MY DEAREST THERESA, It is obvious that I must write and wish you and yours a happy New Year, and a great many of them, and one happier than the other; but barring that I do not see that I have anything else to say. London is so utterly empty during Christmas week, everybody thinking it right to go to somebody else's house, and it is always the most solitary week of the year to me. But I feel so comfortable in the thought that I am not pa.s.sing it in bed as I have for the twelve preceding years, that it seems to me a singularly merry Christmas.

I suppose you are all rehearsing and acting. Lady Derby writes word that she hears Alice[585] is well enough now to think of acting on the 11th, so I hope she has made great progress in health since she got home. Lady Derby gives rather a poor account of him; he gains strength so slowly, but she says that after being confined to his own room for three months, he was now able to get about the house at times....

The only two people I have seen this week have been Lord Brougham and Sir C. Wood.[586] Lord Brougham was only in town for two nights on his way to Cannes. He is quite enthusiastic about my father's papers, and has written something about them in the _Law Review_, and he was rather good-humoured and pleasant. But on going away he always cries so much at the prospect of our not meeting again, that he leaves me in a puzzled state of low spirits. All the more, that I have not the remotest idea whether it is his death or mine that he is crying over; but he looks so well, I think it must be mine.

By the bye, your old Dean Milman[587] came hobbling into the room on Sat.u.r.day, full of abject apologies to Lena, whom he chose to suppose he had affronted, and taking great care to ignore his real grand sin of abducting the papers without asking leave. However, he came to say that he was most agreeably surprised that Mr. Hogge has done his part well,[588] and that he and Mrs. Milman had been greatly interested, etc., which she amply confirmed. I like her very much, and she is still so handsome.... Good-bye, dearest. I did not write sooner, as I had just written to the Grove when your letter came, and as everything is public property there, this counts for a letter to Lord Clarendon as well as to you. Your affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to her Niece, Mrs. d.i.c.kinson._[589]

EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE [1864].

MY DEAR MRS. d.i.c.kINSON, I am charmed with your letter, I wanted to have one from you. Dear old Longleat! I should so like to see it again. I pa.s.sed so much of my youth so very happily there, and I do not think I ever attained loving anybody more than Lady Bath,[590]--not this one[591]--but her mother-in-law, and the daughters pay back to me the affection I had for their mother....

I suppose they told you about the Horticultural Fete? I saw and heard nothing but the crash of carriages, and linkmen went on screaming for them till nine at night. I have not heard linkmen screaming for the last thirteen years.

Yesterday Lena got leave from one of her friends working in the garden, to bring me in thro' a little obscure door into the great conservatory, which we had to ourselves, and I really could hardly believe the flowers were real, they were so unearthly beautiful, particularly the geraniums and roses, great round stools of flowers of the brightest colours. Some day I have a fancy that I shall be well enough to go down and visit you, my old pet. What a bore for you! Your aff.

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

_March_ [1865].

MY DEAREST FRIEND, I would rather write to you myself. I am so thankful I saw and took leave of dear Mary. She wished it so much herself, and was as loving and as dear as ever. You know we had always been the greatest friends of the family, and till I went to India, we had never missed for a single day writing to each other. It was an intimacy that only two sisters nearly of an age can have, and she referred to it again on Tuesday, and told me still to be a mother to her children. They always _have_ been like my own children. But I am most thankful I was able to witness such a really happy deathbed as hers, so calm, so peaceful, and her mind as entirely clear as it ever was in its best days. And to see those six tall sons, four daughters-in-law, and her three daughters all round her bed, the sons more overwhelmed even than the daughters, and she thanking them, and saying how happy they had made her, it was a scene that quite comforts me for her loss, and her poor daughters had quite the same feeling. I saw them yesterday after the case was hopeless and they were quite calm.

Dearest Theresa,[592] I do not think it good for you just now to go through more melancholy scenes, otherwise you are one of the few I should like to see. I _depend_ on you so much. Is it not strange that with my health I should have outlived my six sisters--all, except Lady G.o.dolphin, in perfect health when I came from India? Ever, dearest, your affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. d.i.c.kinson._

EDEN LODGE, 1863.

I have been out only four times since I came to London. The very ordinary looking women who inhabit London at this time of year, with last year's dirty little bonnets put at the back of last year's dirty little faces, and with dirty gowns to match spread over absurd hoops, make me quite uncomfortable.

The "Semi-Attached Couple" was written in that little cottage at Ham Common. I do not exactly know who Mrs. B. was at this moment, but all our Camp ladies were always lying-in, and it is a very easy business in India.

I do not exactly see unless I turn back, and grow young again, that I shall ever visit you at Berkley,[593]--Richmond is looked upon by doctors as an immense journey for me. I am very much pleased my book altogether amused you. I have such quant.i.ties of old letters of thanks for it, from people I had forgotten. I had a grand letter from Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes) in praise of my pure facile English, among other things _Slang_ was not invented in my day.

You are quite right to make your children's childhood happy, and as merry as possible, but please do not spoil them. Life does not spoil anybody, and so teach them early to take it as it comes--cheerfully.

Your aff.

E. E.

[Miss Eden died in August 1869: her friend Lady Campbell three months later.]