October 1.—Returned to town from my country
excursions. I had just come off my journey and was lying stretched on the sofa
in the drawing-room, very dead and shattered, when I heard a voice, sharp and
Yankee, bullying my maid in the hall, for a free admit-
| DEATH OF MOORE. | 521 |
My house is greatly improved—looks beautiful in its fresh green paint, but I am more inclined to my inclined plane, a sofa at home, than to gaieties; I am so completely “used up,” or, as Madame de Sevigné says—Je suis affamée pour le silence—for I am made to talk my life away at these charming country houses.
October 5.—Dined at Lady Talbot de Malahide’s; met there the Rajah of Courg, an amiable barbarian, or rather a specimen of the early creation. He played on the fiddle, and gave us “Rule Britannia,” to show his allegiance to England.
November 3.—I have missed my beautiful Irish seal with my Irish harp on it; I am astonished and do not know what to think. I have had it thirty years. It has been taken off my bunch of seals, which lies on my Pompadour.
November 4.—My whole nervous system has been
upset, by the discovery that I have had a Felon living in my house for the last
three weeks. Dr. Ferguson made the
discovery. He came to tell me, last night, too late to stir in the
business—and such a night as I passed! Locked up; my maid and myself, and
had a
| 522 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
November 18.—The Duke’s funeral.—A melodramatic exhibition in the very worst style, in which there was but one noble feature,—the peace, order, and respect, as well as the respectability of the people. We saw the procession from the windows of the Vice Chancellor’s house, next door to Apsley House. We had a most sumptuous entertainment afterwards—not the display of “funeral baked meats,” but a very recherché repast. All London was eating and carousing, and the whole thing was in the spirit of an Irish wake. I hope we shall have no more heroes to bury for a thousand years.
In the last days of November I was struck by the most serious illness I have ever had, but I have been carried through by skill, care, and affection. Dr. Ferguson attended me daily for nearly a month. He has been the successor to poor Dr. Chambers, to my gratitude and confidence. Both are noble specimens of the noblest profession.
August, 1853.—Went to Bognor for my villegiatura; a most disagreeable place.
| DEATH OF MOORE. | 523 |
Fiction has nothing more pathetic than that great melodramatic tragedy now performing on the shores of Ireland,—The Celtic Exodus. The Jews left a foreign country—a “house of bondage;” but the Celtic exodus is the departure of the Irish emigrants from the land of their love—their inheritance—and their traditions—of their passions and their prejudices; with all the details of wild grief and heartrending incidents—their ignorance of the strangers they are going to seek—their tenderness for the objects they are leaving behind. Their departure exceeds in deep pathos all the poetical tragedy that has ever been presented on the stage, or national novelists have ever depicted in their volumes.
Left Bognor. Returned to London in September. A long night of blindness and suffering, from the first week in September to the month of March following, when the dawn of light, health, and comfort once more broke upon me.
