Miss Eden's Letters Part 25

My garden is very flourishing and I have had the delight of sowing seeds to a great amount since Monday. I wish gardening were not so fatiguing.

I like it so very much, but I am dead tired every night, and moreover there has been a _reform_ in our Society for visiting the Poor, and they have changed our plan of visiting, and given me a district at the farthest end of the town. A mile off at the least. Such a bore, and I have quite a new set of people to make acquaintance with. However, the acquaintance is soon made. I visited eight poor women this morning, and they had each had ten children, and had "buried the last, thank G.o.d, last year," and they had all had beds to sleep on once, but had pledged them for rent, and they all could get nothing from the parish, and they generally ended with, "and if it would please G.o.d to take my poor old man, I could go home comfortably to my own parish." "But _is_ your husband ill?" I asked. "No, Ma'am, not particular ill, but it may please G.o.d to take him and then I can go home." I can see how extreme distress must destroy all affection, and how those very poor people must think that their children who die young, have made a great escape. You cannot imagine the misery of these pensioners' wives. The husbands are well taken care of in every respect, but the wives have actually nothing. We seldom find above one in three with bedding or any furniture whatever.

We are shamefully well off, Theresa. I always think of that frightful parable, "Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things," etc. It is an ugly thought, is it not? And we have so many good things. I am always so happy here that it frightens me. So good-night, I am sleepy and will not think about it. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

PARK LODGE, GREENWICH, _Wednesday [end of November 1830]._

DEAREST THERESA, I shall take it as a great compliment being asked to dinner anywhere by anybody, but as a matter of choice I should prefer dining with the Lord Mayor habitually--not from any gourmandise, I beg to mention, for in my days I never saw such uneatable food. The soup had been saved, I imagine, from the day that the King did _not_ dine at the Guildhall, and consequently a little salt had been thrown in every day just to preserve it. The preservation had been effected, but how many pounds of salt had been used it is difficult to guess. n.o.body offered me anything else but a slice of half-cold peac.o.c.k, whose tail feathers were still spread and growing. However, though as mere dinner it was a failure, the flow of soul was prodigious. We were so unanimous, so fond of each other. Dear Don Key[360] himself in such spirits, and Mrs. Key and all the small bunch of Keys so polite and attentive. "What curious creatures we are," as that old _Machy_ in _Destiny_[361] (have you read it?) keeps observing; and all the forms of civic life are more curious than the rest. The Lady Mayoress receives all her guests without stirring from her chair, though it is obvious from her old habit of attending to her shop that she is dying to get up to _serve_ them all.

The Lord Mayor walks in to dinner before all his visitors, leaving the Duke of Suss.e.x,[362] etc., to take care of themselves, and then he and his wife sit by each other without the relief of a third person. Their domestic felicity has, I fear, received a check for life, because every time Key got up to speak his sword hitched in his wife's blonde, which, of course, was very unpleasant. It made the blonde all fuzzy. However, he is a good Lord Mayor, and so polite to His Majesty's Ministers that they were some of them in agonies of fright he was going to propose all their healths individually, and it was only prevented by Lord Grey's[363] getting up from dinner before one-third of the toasts had been given. That sort of audience is very alarming, I believe. Lord Grey said he never felt so frightened in his life, and Lord Lansdowne, whom I sat next to, told me that if his health came next, he had not an idea what was to be done. He felt sure he could not say a word. I quite understood it. An audience of ladies whom they all knew well, and who were all likely to laugh, besides 500 other people all staring at them as a show, must be rather trying.

It was great fun to see the Chancellor looking demure and shy while he was _loue vif_ by the Lord Mayor. He is very amusing with his popularity. Of course we were rather late at the Mansion House. The Chancellor always is five minutes too late everywhere. However, we arrived in solitary grandeur after all the other carriages had gone away, and were received with unbounded applause by the mob. I wonder which of us they meant to approve of. I am disappointed in the magnificence of the city. The whole set-out is _mesquin_ to the greatest degree. Nothing but common blue plates and only one silver fork apiece, which those who were learned in public dinners carefully preserved. I lost mine in the first five minutes. The city ladies are so ill-dressed too; such old gowns with black shoes, etc. I went back to Grosvenor Street at eleven, moulted my feathers and changed my gown, and got home at twelve.

George had a holiday yesterday, and worked in the garden from breakfast till dinner. You have no idea what a good collection of plants we are making. We quarrel very much about the places in which they are to be put, and pa.s.s the evenings in tart innuendoes about my Eccremocarpus which you liked, and my Ipomaea seed which you sowed, and which has never come up. But the general result is great amus.e.m.e.nt.

I do not think four horses will be able to drag me back to town; I like this so much better. Your brother George wrote me word he had the gout.

Ever your affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GROSVENOR STREET, _Monday [November 1830]._

MY DEAREST THERESA, I was not at all in the mood to write, and was almost glad you did not write to me because of that dreadful bore of an answer which you would expect; and I have been so _very_ ill! Besides that, I have been a fortnight at Eastcombe _tete-a-tete_ with Sister, and forbidden to speak on account of my dear little lungs which had been coughed to atoms, so conversation did not give me much help to a letter.

