Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Thomas Wallace to Sydeny Owenson, [1810?]
[No date.]
I cannot tell you, my sweet friend, how much pleasure
your letter has given me! not because you have been panegyrizing me to your
great friends,—nor because I have any, the most remote fancy, that those
panegyrics can ultimately produce benefits to your friend; but because the
unsought, disinterested, spontaneous testimonies of friendship, are with me
above all value! Even if they were not rare they would be precious,—but
when one who has seen as much of mankind as myself, and knows, au fond, how seldom a heart or a head can
be found that is not exclusively occupied with its own cares, or pleasures, or
interests; when such a one meets an instance of gratuitous and friendly
solicitude about the interests or reputation of an absent connection, he gets a
new consciousness of the value of his existence, by finding there is something
in his species better than he expected. I profess to you
to feel a sentiment of that kind from this last instance of your recollection
of me; for I am so far a misanthrope, that I should not have been much
surprised if a volatile little girl like yourself, fond
of the pleasure and of the admiration of society, should have forgotten such a
thing as myself, when immersed in the various enjoyments
of such a circle as you are now surrounded by; not that I doubted you had
friendship for me,—for of that I would have been ![]()
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certain; but I would have been easily persuaded that present
pleasure might, for a time, have superseded memory, and postponed a recollection of distant friends and past scenes till a more
convenient season. I confess, however, my sweet friend, that I entertained some
fear that your zeal may have carried you a little too far in the conversation
you mention; for anything in the way of solicitation or
canvass would certainly, my dear Sydney, be to me one of the most mortifying things
on earth; it would be at war with all my feelings and outrage all my
principles; for there is but one thing in this world of which I can be
vain—and it is a source of pleasure which nothing would induce me to
forego—a consciousness that whatever I am, or
whatever little success I may have in life, it is the pure and unmixed result
of my own labours, uncherished and unpatronised. One
instance only occurred in the course of my life, in which any attempt was made
to promote my interests by the solicitation of friendship, and that became a
source of great vexation to me,—it was that Mr. C. adverted to when he spoke of Ponsonby. Grattan,
meaning to do a kind thing for me without my knowledge, applied to T. when he
became Chancellor for a silk gown for me, and having got what he considered an
explicit promise, he then mentioned the thing publicly, and it was known to
half the profession before I heard of it. T. afterwards falsified his
promise—by pretending that the promise was not for the next creation of
king’s counsel, but for the next but one. The consequence was the open
declaration of war I made upon him—which most probably will for ever
prevent ![]()
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me and Chancellors from being very good friends;
for those fellows, like other classes of men, have a certain esprit de corps, and make common cause. Speak of me, therefore, dear
Sydney, as your friend as much
as you please, praise me in that character as far as you
can, and you confer an honour on me of which I shall ever be most proud; but
beware, my sweet girl, of patronage or solicitation.
Here has been twenty times too much of myself; but you have made the subject
valuable by the attention you have paid to it.
What is the meaning of your question, “What are you
to do with the rest of your life?” Can it be possible that a mind like
yours should prove itself so feeble, that the passing enjoyments of a few
months in “splendour and comfort” would disgust you with the
ordinary habits of the world? This would be neither reason, nor philosophy, nor
good taste; for good taste is good sense directed in a particular way; and good
sense has a very assimilating quality and always fits us
for “existing circumstances.” I do hope,
notwithstanding the horror with which you seem to look at your descent from the pedestal, that you will be capable of
enjoying the circumscribed, social, laughing, wise, foolish, playful little
suppers which Mrs. * * * has given us, and, I hope, will again. By the way,
when will you return? Mrs. Lefanu told
me, on Saturday, you mentioned to her that you would be here in a fortnight and
go back; and yet Mrs. C. knows nothing of it—nor I. I cannot help recurring again to your question,
What will you do with the rest of life? I put the
interrogatory to myself when I read your ![]()
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letter,—indeed, I have often asked myself the
question—and what do you think I am likely to do? Most probably I shall
retire to some very remote spot, where a small income will be an
independence—and what then? J. W.
John Philpot Curran (1750-1817)
Irish statesman and orator; as a Whig MP (from 1783) he defended the United Irishmen in
Parliament (1798).
Henry Grattan (1746-1820)
Irish statesman and patriot; as MP for Dublin he supported Catholic emancipation and
opposed the Union.
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).
George Ponsonby (1755-1817)
The son of John Ponsonby (d. 1787); he was speaker of the Irish House of Commons, lord
chancellor of Ireland in the Fox-Grenville ministry (1806) and succeeded Lord Grey as
leader of the Whigs in the British House of Commons.
