“Well, Miss Burney, this is what I never can forgive! Am I so proud?”
“I am sure if you are,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “you have imposed upon me,
for I always thought you the humblest man I knew. Look how Burney casts
up her eyes! Why, are you so proud, after all, Mr. Crutchley?”
“I hope not,” cried he, rather gravely “but I little thought of ever
going to Streatham church to hear I was the proudest man in it.”
“Well, but,” said I, “does it follow you certainly are so because I say
so?”
“Why yes, I suppose I am if you see it, for you are one that see all
things and people right.”
“Well, it's very odd,” said Mrs. Thrale, “I wonder how she found you
out.”
“I wonder,” cried I, laughing, “how you missed finding him out.”
“Oh! worse and worse!” cried he. “Why there's no bearing this!”
“I protest, then,” said Mrs. Thrale, “he has always taken me in; he
seemed to me the humblest creature I knew; always speaking so ill of
himself--always depreciating all that belongs to him.”
“Why, I did not say,” quoth I, “that he had more vanity than other men;
on the contrary, I think he has none.”
“Well distinguished,” cried she; “a man may be proud enough, and yet
have no vanity.”
“Well, but what is this pride?” cried Mr. Crutchley; “what is it shown
in?--what are its symptoms and marks?”
“A general contempt,” answered I, undaunted, “of every body and of every
thing.”
“Well said, Miss Burney!” exclaimed Mrs. Thrale. “Why that's true
enough, and so he has.”
“A total indifference,” continued I, “of what is thought of him by
others, and a disdain alike of happiness or misery.”
“Bravo, Burney!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “that's true enough!”
“Indeed,” cried Mr. Crutchley, “you are quite mistaken. Indeed, nobody
in the world is half so anxious about the opinions of others; I am
wretched--I am miserable if I think myself thought ill of; not, indeed,
by everybody, but by those whose good opinion I have tried--there if I
fall, no man can be more unhappy.”
“Oh, perhaps,” returned I, “there may be two or three people in the
world you may wish should think well of you, but that is nothing to the
general character.”
“Oh, no! many more. I am now four-and-thirty, and perhaps, indeed,
in all my life I have not tried to gain the esteem of more than
four-and-thirty people, but----”
“Oh, leave out the thirty!” cried I, “and then you may be nearer the
truth.”
“No, indeed: ten, at least, I daresay I have tried for, but, perhaps, I
have not succeeded with two. However, I am thus even with the world;
for if it likes me not, I can do without it--I can live alone; and that,
indeed, I prefer to any thing I can meet with; for those with whom I
like to live are so much above me, that I sink into nothing in their
society; so I think it best to run away from them.”
“That is to say,” cried I, “you are angry you cannot yourself excel--and
this is not pride?”
“Why, no, indeed; but it is melancholy to be always behind--to hear
conversation in which one is unable to join--”
“Unwilling,” quoth I, “you mean.”
“No, indeed, but really unable; and therefore what can I do so well as
to run home? As to an inferior, I hope I think that of nobody; and as to
my equals, and such as I am on a par with, heaven knows I can ill bear
them!--I would rather live alone to all eternity!”