vexation, and an added weight of grief. Their informations caused my
father to question me upon this subject--to be angry at the
correspondence which I acknowledged--to write an ill-judged letter to
Mr T----, and violently to insist on the dissolution of an engagement
which we had mutually agreed to renounce, of our own accord, if the
guardian-eclaircissement proved what it does prove.
This storm arose in our little domestic atmosphere the day after I sent
you the large packet with the Mompesson records. In the interval, your
poor friend has been obliged to “abide the hourly shot of angry eyes;”
and Mr T----’s delicacy has been wounded to no sort of purpose. My
mother, however, behaved with extreme kindness in this business.--Of the
particulars you shall know more when we meet.
Pray bring the letter with you which you received from our dear deceased
friend since we all separated. Alas! she lived not to receive mine: it
arrived at Shrewsbury the morning after she left it. Being sent to Bath,
her father returned it to me with an unbroken seal. I wrote the instant
I heard she was worse, expecting, from day to day, that she would
herself write to me, being in my debt for a long epistle, written a
little before we went to town, when she was upon a visit at B----. I
hope to heaven she did not think I knew how ill she was, and continued
silent--Yet, Oh! that I had written sooner!--Honora is extremely grieved
for the loss of one so near and dear to her.
Adieu!--May I soon receive you in amended health and spirits; for joy,
or even cheerfulness, must, till that moment, be unknown to the heart of
your friend!
LICHFIELD, APRIL 5, 1765.
From the date of my dear Emma’s letter, it ought to have reached me
yesterday. As I flatter myself you will set out very soon, I write by
return of post. Sorry am I that you are so much indisposed. We expected
you every day this passed week, and grew impatient of a delay, which
alarmed our apprehensions, and disappointed our hopes. Yet we would not
that you should run hazards, by undertaking the journey before it is
thought proper.
Amongst many sorrows, I ought to be thankful for enjoying, in so eminent
a degree, what is allowed to be the primal blessing--a perfect state of
health. It often astonishes me to perceive, that not all the anguish I
endured for my sister’s illness and death--the regret I have felt from
the wreck of my heart’s lately revived hopes--nor this additional
affliction, in the loss of poor Nanette, have at all impaired my
constitution. Let me thankfully acknowledge the preciousness of a gift
which is bestowed thus liberally but on few, and for which many more
worthy languish in vain.
It certainly enables us more speedily to conquer every unavailing grief;
nay often dispels the gloom ere we wish it dispelled; for I have, at
times, desired, alas! perhaps criminally, to keep my sorrows more
incessantly waking, and loathed the returning dawn of my habitual
cheerfulness, the probable result of invincible health:--Invincible I
may well call it, which has stood the shock of such afflictions! Often
have I exclaimed, in the words of Isaiah, “O that my head were as water,
my eyes as a fountain of tears!” But it was very wrong.
Perhaps nothing is less reconcileable to reason than the immoderate
grief of a Christian over the tomb of those he loves. Would it not be
idle and ridiculous to lament for being a single hour absent from a
friend with whom we were to pass our lives? Yet is the comparison
inadequate; since how far a greater disparity, than that of a single
hour to the longest life, is there between the most protracted period of
human existence and the immeasurable space of eternity!
We know, we feel this; yet I am unhappy; and you, Emma, pine and droop
beneath our late deprivation. Why, why is it so? Alas! it is the voice
of Nature, that arbitrary contemner of our noblest reason--of our best
hopes, that incessantly presses upon our attention one mournful image--
“The sensible warm motion, now become
A kneaded clod.”----
Too much in vain is it urged by religious faith, that the spirit is
beatified--still does the frail mortal weep the dissolution of its
kindred clay!
I did not hear the fatal prognostic which, you say, our dear friend
uttered to Mr M----, on the eve of our leaving town. If I had, it would
have extremely shocked me. Doubtless he is much grieved, who could not
behold her with indifference whose tender attention his pleasing
qualities had deeply engaged.
Remember us all to your brother and sister: Her mild eyes, I well know,
have paid the tribute of many tears to her departed friend and cousin.
It will not surely be long ere the soft Favonius shall breathe upon our
vales--For thee may he arise with every healing power!
GOTHAM, AUG. 1767.
