“If you wish to take any home, I shall be happy to lend them, knowing you to be careful,” she writes to Miss Swinburne. “I have been obliged to give it up here, for if you could have seen some that were returned to me you would have been disgusted; I was quite provoked.”
Unhappily, the ill-usage of books is not confined to Germany. On many matters strong common-sense opinions are expressed. She does not accept exaggerated local gossip; and though she never had measles, she says, “I have no fears, I trust in God, and don’t let myself think about catching anything, otherwise I should be miserable.”
We have glimpses of Brighton as it was sixty or seventy years ago, when the reigning sovereign had a palace there.
“It appears as if it was a petty London, and all the fine ladies come down in parties to enjoy a few days of the sea and back again in no time,” writes the Princess in December, 1832.
There was a great procession to celebrate the town being made into a parliamentary borough by the Reform Bill of 1832; but “why they would not turn it at once into a marine city or town, I cannot think. It was large enough when I was there and now much increased.”
Early in 1835 we find the Princess at the Pavilion on a visit to her brother William IV.
“I generally drive out with my brother,” she writes. “He goes out, and stays out till the lamps are well lighted, when we come in; to-day the dear Queen is gone with him, so I may remain quiet.”
Political feeling still ran high, but Princess Elizabeth confessed to hating politics. “I had rather talk of winter potatoes, though a very mealy subject.”
In 1833, being over sixty, she realised that she was growing old.
“I am still from all accounts a fine old lady,” she remarks. “My looking-glass tells me at times rather tall, and I say to you with truth that no one enjoys more their old age than me, and am convinced that I have been a much happier being since the spring and summer of life are over—so many things I do and can do without bearing anything unpleasant.” She was able even to wear a winter tippet which her sister Augusta presented. “I look like a bear in it; but what signifies looks when health is in question?”