Do not order anything unpleasant, or say anything in the way of reproof to the tenants, while you are in Ireland. Let your arrows fly like the Parthians’.
TO MRS. —— (a god-daughter).
London, March 29, 1820.
You are aware I am acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. —— having given but a reluctant consent to your marriage. This occurs so often in the course of events, without any cause to blame either side, that there is no indelicacy in my mentioning it. All I wish to graft on it is this—You have carried your point; if I may so express myself, you have gained the victory; they are in the novel and irksome situation of having given up their wishes, and given them up to one whom they have been accustomed to expect should yield to them. Let me, then, entreat you not to take the smallest offence at anything that may occur on their part, particularly during this moment of unavoidable irritation; and on your side, recollect that every concession, every small quiet attention, every degree of filial humility, is honourable and becoming to an affectionate daughter and a young wife. Mr. —— will have sufficient complaisance for you cheerfully to concur in this pleasing task. When I think of your dear father’s advanced age, how I grieve there should be a shadow of coldness between him and the beloved of his heart. You may put an end to it when you please. Believe a mother on this head. Our children would be omnipotent in their influence over us, if they knew the effect of the most trifling proof of their affection.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
London, March 29, 1820.
I made my débût as a diner-out at ——’s yesterday. He sacrifices his good sense at the shrine of party, loudly boasting of ultra-Toryism, and crying, ‘My Tory principles go farther than yours; I am really a Tory; I think the Manchester meeting was illegal’ (by the bye, that discussion is quite gone by). This was chiefly addressed to a quiet guest, who avowed different principles, but seemed determined not to argue with his Amphitryon. F——, H——, and his ministerial friends appear to shrink from his assistance, and to deprecate his entering into discussion. Lady R. seemed displeased that Lord —— should be a peer, and Sir John nothing—but a baronet; asked me spitefully where Lady —— was now, as if she was not most probably with her husband. I repaid her by telling her how much the King loved his Lordship, and what fine things his Majesty had said of him to me. She returned this blow by talking of women who died suddenly of water on the chest, and bringing it home to such invalids as I am—and so do ladies carry on the war. Mrs. F. has discovered that our relations came to London too late in life, and had much better fix somewhere else, politely inferring that it will not be in their power to pierce the dense column of good society. She intended to please me, on common family principles.... You may see I have been associating too much with women, having descended from general and elevating subjects to those which are particular and lowering, from la vie intérieure to its opposite.
I sang pretty well, as some tell me with polite surprise; but as I know I must grow old, and am anxious to preserve the amusement of singing a few years longer, I enjoy the sweet, and am insensible to the bitter, of the compliment. The truth is, my timidity, or mauvaise honte, or what you will, is weaker, and less depresses my voice, which therefore seems stronger.