Near this place are interred the remains of
HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI
Dr. Johnson’s Mrs. Thrale
Born 1741, died 1821
Mrs. Piozzi’s life is her most enduring work. Trifles were her serious business, and she was never idle. Always a great letter-writer, she set in motion a correspondence which would have taxed the capacity of a secretary with a typewriter. To the last she was a great reader, and observing a remark in Boswell on the irksomeness of books to people of advanced age, she wrote on the margin, “Not to me, at eighty.” Her wonderful memory remained unimpaired until the last. She knew English literature well. She spoke French and Italian fluently. Latin she transcribed with ease and grace; of Greek she had a smattering, and she is said to have had a working knowledge of Hebrew; but I suspect that her Hebrew would have set a scholar’s hair on end. With all these accomplishments, she was not a pedant, or, properly speaking, a Blue-Stocking, or if she was, it was of a very light shade of blue. She told a capital story, omitted everything irrelevant and came to the point at once; in brief, she was a man’s woman.
And to end the argument where it began,—for arguments always end where they begin,—I came across a remark the other day which sums up my contention. It was to the effect that, in whatever company Mrs. Piozzi found herself, others found her the most charming person in the room.
VIII
A RIDICULOUS PHILOSOPHER
I AM not sure that I know what philosophy is; a philosopher is one who practices it, and we have it on high authority that “there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.”