I write to you from the retired, and yet cheerful mansion of piety and
peace, where our family have been in the habit of passing a month every
two years; except my father, who contrives to be at some water-drinking
place for his health, though generally so excellent, while the rest of
us inhabit this scene, much too quiet and uniform for his lively spirits
and social taste.
For myself, though truly I should never have chosen to quit Lichfield
for Gotham, yet, when duty leads me thither, I can support its
tranquillity without ennui. Here none come who are anxiously
expected--none go away, for whom our sighs are responsive to the closing
door. This is not the Abyssinian Hill--but it is the dear retreat which
sheltered and soothed my desolation, when death had robbed me of an only
sister, and when the wounds of that fatal stroke were all bleeding
fresh.
The convenient old parsonage is uncommonly light and cheerful. Its
fire-places have odd little extra windows near them, which are the
blessings of employment in cold or gloomy days. A rural garden encircles
the house. In its front, a short flagged walk divides two grass-plats,
and leads to a little wicket-gate, arched over with ivy, that opens into
the fold-yard. A narrow gravel walk extends along the front of the
house, and under the parlour windows. Opposite them, and upon the larger
grass-plat, stands that venerable and expansive mulberry tree, which
shaded us from the summer heats, when, in the hours of sorrow, my
cousin, Miss Martin, Honora, and myself, resorted thither to indulge
our mournful recollections. Every other visit we have, through life,
paid to this quiet scene, was, as it is now, in autumn.
Behind the house lies the kitchen-garden, and across it a pebbly path
which leads into the churchyard. Ah! what a difference between our
stately cathedral and this simple edifice--
“The plainest roof that Piety could raise,
And only vocal with its Maker’s praise!”--
When the tuneless bell calls us to Sunday’s service, what a contrast, in
these rude and moss-greened walls, to the long and vaulted aisles--the
pealing organ--the beautiful and full-voiced choir, and all the
soul-exalting enthusiasm which results to a lover of music from choral
devotion and Gothic magnificence!
But here the religious heart pours forth its unassisted devotion in the
plain pews, and at the rustic altar, surrounded by humble villagers;
their only finery the crowded posey, whose pinks and roses, mixed with
flowering thyme and southernwood, are twisted closely round by a
plenitude of packthread, and diffuse a fragrance more cheering and
grateful to my sense than the cambric handkerchiefs of fashionable
ladies, sprinkled with costly essence and perfumed water.
Nothing can be more uniform, more simple, than the manner in which we
pass our time; and in which week after week glides smoothly, yet
swiftly, away, and seems, on retrospect, to have been scarce so many
days. This is from the want of various faces, varied employments, and of
incidents, to mark the progress of time, and divide one day from another
on the memory.
We rise at seven. At eight, my aunt and cousin, my mother, Honora, and
myself, meet at our neat and cheerful breakfast. That dear, kind-hearted
saint, my uncle, has his milk earlier, and retires, for the morning, to
his study. At nine, we adjourn to my aunt’s apartment above stairs,
where one reads aloud to the rest, who are at work. At twelve, my uncle
summons us to prayers in the parlour. When they are over, the family
disperses, and we young ones either walk or write till dinner. That
appears at two. At four, we resume my aunt’s apartment. Its large and
lightsome window commands, it is true, no other prospect than the
churchyard over the garden wall, and the village below, which is broad
and grassy, with houses thinly scattered. Now, in the latter end of
August, the evening spectacle, from seven to eight, is truly pleasing
and joyous. A majestic old elm stands in the middle of the green-sward,
circled round by a mossy seat, and is the rendezvous of the village
youths and maidens, when the labours of the day are past. Some of the
young men wrestle; some play at quoits; and others sit on the bench, and
talk to the lasses. It is impossible to express the satisfaction I have
in beholding these natural and innocent pleasures,--
“Scene of athletic sports and whisper’d vows.”
When we quit this dear apartment, to take an evening walk, it is always
with a degree of reluctance, even when the sun shines golden on the
little dark wood, a mile from us, and on Weldon Hill, which overlooks a
rich valley, watered by the smooth and silver Trent, and crowned by the
town of Nottingham and its stately castle. To this hill, when we can
prevail on ourselves to quit our book, and the sight of these rural
lovers, we generally walk; except the local attractions of our
traditionary Cuckow-bush lead us a less pleasant way, through a narrow
path, over a large ploughed field, to a clump of trees, resembling our
Borocap hill, and which, ancient story says, the wise villagers planted
to hedge in the cuckow. How I love these old tales, and to visit the
places which are said to remain in their commemoration!
