months, I found it had come to Edinburgh in my absence, and I am now engaged in reading it with more interest than many others could, from the assistance I derive from my recollection of what caused so much suffering and produced so much to us as well as to you. I will not affect any modesty about style; for I think the best authors and the best conversation have in this respect made me a tolerable judge. To me the book seems to possess every advantage that many perspicuous and unaffected languages can, and quite free of that finery which I consider my old friends to have borrowed from the French, our new friends. Have the goodness, dear Madam, to transmit my best acknowledgments, and to believe that I am, with much gratitude for your kind letter, Dear Madam, yours with respect and esteem, ANNE GRANT. LETTERS TO MRS. DOUGLAS CRUGER OF EDINBURGH, 9th February, 1837. MY DEAR HARRIET, -Your compliments are not acceptable to a spirit in much need of all the consolation that real and well-tried friendship can give. I have read your letter at last, with some attention, which I could not do when it arrived, my whole mind being occupied with my son's full cup of fear about his dear wife's protracted illness. She has had the influenza, which rages here like a plague, and has already cost many valuable lives, though I hope hers (the subject of many prayers) is now out of danger. Your cousin Miss Abercromby, called on me lately with some message from Lady Abercromby, and without intending (for she is a sweet artless creature), won my heart. She seemed gratified by the acquaintance, and said she would come often to see me if agreeable. Both in her instance, and in that of a younger one who came here, I was struck with the frugal simplicity of dress which is now become fashionable even among distinguished young ladies. Two years ago, a young girl of ten or twelve was in dress just a facsimile of her mother; now, the simplest straw-bonnet, in the cottage form, shades the fairest face, and the homely gray tartan the figure is mantled in, gives you the idea of a pretty rustic at best. But all that disguise breaks off when the young lady appears in full dress, as Miss Abercromby did at a late Highland ball, where she was allowed to be the fairest of the fair. I am glad to find you so captivated with the character of my Aunt Schuyler. You cannot form to yourself a better model of female excellence. I have, in one sense, outlived her too long; that is, I have outlived those who, at the time the book was written, remembered her, and bore testimony to the fidelity of the picture. An odd circumstance occurred when I was in London in 1808, about the period of the publication of the book. You know how partial I had ever been to the North American Indians, over whose injuries and oppressions I still mourn. My respect for the pure and peaceable doctrines and spotless lives of the Quakers was much heightened by their just and upright dealings with the Indians. William Penn was a legislator quite to my taste, admiring, as I did, the wisdom and humanity of his ordinances. It had not occurred to me, or rather I had not heard it, but it seems the Governor of Pennsylvania, the last William Penn,1 had come over to England to seek rest from the storms of the Revolution. He was about fifty years old, with the genuine dress and air of a Quaker, yet, with this gravity, he placed his affections on Lady Juliana Fermor, daughter of the Earl of Pomfret, a young lady who, on account of her beauty and talents, was considered the ornament of the British Court. This ambitious flame was encouraged by the lady's mother, and finally by herself. It was settled, as usual in such cases, that the boys should be Quakers, and the girls of the National Church. One of the daughters, who proved afterwards a distinguished personage, was married to the Hon. William Stuart, Primate of Ireland. She took some pains to cultivate my acquaintance, as did several others of the same very agreeable family. I was rather surprised at all this kindness, until it occurred to me that some of it might be owing to a partiality for the topics in my American book. Speaking of Quakers, I have often thought it something odd, that though we are so ready to acknowledge the merit of these people, their self-command and placid manners, none of us would much approve of having a son a member of that amiable fraternity. we are. I am very glad for your own sake as well as theirs, you take so kindly to those youths whom their father left to you as a kind of legacy. The more our best affections are called forth, the happier These are the treasures of the heart, and may prove invaluable. I remember, on coming first to this country from America, I used to tell people, with a kind of triumph, of the certainty of always finding children in