Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Lady Caroline Lamb to Lady Morgan, October 1823
October, 1823.
My dear Lady Morgan,
Thank you and thank Sir
Charles for all his kindness about my fairy tale, Ada Reis,
although I think ![]()
| WRITING THE WORK ON SALVATOR ROSA. | 179 |
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he uses a rod even whilst he is
merciful. I must now tell you about Miss Bryan. She has
caught cold, and been very, very ill. I would not, for the world, have
Lady Cloncurry wait for her; but if
she chances to be without a proper person when well, Miss
Bryan would assuredly go. However, it is no loss to the girl, as
I feel sure she wishes to die or to marry Wronsky, and
therefore do nothing further about her. She is sensible, handsome, young, good,
unsophisticated, independent, true, ladylike, above any deceit or meanness,
romantic, very punctual about money, but she has a cold and cough, and is in
love. I cannot help it; can you?
Whoever has reviewed Ada Reis must not think
me discontented, neither unhappy. The loss of what one adores affects the mind
and heart; but I have resigned myself to it, and God knows I am satisfied with
all I have and have had. My husband has
been to me as a guardian angel. I love him most dearly; and my boy, though afflicted, is clever, amiable, and
cheerful.
Dear Lady Morgan,
let me not be judged by hasty works and hasty letters. My heart is as calm as a
lake on a fine summer day; and I am as grateful to God for his mercy and
blessing as it is possible to be. Tell all this to Sir Charles; and pray write to me. Your letters amuse me
excessively. I would I had anything clever or pretty to pay in return.
Augustus Frederick Lamb (1807-1836)
The only surviving child of William and Caroline Lamb; he was mentally deficient and kept
at home.
Lady Caroline Lamb [née Ponsonby] (1785-1828)
Daughter of the third earl of Bessborough; she married the Hon. William Lamb (1779-1848)
and fictionalized her infatuation with Lord Byron in her first novel,
Glenarvon (1816).
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Emily Lawless [née Douglas] (d. 1841)
The daughter of Archibald Douglas and Mary Crosbie; she married first the Hon. Joseph
Leeson (d. 1811) and in 1811 Valentine Browne Lawless, second baron Cloncurry.
Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1780-1843)
English physician and philosophical essayist who married the novelist Sydney Owenson in
1812; he was the author of
Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals
(1822). He corresponded with Cyrus Redding.
