But while the Lockes thus afforded a gentle and genial aid towards
sustaining the illness and absence of Mrs. Phillips, it was not by
superseding, but by blending in sweet harmony with the support afforded
by Mrs. Delany: and if the narration given of that lady has, in any
degree, drawn the reader to join in the admiration with which she
inspired Dr. Burney, he will not be sorry to see a further account of
her, taken again from the Diary addressed to Mrs. Phillips.
“TO MRS. PHILLIPS.
“I have just passed a delicious day, my Susanna, with Mrs. Delany;
the most pleasing I have spent with her yet. She entrusted to me her
collection of letters from Dean Swift and Dr. Young; and told me all
the anecdotes that occurred to her of both, and of her acquaintance
with them. How grievous that her sight continues enfeebling! all her
other senses, and all her faculties are perfect—though she thinks
otherwise. ‘My friends,’ she said, ‘will last me, I believe, as long as
I last, because they are very good; but the pleasure of our friendship
is now all to be received by me! for I have lost the power of returning
any!’
* * * * *
“If she spoke on any other subject such untruths, I should not revere
her, as I now do, to my heart’s core. She had been in great affliction
at the death of Lady Mansfield; for whom the Duchess Dowager of
Portland had grieved, she said, yet more deeply: and they had shut
themselves up together from all other company. ‘But to-day,’ she added,
with a most soft smile, ‘her Grace could not come; and I felt I quite
required a cordial,—so I sent to beg for Miss Burney.’
“‘I have been told,’ she afterwards said, ‘that when I grew older, I
should feel less; but I do not find it so! I am sooner, I think, hurt
and affected than ever. I suppose it is with very old age as with
extreme youth, the effect of weakness; neither of those stages of life
have firmness for bearing misfortune with equanimity.’
“She keeps her good looks, however, unimpaired, except in becoming
thinner; and, when not under the pressure of recent grief, she is as
lively, gay, pleasant, and good-humouredly arch and playful, as she
could have been at eighteen.
“‘I see, indeed,’ she said, ‘worse and worse, but I am thankful that,
at my age, eighty-four, I can see at all. My chief loss is from not
more quickly discerning the changes of countenance in my friends.
However, to distinguish even the light is a great blessing!’
“She had no company whatever, but her beautiful great niece.[77] The
Duchess was confined to her home by a bad cold.
“She was so good as to shew me a most gracious letter from her Majesty,
which she had just received, and which finished thus condescendingly:
“Believe me, my dear Mrs. Delany,
“Your affectionate Queen,
“CHARLOTTE.”