"Your kindness deserved this explanation and will accept it. There is no
man on earth so indifferent to me as Colonel Digby, and later events will
prove to you that I speak the truth."
I said I could but rejoice to hear it, and we returned from these
agitations to her room.
All this confirmed the opinion I held that she was naturally a person of
agreeable disposition but spoiled by her literary success. I never doubted
that her acceptance of Court office was with a view to a brilliant
establishment such as she had given her own "Evelina." She was as much her
own heroine and hoped for as romantic advancement, very sensibly
preferring a social triumph, could it be secured, to a mere literary one,
which she always took a little doubtfully as somewhat that might be
disparaged. Disappointed, and openly disappointed, in this hope by the
heartless behaviour of Colonel Digby, she felt retreat to be inevitable
and also the only hope for a future settlement. Yet had she been wiser to
remain! I have ever been convinced that her taste for the pen was gone by
and that only the narrowness of her means drove her to it again. At Court
she would have been valuable from a natural caution which received a fresh
lesson in this foiled love-affair. When I add that Mrs Schwellenberg
offered her the reversion of her own place when ill health should cause
her retirement and that I know this would have been confirmed, it will be
seen what she most imprudently sacrificed to sentiment.
It will be objected that marriage was her object. If so, there were
opportunities at Court she could not have elsewhere, and among the grave
clergy who attended, a suitable settlement might have been found. Miss
Burney, as the lady of a Bishop, dispensing a serious hospitality and
amending his Charges to his clergy, would have been in her right place. I
am told that her later manner of writing was far more suited to
Episcopality than to fiction, and can answer that when reading her
"Memoirs" of her father I was unable to trace the sense through the
verbiage, which appears to confirm this view. But it was not to be, though
I believe from the eagerness with which she ever visited the Royals and
took every opportunity to keep her name in sight, that she regretted her
folly and would have repaired it. But how was it possible for Their
Majesties to assist a needy Frenchman and Roman Catholic?
In her final parting with her Mistress she received much kind notice,
including permission to retain half her emolument as a pension--and this
after but five years' service!
The sweet Princesses successively pressed her hand at the parting scene
and she quitted the room with her handkerchief at her eyes and a profound
final curtsey. The Princess Royal whispered aside to me:--
"Poor soul, she might have made others happier but for the cruel wound her
heart has received. I cannot--cannot forgive Colonel Digby!"
The gay and pretty Princess Elizabeth, much livelier in disposition,
leaned on her sister's shoulder, whispering also:--
"I think, sister, that Miss Burney will not always be inconsolable, for at
the trial of Mr Warren Hastings the Duchess of Ancaster observed that Mr
Wyndham was very particular in his attentions to Miss Burney and that she
did by no means _froisser_ them. And have you not thought that she
will certainly meet him much oftener in town than here?"
I could but smile at the young discerner whose thoughts agreed so fully
with my own. For some time after she would ask me merrily what news of Mr
Wyndham, and I certainly expected it. However that was not to be, and my
expectations were verified next year by Miss Burney's marriage--a truly
amazing one--even to M. D'Arblay, a refugee Frenchman and Roman Catholic!
Would that I could have heard Mrs Thrale-Piozzi's views on this
circumstance!
Here I end. I design these notes as a strong corrective of what might
place the Queen and others of less moment in an unamiable light. Let it be
remembered that Miss Burney was the spoiled child of genius, who would
still be first and who throbbingly aspired to a social eminence denied
her. She received all attentions from the Royal Family as her due, and
knew not how to draw the distinction between what was due to her own merit
and what was given by these personages as due to their _own_ high
standard of courtesy and compassion. This is a distinction seldom drawn by
those unused to high circles and a mere literary society cannot teach it.
I have often desired that I could have had the honour to be admitted to
Her Majesty's private thoughts on Miss Burney, and should not be wholly
surprised if they favoured my own.
No doubt allowance may be made for the vagaries of genius, but none the
less do I rejoice that this, my first meeting with uncommon talent, was
also the last. It is entirely out of place in courts, and certainly a
happy mediocrity is the soil in which flourish the domestic virtues.
Though I defend not Colonel Digby it is possible he showed his judgment if
not his delicacy in his retreat, it being very difficult for him or any
man to preserve in Miss Burney's company that sense of superiority which
is so essential to matrimonial peace. There was that in her eye which, if
suddenly surprised, indicated satire; there was that in her demeanour
which hinted depths which might or might not be soothing. To be candid,
what we do not understand is feared rather than loved. And it is to the
author of "Evelina" I owe this conviction.
Peace be with her manes when what I have so doubtfully written shall be
read!
Elizabeth Bennet
Mrs. Darcy
"I must confess," observed Jane Austen, when Elizabeth Bennet, who had
been created in 1796, was at last introduced to the world of readers in
1812, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever
appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not
like _her_ at least, I do not know."
Miss Austen had the whimsical habit of diverting herself, when visiting
portrait galleries, by looking for faces that resembled those of her
heroines. She was continually on the watch for Elizabeth, but never came
upon her. She found Mrs. Bingley, "in a white gown with green ornaments,"
but not Mrs. Darcy herself. "I daresay Mrs. D. will be in yellow."
The exhibition in Spring Gardens promised well, but no Elizabeth appeared.
"We have been both to the exhibition and to Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and I
am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. at either. I can only
imagine that Mr. D. prizes any picture of her too much to like it should
be exposed to the public eye. I can imagine he would have that sort of
feeling--that mixture of love, pride, and delicacy."
We could wish that Miss Austen had found the portrait; but since she never
did, there is none of Mrs. Darcy in this book.