"Of summer I am very fond,
And love to bathe into a pond:
The look of sunshine dies away,
And will not let me out to play;
I love the morning's sun to spy
Glittering through the casement's eye;
The rays of light are very sweet,
And puts away the taste of meat;
The balmy breeze comes down from heaven,
And makes us like for to be living."
"The casawary is an curious bird, and so is the gigantic crane, and the
pelican of the wilderness, whose mouth holds a bucket of fish and water.
Fighting is what ladies is not qualyfied for, they would not make a good
figure in battle or in a duel. Alas! we females are of little use to our
country. The history of all the malcontents as ever was hanged is
amusing." Still harping on the Newgate Calendar!
"Braehead is extremely pleasant to me by the companie of swine, geese,
cocks, etc., and they are the delight of my soul."
"I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of two or
three months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, and he
killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged."
"Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is Princes Street, for all the
lads and lasses, besides bucks and beggars, parade there"
"I should like to see a play very much, for I never saw one in all my
life, and don't believe I ever shall; but I hope I can be content
without going to one. I can be quite happy without my desire
being granted."
"Some days ago Isabella had a terrible fit of the toothake, and she
walked with a long night-shift at dead of night like a ghost, and I
thought she was one. She prayed for nature's sweet restorer--balmy
sleep--but did not get it--a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to
make a saint tremble. It made me quiver and shake from top to toe.
Superstition is a very mean thing, and should be despised and shunned."
Here is her weakness and her strength again:--"In the love-novels all
the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak
about lovers and heroins, and 'tis too refined for my taste." "Miss
Egward's [Edgeworth's] tails are very good, particularly some that are
very much adapted for youth (!) as Laz Laurance and Tarelton, False
Keys, etc., etc."
"Tom Jones and Gray's Elegey in a country churchyard are both excellent,
and much spoke of by both sex, particularly by the men." Are our
Marjories now-a-days better or worse, because they cannot read 'Tom
Jones' unharmed? More better than worse; but who among them can repeat
Gray's 'Lines on a Distant Prospect of Eton College' as could
our Maidie?
Here is some more of her prattle:--"I went into Isabella's bed to make
her smile like the Genius Demedicus [the Venus de' Medicis] or the
statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at
which my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a comfortable nap.
All was now hushed up again, but again my anger burst forth at her
biding me get up."