"I am told the old Duchess of Marlborough prefers roly-poly to quadrille or ombre," said Herrick, as the cards were being dealt.
"O, there is a vein of vulgarity in that old woman which shows itself in everything she does," replied Lady Tredgold scornfully. "I detest the virago."
"And yet there is an element of greatness in her character," said Herrick. "Great talents, great beauty, great fortune, have all been hers: and she has been conspicuous in an age of lax morality as a woman of spotless virtue."
"O sir, it is an ill thing perhaps for any woman to say in the presence of unmarried daughters, but I own I agree with Joseph Addison that a woman has no right to practise every other vice on the ground that she possesses one virtue, even though that virtue of chastity is, I grant you, the chief merit in woman."
"I am with you there, madam, and agree that even sad Lucretia's modesty would scarce justify a woman in shrewing her husband, maligning her innocent granddaughter, and quarrelling with every member of her family: and yet I own to some touch of half-reluctant admiration for the mighty Sarah. Mr. Cibber told me once how it was his task to attend upon her at a supper in Nottingham Castle, about the time of King James's flight from this kingdom, and that her beauty appeared to him as an emanation of Divinity, rather than a mere earthly loveliness. And then she is such a magnificent virago. The woman who had the spunk to cut off her splendid tresses, the chief glory of her womanhood, and fling them across her husband's path in a freak of temper—"
"Was a hot-tempered simpleton, and I dare swear repented her wilfulness the moment 'twas done," said Mrs. Amelia. "All I know of the great Duchess is that she never deserved to have an all-conquering hero for her husband and a queen for her bosom friend."
"The handsomest, most fascinating man in Europe, into the bargain," said Mrs. Sophia. "Lord Chesterfield told me that all the graces met in the Duke of Marlborough's person."
"Very generous of his lordship," said Durnford. "It is rarely that an ugly man can appreciate masculine beauty."
"O, Chesterfield is a very obliging person," replied her ladyship, "and I am told they are delighted with him at the Hague. He will introduce the idea of elegance into the Dutch mind."
"Nay, madam," remonstrated Herrick, "it is not to be supposed that your Hollander is entirely devoid of elegance, or that Amsterdam has less appreciation of the beautiful than Athens had. It is only that in the Low Countries beauty takes a homelier form, and shows itself in an extremity of neatness and gracefulness of form in trifles—quaint architecture, shining hundred-paned lattices, every inch of ironwork deftly worked—cabinet pictures—brass and copper vessels—and cleanliness everywhere. There were streets and houses in Holland that enchanted me, even while my mind was still charged with pictures of Italy."