Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Lady Morgan to Alicia Le Fanu, 26 June 1812
June 26th, 1812.
Your message to Sir
Charles would have insured you an immediate answer to your
letter, if there were no other inducement to write to you; and that you have
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not heard from me before arises from some mistake
about being detained here or in Dublin; I have only this morning received it.
Sir Charles desires me to say that, from all he hears
and knows of you, he is become too much interested in your life not to feel
anxious for its preservation and comfort, and that, as far as his knowledge and
ability can contribute to either, they are devoted to your service. He says,
however, that you have given too vague an account of your symptoms for him to
form a correct judgment. He dare not risk an opinion without being more master
of the subject. He wishes he was near you, and would be happy to do anything
for you. He is very sensible of, and grateful for, the tenderness you express
towards me, thus admitting him to the circle of your friends; and I believe you
have had few more zealous candidates for the honour.
Everything that you say about Dublin is very seductive,
but we really are in a pitiable state of hesitation at present. They have not
the remotest idea that we can or will leave them as long as they remain in
Ireland, and yet they talk of that being a year or two. If we (what they would call) desert them, we shall risk the
loss of their friendship, which would indeed be a loss; but if we remain we
lose time, and it is quite fit that Morgan should establish himself soon somewhere. Add to this
that they, I believe, have a real affection for us; but we are dying to be in
our own little shabby house, and are tired of solitary splendours, and of the
eternal representation of high life, and you will then believe that we are
rather in a ![]()
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puzzle. Morgan, in the
end, will be solely guided by honour (leaving interest, and inclination, and
even happiness out of the question), which he strains to a point of romantic
refinement. We expect Lord and Lady Hamilton (another invalid). I showed
Lord Aberdeen your critique on noble authors; he said,
“had you judged differently, he would have formed a different judgment of
you, from what he was inclined to do.” Arbuthnot, who is coming over as secretary, I know intimately;
but I am sick of the idea of place-hunting or place-asking. I suppose, by this,
you are at your Sabine Farm, at Glasnevin: would I were with you for a week!
Mais pour aller à Corinthele désir
ne suffit pas; but I should like to have you alone, that
is, in the midst of your own family, for if you
don’t patronize my Lords and Ladies Fiddle Faddle,
I will vote your Miss Macguffins, and the rest of your
twopenny Misses and Masters, and some few of your good Mistresses this, and
worthy Misters t’others, dead bores! I, at least, have something for my
pride, but the “Damn nigger
you get for your money” is quite below purchase! Native worth
and native genius (like your own) must always hold the ascendant in whatever
circle it is to be found, and if you find not these amongst a certain class,
you find something else with people of rank; you get the next best thing, education, which, with English people of fashion of the
present day, you never fail to find. The young people of this family (including
the son-in-law, Lord Aberdeen) have more
acquirements and accomplishments, more literary and general savoir than (with the almost ![]()
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single exception of your own family), all the youth of
Dublin put together. The women not only speak French and Italian as well as
English, but are good Latin scholars, and unquestionably the best musicians I
know; and yet I never heard the Ladies Hamilton
particularly distinguished for their education above other girls of fashion. I
never mean to say that the first class of society have more genius or more
happiness than any other, I only insist that they have the next best things,
and as I find it easier to get at a countess or a marchioness than at a
Mrs. Lefanu, faute de mieux, I put up with their
ladyships, cutting dead the Miss Macguffins and the
Mistresses O’Shaughnessey’s, for whom
(de loin) I have a great
respect. The fact is, a dull worthy is not the less dull to me for being a
worthy and not an earl! Lords or commons, a bore is a bore, and I think you
will agree with me that a vulgar one is worse than a polished one, as an Irish
diamond, though “a lustre-looking thing,” is best after it has
received a little working. You who are a real brilliant,
I am sure I should always have discovered your “original
brightness” in whatever setting I should have found it. I know your
intrinsic value, and prize it at its worth; meantime, let me prefer the rose
diamonds of my Lord and Lady Fiddle Faddle to the Kerry
stones of the Miss Macguffins; one, at least, has a
polished surface, the other retains the “laste taste in life” of
the clay! I have not left myself room to say Je vous
aime de tout mon cœur. Love to all, Joe included.
S. O. M.
Charles Arbuthnot (1767-1850)
Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, he was Tory MP for East Looe
(1795-96), Eye (1809-12), Oxford (1812-18), St. Germans (1818-27), St. Ives (1828-30), and
Ashburton (1830-31). He was ambassador to Constantinople (1804-07) and a friend of the Duke
of Wellington.
George Hamilton- Gordon, fourth earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860)
Harrow-educated Scottish philhellene who founded the Athenian Society and was elected to
the Society of Dilettanti (1805); he was foreign secretary (1841-1846) and prime minister
(1852-55).
Lady Maria Hamilton (1782-1814)
The daughter of Sir John James Hamilton, first Marquess of Abercorn and Catherine Copley;
she died unmarried.
Alicia Le Fanu (1753-1817)
Irish novelist and playwright, the eldest daughter of Thomas Sheridan and grandmother of
Sheridan Le Fanu; she published
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs.
Frances Sheridan (1824).
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1793-1833)
Of Dublin, the son of Joseph and Alicia Le Fanu; he is not the novelist of the same name
(1814-1873).
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.
