We passed a Sunday at Melrose, and attended an open-air service in the ruins of the ancient abbey. We saw little of Edinburgh besides its buildings, the society people of the place being mostly in villeggiatura. Mr. Sumner had given us letters to two of the law lords. One of these invited us to a seaside dinner at some little distance from town. The other entertained us at his city residence.
Of greater interest was our tour in Ireland. Lord Morpeth had given us some introductions to friends in Dublin. At the same time he had written Mr. Sumner that he hoped Dr. Howe would not in any way become conspicuous as a friend to the Repeal measures which were then much in the public mind. This Repeal portended nothing less than the disruption of the existing political union between Ireland and England. The Dublin Corn Exchange was the place in which Repeal meetings were usually held. We attended one of these. My sister and I had seats in the gallery, which was reserved for ladies. Dr. Howe remained on the floor. This meeting had for one of its objects the acknowledgment of funds recently sent from America. The women who sat near us in the gallery found out, somehow, that we were Americans, and that an American gentleman had accompanied us to the meeting. They insisted upon making this known, and only forbore to do so at our earnest request.
These friends were vehement in their praise of O'Connell, who was the principal speaker of the occasion. "He's the best man, the most religious!" they said; "he communes so often." I remember his appearance well, but can recall nothing of his address. He was tall, blond, and florid, with remarkable vivacity of speech and of expression. His popularity was certainly very great. While he was speaking, a gentleman entered and approached him. "How d'ye do, Tom Steele?" said O'Connell, shaking hands with the new-comer. The audience applauded loudly, Steele being an intimate friend and ally of O'Connell, and, like him, an earnest partisan of Repeal.
Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, had given us a letter to Miss Edgeworth, who resided at some distance from the city of Dublin. From her we soon received an invitation to luncheon, of which we gladly availed ourselves. Our hostess met us with a warm welcome. She had had some correspondence with Dr. Howe, and seemed much pleased to make his acquaintance. I remember her as a little old lady, with an old-fashioned cap and curls. She was very vivacious, and had much to say to Dr. Howe about Laura Bridgman. He in turn asked what she thought of the Repeal movement. She said in reply, "I don't understand what O'Connell really means."
Some one present casually mentioned the new substitution of lard oil for whale oil for use in lamps. Miss Edgeworth said, "I hear that, in consequence of this new fashion, the whale cannot bear the sight of a pig." We met on this occasion a half-brother and a half-sister of Miss Edgeworth, much younger than herself. I think that they must have been twins, so closely did they resemble each other in appearance. At parting Miss Edgeworth gave each of us an etching of Irish peasants, the work of a friend of hers. On the one which she gave to my husband she wrote, "From a lover of truth to a lover of truth."
After leaving Dublin we traveled north as far as the Giant's Causeway. The state of the country was very forlorn. The peasantry lived in wretched hovels of one or two rooms, the floor of mud, the pig taking his ease within doors, and the chickens roosting above the fireplace. Beggars were seen everywhere, and of the most persistent sort. In most places where we stopped for the night, accommodations were far from satisfactory. The safest dishes to order were stirabout and potatoes.
My husband had received an urgent invitation from an Irish nobleman, Lord Walcourt, to visit him at his estate, which was in the south of Ireland. We found Lord Walcourt living very simply, with two young daughters and a baby son. He told my husband that when he first read a book of Fourier, he instantly went over to France to make the acquaintance of the author, whom he greatly admired. "If I had only read on to the end of the book," he said, "I should have seen that Fourier was already dead."
He told us that Lady Walcourt spent much time in London or on the Continent, from which we gathered that country life in Ireland was not much to her taste. Dr. Howe and our host had a good deal of talk together concerning socialistic and other reforms. My sister and I found his housekeeping rather meagre. He was evidently a whole-souled man, but we learned later on that he was considered very eccentric.
A visit to the poet Wordsworth was one of the brilliant visions that floated before my eyes at this time. Mr. Ticknor had kindly furnished us with an introduction to the great man, who was then at the height of his popularity. To criticise Wordsworth and to praise Byron were matters equally unpardonable in the London of that time, when London was, what it has ceased to be, the very heart and centre of the literary world. Of our journey to the lake country I can now recall little, save that its last stage, a drive of ten or more miles from the railway station to the poet's village, was rendered very comfortless by constant showers, and by an ill-broken horse which more than once threatened mischief. Arrived at the inn, my husband called at the Wordsworth residence, and left there his card and the letter of introduction. In return a note was soon sent, inviting us to take tea that evening with Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth.
Our visit was a very disappointing one. The widowed daughter of our host had lost heavily by the failure of certain American securities. These losses formed the sole topic of conversation not only between Wordsworth and Dr. Howe, but also between the ladies of the family, my sister, and myself. The tea to which we had been bidden was simply a cup of tea, served without a table. We bore the harassing conversation as long as we could. The only remark of Wordsworth's which I brought away was this: "The misfortune of Ireland is that it was only a partially conquered country." When we took leave, the poet expressed his willingness to serve us during our stay in his neighborhood. We left it, however, on the following morning, without seeing him or his again.