CHAPTER VIII

1830-1831

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

_Saturday, January 1830._

MY DEAREST THERESA, I _did_ write the day I had your first letter. To be

sure you were not bound to know it, for I put my letter by so carefully,

that at post time it was entirely missing. Then I was _took_ with a

cold, and took to my bed, and by the time I was well enough to institute

a successful search for my lost letter, it had grown so dull and dry by

keeping that it was not worth sending.

So you are snowed up at an inn. Odd! Your weather must be worse than

ours, though that has been bad enough, but no great depths of snow. I

think you sound comfortable. I have the oddest love of an Inn; I can’t

tell why, except that I love all that belongs to travelling; and then

one is so well treated. I have nothing to tell you, as I wrote a very

disgustingly gossipy letter to Lady Harriet [Baring] which was to serve

you too, and I have seen nobody since, except the Granthams. I suppose

there are live people in the provinces; there are none in town--no

carriages--no watchmen--no noise at all.

We had four London University professors to dinner on Thursday (and Mr.

Brougham was to have come, but was, of course, detained), proving that

madmen were sane or some clever men mad--I forget which. However, our

Professors were _very_ pretty company. I did not understand a word they

said, but thought them very pleasant.

Have you read Moore?[340] So beyond measure amusing! It is abused and

praised with a violence that shows how much party feeling there is about

it. The vanity both of the writer and the writee is very remarkable, but

it does not prevent the book from being very amusing, and I think it

altogether a very _fair_ piece of biography. Moore was not bound to make

Lord Byron’s faults stand out; there are plenty of them and striking

enough without amplification, and he mentions them with such excuses as

he can find.

George goes to Woburn to-morrow for the last week of shooting. Lord

Edward Thynne’s marriage went off--because the butcher would not be

_conformable_ about settlements.[341] I am sorry, for I liked Edward

very much when we were at Longleat. He is quite unlike the others, so

lively and easy. I wish he had not equally bad luck in the line of

fortune-hunting. Dublin must be going into deep black for your brother,

to judge by the papers.[342] I wonder whether Popular mourning is like

Court mourning--the gentlemen to wear black swords and fringe, and the

ladies chamois shoes--two great mysteries to me. I am so glad he has

been so liked. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

GROSVENOR STREET,

_Thursday, April 1830._

MY DEAREST THERESA, Observe how we write! Not a moment lost, and I shall

have the last word, but I meant to write to you yesterday, because the

very morning after my last letter, I found by a confidential advice from

Longleat that I had forwarded to you a regular London lie about Edward

Thynne, and that his marriage, so far from being off, was negotiating

with great success. However, it was a secret then; but Lord Henry came

yesterday to tell me it was declared, and to-day I have a letter from

Lady Bath, apparently in ecstacies: “Write and wish me great joy. You

are the first, the _very first_, to whom I have written my dear Edward’s

marriage, and I know you will be pleased. Write to me directly.”

I am not at all pleased, and have not an idea what to write. I think if

Edward had been thirty-three instead of twenty-three, had _wearied_ of

the world, as the Scotch say, and been disappointed in love several

times, as all people are by that time, it would not have been unnatural

that he should have married for an establishment; but a boy of that age

has no right to be so calculating. I cannot quite make out the story. I

heard from a great friend of the family who had been employed in the

negotiation that it is the sick plain sister[343] Lord E. marries; that

he did not pretend to care about her; supposed if he saw her once before

their marriage it would be enough--and so on, which was disgusting.

Lord Henry yesterday carried it off better--said she was rather pretty,

well educated, well mannered, and that Edward was in love, and all the

right things. Perhaps he is right. I did not know what to tell you about

Longleat, it was so long ago. I do not think _your_ Barings[344] will

like Lord Henry’s present pursuit. The same name and the other family;

but do not for your life say a word of it to them, as I vowed the

deepest vows to him yesterday that I would not do him any mischief. Not

that I know how I could, and I would not if I could, but I presume he

dreads family communications which, as the A. Barings and H. Barings do

not speak, I laboured to convince him yesterday were not to be dreaded.

I am quite alone here, George went to Woburn Monday, and Fanny to

Eastcombe. I have just cold enough left to excuse myself from dining out

with my attached friends and family, so that I see a few morning

visitors and have the evenings all to myself. The pleasure of it no

words can express. I never can explain what is the fun of being alone in

the room with the certainty of not being disturbed; but that there is

something very attractive and pleasing in the situation it is impossible

to deny. I feel so happy, and sit up so late, and am so busy about

nothing.

