TO LADY HUTCHINSON.
London, March 19, 1808.
I shall not attempt to tell you, my dear Lady Hutchinson, with what pleasure I heard to-day that you were in progress of recovery. Your illness was only made known to me yesterday, and indeed my feelings were more proportioned to my quick sense of your perfections, and of your kindness to me and mine, than to the date of our intimacy. For our sakes, and for the sake of the many to whom you are dear, and who benefit by your example, your influence, and your protection, apply, I beseech you, a little of your prudence to the case of yourself—the only point in which I think it fails.
I think Mrs. ——’s bearing with so much temper the disappointment of not going to a birth-night ball, when ready dressed, as you mention, shows she is superior to at least half the petty subjects of fretting which diminish female happiness. Really I have seen more peevishness wasted on the disappointments about public places, during the short time that mine was a dissipated life, than was excited by any other cause, and you know Hayley has chosen a similar mishap as one of the most severe trials of his heroine. However, I am sorry she had the opportunity of this ‘Triumph of Temper,’ and think her husband deserved a curtain lecture, if he did not exert himself to the utmost to prevent it.
TO RICHARD TRENCH, ESQ.
London, March 26, 1808.
As this was a day of low spirits and indisposition, I indulged myself with a novel, and one fell into my hands which I beg you will read, if in any country town you are compelled to such an amusement. It is called The Hungarian Brothers, and is written by Miss Porter. Nothing, perhaps, shows the superiority of English literature more than our novels. This is really almost equal to any of Mad. Cottin’s, which make such a noise in France, yet is lost here in the crowd of others, as excellent in principle, taste, and feeling. It describes what few novelists have touched on, the closing scene of a valuable and beloved old woman. Alas! why have you men made this almost a term of reproach? It is very ungrateful. Mrs. Arabin sent it to me when I asked au hazard for a book. You know how I plague people sometimes in that way. This, however, quieted me a whole morning.