Jekyll and Rogers came yesterday, but what has been to me a much more acceptable arrival, so did your letter, a golden branch laden with its quadruple fruits. I never was less entertained with the par nobile fratrum. ‘’Tis the brain of the victim that tempers the dart’ of wit as well as of love; and I am beginning to think the constant endeavour to make something of nothing may be tiresome. I am convinced they would have been better apart; and Rogers stifled a pun of Jekyll’s yesterday in a cruel manner. I guessed at it, but did not laugh out, as it was in Latin; and no one but Rogers and me attended to it; the former quickly threw out a squib in an opposite direction. Next morning, Jekyll introduced the subject of the ducks again, in order to pave the way for his pun about dux. Again it perished. I thought this was hard. I am very low, which I regret, as the kind friends in the house expected I should have been gay and communicative with the wits; and seeing this makes me lower still.
TO THE SAME.
Bath, May 18, 1818.
I got into a sort of scrape by introducing myself last night by Lady C. Burke to Mrs. C——, who had, I thought, mentioned to you a wish for my acquaintance. I supposed I was doing a very civil thing to her, as she had made the first step, in making the second; but she gave me that vacant ill-bred stare which the lady whose protégée she was reserved for her female friends, and seemed to think I was doing myself too great an honour. Perhaps she was out of humour at the moment; for a few minutes before a gentleman approached her with winning civility, saying, ‘Don’t you dance?’ ‘Sometimes,’ she replied, with that encouraging smile which forms the direct contrast to the stare bestowed on me. ‘Much too hot for it to-night,’ says he, turning on his heel. This was so like a caricature put into action, that it amused me.
——’s fair one is two-and-thirty, and has been hacked about London and Dublin for many years, and sent here to be young and naïve. What might be liking, if she had known him long enough, or if she had been young enough not to know the meaning of the various things she has done and said, or if she was a great parti, and thought she must make some advances, lest he should not imagine he would be accepted, changes its character when one knows it is so convenient for spinsters of that age to be established.
I like Lady A., though I do not well know why; for mere good looks make no impression on a woman; and I know nothing more of her than that her easy graces and her laisser aller, and the mystery of her face, expressive at once of pain and pleasure, make up a prettier outside, in my opinion, than that of any other person I meet at Bath.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
London, May 25, 1818.