Chapter V (3)

_May 16, 1816, Pulteney Hotel, London._—We breathe imperial air, as we occupy a part of the hotel inhabited last year by the Russian Emperor; and the waiter assured me, _with a complacent attention to my feelings_, that he always wrote in the same spot that I had selected for the purpose. He does not seem to have inspired much respect; though in answer to my inquiry whether he had left the house in as dirty a state as I had heard, the waiter justified him, and said, ‘We have had others full as dirty.’

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, June 14, 1816.

Deeply do I sympathize with your anxiety, and eagerly do I wish for another letter to say your dear daughter is better. Do not, I pray, delay it. There is everything in favour of her recovery, but, alas! I know how precarious the heart feels all these _everythings_ to be when a beloved object is in question. Our fears are magnified in that case, as well as our hopes, and it is most fortunate that they bear divided sway.

I have been much gratified by Mr. White’s acquaintance, short as was our interview. His open, intelligent countenance, and an ease of manner which princes might envy, make a strong impression at first sight. Why is it that some among the Society of Friends possess an ease of manner, hardly ever met in the first approaches of those in the great world who are most anxious to acquire it? I believe it may partly arise from your never being trammelled by all those forms with which our children are embarrassed, and which may have an effect on the manners like back-boards, collars, and braces on the body. I wish we may see Mr. White here, for it is like seeing a person in a dream, to receive a short visit in the bustle and hurry of a London hotel.

You do me too much honour in supposing me well dressed. I am rather negligently than carefully; I mean negligent, as opposed to fashionable and studied, but not to neat or fresh; and as I think there cannot be too little seen of my present changed appearance, I always wear a veil and shawl when I can, partly, perhaps, from pride, but partly from modesty, having observed how much pains are thrown away by my cotemporaries to make their _exposures tolerable, ‘et pour réparer des années les outrages irréparables.’_ I am, besides, of an indolent disposition on many subjects, and dress is one. I hate shopping, dislike conferences with milliners and dressmakers, fidget while anything is trying on, and give no credit to the pert Miss who always assures me the most expensive of her caps is exactly the one which becomes me the best.

TO THE SAME.

Aug. 29, 1816.

In whatever disposition of mind I may be when I receive your letters, their effect on me is the same:—

‘Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace, and lonely musing;’

and none tend more to elevate and ameliorate my heart than those in which you describe the passage of any of your beloved circle from this world to a better. You and yours live in a peaceable atmosphere of family affections, of well-directed energies, and of pure religious sentiments, which seems so fit a preparation for a superior existence, that the loss of one of your friends seems more like a sad and tender separation than that total and frightful disruption which in other cases fills the mind with awe and terror. The loss of your admirable niece must be deeply felt by those who knew her; and the frequent instances in which we see parents survive their children, turns the balance of happiness greatly in favour of the childless. But perhaps I ought not to say this. It is ungrateful to that Providence which has blessed you and me with deserving and hopeful families, and, upon a second thought, I even believe it is untrue.

I do not feel there is any merit in my avoiding egotism. It is rather an effect of education than disposition, for I am naturally communicative; but I was brought forward almost a child as a puppet upon the theatre of the world—where no one is permitted to speak of self,—and wisely too, since nine times in ten the _truth_ would not be spoken.

I admired the verses on the death of Sheridan. I believe _the other person_ you mention, to have been applauded in early life far beyond his merits. When I first saw, and occasionally conversed with him, he had long past ‘the liquid dew and morn of youth,’ and had suffered much from ‘contagious blastments;’ ‘all was false and hollow.’ At an earlier period higher hopes were entertained.

We are just reading _Rimini_, and are crammed with description till we are crop-full. Pity that one who now and then reminds us of Dryden, and who really sees and feels, should thus bury himself in the exuberance of detail; and instead of allowing you to look quietly at the object he describes, turn it round and round, and force you, like a showman, to examine it on all sides, ‘about, above, and underneath.’ There are some admirable lines in Boileau’s _Art Poétique_, ending ‘_Et je me sauve enfin à travers le jardin_,’ which I refer you to, as exactly apposite to Hunt’s account of a palace garden; yet when he touches on the feelings of the heart, and describes the dignified yet natural penitence of the guilty lovers, he is admirable, and the beauty of his thoughts overcomes all the peculiarities of his style. He has written a silly dedication to Lord Byron, with an affectation of familiarity unsuitable to a public address, and in colloquial phrase, which I must agree with Johnson in thinking ‘unfit for a _printed_ letter.’

* * * * *

_Sept. 18, 1816._—Read Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s _Letters_. I pity Mr. Wortley in the beginning of their acquaintance. There are marks of sincerity and love in his letters, whereas I suspect her of only following up a design to marry him from motives of prudence; and she certainly does show great address in both piquing and soothing him, without ever committing herself.

