Frances Burney

LADY HOWARD AU RÉVÉREND M. VILLARS.

Est-il rien de plus pénible, mon cher monsieur, pour un esprit bienveillant, que de devoir communiquer une nouvelle désagréable ? Il est parfois bien difficile de déterminer qui, de celui qui la donne ou de celui qui la reçoit, est le plus à plaindre.

Je viens de recevoir une lettre de Madame Duval. Elle ne sait plus du tout quelle attitude prendre. Elle semble désireuse de réparer les maux qu’elle a causés, et souhaite cependant que le monde la croit innocente. Elle rejetterait volontiers sur un autre la faute odieuse des malheurs dont elle doit seule répondre. Sa lettre est violente, quelquefois injurieuse, et cela envers vous ! – vous envers qui elle a des obligations plus grandes encore que ses torts : sa méchanceté impute à vos conseils tous les tourments de sa malheureuse fille, feue lady Belmont. Je vais vous rapporter l’essentiel de ce qu’elle m’écrit, car la lettre elle-même ne mérite pas votre attention.

Elle dit avoir toujours compté entreprendre un voyage en Angleterre, ce qui l’a empêchée de demander des informations sur ce triste sujet, puisqu’elle espérait l’éclaircir par ses propres recherches. Mais des affaires de famille l’ont retenue en France, d’où elle ne voit maintenant aucune chance de sortir. Elle a donc récemment mis tout en œuvre pour obtenir un récit fidèle de ce qui a trait à son imprudente fille. Le résultat lui donnant quelque raison de craindre que celle-ci n’ait laissé, sur son lit de mort, une orpheline en bas âge, elle ajoute fort gracieusement que si vous, chez qui, a-t-elle compris, l’enfant est placée, apportez des preuves authentiques de sa parenté, vous pouvez l’envoyer à Paris où il sera dignement pourvu à son entretien.

Nul doute que cette femme n’ait pris enfin conscience de sa conduite dénaturée. Son style prouve qu’elle est toujours aussi commune, aussi ignorante, que lorsque son premier mari, M. Evelyn, eut la faiblesse de l’épouser ; et elle ne s’excuse aucunement de s’adresser à moi, alors qu’elle ne s’est trouvée qu’une fois en ma présence.

Sa lettre a excité chez ma fille Mirvan un vif désir de connaître les motifs qui ont poussé Madame Duval à abandonner l’infortunée lady Belmont à un moment où la protection d’une mère était plus que jamais nécessaire à sa réputation et son repos. Bien que j’aie personnellement connu les parties concernées par cette affaire, le sujet m’a toujours paru trop délicat pour être abordé avec les intéressés. Je ne peux donc satisfaire Mrs. Mirvan qu’en recourant à vous.

En disant que vous pouvez envoyer l’enfant, Madame Duval cherche à vous rendre son obligé alors qu’elle est la vôtre. Je ne prétends pas vous donner des conseils : vous, l’unique et généreux soutien de cette malheureuse orpheline, êtes le seul et meilleur juge de ce qu’elle devrait faire. Mais je m’inquiète des ennuis et des difficultés que cette femme indigne pourrait vous créer.

Ma fille et ma petite-fille vous prient avec moi d’offrir mille affectueux souvenirs à cette charmante enfant, et de vous rappeler que la visite annuelle à Howard Grove que vous nous aviez jadis promise, a cessé depuis plus de quatre ans.

Je suis, monsieur, avec considération, votre très obéissante amie et servante,

M. HOWARD.

To Nobody, then, will I write my Journal! since To Nobody can I be wholly unreserved-to Nobody can I reveal every thought, every wish of my Heart, with the most unlimited confidence, the most unremitting sincerity to the end of my Life! For what chance, what accident can end my connections with Nobody? No secret can I conceal from No-body, and to No-body can I be ever unreserved. Disagreement cannot stop our affection, Time itself has no power to end our friendship. The love, the esteem I entertain for Nobody, No-body's self has no power to destroy. From Nobody I have nothing to fear, the secrets sacred to friendship, Nobody will not reveal, when the affair is doubtful, Nobody will not look towards the side least favourable. [...] In your breast my errors may create pity without exciting contempt; may raise your compassion, without eradicating your love. From this moment, then my dear Girl-but why, permit me to ask, must a female be made Nobody? Ah! my dear, what were this world good for, were Nobody a female? And now I have done with preambulation.

‘Your Ladyship,’ said Mr. Lovel, ‘so well becomes the lilies, that the roses might blush to see themselves so excelled.’
‘Pray Mr. Lovel,’ said Mrs. Selwyn, ‘if the roses should blush, how would you find it out ?’
‘Egad,’ cried Mr. Coverley, ‘I suppose they must blush, as the saying is, like a blue dog, -for they are red already.’
‘Prithee, Jack,’ said Lord Merton, ‘don’t youp retend to talk about blushes, that never knew what they were in your life.’
‘My Lord,’ said Mrs. Selwyn, ‘if experience alone can justify mentionning them, what an admirable treatise upon the subject may we not expect from your Lordship !’
‘O, pray, Ma’am,’ answered he, ‘stick to Jack Coverley, -he’s your only man ; for my part, I confess I have a mortal aversion to arguments.’

