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Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Countess of Charleville to Sydney Owenson, 1 May 1809
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Prefatory Address
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Vol. I Index
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter IV
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Vol. II Index
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41, Grosvenor Street,
May 1st, 1809.
Dear Madam,

I hasten to do away any painful impression you could feel at my silence. I never received any letter from you since I left Weymouth, which I answered from Shrewsbury. Your politeness and kind inquiries for my health, after my having the pleasure of being known to you in London, were quite flattering, nor
366 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.  
could I imagine, so well employed as your pen may always be, that it was to be trifled with often in casual correspondence. The expression of solicitude for me now, I beg to offer you ten thousand thanks for; and though I have nothing comfortable to say of my miserable confirmed state of suffering, yet it is certainly a sort of alleviation to think I have obtained sympathy more than common, from so amiable a mind as yours.

I read Ida before it was all issued from the press, a volume being sent me as soon as sewed: and I read it with the same conviction of the existence of excellent talent, great descriptive powers; and in this work I find particular ingenuity, in the novel attempt to interest us for a woman who loved two; and for each of the lovers, the episode was happily contrived in this plan and executed with great taste and spirit.

I could have wished the situations had been less critical in point of delicacy, as the English gentleman has incurred great blame from all sides for having suffered her to escape; and the poor Turk too. The politics of Athens are ingenious; but, alas! our poor Emmet hanging so recently in our streets, does not suffer us to enjoy our miseries in any fiction for some years to come.

I have not read the Monthly Review, where it is criticised. I choose to be pleased with what you write now; though I do heartily reprobate your putting off the period of polishing and purifying your language for pique to those censors, who, after all, may be the best of friends, if they point out a path so attainable to fame. Assuredly to those whom God has given fancy,
FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN.367
and a touch of the ethereal spark, it is doubly a duty to write pure language, under the penalty of else rendering the very best gift of heaven valueless. Where little is to be done, it is inexcusable to neglect that; and assuredly you promised me that Ida should be more correct than your former publications, even, as you imagined, at the expense of fancy . . . . . Now we found as much imagination as ever, and not more of the square and compass than hitherto.

Now I hope I have fulfilled your notions of good-will by this essay on the fair Greek, and at all events effaced every idea you could have conjured up to scare away the recollections of politeness and sympathy for my sad state which you have often so prettily and kindly expressed.

C. M. Charleville.