"You a bluestocking!" exclaimed Burke indignantly. "There is no bluestocking where there is no leaven of pedantry. Now, if it were a question of poor Mrs. Carpenter."
"Yes," interposed Gibbon, "the ill-starred lady has translated Epictetus!"
"And Mrs. Cholmondeley,—do you give her a place among the bluestockings?"
"She's too great a woman for that!"
"I was at her house yesterday," remarked Miss Burney; "I found her very affable."
"Affability," muttered Dr. Johnson, "is the first lieutenant of pride."
In hot haste Boswell produced his tablets from his pocket in order to note the aphorism which had fallen from the oracle's lips.
"I find Mrs. Thrale a worthy person," remarked Gibbon, "and an agreeable mistress of her house."
"The wife of a brewer?" inquired Lady Vereker, with just a hint of disdain in her tone.
"A most intelligent woman!" retorted Miss Burney; "she has saved her husband from ruin."