Lord Carlisle talked of coming here for a day or two, but then I was not allowed to see anybody. I wish you would tell him with my love how much I should like to see him at any time, when he can leave his family and his public duties.
Lady Grey kindly came here on Saturday, and is gone back to-day, and I had a visit from the Ellesmeres last week, for which I had been anxiously looking, as I was obliged once to put them off, and I wanted much to see her. She is looking very thin, and is much depressed; but still it always does me good to be with her, and to see such a well-regulated Christian heart as hers. The second day she talked constantly of her boy,[557] and as it was her own volunteering I hope the exertion may have done her good. Lord E. is particularly well. The suddenness of the poor boy’s death preys on her, and much as your sister has witnessed of pain and illness, I still think that it is the sudden grief which breaks the heart-strings. It is the difference between the avalanche which crushes and the stream which swells gradually and has time to find its level. But perhaps every one that is tried finds the readiest excuse for their own especial want of resignation.
My health does not improve. They say the last attack a fortnight ago was gout in the stomach. I trust God will spare me a recurrence of such suffering, for I am grown very cowardly; but, at all events, every medical precaution has now been taken, and I am not anxious as to the result, though shamefully afraid of pain.
God bless you. Yours affectionately,
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.
[VILLETTE], BROADSTAIRS, 1851.
There is nothing I like so much as a letter, dearest Theresa, but I am so often unable to answer them that, of course, my correspondents are disheartened, and I cannot wonder at it. Just now a private letter is invaluable, for when I woke up after six days of agony, which cut me off even from a newspaper, I found that there had not only been various Ministries formed and destroyed, but that The Times had become perfectly drivelling. Its baseness and inconsistency did not shock me, and we have been brought up to that; but it writes the sort of trash that a very rheumatic old lady who had been left out of Lord John’s parties might indite. It really worries me, because I cannot make out who or what it is writing for or about, or what it wants. There is no use in commenting on your letters. I am very sorry for all that is past, because I like Lord John, and he seems to have played a poor part. This last abandonment of the Papal Bill[558] is to my mind the falsest step of all, and I think the most ruinous to his character and the country, and totally unlike him. I always keep myself up by setting down everything wrong that is done to the Attorney-General,[559] and everything foolish that is written, to C. Greville. Quite unjust; but I have never forgiven the Attorney-General that Park history, and C. G. tried to do as much mischief as he could in The Times last year about foreign politics, and this year about the Pope.
Anyhow, it is an ugly state of things, and cannot last long. I heard from a person to whom Sir James Graham said it, that he would not serve under Lord John, but that he would under Lord Clarendon; and I cannot imagine that Lord Clarendon will not be Prime Minister before three months are over.[560] I am afraid he is papally wrong, but I give that point up now. The Pope has beat us and taken us; and when once a thing is done there is no use in grumbling. England will be a Roman Catholic country; and I shall try and escape into Ireland (which will, of course, become Protestant and comfortable eventually), unless I fall into the hands of Pugin,[561] who has built a nice little church and convent, with an Inquisition home to match at Ramsgate. I suppose we shall be brought out to be burnt on the day of Sanctus Carolus,[562] for the Pope cannot do less than canonise Charles Greville.
I did not admire Lord Stanley’s speech as many Whigs did; there was the old little-mindedness and grudging testimony to adversaries in it. I always think Lord Lansdowne comes out as a real, gentlemanlike, high-minded statesman on these occasions. However, I know nothing about it really, for I have not seen a human being this fortnight.