Have you read Churchill’s whimsical poem, which he named after this
village--his Gotham? where we find the following odd burden recurring
perpetually:
“Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites, rejoice!
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice!
The praises of so great, so good a king,
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?”
’Tis a strange random business, without plan, without story, without
moral; but it contains beautiful, as well as unaccountable
lines.--Instance:
“Let fragrant shrubs be brought, with every flower
That decks the field, the garden, and the bower;
From the dwarf daisy, that, like infant, clings,
And fears to leave the earth from whence she springs,
To that proud giantess of garden race,
Who, madly rushing to the sun’s embrace,
O’er-tops her fellows in the aspiring aim,
Demands his wedded love, and bears his name.”
What pity that a genius so animated, which ought to have lived for all
times, and have been a citizen of the world, should have chosen to exist
for a period only, by directing his whole attention to party satire, and
wasting his glowing vigour upon personal philippics!
Many would think it a bathos in subject, to quit a satirized senate and
its celebrated poet, to resume the diary of an obscure village, and to
talk of its unassuming pastor--to tell you that the hour between supper
and bed-time is enlivened, and turned to excellent mental account, by my
uncle’s energetic conversation, which is always upon religious,
literary, or moral subjects. At half past ten, he calls in his servants
to join our vesper devotions, which close the peaceful and unvaried day,
resigning us to sleep, as tranquil as itself.
Your agreeable image is often so obliging to visit my slumbers; a favour
for which I am always grateful to her gentleman-usher, Mr Morpheus.
GOTHAM, SEPT. 1767.
On my word, a constant visiter!--Mr N---- yesterday morning,--this
morning,--and every morning! What say you to being a nabobess? Thou art
the very woman to fascinate a luxurious Asiatic taste; full made;
majestic, with the lillyan softness in thy long-cut eyes. Gold and
silver muslins, and pearls and diamonds, will suit thy empress kind of
figure. But has he, who can bestow them, made an interest in thy heart?
If he has not, if he cannot, then disdain, I pray thee, the glittering
baubles!
Your friend, Miss B----d, with her host of virtues, her reserved
frankness and serene cheerfulness, with looks that promise a mine of
excellence, of compliant duty, of ever varied intelligence, might,
without hazard to her peace, or disappointment to her husband, marry
with esteem only; her looks will not have flattered him; but you must
never marry without impassioned preference. Eyes, that dwell with so
much softness on their object, as to flatter a hermit, were he to be
honoured with your attention, must, I insist upon it, have flattered a
husband into tender expectations, which superior intelligence, cheerful
acquiescence, and the most punctilious sense of duty, would be, of
themselves, incompetent to satisfy. I mean, if he were himself attached
to his bride with any thing resembling passion. It is true, the chances
are extremely against a woman ever marrying, who resolves not to
approach the altar of Hymen without she is led thither by a man whom she
prefers to all the rest of his sex. But, to a female mind, that can
employ itself ingeniously, that is capable of friendship, that is
blessed with affluence, where are the evils of celibacy? For my part, I
could never imagine that there were any, at least compared to the ennui,
the chagrin, the preclusion, which hearts, cast in the warm mould of
passion, must feel in a marriage of mere esteem.
But, waving these momentous essentials, I shall talk to you of the
little circumstances that inspirit or stupify the passing hour. I have
obtained a spinnet from Nottingham, and placed it where no musical
instrument has appeared time immemorial--in my uncle’s tapestry parlour,
which he and the rest of the family now consider as the _sanctum
sanctorum_ of Cecilia, and whither I retire to pay my uninterrupted
orisons.
To be sure, the little tinkler is a wretched substitute for my dear
harpsichord. It so much resembles a frying-pan, that, if it was not past
swarming-time, the bees would certainly glide in when the noon-tide
warmth invites an open window. Two strings are already broken, so that
my hapless lessons and songs are truly maimed and miserable.
