omach! What is
this fascination which makes us cling to existence in spite of present
sufferings and of religious hopes? Yesterday evening I called at the
house in Cadogan Place, where the body is lying. I was truly fond of
him; that is, "je l'aimais comme l'on aime." And how is that? How very
little one human being generally cares for another! How very little the
world misses anybody! How soon the chasm left by the best and wisest
men closes! I thought, as I walked back from Cadogan Place, that our
own selfishness when others are taken away ought to teach us how little
others will suffer at losing us. I thought that, if I were to die
to-morrow, not one of the fine people, whom I dine with every week, will
take a cotelette aux petits pois the less on Saturday at the table to
which I was invited to meet them, or will smile less gaily at the ladies
over the champagne. And I am quite even with them. What are those pretty
lines of Shelley?

Oh, world, farewell!
Listen to the passing bell.
It tells that thou and I must part
With a light and heavy heart.

There are not ten people in the world whose deaths would spoil my
dinner; but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart. The
more I see of the world, and the more numerous my acquaintance becomes,
the narrower and more exclusive my affection grows, and the more I cling
to my sisters, and to one or two old tried friends of my quiet days. But
why should I go on preaching to you out of Ecclesiastes? And here comes,
fortunately, to break the train of my melancholy reflections, the proof
of my East India Speech from Hansard; so I must put my letter aside, and
correct the press. Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London: August 2, 1833.

My dear Sister,--I agree with your judgment on Chesterfield's Letters.
They are for the most part trash; though they contain some clever
passages, and the style is not bad. Their celebrity must be attributed
to causes quite distinct from their literary merit, and particularly to
the position which the author held in society. We see in our own time
that the books written by public men of note are generally rated at
more than their real value: Lord Granville's little compositions, for
example; Canning's verses; Fox's history; Brougham's treatises. The
writings of people of high fashion, also, have a value set on them far
higher than that which intrinsically belongs to them. The verses of the
late Duchess of Devo