Many thanks for your agreeable letter, your gaieté de coeur always pleases me, Vive la bagatelle!
But, my dear friend, I am uneasy at your aunt's persisting in her persecution of you on Mr Bennet's account. He seems to me to be a person rather created to fill up a vacuum in nature, than to perform any active good in it. His want of sensibility is sufficient to prepossess me against him—There are in the occurrences of a married life so many trials of a man's humanity that he whose want of tenderness might pass unobserved had he continued single—must often appear a very monster considered as a husband. May you be blessed in that state with the man of your heart! I agree with you that opposition, carried on without violence, gives a dignity to our condescension; but we must not carry this too far or we may counteract our design of preserving the heart we have gained.
To manage men requires more dexterity than to win them, as the consequence of most love matches evinces.
You ask a thousand questions, having never been in London yourself, on account of your aunt's apprehensions of a disease she had not the resolution of giving you at an early period of life[32]. I told you that you must not expect any characters from me, as I was always an enemy to detraction, and few there are that merit commendation. Let us, my dear friend, regulate our own conduct, rather than condemn that of others: but as I cannot refuse you anything you ask (though I may wonder at your asking) I will suppose we are chatting over a dish of tea, and giving our opinion of a gown or a cap, and will tell you who suits my taste, or who my reason contemns, with as little meaning as if I talked of the gown and not the woman: and this I the more readily do, as I know you will not betray the confidence I place in you.
The truth is, however, I am perfectly astonished at the strange characters this town abounds with; and stupified (if I may be allowed the expression) with what I have heard: but, as Shakespeare allows Desdemona to speak after she was smothered, you will permit me to write though I have lost my understanding. And as it was the choice of certain great men to be intelligible, it is probable my present state of mind will lead me to imitate them. But on second thoughts, my being not au fait to the subject may perhaps make me excel in it. Men often expatiate best on what they least understand, by the same rule that people in general are contrary to what they would seem.
The Mantuan Swain lived constantly at court: Horace wrote in celebration of a country life when he resided in Rome: and it is well known travels, voyages, etc. to every part of the world have been written in London. Why should I not then, Eliza Finlay Spinster, attempt delineating manners, which I have really seen? My scruples would intrude—that perhaps I am not sufficiently informed, as I have only resided here a month; but these vanish on the recollection that I must certainly be in the right in the above position—Otherwise, could it be possible for Mr Blacklock[33], a poet blind from his birth, to describe visible objects with more spirit and justness, than others blessed with the most perfect sight? Could certain orators, famous for their extravagance, harangue on economy—Or the learned at Venice employ father Piaggi to copy the manuscript found at Herculaneum (though he is unacquainted with Greek, the language they are written in)—Or could our own countrymen, the learned, judicious body in Warwick-lane, refuse to admit to be their associates in the science of Æsculapius, any but those who have studied where—medicine is not taught? After such precedents as these, it is clear I cannot err, in informing you of what—I know little about. Besides, it is an established rule of prudence, on the contrary, never to commit yourself by talking or writing on a subject the world gives you the credit of understanding, as you have nothing to gain but much to lose. This consideration no doubt induced one author[34] to omit in his tragedy morality, which should be the ground-work of every fable, and deterred another[34] from acknowledging providence, though it so eminently presided, and was so conspicuously displayed in the miraculous escapes made in the voyages he wrote of. This being premised, I will now begin boldly to relate many things I cannot comprehend.
Miss Ton accompanied me to the opera; I was amazed at the height of her head, and how her chair had failed to crush the fabric of feathers and frivolity which rose above each other! I could not think she had flown, though she was composed of cork and feather; and willing to be informed how she had managed it (as ignorance, you know, is reprehensible) I ventured to ask her the question. She returned me a look of contempt (as if to pity my ignorance) saying, she always took care to prevent a misfortune of that kind! When I go to court, said she, as heads are wore lower[35] there—I fit like your old woman upon the seat of the chair, which is convenient enough on account of one's trimmings, but when I go to the opera, where fancy directs and fashion prevails, I say my prayers the whole way—that is to say, I kneel on the bottom of the chair. I admired her ingenuity; only observed, I hoped it did not fatigue her knees so much as to prevent her from going to church next day! O, not in the least, said she; but I always go to the drawing-room of a Sunday! except when I go to the Chapel-royal—the closet there, indeed, that is no bad public place—nobody but people of fashion are admitted, and it is really sometimes very amusing! The truth is, if one liked church very much, there is time enough to dress afterwards; for it is not the rage which a certain set to go to the drawing-room until your old-fashioned people are coming away. Oh the dear delight of meeting these dowdies on their retour home to their spouses and family dinners at four o'clock. Then we make such glorious confusion! I took the liberty of saying that I thought the respect due to their Majesties had induced every body to be in the drawing-room previous to their appearance! Oh, not at all, child, said she—except your formal ones! But why, said I, madam, need you go to court of a Sunday, why not of a Thursday as well? Of a Thursday! Nobody goes of a Thursday! Pardon me, replied I, the Duchess of W—— introduced me on that day! That may be, replied Miss Ton, her Grace is very old, wrinkles make her religious—but none but such, or courtiers, go of a Thursday! I again took the liberty of telling her that it had also been a very full drawing-room—Then, said she, it must have been the Thursday after the birthday—or some particular day; for otherwise few of a certain set, who understand the rage, would go. The rage, said I, madam! I am again at a loss; did I hear you right? O, perfectly well, said she; the ton, was formerly the word, but the rage, has lately been adopted from the French! (It is to be hoped, that the Parisians will also, from their late partiality for English Gauzes, Silks, Linens, etc. induce us to adopt them also, instead of too often procuring these articles from France.)
Forgetful of the imprudence I was going to commit—I told Miss Ton her prayers had proved ineffectual—her largest feather was snapped in two. Is it possible! exclaimed she, and reddened prodigiously.—Shocked at the blunder I had made, and pitying her weakness, I gave her my bottle of Eau de Luce; and not caring to hazard any further on so interesting a subject, lest it should hurt her nerves, I turned the conversation to what was more indifferent—a sister of her's, who had died in child-bed a fortnight before.
(This, my dear friend—to philosophise—no abstract evil exists; for whatever calamities human life is subject to, their evil depends merely on our own sensibility.)