Mr. Montague declining to sit down and make this lady understand a system of education only to give her something to say, and showing unaccountable indifference about the attacks with which he was threatened, Mrs. Tattle next addressed herself to Mrs. Montague, prophesying, in a most serious whisper, “that the charming Miss Marianne would shortly and inevitably grow quite crooked, if she were not immediately provided with a back-board, a French dancing-master, and a pair of stocks.”
This alarming whisper could not, however, have a permanent effect upon Mrs. Montague’s understanding, because three days afterwards Mrs. Theresa, upon the most anxious inspection, entirely mistook the just and natural proportions of the hip and shoulder.
This danger vanishing, Mrs. Tattle presently, with a rueful length of face, and formal preface, “hesitated to assure Mrs. Montague, that she was greatly distressed about her daughter Sophy; that she was convinced her lungs were affected; and that she certainly ought to drink the waters morning and evening; and above all things, must keep one of the patirosa lozenges constantly in her mouth, and directly consult Dr. Cardamum, the best physician in the world, and the person she would send for herself upon her death-bed; because, to her certain knowledge, he had recovered a young lady, a relation of her own, after she had lost one whole globe [222] of her lungs.”
The medical opinion of a lady of so much anatomical precision could not have much weight. Neither was this universal adviser more successful in an attempt to introduce a tutor to Frederick, who, she apprehended, must want some one to perfect him in the Latin and Greek, and dead languages, of which, she observed, it would be impertinent for a woman to talk; only she might venture to repeat what she had heard said by good authority, that a competency of the dead tongues could be had nowhere but at a public school, or else from a private tutor who had been abroad (after the advantage of a classical education, finished in one of the universities) with a good family; without which introduction it was idle to think of reaping solid advantages from any continental tour; all which requisites, from personal knowledge, she could aver to be concentrated in the gentleman she had the honour to recommend, as having been tutor to a young nobleman, who had now no further occasion for him, having, unfortunately for himself and his family, been killed in an untimely duel.
All Mrs. Theresa Tattle’s suggestions being lost upon these stoical parents, her powers were next tried upon the children, and her success soon became apparent. On Sophy, indeed, she could not make any impression, though she had expended on her some of her finest strokes of flattery. Sophy, though very desirous of the approbation of her friends, was not very desirous of winning the favour of strangers. She was about thirteen—that dangerous age at which ill educated girls, in their anxiety to display their accomplishments, are apt to become dependent for applause upon the praise of every idle visitor; when the habits not being formed, and the attention being suddenly turned to dress and manners, girls are apt to affect and imitate, indiscriminately, everything that they conceive to be agreeable.
Sophy, whose taste had been cultivated at the same time with her powers of reasoning, was not liable to fall into these errors. She found that she could please those whom she wished to please, without affecting to be anything but what she really was; and her friends listened to what she said, though she never repeated the sentiments, or adopted the phrases, which she might easily have copied from the conversation of those who were older or more fashionable than herself.
This word fashionable, Mrs. Theresa Tattle knew, had usually a great effect, even at thirteen; but she had not observed that it had much power upon Sophy; nor were her remarks concerning grace and manners much attended to. Her mother had taught Sophy that it was best to let herself alone, and not to distort either her person or her mind in acquiring grimace, which nothing but the fashion of the moment can support, and which is always detected and despised by people of real good sense and politeness.
“Bless me!” said Mrs. Tattle, to herself, “if I had such a tall daughter, and so unformed, before my eyes from morning to night, it would certainly break my poor heart. Thank heaven, I am not a mother! if I were, Miss Marianne for me!”
Miss Marianne had heard so often from Mrs. Tattle that she was very charming, that she could not help believing it; and from being a very pleasing, unaffected little girl, she in a short time grew so conceited, that she could neither speak, look, nor be silent without imagining that everybody was, or ought to be, looking at her; and when Mrs. Theresa saw that Mrs. Montague looked very grave upon these occasions, she, to repair the ill she had done, would say, after praising Marianne’s hair or her eyes, “Oh, but little ladies should never think about their beauty, you know. Nobody loves anybody for being handsome, but for being good.” People must think children are very silly, or else they can never have reflected upon the nature of belief in their own minds, if they imagine that children will believe the words that are said to them, by way of moral, when the countenance, manner, and every concomitant circumstance tell them a different tale. Children are excellent physiognomists—they quickly learn the universal language of looks; and what is said of them always makes a greater impression than what is said to them, a truth of which those prudent people surely cannot be aware who comfort themselves, and apologize to parents, by saying, “Oh, but I would not say so and so to the child.”
Mrs. Theresa had seldom said to Frederick Montague, “that he had a vast deal of drollery, and was a most incomparable mimic;” but she had said so of him in whispers, which magnified the sound to his imagination, if not to his ear. He was a boy of much vivacity, and had considerable abilities; but his appetite for vulgar praise had not yet been surfeited. Even Mrs. Theresa Tattle’s flattery pleased him, and he exerted himself for her entertainment so much that he became quite a buffoon. Instead of observing characters and manners, that he might judge of them, and form his own, he now watched every person he saw, that he might detect some foible, or catch some singularity in their gesture or pronunciation, which he might successfully mimic.