I thank you, my dear Uncle, for your pleasant letter, which
contained as usual much that was interesting to me.
And so Mr. and
Mrs. Lawrence are to be our successors. . . . Happy as we have been
here, I have a great satisfaction that we are setting rather than
rising; that we have done our work, instead of having it to do.
Like all our pleasures, those here are earned by fatigue and effort,
and I would not willingly live the last three years over again, or
three years like them, though they have contained high and lasting
gratifications. We have constantly the strongest expressions of
regret at our approaching departure, and in many cases it is, I
know, most genuine. My relations here have been most agreeable, and
particularly in that intellectual circle whose high character and
culture have made their regard most precious to me. The
manifestations of this kindness increase as the time approaches for
our going and we are inundated with invitations of all kinds.
Young Prescott is here. I wish Prescott could have seen his
reception at Lady Lovelace's the other evening when there happened
to be a collection of genius and literature. What a blessing it is
SOMETIMES to a son to have a father.
To-morrow we dine with Lord John Russell down at Pembroke Lodge in
Richmond Park. On Monday we breakfast with Macaulay. We met him at
dinner this week at Lady Waldegrave's, and he said: "Would you be
willing to breakfast with me some morning, if I asked one or two
other ladies?" "Willing!" I said, "I should be delighted beyond
measure." So he sent us a note for Monday next. I depend upon
seeing his bachelor establishment, his library, and mode of life.
On Wednesday we go to a ball at the Palace. But it is useless to go
on, for every day is filled in this way, and gives you an idea of
London in the season.
LETTER: To I.P.D.
LONDON, June 22, 1849
My dear Uncle: Yesterday I passed one of the most agreeable days I
have had in England at Oxford, where I went with a party to see Mr.
Bancroft take his degree. . . . Nothing could have gone off better
than the whole thing. Mr. Bancroft went up the day before, but Mrs.
Stuart Mackenzie and her daughter, with Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave,
Louisa, and myself went up yesterday morning and returned at night.
We lunched at the Vice-Chancellor's (where Mr. B. made a pleasant
little informal speech) and were treated with great kindness by
everybody. I wish you could have seen Mr. Bancroft walking round
all day with his scarlet gown and round velvet cap, such as you see
in old Venetian pictures. From this time forward we shall have the
pain of bidding adieu, one by one, to our friends, as they leave
town not to return till we are gone.
End of Letters from England, by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft
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