May 10th.
London is very gay now…. To give you some idea how we go on, I will mention some of our engagements. To-night Opera; tomorrow, concerts at Mrs Boehms and Lady Castlereagh's; Thursday, Dow. Lady Glyn, Lady de Crespygny musick, and Lady Westmorland's; Saturday, Opera; 23rd., 24th and 26th Balls. On Friday, of course, there are cards, but I shall not go out on account of its being the funeral of our justly-lamented friend.
CHAPTER III
1806-1807
ON DITS FROM YORKSHIRE, LONDON AND RAMSGATE
Three years before his death, in the midst of the stress and labour which was undermining his bodily strength, Collingwood had written with regard to this same wearing anxiety—"My astonishment is to find that in England this does not seem to enter into the minds of the people, or at least not to interrupt their gaieties. England on the verge of ruin requires the care of all; but when that all is divided and contending for power, then it is that the foundation shakes."
To the lonely Admiral tossing on the ocean of his exile, absorbed in that mighty problem of England's defence, the attitude of his countrymen at home—their callousness and absorption in trivialities—had seemed well- nigh incredible. But propinquity affects proportion, and as a small object close at hand looms larger to the eye than a vast object upon a distant horizon, so the anomaly continued to be witnessed in England which has often formed part of the history of nations. Possibly one of the strangest phases of the French Revolution was that in which—while heads fell daily and the land ran blood—the round of theatres continued without interruption and the existence of a certain section of the public remained undisturbed. Thus it is not surprising to find, after the storm of feeling which was roused by the Battle of Trafalgar, how quickly personal interests superseded national, and the social life of the country reverted placidly to its normal groove.
True that Nelson's great victory, even while it had dealt a final and shattering blow to Napoleon's maritime power, had not been fraught with the vast consequences which in the moment of exultation it was fondly believed had been achieved. Bonaparte's supremacy in Europe remained unshaken, and his victory of Austerlitz, following hard upon Trafalgar, minimised the latter, while it crushed with despair the dying heart of Pitt. As we have seen, that year dawned darkly which was to witness the death of two of England's foremost statesmen, the great Tory in January, the great Whig in September; but while, big with import, history traced the tale of such giant upheavals in the national life, in strange contrast comes the quiet ripple of contemporary gossip.
"The Prince," wrote Mrs Stanhope from Yorkshire in the middle of September, "returns to attend Fox's funeral & then has said he will immediately come back to make his promised visits to Wentworth, Raby and Castle Howard." On the 20th of September Marianne wrote to her brother an account of H.R.H. attending Doncaster Races.
Doncaster Races were not near so splendid as they were expected to have been, few south country people, none of distinction.