University of Virginia Library

LETTER II.
ANNE TO ELENOR.

I AM pleased to find by your favor of the
13th, that you are pleased with your situation.
The pleasure I enjoyed in your society during
our journey from Brussells, and our little voyage
across the channel, has made me anxious to preserve
the esteem of a person so amiable. I
have no doubt but Lady M—d, will be more
than satisfied to have so capable a woman take
the charge of her infant daughters. She must
soon learn justly to appreciate your value, and
by every proper attention endeavor to secure to
them, as they advance in life, a continuance of
your valuable instructions enforced so powerfully
by your example. I will confess, dear madam,
that I am so much of an English woman, as to

prefer my own country women, in almost every
respect; especially where the education of the
young mind is concerned, and where the future
happiness and respectability of life depends greatly
on the morals, manners and general habits
of those with whom the early period of youth
is past. I am delighted with the vivacity of the
French ladies; I am convinced their manners
are more captivating than those of the English;
but while I have been charmed by their wit, almost
fascinated by the very high polish of their
manners; I could not help secretly wishing it
had been tempered and corrected by the modest
reserve, the inobtrusive delicacy, which always
characterises a well bred English woman. You,
my dear madam, by a long residence abroad,
have most agreeably blended the vivacity of the
one, with the chaste propriety of the other, and
your perfect knowledge of the French and Italian
languages, joined to an extensive knowledge of
your own, renders you a very able instructor in
all. I presume you will accompany the family
to town after Christmas, when I shall have an opportunity
of renewing an acquaintance so pleasantly
commenced, and which I trust will ripen
into a lasting friendship. But in the mean time,
I am not forgetful of your request to be informed
of the principal events in the life of Mrs. Darnley,
who so much interested you, the few times
you saw her previous to your journey into Berkshire.
I do not hesitate to enter on the subject
very freely, because there is no incident in her
short life, which she could wish concealed, and
many that redound to her honor. I fear she is
not happily married; but being of a disposition
to bear all things with patience, to look on the
bright side of the picture, and not think of an approaching
storm, while there is one gleam of
sunshine left, I think it possible she may draw
comfort from various sources, which the irritable
or discontented mind would entirely overlook;
and be more than contented where another would
be little less than wretched.

Mrs. Darnley is the daughter of a gentleman
who held a post under government which yielded
him above a thousand pounds per annum. She
lost her mother at a very early period, and her
father's household was conducted by a maiden
sister of her father's, forbidding in her looks,
rigid in her principles, and harsh and unbending
in her manners. She had herself enjoyed little
of the advantages of a polite education, thinking
and asserting at all times, that if a woman could
read, write, execute various needlework, superintend
domestic arrangements, understood the
etiquette of the dining table, and drawing room,
knew how to give every person their proper
place, and pay them the proper degree of respect
due to their rank or wealth, she had attained
the summit of female excellence. Having no
taste for the fine arts herself, she laughed at as
ridiculous every pursuit of the kind, and as to a
learned woman, she treated the idea as a mere
chimera, or if existing, a monster in nature,

