really better, thank you, and able to walk about the garden. But the quiet system has answered so well in bringing back my strength, that I am willing to go on with it a little longer. It is said about Elections that the Liberal cause has gained ground, that the Government has lost ditto, which is as much as to say that four Ministers have been defeated and we have a very rough Radical Parliament. If Sir George Grey[521] is beat, I think a fifth loss of that kind would lead to some decided change. Yesterday everybody said his success was quite certain, and as every Election has gone exactly against the assertions made in London, I presume he is beat by this time.

My Lord[522] is very busy at Portsmouth reviewing, sailing, firing guns, surveying, giving great dinners at bad Inns, and doing everything that is most unnatural to a quiet landsman; but he seems very happy, and it is more wholesome than that eternal writing. To-morrow, he is by way of sailing to Jersey and Guernsey. I never understand men in office, and cannot catch an aperÇue of the motive which induces them to take office or keep it; but I presume if this stormy sort of weather continues, he will hardly persist in that little dutiful party of pleasure.

We have been reading Lamartine’s Girondins—interesting, as that eternal French Revolution always is, but most painful reading, and I do not like Lamartine’s style. It is too epigrammatic and picturesque, and his sentiments drive me mad. He tries to make out that Robespierre was humane, PÉtion homme de bien, Madame Roland virtuous, the Revolution itself glorious. It gives me a great deal of exercise in my weak health, for I throw the book away in a rage, and then have to go and fetch it again. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

ADMIRALTY,
Tuesday [January 6, 1848].

MY DEAREST THERESA, How tiresome it is that you are out of town just now! And such an unexpected blow, because we have acquired this year the right to expect to find each other in London.

To-morrow being Twelfth Day, seven of Robert’s[523] children drink tea here, and Mrs. Ward’s[524] nineteen youngest come to meet them; so I scoured London yesterday morning to secure a conjuror for their diversion, but there is an awful run on conjurors this month. Spratt of Brook Street is engaged every day till the 19th; Smith of St. James, ditto; but I worked my way steadily up from conjuror to conjuror through all that tract of land lying between No. 1 Brook Street and 32 Fleet Street; and there I finally grabbed Farley, who says he can pound watches into bits, and put rings in eggs and so on, though I rather doubt it. Then from Fleet Street I drove straight and madly to Kent House, determined to insist on the loan of DÉjazet, and of Villiers and ThÉrÈse[525] too; if they were not above it; and “I tumbled from my high” when I heard you were in the country till Thursday. What can be the matter? Where is the country, and why are you there? However, if any sudden change in your plans occurs, recollect that our innocent little pleasures commence at 7 to-morrow evening.

Bowood was very agreeable. We stayed there eight days.

The Greys and Lady Harriet were in their best moods, and very pleasant. Bingham kills me, dead; he is so tiresome, that it almost amounts to an excitement. Macaulay quite wonderful, and I rather like him more for the way in which he snubs the honourable member for V. Even the last morning, when we four were breakfasting together by candle-light to come up by an early express train, he made a last good poke at him. I asked Mr. Dundas for some coffee, and he said he was shocked and he had just drunk it, upon which Macaulay said: “What with your excess and your apologies, Dundas, you put me in mind of Friday, who, when his father asked for a drop of water, began thumping his breast and saying, ‘Friday, ugly dog, drank it all up.’” Mr. Dundas clearly did not like the epithet—indeed so little, that he was obliged to laugh outrageously and to say: “One of the happiest quotations, Macaulay, I have heard you make.”

As a general rule, I should not recommend travelling habitually by the railroad with Mr. Macaulay. The more that machine screeches and squeals, the louder he talks; and when my whole soul is wrapped up in wonder as to whether the stoker and the guard are doing their duty, and whether several tenders and trucks are not meeting in between my shoulders, the minor details of the Thirty Years’ War and of the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks lose that thrilling interest they would have in a quiet drawing-room. There is a sort of aggravation in knowing that 10,000 Greeks died ignorant of railway accidents; and there is no use in bothering any more about them, poor old souls!

Your cousins the Duff-Gordons[526] were at Bowood. I think her anything but agreeable, but I strongly suspect that instead of our cutting her, she was quietly cutting all of us, merely because she thinks women tiresome. At least, I think there is so little good done by being rude to anybody, that I try to be civil to her, but was repulsed with immense loss. She came down to luncheon every day in a pink striped shirt, with the collar turned down over a Belcher handkerchief, a man’s coat made of green plaid, and a black petticoat. Lord Grey always called her the Corsair; but she was my idea of something half-way between a German student and an English waterman, that amounts to a dÉbardeur. Whatever that may be, I do not know.

