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232 LADY HESTER STANHOPE.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
— — Much Has Been Said And Written Latel...
found some peculiar case of distress , lie would slip a bank-note Into the hand of the sufferer , and be fully prepared to fight him if
he attempted to follow him or ascertain the name of his mysterious benefactor . Camelford "was a personification of that kind-hearted
muscularity which has become popular in our days . The prestige of power and force , not to speak of his singularity and independence ,
were likely to have recommended him to Lady Hester . But a family quarrel- —a dispute with Lord Chatham , founded on the
rights of succession—was sufficient to render him unpopular for ever with all faithful and devoted Pittites . As to Lady Hester , it
was not likely that her fancy for him amounted to anything more than a transient liking . Her admiration for Pitt knew no limits ;
and satisfied with such a friendship , it is not wonderful that she should have imitated his resolution of remaining single . This
resolution did not protect her from the vanities of a coquette . Years afterwhen age had obliterated every vestige of her beauty ,
she would , linger , witli the pleased volubility of a child , on the remembrance of her past successes . Mr . Pitt , in his private life ,
seems to have heen by no means indifferent to external appearance . "We laugh to read the stories of his drinking out of Miss W '&
shoe , of his stooping to arrange the folds of a lady ' s dress , and of his rallying another on her aerial appearance in ball costume , and
declaring that wings were likely to spring out of her shoulders . _* His attention to others , and his regard for their feelings , seem to
have been extreme , but he could occasionally be very bitter . For instancehe could be scornful when the Bourbons were mentioned ;
and when , Louis XVIII . came to England , he would only address him as a Count . He used to say , he was not fighting to re-establish
the Bourbons , but only to let the French have some stable government .
Excitable in her character , and passionate in every change of her moodHester could never do anything in moderation . At one
time , she would throw herself with wild delight into the fever of the dance . Dazzled herself as she dazzled othersand pleasing
, them or offending them by her wit , she would remain oblivious of the passing hourstill her rettirn late at night would disturb the
slumbers of the good , -natured Pitt , who would afterwards declare that he had been dreaming of the Masque of Comus , and that the
sound of her laughter was like the reality . At another time , passing to the contrary extremeshe would envy a hermit ' s
, existence , and be overtaken by that passion for isolation and an existence in a desert which Byron ' s sentimentalism had propagated .
In minds like hers , pleasurable sensations are often awakened by about * These credible stories must much be of accepted Lady Hes with ter due ' s gossi reserve . But They for were an account probabl to y
Mr . Pitt as ' s stedfast as attachment to Miss Eleanor p . Eden we may refer the WilliamLord Auckland
Edited reader to by the the " Bishop Journal of Bath and Correspondence and Wells . Second of Series . , Bentley . . "
232 Lady Hester Stanhope.
232 LADY HESTER STANHOPE .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1862, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061862/page/16/
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