The gentle Mr. Fisher, sorry for the cause and the effect of this assault, tried vainly to turn it aside: what began with censure soon proceeded to invective; and at last, being really sick from crowding recollections of past scenes, where the person now thus vilified had been dear and precious to my very heart, I was forced, abruptly, to walk out of the room.
It was indifferent to me whether or not my retreat was noticed. I have never sought to disguise the warm friendship that once subsisted between Mrs. Thrale and myself, for I always hoped that, where it was known, reproach might be spared to a name I can never hear without a secret pang, even when simply mentioned. Oh, then, how severe a one is added, when its sound is accompanied by the hardest aspersions!
I returned when I could, and the subject was over.
When all were gone Mrs. Schwellenberg said, “I have told it Mr.
Fisher that he drove you out from the room, and he says he won’t
not do it no more.”
She told me next — that in the second volume I also was mentioned. Where she may have heard this I cannot gather, but it has given me a sickness at heart inexpressible. It is not that I expect severity: for at the time of that correspondence — at all times, indeed, previous to the marriage with Piozzi, if Mrs. Thrale loved not F. B., where shall we find faith in words, or give credit to actions? But her present resentment, however unjustly incurred, of my constant disapprobation of her conduct, may prompt some note, or other mark, to point out her change of sentiments — but let me try to avoid such painful expectations; at least, not to dwell upon them.
O, little does she know how tenderly at this moment I could run again into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable. And it was sincere then, I am satisfied: pride, resentment of disapprobation, and consciousness of unjustifiable proceedings — these have now changed her: but if we met, and she saw and believed my faithful regard, how would she again feel all her own return!
Well, what a dream am I making!
Jan. 11.-Upon this ever-interesting subject, I had to-day a very sweet scene with the queen. While Mrs. Schwellenberg and myself were both in our usual attendance at noon, her majesty inquired of Mrs. Schwellenberg if she had yet read any of the “Letters”?
“No,” she answered, “I have them not to read.”
I then said she had been so obliging as to lend them to me, to whom they were undoubtedly of far greater personal value.
“That is true,” said the queen; “for I think there is but little in them that can be of much consequence or value to the public at large.”
“Your majesty, you will hurt Miss Burney if you speak about that; poor Miss Burney will be quite hurt by that.”
The queen looked much surprised, and I hastily exclaimed, “O, no! — not with the gentleness her majesty names it.”
Mrs. Schwellenberg then spoke in German; and, I fancy, by the names she mentioned, recounted how Mr. Turbulent and Mr. Fisher had “driven me out of the room.”
The queen seemed extremely astonished, and I was truly vexed at this total misunderstanding; and that the goodness she has exerted upon this occasion should seem so little to have succeeded. But I could not explain, lest it should seem to reproach what was meant as kindness in Mrs. Schwellenberg, who had not yet discovered that it was not the subject, but her own manner of treating it, that was so painful to me.
However, the instant Mrs. Schwellenberg left the room, and we remained alone, the queen, approaching me in the softest manner, and looking earnestly in my face, said, “You could not be offended, surely, at what I said.”
“O no, ma’am,” cried I, deeply indeed penetrated by such unexpected condescension. “I have been longing to make a speech to your majesty upon this matter; and it was but yesterday that I entreated Mrs. Delany to make it for me, and to express to your majesty the very deep sense I feel of the lenity with which this Subject has been treated in my hearing.”
“Indeed,” cried she, with eyes strongly expressive of the complacency with which she heard me, “I have always spoke as little as possible upon this affair. I remember but twice that I have named it: once I said to the Bishop of Carlisle, that I thought most of these letters had better have been spared the printing; and once to Mr. Langton, at the Drawing-room, I said, ‘Your friend Dr. Johnson, sir, has had many friends busy to publish his books, and his memoirs, and his meditations, and his thoughts; but I think he wanted one friend more.’ ‘What for? ma’am,’ cried he; ‘A friend to suppress them,’ I answered. And, indeed, this is all I ever said about the business.”
A PAIR OF PARAGONS.
…..I was amply recompensed in spending an evening the most to my natural taste of any I have spent officially under the royal roof. How high Colonel Wellbred stands with me you know; Mr. Fairly., with equal gentleness, good breeding, and delicacy, adds a far more general turn for conversation, and seemed not only ready, but pleased, to open upon subjects of such serious import as were suited to his state of mind, and could not but be edifying, from a man of such high moral character, to all who heard him.
Life and death were the deep themes to which he .led; and the little space between them, and the little value of that space were the subject of his comments. The unhappiness of man at least after the ardour of his first youth, and the near worthlessness of the world, seemed so deeply impressed on his mind, that no reflection appeared to be consolatory to it, save the necessary shortness of our mortal career. . . .
“Indeed,” said he, “there is no time — I know of none — in which life is well worth having. The prospect before us is never such as to make it worth preserving, except from religious motives.”
