“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!”
This conversation lasted till we got home, when Mrs. Thrale said —
“Well, Mr. Crutchley, has she convinced you?”
“I don’t know,” cried I, “but he has convinced me.”
“Why, how you smote him,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “but I think you make your part good as you go on.”
“The great difference,” said I, “which I think there is between Mr. Seward and Mr. Crutchley, who in some things are very much alike, is this — Mr. Seward has a great deal of vanity and no pride, Mr. Crutchley a great deal of pride and no vanity.”
“Just, and true, and wise!” said dear Mrs. Thrale, “for Seward is always talking of himself, and always with approbation; Mr. Crutchley seldom mentions himself, and when he does, it is with dislike. And which have I, most pride or most vanity?”
“Oh, most vanity, certa!” quoth I.
At Supper we had only Sir Philip and Mr. Crutchley. The conversation of the morning was then again renewed. —
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “what a smoking did Miss Burney give Mr. Crutchley!”
“A smoking, indeed!” cried He. “Never had I such a one before! Never did I think to get such a character! I had no notion of it.”
“Nay, then,” said I, “why should you, now?”
“But what is all this?” cried Sir Philip, delighted enough at any mischief between Mr. Crutchley and me, or between any male and female, for he only wishes something to go forward, and thinks a quarrel or dispute next best to fondness and flirting.
“Why, Miss Burney,” answered she, “gave Mr. Crutchley this morning a noble trimming. I had always thought him very humble, but she shewed me my mistake, and said I had not distinguished pride from vanity.”
“Oh, never was I so mauled in my life,” said he.
Enough, however, of this rattle, which lasted till we all went to bed, and which Mrs. Thrale most kindly kept up, by way of rioting me from thinking, and which Mr. Crutchley himself bore with the utmost good nature, from having noticed that I was out of spirits....
July 2 — The other morning Mrs. Thrale ran hastily into my room, her eyes full of tears, and cried, —
“What an extraordinary man is this Crutchley! I declare he has quite melted me! He came to me just now, and thinking I was uneasy I could do no more for Perkins, though he cared not himself if the man were drowned, he offered to lend him a thousand pounds, merely by way of giving pleasure to me!”
MISS SOPHY STREATHIELD IS COMMENTED ON
Well-it was, I think, Saturday, Aug. 25, that Mrs Thrale brought me back. We then took up Mr. Crutchley, who had come to his town-house upon business, and who accompanied us thither for a visit of three days.
In the evening Mr. Seward also came. He has been making the western tour, and gave us, with a seriousness that kept me continually grinning, some account of a doctor, apothecary, or ‘chemist’ belonging to every town at which he had stopped.
And when we all laughed at his thus following up the faculty, he undauntedly said, —
“I think it the best way to get information; I know no better method to learn what is going forward anywhere than to send for the chief physician of the place, so I commonly consult him the first day I stop at a place, and when I have fee’d him, and made acquaintance, he puts me in a way to find out what is worth looking at.”
A most curious mode of picking up a cicerone!
After this, still pursuing his favourite topic, he began to inquire into the particulars of Mr. Crutchley’s late illness — but that gentleman, who is as much in the opposite extreme, of disdaining even any decent care of himself, as Mr. Seward is in the other, of devoting almost all his thoughts to his health cut the matter very short, and would not talk upon it at all.
“But, if I had known sooner,” said Mr. Seward, “that you were ill, I should have come to see you.”
“Should you?” cried Mr. Crutchley, with a loud laugh; “very kind, indeed! — it would have been charming to see you when I am ill, when I am afraid of undertaking you even when well!”
Some time after Sophy Streatfield was talked of, — Oh, with how much impertinence as if she was at the service of any man who would make proposals to her! Yet Mr. Seward spoke of her with praise and tenderness all the time, as if, though firmly of this opinion, he was warmly her admirer. From such admirers and such admiration heaven guard me! Mr. Crutchley said but little; but that little was bitter enough.
“However,” said Mr. Seward, “after all that can be said, there is nobody whose manners are more engaging, nobody more amiable than the little Sophy; and she is certainly very pretty; I must own I have always been afraid to trust myself with her.”
Here Mr. Crutchley looked very sneeringly.
“Nay, squire,” cried Mr. Seward, “she is very dangerous, I can tell you; and if she had you at a fair trial, she would make an impression that would soften even your hard heart.”
“No need of any further trial,” answered he, laughing, “for she has done that already; and so soft was the impression that it is absolutely all dissolved! — melted quite away, and not a trace of it left!”
Mr. Seward then proposed that she should marry Sir John Miller, who has just lost his wife and very gravely said, he had a great mind to set out for Tunbridge, and carry her with him to Bath, and so make the match without delay!
“But surely,” said Mrs. Thrale, “if you fail, you will think yourself bound in honour to marry her yourself?”
