Miss Eden's Letters Part 41

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 Dejazet, and of Villiers and Therese[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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 _debardeur_. 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 _egayant_ for your holidays. And illness always seems to me such an _immediate_ visitation from G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 rea.s.sured 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 s.h.i.+ps.

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 _s.n.a.t.c.h_ of him is very agreeable and refres.h.i.+ng. 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 fas.h.i.+on, "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 wors.h.i.+pped, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 quant.i.ties of vessels are constantly coming in and out. There were Greek, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and French s.h.i.+ps in _quant.i.ties_; 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. .h.i.therto 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, n.o.body 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 Loc.o.c.k.[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 Loc.o.c.ks. 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, _Sat.u.r.day, December 1848_.