This village has no neighbourhood, and, in itself, no prospect. The
roads are deep and dirty, in winter scarce passable. My fair cousin,
Miss Martin, is really very near being very handsome. Here she is most
completely buried through the dreary months. You used to admire her
eyes, which promise tenderness as lavishly as your own, and to praise
the sunny tint of her nut-brown and shining tresses. Her understanding
is considerably above the common level; but native diffidence, and
enthusiastic partiality for her friends, make her opinions, her taste
and judgement, camelion-like, take all their tints from the sentiments
of her favourites, and she is uneasy if her very night-ribbon is not
tied like theirs.
------------“On their head, no toy,
But is her pattern, her affection; their
Unthought-of habits of attire, she follows
For her most serious decking.”
Dear girl! heavily, with her, must drag the cold and darkened
months!--No sister, no companion out of the parental character! She
tells us that she always weeps for joy at the sight of the first daisy,
and welcomes and talks to, and hails the little blessed harbinger of
brighter days, her days of liberty as well as of light.
We dined at Nottingham yesterday. That town is finely situated; the rich
valley below; the castle on an eminence so noble; the Collec-woods, the
river, are beautiful objects; yet the town itself, at the distance of a
mile or two, looks like an immense brick-hill, especially on one
approach, being built on the side of a hill, with red houses, tier above
tier.
And to-morrow we dine at the beautiful village of Clifton, with the
clergyman’s wife of the place, Mrs L----r, a plump, lively, round
little woman, of healthy cheek and sparkling eye. We will not boast of
her knowledge, her taste, or her sentiments; but an honest, frank, and
friendly heart, with good common sense, and even jocund cheerfulness,
make her a most desirable neighbour in such a lone retreat.--She defies
the clay and the mire of these deep roads, and the winds and the rains
of winter. Welcome to a social spirit, even of the most superior order,
is the sight of a cheerful human face in a country retirement, whatever
be its lack of varied intelligence. Welcome is the sound of a cheerful
voice, though it may not convey wit or erudition, or even droll humour,
which is often possessed by people of very moderate understanding, and,
where it is genuine, recompenses in amusement every other deficiency of
the intellects. But, even of this, we must not boast in our friend Mrs
L----r.
Her husband is of the order of the oddities, and one of those lank, lean
parsons which are sowed so thick over this country; most of them the
starveling curates of their fat and jolly rectors, who live in gayer
scenes, and leave their clay-sunk parishes to the cheapest journeyman
they can procure. Mr L----r has every characteristic of his brethren
but their poverty, for the rectory is fat, though its pastor is lean;
yet, by his meagre and rueful countenance, one should suspect his purse
as empty as it must in reality be full. Their house is one of the
neatest parsonages in the kingdom, which they have furnished elegantly.
Its situation charming. They are each good humoured and hospitable. He
is as quiet as she is sprightly. Without children, they seem to have
none of the cares of life, nor to want any of its pleasures which are
beyond their reach. She reads no curtain-lectures upon his jockying over
to Nottingham to read the news three times a week; and she may visit her
neighbours, and entertain them at her house, whenever she pleases. We,
in this the hey-day of our youth and sensibility, should turn away with
disdain from such exemptions and such pleasures; but they have
happiness, guiltless happiness; surely then it matters little what are
the ingredients which form it!
“O! happiness, our being’s end and aim,
Good, pleasure, ease, content,--whate’er thy name!”
this honest couple do certainly possess thee. She will laugh, and give
and eat good dinners, and he will read newspapers, and chew tobacco in
peace, to their last hour. Shall I promise to love you to mine?--You
must alter extremely before I can be in danger of breaking my word.
Adieu!
GOTHAM, OCT. 1767.
Mr Hinckley’s clerk is arrived from Lichfield upon business to my uncle,
and returns thither to-morrow morning. I feel impelled to send you a
little letter by him, though we are so soon to meet and to enjoy each
other’s conversation, _viva voce_, through many ensuing months, perhaps
years; yes, on the Abyssinian Hill, beneath the shade of that majestic
and sacred pile which crowns it. On Monday we bend our course towards
Lichfield; lovely, interesting Lichfield! where the sweetest days of my
youth have passed--the days of prime:
“The best of days which crown our life,
That light upon the eye-lids dart,
And melting joys upon the heart.”
