icturesque coach-road which I took
from Orleans to Autun at this time, when they did not exist, is
little likely to draw wayfarers aside from them; nor was the season
of the year when I made that journey at all a favorable one in which
to visit the forest and mountain region of the Nivernais. I was
snowed up at a miserable little village among the hills called
Chateau Chinon; the diligences were unable for several days to come
up thither, the roads being impassable, and I had to make my way
through the picturesque wild region in a miserable species of
dilapidated cabriolet, furnished me at an exorbitant price from
Chateau Chinon to Autun, where I was again picked up by the
diligence.]

Thursday, December 18th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I leave London the day after to-morrow for Southampton. I am full of
calls, bills, visits, sorrow, perplexity, and nervous agitation, which
all this hurry and bustle increase tenfold; letters to write, too, for
the American post is in, and has brought me four from the other side of
the water to deal with. In the middle of all this, Mrs. Jameson sends me
long letters of Sarah Grant's and Mary Patterson's to read, which prove
most distinctly to my mind that she, Mrs. Jameson, wishes to write a
memoir of Mrs. Harry Siddons; but do not at all prove so distinctly to
my mind that Mrs. Harry Siddons wished a memoir of herself to be written
by Mrs. Jameson. So all this I have had to wade through, and shall have
to answer, wondering all the while what under the sun it matters what I
think about the whole concern, or why people care one straw what
people's opinions are about them, or what they do.

My opinion about memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, lives, letters,
and books in general indeed, Mrs. Jameson is perfectly familiar with;
and therefore her making me go through this voluminous correspondence
just now, when she knows how pressed I am for time, seems to me a little
unmerciful; but, however, I've done it, that's one comfort.

Then comes dear George Combe, with a long letter, the second this week,
upon the subject of Miss C----'s private character, family connections,
birth, parentage, reputation, etc., desiring me to answer all manner of
questions about her; and I know no more of her than I do of the man in
the moon: and all this must likewise be attended to....

About my consulting Wilson (our att