How do Fanny and Edward Drummond[115] go on? I hope she still thinks him pleasant. Don’t rob her of those comfortable illusions, any bulwark against bore is a blessing.
Aunt has had the white Cock, the pride of the Dunghill killed, and Lucy has replaced him by a pair of stinking red-eyed rabbits. We have robberies going on on all sides. The thieving establishment is put upon the most liberal footing; they drive their cart, and keep their saddle-horses, and nobody seems inclined to disturb them.
I understand Stocks? Emmy, I have been making Mr. Ogilvie give me a lecture on Finance, but to-morrow I shall relapse into darkness. Nature has done much for you and me, but we are not organised for Stocks.
Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden.
November 26, 1819.
We go to Town to-morrow, but too late to see you. I am so unhappy, my snug own home so clean, so warm, my life so humdrum, to-day walking in the footsteps of yesterday, all thrown over by going to that Babylon. If it was not for you, I should hang myself previous to my departure. Conceive my situation on finding myself to-morrow night, amidst the smoke and stir of that dim spot which men call Stratford Place, Nr. 2....
I had a kind note from Lady Lansdowne,[116] I love her. Emmy, if you desire to keep a Grantham and four horses, I surely may have my Lansdowne and two!
I feel walking against the wind, which is the only way I can express the feeling one has in parts of one’s life when matters go contrary. We are coming up in truly Scriptural style, for we know not where we shall eat, and where we shall drink, nor wherewithal we shall be clothed.
December 17, 1819.—Emmy, the moon whistles, but why don’t you write? My trunk is gone forth and is now on its remote, unfriended, melancholy, and slow journey to Bowood, and drags at each remove a lengthening chain, and the weather is so bad, and so we are all very unhappy. Isn’t (I never know how to tittle that abbreviation, but to you my meaning is palpable) well to go on. Isn’t this a day for Crack-skull Common?
Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden.