Richardson, in the letter from which this passage has been extracted, is again led away by his vanity into a description of his person, and very plainly hints at a meeting in the Park, through which he goes “once or twice a week to” his “little retirement.” He describes himself as
“Short, rather plump than emaciated, about five foot five inches; fair wig; lightish cloth coat, all black besides; one hand generally in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat usually, that it may imperceptibly serve him as a support, when attacked by sudden tremors or startings and dizziness.” . . . “Of a light-brown complexion; teeth not yet failing him; smoothish faced and ruddy cheeked; at some times looking to be about sixty-five, at other times much younger; a regular even pace, stealing away ground, rather than seeming to get rid of it; a grey eye, too often overclouded by mistiness from the head; by chance lively—very lively it will be if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and honours; his eye always on the ladies”—and so on.
In return to this description, Lady Bradshaigh on the 16th December, 1749, half promises a meeting in an appointed place, for she tells the elderly gentleman with “a grey eye, too often overclouded by mistiness from the head,” but “by chance lively,” “that she will attend the Park every fine warm day, between the hours of one and two. I do not,” adds this perfect specimen of a literary coquette,
“Say this to put you in the least out of your way, or make you stay a moment longer than your business requires; for a walk in the Park is an excuse she uses for her health; and as she designs staying some months in town, if she misses you one day she may have luck another.”
And Lady Bradshaigh proceeds to present, as if in ridicule of Richardson’s portrait as drawn by himself, her own.
“In surprise or eagerness she is apt to think aloud; and since you have a mind to see her, who has seen the King, I give you the advantage of knowing she is middle aged, middle sized, a degree above plump, brown as an oak wainscot, a good deal of country red in her cheeks: altogether a plain woman, but nothing remarkably forbidding.”
Any one might think that a meeting would immediately have followed these communications, and that the novel-writer and the novel-reader would have presented
themselves to each other’s gaze for admiration, at the time and place appointed, and thus the affair which their letters have left upon record might have been satisfactorily wound up in one volume. But this did not accord with the sentimental typographical taste of the times, which required the dilution of an idea into seven or eight volumes to make it palatable. For we are told that a young Cantab, who, when asked if he had read Clarissa, replied, “D---n it, I would not read it through to save my life,” was set down as an incurable dunce. And that a lady reading to her maid, whilst she curled her hair, the seventh volume of Clarissa, the poor girl let fall such a shower of tears that they wetted her mistress’s head so much, she had to send her out of the room to compose herself. Upon the maid being asked the cause of her grief, she said, “Oh, madam, to see such goodness and innocence in such distress,” and her lady rewarded her with a crown for the answer.
January the 9th (1749–50) has arrived—the tantalizing Lady Bradshaigh, the unknown Mrs. Belfour has been in London six weeks, and the novelist begins “not to know what to think” of his fair correspondent’s wish to see him. “May be so,” he writes,
“But with such a desire to be in town three weeks; on the 16th December to be in sight of my dwelling, and three weeks more to elapse, yet I neither to see or hear of the lady; it cannot be that she has so strong a desire.”