‘O, fie, my Lord,’ cried Mrs. Selwyn, ‘a senator of the nation ! a member of the noblest parliament in the world !-and yet neglect the art of oratory ?’

‘Why, faith, my Lord,’ said Mr. Lovel, ‘I think, in general, your House is not much addicted to study ; we of the lower House have indubitably most application ; and, if I did not speak before a superior power,’ bowing low to Lord Merton, ‘I should presume to add, we have likewise the most able speakers.’

‘Mr. Lovel,’ said Mrs. Selwyn, ‘you deserve immortality for that discovery ! Bur for this observation, and the confession of Lord Merton, I protest I should have supposed that a peer of the realm, and an able logician, were synonymous terms.’
[…]
‘O, by no means,’ answered he [Lord Merton to Lady Louisa], ‘your Ladyship is merely delicate, -and devil take me if ever I had the least passion for an Amazon.’

‘I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship’s opinion,’ said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn, ‘for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female.’

‘Faith, and so have I,’ said Mr. Coverley, ‘for egad I’d as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic.’

‘So would every man in his senses,’ said Lord Merton, ‘for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good-nature ; in every thing else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live !’

‘It has always been agreed,’ said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, ‘that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should chuse subjects from Swift’s hospital of ideots.’

« So early was I impressed myself with ideas that fastened degradation to this class of composition, that at the age of adolescence, I struggled against the propensity which, even in childhood, even from the moment I could hold a pen, had impelled me into its toils ; and on my fifteenth birth-day, I made so resolute a conquest over an inclination at which I blushed, and that I had always kept secret, that I committed to the flames whatever, up to that moment, I had committed to paper. »
Frances Burney, « To Doctor Burney », The Wanderer or Female Difficulties, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015 [1814], p. 1.

Mrs Sapient. Pray did your Ladyship ever read Dryden ?

Lady Smatter. Dryden ? O Yes ! – but I don’t just now recollect him ; - let’s see, what has he writ ?

Dabler. Cymon and Iphigenia.

Lady Smatter. O ay, so he did ; and really for the Time of Day I think it’s mighty pretty.

Dabler. Why yes, it’s well enough ; but it would not do now.

Mrs Sapient. Pray what does your Ladyship think of the Spectator ?

Lady Smatter. O, I like it vastly. I’ve just read it. […]

Lady Smatter. Next to Mr. Dabler, my favourite Poets are Pope and Swift.

Mrs. Sapient. Well, after all, I must confess I think there are as many pretty things in old Shakespeare as in any body.

Lady Smatter. Yes, but he is too common ; every body can speak well of Shakespeare !

Dabler. I vow I am quite sick of his Name.

Codger. Madam, to the best of my apprehension, I conceive your Ladyship hath totally mistaken that line of Pope which says
Most Women have no Character at all.

Lady Smatter. Mistaken ? how so, sir ? This is curious enough ! […]

Codger. By no Character, madam, he only means-

Lady Smatter. A bad Character, to be sure !

Codger. There, madam, lieth your Ladyship’s mistake ; he means, I say-

Lady Smatter. O dear Sir, don’t trouble yourself to tell me his meaning ; -I dare say I shall be able to make it out.

Here, and thus felicitously, ended with the acknowledgement of her name, and her family, the DIFFICULTIES of the WANDERER ; -a being who had been cast upon herself ; a female Robinson Crusoe, as unaided and unprotected, though in the midst of the world, as that imaginary hero in his uninhabited island ; and reduced either to sink, through inanition, to nonentity, or to be rescued from famine and death by such resources as she could find, independently, in herself.
How mighty, thus circumstanced, are the DIFFICULTIES with which a FEMALE has to struggle ! Her honour always in danger of being assailed, her delicacy of being offended, her strength of being exhausted, and her virtue of being calumniated !
Yet even DIFFICULTIES such as these are not insurmontable, where mental courage, operating through patience, prudence, and principle, supply physical force, combat disappointment, and keep the untamed spirits superior to failure, and ever alive to hope.

Her next solicitude was to furnish herself with a well-chosen collection of books ; and this employment, which to a lover of literature, young and ardent in it’s pursuit, is perhaps the mind’s first luxury, proved a source of entertainment so fertile and delightful that it left her nothing to wish

The whole of this unfortunate business, said Dr Lyster, has been the result of pride and prejudice. […] if to pride and prejudice you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to pride and prejudice you will also owe their termination.

Anticipate the answer, anticipate the historians of times to come : will they not say, ‘these holy men, who died for want of bread, were Priests of the Christian Religion. They had committed no sin, they had offended against no law : they refused to take an oath which their consciences disapproved ; their piety banished them from their country ; and the land in which they sought refuge received, admired, relieved –neglected, forgot, and finally permitted them to starve!

By addressing myself to females, I am far from inferring that charity is exclusively their praise; no, it is a virtue as manly as it is gentle; it is christian, in one word, and ought therefore to be universal.