I had a remarkably pleasant set of visitors yesterday. Your brother

George, amongst others, followed Lord Henry, and as usual I was

enchanted to see him.

Good-bye dearest. I wish you were come. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

_Thursday evening, May 1830._

DEAREST THERESA, Thank you for writing to me. Your letter told me many

particulars I had wanted to know, though the one melancholy fact of her

deplorable condition[345] Lady F. Leveson wrote to me yesterday. I never

was more shocked or grieved. I wrote to Lady Cawdor last night, but

begged her not to write, as nothing is so trying as writing in real

anxiety. Poor Lady Bath! It is melancholy to think we are not to see her

again. After all, we all thought about her and cared about her opinion

more than for most people’s; and she was more of an object to us than

anybody out of our own families. She was a very kind friend to me when

first I came out and when I knew nobody and nobody cared about me, and

I cannot name anybody from whom I have received so much gratuitous

kindness, particularly at times of trial, and we all of us, you as well

as I, never could bear being in a scrape with her. We fretted and were

affronted and so on, but there was no _bassesse_ I did not condescend

to, to make it up again. I liked her society, and altogether loved her

very dearly, and the idea of her present situation poor thing, is very,

very painful. I hardly wish her recovery, because it seems doubtful if

it would be complete, and the recovery of bodily health alone is not to

be wished.

Poor Lord Bath; it will be a dreadful loss to him. I shall really be

very glad if you will write again, whatever happens. Once more thank

you. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._

GREENWICH PARK,

_Wednesday, August 1830._

I know I did not answer your last letter. I wrung it from you, and it

enchanted me, and at first I would not answer it for fear of plaguing

you, and after a time I would not answer it for fear of plaguing me--and

so on--and latterly I have done nothing but work in the garden--and how

can you expect a day labourer, a plodding operative, to write? Shaky

hands, aching back, etc.; but on the other side, hedges of sweet peas,

lovely yellow carnations, brilliant potentillas, to balance the fatigue.

George and I have quarrelled so about the watering-pot, which is mine by

rights, that for fear of an entire quarrel he has been obliged to buy. I

wish you could see our house and garden, “a poor thing, but mine own.” I

am so fond of it, and we are so comfortable.

I wonder whether you really will go to the Ionian Isles. I have just as

good a chance of seeing you there as in Ireland, so if you need it I

should. We shall never move again, or if we ever did, I should have a

better claim to go after you to the Ionian Isles, where we have never

been, than again to Ireland.

Mrs. Heber,[346] the Bishop’s widow, has just published two more Vols.

of her first husband’s life, and finding it lucrative, has taken a

second husband, a Greek, who calls himself _Sir_ Demetrie Valsomachi,

and he has carried her off to the Ionian Islands, where you will find

her collecting materials for the biography of Sir Demetrie.

We think and talk of nothing but Kings and Queens. It adds to the

oppression of the oppressive weather even to think of all the King does.

I wish he would take a chair and sit down. We have only been up once to

see him, at that full-dress ball at Apsley House, where he brought

brother Würtemburg,[347] and the whole thing struck me as so tiresome. I

could not treat it as a pageant--only as a joke.

However, tho’ our adored Sovereign is either rather mad or very foolish,

he is an immense improvement on the last unforgiving animal, who died

growling sulkily in his den at Windsor.[348] This man at least _wishes_

to make everybody happy, and everything he has done has been benevolent;

but the Court is going to swallow up all other society. It is rather

funny to see all the great people who intrigued for court places,

meaning to enjoy their pensions and do no work, kept hard at it from

nine in the morning till two the following morning--reviews, breakfasts,

great dinners, and parties all following each other, and the whole suite

kept in requisition.

[Miss Villiers, who had been so much admired and the centre of

attraction in her circle at Kent House, now became engaged to Mr.

Lister of Armitage Park. They were married in November 1830. Mr. Lister

was described by one of his contemporaries as “a refined and

accomplished gentleman with literary tastes.”]

