Contents
Letters to Mrs. J. Taylor
Yarmouth,
Sept. 1st, 1785.
1. Dear Madam,
2. Though I have had the pleasure (it was a very real one) of a glimpse of Mr.
Taylor, yet I cannot prevail on myself to entrust either him or Mr. Barbauld
with those affectionate wishes and grateful acknowledgements of your friendship
which, before I leave England, I wish to convey to you with my own hand. Mr.
Barbauld will tell you our route. -- Now it comes to the point, I cannot help
feeling it a solemn thing to leave England, and all our dear connexions in it,
for so many months. Often will they be in our minds; and when we recollect those
who hold the highest places in our esteem and affection, Mrs. Taylor will always
be presented to our thoughts. Allow me, dear madam, again to thank you for your
kindness to us at Norwich, and the pleasure we enjoyed in that short but
delightful intercourse with you and your family. On that family may health and
every blessing ever rest.
3. By the time we return, I think I shall have had a sufficient draught of idleness,
and be very ready to engage again in some active pursuit; but at present, Avaunt
care! and Vive la bagatelle! for we are bound for France.
1.
Paris,
June 7th, 1786.
1. Dear Madam,
2. Though we expect now very soon to finish our long pilgrimage, I cannot quit this
country without giving you a little testimonial that in it we think of those
beloved English friends from whom the sea now divides us: they are often
recalled to my mind by different and opposite trains of thinking, -- for
contrast, you know, is one source of association; and when I see the Parisian
ladies covered with rouge and enslaved by fashion, cold to the claims of
maternal tenderness, and covering licentiousness with the thin veil of a certain
factitious decency of manners, my thoughts turn away from the scene, and delight
to contemplate the charming union formed by deep affection and lasting esteem,
-- the mother endowed with talents and graces to draw the attention of polite
circles, yet devoting her time and cares to her family and children -- English
delicacy, unspoiled beauty, and unaffected sentiment, -- when I think of these,
(and your friends will not be at a loss to guess where I look for
them,) it gives the
same relief to my mind as it would to my eye
when wearied and dazzled by their sand-walks and terraces, if it could repose
upon the cheerful and soft green of our lawny turf. I would not, however, have
you imagine that I am out of humour with Paris, where we have enjoyed much
pleasure; only it is the result of our tour, that taking in all things, manners
and government as well as climate, we like our own country best: and this is an
opinion certainly favourable to our happiness, who shall probably never leave
England again. The weather with us is, and has been, extremely hot. The trees
are in their freshest green; but one sees that the grass will soon be burnt if
we have not rain. Indeed they are obliged every day to water the turf in all
their gardens where they are solicitous about verdure. The environs of Paris are
charming, yet I think evidently inferior to those of London. Yesterday
(Whitsunday) we were gratified with a view of all the magnificence of
Versailles. in compliment to the day the water-works played, and there was the
brilliant procession of the
cordon blue; in consequence of which
all Paris in a manner was poured into Versailles; and I was ready to forgive the
enormous expense and ostentation of this palace, when I saw a numerous people of
all sorts and degrees filling the rooms and wandering in the gardens, full of
admiration, and deriving both
pleasure and pride from their
national magnificence; and many a one, I dare say, exulted in the thought that
the
grand monarque's horses are better lodged than is the king of
England himself. The grand gallery filled with Le Brun's paintings is of a
striking beauty; the gardens are full of water thrown up in artificial
fountains, and glittering through artificial
bosquets; the walks
are adorned with whole quarries of marble wrought into statues. In short, art
and symmetry reign entirely; and I hope they will never attempt to modernize
these gardens, because they are a model of magnificence in their kind, and Art
appears with so much imposing grandeur, that she seems to have a right to reign.
The
petit Trianon belonging to the queen is in another style; with
cottages and green lawns and winding walks of flowering shrubs in the English
mode, which indeed prevails very much at present.