Nor are they yet all passed away;--it is at least, if not spring, high
summer with you and I, who have not yet attained our twenty-fourth year.
Does it not seem some merit of the temper, that Honora and myself have
been so tranquil and cheerful in this scene, when the idea of exchanging
it for another inspires us with so much delight?
I begin to count the hours till Monday morning; yet this pleasure of
expectation, perhaps more sweet and vivid than any reality which can
crown it, is not without alloy, not without a mixture of regret. My
amiable cousin will feel her retirement more lonely and deprived, for
having had it enlivened, during a whole month, by society so dear to
her. That consciousness is painful. How I wish she might be permitted to
return with us! but my aunt and uncle will not hear of it.
It is evening. Half an hour ago my fair cousin and myself were walking
on the grass-plat, upon which our chamber window looks. The sun was
setting splendidly; but, looking up, I saw an object more bright, more
lovely--the face of my beauteous Honora at the open casement, packing up
a little box which we were to take home with us. She leaned forward,
bending upon me her fine eyes, luminous with joy, then lifted them up
with a smile of delight, and clasped her dear hands together. I need not
observe that it was the thoughts of our approaching return which
produced this silent eloquence of pleasure. She would have restrained
it, I well know, from respect to poor Miss Martin’s very opposite
sensations, had not that dear girl’s eyes, heavy with regret, been fixed
upon the ground, and therefore incapable of seeing an emanation whose
lustre must have pained her.
Ah! to how many gay and fashionable nymphs would our joy be
unaccountable in returning to a home so quiet, to a life so uniform!
They would think it only one degree more supportable than village
solitude, and worthy only of a cold preference. So they must think,
since neither balls, nor plays, nor lovers, await our arrival. We want
them not. It is enough for us, that, in the scene we love, we can have
reading, music, friendship, the company of Emma, and a few more beings
like her, who diffuse the spirit of pleasure wherever they approach;
and with whom “all seasons, and their change, all please alike.” The
poet goes on to say,
“Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet.”
So shall I, so will Honora say, when we rise on Monday morning--the
morning that is to light us back to Lichfield!--to you!
LICHFIELD, JAN. 17, 1768.
I heard, with concern, that you were far from well, before I received
your last letter confirming that unwelcome intelligence; but no langour
of the body can depress the fervour and kindness of your spirit, when
writing to those you love. For the proof now before me that it cannot,
believe me sincerely grateful.
It is suspected, by a few of us here, that fine company and fine dinners
do not agree with you.--Lucy is happier in her domestic circle at S----
d, but we miss you both extremely.
In a state of health so unconfirmed, the parade of ceremonial visits in
the B----n neighbourhood must be oppressive. Your aunt B----d’s poor
fireside is certainly your element. I say poor, because you know the old
lady is the foe of good fires, and that the little room, of three doors,
is an almost Lapland atmosphere; but I know that friendship, serene
spirits, every elegant ingenuity, and every social virtue, have lately
been the inhabitants of that chilly region, and no where flourish so
well: As if they had been natives of the climate, they will not bear
transplanting. Return then, Emma and Lucy, with all your intellectual
handmaids, return!
I am sorry to be obliged to confess, that I have not done my purposed
duty in calling upon your aunt, in the absence of her interesting
nieces. My little fellow-student in music has a sorry time of it, now
you are both away; exposed, without her kind screens, to the hourly shot
of peevish eyes, that are always on the search for occasion to find
fault. The dear child is so ductile and good, as to merit the indulgence
she does not meet from that discontented aunt of yours. I want to see,
and speak a word of comfort to her, and to shew attention to the old
lady, that I may escape dark looks when you return--But these
insurmountable snow-drifts!--and they were preceded by the most
dangerous slipperiness. Never was January in a more rugged mood: Yet
Honora and I do not wish to bate him an icicle;--
“For our clean hearth is bright with fire;”
and the foot of Friendship will track the snows, and slide hither on the
ice.
You are amongst the great: Yet do I entirely trust the sincerity of your
avowed lassitude, in those long, expensive, and restrained repasts, in
that circle, formal and female, which succeeds in the drawing-room. I
conceive the pain of suppressed yawns, and your listenings and longings
for the emancipating coach.