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

BROADSTAIRS,

_Wednesday, September 1830._

MY DEAREST THERESA, How idle I have been about writing, have not I? But

then Hyde[349] told me about the daily packets that he forwarded from

Staffordshire and from Devonshire, and so I thought in the bustle I

should not be missed, and the real truth is I have been very unsettled

the last ten days. George and I went to Hertfordshire to see Mary Eden

before her confinement, and from the bore of moving, put it off so long

that we came in at last for the beginning of her catastrophe. She was in

the greatest danger, poor thing, at last, but thank God is quite safe

now, and her boy[350] too.

We went to pass a morning with Lady F. Lamb at Brocket, and saw a great

deal of the Panshanger tribe. The Ashleys are as happy as I suppose the

Listers mean to be, only I think you must be a shade less demonstrative.

Lord Ashley seems to do amazingly well with all the uncles and brothers,

and Lady Cowper dotes (or doats, which is it?) on him.

We came back to Greenwich for one day, and then with the utmost courage,

the greatest magnanimity, Fanny and I stepped into a Margate steamboat

and set off on a visit to Mrs. Vansittart at Broadstairs. George stood

on the steps of Greenwich Hospital, left, like Lord Ullin, “lamenting.”

We were so late we could with difficulty persuade the steamer to take

us in; but at last we boarded her and took her. To my utter surprise I

was not the least sick.

This is a nice little place. We know nobody here but Lady G. de

Roos,[351] and she is in the same predicament, so we see a great deal of

each other.

Caroline ought I believe to account for 14 children, but she has somehow

contrived to disperse and get rid of all of them but two very small

things of five and six. I ask no questions. I hope the others are all

safe somewhere, and in the meantime she is remarkably well and happy. We

have a room apiece, and one for our maid, and she must have been

terribly afraid we should be bored by the quantity of excursions she has

planned for us. We have been to Margate and Ramsgate, and are to go to

Dover, and if George comes, perhaps to Calais. But that I think

foolhardy. To-day she and Fanny are gone sailing off to some famous

shell place. I prefer dry land, if it is the same thing to everybody, so

I stayed at home, and I have a fit of sketching on me that amounts to a

fever. The day is too short. I am so glad we like being here so much,

which sounds like a foolish sentence, but Caroline really has been so

kind and active in arranging everything and was so bent on making us

come, and is so hospitable now we are here, that I should have been

doubly sorry if it had turned out a failure. I was only sorry to leave

George, but perhaps he will come and fetch us.

The day we went through London to Hertfordshire your George went to the

play with us, and I was afraid we should have to carry him out. He went

into strong hysterics at the _Bottle Imp_, which is certainly one of the

most amusing things I ever saw.

Maria[352] wrote so kindly and affectionately to me about your marriage.

You would have been pleased with her letter. And old Lansdowne wrote

also in such terms about both of you and his delight at the marriage of

two people he liked so much, that I do not see why we should not always

meet you at Bowood, except the fear that Mr. L.’s domestic peace may be

endangered. People were talking of the possibility of a revolution in

England the other day, and what they should do for their livelihoods,

and Lord Alvanley said, “If it comes to that I know what I shall do;

keep a disorderly house and make Glengall my head waiter.” That is a bad

story to end with, but I have no time for a better.

Two more letters to write; and a lovely day and fine autumnal weather

makes me so happy I cannot bear to lose a moment of it. Ever your most

affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville._

_Thursday, October 1830._

MY DEAR LADY CHARLOTTE, Your note reached me only yesterday, as it made

a little detour to Middleton in search of George; but with all that

delay it was the first intelligence I had of Lady F.’s[353] safety. The

_Morning Herald_ never mentions anything pleasant, and Charles Drummond,

whom I had charged to make due enquiries of Mr. H. Greville, of course

forgot it. How glad I am she has a girl at last![354] I think we all

deserve some credit for it, for all her friends have gone on day by day

so duly wishing for a young lady for her, that I cannot but think we may

have great pride in the result. It is unknown the trouble Lady G. de

Roos and I gave ourselves about it all the time we were at Broadstairs.

My sisters, who are learned in those matters, assured me Lady F. would

have a girl this time, she was so long about it. Did you know that

girls, with that tact and penetration we all have, shew a greater

reluctance to coming into this bad world than boys do, who are always

ready for any mischief? Girls put off coming into this world as long as

they possibly can, knowing what a difficult life it is. Just mind, as

you are on the spot, that this little concern is like its Mama. I should

like her to be exactly the same, should not you?

