Agnes’s information went on to show that Mrs. Jordan’s whole time was passed in anxious expectation of letters from England, and on the English post-days she was peculiarly miserable. We collected from the girl that her garden and guitar were her only resources against that consuming melancholy which steals even the elements of existence, and plunges both body and mind into a state of morbid languor—the fruitful parent of disease, insanity, and death.
At this point of the story Madame Ducamp would no longer be restrained, and returned to the charge with redoubled assertions of her own friendship to “the poor lady,” and bonne nature in general.
“Did you know her, Monsieur?” said she: “alas! she nearly broke my heart by trying to break her own!”
“I have heard of her since I arrived here, Madame,” replied I cautiously.
“Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur,” rejoined Madame Ducamp, “if you had known her as well as Agnes and I did, you would have loved her just as much. I am sure she had been accustomed to grandeur, though I could never découvrir la cause de sa ruine. Ah!” pursued Madame, “she was aimable et honnête beyond description; and though so very poor, paid her louage like a goddess.” At this moment some other matter, perhaps suggested by the word louage, came across the old woman’s brain, and she again trotted off. The remaining intelligence which we gathered from Agnes related chiefly to Mrs. Jordan’s fondness for music and perpetual indulgence therein, and to her own little achievements in the musical way on a guitar, which she produced,—whereby, she told us with infinite naïveté, she had frequently experienced the gratification of playing and singing Madame to sleep! She said that there was some little mutual difficulty in the first place as to understanding each other, since the stranger was ignorant of the French language, and she herself “had not the honour” to speak English. “However,” continued Agnes, “we formed a sort of language of our own, consisting of looks and signs, and in these Madame was more eloquent than any other person I had ever known.” Here the girl’s recollections seemed fairly to overcome her; and with that apparently exaggerated sensibility which is, nevertheless, natural to the character of her country, she burst into tears, exclaiming, “Oh Ciel! oh Ciel!—elle est morte! elle est morte!”[[36]]
[36]. The intermixed French phrases which I have retained in sketching this conversation at Maquetra may perhaps appear affected to some; and I frankly admit there are few things in composition so disagreeable to me as a jumble of words culled from different tongues, and constituting a mélange which advances no just claim to the title of any language whatever. But those who are accustomed to the familiar terms and expressive ejaculations of French colloquy, know that the idiomatic mode of expression only can convey the true point and spirit of the dialogue, and more particularly does this observation apply to the variegated traits of character belonging to French females.
The conversation with Agnes consisted, on her part, nearly of broken sentences throughout—I may say, almost of looks and monosyllables! at all events, of simple and expressive words in a combination utterly unadapted to the English tongue. Let a well-educated and unprejudiced gentleman hold converse on the same topics with an English and a French girl, and his remarks as to the difference will not fail to illustrate what I have said.
Far—very far be it from me to depreciate the fair ones of our own country. I believe that they are steadier and better calculated to describe facts, or to advise in an emergency: but they must not be offended with me for adding, that in the expression of every feeling, either of a lively or tearful nature, as well as in the graces of motion, their elastic neighbours are immeasurably superior. Even their eyes speak idioms which our less pliable language cannot explain. I have seen humble girls in France who speak more in one second than many of our finest ladies could utter in almost a century! Chaqu’un a son goût, however; and I honestly confess, that a sensitive French girl would make but an ill-assorted match with a thorough-bred John Bull!