Lady Ashburton, Who Was
Sitting By Mr. Bancroft, Leant Forward And Said To Her Husband, "WE
Can Bring Bushels Of Corn This Year To England." "Who Do You Mean
By WE?" Said He.
"Why, we Americans, to be sure."
Monday Evening
Yesterday we dined at Count St. Aulair's, the French Ambassador, who
is a charming old man of the old French school, at a sort of
amicable dinner given to Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord John
Russell was of the party, with the Russian Ambassador and lady, Mr.
and Madam Van de Weyer, the Prussian and Turkish Ministers. The
house of the French Embassy is fine, but these formal grand dinners
are not so charming as the small ones. The present state of feeling
between Lord Palmerston and the French Government gave it a kind of
interest, however, and it certainly went off in a much better spirit
than Lady Normanby's famous party, which Guizot would not attend.
It seems very odd to me to be in the midst of these European
affairs, which I have all my life looked upon from so great a
distance.
LETTER: To Mrs. W.W. Story
LONDON, March 23, 1847
My dear Mrs. Story: I should have thanked you by the last steamer
for your note and the charming volume which accompanied it, but my
thoughts and feelings were so much occupied by the sad tidings I
heard from my own family that I wrote to no one out of it. The
poems, which would at all times have given me great pleasure, gave
me still more here than they would if I were with you on the other
side of the Atlantic. I am not cosmopolitan enough to love any
nature so well as our American nature, and in addition to the charm
of its poetry, every piece brought up to me the scenes amidst which
it had been written. . . . 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.
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