Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 33

When Mrs. Thrale joined us, Mr. Seward told us he had just seen Dr. Jebb.—Sir Richard, I mean,—and that he had advised him to marry.

“No,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “that will do nothing for you; but if you should marry, I have a wife for you.”

“Who?” cried he, “the S. S.?”

“The S. S.?—no!—she’s the last person for you,—her extreme softness, and tenderness, and weeping, would add languor to languor, and irritate all your disorders; ’twould be drink to a dropsical man.”

“No, no,—it would soothe me.”

“Not a whit! it would only fatigue you. The wife for you is Lady Anne Lindsay. She has birth, wit, and beauty, she has no fortune, and she’d readily accept you; and she is such a spirit that she’d animate you, I warrant you! O, she would trim you well! you’d be all alive presently. She’d take all the care of the money affairs,—and allow you out of them eighteen pence a week! That’s the wife for you!”

Mr. Seward was by no means “agreeable” to the proposal; he turned the conversation upon the S. S., and gave us an account of two visits he had made her, and spoke in favour of her manner of living, temper, and character. When he had run on in this strain for some time, Mrs. Thrale cried,

“Well, so you are grown very fond of her?”

“Oh dear, no!” answered he, drily, “not at all!”

“Why, I began to think,” said Mrs. Thrale, “you intended to supplant the parson.”

“No, I don’t: I don’t know what sort of an old woman she’d make; the tears won’t do then. Besides, I don’t think her so sensible as I used to do.”

“But she’s very pleasing,” cried I, “and very amiable.”

“Yes, she’s pleasing,—that’s certain; but I don’t think she reads much; the Greek has spoilt her.”

“Well, but you can read for yourself.”

“That’s true; but does she work well?”

“I believe she does, and that’s a better thing.”

“Ay; so it is,” said he, saucily, “for ladies; ladies should rather write than read.”

“But authors,” cried I, “before they write should read.”

Returning again to the S. S., and being again rallied about her by Mrs. Thrale, who said she believed at last he would end there,—he said,

“Why, if I must marry—if I was bid to choose between that and racking on the wheel, I believe I should go to her.”

We all laughed at this exquisite compliment; but, as he said, it was a compliment, for though it proved no passion for her, it proved a preference.

“However,” he continued, “it won’t do.”

“Upon my word,” exclaimed I, “you settle it all your own way!—the lady would be ready at any rate!”

“Oh yes! any man might marry Sophy Streatfield.”

I quite stopt to exclaim against him.

“I mean,” said he, “if he’d pay his court to her.”