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Wednesday June 1. 1859.
My dear Fanny,
Let me begin this days record with
acknowledging the receipt of your mothers first letter and
your own. Both are very beautiful and very affectionate.
They have relieved me of much anxiety and left me
very happy.
This has been a day!! filled with cares
and excitement that I fear I shall fail to make as
full an account as you I could want —
The Derby races are the great festival occasion
in England. Races or sweep stakes are run on a
great course seventeen miles from London — and all
the world go out to see them. High and low
rich and poor refined and vulgar — I went with
Mr Morgan a banker – who took a party of
four ladies and one Gentleman beside myself – in
the a great barouche drawn by four horses mana-
ged by two postillions who rode and strut[ t ] ed
their mounts – We found ourselves in a procession
of three carriages abreast and thus we were
four hours making fourteen or fifteen miles. The
whole scene was one like a carnival. John
Bull appeared in his gala dress — He behaved
just as well as Brother Jonathon does on the
4 ^th of July, no better — Our horses became refractory
& tangled and hurt themselves, we deserted and
left our carriage. The party continued on to

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the race ground. I gave it up, and turned across
the fields to Epsom station, where after waiting
two hours t for a train and being in the mean
time requested to leave a train what I had mistaken
a private, Which I had mistaken for a
public booth, because I had onboarded with
a segar in my mouth, I l eft made my
way back to London.
Before I go And here I am to report to
you my “lunch” at Stafford House of yesterday.
The Lady Sutherland had invited a small
party of very high noble men, among them the
Marquis of Lansdowne — The House is the finest
and most magnificent private dwelling in
England. The grand Hall and stair way
and the gallery of pictures on a royal scale.
The Duke is old, infirm, almost absolutely deaf
but honest benevolent and amiable. The
Dutchess the most accomplished and elegant
lady in England. I could not tell you how kind
and gracious she was to me. She detained me
after the party had left, and we had a long and
most agreeable tete a tete.

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On the same evening I dined with her brother the
Earl of Carlisle, and a very large party of the
nobles and statesmen of the liberal po class —
It would be tedious to recount their names. The
Dutchess of Sutherland, the Duke and Dutchess of
Carlisle, Lord Granville, Lord and Lady
Shaftsbury, Lord and Lady Palmerston,
Lord John Russell, Mr G & Mrs Gladstone
Mr Delany editor of the Times. It was a
most agreeable party — and I came away op-
pressed with a consciousness that I did not
deserve such attentions and courtesies —