"Seward," said Mrs. Thrale, "had affronted Johnson, and then Johnson affronted Seward, and then the S. S. cried."
"_Oh_," cried Sir Philip, "that I had but been here!"
"Nay," answered Mrs. Thrale, "you"d only have seen how like three fools three sensible persons behaved: for my part, I was quite sick of it, and of them too."
Sir P.-But what did Seward do? was he not melted?
Mrs. T.-Not he; he was thinking only of his own affront, and taking fire at that.
Mr. S.-Why, yes, I did take fire, for I went and planted my back to it.
S.S.-And Mrs. Thrale kept stuffing me with toast-and-water.
Sir P.-But what did Seward do with himself? Was not he in extacy? What did he do or say?
Mr. S.-Oh, I said pho, pho, don"t let"s have any more of this,--it"s making it of too much consequence: no more piping, pray.
Sir P.-Well, I have heard so much of these tears, that I would give the universe to have a sight of them.
Mrs. T.-Well, she shall cry again if you like it.
S.S.-No, pray, Mrs. Thrale.
Sir P.--Oh, pray, do! pray let me see a little of it.
Mrs. T.-Yes, do cry a little, Sopby [in a wheedling voice], pray do!
Consider, now, you are going to-day, and it"s very hard if you won"t cry a little: indeed, S. S., you ought to cry.
Now for the wonder of wonders. When Mrs. Thrale, in a coaxing voice, suited to a nurse soothing a baby, had run on for some time,--while all the rest of us, in laughter, joined in the request,--two crystal tears came into the soft eyes of the S. S., and rolled gently down her cheeks!
Such a sight I never saw before, nor could I have believed. She offered not to conceal or dissipate them: on the contrary, she really contrived to have them seen by everybody. She looked, indeed, uncommonly handsome; for her pretty face was not, like Chloe"s, blubbered; it was smooth and elegant, and neither her features nor complexion were at all ruffled; nay, indeed, she was smiling all the time.
"Look, look!" cried Mrs. Thrale; "see if the tears are not come already."
Loud and rude bursts of laughter broke from us all at once. How, indeed, could they be restrained? Yet we all stared, and looked and re-looked again and again, twenty times, ere we could believe our eyes. Sir Philip, I thought, would have died in convulsions; for his laughter and his politeness, struggling furiously with one another, made him almost black in the face. Mr. Seward looked half vexed that her crying for him was now so much lowered in its flattery, yet grinned incessantly; Miss Thrale laughed as much as contempt would allow her: but Dr. Delap seemed petrified with astonishment.
When our mirth abated, Sir Philip, colouring violently with his efforts to speak, said,
"I thank you, ma"am, I"m much obliged to you."
But I really believe he spoke without knowing what he was saying.
"What a wonderful command," said Dr. Delap, very gravely, "that lady must have over herself!"
She now took out a handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.
"Sir Philip," cried Mr. Seward, "how can you suffer her to dry her own eyes?--you, who sit next her?"
"I dare not dry them for her," answered he, "because I am not the right man."
"But if I sat next her," returned he, "she would not dry them herself."
"I wish," cried Dr. Delap, "I had a bottle to put them in; "tis a thousand pities they should be wasted."
"There, now," said Mrs. Thrale, "she looks for all the world as if nothing had happened; for, you know, nothing has happened!"
"Would you cry, Miss Burney," said Sir Philip, "if we asked you?"
"She can cry, I doubt not," said Mr. Seward, "on any Proper occasion."
"But I must know," said I, "what for."
I did not say this loud enough for the S. S. to hear me, but if I had, she would not have taken it for the reflection it meant. She seemed, the whole time, totally insensible to the numerous strange and, indeed, impertinent speeches which were made and to be very well satisfied that she was only manifesting a tenderness of disposition, that increased her beauty of countenance. At least, I can put no other construction upon her conduct which was, without exception, the strangest I ever saw.
Without any pretence of affliction,--to weep merely because she was bid, though bid in a manner to forbid any one else,--to be in good spirits all the time,--to see the whole company expiring of laughter at her tears, without being at all offended, and, at last, to dry them up, and go on with the same sort of conversation she held before they started!
"EVERYTHING A BORE."
_Sunday, June 20_.--While I was sitting with Mr. Thrale, in the library, Mr. Seward entered. As soon as the first inquiries were over, he spoke about what he calls our comedy, and he pressed and teazed me to set about it. But he grew, in the evening, so queer, so ennuye, that, in a fit of absurdity, I called him "Mr. Dry;" and the name took so with Mrs.
Thrale, that I know not when he will lose it. Indeed, there is something in this young man"s alternate drollery and la.s.situde, entertaining qualities and wearying complaints, that provoke me to more pertness than I practise to almost anybody.
The play, he said, should have the double t.i.tle of "The Indifferent Man, or Everything a Bore;" and I protested Mr. Dry should be the hero. And then we ran on, jointly planning a succession of ridiculous scenes;--he lashing himself pretty freely though not half so freely, or so much to the purpose, as I lashed him; for I attacked him, through the channel of Mr. Dry, upon his ennui, his causeless melancholy, his complaining languors, his yawning inattention, and his restless discontent. You may easily imagine I was in pretty high spirits to go so far: in truth, nothing else could either have prompted or excused my facetiousness: and his own manners are so cavalier, that they always, with me, stimulate a sympathising return.
He repeatedly begged me to go to work, and commit the projected scenes to paper: but I thought that might be carrying the jest too far; for as I was in no humour to spare him, written raillery might, perhaps, have been less to his taste than verbal.
He challenged me to meet him the next morning, before breakfast, in the library, that we might work together at some scenes, but I thought it as well to let the matter drop, and did not make my entry till they were all a.s.sembled.
He, however, ran upon nothing else; and, as soon as we happened to be left together, he again attacked me.
"Come," said he, "have you nothing ready yet? I dare say you have half an act in your pocket."
"No," quoth I, "I have quite forgot the whole business; I was only in the humour for it last night."
"How shall it begin?" cried he; "with Mr. Dry in his study?--his slippers just on, his hair about his ears,--exclaiming, "O what a bore is life!--What is to be done next?"
"Next?" cried I, "what, before he has done anything at all?"
"Oh, he has dressed himself, you know.--Well, then he takes up a book--"
"For example, this," cried I, giving him Clarendon"s History.
He took it up in character, and flinging it away, cried
"No--this will never do,--a history by a party writer is vidious."
I then gave him Robertson"s "America."