Читать книгу Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph - Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan - Страница 10

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My brother has had another letter from Mr Faulkland. He has been but a fortnight at Bath, and already has found benefit from the use of the pump; I wish his wrist was quite well; I never was so impatient to see any body—But, Sidney, have a care—this heart has never yet been touch’d: this man is represented as a dangerous object. What an an ill-fated Girl should I be, if I should fall in love with him, and he should happen not to like me? Should happen, what a vain expression was that? I would not for the world any one should see it but my Cecilia.—Well, if he should not like me, what then? why, I will not like him. I have a heart, not very susceptible of what we young women call love; and in all likelihood I shall be as indifferent to him, as he may be to me—Indeed I think I ought to resolve on not liking him; for notwithstanding those fine out-lines of a character, which my brother gave of him in the presence of my mother, I have since drawn out of Sir George, who is always talking of him, some farther particulars, which do not please me so well; for I think he is made up of contrarieties.

Nature, says Sir George, never formed a temper so gentle, so humane, so benevolent as his; yet, when provoked, no tempest is more furious. You would imagine him so humble, that he thinks every one superior to himself; yet through this disguise have I discovered, at certain times, a pride which makes him look down on all mankind. With a disposition formed to relish, and a heart attached to the domestic pleasures of life, he is of so enterprising a temper, that dangers and difficulties rather encourage than dishearten him in the pursuit of a favourite point. His ideas of love, honour, generosity, and gratitude, are so refined, that no hero in romance ever went beyond him; of this I was convinced from many little incidents which occurred in the course of my acquaintance with him. The modesty and affability of his deportment makes every body fancy, when he is in company with them, that he is delighted with their conversation; nay, he often affects to be improved and informed; yet there is a sly turn to ridicule in him, which, though without the least tincture of ill-nature, makes him see and represent things in a light, the very opposite of that in which you fansied he saw them. With the nicest discernment, where he permits his judgment alone to determine, let passion interfere, and a child can impose on him. Though as I have already told you he is very handsome, he affects to despise beauty in his own sex; yet is it easy to perceive, by the nice care he takes in his dress (though the farthest in the world from a fop), that he does not altogether disregard it in his own person.

Are not these faults? yes, surely they are; yet Sir George protests he has none; or at least says, if these be such, they are so overbalanced by his good qualities, that unless it be you sister (flattering creature! though that is seldom his failing) I don’t know the woman that deserves him. I did not thank him for the compliment he paid me, at the expense of the rest of our poor sex.