Volume 1 — EXTRACTS FROM MISS SEWARD’S LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. (continued 3)

But, waving these momentous essentials, I shall talk to you of the little circumstances that inspirit or stupify the passing hour. I have obtained a spinnet from Nottingham, and placed it where no musical instrument has appeared time immemorial—in my uncle’s tapestry parlour, which he and the rest of the family now consider as the sanctum sanctorum of Cecilia, and whither I retire to pay my uninterrupted orisons.

To be sure, the little tinkler is a wretched substitute for my dear harpsichord. It so much resembles a frying-pan, that, if it was not past swarming-time, the bees would certainly glide in when the noon-tide warmth invites an open window. Two strings are already broken, so that my hapless lessons and songs are truly maimed and miserable.

This village has no neighbourhood, and, in itself, no prospect. The roads are deep and dirty, in winter scarce passable. My fair cousin, Miss Martin, is really very near being very handsome. Here she is most completely buried through the dreary months. You used to admire her eyes, which promise tenderness as lavishly as your own, and to praise the sunny tint of her nut-brown and shining tresses. Her understanding is considerably above the common level; but native diffidence, and enthusiastic partiality for her friends, make her opinions, her taste and judgement, camelion-like, take all their tints from the sentiments of her favourites, and she is uneasy if her very night-ribbon is not tied like theirs.

Dear girl! heavily, with her, must drag the cold and darkened months!—No sister, no companion out of the parental character! She tells us that she always weeps for joy at the sight of the first daisy, and welcomes and talks to, and hails the little blessed harbinger of brighter days, her days of liberty as well as of light.

We dined at Nottingham yesterday. That town is finely situated; the rich valley below; the castle on an eminence so noble; the Collec-woods, the river, are beautiful objects; yet the town itself, at the distance of a mile or two, looks like an immense brick-hill, especially on one approach, being built on the side of a hill, with red houses, tier above tier.

And to-morrow we dine at the beautiful village of Clifton, with the clergyman’s wife of the place, Mrs L——r, a plump, lively, round little woman, of healthy cheek and sparkling eye. We will not boast of her knowledge, her taste, or her sentiments; but an honest, frank, and friendly heart, with good common sense, and even jocund cheerfulness, make her a most desirable neighbour in such a lone retreat.—She defies the clay and the mire of these deep roads, and the winds and the rains of winter. Welcome to a social spirit, even of the most superior order, is the sight of a cheerful human face in a country retirement, whatever be its lack of varied intelligence. Welcome is the sound of a cheerful voice, though it may not convey wit or erudition, or even droll humour, which is often possessed by people of very moderate understanding, and, where it is genuine, recompenses in amusement every other deficiency of the intellects. But, even of this, we must not boast in our friend Mrs L——r.

Her husband is of the order of the oddities, and one of those lank, lean parsons which are sowed so thick over this country; most of them the starveling curates of their fat and jolly rectors, who live in gayer scenes, and leave their clay-sunk parishes to the cheapest journeyman they can procure. Mr L——r has every characteristic of his brethren but their poverty, for the rectory is fat, though its pastor is lean; yet, by his meagre and rueful countenance, one should suspect his purse as empty as it must in reality be full. Their house is one of the neatest parsonages in the kingdom, which they have furnished elegantly. Its situation charming. They are each good humoured and hospitable. He is as quiet as she is sprightly. Without children, they seem to have none of the cares of life, nor to want any of its pleasures which are beyond their reach. She reads no curtain-lectures upon his jockying over to Nottingham to read the news three times a week; and she may visit her neighbours, and entertain them at her house, whenever she pleases. We, in this the hey-day of our youth and sensibility, should turn away with disdain from such exemptions and such pleasures; but they have happiness, guiltless happiness; surely then it matters little what are the ingredients which form it!

this honest couple do certainly possess thee. She will laugh, and give and eat good dinners, and he will read newspapers, and chew tobacco in peace, to their last hour. Shall I promise to love you to mine?—You must alter extremely before I can be in danger of breaking my word. Adieu!

