30 GROSVENOR STREET,
Thursday [January 1832].
MY DEAREST THERESA, Not the least affronted. It never crosses my mind to invent any other cause for anybody’s silence, but the simple fact that the bore of writing a letter is almost intolerable, and I never fancy anything, either that they are affronted or ill, or hurt (don’t you know how many people are delighted to feel hurt), or dead; but I simply suppose they are not in a writing humour....
I am glad you liked Bowood. I saw her on Monday on her way through town, quite enchanted with Paris and with the fuss that had been made with them. She likes your brother Edward[370] very much, and seemed to have seen a great deal of him. I have not seen Lord Lansdowne yet, but he is to stay on in town some days longer. I wish there were any chance of our meeting you at Bowood, but I fear it is not very likely. In the summer they said they hoped we would come in the winter, but I never go there without a renewed invitation for some special time, because it is always a doubt, I think, whether she likes all the visitors he asks, and I hate to go in uncertainty.
I have been passing a fortnight at Panshanger—went with George for three days, and then Lady Cowper made me stay on. It is a most difficult house to get away from, partly because it is so pleasant, and then that her dawdling way of saying, “Oh no, you can’t go, I always understood you were to stay till we go to Brighton,” is more unanswerable than all the cordiality of half the boisterous friends, who beg and pray, and say all the kind thoughts that they can think of.
We had heaps of people the first part of my visit: Lievens, Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Lady Stanhope, Palmerston[371] and Mahon, George, Lionel Ashley, Fordwich, and William Cowper (who is a great dear), and heaps of people who acted and danced, and it was all very pleasant.
People are wonderfully clever, I think, and as for Talleyrand I doat upon him. I have been dining with him since at his own house, and elsewhere, and could listen to him for any number of hours. There are weak moments in which I think him handsome, just as it used to cross my mind sometimes whether the Chancellor was not good-looking—decidedly pleasanter to look at than that young Bagot, who walks up Regent Street quite miserable that it is not wide enough for the crowds that he thinks are looking at him.
My last week at Panshanger I was alone with the family, which is always pleasant. I do like Lady Cowper’s society so particularly; in short, I like her. She may have a great many faults, but I do not see them, and it is no business of mine anyhow; and so everybody may reproach me for it if they please, but I am very fond of her.
As for your plan for me—kind of you, but it won’t do at all. He was there all the time, and I left him there, and he always honours me with great attention, but by the blessing of Providence I do not take to him at all. I am too old to marry,[372] and that is the truth. Lady Cowper remained convinced of that fact, and told me one day that if I were younger I should be less quick-sighted to Lord M.’s[373] faults, which is true enough. I do not think him half so pleasant as Sir Frederick,[374] whom I met the time before, and probably just as wicked, and he frightens me and bewilders me, and he swears too much. However, we ended by being very good friends, which is creditable under the circumstances, and though I am sure it is very kind of my friends to wish me married, and particularly kind that anybody should wish to marry me, yet I think now they may give it up, and give me credit for knowing my own happiness. “We know what we are, but not what we may be,” as somebody says, Ophelia I believe; and I know that I am very happy now, and have been so for some years, and that I had rather not change. If I change my mind I shall say so without shame, but at present I am quite contented with my position in life and only wish it may last. If I were younger, or less spoiled than I have been at home, I daresay I could put up with the difficulties of a new place; but not now. I cannot be blind to the faults of the few men I know well, and though I know many more faults in myself, yet I am used to those, you know, and George is used to them, and it all does beautifully. But in a new scene it might fail.
I can derive but little vanity from Lord Melbourne’s admiration. I stand very low in the list of his loves, and as for his thinking well of my principles, it would be rather hard if he did not, considering the society he lives in. And he has found out that I am not clever. I like him for that, and for saying so.
Lord Alvanley is utterly ruined again, has given up everything, and his creditors allow him £1200 a year. Poor Colonel Russell[375] leaves £35,000 of debt. What horrid lives of difficulty those men must lead.