LONDON,March 23,1847
My dear Mrs.Story:I should have thanked you by the last steamer for your note and the charming volume which accompanied it,but my thoughts and feelings were so much occupied by the sad tidings Iheard from my own family that I wrote to no one out of it.The poems,which would at all times have given me great pleasure,gave me still more here than they would if I were with you on the other side of the Atlantic.I am not cosmopolitan enough to love any nature so well as our American nature,and in addition to the charm of its poetry,every piece brought up to me the scenes amidst which it had been written....How dear these associations are your husband will soon know when he too is separated from his native shores and from those he loves....I shall look forward with great pleasure to seeing him here,and only wish you were to accompany him,for your own sake,for his,and for ours.His various culture will enable him to enjoy most fully all that Europe can yield him in every department.My own regret ever since I have been here has been that the seed has not "fallen upon better ground,"for though I thought myself not ignorant wholly,Icertainly lose much that I might enjoy more keenly if I were better prepared for it.I envy the pleasure which Mr.Story will receive from music,painting,and sculpture in Europe,even if he were destitute of the creative inspiration which he will take with him.
For ourselves,we have everything to make us happy here,and Ishould be quite so,if I could forget that I had a country and children with very dear friends 3,000miles away....There are certain sympathies of country which one cannot overcome.On the other hand I certainly enjoy pleasures of the highest kind,and am every day floated like one in a dream into the midst of persons and scenes that make my life seem more like a drama than a reality.
Nothing is more unreal than the actual presence of persons of whom one has heard much,and long wished to see.One day I find myself at dinner by the side of Sir Robert Peel,another by Lord John Russell,or at Lord Lansdowne's table,with Mrs.Norton,or at a charming breakfast with Mr.Rogers,surrounded by pictures and marbles,or with tall feathers and a long train,making curtsies to a queen.
