If the subject of her vehemence and blunders had been less just or less melancholy, I know not how I should have kept my face in order.
Our evening was very pleasant when she was gone, Madame de Stael is, with all her wildness and blemishes, a delightful companion, and M. de N. rises upon me in esteem and affection every time I see him: their minds in some points ought to be exchanged, for he is as delicate as a really feminine woman, and evidently suffers when he sees her setting les biensances(83) aside, as it often enough befalls her to do.
Poor Madame de Stael has been greatly disappointed and hurt by the failure of the friendship and intercourse she had wished to maintain with you,—of that I am sure; I fear, too, she is on the point of being offended. I am not likely to be her confidant if she is so, and only judge from the nature of things, and from her character, and a kind of dpit(84) in her manner once or twice in speaking of you. She asked me If you would accompany Mrs. Locke back into the country? I answered that my father would not wish to lose you for so long a time at once, as you had been absent from him as a nurse so many days.
After a little pause, "Mais est-ce qu'une femme est en tutelle pour la vie dans ce pays?" she said. "Il me paroit que votre soeur est comme une demoiselle de quatorze ans."(85) I did not oppose this idea, but enlarged rather on the constraints laid upon females, some very unnecessarily, in England,—hoping to lessen her dpit; it continued, however, visible in her countenance, though she did not express it in words.
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[The frequency and intimacy with which Miss Burney and M. d'Arblay now met, ripened into attachment the high esteem which each felt for the other; and, after many struggles and scruples, occasioned by his reduced circumstances and clouded prospects, M. d'Arblay wrote her an offer of his hand ; candidly acknowledging, however, the slight hope he entertained of ever recovering the fortune he had lost by the Revolution.
At this time Miss Burney went to Chesington for a short period; probably hoping that the extreme quiet of that place would assist her deliberations, and tranquillise her mind during her present perplexities.]
MADAME DE STAEL'S WORDS OF FAREWELL. M. D'ARBLAY.
(Mrs. Philips to Fanny Burney at Chesington.)
Sunday, after church, I walked up to Norbury; there unexpectedly I met all our juniperians, and listened to one of the best conversations I ever heard : it was on literary topics, and the chief speakers Madame de Stael, M. de Talleyrand, Mr. Locke, and M. Dumont, a gentleman on a visit of two days at juniper, a Genevois, homme d'esprit et de lettres. I had not a word beyond the first " how d'yes " with any one, being obliged to run home to my abominable dinner in the midst of the discourse.