This had come to pass by means of her intimacy with
Lady Dyer, the wife and subsequently widow of Sir Thomas Dyer, whose
years of foreign service had interested him and her in many such
persons. The friends of her friend were her friends. They were not
such by virtue of their political position and ideas. Though it is no
doubt true, that caring little about politics, and in a jesting way
(how jesting many a memorial of fun between her and Lady Dyer, and
Miss Gabell, the daughter of Dr. Gabell of Winchester, is still extant
in my hands to prove;) the general tone of the house was "Liberal."
But nothing can be farther from the truth than the idea that my mother
was led to become a Tory by the "graciousness" of any "marquises" or
great folks of any kind. I am inclined to think that there was _one_
great personage, whose (not graciousness, but) intellectual influence
_did_ impel her mind in a Conservative direction. And this was
Metternich. She had more talk with him than her book on Vienna would
lead a reader to suppose; and very far more of his mind and influence
reached her through the medium of the Princess.
To how great a degree this is likely to have been the case may be in
some measure perceived from a letter which the Princess addressed to
my mother shortly after she had left Vienna. She preserved it among a
few others, which she specially valued, and I transcribe it from the
original now before me.
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