[The Idler in France by Marguerite Gardiner]@TWC D-Link bookThe Idler in France CHAPTER VII 13/14
His thirst for knowledge is insatiable, and leads him to every scientific resort where it may be gratified. Spent last evening at Madame Craufurd's.
Met there, the Princesse Castelcicala and her daughter, Lady Drummond, Mr.T.Steuart, and various others--among them, a daughter of the Marquess of Ailesbury, who has married a French nobleman, and resides in Paris. Lady Drummond talked to me a good deal of Sir William, and evinced much respect for his memory.
She is proud, and she may well be so, of having been the wife of such a man; though there was but little sympathy between their tastes and pursuits, and his death can produce so little change in her habits of life, that she can scarcely be said to miss him. He passed his days and the greater portion of his nights in reading or writing, living in a suite of rooms literally filled with books; the tables, chairs, sofas, and even the floors, being encumbered with them, going out only for a short time in a carriage to get a little air, or occasionally to dine out. He seldom saw Lady Drummond, except at dinner, surrounded by a large party.
She passed, as she still passes her time, in the duties of an elaborate toilette, paying or receiving visits, giving or going to _fetes_, and playing with her lap-dog.
A strange wife for one of the most intellectual men of his day! And yet this total dissimilarity produced no discord between them; for she was proud of his acquirements, and he was indulgent to her less _spirituelle_ tastes. Lady Drummond does much good at Naples; for, while the _beau monde_ of that gay capital are entertained in a style of profuse hospitality at her house, the poor find her charity dispensed with a liberal hand in all their exigencies; so that her vast wealth is a source of comfort to others as well as to herself. I have been reading _Vivian Grey_--a very wild, but very clever book, full of genius in its unpruned luxuriance; the writer revels in all the riches of a brilliant imagination, and expends them prodigally--dazzling, at one moment, by his passionate eloquence, and, at another, by his touching pathos. A pleasant dinner-party, yesterday.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|