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Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sydney Owenson to Alicia Le Fanu, 1807
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Prefatory Address
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Vol. I Index
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter IV
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Vol. II Index
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Longford House, Sligo, 1807.
“Here in cool grot and mossy cell
We rural fauns and fairies dwell.”

It is really supremely ridiculous to think by what shabby circumstances and paltry concerns the best
304 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.  
intentions of our friends, and the dearest feelings of our hearts, are opposed and circumvented in this time-serving world! For three months back my heart has incessantly addressed itself to you, without your ever knowing a syllable of the matter (except instinct or sympathy favoured the intercourse), and all this for want of knowing how to free a letter or serve your purse the deduction of a seven pence! The mere speculation has so harassed me, that my dear Lady Crofton’s fresh eggs and crammed turkeys have been nearly counteracted in their nutritive effects; and though I do look something more substantial than when I left town, it is like Father Paul, “not feasting but mortification that has blown me up.” Thus impelled by my morale and physique (though you paid the forfeit of a tenpenny bit), I must write to you and prate of your whereabouts.

Well, and how are you, and where are you, belle et bonne maman? Are your great stag-eyes as bright and your arms as white as ever? and do you rise superior to the ridiculous rheumatism, and other contemptible proofs that you are not quite immortal? and are you sitting in your little boudoir in Cuff Street, or in your Cabinet des Fées at Glasnevin, with the little stool near your feet that I have so often usurped? and the little man beside you, I have so often endeavoured to seduce? Wherever you are, from my soul I wish myself there too, though it were only to talk once more over Miss Carter’s poetical homilies (all of which should end with an Amen), and to be treated, as I always am, without any manner of deference to the
OLD IRISH HOSPITALITY.305
red nightcap of authorship, or the bas bleu of literature; for all you seem indeed to care about it, I might as well never have written a book—been cut up in the reviews, and cut down in the papers; but there is no answering for a want of taste! Since we parted, I have run the risk of being taken up on the Vagrant Act, and have been actually beadled about from house to house like a parish pauper. General Brownrigg’s curricle beadled me to Sterling, Mrs. B—̵’s barouche beadled me to Bracklin, Mrs. Featherstone’s carriage to South Hill, Mrs. Tighe’s part of my way to Frybrook, Mrs. Fry’s to Holybrook, whence I was beadled to Longford House, where, like other vagabonds, I am expiating my past heinous offences by hard labour, though not spare diet—in a word, notwithstanding the fatal effects to be expected from the villanies of last winter, “all my original brightness” is not lost, and my “glory, though half obscured,” still sends forth some transient scintillations. I write, and read, and think, seven miles a day, and have only to lament that Helvetius on the Mind, Montesquieu on the Laws, or Smith on the Wealth of Nations, have left me nothing to say on the only subject worthy my talent or attention, so, as a pis-aller, I have begun a very charming novel, with which I mean to delight the world, if the world will not persist in delighting me. What a pity we are never destined mutually to delight each other at the same moment, and that we are still fated to play the respectable parts of two buckets in a well! By-the-bye, a little work of mine will shortly make its appearance
306 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.  
in this world; it is another sketch of Ireland, and might serve as a—what do you call it?—to the Wild Irish Girl. However, since I sent it two months back, no tidings have ever been heard of it. So Vive la Philosophie, for I lose only two hundred pounds, and, heaven knows, how much fame! Now write by return. I shall calculate the day and hour your letter should come—so no delay; and when you write, tell me how you are, with all the exactitude you would to your family physician (to whom, dear, good, kind saint, my most affectionate regards), and tell me if my dear, long-suffering Bess is quite well, and gay, and wicked as ever; and if the infallible Tom is the same ridiculously-perfect, and provokingly-insensible Sir Chas. Grandison I left him; and if Mr. Lefanu cherishes the same unhappy passion as first assailed him under the shade of a new straw hat; and if Mishter Moses commits the same extortions on people’s approbation, as when he played off his Israelitish tricks upon an unsuspecting crowd; but before you tell me a syllable, present my best love and kisses to the whole dear party without exception; and do you ever see Mr. W. Lefanu, and does he still waste his sweetness on a desert air? By-the-bye, that man has committed a flagrant breach of trust against the confidence of Nature, who never intended him to
Give up to party what was meant for mankind.

I wish Mr. and Mrs. Le Bas were comfortably seated in a sledge, driving a pair of rein-deer over the snows of Lapland Hill, like the couple in the magic
OLD IRISH HOSPITALITY.307
lantern; and that their “superior friend” would give a little of those talents to the world which are so much confined to her fireside. I don’t know how it is, but I feel I am writing myself into a passion! so, before the paroxysm gets strong, adieu, dearest, kindest and best of friends.

S. O.