_Coke Clifton to His Sister, Louisa Clifton_
_Paris, Hotel de l'Université, près le Pont Royal_
I write agreeably to your desire, sister, to thank you for all
obligations, not forgetting your advice. Not but I am excessively
obliged to you; I am upon my soul, and seriously, for having done me
the favour to bring me acquainted with your charming friend. I have
seen many women and in many countries, but I never beheld one so sweet,
so beautiful, so captivating! I had heard of her before I left England,
her fame had reached Italy, and your letters had raised my
expectations. But what were these? The accomplishments and graces of
her person, the variety, the pleasure inspiring heaven of her
countenance, the cupids that wanton in her dimples, and the delights
that swim and glisten in her eyes, are each and all exquisite beyond
imagination!
Whatever you may think of me, Louisa, I do persuade myself I know
something of women. I have studied them at home and abroad, and have
often probed them to the soul. But I never before met with any one in
the least comparable to the divine Anna! She is so unreserved, so open,
that her soul seems to dwell upon her lips. Yet her thoughts are so
rapid, and her mind so capacious, that I am persuaded it will cost me
much longer time to know her well than any other woman with whom I ever
met.
Having thanked you very heartily and sincerely for this favour, I shall
just say a word or two in answer to yours. And so you really think you
have some morality on hand, a little stale or so but still sound, which
you can bestow with advantage upon me? You imagine you can tell me
something I never heard before? Now have you sincerely so much vanity,
Louisa? Be frank. You acknowledged I have crossed rivers, seas, and
mountains; but you are afraid I have shut my eyes all the time! _A loud
tongue and a prodigious luck of wit! Antics and impertinences of young
men of fashion!_ Really, my dear, you are choice in your phrases! You
could not love your brother _for any recital of the delight which
foreign ladies look in him, and which he took in foreign ladies!_ But
you could be in ecstatics for a brother of your own invention.
Do not suppose I am angry! No, no, my dear girl; I am got far above all
that! Though I cannot but laugh at this extraordinary brother, which
you are fashioning for yourself. If, when I come into your sublime
presence, I should by good luck happen to strike your fancy, why so! My
fortune will then be made! If not, sister, we must do as well as we
can. All in good time, and a God's name. Is not that tolerable
Worcestershire morality?
I am obliged to lay down my pen with laughing at the idea of Miss
Louisa's brother, supposing him to be exactly of her modelling. I think
I see him appear before her; she seated in state, on a chair raised on
four tressels and two old doors, like a strolling actress mimicking a
queen in a barn! He dressed in black; his hair smugly curled; his face
and his shoes shining; his white handkerchief in his right hand; a
prayer book, or the morals of Epictetus in his left; _not interlarding
his discourse with French or Italian phrases,_ but ready with a good
rumbling mouthful of old Greek, which he had composed, I mean compiled,
for the purpose! Then, having advanced one leg, wiped his mouth, put
his left hand in his breeches pocket, clenched his right, and raised
his arm, he begins his learned dissertation on _well digested
principles, ardent desire of truth, incessant struggles to shake off
prejudices_, and forth are chanted, in nasal twang and tragic
recitative, his _emanations of soul, bursts of though_, and _flashes of
genius_!
But _you would not be satirical_. Gentle, modest maiden! And surely it
becomes the tutored brother to imitate this kind forbearance. _My
faculties were always lively?_ And _I must pardon you if you expect too
much?_--Upon my soul, this is highly comic! Expect too much! And there
is danger then that I should not equal your expectations?--Prithee, my
good girl, jingle the keys of your harpsichord, and be quiet. Pore over
your fine folio receipt book, and appease your thirst after knowledge.
Satisfy your longing desire to do good, by making jellies, conserves,
and caraway cakes. Pot pippins, brew rasberry wine, and candy orange
chips. Study burns, bruises, and balsams. Distil surfeit, colic, and
wormwood water. Concoct hiera picra, rhubarb beer, and oil of charity;
and sympathize over sprains, whitloes, and broken shins. Get a charm to
cure the argue, and render yourself renowned. Spin, sew and knit.
Collect your lamentable rabble around you, dole out your charities,
listen to a full chorus of blessings, and take your seat among the
saints.
You see, child, I can give advice as well as yourself; aye and I will
bestow it most plentifully, if you happen to feel any desire after
more. I hate to be ungrateful; you shall have no opportunity to utter
your musty maxim upon me--'That the sin of ingratitude is worse than
the sin of witchcraft.' You shall have weight for weight, measure for
measure, chicken; aye, my market woman, and a lumping pennyworth.
Brotherly for sisterly _effusions_!
As for the right of eldership, I recollect that a dozen years ago I
envied you the prerogative; but now you are welcome to it with all my
heart. If, among your miraculous acquirements, you have any secret to
make time stand still, by which you can teach me to remain at sweet
five-and-twenty, and if you will disclose it to me, I will not only
pardon all your _impertinences_, as you so _pertinently_ call them, but
do any other thing in reason to satisfy you; except turn philosopher
and feed upon carrots! Nay I will allow you to grow as old as you
please, you shall have full enjoyment of the rights of eldership.
In the mean time, sister, I once more thank you for bringing me
acquainted with your friend. You seem to have 'put powder in her
drink;' and I freely tell you I wish she loved me half as well as she
professes to love her immaculate Louisa. But these I suppose are the
_flashes of genius_, which you have taught her. However she is an
angel, and in her every thing is graceful.
As for your other prodigy, I scarcely know what to make of him; except
that he seems to have quite conceit enough of himself. Every other
sentence is a contradiction of what the last speaker advanced. This is
the first time he ever ventured to cross his father's threshold, and
yet he talks as familiarly of kingdoms, governments, nations, manners,
and other high sounding phrases, as if he had been secretary of state
to king Minos, had ridden upon the white elephant, and studied under
the Dalai Lama! He is the Great Mogul of politicians! And as for
letters, science, and talents, he holds them all by patent right! He is
such a monopolizer that no man else can get a morsel! If he were not a
plebeian, I could most sincerely wish you were married to him; for
then, whenever my soul should hunger and thirst after morality, I
should know where to come and get a full meal. Though perhaps his not
being a gentleman would be no objection to you, at least your letter
leads me to suspect as much.
Do not however mistake me. I mean this jocularly. For I will not
degrade my sister so much, as to suppose she has ever cast a thought on
the son either of the gardener or the steward, of any man. Though, tied
to her mother's apron-string and shut up on the confines of
Worcestershire, she may think proper to lecture and give rules of
conduct to a brother who has seen the world, and studied both men and
books of every kind, that is but a harmless and pardonable piece of
vanity. It ought to be laughed at, and for that reason I have laughed.
For the rest, I will be willing to think as well of my sister, as this
sister can be to think of her catechised, and very patient, humble,
younger brother,