We enjoyed our Broadstairs so very much, and all the more, because it

was not Ramsgate. I took the look of Ramsgate in great aversion. We knew

nobody at Broadstairs but Lady G. de Roos, who was without her husband,

and therefore very glad to be a great deal with us. The quiet and

_dowdiness_ of Broadstairs is a great charm. We were out all day,

sketching or poking about for shells. I wonder whether you went to

Shellness, a little creek whose shores are covered with shells--not a

stone or a bit of sand--all shells. I never saw such a curious place. We

made one long expedition to Dover, and if ever I went to the sea on my

own account, I mean not on a visit to anybody, I should pitch my tent at

Dover. It is so very beautiful and so cheerful looking. We stayed a

fortnight at Broadstairs.

George seems to have a very diplomatic party at Middleton:

Esterhazy,[355] Talleyrand,[356] Madame de Dino, the expectation of the

Duke of Wellington, etc., etc. Colonel Anson, I suppose you know, has

ascertained that he has _£_15,000 less than nothing, which would be an

uncomfortable property to settle on, and Lord Anson says he can do

nothing for him but give him a living. If he ends by taking orders, I

think Thorpe will find his congregation fall off considerably; there

will be such a press to hear that popular preacher Anson.

[Illustration: _Mrs Lister

(Lady Theresa Lewis)

from a painting by G.S. Newton R.A._]

Lady Cowper has written to ask us to Panshanger next week, but I believe

George will not be able to go; he has a shooting-engagement in another

direction. However, till he comes back from Middleton, I do not know. I

am not ambitious to move again, as we must so soon go to that vile

London for that foolish Parliament, and our little garden is so full of

flowers, and gives so much occupation in collecting seeds and making

cuttings, that I grudge leaving it, even for a day. In all the

reproaches that are lavished on these Ministers, I wonder nobody has

ever written a biting pamphlet on their only real fault, which is

bringing us all to London the end of October--a sort of tyranny for

which a Minister would have been impeached in better days. I am

dreadfully at a loss for some political feelings. I cannot find anybody

to wish for, and, upon the whole, am in the miserably dull predicament

of _rather_ hoping things may remain as they are. I suppose that mean

Huskisson set are coming in, which is unpleasant, but as they were sure

to _fourrer_ themselves in somehow or anyhow, I am prepared for it. I

never hear from Maria. I suspect they are bored at Sprotbro’, as she is

always silent when she is bored.

My best love to Lady F. with my entire approbation of her conduct about

this little girl. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GREENWICH PARK,

_Thursday evening, November 1830._

MY DEAREST THERESA, It is particularly clever of me to write to you

to-night, because it does so happen that there is not a pen in the house

and the shops are all shut. There was _one_ pen this morning, but I

suppose dear Chiswick has ate it. That comes of having stationery for

nothing; as long as we had to pay for it, I had heaps of pens and

paper. George[357] has found a quill in one of the drawers, and I, who

never could mend a real ready-made pen, have cut this raw material, this

duck’s feather, into an odd-shaped thing. But it marks pretty well, only

it is great fatigue to drive it along, because I could not make a slit

in it.

I want to know if you and Mr. Lister cannot come and dine with us while

we are here. I never should have thought of asking anybody in such

weather, but I had _offers_ from three friends this morning to come here

next week, so that it is quite allowable to ask all my other friends. I

daresay you did not think I had above three in the world, but I have.

When will you come? I know you can’t the beginning of next week, because

I have just had a note from Lady Salisbury asking us to meet you at

Hatfield, but after that perhaps you can come. We cannot go to Hatfield.

The Chancellor[358] has offered to take me to the Lord Mayor’s dinner on

Monday, and I think it will be amusing and mean to accept.

Sarah Sophia[359] says she proposes to take her food here on Tuesday.

She never allows us an option. I wonder when it will be time to quarrel

with her about politics or something else? Is not it _due to ourselves_

to have some explanations with her? I do not know what about, but a note

or two ought to pass, first dignified and then pathetic, and then end

with a dinner. I have no idea of the dinner without the explanation

first. She has treated everybody but us with one.

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 God,

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 God 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

God 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. Nobody offered me

anything else but a slice of half-cold peacock, 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 Sussex,[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 _loué 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 pass 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 amusement.

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 _tête-à-tête_ 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 levées, “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

levée. 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 Saturday, 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 gratitude 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.

Miss Eden's Letters · 第 8 / 14 章