Lady Campbell to Miss Eden.
Tuesday, June 10, 1834.
How do you do, and how do you feel? How does one feel when one becomes sister to the Admiralty?... Stanley[404] seems a terrible loss, but at this distance I cannot judge, of course. You will think me, of course, a Radical, but I think he is wrong, for the Irish Church always did strike me like a Hot-bed for raising Horse-Beans,—some would tell you for raising thistles, but I don’t go quite so far. I saw Mrs. Ellice, she is in such a Grey fermentation, it might be dangerous, but she foams it away in such long talk that it is very safe.
I saw Mrs. Foggy[405] as she is called; pleasant, merry, and going on very well; people begin to get accustomed to her ways, and, I think, like her on the whole! Darling dear Foggy is in good humour, and all seems right. She is amusing, certainly, but certainly elle parle gras, as the French say, when people speak improprieties. I always think part of her education must have been carried on in the Canal boat, like Vert Vert, when he got away from the nuns.
The Protestants are bristling all over this unfortunate country since the Reform. I have seen nothing like the excitement among them. The Catholics do not appear so excited. This is plain enough. The loss to 200,000 is immense, whereas the gain to 8,000,000 is comparatively small.
Miss Eden to Lady Campbell.
HAM COMMON,
Tuesday, July 23, 1834.
Yes, it is very odd—absolutely curious. But tho’ you and I live in two different islands—two different worlds—yet your letters always are just what I think, and know, and say, and they fit into my mood of mind, and you carry on the story I am telling—and you know all I did not tell you, and say all I did not know—and the whole thing amalgamates. That Littleton creature![406] Is not there an unity in that story of him with all I know? Let’s write his life. Did not I meet him at dinner the very week after the stramash, when everybody crossed the street if they saw him coming, they were so ashamed for him? It was at a dinner at the Chancellor’s, the first given after Lord Melbourne’s appointment,[407] and he was there, and Lord Lansdowne, and several others, and Charles Grey[408] as sulky as possible. And next to him sat Mr. Littleton—and the first thing he chose to begin talking about across the table was something about “one of the tustles that O’Connell and I have had.” It set all our teeth on edge, everybody being naturally with a predisposition to edge-ism, and none of the ferment of the change having had time to subside—and he the guilty author of it all! I really would not have alluded for his sake to the letter O. I said to Lord Lansdowne: “Well, I am surprised at him, for I have refrained from talking about him, from really expecting his mind must give way, and that there will be some horrid tragedy to make us all repent having abused him.” And he said, “That is exactly my feeling. I look at him with astonishment; I can hardly believe he is what he seems to be.” I suppose it really was true, and that he did not mind. We tried, for two or three days, I remember, to declare he looked very ill, but now you say he had not lost a night’s rest, I give up that point. It never was very tenable.
The young Greys have all been pre-eminently absurd, Lord Howick more than all the rest. He told me he had been to all the clubs, and calling at all the houses he knew, to spread every report against the Chancellor he could think of, and coming from him, of course, it was set down as coming from his father, who is as unlike his sons as he well can be. I do not wish to entrench on Mrs. E.’s[409] province—how tiresome she must be!—but she can say nothing of Lord Grey I don’t think. He is the only great man I ever had the good luck to see—consistent and magnanimous—two qualities that I never met with in any other politician. I have closed my political accounts with him.... I am sure I cannot tell you generally anything about the Government. Politics have answered so ill to me in my private capacity that I gave them quite up, and can only tell you these private gossipries of the time. I have not read a debate since last Easter, and can only wonder how I could be so foolish three years ago as to think politics and office the least amusing. I suppose to the end of our days we shall all wonder at ourselves three years ago. But I have had such a horrid uncomfortable year this year; I never was so tired, so out of breath, so bored. You may well ask where we lodge. At a little cottage on Ham Common, hired by the week, without a scrap of garden, but where by dint of hard labour, a doctor, and quantities of steel draughts, I have recovered a little of the health I lost entirely by being kept eight months in London, frying over the coals.
I declare I believe I have lived ten whole lives in the last ten months; we have been so unsettled, which is the only state I cannot abide. First George was to have that Exchequer place with Greenwich, and we made up our plans for that, and were to part with Grosvenor Street; then Greenwich was cut off from the Exchequer, and we prepared to give that up; then the Government found it convenient to make him keep the Board of Trade, and we went back to be as we were.
Then came the Stanley secession and we thought we were all to be out, and reverted to the Exchequer, and looked at every villa round London. Then came the Admiralty, and George sent me to Greenwich to pack up and sell and give up everything, (the only spot of ground I care about in the world).