. . . How Dear These Associations Are Your
Husband Will Soon Know When He Too Is Separated From His Native
Shores And From Those He Loves.
.
. . I shall look forward with
great pleasure to seeing him here, and only wish you were to
accompany him, for your own sake, for his, and for ours. His
various culture will enable him to enjoy most fully all that Europe
can yield him in every department. My own regret ever since I have
been here has been that the seed has not "fallen upon better
ground," for though I thought myself not ignorant wholly, I
certainly lose much that I might enjoy more keenly if I were better
prepared for it. I envy the pleasure which Mr. Story will receive
from music, painting, and sculpture in Europe, even if he were
destitute of the creative inspiration which he will take with him.
For ourselves, we have everything to make us happy here, and I
should be quite so, if I could forget that I had a country and
children with very dear friends 3,000 miles away. . . . There are
certain sympathies of country which one cannot overcome. On the
other hand I certainly enjoy pleasures of the highest kind, and am
every day floated like one in a dream into the midst of persons and
scenes that make my life seem more like a drama than a reality.
Nothing is more unreal than the actual presence of persons of whom
one has heard much, and long wished to see. One day I find myself
at dinner by the side of Sir Robert Peel, another by Lord John
Russell, or at Lord Lansdowne's table, with Mrs. Norton, or at a
charming breakfast with Mr. Rogers, surrounded by pictures and
marbles, or with tall feathers and a long train, making curtsies to
a queen.
LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B.
LONDON, April 2 [1847]
Here it is the day before the despatches leave and I have not
written a single line to you. . . . On Friday we dined at Lady
Charlotte Lindsay's, where were Lord Brougham and Lady Mallet, Mr.
Rogers and the Bishop of Norwich and his wife. In the evening Miss
Agnes Berry, who never goes out now, came on purpose to appoint an
evening to go and see her sister, who is the one that Horace Walpole
wished to marry, and to whom so many of his later letters are
addressed. She is eighty-four, her sister a few years younger, and
Lady Charlotte not much their junior.
These remnants of the BELLES-ESPRITS of the last age are charming to
me. They have a vast and long experience of the best social
circles, with native wit, and constant practice in the conversation
of society. . . . On Wednesday, we dined at Sir Robert Peel's, with
whom I was more charmed than with anybody I have seen yet. I sat
between him and the Speaker of the House of Commons. I was told
that he was stiff and stately in his manners, but did not think him
so, and am inclined to imagine that free from the burden of the
Premiership, he unbends more. He talked constantly with me, and in
speaking of a certain picture said, "When you come to Drayton Manor
I shall show it to you." I should like to go there, but to see
himself even more than his pictures. Lady Peel is still a very
handsome woman.
The next morning we breakfasted with Mr. Rogers. He lives, as you
probably know, in [a] beautiful house, though small, whose rooms
look upon the Green Park, and filled with pictures and marbles. We
stayed an hour or more after the other guests, listening to his
stores of literary anecdote and pleasant talk. In the evening we
went to the Miss Berrys', where we found Lord Morpeth, who is much
attached to them. Miss Berry put her hand on his head, which is
getting a little gray, and said: "Ah, George, and I remember the
day you were born, your grandmother brought you and put you in my
arms." Now this grandmother of Lord Morpeth's was the celebrated
Duchess of Devonshire, who electioneered for Fox, and he led her to
tell me all about her. "Eothen" was also there, Lady Lewis and many
of my friends. . . . Aunty wishes to know who is "Eothen." She has
probably read his book, "Eothen, or Traces of Travel," which was
very popular two or three years since. He is a young lawyer, Mr.
Kinglake, the most modest, unassuming person in his manners, very
shy and altogether very unlike the dashing, spirited young
Englishman I figured to myself, whom nothing could daunt from the
Arab even to the plague, which he defied.
LETTER: To I.P.D.
Dear Uncle and Aunt: On Thursday [the 25th] we were invited to Sir
John Pakington's, whose wife is the Bishop of Rochester's daughter,
but were engaged to Mr. Senior, who had asked us to meet the
Archbishop of Dublin, the celebrated Dr. Whately. He had come over
from Ireland to make a speech in the House of Lords upon the Irish
Poor Law. He is full of learning [and] simplicity, and with most
genial hearty manners. Rogers was also there and said more fine
things than I have heard him say before at dinner, as he is now so
deaf that he does not hear general conversation, and cannot tell
where to send his shaft, which is always pointed. He retains all
his sarcasm and epigrammatic point, but he shines now especially at
breakfast, where he has his audience to himself.
We went from Mr. Senior's to Mr. Milman's, but nearly all the guests
there were departed or departing, though one or two returned with us
to the drawing-room to stay the few minutes we did. Among the
lingerers we found Sir William and Lady Duff Gordon, the two
Warburtons, "Hochelaga" and "Crescent and Cross," and "Eothen."
Mrs. Milman I really love, and we see much of them.
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