The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 16: 1832-36
John Gibson Lockhart to Abraham Hayward, 3 March 1845
“March 3, 1845.
“Dear Hayward,—I
believe there was about as much cause for an apology from me to you as from you
to me—at least we both lost our temper, and it signifies little which
soonest or most. I was extremely unwell all yesterday, and therefore hope you
will forget all my part of the mischief, as I do yours—with sincere
thanks for your prompt and kind note.
“Since I am writing, let me say distinctly that I
used the word gentleman, in reference to a most amiable
man, in its heraldic sense only; though my acquaintance
with him is very slight, I believe he is most entirely a gentleman in every
other and better sense of the term; and I am sure you never dreamt that I
meant, in reference to his wife, to insinuate that she was not, by every
personal circumstance, ![]()
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entitled to
the position which, however, in my perhaps erroneous opinion, she owes to the
literary merit generally acknowledged by the world. I was, I own, vexed, under
Mrs. N.’s roof, and in the presence of
Mrs. H. and Sir A. Gordon, to
hear a literary man echo the complaint of something like a prejudice against
literary men being entertained among the higher circles of English society. I
don’t believe any such feeling lingers among them. It is, I daresay, very
true that people of consequence in their own province, who find themselves of
no consequence here, regard with some spleen the ready access which science or
literature affords to the fine houses of which they themselves hardly ever see
more than the outside. But I think, on reflection, you will also allow that if
these rural dignitaries wished to strengthen their own complaint, they might
with perfect justice say that science and literature are flattered by the
aristocracy—the real aristocracy—in a degree remarkably contrasted
with their social treatment of the great professions themselves. If you find,
in fact, that a clergyman, a physician, a surgeon, has made his way into the
fashionable circles here, you will find that this has been so because of his
having earned an extra professional reputation. How many now of the eminent
doctors and divines in this town can be said to move in the sort of society you
consider as the thing? Does any lawyer mix in it, unless he has made himself
distinguished either in politics or in letters?
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LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
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“I have pretty well done with the beau-monde, and have no pleasure at all in
it, though I am not so foolish or so improvident (being a father) as to desire
to drop wholly out of it. You are younger, and will, I hope, long be much gayer
than I am. But I was thinking most of Kinglake, who has just begun to see the interior of life in the
West End—who enters the scene with something like radical feelings—and whom I should like to form his own opinion
on matters of this class, without a preliminary impression that we Tories of
his order do seriously at heart attribute to our worldly superiors a species of
prejudice which, I do believe, has no existence whatever—quite the
reverse.—Ever yours, very truly,
Abraham Hayward (1801-1884)
English barrister and essayist who contributed to the
Quarterly
Review and wrote
The Art of Dining (1852); his translation
of Goethe's
Faust was published in 1833.
Alexander William Kinglake (1809-1891)
Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he traveled in the East and published
Eōthen (1844) and
The Invasion of the
Crimea, 8 vols (1863-87).
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)
Editor of the
Quarterly Review (1825-1853); son-in-law of Walter
Scott and author of the
Life of Scott 5 vols (1838).