London seems quite empty, the 4th Nr. of Dombey has given me infinite pleasure, and I think even you must like that school. Just Villiers’s case at King’s College.

I presume you are at the Grove. Love to all there—at least not all, but a selection. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

ADMIRALTY
[Monday, 1848].

MY DEAREST THERESA, I was not standing out this time for the sake of a letter; but, in the first place, I thought you were to be in town again before this, and then I have been so poorly that writing was a great exertion. It is five weeks to-morrow since I have had a breath of fresh air, and now I have taken entirely to the sofa, and do not attempt sitting up, even to meals. When I do, the second course generally consists of a fainting fit, or some little light delicacy of that sort. So now you see why I did not write; it would not have been Égayant for your holidays. And illness always seems to me such an immediate visitation from God that it never frets me as many other little travers do, which might have been avoided by a little more sense or conduct.

Lord Auckland seems quite satisfied with the efficient state of the Navy, notwithstanding the loss of that poor Avenger.[527] I saw such an interesting private letter to-day from the gunner who was saved, stating so simply his escape and difficulties, not making half the fuss that we should if the carriage had been overturned and we had had to walk half a mile home.

I do not feel alarmed by the Duke’s[528] or Lord E.’s letters, but I do not imagine they tell the French anything they did not know before, and as the English never know anything till they have been told it twenty times, it is perhaps not amiss that they should be so far frightened as to make them willing to pay for a little more protection. They would like a very efficient army and a great display of militia, but I doubt whether they will like a shilling more of income-tax.

I always keep myself in good heart by all the axioms on which we were educated, the old John Bull nonsenses—that one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen; that the French eat frogs; and the wooden walls of old England, and Britannia rules the waves, and Hearts of Oak, and parlez voos—all most convincing arguments to us old warriors who lived in the war times, and who went up to the nursery affecting complete insouciance, but fearing that the French would arrive just while Betty Spencer the nurse was down at supper. I quite remember those terrors in 1806; and then came all our victories, and the grand triumphs which reassured me for life. I feel a dead of certainty that before the French had collected twenty steamers, or had put twenty soldiers on board any of them, Sir Charles Napier, or somebody of that sort, would have dashed in amongst them and blown up half ships.

Still it might be as well to have a few more soldiers, if the Duke of Wellington wishes for them, nor do I much object to his writing a foolish letter. He has written a good many in his life.

I go on believing that if the use of pen and ink were denied to our public men, public affairs would get on better. Johnnie[529] writes foolish letters, and Lord P.[530] does not seem to have written a wise one to Greece. Lord John called here last Thursday in good spirits, and his visits are always as pleasant as they are rare. I do not mean that I blame him for their rarity; it is more surprising that he should be able ever to call at all. But as I have been so shut up for nearly a year, I have seen but little of him, and I must say a little snatch of him is very agreeable and refreshing. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond.

January 1848.

MY DEAREST MARY, George came home yesterday—a journey from Bowood; a Cabinet yesterday afternoon; another long one this morning; and a Naval dinner which we gave yesterday.

He says Macaulay has quite recovered his spirits, and there was not a break in his conversation at Bowood. Lord John paid me a late visit yesterday, and the servants wisely let him in, though I had said not at home. But it was good-natured of him, as he was only in town for a night, to walk down because he knew I was ill. “So I told them they must let me in.”

I must say that when he told me particulars of the letters that had been written to him, to the Queen, etc.—particulars he did not wish to have repeated—and of the organised conspiracy it has been to try the prerogative of the Crown, he is quite justified in any twitness of letters himself. It is a great pity that some of Dean Merewether’s letters,[531] and of Lord John’s begging him to withdraw them, were not published. He wrote to say that if he might have Hereford, or, as he expressed it in a post-boy fashion, “If the Government gives me this turn, which is my due, there would be no objection raised to their giving Doctor Hampden the next Bishopric.” So it shows the Bampton Lectures had not much to do with it.[532]

As for the Bishop of Oxford,[533] the odd intrigue he has been carrying on would have been hardly credible in Louis XIII.’s time in a Cardinal who hoped to be Prime Minister himself. However, I won’t say what I was told not to say. But there is that to be said for our Queen and Prince, that their straightforwardness is a very great trait in their characters, and that they never deceive or join in any deceit against their Minister, but always are frank and true, and repel all intrigue against him. George thought the Prince very clever and well-informed at Windsor; and his character always comes out honest. I take it that he governs us really, in everything.

Somebody said to Lord John, “The Bishop of Oxford could be brought around immediately if you would only say a few words to him,” and he answered, “I suppose he would, if the three words were ‘Archbishop of Canterbury.’” He did not seem at all bitter against him yesterday, but said he had been made a bishop too young for such an ambitious man, and that he had taken to court intrigues in consequence.

