You remember
Charles Buller, to whom I brought you over that night at the
Barings' in Stanhope Street? He died this day week, almost quite
unexpectedly; a sore loss to all that knew him personally, and
his gladdening sunny presence in many circles here; a sore loss
to the political people too, for he was far the cleverest of all
Whig men, and indeed the only genial soul one can remember in
that department of things.* We buried him yesterday; and now
see what new thing has come. Lord Ashburton, who had left his
mother well in Hampshire ten hours before, is summoned from poor
Buller's funeral by telegraph; hurries back, finds his mother,
whom he loved much, already dead! She was a Miss Bingham, I
think, from Pennsylvania, perhaps from Philadelphia itself. You
saw her; but the first sight by no means told one all or the
best worth that was in that good Lady. We are quite bewildered
by our own regrets, and by the far painfuler sorrow of those
closely related to these sudden sorrows. Of which let me be
silent for the present;--and indeed of all things else, for
_speech,_ inadequate mockery of one's poor meaning, is quite a
burden to me just now!
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* The reader of Carlyle's _Reminiscences,_ and of Froude's
volumes of his biography, is familiar with the close relations
that had existed between Buller and Carlyle.
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