Emily Eden

“ MY DEAREST SISTER, We are now quite alone for the first time since I came—that is, the Wynns are here still, but they are part of being alone, and we have never before been so few, and I must say that it is uncommonly pleasant after so much company. The mere comfort of being able to go about the house with rough hair, or a tumbled frill, and in an old black gown, is not to be despised, and there is some pleasure in taking up a book in the evening and yawning over it, and then saying anything that comes uppermost, without thinking. ”

“ As for ever caring for a dog as I did for poor dear Chance, the thing is impossible. I do not believe there ever was so clever a dog, and very few equally clever men; and then, after eight years of such a rambling life, we have had so many recollections in common, and he was such a well-known character in India. I had no great fancy to have another; but we are alone so many hours of the day that a pet is almost a necessity, and a Doctor Young, who is just come from England, hearing I had lost Chance, very politely sent me a little English spaniel he had brought with him. ”

“ I have been passing a fortnight at Panshanger—went with George for three days, and then Lady Cowper made me stay on. It is a most difficult house to get away from, partly because it is so pleasant, and then that her dawdling way of saying, “Oh no, you can’t go, I always understood you were to stay till we go to Brighton,” is more unanswerable than all the cordiality of half the boisterous friends, who beg and pray, and say all the kind thoughts that they can think of. ”

“ London has been an ugly-looking sight. We drove up to it most days to see George, and to take him down to the House, because I like to see him safe thro’ the crowd.
Women in London have made themselves so extremely ridiculous and conspicuous, by their party violence, and I have no reason for thinking I should have been wiser than others, if I had been in the same state of excitement. Besides, it is such a bore to be very eager, it tires me to death, and yet one catches it, if other people have the same complaint. ”

“ But it was funny to see the crowds of old men and beasts the advance guard had stopped, camels and elephants innumerable, our own band, several hundreds of grass-cutters’ ponies laden with grass for sale, palanquins full of small half-caste babies, everybody’s pet dog with their bearers, sofas and arm-chairs. My own tame pheasants in their wooden house I saw in the mêlée.
Marching disagrees so much with me, that by the doctor’s advice, and George’s desire, I leave the camp at Agra, and go straight down to Calcutta, where I hope to be the middle of February. ”

“ Drummond.
ADMIRALTY,
Saturday [September 1835] .
My very dear Mary, Your note was a sad blow to me; but perhaps it is best that we should so have parted, and I am very thankful that we should have had this week together. I am thankful for many things—that we love each other so entirely; that you have a husband who has been so invariably kind to all of us, and whom I can love in return; and then, that your girls seem to me like real friends, and almost like my own children. All these are great goods and absence cannot touch them. God bless you, my darling Sister. ”

“ He is quite a darling, mouth and all. The first day I saw him I thought of your face and laughed; but we are now inseparable. He is so natural, so good-natured, and does love nonsense. You would delight in him. The Macdonalds have been here, and they are no loss. She is so very dull, oh dear!—and they are much too newly married to be fit for society.... I take long walks with my dear Lord Lansdowne. Emmy, he is so good, and so knowledgeful, and so liberal, I think he is the most liberal man I ever met with at all, in taste as well as principle. ”

“ All my neighbours far gone in liver complaints and buried in bile, so that I have kept aloof from all, when they did not want me, and we are so very, very quiet here, I almost fancy I must be grown deaf, for I suppose the world is still in a bustle, and going on. No letters, no murder, no crimes.
What a retention of correspondence this cessation of franks seems to have caused: when shall we see our wholesome days again?
Emkins, Holland will never do. Why? When, shall I see you? Why can’t you stay where you are? Your brother George is like an âme en peine; he can’t abide nowhere. ”

“ But then that horrid old wretch the sun comes ranting up; the tents get baked through; and all through the camp there is a general moulting of fur shoes and merino and shawls, then an outcry for muslin, and then for a Punkah to give us breath. We cannot go out till it is nearly dark; and then about dinner-time, when we cross over from our private tents to the great dining-room, we want cloaks and boas and all sorts of comforts again. Those cold hours of the day are very English and pleasant.
I hate my tent and so does George. ”

“ Lady Campbell to Miss Eden.
1834.
I am over head and ears in your affairs. I have so much the bump of speculation and lottery in my soul that I am decidedly of your opinion, and would at once keep Greenwich and the Thames, than put my head under that very excellent and comfortable extinguisher of the Exchequer, particularly if my head were as bien meublée and well arranged as your George’s small crop-eared shaven little crown. We always dressed our heads alike outside, no curls. I would most certainly take my chance and not dowager myself into the Exchequer.... ”

“ We are all enjoying the thoughts of this journey—not that I shall ever believe till I have tried that it is really true a tent can be as comfortable as Government House, with its thick walls and deep verandah and closed shutters. Still, we shall be travelling to a better climate, and that is everything. Then there will be eligible sketching, both buildings and figures, and we shall have occasional days of quiet and solitude. And once up in the mountains I expect to be quite strong again, and there is actual happiness in mountain air, independent of all other comfort. ”

“ Our public affairs are prospering much, but I will not bore you with details. We really are within sight of going home, dearest Theresa, but it makes me shiver to think of it. I am so afraid something will happen to prevent it.
I do not count Simla as any grievance—nice climate, beautiful place, constant fresh air, active clergymen, plenty of fleas, not much society, everything that is desirable; and when we leave it, we shall only have a year and a half of India. The march is a bad bit; I am always ill marching, and our hot season in Calcutta makes me simmer to think of it. ”

