I can derive but little vanity from Lord Melbourne's admiration. I stand very low in the list of his loves, and as for his thinking well of my principles, it would be rather hard if he did not, considering the society he lives in. And he has found out that I am not clever. I like him for that, and for saying so.

Lord Alvanley is utterly ruined again, has given up everything, and his creditors allow him 1200 a year. Poor Colonel Russell[375] leaves 35,000 of debt. What horrid lives of difficulty those men must lead.

We settled in town a week ago, as the drives from Greenwich were becoming cold and dark for George. There are several people in town I know. Maria is looking very well and seems pleased and contented--neither in great spirits, nor otherwise.

We have seen Colonel Arden very often lately; he and Mr. Warrender having been kept in town for the hopeless purpose of arranging Lord Alvanley's affairs. I suspect dear Alvanley is after all little better than a swindler. He writes beautiful letters to Lord Skelmersdale, one of his trustees, and says he feels he deserves all the misery he is suffering, which misery consists in sitting in an arm-chair from breakfast till dinner-time cracking his jokes without ceasing. He has taught his servant to come into the room and ask what time his Lordship would like the carriage, and what orders he has for his groom, because he thinks it sounds cheerful, though he has neither carriage nor horses.

But it looks better. When Brooke Greville was describing to him the beautiful gilding of his house in Hill Street, which is a wonderful concern, Lord Alvanley said, "My dear Brooke, if you would carve a little more, and gild a little less, it would be a more hospitable way of going on." Yours ever

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GREENWICH PARK, _Thursday evening, April 18, 1832._

MY DEAREST THERESA, I should not much wonder if you _were_ coming to the crisis; that feeling so well is suspicious. Never mind; "all things must have their end," as _Isabella_ says in the Tragedy, and "all things must have their beginnings," as your child[376] will probably say if you will give it an opportunity. I quite forgot to mention to you to let it be a girl, I like girls best. I see Mrs. Keppel, to save all disputes, has brought both a boy and girl into the world; but that is such an expensive amus.e.m.e.nt, you would not like that. If it is a boy, you ought to call it Arlington[377] as a delicate attention to Mr. Lister. I mention these little elegant flatteries out of regard to your domestic peace, as from various observations I have lately been driven to make amongst my acquaintances, I do not think wives pay half enough attention to their husbands, though this does not apply to you.

Yes, as you say, that division is satisfactory to Lord Grey,[378] but still if there were a shadow of an excuse for making a dozen Peers without affronting two dozen who _are_ made, I should be glad.

The division was a pleasing surprise to me. I had been awake since four that night, and at last had settled that George must have come home and gone to bed, and that n.o.body had voted for us but just the Cabinet Ministers, and then I heard the house-door bang, and knew by the way in which he rushed up stairs how it was. Now it is over, and that our enemies have not triumphed, I am left with a sort of wish--that is, not a wish, but an idea--that it might have ended (just for fun) the other way. I should so like to know what would have come next. It is all so like a game at chess, and I was anxious to know how Lord Grey would get out of check. However, I am delighted with the game as it is; only it _would_ have been a curious speculation, wouldn't it? I see we are to have longer holidays, which makes me dote upon them all, both Greys and Salisburys, for so arranging it, and George is enchanted with it. He comes to-morrow, which is good for my gardening tastes and bad for my church-going habits.

There are lectures at the church every evening by an excellent preacher, and when George is in town, f.a.n.n.y and I dine early and go to them. But I behaved so ill last night. I was shown into a large pew, a _voiture a huit places_, where there were seven old ladies, highly respectable and attentive, and four of us sat opposite to the other four. The clergyman, the curate of the parish, made a slight allusion to his superior _officer_, the rector, who happens to be ill, and made a commonplace remark on his own inferiority, etc., whereupon one of the old ladies began to cry. The next, seeing that, began to cry too, and so it went all round the pew, but so slowly that the last did not begin to cry till a quarter of an hour _at least_ after she had heard of the rector's illness, and till the sermon was fairly directed against some of the difficulties of St. Paul. Their crying set me off laughing, and you know what a horrid convulsion that sort of suppressed laughter, which one feels to be wrong, turns into. I hope they thought I was crying.