I felt shocked and sorry. Has he never tasted happiness, who so deeply drinks of sorrow? He surprised me, and filled me, indeed, with equal wonder and pity. At a loss how to make an answer sufficiently general, I made none at all, but referred to Colonel Wellbred: perhaps he felt the same difficulty, for he said nothing; and Mr. Fairly then gathered an answer for himself, by saying, “Yes, it may, indeed, be attainable in the only actual as well as only right way to seek it, — that of doing good!”
“If,” cried Colonel Wellbred, afterwards, “I lived always in London, I should be as tired of life as you are: I always sicken of it there, if detained beyond a certain time. They then joined in a general censure of dissipated life, and a general distaste of dissipated characters, which seemed, however, to comprise almost all their acquaintance; and this presently occasioned Mr. Fairly to say,
“It is, however, but fair for you and me to own, Wellbred, that if people in general ,’are bad, we live chiefly amongst those who are the worst.”
Whether he meant any particular set to which they belong, or whether his reflection went against people in high life, such ‘as constitute their own relations and connexions in general, I cannot say, as he did not explain himself.
Mr. Fairly, besides the attention due to him from all, in consideration of his late loss, merited from me peculiar deference, in return for a mark I received of his disposition to think favourably of me from our first acquaintance: for not more was I surprised than pleased at his opening frankly upon the character of my coadjutrix, and telling me at once, that when first he saw me here, just before the Oxford expedition, he had sincerely felt for and pitied me. . . .
Sunday, Jan. 13.-There is something in Colonel Wellbred so elegant, so equal, and so pleasing, it is impossible not to see him with approbation, and to speak of him with praise. But I found in Mr. Fairly a much greater depth of understanding, and all his sentiments seem formed upon the most perfect basis of religious morality.
During the evening, in talking over plays and players, we all three united warmly in panegyric of Mrs. Siddons; but when Mrs. Jordan was named, Mr. Fairly and myself were left to make the best of her. Observing the silence of Colonel Wellbred, we called upon him to explain it.
“I have seen her,” he answered, quietly, “but in one part.”
/> “Whatever it was,” cried Mr. Fairly, “it must have been well done.”
“Yes,” answered the colonel, “and so well that it seemed to be her real character: and I disliked her for that very reason, for it was a character that, off the stage or on, is equally distasteful to me — a hoyden.”
I had had a little of this feeling myself when I saw her in “The Romp,”(251) where she gave me, in the early part, a real disgust; but afterwards she displayed such uncommon humour that it brought me to pardon her assumed vulgarity, in favour of a representation of nature, which, In its particular class, seemed to me quite perfect MR. TURBULENT’S SELF CONDEMNATION.
At the usual tea-time I sent Columb, to see if anybody had come upstairs. He brought me word the eating-parlour was empty. I determined to go thither at once, with my work, that there might be no pretence to fetch me when the party assembled; but upon opening the door I saw Mr. Turbulent there, and alone!
I entered with readiness into discourse with him, and showed a disposition to placid good-will, for with so irritable a spirit resentment has much less chance to do good than an appearance of not supposing it deserved. Our conversation was in the utmost gravity. He told me he was not happy, though owned he had everything to make him so; but he was firmly persuaded that happiness in this world was a real stranger. I combated this misanthropy in general terms; but he assured me that such was his unconquerable opinion of human life.
How differently did I feel when I heard an almost similar sentiment from Mr. Fairly! In him I imputed it to unhappiness of circumstances, and was filled with compassion for his fate: in this person I impute it to something blameable within, and I tried by all the arguments I could devise to give him better notions. For him, however, I soon felt pity, though not of the same composition : for he frankly said he was good enough to be happy-that he thought human frailty incompatible with happiness, and happiness with human frailty, and that he had no wish so strong as to turn monk!
I asked him if he thought a life of uselessness and of goodness the same thing?
“I need not be useless,” he said; “I might assist by my counsels. I might be good in a monastery — in the world I cannot! I am not master of my feelings: I am run away by passions too potent for control!”
This was a most unwelcome species of confidence, but I affected to treat it as mere talk, and answered it only slightly, telling him he spoke from the gloom of the moment.
“No,” he answered, “I have tried in vain to conquer them. I have made vows — resolutions — all in vain! I cannot keep them!”
“Is not weakness,” cried I, “sometimes fancied, merely to save the pain and trouble of exerting fortitude.”
“No, it is with me inevitable. I am not formed for success in self-conquest. I resolve — I repent — but I fall! I blame — reproach — I even hate myself — I do everything, in short, yet cannot save myself! Yet do not,” he continued, seeing me shrink, “think worse of me than I deserve: nothing of injustice, of ill-nature, of malignancy — I have nothing of these to reproach myself with.”
“I believe you,” I cried, “and surely, therefore, a general circumspection, an immediate watchfulness—”
“No, no, no— ’twould be all to no purpose.”
“’Tis that hopelessness which is most your enemy. If you would but exert your better reason—”
“No, madam, no!— ’tis a fruitless struggle. I know myself too well — I can do nothing so right as to retire — to turn monk — hermit.”