3. There is a person here, the Abbe d'Hauy, who teaches the blind to read by means
of books printed expressly for them in a relief of white. The undertaking is
curious; but they are at present somewhat in the state of the blind men brought
up for painters in the island of Laputa, who were not so perfect in the mixing
their colours but that they sometimes mistook blue for red.
4. The French stage is not, I think, at present very brilliant; three of their best
actors have lately
left it. But at the Italian theatre they have a
delightful little piece, which under the name of a comic opera draws tears from
all the world. It is called Nina, or
La Folle d'Amour, and
Mademoiselle du Gazon acts the part of Nina; and does it with such enchanting
grace, such sweet and delicate touches of sensibility and passion, as I never
saw upon any theatre. It is the
sweet bells jangled out of tune,
but not
harsh: no raving, no disorder of dress; but every look and
gesture showed an unsettled mind, and a tenderness inimitable. At the Opera they
have likewise an actress full of grace beyond mere nature. Everybody (that is
everybody who follows the fashion) leaves Paris in the summer, which was not the
case some years ago. We stay now for a fine show, -- the procession on the
Fete Dieu, in which all the tapestry of the Gobelins is exposed
in the streets. We shall return by Calais and proceed immediately to London,
where we shall take lodgings for some time.
5. Will you do me the favour to remember us with grateful affection to all our
friends at Norwich? there are so many that claim our esteem, I do not attempt to
enumerate them; but do not forget to give a kiss for us to each of your dear
boys, and to assure Mr. Taylor of Mr. Barbauld's and my affectionate esteem.
1.
1806.
1. I am now reading Mr. Johnes's Froissart, and I think I never was more struck with
the horrors of war, -- simply because he seems not at all struck
with them; and I feel ashamed at my heart having ever beat with pleasure at the
names of Cressy and Poitiers. He tells you the English marched into such a
district; the barns were full, and cattle and corn plentiful; they burned and
destroyed all the villages, and laid the country bare; such an English earl took
a town, and killed men, women, and little children; -- and he never makes a
remark, but shows he looks upon it as the usual mode of proceeding.
1.
May, 1813.
1. ..... There is certainly at present a great deal of zeal in almost every
persuasion; -- certainly much more in England, as far as I am able to judge,
than when I was young. I often speculate upon what it will produce, -- not
uniformity of opinion certainly; that is a blessing we seem not destined here to
enjoy, if indeed it would be a blessing. But will it tend to universal
toleration and enlarged liberality of thinking? or, with increase of zeal, will
the church spirit of bigotry revive, and unite with the increasing power of
government to crush the spirit of research and
freedom of opinion?
Bible societies, missionary schemes, lectures, schools for the poor, are set on
foot and spread, not so much from a sense of duty as from being the real taste
of the times; and I am told that Mrs. Siddons's readings are much patronized by
the evangelical people, as they are called of fashion, who will not enter the
doors of a theatre. Would that with all this there could be seen some little
touch of feeling for the miseries of war, that are desolating the earth without
end or measure! One should be glad to see some
suspicion arise that
it was not consistent with the spirit of the Gospel; but this you do not see
even in good people.
2. ..... Friends at a distance do not want some medium of sympathy though they do
not meet. I have sometimes looked upon new books in that light. When I peruse a
book of merit to be generally read, I feel sure, though not informed of it, that
precisely the same stream of ideas which is flowing through my mind is flowing
through my friend's also; and without any communication, either by work or
letter, I know that he has admired and criticized, and laughed and wept as I
have done.
June 18, 1810.
1. My dear Mrs. Taylor,
2. A thousand thanks for your kind letter; still more for the very kind visit that
preceded it; -- though short, too short, it has left indelible impressions on my
mind; my heart has truly had communion with yours, -- your sympathy has been
balm to it; and I feel that there is no one now on earth to whom I
could pour out that heart more readily, I may say so readily, as to yourself.
Very good also has my dear amiable Mrs. Beecroft been to me, whose lively
sweetness and agreeable conversation has at times won me to forget that my heart
is heavy.