Our hyacinths are too lovely; quite distressing to see how large and double they are, because they will die soon. If they were only single, poor little wretches, it would not signify their lasting so short a time. I think the great fault of the garden is the constant flurry the flowers are in. Perhaps you have not found that out, but fancied they were quiet amus.e.m.e.nts; but that is an error. They either won't come up at all, or they come at the wrong time, and the frost and the sun and the rain and the drought all bother them. And then, the instant they look beautiful, they die. I observe that a genuine fancier, like George, does not care a straw for the flower itself, but merely for the cutting, or the root, or the seed. However, I must say he contrives always to have quant.i.ties of beautiful flowers, hurrying on one after the other.

G.o.d bless you, dearest. I have not much to say, but my sisters all tell me to write just before they lie-in--that anything does for an amus.e.m.e.nt then; so I suppose it is right. Shall I have "Arlington" to-morrow, do you think? Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GREENWICH, _Friday evening, 1832_.

DEAREST THERESA, I shall be charmed to see you any day you like, the sooner the better. Two or three stray people have suggested themselves for various days next week, but I am not sure who are the people, or what days they mean to come. I do not mean anything _pert_ to George, but if he has a fault, it happens to be a total disregard of all notes and messages confided to him. However, I do not know of anybody coming that you would think objectionable. I should have suggested Monday because, as Caroline Montagu (Lord Rokeby's sister) is coming to pa.s.s the day with f.a.n.n.y, she might have brought you, and returned you, which you would probably prefer; but then what is to become of Mr. Lister?

George cannot be here, and though you and I going one way, and f.a.n.n.y and her Caroline the other, and all meeting for dinner would do very nicely, Mr. Lister would be bored out of his life. But any day you please will suit me, so as you can let me know in time to cook a bit of vittals for you.

I went to town yesterday to see Maria[379] and do my congratulations, and I pa.s.sed a long time with her, and am quite satisfied that she is unfeignedly happy and that she really likes him. Sir Joseph[380] cannot control his joy at all, and was very amusing with his account of his own manner to Lord Grey and of Lord Grey's to him. That angel of a man Charles Greville[381] (quite a new light to see him in) gave himself a degree of trouble that astounded me to procure places for us to see Taglioni[382] last night, and he succeeded in fixing us in Devon's box with the Harrowbys and found us a carriage--in short, there never was anything so good-natured. So we stayed and saw her, and drove down here after it was over.

What a wonderful invention she is. I am satisfied now that she is not a mere live woman; but probably she is, as she insinuated in the ballet _La Sylphide_. Monsieur de Voisins sat next to us, and his ecstacies and Bravos, and the rapturous soliloquies he indulged in, have left me with a strong impression of his domestic felicity. To be sure, it is a miracle in our favour, that there should be a man in the world, who is enchanted to see his wife flying about a theatre with no cloathes on, and that that individual should have married Taglioni! Your ever affect.

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GREENWICH PARK, _Thursday evening, July 2, 1832_.

DEAREST THERESA, I found your note when we came home late last night from Richmond, where we had been to pa.s.s the day and dine with the G.

Lamb's; consequently your party was dispersed and you were in a sweet sleep before I knew you had been "at home," and I was in a sweet sleep too, five minutes after I got home, and shall be so again, I hope, as soon as I have sealed this note. These days in the country are wholesome in that respect. We came here very early this morning, did our Churches like good Christians, and have given a dinner like Ditto, for we have a highly conservative party down here, at least what would have been conservative if, as my housekeeper justly observed about the gooseberries, the season for conserving was not gone by.

We have had the Jerseys, Lord Villiers, Lord Carnarvon, and dear C.

Baring-Wall, besides the smart ta.s.sel of young Jersey children. George was as happy as a King with all his old friends, so I am delighted they came, and after all Lady Jersey is very good-humoured.

Lord Carnarvon[383] has a pouting-pigeon way of talking, which is rather amusing, but upon the whole I find Tories rather less lively, or perhaps a shade more dull, than Whigs. They growl more, and do not snap in that lively way I should have expected. However, I am no judge: "man delights not me nor woman either," as dear Hamlet had the candour to observe. He had seen something of society. I daresay he longed to be left to his flowers and his Chiswick, and a comfortable chair under the portico. To be sure his father made a bad business of sleeping in the garden, but then it could not have been so sweet or so full of flowers as ours.

