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MARIA to MISS RUXTON.
69 WELBECK STREET, LONDON.
Dec. 8, 1830.
All my friends have been kind in writing to me accounts of you, my dear Sophy. You and Margaret are quite right to spend the winter at Black Castle; and the pain you must endure in breaking through all the old associations and deep remembrances will, I trust, be repaid, both in the sense of doing right and in the affection of numbers attached to you.
I spent a fortnight with Sneyd very happily, in spite of mobs and incendiaries. Brandfold is a very pretty place, and to me a very pleasant house. The library, the principal room, has a trellis along the whole front, with 'spagnolette windows opening into it, and a pretty conservatory at the end, with another glass door opening into it. The views seen between the arches of the trellis beautiful; flower-knots in the grass, with stocks, hydrangeas, and crimson and pale China roses in profuse blow. Sneyd enjoys everything about him so much, it is quite delightful to see him in his home. You have heard from Honora of the sense and steadiness with which he resisted the mob at Goudhurst.
I spent a morning and an evening very pleasantly at Lansdowne House. They had begged me to come and drink tea with them in private, and to come early: I went at nine: I had been expected at eight. All Lady Lansdowne's own family, and as she politely said, "All my old friends at Bowood" now living: Miss Fox, Lord John Russell, Lord Auckland, the young Romillys, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Wishaw, Mr. Turner,—whom I must do myself the justice to say I recollected immediately, who showed us the Bank seventeen years ago,—and Conversation Sharpe.
They say that Charles X. is quite at his ease, amusing himself, and not troubling himself about the fate of Polignac, or any of his ministers: there is great danger for them, but still I hope the French will not disgrace this revolution by spilling their blood. Lord Lansdowne mentioned an instance of the present King Louis Philippe's présence d'esprit: a mob in Paris surrounded him—"Que desirez-vous, messieurs?" "Nous désirons Napoléon." "Eh bien, allez donc le trouver." The mob laughed, cheered, and dispersed.
I have seen dear good Joanna Baillie several times, and the Carrs. It has been a great pleasure to me to feel myself so kindly received by those I liked best in London years ago. It is always gratifying to find old friends the same after long absence, but it has been particularly so to me now, when not only the leaves of the pleasures of life fall naturally in its winter, but when the great branches on whom happiness depended are gone.
Dr. Holland's children are very fine, happy-looking children, and he does seem so to enjoy them. His little boy, in reply to the commonplace, aggravating question of