“I have no respect,” cried I, “for these selfish seclusions. I can never suppose we were created in the midst of society, in order to run away to a useless solitude. I have not a doubt but you may do well, if you will do well.”
Some time after he suddenly exclaimed, “Have you — tell me — have you, ma’am, never done what you repent?”
O “yes! — at times.”
“You have?” he cried, eagerly.
“O yes, alas! — yet not, I think, very often — for it is not very often I have done anything!”
“And what is it has saved you?”
I really did not know well what to answer him; I could say nothing that would not sound like parade, or implied superiority. I suppose he was afraid himself of the latter; for, finding me silent, he was pleased to answer for me.
“Prejudice, education, accident! — those have saved you.”
“Perhaps so,” cried I. “And one thing more, I acknowledge myself obliged to, on various occasions — fear. I run no risks that I see — I run — but it is always away from all danger that I perceive.”
“You do not, however, call that virtue, ma’am — you do not call that the rule of right?”
“No — I dare not — I must be content that it is certainly not the rule of wrong.”
He began then an harangue upon the universality of depravity and frailty that I heard with much displeasure; for, it seems to me, those most encourage such general ideas of general worthlessness who most wish to found upon them partial excuses for their own MISS BURNEY AMONG HER OLD FRIENDS.
Jan. 31. — And now I must finish my account of this month by my own assembly at my dear Mrs. Ord’s.
I passed through the friendly hands of Miss Ord to the most cordial ones of Mrs. Garrick,(252) who frankly embraced me, saying, “Do I see you, once more, before I die, my tear little spark? for your father is my flame, all my life, and you are a little spark of that flame!”
She added how much she had wished to visit me at the queen’s house, when she found I no longer came about the world; but that she was too discreet, and I did not dare say “Do come!” unauthorized.
Then came Mr. Pepys, and he spoke to me instantly, of the ‘Streatham Letters.’ He is in agony as to his own fate, but said there could be no doubt of my faring well. Not, I assured him, to my own content, if named at all.
We were interrupted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. I was quite glad to see him; and we began chatting with all our old spirit, and he quite raved against my present life of confinement, an the invisibility it had occasioned, etc., etc.
The approach of Mrs. Porteus stopped this. She is always most obliging and courteous, and she came to inquire whether now she saw I really was not wholly immured, there was any chance of a more intimate cultivation of an acquaintance long begun, but stopped in its first progress. I could only make a general answer of acknowledgment to her kindness. Her bishop, whom I had not seen since his preferment from Chester to London, joined us, and most good-naturedly entered into discourse upon my health.
I was next called to Mrs. Montagu, who was behind with no one in kind speeches, and who insisted upon making me a visit at the queen’s house, and would take no denial to my fixing my own time, whenever I was at leisure, and sending her word; and she promised to put off any and every engagement for that Purpose. I could make no other return to such civility, but to desire to postpone it till my dear Mr. and Mrs. Locke came to town, and could meet her.
Mrs. Boscawen(253) was my next little t`ete-`a-t`ete, but I had only begun it when Mr. Cambridge came to my side.
“I can’t get a word!” cried he, with a most forlorn look, “and yet I came on purpose!” I thanked him, and felt such a real pleasure in his sight, from old and never-varying regard, that I began to listen to him with my usual satisfaction. He related to me a long history of Lavant, where the new-married Mrs. Charles Cambridge is now very unwell: and then he told me many good things of his dear and deserving daughter; and I showed him her muff, which she had worked for me, in embroidery, and we were proceeding a little in the old way, when I saw Mrs. Pepys leaning forward to hear us; and then Lady Rothes, who also seemed all attention to Mr. Cambridge and his conversation.
The sweet Lady Mulgrave came for only a few words, not to take me, she said, from older claimants; the good and wise Mrs. Carter(254) expressed herself with equal kindness and goodness on our once more meeting; Miss Port, looking beautiful as a little angel, only once advanced to shake hands, and
say, “I can see you another time, so I won’t be unreasonable now.”
Mr. Smelt, who came from Kew for this party, made me the same speech, and no more, and I had time for nothing beyond a “how do do “ with Mr. Langton, his Lady Rothes,(255) Mr. Batt, Mr. Cholmondoley, Lord Mulgrave, Sir Lucas Pepys, and Lady Herries.
Then up came Mrs. Chapone, and, after most cordially shaking hands with me, “But I hope,” she cried, “you are not always to appear only as a comet, to be stared at, and then vanish? If you are, let me beg at least to be brushed by your tail, and not hear you have disappeared before my telescope is ready for looking at you!” When at last I was able to sit down, after a short conference with every one, it was next to Mr. Walpole,(256) who had secured me a place by his side; and with him was my longest conversation, for he was in high spirits, polite, ingenious, entertaining, quaint, and original.
But all was so short! — so short! — I was forced to return home so soon! ’Twas, however, a very great regale to me, and the sight of so much kindness, preserved so entire after so long an absence, warmed my whole heart with pleasure and satisfaction. My dearest father brought me home.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 573