* * * * *

_Sept. 20._—Of the numerous class who have affected ‘to wear a window in the breast,’ we feel little confidence in any but Montaigne and Rousseau. Mad. Roland tries to persuade herself and us that she follows their steps; but the head and heart alike refuse to believe her. She seems never to forget the effect to be produced by what she writes. She may speak truth, but it is truth presented with selection and address; while Montaigne and Rousseau abandon themselves to the current of their thoughts, apparently indifferent to the impression they will make on their readers.

TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.

Bath, Oct. 1, 1816.

No letter from you, but the weather is so fine I cannot participate in ——’s fears of your having been drowned. I dined yesterday with the ——s; only the ——s and the ——s. Mr. —— was sensible enough in his talk, but I wish he had not told me in his wife’s hearing something about having _thrown himself away_,—which sounded very odd,—and being very low-spirited in consequence in his youthful years, but having reconciled himself to it by degrees. Lady M. has a great desire to please the present and criticize the absent. At the same time, I think her a pleasing as well as valuable woman; but the spirit of petty criticism is so strong in us Irish, that scarcely any degree of goodness lulls it to sleep. I am becoming in too great request as a _chaperone_, which I must stifle, as I have no taste for duennaship. Miss E—— is growing stouter and stouter in her manners, and she and the N——s stump about the room with a deportment which appears to me a mixture of a ploughboy going over rough ground and a grenadier marching to the charge. A lady asked me yesterday in a half-audible whisper, ‘Who is that strange-looking ghost?’ ‘_Lady_ Prudentia ——.’ It was curious to see the effect of the first of these three words. She was spell-bound. Regret at having lost a good acquaintance, and remorse at having called an Earl’s daughter a strange-looking person, with surprise at the simplicity and _external_ humility which reigns in that school, were all visibly depicted on her countenance.

Adieu. I have mused much on you since we parted, ‘chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies,’—bitter only in the thought that _time_ and _chance_ happen to those who love, as to others.

TO THE SAME.

Bath, Oct., 1816.

As to Mrs. M., she only thinks aloud, and shows what other women, equally devoid of sense with herself, keep to themselves. _I_ can bear her very well; but those who envy others _perfect self-satisfaction_, and groundless but _happy-making vanity_, must dislike her. Indeed, it can only be _groundless_ vanity that makes any one happy. Any other kind is _enlightened even by its own successes_ to see their futility. ‘_A coup sûr si la vanité a rendu quelqu’un heureux, celui là était un sot._’ So says Rousseau, and Mrs. M. is a practical commentary.

I am reading Mrs. Marcet’s _Political Economy_. It is all _Say_, thrown into dialogue, with the objections which might be made. This is a good plan for chemistry, where a well-educated and thinking person _may_ begin the book entirely ignorant of the subject. But it is a bad plan for political economy, on which every one has some information, more or less. One has not patience to be stopped every minute by a foolish objection, to which one knows the answer. It may do as an elementary book; but though I could read her _Chemistry_, I cannot read this; and I should suppose the effect would be similar on all _grown people_. It shows a laudable spirit of industry, but I think it unfair to Say, of whom it is a sort of unavowed translation; for though she professes it to give the quintessence of other authors, all of it which I have read, except what is avowedly quoted, is cribbed from him without even changing his phrases. She is very nonsensical about the Poor Laws, saying that the diffusion of education will give the poor a ‘spirit of dignity and independence’ that will prevent them from taking advantage of them. Now, the answer to this position is, that the willingness and eagerness of the poor to become paupers—to receive from the taxes levied on their fellow-subjects money or support, for which no equivalent is given by them—has kept pace with, instead of being checked by, the diffusion of education; and that education never yet made any man refuse a sinecure, which is relief from the kingdom instead of the parish.

I have found a person here who almost openly forms herself on my model, and quotes my old sayings, long forgotten by _me_, as authority; but I have gone over so much ground since, that she is like a Catholic, who obeys the early Councils, without knowing that two or three others since that time have promulgated different decrees; and, as I am not the Pope, I am sometimes puzzled to reconcile them.

—— is going to receive his wanderer again. I cannot laugh at him, as others do. In a man, not otherwise deficient in sense and firmness, so much confiding love for a wife—against experience,—against probability,—against hope,—against advice,—against all but affection,—is in my eyes interesting, and partakes of the feelings a superior being might have for erring mortals.

* * * * *

_Friday, Nov. 1, 1816._—My beloved child, my docile, gentle, joyous, affectionate Bessy, resumed by Heaven at seven o’clock this morning.

TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.

Bursledon Lodge, Nov. 1, 1816.

The lovely one is gone. I am more deeply wounded than religion permits. Pity and pray for me. My visit to you is not to be thought of; I would not sadden any society by my presence. God bless you, and long preserve to you the objects of your dearest affections. My beautiful blossom, whose loveliness I had diminished in order to surprise you—foolish, wicked vanity—died as she had lived, loving every one better than herself. The last phrase she uttered, except those expressive of her latest wants and pains, was a desire the window-curtain might be withdrawn, that she might look at the stars. A little before, she had asked her afflicted maid if _she_ thought she would go to heaven. Keep this note. I like to think she will not be forgotten.

