Carlyle in 1839
(By D’Orsay)
[TO FACE PAGE 188
XVIII
MORE FRIENDS
Not only in the sports of the town but also in those of the country, and with equal success, did D’Orsay indulge, paying many a pleasant country visit. Thus in January 1840 he was down in Staffordshire hunting and shooting with Lord Anglesey, Lord Hatherston and other good sportsmen, and at the end of the same year he spent some weeks in the country with Lord Chesterfield. At Chesterfield House in town, too, D’Orsay passed many a pleasant hour with the generous, kindly Earl.
D’Orsay had a fondness for the theatre, both the regions before and behind the curtain, and for those connected with it in any way. J. R. Planché, herald, dramatist and student of costume, was at Gore House on 6th May 1840, there being a brilliant company and much bright talk. Bright companions and gay converse: no wonder that D’Orsay said that “he had never known the meaning of the word ennui.” To the production of Lytton’s Money D’Orsay lent a hand in 1840, helping Macready in various ways to secure an accurate representation of club-life and so forth, introducing the actor to his hatter and so forth, and showing the innocent man how play-accounts and so forth were kept. Actors in those days must have been as innocent of the ways of the world as statesmen and politicians are in these times.