Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire.
GROSVENOR STREET,
October 7 [1819].
MY DEAREST SISTER, I am going to write you a long letter, and I shall be like a ginger-beer bottle now, if once the cork is drawn. I shall spirtle you all over—not that I have anything to say, but just a few remarks to make.
In the first place, I am eternally obliged to you for your just and proper appreciation of Autumn; nobody cares about it enough but you and me, and it is so pretty and so good, and gives itself such nice airs, and has such a touching way of its own, that it is impossible to pet it enough.
I tried some cool admiration of it upon Louisa,[106] but she said she did not like it, as it led to Winter, and the children wanted new coats, and she must write to Grimes of Ludgate Hill for patterns of cloth, etc.
However, London is a very pretty check to enthusiasm; there are no trees to look brown and yellow, and the autumn air only blows against poor Lord Glengall’s[107] hatchment, and the few people that wander about the streets seem to think it cold and uncomfortable. Except the Drummonds and ourselves, I believe there is nobody here but the actors who act to us, and the bricklayers who are mending the homes of all the rest of the world. I have seen when I go sneaking down to Charing-Cross two or three official people, who think I suppose, that they govern us and the bricklayers.
Fanny and I shall end by being very accomplished, if we lead this life long. We breakfast at a little before ten, and from that time till a little after three are very busy at our lessons.
We have just finished Mrs. H. More,[108] which I like very much, particularly the latter part.
We have foolishly begun Modern Europe for our history book, which I think much too tiresome to be endured, and then we take a peep at what the Huns and Vandals are about. My only hope is that fifteen hundred years hence we shall be boring some young lady in the back Settlement of Canada with our Manchester Riots.[109] That is the only thought which supports me under the present dulness of the newspaper.
George brought us such a quantity of Confitures from Paris, that it is a mercy we are not in bilious fevers before this. I enclose you some Fleur d’Orange because it is so genteel. Pray remark when it is going down, whether your sensations are not remarkably lady-like? Your most affect.