TO A FRIEND.
Cheltenham, Sept. 20, 1812.
Before you can read this letter, I earnestly hope the stream of your domestic happiness will have returned to its own clear and unruffled course. That any circumstance has disturbed it, I much lament; but I am sure it is not necessary to remind you how often an event which has approached us under an unpleasing form, has become afterwards one of the primary sources of our happiness; and it is only to the form, to the dress, if I may so express myself, of what has occurred, that your maternal heart can object. Virtuous love, that great blessing of human existence—I should say greatest, if I were not a mother—always appears in my eyes still more virtuous when it is founded on an intimacy and knowledge of each other commenced in childhood or early youth. One is sure in this case that intellectual and moral qualities have had the principal share in producing it; for such an intercourse precludes all illusion, all deception from the imagination; and none but the truly amiable and excellent are likely in this situation to feel a mutual passion. Allow me, then, my dear friend, to offer you my congratulations. I am not surprised that —— should feel herself pained, because every point in the manner of ——’s marriage is not exactly what you could desire. At that age one expects all the occurrences of life to accord perfectly with one’s wishes, and the lightest deviation from these discomposes the youthful mind; but when experience has shown that there is no light without shade, that the brightest summer has its passing clouds, one scarcely bestows a thought on slight and transient mortifications, which only remind one that earth is not heaven.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
Cheltenham, Sept. 22, 1812.
I pay nine guineas a week, which I see is three too much; but I must submit to the law of necessity, and the inconvenience attendant on having been taught, for more than the first half of my life, that it was a disgrace to know how to make a bargain—as silly an idea as can be grafted on the mind of youth, and one I will take care my children shall not be encumbered with. Indeed, they will see that one of the most liberal and dignified of men is perfectly well qualified to do himself the same justice he would do to another, which is all that is necessary. It is not generosity that ever prevented any sensible person from making a bargain, but timidity, want of aplomb, false shame, and a desire to please by facility and yielding.
There are much the same set of people here as last year—Mrs. Fitzherbert among them, who was judiciously invited to a fête by Col. —— in honour of the Princess Charlotte’s birthday. He first treated Mrs. F. as Regentess, by leading her into the supper-room before all the women of rank, and then gave toasts and made orations upon the merits of the Prince and Princess, and the lovely fruit of their union. Was ever such folly, inconsistency, and want of feeling? On the whole, the society here is bad, but the walks, air, and water are delightful. I long to see my own coronet of jewels once more on its emerald ground; above all, to assure myself that the last little pearl is as round and perfect as when I left her.