DEAREST EMMY, Eleven years ago we were together. To-day is Edward’s birthday, and I still see that house in Cadogan Place, and the window at which I sat watching for you, my own dear Friend. I like to think how long we’ve loved each other without a shade of alteration between us; du reste, I need dwell on such things to smooth my mind after other rugged bits of life. Your godchild[391] is a good, peaceable, fat lump, with black eyelashes and a pretty mouth, which is all I can make out of her yet.
I recovered tolerably well the first fortnight, since that I have been but poorly. Anxiety and worry keep me back. However, it is all over now, for our matters are pretty nearly arranged. Sir Guy sells out; it is our only resource; it is the only way of paying what we owe, getting rid of debt....
I conclude you are now sitting with your own goldfish under your fig-tree, you who live under the shadow of your own old Men.[392] By the bye, with your blue pensioners, I am sure you will feel for us in the dispersion of our red pensioners. There was a great cry heard in the Hospital, Kilmainham weeping for her old men, because they are no longer to be! However, they are respited, for my enemy Ellice[393] put his pen through their existence, and Mr. Littleton[394] too, and ordered even the fashion of their dispersion, but forgot to enquire particulars, and they have stumbled upon an Act of Parliament, and so must wait till another Act breaks through it. Ellice dropped his pen, and was obliged to pick it up again. Your affectionate
PAMELA CAMPBELL.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.
GREENWICH PARK,
Sunday, December 15, 1833.
DEAREST THERESA, I have just had a letter from your brother George,[395] and though probably you heard from him by the same opportunity, yet it is always a pleasure to know that one’s brothers are heard of by others as well as oneself. It makes assurance doubly sure, which that clever creature Shakespeare knew was not once more than enough, in this unsure world.
Mr. V. seems very happy and very well, and will probably be more personally comfortable when he is the owner of a few tables and chairs. It was such a relief off my mind (as a friend of mine says when anything is a relief to her mind) to find that he had received an enormous letter I wrote to him some time ago, a thing like the double sheet of the Times in private life, and which had been so long unacknowledged, that I felt sure that it had been captured, and that I should see a horrible garbled translation of it copied from a Carlist paper, and headed “Intercepted Correspondence,” whereupon I must simply have changed my religion, gone into a convent, and taken the veil. The propriety of my letters surpasses all belief, so I should not have been ashamed in that sense; but when I write to your brother, or to Lord Minto, or to that class of correspondents, I always rake together every possible anecdote and fact—or what is called a fact—and write them all down just like a string of paragraphs in a newspaper. I always suppose nonsense would bore them, so the horrid letters are made up of proper names, and if there is an unsafe thing in the world to meddle with it is a proper name, and that is the bother of a letter that goes abroad, particularly to such a country as Spain. I saw George was just as fussy about a letter he had written to your brother; but now we know our little manuscripts have found their way safely, we mean to write again—at least I do, the first time I find anything to say. At present I am out of that article.
We have been living here rather quietly, not very though,—at least I dined in town at several great dinners, at the Lievens, etc., that fortnight the Ministers were all in London, and we went up several times to the play with the Stanleys, and several of them came and dined here, and so on during November. Then, George has been frisking about the country at Woburn, Brocket, etc., shooting; and on Saturday he and I are going to run down to Bowood for a week. It is an expensive amusement and not worth the trouble, barring that it is worth while acknowledging the kindness of the Lansdownes. He rode down here from London to ask us, but I never go on his invitations. But, however, he wrote again as soon as he got back, and then Lady Lansdowne wrote to insist on our fixing a day. So, though I know she never wishes her invitations to be accepted, yet if she will write, she must take the consequences, and so we are going. I hear the Nortons[396] are to be there, which will be funny. I do not fancy her, but still she will be amusing to meet for once.
We settle in town after that, at least Fanny and I do. George is going to a great meeting of Ministers at Goodwood. I think it such a good thing, the Ministers have all taken to go shooting about in a body. It prevents their doing any other mischief. That is the way an enemy might state it. I, who am a friend, merely presume they must have brought the country to a flourishing state, since they seem to have so much leisure for amusing themselves.