onfined to my
peregrinations in the Square, measuring the enclosed gravel walks of
which I have already, since your departure, finished the "Memoires de
l'Enfant du Peuple," and brought myself, _mirabile dictu!_ to within
twenty pages of the end of Mrs. Jameson's book upon Prussian school
statistics....

I do not think Mr. W---- any authority upon any subject. I consider him
a perfect specimen of a charlatan, and his opinions with regard to
slavery and the abolitionists are particularly little worthy of credit
in my mind, because he _used_ America precisely as an actor would, to
make money wherever he could by his lectures, which he puffed himself,
till he was absolutely laughed at all over the country, and which were,
by the accounts of those who heard them, perfectly shallow and often
quite erroneous as far as regarded the information they pretended to
impart. The Southern States were a lucrative field for his lecturing
speculation; the Northern abolitionists were far from being sufficiently
numerous or influential for it to be worth his while to conciliate them;
and for these reasons I attach little value to his statement upon that
or indeed any other subject.

You ask me what was my impression altogether of the Drawing-room. I
have told you about my own performances there, of which, however, I dare
say I exaggerated the awkwardness to myself. The whole thing wearied me,
just as any other large, overcrowded assembly where I could not sit down
would; and that is the chief impression it has left upon me. I believe I
was flattered by the Queen's expressing any curiosity about me, but I
went simply because I was told it was right that I should do so. I am
always horribly shy, or nervous, or whatever that foolish sensation
ought to be called, at even having to walk across a room full of people;
and therefore the fuss and to-do and ceremonial of the presentation
(particularly not having been very well drilled beforehand by Lady
Francis, who presented me) were disagreeable to me; but I have retained
no impression of the whole thing other than of a very large and
fatiguing rout. We are advised to go again on the birthday, but that I
am sure we shall not do; and now that the Queen--God bless her!--has
perceived that I do not go upon all-fours, but am indeed, as Bottom
says, "a woman like any other woman," I have no doubt her gracious
Majesty is abundantly satisfied with what she saw of me.

Good-bye, dearest Harriet.