that country about a Dutch house. Whether they were their own or not, they seemed to be 1 John (not William) Penn, who was born in London, 14 July, 1729, and died in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 9 February, 1795. His beautiful countryseat, "Lansdowne," is now a part of Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. an article quite indispensable: whatever enlarges the circles of our affections must add to our enjoyments. . . I have over-written myself, and merely add every affection for Mr. Cruger and Mrs. Hasell, from Yours, very truly, ANNE GRANT. EDINBURGH, 9th April, 1838. MY DEAR HARRIET, — I am beginning to make a feeble attempt to write after recovering from a rather dangerous illness. I was tempted to make this a kind of valedictory letter, but having an impression on my mind that this long protracted life may yet continue while I can be of any use to my fellow-creatures, I will not address you for the last time. I was very much gratified to find my shadow1 so kindly welcomed by my American friends, partly on my son's account, who was eager about forwarding it, but more particularly on that of Mr. Watson Gordon, who is by no means a mere artist, but a gentleman of refined taste, and quiet, unambitious character. I owe something to the picture for procuring me the pleasure of his acquaintance. He wrought con amore, and was no doubt pleased that his powers should be distinguished beyond the mighty waters of the West. 2 I am going to ask some questions of you, but before I begin, must entreat you to send my benediction to Mr. Preston, who has done honor to himself, and given me great pleasure by advocating the cause of those noble creatures, the deeply injured Indians. Your country people used to offend me very much by the apathy with which they listened to all I could say of these "Stoics of the Woods." Often I said to myself, "Forgiveness to the injured does belong, But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." 1 The portrait appears as a frontispiece to this volume, for which it has been reproduced for the first time. Another of Sir John's pictures, painted for Mrs. Grant, is that of her young poet friend William Wilson, now in the possession of his son, General Wilson, of New York. 2 William C. Preston (1794-1860) of South Carolina, who became intimate with Mrs. Grant during several years' residence in Edinburgh in early life. Many letters were afterwards exchanged between them. One of my sweetest recollections of my venerated Aunt Schuyler is, that she always spoke with sympathy and kindness of the Indians, thoroughly understood and justly appreciated their character. . . ... Tell that charming writer Mrs. Jameson1 that I (being a little prudish) took great offence at seeing so much beautiful praise lavished on the beauties of Charles the Second's Court, whom I considered no better than they should be. But, afterwards, her stricture on Shakespeare's female characters delighted me. She invested them with all the properties that I had long studied and admired, without a hope of meeting with any one that would understand, far less explain, my feelings. Pray thank her for me for melting the frost of age about my heart, and restoring to me the delights of loving and admiring excellence. I can never do her any good, but she did a great deal to me: thank her for me, I earnestly entreat you. With a confused head and chilled fingers, you must make allowance for something more than my usual incoherence. I understand well who the daughter-in-law of the late Lord Chancellor Erskine was, to whom you referred. She was a Colden, of an old Scottish family long resident in New York. Who has not heard of Cadwallader Colden, the clear-sighted oracle of all the successive governors of that Province? Lady Erskine called on me frequently when she was in Edinburgh. She was accounted a person of singular mildness and prudence; she was beautiful, and continued to be so for a longer period than is usually allotted to the fair Americans, who are chiefly a kind of spring flower. I must now give you in charge to tell Mr. Stephens, the traveller in the Holy Land, with how much pleasure my son and I read his travels, or whatever else he calls them. We thought him quite original and unpretending, and liked very much his respectful and proper mode of expressing himself on sacred subjects; not pre 2 1 Mrs. Anne Jameson (1797–1860), author of "The Beauties of the Court of Charles II," "Legends of the Madonna," and many other works on art, was then on a visit to the United States. 2 John L. Stephens (1805–1852), who wrote many interesting books of travel, chief among them being his popular volumes on Central America and Yucatan, perhaps the most important contributions yet made by any one writer on the subject of American Antiquities. |