“On sera ridicule et je n’oserai rire!”

BOILEAU.

IN honour of her brother’s return Lady Emily resolved to celebrate it with a ball; and always prompt in following up her plans, she fell to work immediately with her visiting list.

“Certainly,” said she, as she scanned it over, “there never was any family so afflicted in their acquaintances as we are. At least one-half of the names here belong to the most insufferable people on the face of the earth. The Claremonts, and the Edgefields, and the Bouveries, and the Sedleys, and a few more, are very well; but can anything in human form be more insupportable than the rest; for instance, that wretch Lady Placid?”

“Does her merit lie only in her name then?” asked Mary.

“You shall judge for yourself when I have given you a slight sketch of her character. Lady Placid, in the opinion of all sensible persons in general, and myself in particular, is a vain, weak, conceited, vulgar egotist. In her own eyes she is a clever, well-informed, elegant, amiable woman; and though I have spared no pains to let her know how detestable I think her, it is all in vain; she remains as firmly entrenched in her own good opinion as folly and conceit can make her; and I have the despair of seeing all my buffetings fall blunted to the ground. She reminds me of some odious fairy or genii I have read of, who possessed such a power in their person that every hostile weapon levelled against them was immediately turned into some agreeable present. Stones became balls of silk arrows, flowers swords, feathers, etc. Even so it is with Lady Placid. The grossest insult that could be offered she would construe into an elegant compliment; the very crimes of others she seems to consider as so much incense offered up at the shrine of her own immaculate virtue. I’m certain she thinks she deserves to be canonised for having kept out of Doctors’ Commons. Never is any affair of that sort alluded to that she does not cast such a triumphant look towards her husband, as much as to say, ’Here am I, the paragon of faithful wives and virtuous matrons!’ Were I in his place, I should certainly throw a plate at her head. And here, you may take this passing remark How much more odious people are who have radical faults, than those who commit, I do not say positive crimes, but occasional weaknesses. Even a noble nature may fall into a great error; but what is that to the ever-enduring pride, envy, malice, and conceit of a little mind? Yes, I would at any time rather be the fallen than the one, so exult over the fall of another. Then, as a mother, she is, if possible, still more meritorious a woman (this is the way she talks): A woman has nobly performed her part to her country, and for posterity, when she has brought a family of fine healthy children into the world. ’I can’t agree with you,’ I reply ’I think many mothers have brought children into the world who would have been much better out of it. A mother’s merit must depend solely upon how she brings up her children (hers are the most spoiled brats in Christendom). ’There I perfectly agree with you, Lady Emily. As you observe, it is not every mother who does her duty by her children. Indeed, I may say to you, it is not everyone that will make the sacrifices for their family I have done; but thank God! I am richly repaid. My children are everything I could wish them to be!’ Everything of hers, as a matter of course, must be superior to every other person’s, and even what she is obliged to share in common with others acquires some miraculous charm in operating upon her. Thus it is impossible for anyone to imagine the delight she takes in bathing; and as for the sun, no mortal can conceive the effect it has upon her. If she was to have the plague she would assure you it was owing to some peculiar virtue in her blood; and if she was to be put in the pillory she would ascribe it entirely to her great merit. If her coachman were to make her a declaration of love she would impute it to the boundless influence of her charms; that every man who sees her does not declare his passion is entirely owing to the well-known severity of her morals and the dignity of her deportment. If she is amongst the first invited to my ball, that will be my eagerness to secure her: if the very last, it will be a mark of my friendship, and the easy footing we are upon. If not invited at all, then it will be jealousy. In short, the united strength of worlds would not shake that woman’s good opinion of herself; and the intolerable part of it is there are so many fools in this one that she actually passes with the multitude for being a charming sweet-tempered woman always the same always pleased and contented. Contented! just as like contentment as the light emitted by putridity resembles the divine halo! But too much of her. Let her have a card, however.

