“In the course of nature, she should not have gone before me. She was the admirer and sincere friend of that first wife, whose virtues and intellectual powers were perhaps her model in early life. Without neglecting domestic and maternal duties, she cultivated her mind in such a manner by extensive reading, and the assistance of a tenacious and happy memory, as to enable her to converse with persons of learning and talents on all subjects to which female studies are commonly allowed to extend; and through a coincidence of taste and principles in all matters of [Pg 226] which the discussion is apt to ruffle the temper, and alienate affection, our conversation and intercourse was sincere, cordial, and cheering.
“She had read far more books of divinity and controversy than myself, and was as much mistress of the theological points of general dispute as reading and reflection could make her; but, within a few days, if not hours, of her death, she lamented having perused so many polemical works; and advised a female friend, fond of such researches, who was with her,[44] not to waste her time on such inquiries; saying, ‘they will disturb your faith—by leading to endless controversy: they have done me no good!’”
In the same memorandum book, occurs, afterwards, the following paragraph:
“I shut myself up for some weeks; and, during part of that time, while sorting and examining papers with my daughter d’Arblay, she found among them the fragment of a poem on Astronomy, began at the period of the first ascent from balloons, and formed on the idea that, by their help, if, in process of time, a steerage was obtained, and the art of keeping them afloat, and ascending to what height the steersman pleased, was also discovered, parties might easily and pleasantly undertake voyages to the moon; and, perhaps, to the planets nearest to the earth, such as Mars and Venus: without considering that each planet and satellite must have its vortex and atmosphere filled with different beings and productions, none of which can subsist in another region.
“This wild fancy put it into my daughter d’Arblay’s head to persuade me to attempt a serious historical and didactic poem on the subject [Pg 227] of astronomy; in order to employ my time and thoughts during the first stages of my sorrow for the losses I had sustained: and, having been a dabbler almost all my life in astronomy, I was not averse to the proposition.”
To the great satisfaction of this daughter, from the recreative employment of time to which it led, this idea was neither forgotten nor set aside; it was, in truth, but a return to the original propensity to astronomy which had been nourished by his first conjugal partner, who enthusiastically had shared his taste for contemplating the stars.
In his letters, after the return of the Memorialist to her cottage, the sadness of his mind is touchingly portrayed. In the first of them he says:
“Nov.—I have been writing melancholy, heart-rending letters this day or two, which have oppressed me greatly: yet I am still more heartless in doing nothing. The author of the poem on The Spleen, says, ‘Fling but a stone, the giant dies:’ but such stones as I have to fling will not do the business. James and Charles[45] dined here yesterday, and kept the monster at a little distance; but he was here again the minute they were gone. I try to read; but ‘pronounce the words without understanding one of them,’ as Dr. Johnson said, in reading my Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients.”
And in another letter, of Dec. 2nd, 1796, he writes,—
“I have been tolerably well in body, but in mind extremely languid, and full of heartaches.
“Few people have been more repandu, or more frequently forced from home than myself; or more separately occupied when there: yet the short intervals I was able to spend with my family, ever since I had one, were the happiest of my life. Even labour, care, and anxiety, for those we love, have their pleasures; and those very superior to what can be derived by working and thinking for self.”
Most anxiously, in answer to these communications, the Memorialist pressed upon him a forced application to his Musical Dictionary; or, preferably yet, to the last started subject of his balloon ideal Voyages. But while this, after heavenly hopes, was what she urged for occupation; what chiefly she brought forward to him as comfort, was the solace which he had bestowed upon herself, during her late visit, from witnessing his mild and exemplary resignation. She ardently begged him to have recourse, for further self-consolation, to his own reflections upon all that had passed with the poor sufferer during the whole of their long intercourse; by looking back to his unabated, constant, and indulgent kindness, through sickness, misfortunes, and time; joined to the most grievous events, and trying circumstances.