“Will Miss Cobbe kindly pardon the liberty taken by a reader of her delightful ‘Town and Country Mouse’ in venturing to substitute the true version of Sir George Lewis’ too famous dictum?
“In the hearing of the writer he was asked (by one of his subordinates in the Government) as they were getting into the train, returning to town,
“‘Well! How do you like life in Herefordshire?’
“‘Ah! It would be very tolerable, if it were not for the Amusements’—was his reply.
“Miss Cobbe has high Authority for the mis-quotation: for the Times invariably commits it; and the present writer has again and again intended to correct it, and failed to execute the intention.
“If they are pleasures, they are pleasures; and the paradox is absurd, instead of amusing; but the oppressive stupidity of many of the ‘Amusements’ (to the Author of ‘Influence of Authority,’ &c.!) may well call up in the mind the sort of amiable cynicism, which was a feature of his own character.
“On arriving late and unexpectedly at home for a fortnight’s Rest, he found his own study occupied by two young ladies (sisters) as a Bedroom—it being the night of Lady Theresa’s Ball! With his exquisite good nature he simply set about finding some other roost; and all the complaint he ever made was that, which has become perhaps not too famous!”
At the time of the Franco-Prussian war, as will be remembered by everyone living at the time in London, the cleavage between the sympathisers with the two contending countries was almost as sharp as it had previously been during the American War between the partizans of the North and of the South. Dean Stanley was one of our friends who took warmly the side of the Germans, and I naturally sent him a letter I had received from a Frenchman whom we both respected, remonstrating rather bitterly against the attitude of England. The Dean, in returning M. P.’s letter wrote as follows[[24]]:—
“Deanery, March 25th, 1871.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,