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,
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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 s.p.a.ce between them, and the little value of that s.p.a.ce 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."
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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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.sumed vulgarity, in favour of a representation of nature, which, In its particular cla.s.s, seemed to me quite perfect.
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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 a.s.sembled; 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 a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances, and was filled with compa.s.sion 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sions 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 fort.i.tude."
"No, it is with me inevitable. I am not formed for success in self-conquest. I resolve--I repent--but I fall! I blame--
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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 circ.u.mspection, 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?"