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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1843
Sydney Smith to Harriet Grote, 23 December 1843
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
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Combe Florey, Dec. 23, 1843.
Dear Mrs. Grote,

You are so energetic, that you never attend to anything in particular, but are always lost in generalities. I sent you a letter of Jeffrey’s, which you have not returned. Are you satisfied that your friend Faucher was treated as well as Lord Jeffrey’s health would permit?

You complain of the smallness of the potatoes: let me suggest the romantic plan of having the potatoes
MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.509
picked; the large ones reserved for your table, the small ones for the pigs. It is by this ingenious and complicated process that the potatoes you get from the greengrocer in London are managed. There is no accounting for tastes. The potatoes I sent appear to me to be excellent.

You have planted seven hundred firs; the number is scarcely credible. Have you read the Swedish method of planting, under which the tree grows fourteen feet in one year? It consists in burying half a pound of tallow candles with every fir planted. I cannot believe it; but it is difficult to disbelieve what is published in a grave work.

Ever your sincere friend,
Sydney Smith.