My dear Papa, I am much obliged for your notes this morning; and I do not much expect now that John will join our festivities. It wd have been very nice and pleasant if we could all three have come together, Jane expresses great disappointment that there has been no time to arrange things in any orderly manner. She wd have had no thought but of John & Cordelia being here, if it ... continue reading

My dear Mary, It is a great undertaking to describe accurately so great a wedding, a great deal of the details I must reserve until I get home, but I was surprised to find that anything so ponderous cd be passed thro so quietly & easily. Aunt Seaton even seemed in not the least bustle & everything was arranged like magic; I suppose from the number of workmen & the abundance of payment. ... continue reading

Next time I have to set down ‘Likes and Dislikes,’ I shall put a General Election as my chief antipathy.

I always fancied Hyères the most of these resorts, perhaps because my father was there to take charge of a consumptive cousin in 1816-17, and he used to talk of the sheets of big blue violets. He had been at Waterloo, and was with the army of occupation, and this cousin came out for the fashionable ... continue reading