I am so glad Daughters interested you.[534] I have heard such teasing stories about that Lady Ridley—quite incredible. I am sure a few mothers’ and daughters’ books are wanted just to make them understand each other. If mothers would take the same pains not to hurt their children’s feelings, that they do not to hurt other people’s children, it would make homes much happier. They should not twit them with not marrying, or with being plain, etc., and they should enter, whether they feel it or not, into their children’s tastes. The longer I live, the more I see that if the old mean to be loved by the young, and even on a selfish calculation they ought to wish it, they must think of their own young feelings and susceptibilities, and avoid all the little roughnesses from which they suffered themselves. One of the remorses of my life is not having loved my mother enough, because she was a most excellent mother; but she rather teased me, and held up other girls, and roused bad feelings of jealousy. And my father we all worshipped, though I think he was particular with us, but then it was all done with so much tact. I heard a great deal more about Mrs. Fry[535] and her daughter, which set me thinking over all these things. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

ADMIRALTY,
Friday [April 1848].

MY DEAREST THERESA, It is impossible to say anything in your favour as a correspondent, so don’t expect it. But you may have other good points. I do not know that you are entirely depraved. To make an example: You might hesitate to stew a child—one of your own, perhaps. But as a constant letter-writer, you are decidedly and finally a failure. I could not imagine what had become of you, and it was a beautiful trait in my character not writing; because nothing is so tiresome as a letter about a long recovery.

I am better, but not well, and the more shame for me, for Ramsgate was charming, everything that it ought to have been, delicious weather for anybody who could not walk much, or drive at all. As it was warm enough to sit out half the day, we had a small house quite close to the sands. Not an acquaintance to disturb us. Ella[536] and I suited each other admirably. I was not equal to company, and yet should have been sorry to drive my young lady to a dull life. But it is what she likes best, and she really enjoyed her quiet life, found plenty of amusement for herself, and was quite sorry when our five weeks were over. I do not know any sea place I could like better than Ramsgate; it is so dry and so cheerful, and such quantities of vessels are constantly coming in and out. There were Greek, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and French ships in quantities; and the most picturesque-looking people always walking about in the shape of foreign sailors.

We came back on Monday, having a very smooth sea for our voyage, and a remarkably thick fog for our reception, which has lasted till this morning. It is fine now.

No, I cannot say I have worried my intellect much with endeavours to understand the monetary crisis. I am sorry Parliament is to meet, being well aware that a country cursed with a House of Commons never can have any liberty or prosperity; but I suppose it is unavoidable. I was rather glad the Government did something; because even if it is a losing thing, I think the country is better satisfied when the Government seems to try and help it, and it is more creditable to all parties. But it seems to me that the measure has hitherto had a good effect, and has done no harm.

May not I now allude to the “Secret of the Comedy,” and wish you joy of Mr. Lewis’s new office,[537] which is one I should think he would like, and I should think you would too. It is interesting work, without being dull slavery, as many offices are.

To be sure, there never was anything like the character Lord C. [Clarendon] is making for himself; and if he could make one for that desperate country he is trying to govern, Solomon would be a misery to him. But what a people! I quite agree with Carlyle, who says: “If the Irish were not the most degraded savages on earth, they would blush to find themselves alive at all, instead of asking for means to remain so.” But everybody agrees in saying they never had such a Lord-Lieutenant before.

I always meant to tell you about your brother Montagu. Two old gentlemen were sitting near me at Ramsgate and talking of the difficulty of finding a seat at the church there, and one of them said: “It is just as bad in London. I sit under the Hon. Villiers, and what’s the consequence? I never go to church because I can’t get a place.” The friend, who was slow, apparently said, “Ah, and it’s much worse if you sit under what’s called a popular preacher.” “Why, sir, that’s my case. The Honourable Villiers is a popular preacher, the most popular preacher in London, and I say that’s the worst of a popular preacher, nobody ever can get in to hear him.” I see Montagu preaching a splendid sermon to himself, and his congregation all sitting glowering at him because there is no room for them in church! But the idea is flattering. The most remarkable marriage in my family is W. Vansittart’s.[538] He has been ten years in India, lost his wife, has two children, on whom he settled what little money he had. His furlough was out, and now he has found a Miss Humphreys; good looking, pleasant, well brought up, thirty-four (his own age), and with more than £100,000, and a beautiful home in Hyde Park Gardens, who is going to marry him, settled all her fortune on him, and of course he has not now the least notion where India is, unless towards Paddington perhaps. There is another sister, much younger, if you know of any eligible young man. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

Sunday [1851].

