Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie / Selected and Arranged from her Letters, Diaries, and other Manuscripts

by Amelia Opie

CHAPTER XV.

YEARLY MEETINGS; LETTER FROM LONDON; LETTERS FROM LADIES CORK AND CHARLEVILLE; “DETRACTION DISPLAYED;” LETTER FROM ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM; CROMER; DIARY FOR 1829.

From the time Mrs. Opie joined the Friends, she regularly attended the Yearly Meetings of the Society, held in London during the month of May. At these seasons she met numerous friends and acquaintances, and had an opportunity of attending the meetings of various societies, in whose objects she sympathized, and of which the Bible, and the British and Foreign School, and Anti-Slavery Societies, were among the most valued. What cordial interest she always evinced on these occasions, and with how much animation and lively description, she loved to detail, afterwards, what she had heard and seen! Her eye kindled as she recalled the eloquent address of some friend of the wronged and helpless, and her delighted approval was a meed which a good man might well rejoice to have earned.

Shortly after the entry in her journal, with which the preceding chapter concluded, she went to London, for the purpose of attending the Yearly Meeting. Many painful regrets and memories of the past were unavoidable; but she bore up against them, and the effort was beneficial. Solitude, prolonged solitude, preyed upon her spirits, and her essentially social nature languished and pined under it. One letter to the friend before alluded to, contains some interesting particulars of her proceedings during this visit.

Bradpole, Bridport, Dorsetshire,

6th mo., 29th, 1827.

My very dear Friend,

* * * Pray excuse my long silence. I know nothing of N. since I left it. I have had a feeling which has made me indifferent, not only to writing letters, but to receiving them. It was so different once; and my life, during the last three weeks in London, has realized my loss to me more than ever. I have had pleasing and gratifying things to relate; but, alas! he, to whom the relation would have given such pleasure, is gone; and even on the instant my pleasure has been swallowed up in pain;—but this is weak and earthly, and I will forbear. My life in London, during and after the Meeting, has been very happily spent. My lodgings were too far from Devonshire House; but I always got there in time, and when meeting was over, T. R. generally came home with me. Yearly Meeting was peculiarly sweet to me this year, and satisfactory to Friends. I attended the African Meeting at the Freemason’s Tavern: it was this year quite thin. Spring Rice, Chas. Barclay, and the Duke of Gloucester, were among the speakers. I saw Lady S. and her daughter, and gladly acceded to their request that I would sit by them. The Duke of Gloucester spoke to them, coming and going; but though he bowed to me, I was sure he did not know me; so on his returning, I begged Lady S. to name me, and he seemed so glad to see me, and talked some time, retaining my hand in his. (I hope friends behind were not scandalized.) There was an American lady who came up and introduced herself to me, and begged me to call on her, adding that Sir W. Scott’s niece was staying with her; accordingly, I called on them at Ellis’s Hotel, St. James’ Street, when my new friend (sweet food for vanity, and I hope also for some better feeling) told me that my “Odd-tempered Man” had reformed a dear friend of hers, and she seemed to remember far more of it than I do. * *

I promised to call at Lady Cork’s and ask leave to introduce the two ladies to her: and I did so, their footman attending me, to hear Lady C.’s reply. She sent a gracious message back, and accordingly they came, just as Lady C. Lamb had arrived, so they saw her; but so changed! I should hardly have known her.

On 6th day morning, I went to Lord Roden’s, to hear him read and expound the Scriptures. At two o’clock every Friday he had this meeting, during his stay in London. The company was numerous, and several persons of quality among them. He is, indeed, a highly gifted man; but, my dear, I have since been at a meeting which will interest thee more. Since I came to London I have heard of many whom I left in the world, being come out of it; amongst the rest, Thos. Erskine and his wife. At a bazaar for the schools in St. Giles’, held at the Hanover Square Rooms, (at which many of the sellers were Irish nobility,) I saw some friends, who prevailed on me to go and dine with them, and there I met Caroline Fry, with whom I talked of thee. At dinner they spoke of Mrs. Stephens, who, they said, was to expound that evening, at a friend’s house near, and I consented to go with them to hear her. It was a large assembly, and I found there many of my bazaar friends. I was warmly welcomed, especially by the fair expounder. Sir James Mackintosh’s daughter (the widow of M. Rich) introduced me to Lady G. Wolff. Her spouse did not come till late. Though tired with the bazaar, &c., and as sleepy as possible, that extraordinary and gifted being kept my attention fixed an hour and a half. How eloquent and touching were her words!