The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864, page 69 by Various Authors
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, my door-keeper opens to him.
Lady Geraldine was one of my most constant guests of an evening. But after her courtship and marriage, she was too apt to bring in her husband. I received him cordially enough two or three times, particularly when he came with 'the good news from Ghent.' But on other occasions his conversation was so far from agreeable, so unintelligible, or, 'not to put too fine a point upon it,' unedifying, that at last my porter was obliged to hand him out for immediate chastisement.[5] He never came again. I do not quite see why not; for, if others are willing to take pains for his good, he certainly should be no less so.
Mrs. Stowe does honor to one of the most honorable places in the assembly--her head crowned with an everlasting glory by the spirit of Uncle Tom.
Poor Charlotte Bronté is always present. She looks happy at last, with a happiness that is not of this world; and if her laurels are but earthly laurels, I often fancy that in the hand which smoothed her sisters' deathbeds, I can discern a heavenly palm. There are not many secular writers whom I would not turn away, if need were, to make room for her. If I do not always admire her characters, I do her mind. I do not altogether like her stories; but I want words to express my appreciation of the way in which she tells them.
I may state in this place, as well as in any, that--an enlightened conservative in all things--I always hold myself in readiness to receive, with marked distinction, intellectual women, who 'keep to their sphere,' such as Miss Mitchell, whose sphere is the celestial globe, Miss Austin, whose sphere is the beau monde, and Miss Blackwell, whose sphere is the pill.
Cromwell, or Frederick the Great either, would have secured a standing invitation for Carlyle, I dare say; but it is impossible for me to overlook his present state of politics. I have little doubt that it fell upon him as a Nemesis, in the first place for writing bad English, and secondly for daring to