"Positively neither Sir Sampson's lady nor the foolish virgins must be displaced."
Again she writes from Inveraray Castle (of date December 1810), eight years before the work was published:—
"And now, my dear Susannah, I must tell you of the success of your first-born. I read it to Lady Charlotte [1] in the carriage when she and I came together from Ardencaple, Bessie [2] having gone with mamma. If you will believe, I never yet in my existence saw Lady C. laugh so much as she did at that from beginning to end; and, seriously, I was two or three times afraid that she would fall into a fit. Her very words were, 'I assure you I think it without the least exception the cleverest thing that ever was written, and in wit far surpassing Fielding.' Then she said as to our other books they would all sink to nothingness before yours, that they were not fit to be mentioned in the same day, and that she felt quite discouraged from writing when she thought of yours. The whole conversation of the aunties [3] made her screech with laughing; and, in short, I can neither record nor describe all that she said; far from exaggerating it, I don't say half enough, but I only wish you had seen the effect it produced. I am sure you will be the first author of the age."
[1] Lady Charlotte Campbell, her aunt, better known latterly as Lady Charlotte Bury, and celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments.
[2] Miss Mure of Caldwell.
[3] These oddities were the three Misses Edmonstone, of the Duntreath family, and old family friends, after one of whom Miss Ferrier was named.
In another letter she writes:—
"I had an immense packet from Lady C. the other day, which I confess rather disappointed me, for I expected volumes of new compositions. On opening it, what should it prove but your book returned? so I shall keep it safe till I see you. She was profuse in its praises, and so was mamma, who said she was particularly taken with Lady Juliana's brother, [1] he was so like the duke. Lady C. said she had read it all deliberately and critically, and pronounced it capital, with a dash under it. Lady C. begs that in your enumeration of Lady Olivia's peccadilloes you will omit waltzes."
[1] Lord Courtland.
That dance had just been introduced in London (1811), and the season of that year Miss Clavering spent with her aunt, Lady Charlotte, in the metropolis, in a round of gaiety, going to parties at Kensington Palace (where the Princess of Wales [1] then lived), Devonshire House, and the witty Duchess of Gordon's, one of the "Empresses of Fashion," as Walpole calls her. Àpropos of waltzes, she writes to Miss Ferrier:—