Mrs. Fitzroy told him that the wings, colonnades, and transalpine nomenclature, were as ridiculous in her eyes as in his, “but,” added she, “I find you very ready to inveigh against one class of follies, while you are all clemency towards others; and as to the names of your country seats in Ireland, they are quite a reproach to you as a nation. If I hear that I am going to visit at Oakpark, I am certain that I shall see a desert moor, with a few ten-year old elms, thinly scattered, and paled in with hurdles, to prevent the sheep from barking them. If I am to call at Hazlewood, I am equally sure to find no wood at all, or at most an old hawthorn bush in solitary abstraction. Hollybrook has, I am convinced, neither brook nor holly near it. Rockview has, probably, not a stone larger than an orange to be seen within its precincts; and so on of a thousand other misnomers that I could enumerate.”
I remember that Mr. Bentley was rising in choler, as he felt lowered from not being ready at reply; but dear Domine flew to the rescue, and seeing the commotion of our worthy friend, he brought him off with a sort of triumph, by assuring Mrs. Fitzroy that oaks had stood where now there are only the ghosts of these forest kings; that rocks had been where now the quarryman’s pick-axe has left a level plain; that brooks, which meandered once, are now dry; and that our names are often remnants of our former, not indications of our present pride. I forget how the conversation ended, but it amused me at the time that it happened, and slipped out of my recollection, till having written Mount Prospect, that name revived the remembrance of a combat which diverted us.
I shall pity George Bentley, when he loses so many friends with whom he is accustomed to pass a part of almost every day, but he will bear it better than Frederick would do in the same situation. How wonderfully the good and evil of life are balanced! Sensibility increases every pleasure, but as certainly augments every pain. George seems always to enjoy a sort of calm tranquillity, which generally defends him from any species of excitement. Is he happier than those of more sensitive structure? perhaps about the same. He gains on the one side what he loses on the other. He is an excellent young man, but he wants light and shade, that is, he wants variety. Characters, like countries, may be too little diversified, and in the midst of the highest cultivation, I should sigh for the sweet glens, and bowery labyrinths that lie in retreat, and offer their refreshing charms to those alone who love to seek their deep recesses. We hear from Arthur frequently, and I grieve to tell you that his letters bring us sad accounts of the Craytons. Mr. Otway, I believe, has made an effort to obtain some money from my uncle, but with what success I know not; however I greatly fear that no moderate sum would be of more than temporary use, for Lord C. is a determined gambler, and poor Adelaide has plunged into every sort of extravagance without supplies adequate to sustain it. Dear Arthur’s anxiety is corroding his spring time of life; and my poor aunt, I am told, is not lightening his uneasiness. These are gloomy subjects, and I will release my dearest Julia from their melancholy influence.—Adieu dear friend,
Your affectionate,
Emily Douglas.
LETTER XXXII.
From the Same to the Same.
Marsden.
My dearest Julia,