I am broken-hearted about the Essex election, and the only gleam of cheerfulness I have had has been occasioned by half a sheet of notepaper which I filled with the beginning of my new novel. I wrote nearly a sentence and a half which I composed in two days. Mr. Sale, the singer, called here this morning, which he often does, and used to give me lessons gratis, which was kind but tiresome. To-day he could not, because there is no pianoforte in the house, so we talked about Mrs. Arkwright’s[389] songs, which he says he teaches to numbers of his scholars (there is no end to his pupils). But there are great faults in the scientific parts of her compositions, which he could correct in five minutes—in short, he talks of a mistake in counterpoint as we do of breaking one of the Commandments, and when I said she was a great friend of mine, he said he should be quite delighted to correct anything she sent to the Press, and always without touching the “air,” and he was very polite about it. Do you think it would affront Mrs. Arkwright if I asked her, or that she would not take it as it was meant, as a kindness, from such a lump of science as Sale is? Shall I ask her? Yours affectionately,
E. E.
Hon. Mrs. Norton[390] to Lord Auckland.
[July 1833.]
DEAR LORD AUCKLAND, As you are the only person in your family who have not “cut” me, perhaps you will allow me to apologise through you, to your Sister, for my rudeness last night.
Say that, as far as concerns her, I consider my conduct on that occasion vulgar and unjustifiable, and that I beg her pardon. Yesterday was a day of great vexation and fatigue—which of course is no excuse in the eyes of strangers (whatever it may be in my own), for rudeness and want of temper. I am very sorry. My apology may be of no value to her; but it is a satisfaction to me to make it. Yours truly,
C. NORTON.
Lady Campbell to Miss Eden.
October 25, 1833.