CHAPTER XXII.
MRS. OPIE’S REMOVAL TO LADY’S LANE; LETTERS, VISITORS, AND WRITING; SPRING ASSIZES OF 1838; MEMOIRS OF SIR. W. SCOTT; VISITS TO LONDON AND NORTHREPPS; DEATH OF FRIENDS; ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION; WINTER AND SPRING OF 1840-41; VISITS TO TOWN AND LETTERS FROM THENCE IN 1842-43; ILLNESS; CLOSE OF 1843; LETTER OF REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS HOGG.
Mrs. Opie returned from her trip up the Rhine at the close of November, 1835. This was her last journey; from this time her absences from home were never of long duration, but limited to a few weeks in London, and occasional visits to friends in the neighbourhood of Norwich. She did not remain many months in the lodgings in St. Giles’ Street, but transferred herself to Lady’s Lane, where she had commodious apartments, and in which she remained until her final removal to the Castle Meadow House. In this home she settled herself, surrounded by her Lares, the “Portraits,” which hung around her, and appeared to great advantage, when lighted up, at night, by wax-lights in branch lamps. The most beautiful of them, the portrait of herself, is not described by her pen. It was painted soon after her marriage, and was engraved (though very indifferently) for the No. of the “Cabinet,” in which Mrs. Taylor’s memoir of her appeared. This picture is certainly very charming, and is also admirable as a work of art.
Bright colours Mrs. Opie delighted in, and she had a sort of passion for prisms. She had several set in a frame, and mounted like a pole-screen; and this unique piece of furniture stood always in her window, and was a constant source of delight to her. “Oh! the exquisite beauty of the prisms on my ceiling just now, (she writes) it is a pleasure to exist only to look at it. I think that green parrots and macaws, flying about in their native woods, must look like that.” Flowers, too, were her constant companions; she luxuriated in them, and filled her window-sills with stands of them, and covered her tables with bouquets; their most luscious scents seemed not too strong for her nerves. Light, heat, and fragrance, were three indispensables of enjoyment for her.
It has been said, with truth, that her mornings, during the latter years of her life, were spent in an almost constant succession of receiving visitors, and writing letters. Everybody who came to Norwich sought her; old friends, acquaintances, and strangers hastened to pay her their respects, and she loved to welcome all, and to give a cordial greeting to each. The extent of her correspondence was such, that it would have been a burden, had it not been a delight. In a letter written, in 1849, to her friend, Miss Emily Taylor, she said, “if writing were even an effort to me, I should not now be alive, but must have been absolument epuisée; and it might have been inserted in the bills of mortality—‘dead of letter-writing, A. Opie.’ My maid and I were calculating the other day, how many letters I wrote in the year, and it is not less than six in a day, besides notes.”
Her pen was also diligently employed in writing articles for various periodicals of the day. She regretted afterwards that she had not kept a list of the publications to which she had sent contributions, as she was frequently applied to by friends, anxious to identify her verses, &c. The “reminiscences,” to which reference has been occasionally made, published in Tait and in Chambers, were written about this time.
The year 1836 seems to have been unproductive of change. We find her recording visits to Keswick, to Northrepps, to Swanton Morley; and (as always) to Earlham. In the following year, her revered friend, J. J. Gurney, went on a religious visit to the United States, and was absent nearly three years. On his return he printed, for circulation among his friends, an account of this journey, “described in Familiar Letters to Amelia Opie.” This interesting volume is very scarce, as only a limited number of copies was printed, and given by the author to his friends. This year Mrs. Opie mentions the arrival of Bishop Stanley and his family in Norwich, as “a great acquisition;” and their friendship proved indeed a source of much happiness to her.
The farewell letter from her venerable friend Lady Cork, written in the spring of this year, will be read with interest.
London, March 15th.
One thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-seven. Thanks dearest dear friend, for your cordial letter. Yes, thank God! 91 is quite well in health, and if my beloved friends enjoyed the same blessing, would be perfectly content in mind. Nephews and nieces whom you are not acquainted with, are suffering. They are folks whose virtues you must esteem, and some whose wit you would admire. Oh! why do you not come to town earlier in the season? Our dear Lady Frederick is not yet in town, but there are many of your playfellows. Yesterday dined with me, Rogers, Sydney Smith, Granby, and more wits and worthies, such as you would relish. * *