Gotham, Oct. 1767.

Mr Hinckley’s clerk is arrived from Lichfield upon business to my uncle, and returns thither to-morrow morning. I feel impelled to send you a little letter by him, though we are so soon to meet and to enjoy each other’s conversation, viva voce, through many ensuing months, perhaps years; yes, on the Abyssinian Hill, beneath the shade of that majestic and sacred pile which crowns it. On Monday we bend our course towards Lichfield; lovely, interesting Lichfield! where the sweetest days of my youth have passed—the days of prime:

Nor are they yet all passed away;—it is at least, if not spring, high summer with you and I, who have not yet attained our twenty-fourth year.

Does it not seem some merit of the temper, that Honora and myself have been so tranquil and cheerful in this scene, when the idea of exchanging it for another inspires us with so much delight?

I begin to count the hours till Monday morning; yet this pleasure of expectation, perhaps more sweet and vivid than any reality which can crown it, is not without alloy, not without a mixture of regret. My amiable cousin will feel her retirement more lonely and deprived, for having had it enlivened, during a whole month, by society so dear to her. That consciousness is painful. How I wish she might be permitted to return with us! but my aunt and uncle will not hear of it.

It is evening. Half an hour ago my fair cousin and myself were walking on the grass-plat, upon which our chamber window looks. The sun was setting splendidly; but, looking up, I saw an object more bright, more lovely—the face of my beauteous Honora at the open casement, packing up a little box which we were to take home with us. She leaned forward, bending upon me her fine eyes, luminous with joy, then lifted them up with a smile of delight, and clasped her dear hands together. I need not observe that it was the thoughts of our approaching return which produced this silent eloquence of pleasure. She would have restrained it, I well know, from respect to poor Miss Martin’s very opposite sensations, had not that dear girl’s eyes, heavy with regret, been fixed upon the ground, and therefore incapable of seeing an emanation whose lustre must have pained her.

Ah! to how many gay and fashionable nymphs would our joy be unaccountable in returning to a home so quiet, to a life so uniform! They would think it only one degree more supportable than village solitude, and worthy only of a cold preference. So they must think, since neither balls, nor plays, nor lovers, await our arrival. We want them not. It is enough for us, that, in the scene we love, we can have reading, music, friendship, the company of Emma, and a few more beings like her, who diffuse the spirit of pleasure wherever they approach; and with whom “all seasons, and their change, all please alike.” The poet goes on to say,

So shall I, so will Honora say, when we rise on Monday morning—the morning that is to light us back to Lichfield!—to you!

Lichfield, Jan. 17, 1768.

I heard, with concern, that you were far from well, before I received your last letter confirming that unwelcome intelligence; but no langour of the body can depress the fervour and kindness of your spirit, when writing to those you love. For the proof now before me that it cannot, believe me sincerely grateful.

It is suspected, by a few of us here, that fine company and fine dinners do not agree with you.—Lucy is happier in her domestic circle at S—— d, but we miss you both extremely.

In a state of health so unconfirmed, the parade of ceremonial visits in the B——n neighbourhood must be oppressive. Your aunt B——d’s poor fireside is certainly your element. I say poor, because you know the old lady is the foe of good fires, and that the little room, of three doors, is an almost Lapland atmosphere; but I know that friendship, serene spirits, every elegant ingenuity, and every social virtue, have lately been the inhabitants of that chilly region, and no where flourish so well: As if they had been natives of the climate, they will not bear transplanting. Return then, Emma and Lucy, with all your intellectual handmaids, return!

I am sorry to be obliged to confess, that I have not done my purposed duty in calling upon your aunt, in the absence of her interesting nieces. My little fellow-student in music has a sorry time of it, now you are both away; exposed, without her kind screens, to the hourly shot of peevish eyes, that are always on the search for occasion to find fault. The dear child is so ductile and good, as to merit the indulgence she does not meet from that discontented aunt of yours. I want to see, and speak a word of comfort to her, and to shew attention to the old lady, that I may escape dark looks when you return—But these insurmountable snow-drifts!—and they were preceded by the most dangerous slipperiness. Never was January in a more rugged mood: Yet Honora and I do not wish to bate him an icicle;—

and the foot of Friendship will track the snows, and slide hither on the ice.

