I had a letter from T——; he had not yet received either of mine, and knew nothing of Philadelphia or any of its inhabitants. He seems to think the Oregon question very black, and that the aspect of affairs on both sides of the water threatens war....
My father now talks of reading in every direction as soon as I am gone—Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh; the latter place he told me he thought he should go to in March; and then again, every now and then, he says, as soon as he can settle his affairs he shall come after me, as he should like to be in Rome at Easter to get the Pope's blessing. God bless you with a better blessing, my dearest Hal!
Ever yours,
Fanny.
... Charles Greville has given me a book of his to read: it is very well written and interests me a good deal; it is upon the policy of England towards Ireland. He so habitually in conversation deals in the merest gossip, and what appears to me to be the most worldly, and therefore superficial, view of things, that I am agreeably surprised by the ability displayed in his book; for though it is not in any way extraordinary, it is in every way beyond what I expected from him.
[The direct railroad routes through France are now followed by all travellers to Italy, and the picturesque coach-road which I took from Orleans to Autun at this time, when they did not exist, is little likely to draw wayfarers aside from them; nor was the season of the year when I made that journey at all a favorable one in which to visit the forest and mountain region of the Nivernais. I was snowed up at a miserable little village among the hills called Château Chinon; the diligences were unable for several days to come up thither, the roads being impassable, and I had to make my way through the picturesque wild region in a miserable species of dilapidated cabriolet, furnished me at an exorbitant price from Château Chinon to Autun, where I was again picked up by the diligence.]
Thursday, December 18th, 1845.
My dearest Hal,
MRS. JAMESON. I leave London the day after to-morrow for Southampton. I am full of calls, bills, visits, sorrow, perplexity, and nervous agitation, which all this hurry and bustle increase tenfold; letters to write, too, for the American post is in, and has brought me four from the other side of the water to deal with. In the middle of all this, Mrs. Jameson sends me long letters of Sarah Grant's and Mary Patterson's to read, which prove most distinctly to my mind that she, Mrs. Jameson, wishes to write a memoir of Mrs. Harry Siddons; but do not at all prove so distinctly to my mind that Mrs. Harry Siddons wished a memoir of herself to be written by Mrs. Jameson. So all this I have had to wade through, and shall have to answer, wondering all the while what under the sun it matters what I think about the whole concern, or why people care one straw what people's opinions are about them, or what they do.
My opinion about memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, lives, letters, and books in general indeed, Mrs. Jameson is perfectly familiar with; and therefore her making me go through this voluminous correspondence just now, when she knows how pressed I am for time, seems to me a little unmerciful; but, however, I've done it, that's one comfort.