When Miss Stanley came in to make breakfast, she beautifully exemplified
the worthy housekeeper's description. I have sometimes seen young women,
whose simplicity was destitute of elegance, and others in whom a too
elaborate polish had nearly effaced their native graces: Lucilla
appeared to unite the simplicity of nature to the refinement of good
breeding. It was thus she struck me at first sight. I forbore to form a
decided opinion till I had leisure to observe whether her mind fulfilled
all that her looks promised.
Lucilla Stanley is rather perfectly elegant than perfectly beautiful. I
have seen women as striking, but I never saw one so interesting. Her
beauty is countenance: it is the stamp of mind intelligibly printed on
the face. It is not so much the symmetry of features as the joint
triumph of intellect and sweet temper. A fine old poet has well
described her:
Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks and so distinctly wrought.
That one could almost say her body thought.
Her conversation, like her countenance, is compounded of liveliness,
sensibility, and delicacy. She does not say things to be quoted, but the
effect of her conversation is that it leaves an impression of pleasure
on the mind, and a love of goodness on the heart. She enlivens without
dazzling, and entertains without overpowering. Contented to please, she
has no ambition to shine. There is nothing like effort in her
expression, or vanity in her manner. She has rather a playful gayety
than a pointed wit. Of repartee she has little, and dislikes it in
others; yet I have seldom met with a truer taste for inoffensive wit.
This is indeed the predominating quality of her mind; and she may rather
be said to be a nice judge of the genius of others than to be a genius
herself. She has a quick perception of whatever is beautiful or
defective in composition or in character. The same true taste pervades
her writing, her conversation, her dress, her domestic arrangements, and
her gardening, for which last she has both a passion and a talent.
Though she has a correct ear, she neither sings nor plays; and her
taste is so exact in drawing, that she really seems to have _le compass
dans l'[oe]uil_; yet I never saw a pencil in her fingers, except to
sketch a seat or a bower for the pleasure-grounds. Her notions are too
just to allow her to be satisfied with mediocrity in any thing, and for
perfection in many things, she thinks that life is too short, and its
duties too various and important. Having five younger sisters to assist,
has induced her to neglect some acquisitions which she would have liked.
Had she been an only daughter, she owns that she would have indulged a
little more in the garnish and decoration of life.
At her early age, the soundness of her judgment on persons and things
can not be derived from experience; she owes it to a _tact_ so fine as
enables her to seize on the strong feature, the prominent circumstance,
the leading point, instead of confusing her mind and dissipating her
attention, on the inferior parts of a character, a book, or a business.
This justness of thinking teaches her to rate things according to their
worth, and to arrange them according to their place. Her manner of
speaking adds to the effect of her words, and the tone of her voice
expresses with singular felicity, gayety or kindness, as her feelings
direct, and the occasion demands. This manner is so natural, and her
sentiments spring so spontaneously from the occasion, that it is obvious
that display is never in her head, nor an eagerness for praise in her
heart. I never heard her utter a word which I could have wished unsaid,
or a sentiment I could have wished unthought.
As to her dress, it reminds me of what Dr. Johnson once said to an
acquaintance of mine, of a lady who was celebrated for dressing well.
"The best evidence that I can give you of her perfection in this respect
is, that one can never remember what she had on." The dress of Lucilla
is not neglected, and it is not studied. She is as neat as the strictest
delicacy _demands_, and as fashionable as the strictest delicacy
_permits_; and her nymph-like form does not appear to less advantage for
being vailed with scrupulous modesty.
Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they could
guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty invests its
possessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from
principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice, the coquet
would adopt it as an allurement, the pure as her appropriate attraction,
and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.
What I admire in Miss Stanley, and what I have sometime regretted the
want of in some other women, is, that I am told she is so lively, so
playful, so desirous of amusing her father and mother when alone, that
they are seldom so gay as in their family party. It is then that her
talents are all unfolded, and that her liveliness is without restraint.
She was rather silent the two or three first days after my arrival, yet
it was evidently not the silence of reserve or inattention, but of
delicate propriety. Her gentle frankness and undesigning temper
gradually got the better of this little shyness, and she soon began to
treat me as the son of her father's friend. I very early found, that
though a stranger might behold her without admiration, it was impossible
to converse with her with indifference. Before I had been a week at the
Grove, my precautions vanished, my panoply was gone, and yet I had not
consulted Mr. Stanley.