You are amongst the great: Yet do I entirely trust the sincerity of your avowed lassitude, in those long, expensive, and restrained repasts, in that circle, formal and female, which succeeds in the drawing-room. I conceive the pain of suppressed yawns, and your listenings and longings for the emancipating coach.

B——n is called a mighty good neighbourhood, surrounded, as it is, with the seats of noblemen and gentlemen of opulent fortune; but such a vicinity to splendour cannot be rationally desired by us of the middle station, and of moderate income. To such, the haughty condescension of high-life gentry is a miserable recompense for the fuss of visiting, and for the expence and trouble of entertaining them; since few of that elevated class have sense enough to feel, and to shew that they perceive what constitutes the real equality of human beings. Even of those who do not carry about them the perpetual consciousness of their fine houses, their menials, and their equipages, we may find their equals in worth and ability in our own sphere. Never was there, or man, or woman, possessed at once of a sound understanding and a generous heart, who, born in private life, ever sought and preferred the society of the great to that of people who were on a level with themselves. The desire of being the fag-end, or the head of our company, is equally contemptible. Disparity of age in marriage, disparity of understanding in friendship, and disparity of rank in company, is always undesirable.

People of distinction, who see themselves sought and courted by those of private birth and moderate fortune, generally know the precise value of the homage they receive; that it is not paid to their abilities, or their virtues, but to their rank and wealth; and if they suffer the company of their silly worshippers, it is only to divert themselves with such paltry ambition, and to ridicule it amongst their own class.

You remember the pompous parson of C——r and his foolish wife, whom we heard their neighbour, Lord N——h, ridicule, for ordering their servants to deny them in a morning to the ladies and gentlemen of the town, and to admit only the country families.

So your fine people are all for the opera, and call oratorios a heavy lumber of doleful noise; can bear no music but Italian; and assert that Handel tears the ear with the profusion of his discords! They declaim upon the power of the ancient music over the passions, which had no discords, and to which all the combinations of harmony were unknown.

You have too much real feeling for the enchanting science, to credit the slanders of vitiated taste, or to be dazzled by conclusions drawn from mistaken facts. Collins finishes his beautiful Ode on the Power of Music over the Passions, with a seeming preference of mere melody, grounded on the vast effects which, we are told, it produced in ancient Greece.

Now we know, that all poems, whatever their length, even the Iliad, was sung, instead of read, in their places of public resort. It must have been but a sort of recitative, in which the twenty-four books of the Iliad could have been sung. The effects of their meagre music, and of their rich poetry, have been blended, and those effects attributed to the first, which were, in reality, produced solely by the second, to which it was probably little more than a vehicle.

There may certainly be harmony without discords; but its unvaried sweetness would soon satiate. The desire of obtaining it is similar to Queen Elizabeth’s request, that there might be no shades in her picture.

The most vivid pleasures of all our senses result from contrast. If we delight in umbrageous vales, verdant fields, and crystal waters, we feel the delight arise with treble poignance, when we find them at the foot of rugged rocks, and encircled by barren mountains.

When Handel is harsh, the harshness is either picturesque of distress or of horror; or else designed to prepare the ear and the soul to receive more exquisite pleasure from the gay triumphant airs, or the soft delicious melodies that succeed.

But needless, I am persuaded, this attempt to guard you from fashionable heresy to the inimitable excellencies of the greatest musical composer the world has ever produced. Your sensibilities have secured your admiration. Were you condemned, in future, to listen only to the lazy and monotonous sweetness of the Italian song, you would always recollect the varied sensations and thrilling pleasures with which his dulcet strains and sublime chorusses have inspired you, and to his surely immortal fame be, like the seraph Abdiel, a