TO MRS. LEADBEATER.

Bursledon Lodge, Nov. 4, 1816.

You are so kind to me, my dearest friend, that I should feel wanting in due respect for friendship so tender if I suffered you to hear from common report that my lovely blossom is now in her little coffin, where I have just kissed her beautiful marble brow; for she was and is beautiful, though I restrained myself from talking of her personal perfections. What is more important, she was heavenly-minded as far as four years and three months would admit. I am well in health, and I hope I am resigned; but you know how the loss of an only daughter, who to the weakness of mortal eyes appeared faultless, and who had all the attractions which endear a child to strangers as well as friends—you know how it must darken the remaining years of a mother, past the age of hoping for any new blessings, but clinging too eagerly to those she already possessed. God bless you, and preserve you from such affliction.

* * * * *

_Nov. 10, 1816._

She smiled and sparkled in my sight
Four happy months, four placid years;
No fairer babe to fond delight
E’er changed a mother’s secret tears.

Sweet miniature of womanhood—
Such as in Paradise might rove,
E’er Eve desired a fancied good,
And lost her heaven of peace and love.

To me she brought returning youth—
Fair promise of a second spring—
Fond fancy’s dream, surpassed by truth;
Image of love, without his wing.

To five protecting brothers dear,
Last precious care of long-tried love,
Gay, gentle, blooming, not a fear
Could this exulting bosom move.

Mine Eden of domestic joy
I saw so richly fenced around,
So strongly sheltered from annoy,
I wandered o’er enchanted ground.

And if a tear could find a place,
To think the wasting hand of time
That prospect must at last deface,
And mar, at last, that happy clime,

How could I deem the freshest flower
To death’s cold grasp the first was doomed;
No blossom left to mark the bower
Where all its vernal sweetness bloomed?

Emblem of purity and peace,
How beautiful in death she lay!
Affliction won a short release
In gazing on that lovely clay.

Her shining locks of richest glow
Still wore of life the brilliant hue,
And parted o’er her brow of snow
A gleam of sunny radiance threw.

She lay as in a peaceful trance,
Her snowy garb adorned with flowers,
So grouped as for the sportive dance,
On Pleasure’s robe, in festal hours.

Oh loved! oh lost! and yet I know
How just, my child, is Heaven’s decree,
Which bids me bear this weight of woe,
And bliss eternal gives to thee.

TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ., FRANKFORT.

Bursledon Lodge, Nov., 1816.

It will be a relief to you to hear that my health is unimpaired by an affliction, of which you cannot know the extent without having witnessed the delightful qualities and endearing habits of the lovely little being it has pleased Heaven to resume.

You have too much feeling to be ignorant of the irreparable loss a mother incurs by being deprived of an only daughter, such a joy-inspiring creature, gifted with every endowment of mind and body desired either by the wise or the unwise—gentle, gay, blooming, beautiful, and affectionate. I looked to her for consolation under the total privation of your society I am likely to suffer, and in all the other calamities which may occur in the destiny of an affectionate woman. A son _may_ be alienated by an unfeeling wife, a husband _may_ be seduced by a mistress; but a daughter is a benignant star, shining through the clouds of adversity, and embellishing every scene of joy, her mother’s companion in sorrow, her attendant in sickness; it is on her a mother relies to close her eyes, and cherish her remembrance, which the scenes of busy life may soon efface from the breast of man. I spoke of her but little, partly from a natural tendency in the heart to silence on what interests it very deeply, and partly that I feared to show my triumph and exultation. She was my secret hoard of promised pleasure and gratification; and I had a sort of dread of letting in too much light on the fairy picture of happiness.

* * * * *

I have not thought it right to omit the following letter,
though in one sentence it is a repetition of that immediately
preceding.

TO MRS. TUITE.

Bursledon Lodge, Dec. 20, 1816.

I thank you for the sympathy you express in my deep affliction, and am aware (for I am practised in sorrow), of the effects of time and religion. Truly does Wallenstein say, under deplorable calamity,

‘I know I shall wear down this sorrow;
What sorrow does not man wear down?’[57]

But how much must one suffer before the weapon loses its edge. A daughter is a benignant star, shining through the clouds of adversity, and the chief embellishment of every scene of joy; a mother’s companion in sorrow, her ministering angel in sickness. It is on her a mother relies to close her eyes, and to cherish that remembrance of her, the scenes of busy life may soon efface from the breasts of others. Uninterested as I always am, except by what touches my affections, I seem to be more so now than ever; and have lost almost the only link which connected me strongly with my own sex, in their common pursuits and amusements. The flowers in my path are gone, and although when I look at my sons I must say, ‘my banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,’ yet I cannot cease to lament my fallen blossom:—

‘Die Blume ist hinweg aus meinem Leben.’

* * * * *

_Dec. 25, 1816._—We arrived last night in London, the populous, the powerful. It was grievous, as I sat with my children, to see the little circle had closed in, and lost its loveliest flower, its brightest gem, since last Christmas-day, when I looked round on it with perhaps too much pride.