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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1840
Sydney Smith to Lady Carlisle, 5 September 1840
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Author's Preface
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Index
Editor’s Preface
Letters 1801
Letters 1802
Letters 1803
Letters 1804
Letters 1805
Letters 1806
Letters 1807
Letters 1808
Letters 1809
Letters 1810
Letters 1811
Letters 1812
Letters 1813
Letters 1814
Letters 1815
Letters 1816
Letters 1817
Letters 1818
Letters 1819
Letters 1820
Letters 1821
Letters 1822
Letters 1823
Letters 1824
Letters 1825
Letters 1826
Letters 1827
Letters 1828
Letters 1829
Letters 1830
Letters 1831
Letters 1832
Letters 1833
Letters 1834
Letters 1835
Letters 1836
Letters 1837
Letters 1838
Letters 1839
Letters 1840
Letters 1841
Letters 1842
Letters 1843
Letters 1844
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
September 5th, 1840.

I should be very glad to hear how all is going on at Castle Howard, dear Lady Carlisle, and whether my Lord and you keep up health and spirits with tolerable success;—a difficult task in the fifth act of life, when the curtain must ere long drop, and the comedy or tragedy be brought to an end.

Mrs. Sydney is still living on the stock of health she laid up at Brighton; I am pretty well, except gout, asthma, and pains in all the bones, and all the flesh, of my body. What a very singular disease gout is! It seems as if the stomach fell down into the feet. The smallest deviation from right diet is immediately punished by limping and lameness, and the innocent ankle and blameless instep are tortured for the vices of the nobler organs. The stomach having found this easy way of getting rid of inconveniences, becomes cruelly despotic, and punishes for the least offences. A plum, a glass of champagne, excess in joy, excess in grief,—any crime, however small, is sufficient for redness, swelling, spasms, and large shoes.

I have found it necessary to give —— a valedictory flagellation. I know you and my excellent friend, Earl Carlisle, disapprove of these things; but you must excuse all the immense differences of temper, training, situation, habits, which make Sydney Smith one sort of person, and the Lord of the Castle another,—and both right in their way. Lord Carlisle does not like the vehicle of a newspaper; but if a man want to publish what is too short for a pamphlet, what other vehicle is there? Lord Lansdowne, and Philpotts, and the Bishop of London make short communications in newspapers. The statement of duels is made in newspapers by the first men in the country. To write anonymously in a newspaper is an act of another description; but if I put my name to what I write, the mere vehicle is surely immaterial; and I am to be tried, not by where I write, but what I write. I send the newspaper.

Ah, dear Lady Carlisle! do not imagine, because I did not knock every day at your door, and molest you with perpetual inquiries, that I have been inattentive to all that has passed, and careless of what you and Lord Carlisle have suffered. I have a sincere respect
434MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
and affection for you both, and shall never forget your great kindness to me. God bless and preserve you!

Sydney Smith.