In contemplating the captivating figure, and the delicate mind of this
charming girl, I felt that imagination, which misleads so many youthful
hearts, had preserved mine. The image my fancy had framed, and which had
been suggested by Milton's heroine, had been refined indeed, but it had
not been romantic. I had early formed an ideal standard in my mind; too
high, perhaps; but its very elevation had rescued me from the common
dangers attending the society of the sex. I was continually comparing
the women with whom I conversed, with the fair conception which filled
my mind. The comparison might be unfair to them; I am sure it was not
unfavorable to myself, for it preserved me from the fascination of mere
personal beauty, the allurements of fictitious character, and the
attractions of ordinary merit.
I am aware that love is apt to throw a radiance around the being it
prefers, till it becomes dazzled, less perhaps with the brightness of
the object itself, than with the beams with which imagination has
invested it. But religion, though it had not subdued my imagination, had
chastised it. It had sobered the splendors of fancy, without obscuring
them. It had not extinguished the passions, but it had taught me to
regulate them.----I now seemed to have found the being of whom I had
been in search. My mind felt her excellences, my heart acknowledged its
conqueror. I struggled, however, not to abandon myself to its impulses.
I endeavored to keep my own feelings in order, till I had time to
appreciate a character which appeared as artless as it was correct. And
I did not allow myself to make this slight sketch of Lucilla, and of the
effect she produced on my heart, till more intimate acquaintance had
justified my prepossessions.
But let me not forget that Mr. Stanley had another daughter. If
Lucilla's character is more elevated, Ph[oe]be's is not less amiable.
Her face is equally handsome, but her figure is somewhat less delicate.
She has a fine temper, and strong virtues. The little faults she has,
seem to flow from the excess of her good qualities. Her susceptibility
is extreme, and to guide and guard it, finds employment for her
mother's fondness, and her father's prudence. Her heart overflows with
gratitude for the smallest service. This warmth of her tenderness keeps
her affections in more lively exercise than her judgment; it leads her
to over-rate the merit of those she loves, and to estimate their
excellences, less by their own worth than by their kindness to her. She
soon behaved to me with the most engaging frankness, and her innocent
vivacity encouraged, in return, that affectionate freedom with which one
treats a beloved sister.
The other children are gay, lovely, interesting, and sweet-tempered.
Their several acquisitions, for I detest the term _accomplishments_,
since it has been warped from the true meaning in which Milton used it,
seem to be so many individual contributions brought in to enrich the
common stock of domestic delight. Their talents are never put into
exercise by artificial excitements. Habitual industry, quiet exertion,
successive employments, affectionate intercourse, and gay and animated
relaxation, make up the round of their cheerful day.
I could not forbear admiring in this happy family the graceful union of
piety with cheerfulness; strictness of principle embellished, but never
relaxed by gayety of manners; a gayety, not such as requires turbulent
pleasures to stimulate it, but evidently the serene, yet animated,
result of well-regulated minds;--of minds actuated by a tenderness of
conscience, habitually alive to the perception of the smallest sin, and
kindling into holy gratitude at the smallest mercy.
I often called to my mind that my father, in order to prevent my being
deceived, and run away with by persons who appeared lively at first
sight, had early accustomed me to discriminate carefully, whether it was
not the _animal_ only that was lively, and the man dull. I have found
this caution of no small use in my observations on the other sex. I had
frequently remarked, that the musical and the dancing ladies, and those
who were most admired for modish attainments, had little _intellectual_
gayety. In numerous instances I found that the mind was the only part
which was not kept in action; and no wonder, for it was the only part
which had received no previous forming, no preparatory molding.
When I mentioned this to Mr. Stanley, "the education," replied he,
"which now prevails, is a Mohammedan education. It consists entirely in
making woman an object of attraction. There are, however, a few
reasonable people left, who, while they retain the object, improve upon
the plan. They too would make woman attractive; but it is by sedulously
laboring to make the understanding, the temper, the mind, and the
manners of their daughters, as engaging as these Circassian parents
endeavor to make the person."