“Dear Cha,—I heard nothing of Walter’s recall from York until now from you, but all’s well that ends well.
“I suppose I shall see him this week. On Saturday first if possible, if not on Monday, 3rd January, I shall go for two days to Grange, but I don’t look to any other rustications.
“Yesterday I saw Jinny—still in her attic—no man-servant—all in calico mufflings—pretty cheerful with a cadeau from Lord Holland—a little portrait of that pet himself.
“One day I had a fine though small dinner at Lord Lonsdale’s, whose house (a double one by William Gladstone’s) is, after the Duke of Sutherland’s, the most splendid I have seen in London—six drawing-rooms blazing with gold, glass, and real pictures. Below four very large, and three of these gorgeous rooms. In the one where we dined all is either gilding or mirror, save that three or four huge mirrors, filling vast panels, serve as frames to oval pictures of French ladies—very fine heads by Watteau—Du Barry, Pompadour, and the like.
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1 Kingsley repented on reading Miss Brontë’s Life. The whole subject is discussed in Mr. Clement K. Shorter’s “Charlotte Brontë and her Circle.” |
| ELYSIUM | 309 |
“William would think this Elysium, not least one arrangement in the only plain room, viz., push back the Earl’s big chair by his fire, and lift the rug. There is a ring. Lift it, and behold a little narrow trap stair, by which he descends at once into the kitchen to watch the casseroles. The company was suitable—Mrs. Fox Lane, Lord Somerton, and others after their kinds. Yesterday I made up by a quiet meal at the spinster’s—only Widow Sharpe. This week I shall be at home, I think, every day till Saturday.
“I have not seen Badeley on marrying a Deceased Wife’s Sister, but if he prints the argument, of which Christie says there is high laudation, in some acceptable shape, Jim or he should give me an article on the subject one day.
“‘All the world’ seem to be vexed or angry, not with Gladstone’s pro-Jew vote, but with the grounds on which he put it. I half begin to suspect he will lose his Oxford seat, and to be the first man ejected would be a severe mortification.—Yours affectionately,
