Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sydney Owenson to Lady Margaret Stanley, [1809]
[No date.]
I have not answered your letter immediately, dear lady,
first, because you advise me not to be in too great a hurry, and next, because
I did not find myself worthy to answer it; but, nevertheless, it has been a
precious letter to me, it is full of the heart that I love ![]()
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and the spirit I
admire; it raises me in my own estimation, and I turn to it as my resource
against that internal oppression which at intervals
preys on me so heavily; it is but too true, dearest friend, I feel that, young
as I am, I have lived long enough; my existence (made up of epochs) has given a
high and false tone to my feelings, which calls for that excitation no longer to be obtained. I live in a state of
torpor—nothing touches me—and I resemble some unfortunate animal
whom experimental philosophy has placed in an exhauster,
with this difference, that it is still susceptible of vital powers, but that I
am beyond the possibility of renovation. This will all seem romance to you, and
you will laugh; but were I sitting with you over the fire, I could make you
understand me, though I know it would not be easy to make you feel with me; you, who bear about you the animation of the greenest
youth! My general apathy enters into my feeling for Ida. I know she is
published, et voilà tout! I
dined yesterday at my Lord Arran’s,
Mrs. Mason was of the party, and I was delighted to be
with persons who had seen and know something of you. Just as I had received
your last letter, Lady Charlemont came to
sit with me, and brought her little boy, Viscount
Caulfield with her; it was in vain I sought for your letter, and
it was many days before I found it, as my sister’s maid had carried it
away with some papers. I, however, repeated verbatim to her Ladyship, the
flattering things you said of her; so deserved by her, and so happily expressed
by you. Dublin is atrabilaire, and
though I am asked to what-![]()
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ever is going on, I scarcely
appear anywhere, except at les petites
soirées of the dear Psyche.
S. O.
Mary Tighe [née Blachford] (1772-1810)
Irish poet, the daughter of William Blachford; in 1793 she married Henry Tighe
(1768-1836); following her death from consumption her poem
Psyche
obtained great renown.