“Then comes Mrs. Wiseacre, that renowned law-giver, who lavishes her advice on all who will receive it, without hope of fee or reward, except that of being thought wiser than anybody else. But, like many more deserving characters, she meets with nothing but ingratitude in return; and the wise sentences that are for ever hovering around her pursed up mouth have only served to render her insupportable. This is her mode of proceeding ’ If I might presume to advise, Lady Emily;’ or, ’If my opinion could be supposed to have any weight;’ or ’If my experience goes for anything;’ or, ’I’m an old woman now, but I think I know something of the world;’ or, ’If a friendly hint of mine would be of any service: then when very desperate, it is, ’However averse I am to obtrude my advice, yet as I consider it my duty, I must for once;’ or, ’It certainly is no affair of mine, at the same time I must just observe,’ etc. etc. I don’t say that she insists, however, upon your swallowing all the advice she crams you with; for, provided she has the luxury of giving it, it can make little difference how it is taken; because whatever befals you, be it good or bad, it is equally a matter of exultation to her. Thus she has the satisfaction of saying, ’If poor Mrs. Dabble had but followed my advice, and not have taken these pills of Dr. Doolittle’s, she would have been alive to-day, depend upon it;’ or, ’If Sir Thomas Speckle had but taken advantage of a friendly hint I threw out some time ago, about the purchase of the Drawrent estate, he might have been a man worth ten thousand a year at this moment;’ or, ’If Lady Dull hadn’t been so infatuated as to neglect the caution I gave her about Bob Squander, her daughter might have been married to Nabob Gull.’

“But there is a strange contradiction about Mrs. Wiseacre, for though it appears that all her friends’ misfortunes proceed from neglecting her advice, it is no less apparent, by her account, that her own are all occasioned by following the advice of others. She is for ever doing foolish things, and laying the blame upon her neighbours. Thus, ’Had it not been for my friend Mrs. Jobbs there, I never would have parted with my house for an old song as I did;’ or, ’It was entirely owing to Miss Glue’s obstinacy that I was robbed of my diamond necklace, or, ’I have to thank my friend Colonel Crack for getting my carriage smashed to pieces.’ In short, she has the most comfortable repository of stupid friends to have recourse to, of anybody I ever knew. Now what I have to warn you against, Mary, is the sin of ever listening to any of her advices. She will preach to you about the pinning of your gown and the curling of your hair till you would think it impossible not to do exactly what she wants you to do. She will inquire with the greatest solicitude what shoemaker you employ, and will shake her head most significantly when she hears it is any other than her own. But if ever I detect you paying the smallest attention to any of her recommendations, positively I shall have done with you.”

Mary laughingly promised to turn a deaf ear to all Mrs. Wiseacre’s wisdom; and her cousin proceeded:

“Then here follows a swarm as, thick as idle motes in sunny ray,’ and much of the same importance, methinks, in the scale of being. Married ladies only celebrated for their good dinners, or their pretty équipages, or their fine jewels. How I should scorn to be talked of as the appendage to any soups or pearls! Then there are the daughters of these ladies Misses, who are mere misses, and nothing more. Oh! the insipidity of a mere Miss! a soft simpering thing with pink cheeks, and pretty hair, and fashionable clothes sans eyes for anything but lovers_-sans_ ears for anything but flattery sans taste for anything but balls_ sans_ brains for anything at all! Then there are ladies who are neither married nor young, and who strive with all their might to talk most delightfully, that the charms of their conversation may efface the marks of the crows’ feet; but ’all these I passen by, and nameless numbers moe.’ And now comes the Hon. Mrs. Downe Wright, a person of considerable shrewdness and penetration vulgar, but unaffected. There is no politeness, no gentleness in her heart; but she possesses some warmth, much honesty, and great hospitality. She has acquired the character of being oh, odious thing! a clever woman! There are two descriptions of clever women, observe; the one is endowed with corporeal cleverness the other with mental; and I don’t know which of the two is the greater nuisance to society; the one torments you with her management the other with her smart sayings; the one is for ever rattling her bunch of keys in your ears the other electrifies you with the shock of her wit; and both talk so much and so loud, and are such egotists, that I rather think a clever woman is even a greater term of reproach than a good creature. But to return to that clever woman Mrs. Downe Wright: she is a widow, left with the management of an only son a commonplace, weak young man. No one, I believe, is more sensible of his mental deficiencies than his mother; but she knows that a man of fortune is, in the eyes of the many, a man of consequence; and she therefore wisely talks of it as his chief characteristic. To keep him in good company, and get him well married, is all her aim; and this, she thinks, will not be difficult, as he is very handsome-possesses an estate of ten thousand a year and succeeds to some Scotch Lord Something’s title there’s for you, Mary! She once had views of Adelaide, but Adelaide met the advances with so much scorn that Mrs. Downe Wright declared she was thankful she had shown the cloven foot in time, for that she never would have done for a wife to her William. Now you are the very thing to suit, for you have no cloven feet to show.”

