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t in America, where your talents are justly appreciated.... I have not seen Mme. d'H---- for a long time: she dines at half-past nine--wakes when other persons sleep, which makes it impossible to enjoy her society without paying the price of a night's repose.... Your friend and admirer Mr. S---- is dead of old age. I met him two weeks previous at a party. His widow gave a dinner the next week, because she was afraid of being _triste_--receives and appears on the Boulevards, because 'bon ami m'a dit qu'il fallait vivre.' Her friends flatter themselves that her sensibility will not kill her, at the same time that it enables them to give agreeable parties.... My desire to see my child is stronger than my taste for Paris. I am of your opinion: the best thing a woman can do is to marry: even quarrels with one's husband are preferable to the ennui of a solitary existence. There are so many hours apart from those appropriated to the world that one cannot get rid of--at least one like myself, having no useful occupation. You never felt ennui, because you cultivate talents which will immortalize you.... Mme. de Stael died regretting a life that she had contrived to render very agreeable. Her most intimate friends were ignorant that a marriage with M. Rocca existed, and unless her will had substantiated the fact they would have treated it as a calumny. Marrying a man twenty years younger than herself, without fortune or name, is in France _un ridicule, pire qu'un crime_. What think you of the _Manuscript of St. Helena_ being attributed to her and Benjamin Constant? Is it possible to carry the desire of rendering her inconsistent further?... Adieu! Your recollection accompanies me to the New World, where I hope I may meet any one half so agreeable. They write me that my son is _petri d'esprit_. I fear that after exciting my hopes he will become, like the generality of people, mediocre and tiresome. Yours affectionately, ELIZA PATTERSON." The next letter is preceded by Lady Morgan's comment: "Mme. Bonaparte, with her airy manner, beauty and wit, would have made an excellent princess, American as she was. One wonders that Napoleon should have been blind to her capabilities--he whose motto was, 'The tools to him who can use them.'"--"BALTIMORE, 1818. DEAR LADY MORGAN:... The demand for your work on France was so great that it went through three editions with us.... My son is intelligent, good and very handsome.... You have a great d
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