have your mind occupied, and because even to have mixed a little in a circle so brilliant will be of advantage to you in India.  You have neglected, and very rightly and sensibly, frivolous accomplishments; you have not been at places of fashionable diversion; and it is, therefore, the more desirable that you should appear among the dancing, pianoforte-playing, opera-going, damsels at Calcutta as one who has seen society better than any that they ever approached.  I hope that you will not disapprove of what I have done.  I accepted Sharp’s offer for you eagerly.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London:  January 2, 1834.

My dear Sister,—­I am busy with an article for Napier. [The first article on Lord Chatham.] I cannot in the least tell at present whether I shall like it or not.  I proceed with great ease; and in general I have found that the success of my writings has been in proportion to the ease with which they have been written.

I had a most extraordinary scene with Lady Holland.  If she had been as young and handsome as she was thirty years ago, she would have turned my head.  She was quite hysterical about my going; paid me such compliments as I cannot repeat; cried; raved; called me dear, dear Macaulay.  “You are sacrificed to your family.  I see it all.  You are too good to them.  They are always making a tool of you; last Session about the slaves; and now sending you to India!” I always do my best to keep my temper with Lady Holland for three reasons; because she is a woman; because she is very unhappy in her health, and in the circumstances of her position; and because she has a real kindness for me.  But at last she said something about you.  This was too much, and I was beginning to answer her in a voice trembling with anger, when she broke out again:  “I beg your pardon.  Pray forgive me, dear Macaulay.  I was very impertinent.  I know you will forgive me.  Nobody has such a temper as you.  I have said so a hundred times.  I said so to Allen only this morning.  I am sure you will bear with my weakness.  I shall never see you again;” and she cried, and I cooled; for it would have been to very little purpose to be angry with her.  I hear that it is not to me alone that she runs on in this way.  She storms at the Ministers for letting me go.  I was told that at one dinner she became so violent that even Lord Holland, whose temper, whatever his wife may say, is much cooler than mine, could not command himself, and broke out:  “Don’t talk such nonsense, my Lady.  What, the devil!  Can we tell a gentleman who has a claim upon us that he must lose his only chance of getting an independence in order that he may come and talk to you in an evening?”

Good-bye, and take care not to become so fond of your own will as my Lady.  It is now my duty to omit no opportunity of giving you wholesome advice.  I am henceforward your sole guardian.  I have bought Gisborne’s Duties of Women, Moore’s Fables for the Female Sex, Mrs. King’s Female Scripture Characters, and Fordyce’s Sermons.  With the help of these books I hope to keep my responsibility in order on our voyage, and in India.