There always must be some great piece of work in hand here. In the meantime, life is passing and friends are dying, and we are becoming so old that it will be impossible to take up the thread of existence again with the young things like the Drummonds, etc., whom I had looked upon as the supports of my old age. It will never do to stay.
We are to have at dinner to-day a son of Theodore Hook’s, just arrived. He does not look as if he could improvise, or do much better if he provised; but I never saw the father, so he may look stupid, too, without being so. I see there are two of T. Hook’s novels published lately, and trust the son may have partially brought them out.[485]
I have become a great whist player upon the one-eyed monarch principle. Nobody else can play at all, and when the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief dine together, it is obvious that they must have their rubber, and so I and the Aide-de-Camp or the Doctor play with them. Can’t you see the sort of thing? Shocking whist, but it helps the evening through. I play much better than Sir Jasper,[486] but worse, George says, than anybody else he ever saw. Ever yours,
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to Lady Campbell.
CALCUTTA,
July 17, 1840.
MY DEAREST PAM, Your friend Mr. Taylor arrived this week with the letter you gave him ten months ago—perhaps not bad travelling for a letter of introduction, though not exactly rapid as a means of receiving intelligence. However, a letter’s a letter, and I am the last person in the world to complain.
George has seen your Taylor, and says he is very promising, and I have asked him to Barrackpore for love of you and in the strongest reliance on your Edward’s[487] judgment. Otherwise, there is a brother of his in this country now (thank goodness up the country) that used to drive me demented—just the opposite to all you say of your friend—not good-looking, not a “chap” at all, and rather a black sheep—though, poor man, I should not say so. But you cannot imagine the provocation of his manner or the excess of his conceit. It induced a freezing sort of snappishness in oneself that was, however, utterly unavailing; it only made him more affable and jocose. And, to crown all, he shaved his head after a fever, or his doctor shaved it to tease him, or something of that sort, and he came dancing about in a little velvet skull-cap.
I think my health has been so good this year at Calcutta because Pearce Taylor was not there.
No, dearest, I never blame you for not writing. I always feel that I know you just the same as ever, and that it is not your fault if your children take up all your time. I only regret that the world should be such a very large, thick, slice of bread, and that butter should be so scarce that they should have been obliged to spread us at the two opposite ends. We should have been much happier in the same butter-boat, but I suppose it could not be helped. My side of the bread too, is turned to the fire and I am half-roasted, which, if I do not write twice to your once, is my set off against the claims of your children.