Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.
March [1865].
MY DEAREST FRIEND, I would rather write to you myself. I am so thankful I saw and took leave of dear Mary. She wished it so much herself, and was as loving and as dear as ever. You know we had always been the greatest friends of the family, and till I went to India, we had never missed for a single day writing to each other. It was an intimacy that only two sisters nearly of an age can have, and she referred to it again on Tuesday, and told me still to be a mother to her children. They always have been like my own children. But I am most thankful I was able to witness such a really happy deathbed as hers, so calm, so peaceful, and her mind as entirely clear as it ever was in its best days. And to see those six tall sons, four daughters-in-law, and her three daughters all round her bed, the sons more overwhelmed even than the daughters, and she thanking them, and saying how happy they had made her, it was a scene that quite comforts me for her loss, and her poor daughters had quite the same feeling. I saw them yesterday after the case was hopeless and they were quite calm.
Dearest Theresa,[592] I do not think it good for you just now to go through more melancholy scenes, otherwise you are one of the few I should like to see. I depend on you so much. Is it not strange that with my health I should have outlived my six sisters—all, except Lady Godolphin, in perfect health when I came from India? Ever, dearest, your affectionate
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Dickinson.
EDEN LODGE, 1863.
I have been out only four times since I came to London. The very ordinary looking women who inhabit London at this time of year, with last year’s dirty little bonnets put at the back of last year’s dirty little faces, and with dirty gowns to match spread over absurd hoops, make me quite uncomfortable.
The “Semi-Attached Couple” was written in that little cottage at Ham Common. I do not exactly know who Mrs. B. was at this moment, but all our Camp ladies were always lying-in, and it is a very easy business in India.
I do not exactly see unless I turn back, and grow young again, that I shall ever visit you at Berkley,[593]—Richmond is looked upon by doctors as an immense journey for me. I am very much pleased my book altogether amused you. I have such quantities of old letters of thanks for it, from people I had forgotten. I had a grand letter from Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes) in praise of my pure facile English, among other things Slang was not invented in my day.