essential difference between him, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Stanley, on one side, and Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, on the other, nothing to prevent their all acting together to arrest the progress of democracy and impiety, reform progressively what the changes of time and feelings have rendered unsuitable to the age, and redeem the honour of Britain which has been sadly sullied of late. Should this ever happen we shall be once more a great nation, till it does, I fear, there don’t seem to be enough with talent on either side alone to fill the offices of Government.
5. Children brought arms full of old stuff frocks and shoes and two bonnets which we held a council on and assigned where they would be useful, the best go to a box in my room, the remainder is distributed in turns to the deserving poor. I find the patterns thus given them have been of much use in improving their home-made clothes, they are so clever they can copy anything.
6. Very fine hunting morning, bright but cold. Had cold luncheon ready in the hall for the hunters, no one called in but the Doctor who made a good dinner and gave Janey and me a Latin lesson, and told us Lady Milltown was not well, complaining of no one ever calling on her, out of spirits. Her Lord complaining that she never dresses till near dinner-time, an idle slovenly habit she learned in France, never stirs out, she that used to be so active, he don’t know on earth what to do with her; so it must be for she has no pursuit. With that beautiful house [Russborough] full of the choicest works of art she has no pleasure in it but to see it now and then dusted, her fine family of children are no resource to her. She is incapable of assisting in their education. No reader, beyond a novel which only wearies the spirits, no worker.
And here let me remind you, dear little girls, of an old saying of dear Grandmama’s that a woman who had not pleasure in her needle was never happy, and very seldom good, it may sound a little forced but it is nevertheless perfectly true. A woman has so many solitary hours. Reading through all would be very far from profitable to her, a scientifick pursuit or a devotion to some particular art would withdraw her attention too much from these numberless little duties upon which the happiness of all around her depends.
Besides this want of occupation poor Lady Milltown has had the misfortune to yield to a vile, irritable, jealous, malicious temper which has alienated every friend, and of what avail to her is all her wit and her talent and her rank of which she is so vain now that she is getting old? The spirits that once carried her through are deserting her and she has nothing to replace them with, no one loves her, not even her children, I can’t excuse her failings though I make every allowance for her entire want of education, her early marriage to a profligate man, her later marriage to an unprincipled one, for she knows the right way, and won’t pursue it.3
8. Carpenters getting on well upstairs. Dear Hal mightily offended with me because I do not always approve of his taste. Like most men he understands very little about colours, which contrast well, which suit, which shock, neither has he much eye for form or arrangement. Taste like every other talent requiring more cultivation than his active soldier’s life has given him opportunity for, but I almost got myself into regular disgrace for hinting this. Men, you are very vain. Not much in the papers, good speech of a frequently troublesome man, the Bishop of Exeter on the Abominations of Socialism.
10. Frightful day, yet the Colonel a good deal out looking after workmen. Disappointed in my laundry maid, but will try her longer, they are all so unneat, so careless, and understand so little what they ought to do, it is really a tiresome business to manage them all, and Hal has worse to complain of outside, real dishonesty, entitled hereabouts cuteness, very sad it is to have so little hope of reforming such errours. Truth is not in the people nor will it over be in them under the Roman Catholic priesthood.
12. Papers full of the Queen’s marriage. The looks of the bridegroom, the dresses, the processions, the banquets, the parties, the cakes, etc. The Queen seems to have shown great calmness combined with great feeling and to be really in love with her young husband. And if he has the talent as well as the beauty of his family this may be a propitious marriage, may rescue her from the gossipping mischief of her bedchamber and raise her thoughts to subjects becoming her important station.4
16. Sunday. Such a beautiful morning, wakened by my three pets all tumbling into bed to me in such glee. Nothing almost raises my spirits so much as a bright Sunday. ‘This is the day that the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it’. May you ever keep it thus, dear children, not as a day of gloom, as a day of austerity, as a day of privations. Moroseness is no part of the religion of Christ. The Roman Catholic Sunday is in many respects infinitely nearer the proper method of spending the day to my mind than the Calvinistick. The old Church of England nearest of all, not the methodistical section of it, but the real cheerful old English reformed Church.
21. Our book Club begun in earnest, our book—Sir James Mackintosh.5
22. Talking over Sir James Mackintosh, I observed how little real value was the greatest genius, the most first-rate talent, compared with the habits of regular industry, how very little the first generally leaves behind it.
It seems to me that there must be something wrong in the Scotch system of education—so many of her cleverest men having in their after life bewailed that desultory reading results as much from idleness as from a desire for knowledge, getting through books unconnected with each other without any purpose, but amusement. To be deprecated at any age, but positively pernicious to youth, encouraging an appetite for novelty merely, unsettling the mind without much informing it, causing over-excitement followed by lassitude without any one good result.
27. Something radically wrong in the character of Sir James Mackintosh I imagine, a want of thoroughly religious principle though he had much religious feeling. He was too much disappointed in his situation at Bombay because he did not seek for it on right grounds. It was all wrong and yet I feel for him, for how desolate did I not myself feel at Bombay, how dull the parties were, how stupid the conversation, and there was great improvement since Sir James’s day but I took myself to task for my folly in expecting to find Lord Jeffrey, Mr. Horner, Charles Grant, the Duke of Gordon, Count Flahault etc. with their proper accompaniments in a distant Colony, or rather not expecting, I was not so ill informed as that implies, but feeling dull because I did not find all of talent and of polish I had left behind. Here I feel this too a little, the people are not sufficiently educated to be to me what my early friends were, but there is much worth and much talent and much kindness among them. And I have sobered myself down to be quite happy with ‘good home brewed ale’ and to think of Highland days as of a glass of champaign not often attainable.6
Walked to Blesinton with the little girls, called at Mrs. Murray’s, found them in, heard a great deal about Lord Downshire of course, met Mr. Moore in the market place, talked of our books, he has offered to lend me Sir James Mackintosh’s Essay on Ethicks which he says with the Colonel’s help I shall understand. Mr. Murray [Lord Downshire’s Agent] showed us a Temperance Medal rather handsome. It is really curious what an effect Father Matthew7 is producing, the distilleries are in many places given up, the breweries even injured. Our brewer told us he does not sell one cask of beer now for twenty he used to sell; that and the fine of five shillings really seeme to have produced great effect; that odious whiskey, it is the bane of Ireland the money spent on this abominable poison would keep each family in comfort, besides that with so excitable a people the use of spirits maddens them and puts them up to the commission of every crime.
SUNDAY, MARCH 1. Much interested in the journals of Sir J. M’s little Tours, knowing most of the places, his idea of Indian politicks so correct, projected improvements affected. Strange that I should never have seen Sir James himself though we were relations after a Highland fashion, and our families intimate and my father and he great friends. I must write you some Highland tales, dear children, or you will not know your mother well.