Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sydney Owenson to Miss Margaret Featherstone, 15 June 1803
Strabane,
June 15th, 1803.
I was on the point of sitting down to write to you, my
dear little friend, when I received your welcome letter. The cause of my
silence was this: anxious to discharge as much of my debt of obligation as was
dischargeable, I waited for a Mr. Steward who was going to
Dublin, and by whom I meant to send a letter to you, a drawing (which I did
since I came here) to mamma, and the money to papa he was kind enough to pay
for me; however, to my own little disappointment, my commissary is still
philandering in the streets of Strabane. So I am all this time lying under the
imputation of ingratitude and neglect. I hope, however, papa and mamma will add
to all I already owe, by believing that the kindness and friendly attention I
have received from them on every occasion when my interest or welfare has been
concerned, is deeply felt and must always be gratefully acknowledged. My
father, thank Heaven! is quite recovered; but my poor Olivia had a relapse, and by going too lightly
clad at a party at a Dr.
——’s, has brought on a delicacy that has
terrified us with an apprehension of a consumptive habit,—she is but a
shadow of herself. The doctors have ordered perpetual exercise and goat’s
whey. We have got a gig, and mean next week to go and
visit the city of county Londonderry, so fa-![]()
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mous in Irish
history; we shall spend a few days there; and on our return stop for a day at
the races of St. Johnston’s. A thousand times have I wished to have you
and —— here; amidst your level lawns and young plantations you have
no idea of the rude sublimity of our northern scenery. We have no farmers, so,
consequently, no tillage; all is bold, savage and romantic; the manners,
dialect, customs and religion of the people are all as purely Scotch as they
could be in the Highlands, even the better order of people are with difficulty
understood, and the manners of the inferior class are ferocious; there is,
however, a great spirit of independence among them; “every rood of ground
maintains its man,” and there are none of those wretched cabins which you
perpetually see in the other provinces. They call all strangers foreigners or Irish people, and
have not many ideas beyond their wheels and looms. A market day presents a curious scene. The young
women are all dressed in white, with their hair fastened up fancifully enough
and seldom covered. At the entrance of the town they bathe their feet and put
on shoes and stockings which are constantly taken off when they are leaving it.
I have frequently seen them with flowers and feathers in their heads and their
stockings tied up in a handkerchief. In a social sense they are most
unpleasant, and, upon the whole, they are the last people in the world that an
educated person would wish to spend their life with. We have been pretty
fortunate; the rector’s family of Raphoe (a little village near us) have
paid us every friendly attention, and we are ![]()
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frequently
together; this, with a few of the military, make our little circle pleasant
enough. We have music every evening. I bought a very fine Spanish guitar from
the master of the band here. I have a great deal of music for it, and can
accompany myself on it almost as well as on the piano; at which I practice a
good deal. There is an excellent drawing-master here, from whom I have got some
beautiful drawings, so that I am in a fair way of improvement. I am sure you
will be glad to hear that I have got a price far beyond my most sanguine wishes
for St.
Clair. Mr. Harding, of
Pall Mall, says, it will be done in a very superior style, and will be
certainly at Archer’s in three
weeks. Mrs. Colbert wrote to me about Nina, but her terms were too low. The Minstrel goes on famously, I
think you will like it best of all,—it is full of incidents. I was very
much flattered by the Doctor’s (the Knight’s I mean,) intention; I
do not know which of St
Clair’s poems would answer for composition. I continue to
receive the most elegant letters in the world from Mrs. Lefanu; her three children, herself and niece, have been
for seven weeks confined with a spotted fever. The
Crawfords are in great trouble about a
governess—they cannot get one to please them; they write to me in a
manner that seems to indicate their wish for my return,—but that is out
of the question. I intend to lie fallow in the A, B, C,
D-way for some time. I am glad to hear that all your friends are well; pray
present my respectful compliments at Grange and Riverdale. Poor
Fanny, I am truly sorry for her! I wish she was ![]()
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with Mr. B. Tell C. that as she has
no opportunity of practising French, I will write
constantly in French to her (provided she will answer me in the same language)
it will help her more than she can imagine. I shall be delighted to have it in
my power to be in any means instrumental to her improvement. Say everything
that is kind for me to papa and mamma; assure the dear boys that I participate
in their regret in our not meeting. Adieu, my dearest little friend, continue
to write to me, and believe that I am among the warmest of your well-wishers
and sincere friends,
Olivia returns a thousand thanks to
her dear little friend for her kind remembrance, although it was with
difficulty she got Syd to leave the room to tell her so. They wish to
persuade her she is ill, but she feels no kind of indisposition but what is
extremely becoming; she is sorry to add that her sister, from a too great
sensibility, lets the marriage of a certain little attorney prey on her damask cheek, adding paleness to what was
already pale. O.’s compliments to mamma.
John Archer (d. 1811)
Dublin bookseller who traded at Dame Street, 1788-1809.
Lady Olivia Clarke [née Owenson] (1785 c.-1845)
The younger sister of Lady Morgan who married Dublin physician Sir Arthur Clarke
(1778-1857) in 1808. She wrote songs and a play, and published in the
Metropolitan Magazine and
Athenaeum.
Edward Harding (1755-1840)
London engraver and bookseller who was Librarian to Queen Charlotte (1803) and the Duke
of Cumberland (1818-40).
Alicia Le Fanu (1753-1817)
Irish novelist and playwright, the eldest daughter of Thomas Sheridan and grandmother of
Sheridan Le Fanu; she published
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs.
Frances Sheridan (1824).
