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ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I

1814-1819

Hon. Emily Eden (aged 17) to her Sister the Countess of Buckinghamshire (aged 37).[6]

EDEN FARM, BECKENHAM, KENT,
Monday, September 26, 1814.

WE have been very much surprised by a letter from Miss Milbanke[7] to Mary[8] informing her she was engaged to marry Lord Byron, a “person of whose character she has had the best opportunity of judging, and who, as he merits her greatest esteem, possesses her strongest attachment.” That last sentence certainly sounds very well, but, that she does not seem to be acting with her usual good sense is Mama’s opinion, as by all accounts Lord Byron is not likely to make any woman very happy. It is particularly unlucky, at present, as Mary’s letters to her about “Lara,” the “Corsair,” etc., have not expressed much admiration for their author....

September 30.

Mr. Van.[9] came here to dinner to-day and goes away to-morrow. I wish you would tell me what to say to him just now, for he looks as if he wanted some one to talk to him. Mary and George[10] are so busy at chess, and Mama is so interested in the Anarchie de Pologne,[11] and I am so tormented by a real, large, green, crawling caterpillar which has found its way to the table and keeps hunting me round it, I have not presence of mind enough left to make out one topic.

Mary has just received Sarah’s