3. I am now alone again, and feel like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful
fire, not sensible at the time of the temperature of the air, but the fire
removed, he finds the season is still winter. Day after day passes,
and I do not know what I do with my time; and my mind has no energy, nor power
or application. I can tell you, however, what I have done with some hours of it,
which have been agreeably employed in reading Mrs. Montague's Letters. I think
her nephew has made a very agreeable present to the public; and I was greatly
edified to see them printed in modest octavo, with Mrs. Montague's sweet face
(for it is a very pretty face) at the head.
They certainly show a
very extraordinary mind, full of wit, and also of deep thought and sound
judgement. She seems to have liked not a little to divert herself with the odd
and the ludicrous, and show herself in the earlier letters passionately found of
balls and races and London company; this was natural enough at eighteen. Perhaps
you may not so easily pardon her for having early settled her mind, as she
evidently had, not to marry except for an establishment. This seems to show a
want of some of those fine feelings that one expects in youth: but when it is
considered that she was the daughter of a country gentleman with a large family,
and no fortune to expect, and her connexions all in high life, one is disposed
to pardon her, especially as I dare say she would never have married a fool or a
profligate. I heard her say, -- what I suppose very few can say, -- that she
never was in love in her life. Many of the letters are in fact essays; and I
think had she turned her thoughts to write in that way, she would have excelled
Johnson.
4. I have also turned over Lamb's Specimens of Old Plays, and am much pleased with
them. I make a discovery there, that La Motte's fable of Genius, Virtue, and
Redemption, which has been so much praised for its ingenious turn, is borrowed
from Webster, an author of the age of Shakespear; or they have taken it from
some common
source, for a Frenchman was not very likely to light
upon an English poet of that age; they knew about as much of us then, as we did
fifty years ago of the Germans. It is surprising how little invention there is
in the world; no
very good story was ever invented. It is perhaps
originally some fact a little enlarged; then, by some other hand, embellished
with circumstances; then, by somebody else, a century after, refined, drawn to a
point, and furnished with a moral. When shall we see the moral of the world's
great story, which astonishes by its events, interests by the numerous agents it
puts in motion, but of which we cannot understand the bearings, or predict the
catastrophe? It is a tangled web, of which we have not the clue. I do not know
how to rejoice at this victory, splendid as it is, over Buonaparte, when I
consider the horrible waste of life, the mass of misery, which such gigantic
combats must occasion. I will think no more of it; let me rather contemplate
your family: there the different threads all wind evenly, smoothly, and
brightly.
1.
Stoke Newington,
Dec. 8th, 1818.
1. I will write now my dear friend is better, is recovering, is, I hope, in a fair
way to be soon quite well, and all herself again; and she will ac-
cept, and so will Mr. T. and Mrs. R. my warmest congratulations. To tell you
how anxious we have been, would, I trust, be superfluous, or how much joy we
have felt in being relieved from that anxiety. It is pleasant to have some one
to share pleasure with; and though I could have had that satisfaction in a
degree with every one who knows you, it is more particularly agreeable to me at
this time to have your dear Sarah to sympathize with and talk to about you.
Among other things we say, that you must not let
mind wear out
body, which I suspect you are a little inclined to do. Mind is
often very hard upon his humble yoke-fellow, sometimes speaking contemptuously
of her, as being of a low, mean family, in comparison with himself; often
abridging her food or natural rest for his whims. Many a headache has he given
her when, but for him, she would be quietly resting in her bed. Sometimes he
fancies that she hangs as a dead weight upon him, and impedes all his motions;
yet it is well known, that though he gives himself such airs of superiority, he
can in fact do nothing without her; and since, however they came together, they
are united for better for worse, it is for his interest as well as hers, that
she should be nursed and cherished, and taken care of. -- And so ends my
sermon.
1.
Date: 1825
(revised 01/25/2005) Author: Anna Letitia Barbauld
(revised Zach Weir).
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