"Then comes Mrs. Wiseacre, that renowned law-giver, who lavishes her advice on all who will receive it, without hope of fee or reward, except that of being thought wiser than anybody else. But, like many more deserving characters, she meets with nothing but ingratitude in return; and the wise sentences that are for ever hovering around her pursed up mouth have only served to render her insupportable. This is her mode of proceeding—' If I might presume to advise, Lady Emily;' or, 'If my opinion could be supposed to have any weight;' or 'If my experience goes for anything;' or, 'I'm an old woman now, but I think I know something of the world;' or, 'If a friendly hint of mine would be of any service: —then when very desperate, it is, 'However averse I am to obtrude my advice, yet as I consider it my duty, I must for once;' or, 'It certainly is no affair of mine, at the same time I must just observe,' etc. etc. I don't say that she insists, however, upon your swallowing all the advice she crams you with; for, provided she has the luxury of giving it, it can make little difference how it is taken; because whatever befals you, be it good or bad, it is equally a matter of exultation to her. Thus she has the satisfaction of saying, 'If poor Mrs. Dabble had but followed my advice, and not have taken these pills of Dr. Doolittle's, she would have been alive to-day, depend upon it;' or, 'If Sir Thomas Speckle had but taken advantage of a friendly hint I threw out some time ago, about the purchase of the Drawrent estate, he might have been a man worth ten thousand a year at this moment;' or, 'If Lady Dull hadn't been so infatuated as to neglect the caution I gave her about Bob Squander, her daughter might have been married to Nabob Gull.'
"But there is a strange contradiction about Mrs. Wiseacre, for though it appears that all her friends' misfortunes proceed from neglecting her advice, it is no less apparent, by her account, that her own are all occasioned by following the advice of others. She is for ever doing foolish things, and laying the blame upon her neighbours. Thus, 'Had it not been for my friend Mrs. Jobbs there, I never would have parted with my house for an old song as I did;' or, 'It was entirely owing to Miss Glue's obstinacy that I was robbed of my diamond necklace, or, 'I have to thank my friend Colonel Crack for getting my carriage smashed to pieces.' In short, she has the most comfortable repository of stupid friends to have recourse to, of anybody I ever knew. Now what I have to warn you against, Mary, is the sin of ever listening to any of her advices. She will preach to you about the pinning of your gown and the curling of your hair till you would think it impossible not to do exactly what she wants you to do. She will inquire with the greatest solicitude what shoemaker you employ, and will shake her head most significantly when she hears it is any other than her own. But if ever I detect you paying the smallest attention to any of her recommendations, positively I shall have done with you."
Mary laughingly promised to turn a deaf ear to all Mrs. Wiseacre's wisdom; and her cousin proceeded:
"Then here follows a swarm as, thick as idle motes in sunny ray,' and much of the same importance, methinks, in the scale of being. Married ladies only celebrated for their good dinners, or their pretty equipages, or their fine jewels. How I should scorn to be talked of as the appendage to any soups or pearls! Then there are the daughters of these ladies—Misses, who are mere misses, and nothing more. Oh! the insipidity of a mere Miss! a soft simpering thing with pink cheeks, and pretty hair, and fashionable clothes sans eyes for anything but lovers_-sans_ ears for anything but flattery—sans taste for anything but balls_—sans_ brains for anything at all! Then there are ladies who are neither married nor young, and who strive with all their might to talk most delightfully, that the charms of their conversation may efface the marks of the crows' feet; but 'all these I passen by, and nameless numbers moe.' And now comes the Hon. Mrs. Downe Wright, a person of considerable shrewdness and penetration—vulgar, but unaffected. There is no politeness, no gentleness in her heart; but she possesses some warmth, much honesty, and great hospitality. She has acquired the character of being—oh, odious thing!—a clever woman! There are two descriptions of clever women, observe; the one is endowed with corporeal cleverness—the other with mental; and I don't know which of the two is the greater nuisance to society; the one torments you with her management—the other with her smart sayings; the one is for ever rattling her bunch of keys in your ears—the other electrifies you with the shock of her wit; and both talk so much and _so _loud, and are such egotists, that I rather think a clever woman is even a greater term of reproach than a good creature. But to return to that clever woman Mrs. Downe Wright: she is a widow, left with the management of an only son—a commonplace, weak young man. No one, I believe, is more sensible of his mental deficiencies than his mother; but she knows that a man of fortune is, in the eyes of the many, a man of consequence; and she therefore wisely talks of it as his chief characteristic. To keep him in good company, and get him well married, is all her aim; and this, she thinks, will not be difficult, as he is very handsome-possesses an estate of ten thousand a year—and succeeds to some Scotch Lord Something's title—there's for you, Mary! She once had views of Adelaide, but Adelaide met the advances with so much scorn that Mrs. Downe Wright declared she was thankful she had shown the cloven foot in time, for that she never would have done for a wife to her William. Now you are the very thing to suit, for you have no cloven feet to show."
"Or at least you are not so quick-sighted as Mrs. Downe Wright. You have not spied them yet, it seems," said Mary, with a smile.
"Oh, as to that, if you had them, I should defy you, or anyone, to hide them from me. When I reflect upon the characters of most of my acquaintances, I sometimes think nature has formed my optics only to see disagreeables."
"That must be a still more painful faculty of vision than even the second-sight," said Mary; "but I should think it depended very much upon yourself to counteract it."
"Impossible! my perceptions are so peculiarly alive to all that is obnoxious to them that I could as soon preach my eyes into blindness, or my ears into deafness, as put down my feelings with chopping logic. If people will be affected and ridiculous, why must I live in a state of warfare with myself on account of the feelings they rouse within me?"
"If people will be irritable," said Mary, laughing, "why must others sacrifice their feelings to gratify them?"
"Because mine are natural feelings, and theirs are artificial. A very saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you'll allow. Vulgarity, even innate vulgarity, is bearable—stupidity itself is pardonable—but affectation is never to be endured or forgiven."