Moreover, they gave me all sorts of lowering medicines--hemlock and henbane, or words to that effect (I never can remember the names of drugs)--and made me so languid that the weight of a pen was a great deal too much for my delicate frame. However, I believe they have nearly cured me, and it does not signify now it is over, though I still think that if there were an inflammation on the chest to be done, it would have been more for the general good that O'Connell[364] should have it instead of me. Anything to silence that dreadful tongue of his, which is frightening the Isle from its propriety most rapidly. They say that he said to Lord Anglesey[365] at one of his levees, "I shall give you some trouble yet, My Lord," to which Lord A. answered, "Yes, I know you will, but I shall hang you at last." It is a neat dialogue, and the story is a good one, and certainly would have been true if O'Connell had been at a levee. As he has not, there is of course no foundation for it, but we can believe it all the same.

Barring Ireland, which I do not fret about, because we have been in the habit of conquering it once in every thirty years and it is time now for a fight, things are looking more prosperous. Our revenue they say is good, and our manufactories are flourishing to the highest possible degree. George saw some of the silk people on Sat.u.r.day, who told him that several of the great silk houses had refused to take any more orders, having as much to do as they can this year. Birmingham is very busy; the wool trade is in the greatest prosperity; in short, if Parliament were never to meet again, if that were to be _the_ reform Lord Grey would propose, we should do very well.

It is very unlucky that we never can have what we want all at once. If corn is plentiful, there is not a morsel of loyalty to be had for love or money, and when the market for wool is good, morals are at their lowest pitch.

I was rather sorry to come home again, for when I am out of town I forget all my party feelings; but I was obliged to come back as soon as I was strong enough, for George has not a chance of getting out of town even for a day.

Have you seen the 2nd Volume of _Lord Byron_? It is a wicked book, and having made that avowal it is unlucky that I feel myself obliged to own that it is much the most interesting book I ever read in my life--much.

I never was so amused, and the more wickeder he is in his actions, the more cleverer he is in his writings. I am afraid I like him very much--that is I cannot bear him really, only I am glad he lived, else we should not have had his _Life_ to read, to say nothing of his poetry. He had some good points; such extreme grat.i.tude to anybody who ever showed him kindness; and if he had lived I still think that he would have been converted, and that once a Christian, there is nothing great or good he would not have been equal to. He had such magnificent talents--an archangel ruined--and I think he regretted the height from which he had fallen. Still the book is a bad book. I was obliged to stop yesterday and recall _mes grands principes_ before I could remember that it was not wrong or ill-natured of Guiccioli to insist on his wife's[366]

separation from Lord Byron. Moore talks about it as an unprincipled disturbance of Lord Byron's domestic felicity, and with such earnestness, that he very nearly took me in.

I wish I had seen you act. Lord Castlereagh's epilogue was in the papers, with a few lines added, _not_ with a view of pleasing him. Your affectionate

E. E.

CHAPTER IX

1831-1835

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GREENWICH PARK, [_October or November_] 1831.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I would take a larger sheet of paper, but it does so happen that ever since we have nominally had stationery for nothing, I have never been able to find anything in the nature of paper, pen, or sealing-wax; indeed, for some time one pen served the whole house. It never came to my turn to have it, as you perceived, and I scorned to buy one. The country may yet afford a quarter of a hundred of pens, at least I suppose so.

You were quite right, I really did look at the end of your letter for your signature. The date, and your beginning, "You must have forgotten who I am," and your writing such a simple hand, put me out, and I said to George, "This must be some Carnegie or Elliot cousin, by the token of Edinbro', whom I ought to remember." I was so pleased when I found it was you; though your expecting an answer is odd, not to say troublesome.

However, anything to please you.

What a delicious tour you have had. I cannot imagine anything much pleasanter. The two articles in your letter that disappoint me are, that it does not appear you are intensely bored by the Scotch, considered as members of society; nor that you are sufficiently mad about the beauty of Edinbro'. I think the old town so much the most picturesque thing I ever saw, and the scenery all about it so beautiful. In short, such a slow drawly people have no right to such a romantic capital. They are very tiresome, poor dears! but I suppose they cannot help it; else, if they would speak a thought quicker, and even catch even the glimmer of a joke, and give up all that old nonsense about Chiefs and plaids and pretenders and so on, I should grudge them that town less.

I have been living here very quietly nearly three months, I think--that is as quietly as is compatible with the times; but it has been an eventful summer. What with the opening of bridges, crowning Kings and Queens, and launching ships, I have seen more sights and greater ma.s.ses of human creatures than usual; and then there has been some talk of a Reform in Parliament, a mere playful idea, which may not have reached you, but which has occasionally been alluded to in conversation here.

What a business they all made of it last week.[367] They speak amazingly well, those dear Lords, but they are not so happy at voting....

