Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (cheapest way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

of me so much! Nay, I am flattered." In the same letter he says, " The cold and fatigue makes my hand something like yours—which, by the bye, you neglect rather too much; but, as what you write is good sense, every body will forgive the scrawl." He tells her a day or two later, " I am glad you have been at the Academy, and in the great world. It is time enough for you to find out, that the only real comfort is to be met with at home; I have been in that secret some time. You are, certainly, the most domestic young woman I know : but you are young, and most beautiful; and it would

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not be natural, if you did not like to shew yourself a little in public. The effusion of tenderness, with regard to me, in your letter, is very flattering; I know the value of it, and will do all I can to keep it alive/' Again he says, " I assure you, that I shall rejoice when I can embrace you once more. A picture would not content me; your image is more strongly represented on my heart, than any that could be reproduced by human art." In the next day's letter there is an interesting reference, showing how strong and unabated by social success was Lady Hamilton's attachment to her mother : " As to your mother's going with you to the English parties, very well," says Sir William, "but, believe me, it will be best for her, and more to her happiness, to stay at home, than go with you to the Neapolitan parties."

The following day the King killed nineteen boars, two stags, two does, and a porcupine, and "he is happy beyond expression"—a noble pastime, truly, and a most worthy happiness!

Though so much occupied with sport, Sir William had time to say a word about his wife's handwriting, and in one of his letters he turns to her marked deficiencies in spelling: " By the bye, I must tell you, that accept and except are totally different. You always write, ' I did not except of the invitation ;' when, you know, it should be ' accept' It is, only, for want of giving

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yourself time to think; but, as this error has been repeated, I thought best to tell you of it." Next day he pays her a pretty compliment: " It was not your white and silver, alone, that made you look like an angel, at the Academy. Suppose you had put it on nine parts out of ten of the ladies in company, would any one have appeared angelic ? I will allow, however, that a beautiful woman, feeling herself well dressed, will have a sort of confidence, which will add greatly to the lustre of her eye: but take my word, that, for some years to come, the more simply you dress, the more conspicuous will be your beauty ; which, according to my idea, is the most perfect I have yet met with, take it all in all, ... I always rejoice when I find you do not neglect your singing. I am, I own, ambitious of producing something extraordinary in you, and it is nearly done."

But Emma had more solid virtues than her "Attitudes" and her singing. She was a good nurse, as her husband found, when, at the close of 1792, he had the first of those attacks of illness which were to age him so considerably. Emma was distracted with grief and anxiety. She tells Greville that she has been " almost as ill as him with anxiety, aprehension and fatige, the last endead, the least of what I have felt, and I am now doubly repaid by the dayly progress he makes for the better. ... I need not say to you,

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my dear Mr. Greville, what I have suffered. Endead, I was almost distracted from such extreme happiness at once to such misery. . . . What cou'd console me for the loss of such a husband, friend, and protector ? For surely no happiness is like ours. We live but for one another. But I was too happy. . . . Every moment I feel what I felt, when I thought I was loseing him for ever."

She tells Greville of the kindness of the English ladies of rank during Sir William's illness, how they sent twice a day to inquire, and offered to come and help in her nursing, while " the King and Queen sent constantly morning and evening the most flattering messages, but all was nothing to me."

Even when barely recovered from the strain of nursing—and she had gone eight days without undressing or sleeping properly—she remembered her old grandmother at home. The oft-quoted appeal to Greville is so characteristic that it must find a place.

" I will trouble you with my own affairs, as you are so good as to interest yourself about me. You must know I send my grandmother every Cristmas twenty pounds, and so I ought. I have 200 a year for nonsense, and it wou'd be hard if I cou'd not give her twenty pounds when she has so often given me her last shilling. As Sir William is ill, I cannot ask him for the

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order; but if you will get the twenty pounds and send it to her, you will do me the greatest favor; for if the time passes without hearing from me, she may imagine I have forgot her, and I would not keep her poor old heart in suspense for the world. . . . Cou'd you not write to her a