MY DEAR THERESA, I was quite sorry you took all that trouble in vain for me, but I had already let in Lady John and Lady Grey.... But what crowned my impossibility of speaking any more, was an extra visit from Locock.[539] I am a beast for disliking that man, only everybody has their antipathy born with them. Some don’t like cats, some frogs, and some Lococks. But he is grown so attentive, I repent, and he came on Friday of his own account, and he did not scold me for not being better, and he would not take his guinea, and was altogether full of the most agreeable negatives. I am glad to have seen a doctor once refuse a fee. I felt as if I had earned a guinea. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

ADMIRALTY, Saturday, December 1848.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your letter has come in at an odd time of day, not leaving much time to answer it; but that is as well, as I cannot make out a long letter. Lady Ashburton[540] is undoubtedly dead after twelve hours’ illness; but nobody seems to know much about it, and that family always forget to advertise their own deaths, so that one keeps thinking they may recover long after they are buried. The Miss Barings went to Longleat the day after their mother’s death, and the Ashburtons[541] came to town for two nights, and then went to the Grange. I have written twice to her but have had no answer, and I never know exactly how she will take grief; but I should think she must feel all those rapid deaths of friends and relations very much.

C. Buller[542] is such a loss to her society as well as to herself, and it will make a great difference in her parties. He is so very much missed by those who knew him well. We had seen a great deal of him this year, and it was impossible not to be fond of him—he was so amiable and good-natured and so light in hand.

I always felt Lady Ashburton would not long outlive Lord Ashburton; she never cared much for anybody else, and was just the woman to fret herself to death. Your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

Tuesday evening [1851].

MY DEAREST THERESA, I was very glad to see your hand of write again, though you might have given a better account of yourself and ThÉrÈse if you had wished to please. And then poor Bully! That was melancholy; but however, he has been a pleasure to you for years, and that is something, as life goes. I am glad you are up to Lord John’s tricks, because in a general way that very artful young man takes you in in a manner that astonishes me, who sees through him with wonderful perspicacity, and when the Duke[543] told me he was going to Harpton[544] on his way to Knowsley, I thought he was going to try to seduce my boy Sir George [Lewis] from the paths of rectitude.

I wrote so much to your brother of all the Duke of Bedford said of the old statesman being of use to the young one, and the young statesman taking to the old one (words on which he rings the changes till he makes me sick), that I can’t write it all over again; but by dint of positively declining to understand, and by being so intensely stupid as to ask which Lord Stanley he meant (perhaps he of Alderley), and by writing him short, savage notes in the intervals of the weekly luncheons he takes here, I hope I have rather enlightened that slightly damaged article—his mind. It is a good old mind, too, in its little bald shell; but Lord John had evidently persuaded him that new combination of parties was necessary, and that Lord Stanley was, as he always calls him, the young statesman of the age. William Russell has succeeded Lord John at Woburn, and had evidently snubbed the Duke about this alliance, as his tone was quite changed about it, and he was anxious to prove that the friendship began here. Your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.

ADMIRALTY,
Sunday [1851].

MY DEAREST THERESA, I may as well write a line while I can, just in the stages that intervene between the pains of my illness and the pains of my cure; the last being decidedly the worst and the most destructive; my courage has gone for pain.

How are you and yours, and what do you hear from Dublin? I have heard nothing about them since they went. London is this week entirely empty; otherwise there has always been an allowance of a visitor a day—Lord Grey, Lord Palmerston, Lord Cowper, passing through, and so on; and while Lord Auckland and Fanny were at Bowood, my sister, Mrs. Colvile, abandoned in the handsomest manner her husband and children in the wilds of Eaton Place, and came and lived here. I was very unwell at the time, and she is the quietest and best nurse in the world. Poor thing! she well may be.

The report of Lord Godolphin’s[545] marriage to Lady Laura gains ground, and though I feel it is not true, it is too amusing to dispute. Ditto, C. Greville’s to Mrs. H. Baring.[546] I see his stepchildren playfully jumping on his feet when gout is beginning. Henry Eden is so happy about his marriage, and so utterly oblivious of the fact that he is fifty, that I begin to think that is the best time for being in love. Miss Beresford has £20,000 down now, more hereafter; and as the attachment has lasted twelve years, only waiting for the cruel Uncle’s consent, which was wrung from him by Henry’s appointment to Woolwich, they ought to know what they are about, and luckily when they meet they seem to have liked each other better than ever. But twelve years is rather an awful gap....

Macaulay’s book has unbounded success.[547] Not a copy to be had, and everybody satisfied that their copy is the cleverest book in the world. Don’t tell anybody, but I can’t read it—not the fault of the book, but I can’t take the trouble, and had rather leave it till I can enjoy it, if that time ever comes.

Good-bye, dearest Theresa. Love to Mrs. V. When do you come to town? How goes on your book?[548] Yours affectionately,

E. E.