_Brighthelmstone, October 12._--On Tuesday Mr., Mrs., Miss Thrale, and
“yours, ma'am, yours,” set out on their expedition. The day was very
pleasant, and the journey delightful.
We dined very comfortably at Sevenoaks, and thence made but one stage to
Tunbridge. It was so dark when we went through the town that I could
see it very indistinctly. The Wells, however, are about seven miles yet
further, so that we saw that night nothing; but I assure you, I felt
that I was entering into a new country pretty roughly, for the roads
were so sidelum and jumblum, as Miss L-- called those of Teignmouth,
that I expected an overturn every minute. Safely, however, we reached
the Sussex Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells.
Having looked at our rooms, and arranged our affairs, we proceeded to
Mount Ephraim, where Miss Streatfield resides. We found her with only
her mother, and spent the evening there.
Mrs. Streatfield is very--very little, but perfectly well made, thin,
genteel, and delicate. She has been quite beautiful, and has still so
much of beauty left, that to call it only the remains of a fine face
seems hardly doing her justice. She is very lively, and an excellent
mimic, and is, I think, as much superior to her daughter in natural
gifts as her daughter is to her in acquired ones: and how infinitely
preferable are parts without education to education without parts!
The fair S. S. is really in higher beauty than I have ever yet seen
her; and she was so caressing, so soft, so amiable, that I felt myself
insensibly inclining to her with an affectionate regard. “If it was not
for that little, gush,” as Dr. Delap said, I should certainly have taken
a very great fancy to her; but tears so ready--oh, they blot out my fair
opinion of her! Yet whenever I am with her, I like, nay, almost love
her, for her manners are exceedingly captivating; but when I quit her,
I do not find that she improves by being thought over--no, nor talked
over; for Mrs. Thrale, who is always disposed to half adore her in her
presence, can never converse about her without exciting her own contempt
by recapitulating what has passed. This, however, must always be
certain, whatever may be doubtful, that she is a girl in no respect like
any other.
But I have not yet done with the mother: I have told you of her vivacity
and her mimicry, but her character is yet not half told. She has a
kind of whimsical conceit and odd affectation, that, joined to a very
singular sort of humour, makes her always seem to be rehearsing some
scene in a comedy. She takes off, if she mentions them, all her own
children, and, though she quite adores them, renders them ridiculous
with all her power. She laughs at herself for her smallness and for her
vagaries, just with the same ease and ridicule as if she were speaking
of some other person; and, while perpetually hinting at being old and
broken, she is continually frisking, flaunting, and playing tricks, like
a young coquet.
When I was introduced to her by Mrs. Thrale, who said, “Give me leave,
ma'am, to present to you a friend of your daughter's--Miss Burney,”
she advanced to me with a tripping pace, and, taking one of my fingers,
said, “Allow me, ma'am, will you, to create a little--acquaintance with
you.”
And, indeed, I readily entered into an alliance with her, for I found
nothing at Tunbridge half so entertaining, except, indeed, Miss Birch,
of whom hereafter.