Journals and Letters Read Online

From Journal 15 June 1769

Miss Crawford1 call’d here lately – she is very earnest for us to visit her – but we are not very earnest about the matter: – however, the laws of custom make our spending one Evening with her necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our Time; – and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chuses to demand it! – yet those who shall pretend to defy this irksome confinement of our happiness, must stand accused of incivility, – breach of manners – love of originality, – and what not – nevertheless, they who will nobly dare to be above submitting to Chains their reason disapproves, they shall I always honour – if that will be of any service to them!

For why should we not be permitted to be masters of our Time? – why may we not venture to love, and to dislike – and why, if we do, may we not give to those we love the richest Jewel we own, our Time? what is it can stimulate us to bestow that on all alike? – ’tis not affection – ’tis not a desire of pleasing – or if it is, ’tis a very weak one; – no! ’tis indolence – ’tis Custom – Custom – which is so woven around us – which so universally commands us – which we all blame – and all obey, without knowing why or wherefore – which keeps our better Reason, that sometimes dares to shew its folly, in subjection –

And which, in short, is a very ridiculous affair, more particularly as it hath kept me writing on it till I have forgot what introduced it – – I feel myself in no excellent mood – I will walk out and give my spirits another turn, and then resume my Pen.

9. Verse Letter to Dr Charles Burney 23 June 17691

Poland Street

Friday

To Doctor Last2

O aid me, ye muses of ev’ry Degree,

O give me the standish of Mulberry Tree

Which was cut for the Author of Ferney;3

O give me a Quil to the stump worn by Gray,4

And Paper which cut was on Milton’s Birth Day

To write to the great Doctor Burney!

O Doctor! of Doctor’s the Last and the Best

By Fortune most honour’d, distinguish’d and blest

And may you for ever be her nigh!

O smile (if a Doctor’s permitted to smile)

And your natural gravity lessen a while

To Read this, O dread Doctor Burney!

For the Letter most kind we to Day did receive

With grateful affection our Bosoms do heave

And to see you, O grave sir! how yern I!

’Tis true the Time’s short since you last was in Town

Yet both fatter and Taller you doubtless are grown

Or you’ll make but a poor Doctor Burney.

For I never can think of a Doctor, not big

As a Falstaf, or without a full bottom’d wig

And the slyness Fame gives an Attorney;

Not more at the Bag did the Citizen’s stare

Of Harley, when Harley was made a Lord Mayor5

Than I shall at thin Doctor Burney.

May Wisdom, which still to good humour gives Birth

May fatness with dignity, goodness with mirth

Still attend you, and speed your Town Journey;

And O till the Hour when Death us shall part

May Fanny a Corner possess of the Heart

Of the owner of hers, Doctor Burney!

10. From Journal August 1769

[King’s Lynn, Norfolk]

We have nothing but visiting here, and this perpetual Round of constrained Civilities to Persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in the World, but it is unavoidable in a Country Town, where every body is known, as here. ’Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable Time, to devote it to those who know not its value – why are we not permitted to decline as well as accept visits and acquaintance? It is not that we are ignorant of means to better employ ourselves, but that we dare not persue them. However, restraint of this kind is much much less practiced or necessary in London than else where – excuses there are no sooner made than admitted – acquaintance as easily drop’d as courted – and Company chose or rejected at pleasure – undoubtedly the same plan might be persued here but how? with breaking the customs of the place, disobliging the Inhabitants, and incurring the censure of the Town in general as unsociable, proud, or impertinant Innovators. Seeing therefore what must be submitted to, ’tis best to assume a good grace – only its hard hard!

11. From Journal 10 January 1770

I observed a Nun, Dressed in Black, who was speaking with great earnestness, and who discovered by her Voice to be a Miss Milne, a pretty Scotch Nymph I have met at Mrs Stranges.1 I stopt to listen to her. She turn’d about and took my Hand and led me into a Corner of the Room – ‘Beautiful Creature!’ cried she, in a plaintive Voice, ‘with what pain do I see you here, beset by this Crowd of folly and deceit! O could I prevail on you to quit this wicked world, and all its vices, and to follow my footsteps!’

‘But how am I to account,’ said I, ‘for the reason that one who so much despises the world, should chuse to mix with the gayest part of it? What do you do here?’

‘I come but,’ said she, ‘to see and to save such innocent, beautiful, young Creatures as you from the snares of the Wicked. Listen to me, I was once such as you are, I mixed with the World; I was caressed by it, I loved it – I was deceived! – surrounded by an artful set of flattering, designing men, I fell but too easily into the net they spread for me; I am now convinced of the vanity of Life, and in this peaceful, tranquil state shall I pass the remainder of my Days.’

‘It is so impossible,’ said I, ‘to listen to you without being benefitted by your Conversation, that I shall to the utmost of my power imitate you, and always chuse to despise the World, and hold it in contempt. – At a masquerade! –.’

‘Alas,’ said she, ‘I am here meerly to contemplate on the strange follies and vices of mankind – this scene affords me only a subject of joy to think I have quitted it.’

We were here interrupted, and parted.

