LETTER III.
TO Miss GRENVILLE.
How strange does it seem, my dearest Louisa, to address you at this distance! What is it that has supported me through this long journey, and given me strength to combat with all the softer feelings; to quit a respectable parent and a beloved sister; to leave such dear and tender relations, and accompany a man to whom four months since I was wholly a stranger! I am a wretched reasoner at best.—I am therefore at a loss to unravel this mystery. It is true, it became my duty to follow my husband; but that a duty so newly entered into should supersede all others is certainly strange. You will say, you wonder these thoughts did not arise sooner;—they did, my dear; but the continual agitation of my spirits since I married, prevented my paying any attention to them. Perhaps, those who have been accustomed to the bustles of the world would laugh at my talking of the agitation of spirits in the course of an affair which was carried on with the most methodical exactness; but then it is their being accustomed to bustles, which could insure their composure on such an important occasion. I am young and inexperienced—and what is worst of all, a perfect stranger to the disposition of Sir William. He may be a very good sort of man; yet he may have some faults, which are at present unknown to me.—I am resolved, however, to be as indulgent to them as possible, should I discover any.—And as for my own, I will strive to conceal them, under an implicit obedience to his will and pleasure.
As to giving you an account of this hurrying place, it is totally out of my power. I made Sir William laugh very heartily several times at my ignorance. We came into town at a place called Piccadilly, where there was such a croud of carriages of all sorts, that I was perfectly astonished, and absolutely frightened. I begged Sir William would order the drivers to stop till they were gone by.—This intreaty threw him almost into a convulsion of laughter at my simplicity; but I was still more amazed, when he told me, they would continue driving with the same vehemence all night. For my part, I could not hear my own voice for the continual rattle of coaches, &c.—I still could not help thinking it must be some particular rejoicing day, from the immense concourse of people I saw rushing from all quarters;—and yet Sir William assured me the town was very empty. "Mercy defend us!" cried Winifred, when I informed her what her master had said, "what a place must it be when it is full, for the people have not room to walk as it is!" I cautioned Win, to discover her ignorance as little as possible;—but I doubt both mistress and maid will be subjects of mirth for some time to come.
I have not yet seen any thing, as there is a ceremony to be observed among people of rank in this place. No married lady can appear in public till she has been properly introduced to their majesties. Alas! what will become of me upon an occasion so singular!—Sir William has been so obliging as to bespeak the protection of a lady, who is perfect mistress of the etiquettes of courts. She will pay me a visit previous to my introduction; and under her tuition, I am told, I have nothing to fear. All my hopes are, that I may acquit myself so as to gain the approbation of my husband. Husband! what a sound has that, when pronounced by a girl barely seventeen,—and one whose knowledge of the world is merely speculative;—one, who, born and bred in obscurity, is equally unacquainted with men and manners.—I have often revolved in my mind what could be the inducement of my father's total seclusion from the world; for what little hints I (and you, whose penetration is deeper than mine) could gather, have only served to convince us, he must have been extremely ill treated by it, to have been constrained to make a vow never again to enter into it,—and in my mind the very forming of a vow looks as if he had loved it to excess, and therefore made his retreat from it more solemn than a bare resolution, lest he might, from a change of circumstances or sentiments, again be seduced by its attractions, and by which he had suffered so much.
Do you know, I have formed the wish of knowing some of those incidents in his history which have governed his actions? will you, my dear Louisa, hint this to him? He may, by such a communication, be very serviceable to me, who am such a novice.
I foresee I shall stand in need of instructors; otherwise I shall make but an indifferent figure in the drama. Every thing, and every body, makes an appearance so widely opposite to my former notions, that I find myself every moment at a loss, and know not to whom to apply for information. I am apprehensive I shall tire Sir William to death with my interrogatories; besides, he gave me much such a hint as I gave Win, not to betray my ignorance to every person I met with; and yet, without asking questions, I shall never attain the knowledge of some things which to me appear extremely singular. The ideas I possessed while among the mountains seem intirely useless to me here. Nay, I begin to think, I might as well have learnt nothing; and that the time and expence which were bestowed on my education were all lost, since I even do not know how to walk a minuet properly. Would you believe it? Sir William has engaged a dancing-master to put me into a genteel and polite method of acquitting myself with propriety on the important circumstance of moving about a room gracefully. Shall I own I felt myself mortified when he made the proposition? I could even have shed tears at the humiliating figure I made in my own eyes; however, I had resolution to overcome such an appearance of weakness, and turned it off with a smile, saying, "I thought I had not stood in need of any accomplishments, since I had had sufficient to gain his affections." I believe he saw I was hurt, and therefore took some pains to re-assure me. He told me, "that though my person was faultless, yet, from my seclusion from it, I wanted an air of the world. He himself saw nothing but perfection in me; but he wished those, who were not blinded by passion, should think me not only the most beautiful, but likewise the most polished woman at court." Is there not a little vanity in this, Louisa? But Sir William is, I find, a man of the world; and it is my duty to comply with every thing he judges proper, to make me what he chuses.
Monsieur Fierville pays me great compliments. "Who is he?" you will ask. Why my dancing-master, my dear. I am likewise to take some lessons on the harpsichord, as Sir William finds great fault with my fingering, and thinks I want taste in singing. I always looked on taste as genuine and inherent to ourselves; but here, taste is to be acquired; and what is infinitely more astonishing still, it is variable. So, though I may dance and sing in taste now, a few months hence I may have another method to learn, which will be the taste then. It is a fine time for teachers, when scholars are never taught. We used to think, to be made perfect mistress of any thing was sufficient; but in this world it is very different; you have a fresh lesson to learn every winter. As a proof, they had last winter one of the first singers in the world at the opera-house; this winter they had one who surpassed her. This assertion you and I should think nonsense, since, according to our ideas, nothing can exceed perfection: the next who comes over will be superior to all others that ever arrived. The reason is, every one has a different mode of singing; a taste of their own, which by arbitrary custom is for that cause to be the taste of the whole town. These things appear incomprehensible to me; but I suppose use will reconcile me to them, as it does others, by whom they must once have been thought strange.
I think I can discover Sir William Stanley has great pride, that is, he is a slave to fashion. He is ambitious of being a leading man. His house, his equipage, and wife—in short, every thing which belongs to him must be admired; and I can see, he is not a little flattered when they meet with approbation, although from persons of whose taste and knowledge of life he has not the most exalted idea.