Did you not think very differently on the subject which still occupies all England, when you first mentioned it to me, from what you now conceive? You perceive the reports on which you and many other sensible and impartial people founded their opinion, were raised by those who afterwards affected to inquire into them. Some of them were so exquisitely and ridiculously improbable, that it shows how ill those who speak untruth most intrepidly know how to manage their falsehoods; and one begins to believe Mad. de Genlis, who says a person very little used to deception will carry it on with ten times the skill of a hackneyed deceiver. The former is more cautious, and weaves both a finer and a stronger web. When I was told she had danced, entirely disrobed, on the top of a house in Italy, I did say, to the astonishment of a circle of women, that I could not have believed it had I seen it. I should more easily have supposed some one had been hired to personate her; for there would have been temptation for an odious and disagreeable and vile act; while in her case all the temptation was on the other side.
You will be pleased to hear good accounts of my health. Meanwhile, the trapdoor is opening on all sides.... If we did not sometimes see it open thus suddenly, we should quite forget it was ever to unclose for ourselves. But these are private losses. The good, the benevolent, the expansive-hearted William Parnell is gone—the friend of Ireland, the friend of the poor. I have seldom regretted so much any one of whom I knew so little; but that little was always interesting. I first saw him in attendance on a sick sister at Shrewsbury, resisting all the efforts made to induce him to relax in his care of her, though eagerly sought for by all whose acquaintance was thought desirable. I then met him, the friend of Mrs. Fry, the advocate of education, the earnest endeavourer to ameliorate the fate of Ireland; and I trust he will have his reward. In general, I avoid making my letter an obituary. Am I right? am I wrong?
TO THE HONOURABLE MISS AGAR.
Elm Lodge, Feb. 26, 1821.
My —— is come to the second mother-loving age. About eight or nine, when they wish to go everywhere, and when dogs and ponies, &c. &c., engage a part of their affections, their tenderness diminishes for a mother, whose fears lead her frequently to oppose their pleasure. But about fifteen, when the mind makes a rapid expansion, and independence of her alarms is pretty nearly established, they become as fond of her as ever, until about twenty, when other creatures disturb them, and again lessen the force of early attachments.
The Abbot tired me. Why did Walter Scott try to pourtray female pertness and violence in the four seasons of life? The young lady is a flippant miss; Mary Queen of Scots—in defiance of history—Mary, whose courtesy and sweetness won all hearts, and induced many who would have resisted her beauty to overlook her faults, is caustic, satirical, and full of repartee; the ci-devant lady who is her guardian is as ill-tempered as any ill-received and faded toast of our own time; and the old nurse is full of vulgar violence. Perhaps I am not sufficiently indulgent; for I have ceased to be much amused by novels.