_Wednesday, June 16._--We had at breakfast a scene, of its sort, the
most curious I ever saw.
The persons were Sir Philip, Mr. Seward, Dr. Delap,[98] Miss
Streatfield, Mrs. and Miss Thrale, and I. The discourse turning I know
not how, upon Miss Streatfield, Mrs. Thrale said,
“Ay I made her cry once for Miss Burney as pretty as could be, but
nobody does cry so pretty as the S. S. I'm sure, when she cried for
Seward, I never saw her look half so lovely.”
“For Seward?” cried Sir Philip; “did she cry for Seward? What a happy
dog! I hope she'll never cry for me, for if she does, I won't answer for
the consequences!”
“Seward,” said Mrs. Thrale, “had affronted Johnson, and then Johnson
affronted Seward, and then the S. S. cried.”
“_Oh_,” cried Sir Philip, “that I had but been here!”
“Nay,” answered Mrs. Thrale, “you'd only have seen how like three fools
three sensible persons behaved: for my part, I was quite sick of it, and
of them too.”
Sir P.-But what did Seward do? was he not melted?
Mrs. T.-Not he; he was thinking only of his own affront, and taking fire
at that.
Mr. S.-Why, yes, I did take fire, for I went and planted my back to it.
S.S.-And Mrs. Thrale kept stuffing me with toast-and-water.
Sir P.-But what did Seward do with himself? Was not he in extacy? What
did he do or say?
Mr. S.-Oh, I said pho, pho, don't let's have any more of this,--it's
making it of too much consequence: no more piping, pray.
Sir P.-Well, I have heard so much of these tears, that I would give the
universe to have a sight of them.
Mrs. T.-Well, she shall cry again if you like it.
S.S.-No, pray, Mrs. Thrale.
Sir P.--Oh, pray, do! pray let me see a little of it.
Mrs. T.-Yes, do cry a little, Sopby [in a wheedling voice], pray do!
Consider, now, you are going to-day, and it's very hard if you won't cry
a little: indeed, S. S., you ought to cry.
Now for the wonder of wonders. When Mrs. Thrale, in a coaxing voice,
suited to a nurse soothing a baby, had run on for some time,--while all
the rest of us, in laughter, joined in the request,--two crystal tears
came into the soft eyes of the S. S., and rolled gently down her cheeks!
Such a sight I never saw before, nor could I have believed. She offered
not to conceal or dissipate them: on the contrary, she really contrived
to have them seen by everybody. She looked, indeed, uncommonly handsome;
for her pretty face was not, like Chloe's, blubbered; it was smooth and
elegant, and neither her features nor complexion were at all ruffled;
nay, indeed, she was smiling all the time.
“Look, look!” cried Mrs. Thrale; “see if the tears are not come
already.”
Loud and rude bursts of laughter broke from us all at once. How, indeed,
could they be restrained? Yet we all stared, and looked and re-looked
again and again, twenty times, ere we could believe our eyes. Sir
Philip, I thought, would have died in convulsions; for his laughter and
his politeness, struggling furiously with one another, made him almost
black in the face. Mr. Seward looked half vexed that her crying for him
was now so much lowered in its flattery, yet grinned incessantly; Miss
Thrale laughed as much as contempt would allow her: but Dr. Delap seemed
petrified with astonishment.
When our mirth abated, Sir Philip, colouring violently with his efforts
to speak, said,
“I thank you, ma'am, I'm much obliged to you.”
But I really believe he spoke without knowing what he was saying.
“What a wonderful command,” said Dr. Delap, very gravely, “that lady
must have over herself!”
She now took out a handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.
“Sir Philip,” cried Mr. Seward, “how can you suffer her to dry her own
eyes?--you, who sit next her?”
“I dare not dry them for her,” answered he, “because I am not the right
man.”
“But if I sat next her,” returned he, “she would not dry them herself.”
“I wish,” cried Dr. Delap, “I had a bottle to put them in; 'tis a
thousand pities they should be wasted.”
“There, now,” said Mrs. Thrale, “she looks for all the world as if
nothing had happened; for, you know, nothing has happened!”
“Would you cry, Miss Burney,” said Sir Philip, “if we asked you?”
“She can cry, I doubt not,” said Mr. Seward, “on any Proper occasion.”
“But I must know,” said I, “what for.”
I did not say this loud enough for the S. S. to hear me, but if I had,
she would not have taken it for the reflection it meant. She seemed,
the whole time, totally insensible to the numerous strange and, indeed,
impertinent speeches which were made and to be very well satisfied that
she was only manifesting a tenderness of disposition, that increased her
beauty of countenance. At least, I can put no other construction upon
her conduct which was, without exception, the strangest I ever saw.
Without any pretence of affliction,--to weep merely because she was bid,
though bid in a manner to forbid any one else,--to be in good spirits
all the time,--to see the whole company expiring of laughter at her
tears, without being at all offended, and, at last, to dry them up, and
go on with the same sort of conversation she held before they started!
“EVERYTHING A BORE.”
_Sunday, June 20_.--While I was sitting with Mr. Thrale, in the library,
Mr. Seward entered. As soon as the first inquiries were over, he spoke
about what he calls our comedy, and he pressed and teazed me to set
about it. But he grew, in the evening, so queer, so ennuye, that, in a
fit of absurdity, I called him “Mr. Dry;” and the name took so with Mrs.
Thrale, that I know not when he will lose it. Indeed, there is something
in this young man's alternate drollery and lassitude, entertaining
qualities and wearying complaints, that provoke me to more pertness than
I practise to almost anybody.
The play, he said, should have the double title of “The Indifferent Man,
or Everything a Bore;” and I protested Mr. Dry should be the hero. And
then we ran on, jointly planning a succession of ridiculous scenes;--he
lashing himself pretty freely though not half so freely, or so much to
the purpose, as I lashed him; for I attacked him, through the channel
of Mr. Dry, upon his ennui, his causeless melancholy, his complaining
languors, his yawning inattention, and his restless discontent. You
may easily imagine I was in pretty high spirits to go so far: in truth,
nothing else could either have prompted or excused my facetiousness: and
his own manners are so cavalier, that they always, with me, stimulate a
sympathising return.
He repeatedly begged me to go to work, and commit the projected scenes
to paper: but I thought that might be carrying the jest too far; for as
I was in no humour to spare him, written raillery might, perhaps, have
been less to his taste than verbal.
He challenged me to meet him the next morning, before breakfast, in the
library, that we might work together at some scenes, but I thought it
as well to let the matter drop, and did not make my entry till they were
all assembled.
He, however, ran upon nothing else; and, as soon as we happened to be
left together, he again attacked me.
“Come,” said he, “have you nothing ready yet? I dare say you have half
an act in your pocket.”
“No,” quoth I, “I have quite forgot the whole business; I was only in
the humour for it last night.”
“How shall it begin?” cried he; “with Mr. Dry in his study?--his
slippers just on, his hair about his ears,--exclaiming, 'O what a bore
is life!--What is to be done next?”
“Next?” cried I, “what, before he has done anything at all?”
“Oh, he has dressed himself, you know.--Well, then he takes up a book--”
“For example, this,” cried I, giving him Clarendon's History.