I could quite understand those Tories if I could find one who would say the Bill is thrown out for good, but I have not seen one who does not say it must pa.s.s in three months, so why refuse to consider it now?

London has been an ugly-looking sight. We drove up to it most days to see George, and to take him down to the House, because I like to see him safe thro' the crowd.

Women in London have made themselves so extremely ridiculous and conspicuous, by their party violence, and I have no reason for thinking I should have been wiser than others, if I had been in the same state of excitement. Besides, it is such a bore to be very eager, it tires me to death, and yet one catches it, if other people have the same complaint.

The gardener has taken up all the geraniums. That is not a light grievance, it portends frost and spoils the garden. I wish you had seen it this year, I am certain there never were so many flowers in so small a s.p.a.ce.

Anne Robinson[368] came here for three days, and took a fancy for gardening, but I am afraid it did not last. She paid us such a nice visit I asked Lord Morpeth to meet her, thinking that a proper _procede_. Then somebody who had been dining at Putney[369] told me I was quite wrong, and that Mr. Villiers was the person to ask. So I _driv_ up to town like mad and caught him before dinner-time. I thought as he had a Dawkins-Pennant to look to, it was rather hard to interfere with Lord Morpeth's chance, but I need not have had that delicacy about a fair division of fortune.

Lord Morpeth came here for a longer visit the following week, and I do not think he has the remotest intention of making up to Anne, or any other person. He is absorbed in politics, and says it would bore him to change his situation. Your ever affect.

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

30 GROSVENOR STREET, _Thursday_ [_January 1832_].

MY DEAREST THERESA, Not the least affronted. It never crosses my mind to invent any other cause for anybody's silence, but the simple fact that the bore of writing a letter is almost intolerable, and I never fancy anything, either that they are affronted or ill, or _hurt_ (don't you know how many people are delighted to feel hurt), or dead; but I simply suppose they are not in a writing humour....

I am glad you liked Bowood. I saw her on Monday on her way through town, quite enchanted with Paris and with the fuss that had been made with them. She likes your brother Edward[370] very much, and seemed to have seen a great deal of him. I have not seen Lord Lansdowne yet, but he is to stay on in town some days longer. I wish there were any chance of our meeting you at Bowood, but I fear it is not very likely. In the summer they said they hoped we would come in the winter, but I never go there without a renewed invitation for some special time, because it is always a doubt, I think, whether she likes all the visitors he asks, and I hate to go in uncertainty.

I have been pa.s.sing a fortnight at Panshanger--went with George for three days, and then Lady Cowper made me stay on. It is a most difficult house to get away from, partly because it is so pleasant, and then that her dawdling way of saying, "Oh no, you can't go, I always understood you were to stay till we go to Brighton," is more unanswerable than all the cordiality of half the boisterous friends, who beg and pray, and say all the kind thoughts that they can think of.

We had heaps of people the first part of my visit: Lievens, Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Lady Stanhope, Palmerston[371] and Mahon, George, Lionel Ashley, Fordwich, and William Cowper (who is a great dear), and heaps of people who acted and danced, and it was all very pleasant.

People are wonderfully clever, I think, and as for Talleyrand I doat upon him. I have been dining with him since at his own house, and elsewhere, and could listen to him for any number of hours. There _are_ weak moments in which I think him handsome, just as it used to cross my mind sometimes whether the Chancellor was not good-looking--decidedly pleasanter to look at than that young Bagot, who walks up Regent Street quite miserable that it is not wide enough for the crowds that he thinks are looking at him.

My last week at Panshanger I was alone with the family, which is always pleasant. I do like Lady Cowper's society so particularly; in short, I like _her_. She may have a great many faults, but I do not see them, and it is no business of mine anyhow; and so everybody may reproach me for it if they please, but I am very fond of her.

As for your plan for me--kind of you, but it won't do at all. He was there all the time, and I left him there, and he always honours me with great attention, but by the blessing of Providence I do not take to him at all. I am too old to marry,[372] and that is the truth. Lady Cowper remained convinced of that fact, and told me one day that if I were younger I should be less quick-sighted to Lord M.'s[373] faults, which is true enough. I do not think him half so pleasant as Sir Frederick,[374] whom I met the time before, and probably just as wicked, and he frightens me and bewilders me, and he swears too much. However, we ended by being very good friends, which is creditable under the circ.u.mstances, and though I am sure it is very kind of my friends to wish me married, and particularly kind that anybody should wish to marry me, yet I think now they may give it up, and give me credit for knowing my own happiness. "We know what we are, but not what we may be," as somebody says, _Ophelia_ I believe; and I know that I am very happy now, and have been so for some years, and that I had rather not change.

If I change my mind I shall say so without shame, but at present I am quite contented with my position in life and only wish it may last. If I were younger, or less spoiled than I have been at home, I daresay I could put up with the difficulties of a new place; but not now. I cannot be blind to the faults of the few men I know well, and though I know many more faults in myself, yet I am used to those, you know, and George is used to them, and it all does beautifully. But in a new scene it might fail.