I intend to visit you in Granta,
and hope to prevail on you to accompany me here or there or anywhere.
I am plucking up my spirits, and have begun to gather my little sensual
comforts together. Lucy is extracted from Warwickshire; some very bad
faces have been warned off the premises, and more promising substituted
in their stead; the partridges are plentiful, hares fairish, pheasants
not quite so good, and the Girls on the Manor * * * * Just as I had
formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return
I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some
married, not before it was needful. As I am a great disciplinarian, I
have just issued an edict for the abolition of caps; no hair to be cut
on any pretext; stays permitted, but not too low before; full uniform
always in the evening; Lucinda to be commander--'vice' the present,
about to be wedded ('mem'. she is 35 with a flat face and a squeaking
voice), of all the makers and unmakers of beds in the household.
My tortoises (all Athenians), my hedgehog, my mastiff and the other live
Greek, are all purely. The tortoises lay eggs, and I have hired a hen to
hatch them. I am writing notes for 'my' quarto (Murray would have it a
'quarto'), and Hobhouse is writing text for 'his' quarto; if you call on
Murray or Cawthorn you will hear news of either. I have attacked De
Pauw, [1] Thornton, [1] Lord Elgin, [2] Spain, Portugal, the 'Edinburgh
Review', [3] travellers, Painters, Antiquarians, and others, so you see
what a dish of Sour Crout Controversy I shall prepare for myself.
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