“For my part,” said Mrs. Chapone, “when I first read it, I did not
cry at all; I was in an agitation that half killed me, that shook all
nerves, and made me unable to sleep at nights, from the suspense I was
in! but I could not cry, for excess of eagerness.”
“I only wish,” said the duchess, “Miss Burney could have been in some
corner, amusing herself with listening to us, when Lord Weymouth, and
the Bishop of Exeter, and Mr. Lightfoot, and Mrs. Delany, and I, were
all discussing the point--of the name. So earnest we were, she must
have been diverted with us. Nothing, the nearest our own hearts and
interests, could have been debated more warmly. The bishop was quite
as eager as any of us; but what cooled us a little, at last, was Mr.
Lightfoot's thinking we were seriously going to quarrel; and while Mrs.
Delany and I were disputing about Mrs. Delvile, he very gravely said,
'Why, ladies, this is only a matter of imagination; it is not a fact:
don't be so earnest.'”
“Ah, ma'am,” said Mrs. Delany, “how hard your grace was upon Mrs.
Delvile: so elegant, so sensible, so judicious, so charming a woman.”
“O, I hate her,” cried the duchess, “resisting that sweet Cecilia;
coaxing her, too, all the time, with such hypocritical flattery.”
“I shall never forget,” said Mrs. Delany, “your grace's earnestness
when we came to that part where Mrs. Delvile bursts a blood vessel. Down
dropped the book, and just with the same energy as if your grace had
heard some real and important news, You called out, 'I'm glad of it with
all my heart!'”
“What disputes, too,” said Mrs. Chapone, “there are about Briggs. I
was in a room some time ago where somebody said there could be no such
character; and a poor little mean city man, who was there, started up
and said, 'But there is though, for I've one myself!'”
“The Harrels!--O, then the Harrels!” cried Mrs. Delany.
“If you speak of the Harrels, and of the morality of the book,” cried
the duchess, with a solemn sort of voice, “we shall, indeed, never give
Miss Burney her due: so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive.”
“Yes,” cried Mrs. Chapone, “let us complain how we will of the torture
she has given our nerves, we must all join in saying she has bettered us
by every line.”
“No book,” said Mrs. Delany, “ever was so useful as this, because none
other that is so good was ever so much read.”
I think I need now write no more. I could, indeed, hear no more; for
this last so serious praise, from characters so respectable, so moral,
and so aged, quite affected me; and though I had wished a thousand times
during the discourse to run out of the room, when they gave me finally
this solemn sanction to the meaning and intention of my writing, I found
it not without difficulty that I could keep the tears out of my eyes;
and when I told what had passed to our sweet father, his cup quite ran
over.
The duchess had the good sense and judgment to feel she had drawn up her
panegyric to a climax, and therefore here she stopped; so, however, did
not we, for our coach was ready.