“Or at least you are not so quick-sighted as Mrs. Downe Wright. You have not spied them yet, it seems,” said Mary, with a smile.

“Oh, as to that, if you had them, I should defy you, or anyone, to hide them from me. When I reflect upon the characters of most of my acquaintances, I sometimes think nature has formed my optics only to see disagreeables.”

“That must be a still more painful faculty of vision than even the second-sight,” said Mary; “but I should think it depended very much upon yourself to counteract it.”

“Impossible! my perceptions are so peculiarly alive to all that is obnoxious to them that I could as soon preach my eyes into blindness, or my ears into deafness, as put down my feelings with chopping logic. If people will be affected and ridiculous, why must I live in a state of warfare with myself on account of the feelings they rouse within me?”

“If people will be irritable,” said Mary, laughing, “why must others sacrifice their feelings to gratify them?”

“Because mine are natural feelings, and theirs are artificial. A very saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you’ll allow. Vulgarity, even innate vulgarity, is bearable stupidity itself is pardonable but affectation is never to be endured or forgiven.”

“It admits of palliation, at least,” answered Mary. “I dare say there are many people who would have been pleasing and natural in their manners had not their parents and teachers interfered. There are many, I believe, who have not courage to show themselves such as they are some who are naturally affected and many, very many, who have been taught affectation as a necessary branch of education.”

“Yes as my governesses would have taught me; but, thank heaven! I got the better of them. Fascinating was what they wanted to make me; but whenever the word was mentioned, I used to knit my brows, and frown upon them in such a sort. The frown, like now, sticks by me; but no matter a frowning brow is better than a false heart, and I defy anyone to say that I am fascinating.”

“There certainly must be some fascination about you, otherwise I should never have sat so long listening to you,” said Mary, as she rose from the table at which she had been assisting to dash off the at-homes.

“But you must listen to me a little longer,” cried her cousin, seizing her hand to detain her. “I have not got half through my détestables yet; but to humour you, I shall let them go for the present. And now, that you mayn’t suppose I am utterly insensible to excellence, you must suffer me to show you that I can and do appreciate worth when I can find it. I confess my talent lies fully as much in discovering the ridiculous as the amiable; and I am equally ready to acknowledge it is a fault, and no mark of superior wit or understanding; since it is much easier to hit off the glaring caricature line of deformity than the finer and more exquisite touches of beauty, especially for one who reads as he run –­the sign-posts are sure to catch the eye. But now for my favourite no matter for her name it would frighten you if were you to hear it. In the first place, she is, as some of your old divines say, hugely religious; ’but then she keeps her piety in its proper place, and where it ought to be in her very soul. It is never a stumbling-block in other people’s way, or interfering with other people’s affairs. Her object is to be, not to seem, religious; and there is neither hypocrisy nor austerity necessary for that. She is forbearing, without meanness gentle, without insipidity sincere, without rudeness. She practises all the virtues herself, and seems quite unconscious that others don’t do the same. She is, if I may trust the expression of her eye, almost as much alive to the ridiculous as I am; but she is only diverted where I am provoked. She never bestows false praise even upon her friends; but a simple approval from her is of more value than the finest panegyric from another. She never finds occasion to censure or condemn the conduct of anyone, however flagrant it may be in the eyes of others; because she seems to think virtue is better expressed by her own actions than by her neighbour’s vices. She cares not for admiration, but is anxious to do good and give pleasure. To sum up the whole, she could listen with patience to Lady Placid; she could bear to be advised by Mrs. Wiseacre; she could stand the scrutiny of Mrs. Downe Wright; and, hardest task of all” (throwing her arms around Mary’s neck), “she can bear with all my ill-humour and impertinence.”