"Though surrounded, not distressed, my good knight-errant," said the Nun: "the fair Quaker will be too hard for half-a-dozen antagonists, and wants not your protection:—but your poor Nun bespeaks it," whispered she, "who has not a word to say for herself." Mr. B. answered her in Italian (I wish I understood Italian!)—and she had recourse to her beads.
You can't imagine, Madam, how this Nun haunted him!—I don't like these masquerades at all. Many ladies, on these occasions, are so very free, that the censorious will be apt to blame the whole sex for their conduct, and to say, their hearts are as faulty as those of the most culpable men, since they scruple not to shew as much, when they think they cannot be known by their faces. But it is my humble opinion, that could a standard be fixed, by which one could determine readily what is, and what is not wit, decency would not be so often wounded by attempts to be witty, as it is. For here every one, who can say things that shock a modester person, not meeting with due rebuke, but perhaps a smile, (without considering whether it be of contempt or approbation) mistakes courage for wit; and every thing sacred or civil becomes the subject of his frothy jest.
But what a moralizer am I! will your ladyship say: indeed I can't help it:—and especially on such a subject as a masquerade, which I dislike more than any thing I ever saw. I could say a great deal more on this occasion; but, upon my word, I am quite out of humour with it: for I liked my English Mr. B. better than my Spaniard: and the Nun I approved not by any means; though there were some who observed, that she was one of the gracefullest figures in the place. And, indeed, in spite of my own heart, I could not help thinking so too.
Your ladyship knows so well what masquerades are, that I may well be excused saying any thing further on a subject I am so little pleased with: for you only desire my notions of those diversions, because I am a novice in them; and this, I doubt not, will doubly serve to answer that purpose.
I shall only therefore add, that after an hundred other impertinences spoken to Miss Darnford and me, and retorted with spirit by her, and as well as I could by myself, quite sick of the place, I feigned to be more indisposed than I was, and so got my beloved Spaniard to go off with us, and reached home by three in the morning. And so much for masquerades. I hope I shall never have occasion to mention them again to your ladyship. I am, my dearest Madam, your ever obliged sister and servant,
P.B.
LETTER LVII
MY DEAREST LADY,
My mind is so wholly engrossed by thoughts of a very different nature from those which the diversions of the town and theatres inspire, that I beg to be excused, if, for the present, I say nothing further of those lighter matters. But as you do not disapprove of my remarks, I intend, if God spares my life, to make a little book, which I will present to your ladyship, of my poor observations on all the dramatic entertainments I have seen, and shall see, this winter: and for this purpose I have made brief notes in the margin of the printed plays I have bought, as I saw them, with a pencil; by referring to which, as helps to my memory, I shall be able to state what my thoughts were at the time of seeing them pretty nearly with the same advantage, as if I had written them at my return from each.
I have obtained Sir Simon, and Lady Darnford's permission for Miss to stay with me till it shall be seen how it will please God to deal with me, and I owe this favour partly to a kind letter written in my behalf to Sir Simon, by Mr. B., and partly to the young lady's earnest request to her papa, to oblige me; Sir Simon having made some difficulty to comply, as Mr. Murray and his bride have left them, saying, he could not live long, if he had not the company of his beloved daughter.