Many thanks for your valuable critical emendations, which have been duly and thankfully introduced. I fear my liberal education and foreign travel will never enable me to spell either my own or any other language. You can form no idea how very difficult it is for a hasty, currente calamo, slipshod writer like me to form a critical, sober, proper style. That stile is always in my way, as it is in the country; I shall never, I fear, change my old into the new stile, nor get my writing stile, stilus, sufficiently pointed, although whetted on so excellent a bone as your Excellency is. You are quite qualified to be the Editor of the Quarterly Review, and I wish you were, for I wonder Lockhart overlooks the manifest flaws you detect.
I am by no means averse to the limæ labor, and am really anxious to turn out my wares in a workmanlike manner; I often take more pains with them than you or my readers will give me credit for.
Between July 1837 and April 1838 Ford contributed nothing to the Review. Beyond putting the final touches to articles already prepared for the press, his pen was idle. He had become engaged to a lady whom he had known intimately for several years, the Hon. Eliza Cranstoun, sister of the tenth Lord Cranstoun. On October 7th, 1837, he writes of his engagement to Addington:
As the affair has been the unceasing nine days’ wonder of this part of the world, it is no longer a secret, and has been duly communicated to Lord Essex. Therefore you may participate to the fair partner of your joys the important secret so long concealed in the diplomatic depths of your silent bosom, “un secreto de importanza.” I hope in due time that these ladies will meet, and like each other, and be equally of opinion, that no men make such excellent, super-excellent husbands as those who have lived in the world, been in Spain, and not been there for three or four years.
Be assured that there is no truth in my selling my Alhambra. My Sultana, who disposes of me, and my house, and all, is pleased with the idea of leading a loving, rational, quiet life there. The Moorish tower is finished, and covered with arabesque Lienzo work, and is prettier than the Puerta del Vino of the Alhambra.
The marriage took place February 24th, 1838, and Mr. and Mrs. Ford began life together at Heavitree.
Heavitree, March 6, 1838.
Your kind and friendly letter (as all indeed have been and are) was duly and gratefully received by me, and dutifully communicated to that sweet person in whose keeping I have placed myself and my happiness, and, having done so, my perturbed spirit is at rest. This ceremony took place on the 24th, at Stoke Gabriel, a beautiful little hamlet in one of those quiet sequestered nooks on the Dart, where the woods slope into the clear waters, a locality dulces qui suadet amores. She was very nervous and affected, but went through the trying scene with that purity, grace, and propriety which mark all she says or does. I was nervous, but very collected, and think few men were more aware than I was, how much and entirely the future depends on the husband. I am not afraid of myself, and less of her. We returned to Sandridge, and in the afternoon proceeded quietly to this quiet cell, gladdened with the sunny presence of a cheerful, contented mistress. She is highly pleased with her abode and (I am pleased to say) with the master. All is placed at her disposicion. Indeed, since you were here so much has been done, internally and externally, that you would not know the place. I am in hopes, now there is a fit personage to receive her, that some day die gnädige Frau Gesandterrinn (C.P.B.) will honour this (her) house. The Moorish trellis-walk and the tower are worth seeing. We are expecting Lord Cranstoun here to-day, and King on the 10th. Strange that he should come to witness my hymeneals, as we did his. We shall then proceed reluctantly to London. I have got rid of my house in Jermyn Street at a sad loss of coin, but a great gain of peace. I am still hampered with the Casita in Lowndes Street, where my children are. I hope this year to get rid of that, and then to pitch my tent here, far from the opes strepitumque Romæ. I am going to build a small Britzka, and have bought another nag, which goes well in harness with my old horse, you will remember. Madame rides well, and has a beautiful horse which her brother has given her. We think of driving up to town, and be not therefore surprised at an intimation that we may take you in the way for a night. I will present you to my spouse, and you will do me the same service by yours, to whom I in anticipation offer my profound respects. I meditate an article on Spanish Heraldry and on Bull-fighting. So farewell. Cherish your spouse, and think no more of the past nor las tierras calientes.
The two articles to which Ford alludes at the close of the letter were published before the end of the year. Both were full of curious information gleaned from a wide field. The article on “Bull Fights” is remarkably complete and exhaustive, and is especially interesting from the personal observation which lightens the historical details. Before publication it had been submitted to Addington for criticism.
Heavitree, Aug. 16, 1838.