There were also other difficulties. Miss Burney's extreme sensitiveness to her own dignity operated as a hindrance to herself as well as her friends. Never can I forget her expression on hearing that a bell was to be the means of her summons to attend her Royal Mistress. She was ever ready to anticipate a slight; and that I may not be supposed malicious in this statement, I will cite what was said by her old friend, the brilliant Mrs Thrale-Piozzi on this circumstance:--
"I live with her in a degree of pain which precludes friendship--dare not ask her to buy me a ribbon--dare not desire her to touch the bell, lest she should think herself slighted."
It can readily be imagined that slights would in such a case be imagined where none were intended.
It was a habit Miss Burney encouraged in herself to use the longest words to express the simplest opinions. Colonel Manners, who laughed at all and everyone, declared she had made the illustrious Dr Johnson her model, and would slyly note down some of her most flowing periods to deliver them, enhanced by humour, when she had left the room. I mean only to imply that she chose the corporeal style of the famous Doctor without acquiring the zest and gusto of that great man.
But this is to digress.
"The equerries will attend us at tea today, Miss P.," she observed. "Colonel Manners and Colonel Digby will be present and Mr de la Giffardière. Colonel Digby's spirits depend much upon female support and sustentation. He loves to contemplate the melancholy aspects in a way which cannot but be harmful to a character so feeling."
I replied collectedly:--
"Colonel Digby owes much to Miss Burney for all the consolations of literature and religion so charitably offered. But indeed who would not sympathise with his bereavement of a partner so lovely that, should he ever think of replacing her, beauty of the first order must be his object."
This was perhaps a little pointed, but I could never agree in Dr Johnson's estimate of her as "Pretty Burney," and she was not reckoned a pretty woman by others. She had not the graces of height nor elegance in movement, and might in complexion be called a brown woman. The eyes, while expressive, were decidedly green. If I add that she slightly stooped, though by no means sufficiently to be a deformity, and that her features were, on the whole pleasing, I have been honest in my description.
While we were speaking, the Princess Royal entered, fresh and bright as the day, to inspect the case and add to it her own little tribute, a posy of beautiful satin flowers made by her own fair hands. This she attached to the case.