which, though wonderful, was only laughed at
by one sex, feared and shunned by the other.
Sarah, for so I shall call her, shewed early talents
for music and drawing, and was delighted with
reading the best English poets. I have heard
her father say, that at ten years old, she read
with propriety, and seemed fully to comprehend
all the beauties of Pope's Homer, Dryden's Virgil,
and other works of the same tendency;
Spenser and Shakespeare were great favorites
with her. Sarah is an only child: she inherited
from her mother a small patrimony, about fifteen
hundred pounds. It was in the funds, and the interest
would have been sufficient to keep her at
a very genteel school, but her father had an
utter aversion to schools; she was therefore attended
by masters in all the polite branches, her
aunt documented her about economy, sewing,
flourishing muslin, &c. &c. but the larger part of
her time, (her father being engaged in business
or pleasure, her aunt in scolding the servants,
dressing, and paying or receiving visits),
Sarah was left to amuse herself with the servants,
or read any books which her father's library
afforded, or chance threw in her way,
without any one to direct her choice, or correct
her taste. Possessed of an ardent imagination, it
may easily be conceived that works of fancy were
read with uncommon pleasure: but this was not
the worst; she read books of religious controversy,
nor did the pernicious writings of fashionable
sceptics escape. Her mind, eager in the
pursuit of information, embraced it with avidity,
in whatever shape it offered itself. Nor is it
surprising that from such a heterogeneous jumble,
her ideas became a chaos of romantic sensibility,
enthusiastic superstition, and sceptical
boldness; yes, contrary as those sentiments are,
they each in turn, predominated in the mind of
Sarah. Her father saw a great deal of company,
chiefly gentlemen. A girl sensible, witty, and
with an understanding uncommonly expanded
for her age, introduced into the company of men,
becomes early accustomed to the delicious and intoxicating
poison of adulation, and too often falls a
victim to the sentiments those flatterers awaken
in her soul, before reason and fixed principle
have power to counteract and repel the powerful
impulses of youthful passion. Had Sarah been
of a temperature easily called into action, she
could not have escaped contamination in the
scenes to which she was too often a witness.
Her father was not a man of strict morals; he
had supported a woman as a mistress for many
years, and was frequently so imprudent as to
take his daughter with him, in his visits to this
woman. But Sarah's soul naturally revolted at
the approach of vice, and when she understood
the character of her father's chere amie, she
resolutely refused ever again to enter her house.
Her aunt was so far serviceable to her that she
early inspired her with a love of virtue, and a
veneration for religion, which I have no doubt
through her life, in spite of her eccentricities,
will ever be the leading trait in her character.
She was just turned of thirteen when I became
acquainted with her, and though there were seven
years difference in our age, her sense was so matured,
her conversation so superior to the generality
of women, even at a more advanced period,
that I courted her friendship, obtained it,
and found her tender, ardent, and sincere, (if I
may be allowed the expression,) even to a fault.
Totally unacquainted with the world, she believed
it to be such as the books she had read represented;
she believed every profession of love or
regard made to her, and would give her last farthing
to relieve an object of distress, without
staying to inquire whether the distress was feigned
or real. I have said her father was dissipated;
he was, besides, thoughtless to a superlative degree
in his expenses, so that when Sarah had
reached her seventeenth year, involved in debt,
severely blamed by his friends, and deserted
by his dissolute companions, she saw him deprived
of his place, the duties of which he had for
some time scandalously neglected. About six
months previous to this deplorable change in her
situation, Sarah had buried her aunt; and when
her father, to avoid his creditors, went off to India,
she found herself cast unprotected on the
world, for having declared her resolution to
liquidate the most pressing of her father's debts,
the moment she could sell out money sufficient
for the purpose: her relations declared their
disapprobation of a conduct which they plainly
saw would leave her a very small stipend, and
were cautious of inviting to their houses, a person
likely to become in some degree a burthen
to them. I spoke to Sarah on the subject; her
answer was, “I am fully aware, Anne, that no
one can oblige me to pay these sums, and that
by retaining my little fortune, I shall be secure
from dependence; but one of my father's creditors
is a poor tradesman, who has a large family
of children and a sick wife; another is a widow,
in very depressed circumstances; what right
have I to retain my fortune, while they, whose
actual property I have helped to waste, are driven
to extreme necessity, when by paying them what
is lawfully their due, I restore them to a state of
comparative comfort.” This argument was unanswerable;
I did not attempt to dissuade her.
She sold out a thousand pounds at a considerable
loss, paid those she thought were most in need
of the money, and remitted the remainder to her
father. If you still feel interested in my narrative,
I will renew it in a short period; but do not
expect any romantic scenes, flaming lovers, or
cruel false friends; what I have to relate, are
incidents, perhaps, frequently to be met with in
common life; but I love Sarah, and all that concerns
her is interesting to me. Adieu, my dear
madam.