LETTER XLIX
In answer to the preceding.
How you overwhelm me with your goodness, my dearest lady, in every word of your last welcome letter, is beyond my power to express I How nobly has your ladyship contrived, in your ever-valued present, to encourage a doubting and apprehensive mind! And how does it contribute to my joy and my glory, that I am deemed by the noble sister of my best beloved, not wholly unworthy of being the humble means to continue, and, perhaps, to perpetuate, a family so ancient and so honourable!
When I contemplate this, and look upon what I was—How shall I express a sense of the honour done me!—And when, reading over the other engaging particulars in your ladyship's letter, I come to the last charming paragraph, I am doubly affected to see myself seemingly upbraided, but so politely emboldened to assume an appellation, that otherwise I hardly dared.
I—humble I—who never had a sister before—to find one now in Lady Davers! O Madam, you, and only you, can teach me words fit to express the joy and the gratitude that filled my delighted heart!—But thus much I am taught, that there is some thing more than the low-born can imagine in birth and education. This is so evident in your ladyship's actions, words, and manner, that it strikes one with a becoming reverence; and we look up with awe to a condition we emulate in vain, when raised by partial favour, like what I have found; and are confounded when we see grandeur of soul joined with grandeur of birth and condition; and a noble lady acting thus nobly, as Lady Davers acts.
My best wishes, and a thousand blessings, attend your ladyship in all you undertake! And I am persuaded the latter will, and a peace and satisfaction of mind incomparably to be preferred to whatever else this world can afford, in the new regulations, which you, and my dear lady countess, have set on foot in your families: and when I can have the happiness to know what they are, I shall, I am confident, greatly improve my own methods by them.
Were we to live for ever in this life, we might be careless and indifferent about these matters: but when such an uncertainty as to the time, and such a certainty as to the event is before us, a prudent mind will be always preparing, till prepared; and what can be a better preparative, than charitable actions to our fellow-creatures in the eye of that Majesty, which wants nothing of us himself, but to do just the merciful things to one another.
Pardon me, my dearest lady, for this my free style. Methinks I am out of myself! I know not how to descend all at once from the height to which you have raised me: and you must forgive the reflections to which you yourself and your own noble actions have given birth.
Here, having taken respite a little, I naturally sink into body again.—And will not your ladyship confine your expectations from me within narrower limits?—For, O, I cannot even with my wishes, so swiftly follow your expectations, if such they are! But, however, leaving futurity to HIM, who only governs futurity, and who conducts us all, and our affairs, as shall best answer his own divine purposes, I will proceed as well as I can, to obey you in those articles, which are, at present, more within my own power.
My dear Miss Darnford, then, let me acquaint your ladyship, arrived on Thursday last: she had given us notice, by a line, of the day she set out; and Sir Simon and Lady Darnford saw her ten miles on the way to the stage coach in Sir Simon's coach, Mr. Murray attending her on horseback. They parted with her, as was easy to guess from her merit, with great tenderness; and we are to look upon the visit (as we do) as a high favour from her papa and mamma; who, however, charge her not to exceed a month in and out, which I regret much. Mr. B. kindly proposed to me, as she came in the stage coach, attended with one maid-servant, to meet her part of the way in his coach and six, if, as he was pleased to say, it would not be too fatiguing to me; and we would go so early, as to dine at St. Alban's. I gladly consented, and we got thither about one o'clock; and while dinner was preparing, he was pleased to shew me the great church there, and the curious vault of the good Duke of Gloucester, and also the monument of the great Lord Chancellor Bacon in St. Michael's church; all which, no doubt, your ladyship has seen.