SALDEN HOUSE, MRS. CARR'S,
June 6, 1831.
My last days in London crowned the whole in all that was entertaining, curious, gratifying, and delightful to head and heart. I am writing while Isabella Carr is reading out Destiny, and very well she reads the Scotch; so you may think I cannot enter into details of the past at present, but I must just note—
Lady Elizabeth Whitbread and four Lady Harleys.
Opera with Lady Guilford and two daughters: Medea, Pasta: thrilling shiver, gliding sideways to her children, and sudden retreat.
French play: Leontine Fay in Une Faute—the most admirable actress I ever saw, and in the most touching piece. Three young men—Mr. Whitbread, Major Keppel, and Lord Mahon—separately told me the impression made on them by this actress was such that they could not sleep afterwards! I had no trial how this would be with me, because we went off from the playhouse to Sir James South's, to see the occultation of Jupiter's satellites: that was indeed a sublime reality, and no wonder we were broad awake till three o'clock.
Next morning St. Paul's: moral sublime. I sat next Rammohun Roy, and heard all he said. One curious inquiry he made; "Why are the boys set above the girls?" Sermon by the Bishop of Nova Scotia: Judge Haliburton sat between Fanny and me. Luncheon at the Bishop of Llandaff's: forty people. Came home: packed up. Mr. Creed at dinner, and this last day delightful.
To CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, August 14, 1831.
My last visit to universal London confirms to my own feelings your eulogium. I never was so happy there in my life, because I had besides all the external pleasures, the solid satisfaction of a home there, and domestic pleasures, without which I should soon grow a-weary of the world, and wish the business of the town were done. I should be very sorry if I were told this minute that I was never to see London again, and yet I am wondrous contented and happy at home. I hope you will come and see some time whether I am only making believe or telling true.
You say I must never say a discouraging word to you, because you are so easily discouraged: for shame! What is that but saying, "Flatter me"? Now flattery can never do good; twice cursed in the giving and the receiving, it ought to be. Instead of flattering I will give you this wholesome caution: in your new volumes do not weaken the effect by giving too much of a good thing; do not be lengthy; cut well before you go to press, and then the rest will live all the better. With your facility, this cannot cost you much.
To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
ROSTREVOR, [Footnote: Where the Miss Ruxtons were now living.]
Oct. 2, 1831.
Lestock was gratified by my joining him at Armagh. Mr. Allott was most hospitable. We walked to the cathedral, and saw views of great extent and beauty, and heard learned disquisitions about architecture, and a curious anecdote in support of a favourite theory of his, that small stones grouted together, with lime and water put in hot, defies old Time. Great alarm was excited some time ago at Winchester Cathedral: the principal pillars seemed to be giving way, out of the perpendicular, and bulged. They fell to work shoring and propping; but, in spite of all, the pillars still seemed to be giving way more and more, and they feared the whole would come down. Rennie was sent for, but Rennie was ill, and died. At last an architect looked at the pillars, picked at them, took off a facing of stone, and found, what he had suspected, that it was only this facing that had given way and bulged, and that the inside was a solid pillar of masonry,—small stones grouted together so firmly that the cement was as hard as the stone.
Dr. and Mrs. Robinson came in the evening: his conversation is admirable; such an affluence of ideas, so full of genius and master thoughts. He gave me an excellent disquisition on the effect which transcendental mathematics produces on the mind, and traced up the history of mathematics from Euclid, appealing to diagrams and resting on images, to that higher sort where they are put out of the question, where we reason by symbols as in algebra, and work on in the dark till they get to the light, or till the light comes out of the dark—sure that it will come out. He went over Newton, and on through the history of modern times—Brinkley, Lagrange, Hamilton—just giving to me, ignorant, a notion of what each had done.
Mrs. O'Beirne—dear, kind soul!—would accompany me on the jaunting-car all the way from Newry to Rostrevor, and I am very glad she did; and as the day was fine and the tide in, I thought it would be pleasant on that beautiful road; and so it would have been, but for the droves of cows—Oh, those weary cows with the longest horns!—and if ever I laughed at you for being afraid of cows, you may have your revenge now. Every quarter of a mile, at least, came a tangled mass of these brutes, and their fright made them more terrible, for they knew no more what they were doing than I did myself; and there I was sitting at their mercy, and the horn of one or t'other continually within an inch of my eye, my mouth, or my breast, and no retreat; and they might any moment stick me on the top of one of these horns, and toss me with one jerk into the sea! Mrs. O'Beirne kept telling me she was used to it, and that nothing ever happened; but by the time I reached Rostrevor I was as poor a worn-out rag as ever you saw.
To MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 22, 1831.
Francis was married on the 19th to Rosa Florentina Eroles; Sneyd, Fanny, and Lestock were present. The bride was dressed in a plain white muslin, with a mantilla lace veil of her own work on her head, without any hat, after the fashion of her own country, with a small wreath of silver flowers in her dark hair. Her sister was dressed English fashion, in a bonnet. Both Sneyd and Fanny say that nothing could appear more gentlemanlike, gentle, amiable, and happy than the bridegroom.
To MRS. R. BUTLER.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 20, 1832.
Can you conceive yourself to be an old lamp at the point of extinction, and dreading the smell you would make at going out, and the execrations which in your dying flickerings you might hear? And then you can conceive the sudden starting up again of the flame, when fresh oil is poured into the lamp. And can you conceive what that poor lamp would feel returning to light and life? So felt I when I had read your letter on reading what I sent to you of Helen. You have given me new life and spirit to go on with her. I would have gone on from principle, and the desire to do what my father advised—to finish whatever I began; but now I feel all the difference between working for a dead or a live horse.
My auriculas are superb, and my peony tree has eighteen full-swelled buds: it will be in glory by the time Sophy and Mag arrive.
To HER SISTER HARRIET—MRS. R. BUTLER.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN. Aug. 1, 1832.
It is impossible to tell you how much I miss you. Never, except at my Aunt Ruxton's, did I ever pass my time away from home so entirely to my own enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured the cheerful sky.
We are reading Eugene Aram; and almost all I have heard I think affected as to language, and not natural as to character. I am sure the real story and trial are much more interesting.
Aug. 21.
Perhaps you think I am at Lady Hartland's at this moment, poor ignorants, as you are! You must know that I was so unwell on Friday, the morning of the day we were to have gone there, that my poor mother was obliged to send James in the rain (poor James!) to put off till Monday; so Lord and Lady Hartland were very sorry and very glad, and sent us divine peaches.
Sir James Calendar Campbell's Memoirs are ill-written—all higgledy-piggledy, facts and anecdotes, some without heads, and some without tails; great cry and little wool, still, some of the wool is good; and curious facts thrown out, of which he does not know the value, and other things he values that have no value in nature.
To MISS RUXTON.
PAKENHAM HALL, Sept. 19, 1832.
We came here yesterday to meet Caroline Hamilton—dear Caroline Hamilton, and her sensible, agreeable husband. She is always the same, and the sight of her affectionate, open, lively countenance does one's heart good. Lord Longford quite well, and Lord Longford for ever: the children beautiful.