I think there must
have been over two hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper,
a little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery, joyous manners;
and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful, sensible, fireside companion as
we find her in her books,--winning love and trust the very first
moment of the interview.
The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to be, that I am not
so bad-looking as they were afraid I was; and I do assure you that
when I have seen the things that are put up in the shop windows here
with my name under them, I have been in wondering admiration at the
boundless loving-kindness of my English and Scottish friends in
keeping up such a warm heart for such a Gorgon. I should think that
the Sphinx in the London Museum might have sat for most of them. I am
going to make a collection of these portraits to bring home to you.
There is a great variety of them, and they will be useful, like the
Irishman's guide-board, which showed where the road did not go.
Before the evening was through I was talked out and worn out; there
was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow at eleven o'clock comes the
meeting at Stafford House. What it will amount to I do not know; but I
take no thought for the morrow.
_May_ 8.
MY DEAR C.,--In fulfillment of my agreement I will tell you, as nearly
as I can remember, all the details of the meeting at Stafford House.
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