The earl is an agreeable man: Lady Gertrude is a very agreeable woman.
They saw Miss Grandison with the young lord's eyes; and were better
pleased with her, as I told her afterwards, than I should have been, or
than they would, had they known her as well as I do. She doubted not,
she answered me, but I should find fault with her; and yet she was as
good as for her life she could be.
Such an archness in every motion! Such a turn of the eye to me on my
Lord G----'s assiduities! Such a fear in him of her correcting glance!
Such a half-timid, half-free parade when he had done any thing that he
intended to be obliging, and now and then an aiming at raillery, as if he
was not very much afraid of her, and dared to speak his mind even to her!
On her part, on those occasions, such an air, as if she had a learner
before her; and was ready to rap his knuckles, had nobody been present to
mediate for him; that though I could not but love her for her very
archness, yet in my mind, I could, for their sakes, but more for her own,
have severely chidden her.
She is a charming woman; and every thing she says and does becomes her.
But I am so much afraid of what may be the case, when the lover is
changed into the husband, that I wish to myself now and then, when I see
her so lively, that she would remember that there was once such a man as
Captain Anderson. But she makes it a rule, she says, to remember nothing
that will vex her.
Is not my memory (said she once) given me for my benefit, and shall I
make it my torment? No, Harriet, I will leave that to be done by you
wise ones, and see what you will get by it.
Why this, Charlotte, replied I, the wise ones may have a chance to get by
it--They will, very probably, by remembering past mistakes, avoid many
inconveniencies into which forgetfulness will run you lively ones.
Well, well, returned she, we are not all of us born to equal honour.
Some of us are to be set up for warnings, some for examples: and the
first are generally of greater use to the world than the other.
Now, Charlotte, said I, do you destroy the force of your own argument.
Can the person who is singled out for the warning, be near so happy, as
she that is set up for the example?
You are right as far as I know, Harriet: but I obey the present impulse,
and try to find an excuse afterwards for what that puts me upon: and all
the difference is this, as to the reward, I have a joy: you a comfort:
but comfort is a poor word; and I can't bear it.
So Biddy, in 'The Tender Husband,' would have said, Charlotte. But poor
as the word is with you and her, give me comfort rather than joy, if they
must be separated. But I see not but that a woman of my Charlotte's
happy turn may have both.
She tapped my cheek--Take that, Harriet, for making a Biddy of me. I
believe, if you have not joy, you have comfort, in your severity.
My heart as well as my cheek glowed at the praises the earl and the lady
both joined in (with a fervor that was creditable to their own hearts) of
Sir Charles Grandison, while they told us what this man, and that woman
of quality or consideration said of him. Who would not be good? What is
life without reputation? Do we not wish to be remembered with honour
after death? And what a share of it has this excellent man in his life!
--May nothing, for the honour-sake of human nature, to which he is so
great an ornament, ever happen to tarnish it!
They made me a hundred fine compliments. I could not but be pleased at
standing well in their opinion: but, believe me, my dear, I did not enjoy
their praises of me, as I did those they gave him. Indeed, I had the
presumption, from the approbation given to what they said of him by my
own heart, to imagine myself a sharer in them, though not in his merits.
Oh, Lucy! ought there not to have been a relation between us, since what
I have said, from what I found in myself on hearing him praised, is a
demonstration of a regard for him superior to the love of self?
Adieu, my Lucy. I know I have all your prayers.
Adieu, my dear!