. American lands and letters . but what involvedpromptitude, stir, swift efficiency, was not sosure of being done. LONDON, OWEGO, AND IDLEWILD It is in 1834 that he writes: ^ All the best society of London exclusives isopen to me . . me! without a sou in the worldbeyond what my pen brings me. ... I lodge inCavendish Square, the most fashionable part ofthe town, paying a guinea a week for my lodg-ings, and am as well off as if I had been the sonof the President, with as much as I could spendin the year. Through Lander, he has ceme to knew Lady Blessington, and all the habitues of Seamore Place.
. American lands and letters . but what involvedpromptitude, stir, swift efficiency, was not sosure of being done. LONDON, OWEGO, AND IDLEWILD It is in 1834 that he writes: ^ All the best society of London exclusives isopen to me . . me! without a sou in the worldbeyond what my pen brings me. ... I lodge inCavendish Square, the most fashionable part ofthe town, paying a guinea a week for my lodg-ings, and am as well off as if I had been the sonof the President, with as much as I could spendin the year. Through Lander, he has ceme to knew Lady Blessington, and all the habitues of Seamore Place. He makes a visit to Gordon Castle, and the lawns and ladies, and grooms and belted ^ Beerss Life, etc., p. 148. 70 PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY earls, with their chit-chat, all flash into hisPencillings. He makes many friends inmany stations; his sense of the decorous is avery live and wakeful one; Miss Mitford says,he is like the son of a peer! and it is certainthat he had with ladies a most engaging defer- C^A,^C^^Ck. Fragment of a Letter Jrotn N. P. IVUlis ence and a low, caressing manner of speechwhich were very captivating. His knowledgeof little convenances was all-embracing andnever at fault; how a hostess should carry her-self, how she should throw the reins of talk—now here, now there; how she should cover theawkward faux-pas of some inapt person; nay,the very summons to a servant or the graciousway of strewing a pretty dust-fall of pleading 71 AMERICAN LANDS & LETTERS and concealing words over a crash of dishes, orof scandal—all this he ferreted and fathomedby quick social instinct. And this instinct fil-tered through his published lines in what mat-ter-of-fact people would call a pretty constantover-estimate of the exterior embellishments oflife. My Lady Ravelgolds tie or her brode-quin, or the crest upon her carriage door, orher smile of conge to an unwelcome suitor,would engage from him more serious attentionthan any discourse from her on poetry or onethics. It was
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