[That was the last time I ever acted in the Covent Garden my uncle John built; where he and my aunt took leave of the stage, and I made my first entrance upon it. It was soon after altered and enlarged, and turned into an opera-house; eventually it was burnt down, and so nothing remains of it.]
The Harnesses and their friend Mr. F—— supped with us. Mr. Harness talked all sorts of things to try and cheer me; he labored hard to prove to me that the world was good and happy, but only succeeded in convincing me that he was the one, and deserved to be the other.
Friday, 29th.—On board the Scotch steamer for Edinburgh.... We passed Berwick and Dunbar, and the Douglases' ancient hold Tantallon, and the lines from "Marmion" came to my lips. Poor Walter Scott! he will never sail by this lovely coast again, every bold headland and silver creek of which lives in his song or story. He has given of his own immortality to the earth, which must ere long receive the whole of his mortality....
Saturday, 30th.—Went to rehearsal.... After dinner Mary Anne, my maid, knowing my foible, came in with her arms full of two of the most beautiful children I ever saw in my life.... [These beautiful children were the daughters of the Duc de Grammont, and were sharing with their parents the exile of the King of France, Charles X., who had found in his banishment a royal residence as ruined as his fortunes in the old Scottish palace of Holyrood. Ida de Grammont, the eldest of my angels, fulfilled the promise of her beautiful childhood as the lovely Duchesse de Guyche.] We spent a pleasant evening at Mrs. Harry Siddons's. Mr. Combe and Macdonald (the sculptor) were there.
Sunday, July 1st.— ... We dined at Mr. Combe's, and had a very pleasant dinner, but unluckily, owing to a stupid servant's mistake, my old friend Mr. McLaren, who had been invited to meet me, did not come. After dinner there was a tremendous discussion about Shakespeare, but I do not think these men knew anything about him. I talked myself into a fever, and ended, with great modesty and propriety, by disabling all their judgments, at which piece of impertinence they naturally laughed very heartily.
Edinburgh, July 1, 1832.
Dearest H——,
We left London on Wednesday at eight o'clock. The parting between my mother and Dall (who never met again; my dear aunt died in America, in the second year of our stay there), and myself and my dear little sister, was most bitter.... John came down to Greenwich with us, but would not come on board the steamboat. He stood on the shore and I at the ship's side, looking at what I knew was him, though my eyes could distinguish none of his features from the distance. My poor mother stood crying by my side, and bade me send him away. I gave him one signal, which he returned, and then ran up the beach, and was gone!—gone for two years, perhaps more; perhaps gone from me forever in this world!...
We shall be in Liverpool on Monday morning, the 16th of July, and go to Radley's Hotel, where I hope we shall find you on our arrival. My father is pretty well, in spite of all the late anxieties and annoyances he has had to wade through. In the course of the day preceding our departure from London two arrests were served upon him by creditors of the theater, who, I suppose, think when he is gone the whole concern must collapse and fall to pieces, and I began to think some means would be devised to prevent our leaving England after all. Our parting on Wednesday morning was, as I told you, most miserable.... My poor mother was braver than I had expected; but her parting from us, poor thing, is yet to come.
I found a letter from Emily Fitzhugh here, inclosing one as an introduction to a lady in New York, who had once been her friend.... Edinburgh is lovely and dear, and peace and quiet and repose are always found by me near my dear Mrs. Harry Siddons; but my heart is, oh, so sad!... Pray answer this directly. The time is at hand when the quickest "directly" in our correspondence will be three months.