Mr. Van.9 came here to dinner to-day and goes away to-morrow. I wish you would tell me what to say to him just now, for he looks as if he wanted some one to talk to him. Mary and George10 are so busy at chess, and Mama is so interested in the Anarchie de Pologne,11 and I am so tormented by a real, large, green, crawling caterpillar which has found its way to the table and keeps hunting me round it, I have not presence of mind enough left to make out one topic.
Mary has just received Sarah’s12 letter. You perhaps may not know that she [Sarah] is going to change her character to that of a good-natured shilly-shally fellow. She is also thoroughly to understand politics, and is studying Junius, and for want of better society is to get into great habits of intimacy with me. If we were not to change our characters sometimes, there would be rather a sameness in our lives.
George is going to Dropmore and Shottesbrook, but will return home to receive the Colviles, stay here a week longer, and then go for six weeks to Melbury.
He will be a great loss to us, and I cannot but look forward with dread to the long evenings, which used to be so happy, and which will seem so lonely without Him,13 who enlivened them so much.
Good-bye, my dearest Sister. Do not trouble yourself to answer my letters, as a letter to any part of this family does as well for the rest.
MY DEAR SISTER, Charlotte14 has had a good night by the account we received this morning. The baby is wonderfully well.
Lord Francis goes to Newmarket on Sunday, and I am to go to Earl’s Court for a week, and George15 and Willy Osborne come here. It sounds as if we were going to play Puss in the Corner on a grand scale, but I shall be glad to get back to my corner again…
George writes me word that one story about Lady Caroline Lamb16 is, that the separation had been agreed upon, and the articles ready; that Lady Melbourne set out one morning from London to try and arrange matters, and on her arrival she found the happy couple at breakfast, and Lady Caroline drawling out – “William, some more muffin?” – and everything made up.
Mary has grown so fat she can scarcely waddle about, and flatters herself she is looking very well. I remain ever your aff. sister,
(Quite private)
I must just mention that the tucker Ingram made is considered as the most beautiful, elegant, decent, well-behaved, unassuming good sort of tucker in His Majesty’s dominion, and is quite the rage. I am in a fever, which should be called the decent fever, till I can get four dozen made just exactly like it.
Mary has been very busy preparing for her journey, and desires her love to you, and is very much obliged to you for the use of your necklace, bracelet, etc., which she will take great care of.
She has not heard from Miss Milbanke lately, but we hear that Lord Byron is going to be a good boy, and will never be naughty no more, and he is really and truly writing a new version of the Psalms!
MY DEAR EMILY, I must write one line though it is past midnight, and that because nobody writes to poor Emily. Well, I am glad you have got a little gaiety at last.
As for us here, we are as merry as grigs, and as active as flies, and as chatty as the maids. We eat and drink, and work and walk, and shoot and hunt, and talk and laugh, all day long – and I expect my pretty master, you would like the eating and drinking the best of all. Such luncheons! a roast turkey, and hash and potatoes, and apple pudding, and what not, and I stand by and abuse them all for eating, and eat with the best of them.
We have been trying the new experiment of burning clay for manure, and have not above half succeeded – and we have just found an old book, 80 years old, which gives a full and detailed account of what all the wiseacres are all making an outcry about as a new discovery, and as the practice has not been adopted, we are beginning to suspect that its merits are a little exaggerated.
We have a house brimful.
Give my love to all, Vansittart and all, and so good-night, my old boy, for I must go to bed. Your affec. brother,
MY DEAREST SISTER, Mary’s first letter is arrived, so I must begin copying and extracting, and abridging, as if I had never done anything else all my life.
But I must begin by observing that we all parted most heroically on Wednesday morning, not the least in the O’Neil style, but we were all as cool as cucumbers, and as hard-hearted as rocks. (What beautiful similes!) Mary looked very smart, her coat was covered with grey vandykes, which does not sound pretty, but looked very well, and her hat of course matched it exactly. She says they did not arrive at Shottesbrook18 till late, as they went round and round the place several times before the postboy could find the entrance…
We heard from Morton19 the other day, a long account of his gaieties. He has been showing Oxford to the Feildings, and the Meerveldts20 (what a difficult word to spell), and then was invited to go to Middleton with them, where he met the Worcesters, Cowpers, Eustons, and the Duke of Devonshire. We are rather in dread of his return, and to find him grown very fine, which will be an unlucky turn to take…
Mrs. Percival’s21 marriage shocked us all, as we had not heard of it before, but Mrs. Moore sent in word of it, and of the gentleman’s name afterwards. Ever your affec. sister,
MY DEAREST SISTER, We have had two such long letters from Mary (at Bowood). You must be contented with some extracts. She says: “We have almost as few events here as at Eden Farm; in the morning we walk four or five miles, and in the evening everybody reads a little except Lady E. Feilding,22 who walks about disturbing us all. She brought down a great book full of verses and epigrams, that she is collecting all over the world and gathered chiefly at Middleton; she let few of them be read, and screamed and pulled away the book every three minutes in case we should see more than we ought.
There were some pretty things of Lady Cowper’s23 composing, one addressed to her sleeping baby, and another on an Infant that is one of the most beautiful things possible. It seems to be the fashion collecting these things, for Captain Feilding says it was quite ridiculous to see Lady Jersey24 and Lady Cowper, and Lady E. Feilding and two or three others coming down of an evening at Middleton with their great books in satchells like so many schoolboys, and showing each other their ‘little treasures,’ and one saying, ‘May I copy this?’ – ‘No; not unless you will let me copy that.’ – ‘Very