We go back to town to-morrow afternoon, but I begin to see the time coming when we shall settle here. I wish you would take to treat yourself entirely as a sick person for a fortnight. But you won't, so there is no use saying anything about it. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

_Viscount Melbourne[384] to Miss Eden._

WHITEHALL, _August 13, 1832_.

MY DEAR MISS EDEN, Many thanks for your kind enquiries. I have been laid up for a day or two, but am much better, and in tearing spirits, which is always the consequence of being laid up. Abstinence from wine and regularity of diet does me much more good than the malady does me harm.

I hope I shall get into the country soon, for I quite pine for it.

Robert, I am told, is the only man in Hertingfordbury who has registered. Has Lady Francis written to him for theological arguments? I understand that she has been simply defeated in religious dispute by an Atheist of the neighbourhood--a shoemaker, or something of that sort--and has been seeking everywhere for a.s.sistance. The man argued for Natural Philosophy for so long, that she was not prepared to controvert.

Do not the Malignants pour somewhat less malignance, or are they more irritated than ever? Adieu. Yours faithfully,

MELBOURNE.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

_Wednesday_ [_December 1832_].

DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have written you a long letter, but have been interrupted in a thousand ways till it is too late; but perhaps a line will be better than nothing. I was so much obliged to you for writing me that long letter. It told me exactly all I wanted to know about you--your health, your feelings, and also the little particulars I have no means of ascertaining. I never had courage to ask Mr. Villiers even how you are. Don't you know the difficulty there is of approaching even in the slightest degree _the_ subject that one is most anxious about, and as the _surface_ with him is quite calm, I am always careful not to venture even on a word that might disturb it. He and Mr. Edward Villiers dined here yesterday. George is very anxious to have your George here as much as possible, and thought they had better come for their Christmas dinner as their own family is away, so he asked them both, and I was very glad to renew my acquaintance with Edward, though in some respects, from likeness of voice and manner, which probably you would not be aware of, it was painful to see those two come into the room together.

However, they must be a great comfort to each other. I never saw _my_ brother George so occupied with another person's grief as he is in this instance. He is asking and thinking every day what can be done for Mr.

Villiers.[385] G.o.d knows there is nothing; but still I always recollect that in those horrid times of trial, affection from anybody is soothing, if it is nothing more, so I am glad when it is shown.

I was at Oatlands when your letter came, and Lady Charlotte [Greville], who is a kind-hearted person I always think, was most anxious to know all about you and Mrs. Villiers. I thought her very well, all things considered. Lady F.[386] seemed to me particularly out of spirits, and all her letters have been so since her father's death. I imagine, that in addition to any other trials, they are in some trouble about their affairs, or that Lord F. thinks so, and makes himself unhappy, which troubles her.

The Gowers have taken Bridgewater House off their hands. Maria Howick is come back from the North. Everybody talks of her low spirits and constrained manner. Though I do not think her in high spirits, I do not think _I_ see much difference in her. She is probably timid with her new family and her new position, but whenever I see her alone I am quite convinced she does not think herself unhappy, and when she is quite at her ease again I think other people will think so too.

G.o.d bless you, my darling Theresa, I will write again in a few days.

Your ever affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GROSVENOR STREET, _Thursday, December 1832_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I fear that Lord Ribblesdale's[387] death must be to you and Mr. Lister an additional grief, as I recollect you were fond of her, and she seems to have had not the slightest warning of this calamity. It was very kind of Mr. Lister to write to me, for I was in a state of great anxiety about your health and with no near means of hearing anything about you. What can I say to you, dearest? My love for you and my deep, deep pity for your bereavement you cannot doubt, and as for any attempt at consolation, who can be sure that even with the kindest intentions, they may not aggravate the grief they wish to soothe. I always felt in calamity that though I seemed to want kindness from everybody, yet that all they did was like the work of surgeons, the most skilful made the pain of the wound more evident; and I think I may hurt you if I dwell on your loss, or seem neglectful if I do not, and yet I know so well all you must be feeling.