“Why, that’s the thing,” said he; “no, I can’t take the little Sophy myself; I should have too many rivals; no, that won’t do.”
How abominably conceited and sure these pretty gentlemen are! However, Mr. Crutchley here made a speech that half won my heart.
“I wish,” said he, “Miss Streatfield was here at this moment to cuff you, Seward!”
“Cuff me!” cried he. “What, the little Sophy! — and why?”
“For disposing of her so freely. I think a man deserves to be cuffed for saying any lady will marry him.”
I seconded this speech with much approbation.
GARRULOUS MR. MUSGRAVE.
August, Monday. — We were to have Mr. Cator and other company to dinner; and all breakfast Mr. Seward kept plaguing poor Mr. Musgrave, who is an incessant talker, about the difficulty he would have in making his part good with Mr. Cator, who, he assured him, would out-talk him if he did not take care. And Mr. Crutchley recommended to him to “wait for a sneeze,” in order to put in; so that he was almost rallied into a passion, though, being very good-natured, he made light of it, and it blew over.
In the middle of dinner I was seized with a violent laughing fit, by seeing Mr. Musgrave, who had sat quite silent, turn very solemnly to Mr. Seward and say in a reproachful tone, —
“Seward, you said I should be fighting to talk all the talk, and here I have not spoke once.”
“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Seward, nodding at him, “why don’t you put in?”
“Why, I lost an opportunity just now, when Mr. Cator — talked of climates; I had something I could have said about them very well.”
After this, however, he made himself amends; for when we left the men to their wine, he began such a violent dispute with Mr Cator, that Mr. Jenkinson and Mr. Crutchley left the field of battle, and went out to join the ladies in their walk round the grounds; and that breaking up the party, the rest soon followed.
By the way, I happened not to walk myself, which was most ludicrously noticed by Mr. Musgrave; who, while we were at tea, suddenly crossed the circle to come up to me, and say, —
“You did not walk, Miss Burney?”
“No, sir.”
“Very much in the right — very much in the right, indeed! You were studying? Oh, very right! never lose a moment! Such an understanding as yours it would be a shame to neglect; it ought to be cultivated every moment.”
And then he hurried back to his seat.
In the evening, when all the company was gone but our three gentlemen, Seward, Crutchley, and Musgrave, we took a walk round the grounds by moonlight — and Mr. Musgrave started with rapture at the appearance of the moon, now full, now cloudy, now clear, now obscured, every three yards we moved.
A PARTING SHOT AT MR. CRUTCHLEY.
Friday, Sept. 11. — And now, if I am not mistaken, I come to relate the conclusion of Mr. Crutchley’s most extraordinary summer career at Streatham, which place, I believe, he has now left without much intention to frequently revisit. However, this is mere conjecture; but he really had a run of ill-luck not very inviting to a man of his cold and splenetic turn to play the same game.
When we were just going to supper, we heard a disturbance among the dogs; and Mrs. and Miss Thrale went out to see what was the matter, while Dr. Johnson and I remained quiet. Soon returning.
“A friend! a friend!” she cried, and was followed by Mr. Crutchley. He would not eat with us, but was chatty and in good-humour, and as usual, when in spirits, saucily sarcastic. For instance, it is generally half my employment in hot evenings here to rescue some or other poor buzzing idiot of an insect from the flame of a candle. This, accordingly, I was performing with a Harry Longlegs, which, after much trial to catch, eluded me, and escaped, nobody could see how. Mr. Crutchley vowed I had caught and squeezed him to death in my hand.
“No, indeed,” cried I, “when I catch them, I put them out of the window.”
“Ay, their bodies,” said he, laughing; “but their legs, I suppose, you keep.”
“Not I, indeed; I hold them very safe in the palm of my hand.”
“Oh!” said he, “the palm of your hand! why, it would not hold a fly! But what have you done with the poor wretch! thrown him under the table slily?”
“What good would that do?”
“Oh, help to establish your full character for mercy.”
Now was not that a speech to provoke Miss Grizzle herself? However, I only made up a saucy lip.
“Come,” cried he, offering to take my hand, “where is he? Which hand is he in? Let me examine?”
“No, no, I thank you; I sha’n’t make you my confessor, whenever I take one.”
He did not much like this; but I did not mean he should.
Afterwards he told us a most unaccountably ridiculous story of a crying wife. A gentleman, he said, of his acquaintance had married lately his own kept mistress; and last Sunday he had dined with the bride and bridegroom, but, to his utter astonishment, without any apparent reason in the world, in the middle of dinner or tea, she burst into a violent fit of crying, and went out of the room, though there was not the least quarrel, and the sposo seemed all fondness and attention.
“What, then,” said I, somewhat maliciously, I grant, “had you been saying to er?”
