04Mar1872, The Course of Events Like a Drama

LONDON, Monday, March 4th, 1872.
—Dinner at Dow. Ly. Cowper's. Dufferins, young Cowpers, Evelyn Ashley (his wife at Menton for her health), Mr. Leveson [FN: Hon. Frederick Leveson-Gower, brother of Lord Granville.], hearing with great philosophy the arrival of Ld. Granville's son and heir, just announced, cutting out Mr. Leveson's boy. Said boy, however, seems a good deal more distressed at the abolition of extra weeks at Eton than by his manqué prospects. Little Vita Leveson asked her father : "Is it you or Mamma that's going to give me a little brother ?" There were also Ly. Gertrude Talbot, Mr. H. Cowper, etc.
Dean Stanley and Ly. Augusta came in after dinner : the Dean was in his element, and very delightful, talking of the loyal outburst in the country. He said nothing cd. have been imagined more striking than the course of events, and indeed it has been like a drama. The grumbling Republicanism culminating almost in threats, followed by the illness of the Prince, and that illness one so prolonged as to melt all hearts and awaken all sympathies, the devotion of the Queen and Princess — the turn for the better on the anniversary of his father's death—the great Thanksgiving Day, with its fine weather breaking out after lowering rain and fog : then the attack on the Queen by what wd. seem like the one disloyal hand among three millions, and the fresh rush of loving feeling caused by it and by her courage.