Do you remember how we always liked a maxim? I like a maxim, and I like a good stout axiom, and a good compact system laid out straight without any exception in any rule, a good due North and South argument, and without any of your dippings of needle and variation of the compass. All this we had in the Tories—but, alas, where are they now? Ils ne sont plus ces jours, and I believe we are the Tories. I think that Lord Winchester, e tutti quanti, must feel like the old woman after her réveil when she found her petticoat cut off above the knee by that most clever pedlar Peel.
Do you ever see him now? What a fight Peel made of it, and as Plunkett[424] said to me, “Alone he did it,” and I forgive him two or three sins, because, that tho’ he is a bad Chancellor, he loves the Immortal.
My dear, I grieve to say what a desperately good Chancellor Sugden made.[425] Couldn’t we hire him? All parties liked him except the ultra-radical dreg of the canaille. He is vain and pompous; but he amused me because his vanity is of such a communicative nature that he would talk his character out to me by the hour, and I like any confession, even a fool’s. But a clever man’s is very amusing, and I pick out a bit of human nature and human character as attentively as I see botanists pick petals and pistils.
It is very good of Lord Auckland to stand for my girl. I really believe she is harmless, for she could knock me down, but she is merciful! What shall we call her? I had some thoughts of Rhinocera. She was born the day the Rhinoceros landed, or Cuvier,[426] because I was reading his life and works just before she was born, and took a passion for him.
Might she not be called Eden?—Her other name is to be Madeline—her Godmother’s name....
My baby was christened Caroline Frances Eden, and I constantly call her Eden. I think it sounds very feminine and Eve-ish.
Miss Eden to Lady Campbell.
ADMIRALITY,
July 1835.
MY OWN DEAREST PAM, George wrote to tell you of the awful change in our destination,[427] and I have been so worried, and have had so much to do with seeing and hearing the representations of friends, and taking leave of many who are gone out of town and whom I shall never see again, that I could not write.
Besides, what is there to say, except, “God’s will be done.” It all comes to that. I certainly look at the climate with dread, and to the voyage with utter aversion. Then, we leave a very happy existence here, and then, worst of all, we leave my sisters and a great many friends. But still, there is always another side to the question, and I suppose we shall find it in time. One thing is quite certain, I could not have lived here without George, so I may be very thankful that my health has been so good this year that I have no difficulty on that account, as to going with him. And as other people have liked India and have come back to say so, perhaps we shall do the same.