“Oh, thank you!” said he, with a half-affronted bow, “I expected this! I declare I thought you would conclude it was me!”
MANAGER HELIOGABALUS.
Somebody told me (but not your father) that the Opera singers would not be likely to get any money out of Sheridan this year. “Why that fellow grows fat,” says I, “like Heliogabalus, upon the tongues of nightingales.” Did I tell you that bright thing before? — Mrs. Thrale to Fanny Burney.
SISTER AUTHORESSES.
(Fanny Burney to Mrs. Philips, late Miss Susan Burney.)
February, 1782.
As I have a frank and a subject, I will leave my bothers, and write you and my dear brother Molesworth a little account of a rout I have just been at, at the house of Mr. Paradise.
You will wonder, perhaps, in this time of hurry, why I went thither; but when I tell you Pacchierotti was there, you will not think it surprising.
There was a crowd of company; Charlotte and I went together; my father came afterwards. Mrs. Paradise received us very graciously, and led me immediately up to Miss Thrale, who was sitting by the Pac.
We were very late, for we had waited cruelly for the coach, and Pac. had sung a song out of “Artaxerxes,” composed for a tenor, which we lost, to my infinite regret. Afterwards he sang “Dolce speme” delightfully.
Mrs. Paradise, leaning over the Kirwans and Charlotte, who hardly got a seat all night for the crowd, said she begged to speak to me. I squeezed my great person out, and she then said, —
“Miss Burney, Lady Say and Sele desires the honour of being introduced to you.”
Her ladyship stood by her side. She seems pretty near fifty-at least turned forty; her head was full of feathers, flowers, jewels, and gew-gaws, and as high as Lady Archer’s her dress was trimmed with beads, silver, persian sashes, and all sorts of fine fancies; her face is thin and fiery, and her whole manner spoke a lady all alive.
“Miss Burney,” cried she, with great quickness, and a look all curiosity, “I am very happy to see you; I have longed to see you a great while. I have read your performance, and I am quite delighted with it. I think it’s the most elegant novel I ever read in my life. Such a style! I am quite surprised at it. I can’t think where you got so much invention!”
You may believe this was a reception not to make me very loquacious. I did not know which way to turn my head.
“I must introduce you,” continued her ladyship, “to my sister; she’ll be quite delighted to see you. She has written a novel herself so you are sister authoresses. A most elegant thing it is, I assure you; almost as pretty as yours, only not quite so elegant. She has written two novels, only one is not so pretty as the other. But I shall insist upon your seeing them. One is in letters, like yours, only yours is prettiest; it’s called the ‘Mausoleum of Julia’!”
What unfeeling things, thought I, are my sisters! I’m sure I never heard them go about thus praising me. Mrs. Paradise then again came forward, and taking my hand, led me up to her ladyship’s sister, Lady Hawke, saying aloud, and with a courteous smirk,
“Miss Burney, ma’am, authoress of ‘Evelina.’”
“Yes,” cried my frien
d, Lady Say and Sele, who followed me close, “it’s the authoress of ‘Evelina,’ so you are sister authoresses!”
Lady Hawke arose and curtsied. She is much younger than her sister, and rather pretty; extremely languishing, delicate, and pathetic; apparently accustomed to be reckoned the genius of her family, and well contented to be looked upon as a creature dropped from the clouds. I was then seated between their ladyships, and Lady S. and S., drawing as near to me as possible, said, —
“Well, and so you wrote this pretty book! — and pray did your papa know of it?”
“No, ma’am; not till some months after the publication.”
“So I’ve heard — it’s surprising! I can’t think how you invented it! — there’s a vast deal of invention in it! And you’ve got so much humour, too! Now my sister has no humour; hers is all sentiment. You can’t think how I was entertained with that old grandmother and her son!”
I suppose she meant Tom Branghton for the son.
“How much pleasure you must have had in writing it; had not you?”
“Y — e — s, ma’am.”
“So has my sister; she’s never without a pen in her hand; she can’t help writing for her life. When Lord Hawke is travelling about with her, she keeps writing all the way.”
“Yes,” said Lady Hawke; “I really can’t help writing. One has great pleasure in writing the things; has one not, Miss Burney?”
“Y — e — s, ma’am.”
“But your novel,” cried Lady Say and Sele, “is in such a style! — so elegant! I am vastly glad you made it end happily. I hate a novel that don’t end happy.”
“Yes,” said Lady Hawke, with a languid smile, “I was vastly glad when she married Lord Orville. I was sadly afraid it would not have been.”
“My sister intends,” said Lady Say and Sele, “to print her ‘Mausoleum,’ just for her own friends and acquaintances.”
“Yes,” said Lady Hawke; “I have never printed yet.”
“I saw Lady Hawke’s name,” quoth I to my first friend, “ascribed to the play of ‘Variety.’”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 538