Mary Boyle, her book

In speaking of Althorp, the home of my dear cousin, Lord Spencer, I place no dates at head of the chapter, as my constant visits there embraced the period of many years, and I a...

The autumn of 1850 marks, indeed, a memorable era in my heart’s calendar, for it was then I spoke for the first time with Charles Dickens. He had been my familiar friend, as a w...

These two cities have always appeared to me to bear a strong family likeness to each other, the same river running through the principal streets, although the buildings on the q...

The nineteenth century was still in its teens when I first saw the light. Let me pause, lest I make an inaccurate assertion, for I was born on the 12th November, the month of fo...

I must now make a break in the regular line of narrative, to interpolate a chapter, without specifying any particular dates, as the visits of which this portion of my story trea...

comparison with those of later writers, who have had a far wider circulation than she. Graceful and graphic, they are marked by a purity of plot and a delicacy of taste which ma...

Brighton was a favourite resort of my dear mother, both before and after I went to school there; not only on account of its healthy and invigorating air, but more especially bec...

It was on the 11th September, 1832, that, in company with my mother, my sister Caddy, and eldest brother Courtenay, I started for Turin, where Charles had preceded us. It would...

Our new residence in Florence consisted of a very pretty apartment on the ground floor of the Casa Lagerschwerd, opening on a bright little garden, which was a perfect sun-trap,...

I have made some endeavours, but without success, to fix the date of this visit. It was after 1826, and must have been before 1829, in which year Isabella Howard, one of the fou...

We made rather a sad entrance into our new abode, for we had not been settled above two days when the portress appeared to me with a very troubled face, and asked me to come and...

Our apartments were situated in the older, or Wolseyan, portion of the building, not in the square edifice which Sir Christopher Wren built for Dutch William. The architect’s mo...

Few people have had more homes than I, and few have resided in those homes for, comparatively speaking, so short a consecutive time. I have often said during a long life that I...

My Aunt’s visits to Burghley extended over many years. Lord and Lady Exeter were extremely hospitable, and continued their hospitality until his death in January 1867. As an Oxf...

We were all delighted with the Baths at Lucca, and the picturesque environs. The surrounding hills were covered with Spanish chestnut trees, which retained their fresh spring gr...

On our arrival in Florence, we took up our abode on the north side of the Arno, in the same house with our friends the de Fauveaus, and many a delightful hour did I pass in Féli...

When my uncle, Mr Poyntz, married, he went to live at his wife’s beautiful estate of Cowdray Park, and his ancestral home of Midgham was let to strangers. It had not been long i...

It was during the summer of 1844 that my dear father, who had been in failing health for some time, breathed his last at the small wayside hotel at Salt-Hill, near Slough. It ha...

From the baths of Lucca we went by _vetturino_, a charming drive, to Florence. The chief part of the way I travelled with my eldest brother on the box of our large berline, enjo...

Some of our more fashionable friends in London complained of Somerset House “being a long way off,” that ambiguous term which, I suppose in those days, meant a long way from exc...

While we were at Florence the popular mind had become so excited by passing events, by the Revolution in France, and by the outbreaks in the north of Italy, that disturbances on...

A subject of such deep and vital interest, to a mind so dramatically constituted as mine, demands a separate chapter. My brother Charles came home for the holidays, from Charter...

In passing in review before my mind the different country houses which I have frequented at different periods of my life, I am forcibly struck by the difference in the character...

But let me hasten on to Rome, where, on our arrival, we took up our abode in a charming apartment in Palazzetto Torlonia, at the corner of the Piazza di Venezia, than which a mo...

After treating of the worthy member of the household of a former generation, I am now desirous to make some mention of two or three personages who occupied different grades in m...

We passed the summer of 1846 at Munich, we—that is my mother, my brother Charles, and my sister—having taken a clean and comfortable lodging kept by a Frenchman in the Promenade...

In the year 1840, my mother gave up the apartments she had so long occupied at Hampton Court Palace—the place having become intolerable to her since the death of her beloved and...

In the year 1836 my eldest brother was married to Miss Ogle, in my opinion the most beautiful bride I have ever seen, before or since. They came to reside with us for a time, bu...