MISS BYRON, TO LADY G----
TUESDAY, MAY 2.
I have no patience with you, Lady G----. You are ungenerously playful!
Thank Heaven, if this be wit, that I have none of it. But what signifies
expostulating with one who knows herself to be faulty, and will not
amend? How many stripes, Charlotte, do you deserve?--But you never
spared any body, not even your brother, when the humour was upon you. So
make haste; and since you will lay in stores for repentance, fill up your
measure as fast as you can.
'Reveal to you the state of my heart!'--Ah, my dear! it is an
unmanageable one. 'Greatness of mind!'--I don't know what it is!--All
his excellencies, his greatness, his goodness, his modesty, his
cheerfulness under such afflictions as would weigh down every other heart
that had but half the compassion in it with which his overflows--Must not
all other men appear little, and, less than little, nothing, in my eyes?
--It is an instance of patience in me, that I can endure any of them who
pretend to regard me out of my own family.
I thought, that when I got down to my dear friends here, I should be
better enabled, by their prudent counsels, to attain the desirable frame
of mind which I had promised myself: but I find myself mistaken. My
grandmamma and aunt are such admirers of him, take such a share in the
disappointment, that their advice has not the effect I had hoped it would
have. Lucy, Nancy, are perpetually calling upon me to tell them
something of Sir Charles Grandison; and when I begin, I know not how to
leave off. My uncle rallies me, laughs at me, sometimes reminds me of
what he calls my former brags. I did not brag, my dear: I only hoped,
that respecting as I did every man according to his merit, I should never
be greatly taken with any one, before duty added force to the
inclination. Methinks the company of the friends I am with, does not
satisfy me; yet they never were dearer to me than they now are. I want
to have Lord and Lady L----, Lord and Lady G----, Dr. Bartlett, my Emily,
with me. To lose you all at once!--is hard!--There seems to be a strange
void in my heart--And so much, at present, for the state of that heart.
I always had reason to think myself greatly obliged to my friends and
neighbours all around us; but never, till my return, after these few
months absence, knew how much. So many kind visitors; such unaffected
expressions of joy on my return; that had I not a very great
counterbalance on my heart, would be enough to make me proud.
My grandmamma went to Shirley-manor on Saturday; on Monday I was with her
all day: but she would have it that I should be melancholy if I staid
with her. And she is so self-denyingly careful of her Harriet! There
never was a more noble heart in woman. But her solitary moments, as my
uncle calls them, are her moments of joy. And why? Because she then
divests herself of all that is either painful or pleasurable to her in
this life: for she says, that her cares for her Harriet, and especially
now, are at least a balance for the delight she takes in her.
You command me to acquaint you with what passes between me and the
gentlemen in my neighbourhood; in your style, my fellows.
Mr. Fenwick invited himself to breakfast with my aunt Selby yesterday
morning. I would not avoid him.
I will not trouble you with the particulars: you know well enough what
men will say on the subject upon which you will suppose he wanted to talk
to me. He was extremely earnest. I besought him to accept my thanks for
his good opinion of me, as all the return I could make him for it; and
this in so very serious a manner, that my heart was fretted, when he
declared, with warmth, his determined perseverance.
Mr. Greville made us a tea-visit in the afternoon. My uncle and he
joined to rally us poor women, as usual. I left the defence of the sex
to my aunt and Lucy. How poor appears to me every conversation now with
these men!--But hold, saucy Harriet, was not your uncle Selby one of the
raillers?--But he does not believe all he says; and therefore cannot
wish to be so much regarded, on this topic, as he ought to be by me, on
others.
After the run of raillery was over, in which Mr. Greville made exceptions
favourable to the women present, he applied to every one for their
interest with me, and to me to countenance his address. He set forth his
pretensions very pompously, and mentioned a very considerable increase of
his fortune; which before was a very handsome one. He offered our own
terms. He declared his love for me above all women, and made his
happiness in the next world, as well as in this, depend upon my favour to
him.
It was easy to answer all he said; and is equally so for you to guess in
what manner I answered him: And he, finding me determined, began to grow
vehement, and even affrontive. He hinted to me, that he knew what had
made me so very resolute. He threw out threatenings against the man, be
he whom he would, that should stand in the way of his success with me; at
the same time intimating saucily, as I may say, (for his manner had
insult in it,) that it was impossible a certain event could ever take
place.
My uncle was angry with him; so was my aunt: Lucy was still more angry
than they: but I, standing up, said, Pray, my dear friends, take nothing
amiss that Mr. Greville has said.--He once told me, that he would set
spies upon my conduct in town. If, sir, your spies have been just, I
fear nothing they can say. But the hints you have thrown out, shew such
a total want of all delicacy of mind, that you must not wonder if my
heart rejects you. Yet I am not angry: I reproach you not: Every one has
his peculiar way. All that is left me to say or to do, is to thank you
for your favourable opinion of me, as I have thanked Mr. Fenwick; and to
desire that you will allow me to look upon you as my neighbour, and only
as my neighbour.