Two days after I had despatched the foregoing long letter to Fanny, the little post-woman—for we had no post-man; but a good old soul, who used to trot à l'Esterhazy—came down the hill with a lanthorn, the mail-bag coming into Charmouth at ten o'clock at night. Eliza Edmond and I had watched this poor creature every night during almost a fortnight, from my little window, as the light of her lamp appeared for an instant and was lost again, while she stopped to deliver her letters. At last, she stopped at our door, and presented two heavy packages for Mrs. Wilson.
The kind, warm-hearted Miss Edmond came flying upstairs, and was breathless when she delivered them.
"One of these is a foreign letter, and no doubt from your husband," said Eliza, kissing my cheek, while her eyes sparkled with such unaffected, benevolent joy, as made her beauty appear more than human.
I hastily examined the address of the first which was presented to me: it was from Lord Worcester, and the real anxiety I felt to learn his safety, overcoming all curiosity about Meyler, I broke the seal of this, while the other unexamined had fallen to the ground.
"It is from your husband then?" asked Eliza, and, having answered her in the affirmative, she had the delicacy to glide out of the room like a spirit before I was aware of it.
Worcester had already been in one action. He had prayed to me, as to his tutelar saint, kissed my chain, which he wore about his neck, and his party had been successful. He wrote in high spirits, and gave me what, by excellent judges of those matters, was afterwards considered one of the most accurate descriptions of a battle ever written by any officer. The letter ended, like all the rest of his letters, with vows of eternal love and fidelity; and he assured me that he had already learned to speak Spanish.
What a clever man this might have been, had he but the habit of reflection, methought; for Lord Worcester's memory often astonished me; and yet the man must after all be little better than an idiot, if he cannot reflect, or study, or understand the secret workings of the human mind. Such men esteem no act but that of hand:
The still and mental parts,
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight—
Why this hath not a finger's dignity;
They call this bed-work, moppery, closet-work;
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great swing, and rudeness of his poise,
They place before the hand that made the engine,
Or those, that, with the fineness of their souls,
By reason, guide his execution.
I have been led into making this quotation, malgré moi; it is so very striking, clear, and beautifully expressive.
Somebody or other has, I think, asserted that the comedy of Troilus and Cressida is not a genuine work of Shakespeare; but I cannot but agree with a very great man, Doctor Johnson, that it is easier to imagine Shakespeare might sometimes fall below his highest flights; than that anybody else should be found equal to his lowest.