United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The letters appear as addressed to the Countess of Bristol, to the Princess of Wales, to Mrs. Thistlethwayte, to Lady Rich, to Alexander Pope, to the Abbé Conti, to Miss Sarah Chiswell, to Mrs. Hewet, to Lady Mary's sister, the Countess of Mar, and others.
Miss Bird's patriotism prevailed over every other consideration. She expressed her wish that the poem should be retained in England; and generously accepted what was indubitably less than its market value. A MAN whom I had known from my school-days, Frederick Thistlethwayte, coming into a huge fortune when a subaltern in a marching regiment, had impulsively married a certain Miss Laura Bell.
The colours of the Scots Fusilier Guards were carried by Lieutenants Lindsay and Thistlethwayte. The staff was broken and the colours riddled, and many sergeants fell dead by their side, yet unharmed they cut their way through the foe, and bore them triumphantly up that path of death to the summit of the heights. The action lasted little more than two hours.
Thistlethwayte she treated the incident divertingly enough. "I wish I could return your goodness with some diverting accounts from hence. But I know not what part of the scenes here would gratify your curiosity, or whether you have any curiosity at all for things so far distant.
Her Irish wit and sparkling merriment, her cajolery, her good nature and her feminine artifice, were attractions which, in the eyes of the male sex, fully atoned for her youthful indiscretions. My intimacy with both Mr. and Mrs. Thistlethwayte extended over many years; and it is but justice to her memory to aver that, to the best of my belief, no wife was ever more faithful to her husband.
For two seasons, a very big stag used occasionally to find its way into our forest from the Black Mount, where it was also known. Thistlethwayte had had a chance, and missed it; then my turn came. I got a long snap-shot end on at the galloping stag. It was an unsportsmanlike thing to do, but considering the rivalry and other temptations I fired, and hit the beast in the haunch.
I had a passion for all kinds of sport, and have had opportunities of gratifying it such as fall to the lot of few. After the shootings of Glenquoich and Invergarry were lost to me through the death of Mr. Ellice, I became almost the sole guest of Mr. Thistlethwayte for twelve years at his Highland shooting of Kinlochmohr, not very far from Fort William.
Gladstone there the Duke of Devonshire and Sir W. Harcourt were both present. I once dined with Mrs. Thistlethwayte in the absence of her husband, when the only others were Munro of Novar the friend of Turner, and the envied possessor of a splendid gallery of his pictures and the Duke of Newcastle then a Cabinet Minister. Such were the notabilities whom the famous beauty gathered about her.
Whatever may be thought now, Mr. Gladstone is not the man whom posterity will ennoble with the title of either 'great' or 'good. My second reason for mentioning Frederick Thistlethwayte was one which at first sight may seem trivial, and yet, when we look into it, is of more importance than the renown of an ex- Prime Minister.
Word Of The Day