This blogger is away on holiday, so as she packs and runs out the door to the airport, she offers you a letter from Jane Welsh Carlyle to her mother-in-law, discussing her own journey as well as local gossip in her usual endearing style. Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866) was the wife of the historian Thomas Carlyle. She had always wanted to be a writer, but gave up her publishing plans on marriage. Instead, she turned her talents to writing letters to a wide range of friends and family, leaving a fabulous, witty commentary of the period.

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Chelsea: May 2, 1835.

I too am coming, dear mother, and expect a share of the welcome! For though I am no son, nor even much worth as a daughter, you have a heart where there is `coot and coom again.’ I think of nothing so much at present as this journey to Scotland; all the sea-sickness and fatigues of my former journeys do not damp my ardour for this one.

Carlyle has not told you a piece of news we heard yesterday, so curious as to be worth recording. Mrs. Badams, who a year and a half ago made such outrageous weeping and wailing over the death of her husband, is on the eve of a second marriage (has been engaged for months back) to a Frenchman who is — her own half-nephew!!! the son of a sister who was daughter to the same father by a former wife! Such things, it seems, are tolerated in France; to us here it seems rather shocking. Such is the upshot of all poor Badams’s labours and anxieties, and sacrifices of soul and body, in amassing money! Himself lies killed, with brandy and vexation, in a London churchyard; and the wreck of his wealth goes to supply the extravagances of a rabble of French who have neither common sense nor common decency.

I have just had a call from an old rejected lover, who has been in India these ten years: though he has come home with more thousands of pounds than we are ever likely to have hundreds, or even scores, the sight of him did not make me doubt the wisdom of my preference. Indeed, I continue quite content with my bargain; I could wish him a little less yellow, and a little more peaceable; but that is all.

What a quantity of wee wains I shall have to inspect! though I doubt if any of them will equal the first wee Jane, whom I hope they are not suffering to forget me. Truly you are become `a mighty nation’! God prosper it!

Your affectionate

Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Katie Barclay is away to lie in the sun and read a biography of an ancient queen. She might give you a summary on her return…