“ I cannot think how any clever man who has not estate enough to find his property an occupation, can consent to be thrown by his own choice out of all professions. I should be a lawyer to-morrow if I were Lawrence Peel, or a lawyer’s wife if I were Lady Jane. She might persuade him into it I am sure, if she would try, and it would be so much better economy than consulting Doctor Mayo three times a day, which he does sometimes.
There is nobody here but Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, and Mr. Newton the painter, and one of the sons of the house. ”

“ However, if it had been possible, George would have taken me to her, and there is no use in murmuring at impossibilities. God knows I can enter into her feelings as a sister; and now that she has so much sickness in her home, it is cruel to leave her with a half-broken heart to struggle through it by herself. And yet I do not see how it is to be managed. Pamela writes but little of the scenes she has been through. She says she cannot endure to express her feelings in writing, though she thinks she would be better if she could talk it over. ”

“ These mountains are very beautiful, but not so picturesque, I think, as the Pyrenees—in fact they are too gigantic to be sketchable, and there are no waterfalls, no bridges, no old corners, that make the Pyrenees so picturesque, independent of their ragged shapes. But I love these Himalayas, good old things, all the same, and mean to enjoy these seven months as much as possible to make up for the horrors of the two last years, and as for looking forward, it is no use just now.
I think George will find Calcutta so extravagantly hot that perhaps he will consent to go home sooner. ”

“ I never loved her so well as I do now, and the adoration Anne and Mary have for her exceed what I have ever seen, astonishing too that they dwell constantly on the idea that they are nothing to her compared to Amabel. What is to become of her when all is over? It will make a complete change in her whole system of life. Anne and Mary seem to look forward to everything that can be arranged after all is over, to alleviate their mother’s misery; they are excellent girls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I only came to town yesterday, so I know little London news. People are dying rather than otherwise. I do not know whether there is much else going on. There is the Drawing-room to-morrow. Malibran has been rather a disappointment to the musical world, I hear, but I have not seen her. F. Robinson pays unremitting court to Lady Emily Cowper. I cannot conceive anything so tiresome, particularly at her age, when, as I remember, the pride of one’s life was to be distinguished by older people than oneself. ”

“ Poor Sarah surprised me more than anybody. She cried a great deal, but was perfectly reasonable in her grief, and has fortunately taken the turn of feeling that it is only by her exertions her poor husband can be supported at all, and she kept repeating all the morning how much worse her calamity might have been, that at all events she had him left and ought not to repine. She thanked Sister, and, in short, nothing could be better than her conduct.
All hours come to an end at last; all griefs find, or make, a place for themselves. ”

“ I am a beast for disliking that man, only everybody has their antipathy born with them. Some don’t like cats, some frogs, and some Lococks. But he is grown so attentive, I repent, and he came on Friday of his own account, and he did not scold me for not being better, and he would not take his guinea, and was altogether full of the most agreeable negatives. I am glad to have seen a doctor once refuse a fee. I felt as if I had earned a guinea. Your ever affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis. ”

“ Drummond’s letters are already much more cheerful from her having all the love-making, trousseau, etc., to write about instead of her health. Little Mary is such a darling—so bright and useful and unselfish, and so buoyantly happy, that I do not see how they are to get on without her. Her letters make me feel almost youthful again. She is so thoroughly pleased with her lot in life. ”

“ I like her; she is so unlike Lady Jersey. Miss P. is something of a failure in every way, except in intrinsic goodness; but she was terrified here, and at all times dull, and as nearly ugly as is lawful. They have been the only ladies. Then, there are dear little Landseer, Mr. Shelley, so like his mama in look, and a great rattle; Lord Chichester, Lord Charles Russell, etc.; and a tribe of names unknown to fame, headed by a Mr. Garrett, who is a rich shooting clergyman with the most suave complacent manners!—one of those appurtenances to a great house I cannot abide. ”

“ I am so disgusted with our foolish laws which could not hang, could not even punish, that William Sheen [254] who cut off his baby’s head. It appears we may all kill any child, so as we call it by a wrong name; and as nursing disagrees with Mary, I have some thoughts of calling her baby Peter Simkins, and cutting off his head as soon as it is born. But I must say that our laws never are of any use when there is a real crime to be punished.
I wonder whether you are still in town. I hope you are. If George makes any engagement for me Friday, I might dine with you, perhaps Saturday. ”

“ He has given up his own happiness as a lost case since the death of his wife, [338] and his whole life is spent in trying to make other people happy. I never saw so gentle a character, and am no longer surprised at George’s attachment to him. It has lasted ever since they were at school together; and as I had never seen much of Lord Ilchester at home, and he was nothing shining in society, I used to wonder why George was so very fond of him. But I see how it is now.
To be sure, an inch of amiability is worth yards of cleverness for the real wear and tear of life. ”

“ Then, after passing a house that is much more like a palace than anything we see in England, we come to a row of mud-thatched huts with wild, black-looking savages squatting in front of them, little black native children running up and down the cocoa-trees above the huts, and no one appearance of civilization that would lead one to guess any European had ever set foot on the land before. ”