‘Myself.’
‘What! nobody else?’
‘My Page, my Monkey, and my Lap Dog.’
‘Why do you love them?’
‘Why, because I am an English lady, and they are Foreign Creatures: my Page from Genoa, my Monkey from the East Indies, and my Lap Dog from Vigo.’
‘Would they not have pleased you as well if they had been English?’
‘No, for I hate everything that Old England brings forth, except it be the temper of an English Husband, and the liberty of an English Wife. I love the French Bread, French Wines, French Sauces, and a French Cook; in short, I have all about me French or Foreign, from my Waiting Woman to my Parrot.’
‘How do you pay your debts?’
‘Some with money, and some with fair promises. I seldom pay anybody’s bills, but run more into their debt. I give poor Tradesmen ill words, and the rich I treat civilly, in hopes to get further in their debt.’
Addison, in the Spectator (No. 323, March 11th, 1712), gives Clarinda’s Journal for a week, from which I will only extract one day as a sample.