Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 118

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Jan. 13, 1841.

Most agreeable dinner here yesterday; the convives were: Dr. Lushington, Mr. Andrews; Mrs. Andrews at the last sent a regret&mdash;ill in bed with a headache. Honora came in her stead. Mr. Macintosh and Miss Carr; Dr. Lushington beside Fanny, and carving remarkably well and most entertaining and agreeable; he raised the heart's laugh frequently, and the head's by fresh, not old-faded-London-diner-out bon-mots, anecdotes, and facts worth knowing, all with the assistance of Mr. Andrews, so remarkably agreeable and gentlemanly a gentleman; they played into each other's hands and mine delightfully, and Fanny's, and Honora's, and the ball came to everybody pat, in turn. The ball did I say? Boomerang I should have said, for it came back always nicely to the thrower.

I must tell you an anecdote I heard yesterday from Mr. Kenyon, brother of Lord Kenyon's, a saying of Mrs. Brooke, sister of Baron Garrow, who, notwithstanding his bullying manner in court, was a man easily swayed in private, always influenced by the last thing said by the last person in his company&mdash;all which was compressed by Mrs. Brooke into: "With my brother presence is power."