en heart,
to be mended by all sorts of men, like the women here, who do not see
that a total want of heart is their real failing.' On another occasion
he said to her: 'I have now made peace with the whole world, and at last
also with God, who sends thee to me as a beautiful angel of death: I
shall certainly soon die.' Lady Duff Gordon said to him: 'Poor Poet, do
you still retain such splendid illusions, that you transform a travelling
Englishwoman into Azrael? That used not to be the case, for you always
disliked us.' He answered: 'Yes, I do not know what possessed me to
dislike the English, . . . it really was only petulance; I never hated
them, indeed, I never knew them. I was only once in England, but knew no
one, and found London very dreary, and the people and the streets odious.
But England has revenged herself well; she has sent me most excellent
friends--thyself and Milnes, that good Milnes.'

There are delightful letters from Dicky Doyle here, with the most amusing
drawings, one of the present Sir Robert Peel as he made his maiden speech
in the House being excellent; and the various descriptions of Hassan's
performances are extremely amusing. Hassan was a black boy, who had been
turned away by his master because he was going blind, and was found by
Lady Duff Gordon one night sitting on her doorstep. She took care of
him, and had him cured, and he seems to have been a constant source of
delight to every one. On one occasion, 'when Prince Louis Napoleon (the
late Emperor of the French) came in unexpectedly, he gravely said:
"Please, my Lady, I ran out and bought twopenny worth of sprats for the
Prince, and for the honour of the house."' Here is an amusing letter
from Mrs. Norton:

MY DEAR LUCIE,--We have never thanked you for the red Pots, which no
early Christian should be without, and which add that finishing stroke
to the splendour of our demesne, which was supposed to depend on a
roc's egg, in less intelligent times. We have now a warm Pompeian
appearance, and the constant contemplation of these classical objects
favours the beauty of the facial line; for what can be deduced from
the great fact, apparent in all the states of antiquity, that
_straight noses_ were the ancient custom, but the logical assumption
that the constant habit of turning up the nose at unsightly
objects--such as the National Gallery and other offensive and
obtrusive things--has produced the mod