On the 18th I dine at Lord Stanley’s, (of Alderley,) and on the 19th Yearly Meeting begins, and will probably last nine days or ten. I have now been well some days. I threw physic to the dogs last week, and felt my lassitude go with it; and now, I trust, the fatigues of our Holy Week will prove none to me; but that it will be as reviving and welcome as the Holy Week, at Rome and Edinburgh, to those who keep it holy, and are, during its term, devoted to their duties.
Farewell! Please, Miss, to answer this.
Affectionately thine,
A. Opie.
Again, June 26th, she wrote:—
* * * I was at the House of Lords. The Queen’s reading was more perfect than ever, and her quiet, self-possession, her grace and dignity, are beyond praise. She wore a circlet of diamonds only, no crown, and she looked so well! It was pretty to see Prince Albert hand her up and down the Throne, and lead her in and out. There were seventy-six Peeresses. It was a fine sight altogether.
In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Opie was again in London. Her notes give a lively record of the two months she spent there. Yearly Meeting she attended as usual; and on the 10th May she writes:—
I dined to-day in company with Lord Brougham, and sat between him and my cousin Edward; he was in high spirits, and talked incessantly and well, and was very entertaining and interesting: I never saw him pleasanter. We were, indeed, evidently so merry and happy at the bottom of the table, that those at the top sat silent, and endeavouring to catch the words that fell from the eloquent man’s lips. Again. (6th mo., 11th.) Every night this week I shall have dined out, and in parties of a most agreeable description; of my visit to the Duke of Sussex, and our interesting tête à tête, I can’t write. The Duchess shewed me all over the Palace, and the long row of Bibles. The room is fifty feet long, and the Bibles are in all languages.
Shortly after (June 24th) she wrote, referring to the general state of want and suffering then prevalent:—
Appeals to national generosity, for aught but national distress and starving populations, in our three countries, ought, in my opinion, to be now suspended, and speculations, however benevolent, also; we are, I think, accountable to our distressed countrymen for expenditures of the sort. The accounts from Ireland, which I read the other day, brought tears into my eyes.