…

I siezed the first opportunity that offered of again joining my sage monitor the fair Nun – who did not seem averse to honouring me with her Conversation. She renewed her former subject, expatiated on the wickedness and degeneracy of the World, dwelt with great energy and warmth on the deceit and craft of man, and pressed me to join her holy Order with the zeal of an Enthusiast. A pink Domino advanced, and charged her not to instill her preposterous sentiments into my mind; she answered him with so much contempt that he immediately quitted us. – We were then accosted by the shepherd, who would fain have appeared of some consequence, and aimed at being gallant and agreeable – Poor man! wofully was he the contrary. The Nun did not spare him. ‘Hence,’ cried she, ‘thou gaudy Animal, with thy trifling and ridiculous trappings away – Let not this fair Creature be corrupted by this Company. O fly the pernicious impertinance of these shadows which surround thee! –’ ‘The–the Lady –’ stammered the poor swain – ‘the Lady will be – will be more likely – to be hurt – by – – by you than – than –’ ‘Yes, yes,’ cried she, ‘she would be safe enough were she followed only by such as thee!’ Hetty just then bid me observe a very droll old Dutch man, who soon after joined us – He accosted us in High Dutch – – not that I would Quarrel with any one who told me it was Low Dutch! – it might be Arabick for ought I could tell! He was very completely Dressed, and had on an exceeding droll old man’s mask, and was smoaking a Pipe – He presented me with a Quid of Tobaco, I accepted it very cordially: – the Nun was not disposed to be pleased – she attacked poor Mynheer with much haughtiness – ‘Thou savage! – hence to thy native Land of Brutes and Barbarians, smoak thy Pipe there, but pollute not us with thy dull and coarse attempts at Wit and pleasantry –’

The Dutch man however heeded her not, he amused himself with talking and making signs of devotion to me, while the Nun railed, and I Laughed. – At last she took my Hand, and led me to another part of the Room, where we renewed our former Conversation. ‘You see,’ she cried, ‘what a Herd of Danglers flutter around you; thus it once was with me; your form is elegant; your Face I doubt not is beautiful; your sentiments are superior to both: regard these Vipers then with a proper disdain; they will follow you, will admire, Court, caress and flatter you – they will engage your affections – – and then they will desert you! it is not that you are less amiable, or that they cease to esteem you; but they are weary of you; novelty must attone in another for every loss they may regret in you: – it is not merit they seek, but variety. I speak from experience!’

‘ ’Tis rather surprising,’ said I, ‘that one who speaks with such vigour of the World, – and professes having quitted it from knowing its degeneracy, and who talks of experience in the style of Age; should have a Voice which is a perpetual reminder of her own Youth; and should in all visible respects, be so formed to grace and adorn the World she holds in such contempt.’

‘Hold,’ cried she, ‘remember my sacred order, and remember that we Nuns can never admit to our Conferences that baleful Enemy of innocence, Flattery! Alas, you learn this from men! Would you but renounce them! what happiness would such a Convert give me!’

The Dutchman and the shepherd soon joined us again – the former was very liberal of his tobaco, and supported his Character with much drollery, speaking no English, but a few Dutch words, and making signs. The shepherd seemed formed for all the stupidity of a Dutch man more than the man who assumed that Dress; but he aimed at something superior. – The Nun, looking on her Veil and Habit as a sanction to the utmost liberty of speech, spoke to them both without the least ceremony. – All she said to me did honour to the Name she assumed – it was sensible and delicate, it was probably very true; it was certainly very well adapted to her apparent character: but when we were joined by men, her exhortation degenerated into railing; which though she might intend the better to support her part, by displaying her indignation against the sex, nevertheless seemed rather suited to the virulency and bitterness of a revengeful woman of the World, than the gentleness and dignity which were expected from the piety, patience and forbearance of a Cloister. ‘And what,’ said she to the Dutch man, ‘what can have induced such a savage to venture himself here? Go, seek thy fellow Brutes! the vulgar, bestial society thou art used to, is such alone as thou ought to mix with.’

He jabbered something in his defence, and seemed inclined to make his Court to me. ‘Perhaps,’ said she, ‘it may be in the power of this fair Creature to reform thee; she may civilise thy gross and barbarous manners.’ The Dutch man bowed, said yaw, and put his Hand on his Heart in token of approbation. ‘Ay,’ said the poor shepherd, whose Eyes had the most marked expression of stupidity (if stupidity can be said to have any expression) that I ever saw, and his words and manner so exactly coincided with his appearance, that he was meerly an object for Laughter – he served only for such to me at least; for indeed my spirits were not very low.

12. From Journal May 1770

Friday

I am just returned from making a visit to 5 sisters, 2 married and 3 single, who all Live together – and rejoiced am I that I am returned. There is with them a child, not 3 years old, Grandson to one of them, who is the Idol of them All: the poor Boy, by their ill judged and ruinous indulgence, is rendered an object of dislike to all others: they have taught him to speak, like a Parrot, only such words as they dictate; they make him affect the Language of a man, and then boast that no child ever talked like him, and what is the effect of this singularity, but making him appear affected, troublesome and unnatural? How infinitely more amiable is the native simplicity and artlessness with which children are born! Then they permit him to amuse himself at pleasure with all Insects – Flys, Butterflys – poor little Animals – the torture he gave to one of the last really turned me so sick that I could not recover myself the whole evening – Is not humanity disgraced by this barbarity to the dumb creation? – the poor child belongs to a sex sufficiently prone to cruelty: is it for women thus early to encourage it? Another, to my thoughts, worse than absurd way they have chose to make him shine, – which is, to bid him say the Lords Prayer and Belief in order to display his fine memory – why won’t they make him get Ballads by Heart? To sport thus with our religious duties is to me exceedingly shocking, and had I been old enough to dare speak my sentiments unasked, I would have told them so.

13. From Journal 16 November 1770

Queen’s Square, –

I have now changed my abode, and quitted dear Poland Street forever. How well satisfied shall I be if after having Lived as long in Queen’s Square I can look back to equally happy Days.

We have a charming House here.