What I would give for a talk with you—that you might put it all in a cheerful light. It makes no difference in our affection or communion that has stood the test of such long absence that 14,000 miles more will not break it down.
I am going to-morrow for ten days to Mary [Drummond]; she is in a desperate way about our plans....
By all means stick an “Eden” into your child’s name. Your most affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Lady Campbell.
ADMIRALTY,
[August] 1835.
My dearest Pam, Our letters crossed, and yours was just what I wanted, and you are as great a dear as ever, only I am never to be allowed to see you....
A week ago we began our preparations. You do not and cannot guess what that is—and I have despaired of writing you even a line—I never knew before really what it was to have no time. And besides the deep-seated real Indian calamity, you cannot think what a whirl and entanglement buying and measuring and trying on makes in one’s brain; and poor Goliath himself would have been obliged to lie down and rest if he had tried on six pairs of stays consecutively. We sometimes are three hours at a time shopping, and I could fling myself down and scratch the floor like a dog that is trying to make a feather bed of the boards when I come home.
It is so irritating to want so many things and such cold articles. A cargo of large fans; a silver busk, because all steel busks become rusty and spoil the stays; nightdresses with short sleeves, and net nightcaps, because muslin is too hot. Then such anomalies—quantities of flannel which I never wear at all in this cool climate, but which we are to wear at night there, because the creatures who are pulling all night at the Punkahs sometimes fall asleep. Then you wake from the extreme heat and call to them, then they wake and begin pulling away with such fresh vigour that you catch your death with a sudden chill. What a life! However, it is no use thinking about it.