In
good faith, so far as I have any knowledge of the matter, the women of
England are as generally out of health as those of America; always
something has gone wrong with them; and as for Jenny Lind, she looks wan
and worn enough to be an American herself. This charge of ill-health is
almost universally brought forward against us nowadays,--and, taking the
whole country together, I do not believe the statistics will bear it out.
The rooms, which were respectably filled when we arrived, were now
getting quite full. I saw Mr. Stevens, the American man of libraries,
and had some talk with him; and Durham, the sculptor; and Mr. and Mrs.
Hall introduced me to various people, some of whom were of note,--for
instance, Sir Emerson Tennent, a man of the world, of some parliamentary
distinction, wearing a star; Mr. Samuel Lover, a most good-natured,
pleasant Irishman, with a shining and twinkling visage; Miss Jewsbury,
whom I found very conversable. She is known in literature, but not to
me. We talked about Emerson, whom she seems to have been well acquainted
with while he was in England; and she mentioned that Miss Martineau had
given him a lock of hair; it was not her own hair, but a mummy's.
After our return, Mrs. ------ told us that Miss Jewsbury had written,
among other things, three histories, and as she asked me to introduce her
to S-----, and means to cultivate our acquaintance, it would be well to
know something of them.
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