I read your little secret memoir with much the same
species of emotion as Uncle Toby listened
to
| 239 |
You allude to the “imprudence of Ellen Maria Williams. Although I am perfectly
acquainted with her works, I know not anything of her history. May I hope in
your next for a little biographical sketch. Imprudence of conduct so frequently
connected with superiority of talent in woman, is, indeed, a solecism. Dare we
say with Burns, that “the light
which leads astray, is the light from
Heaven?” Salvater says, “the
primary matter of which woman is constituted is more flexible, irritable
and elastic than that of man;” added to this, their delicacy, the
ardour of their subtilized feelings, the warmth, the animated tenderness of
their affections; then, for a moment, conceive the influence of genius and
talent over this dangerous organization; conceive a flowing but dejected heart,
refined but desponding mind, escaping from the solitary state of isolation its
own superiority has plunged it in,—deceived by a gleam of sympathy, and
led “by passion’s meteor beam,” beyond the barrier
virtue has erected and which prudence never transgresses. Then, though we
lament, while we condemn, we almost cease to wonder. I had yesterday a letter
(four pages long) from Lady Clonbrock, with
an account of St.
Clair’s reception at Bath and Bristol. It is just
such as I knew you would wish for the bantling, who first sought protection and
countenance from yourself. I know you will smile at the vanity of this account;
but it set every particle of authorship afloat which had been for some time
grad-
| 240 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
The commissions I troubled you with—were to inquire at Archer’s if the London edition of St. Clair was come over, and at Power’s music-shop, Westmorland Street, if “Castle Hyde”* was published. I shall watch the post,—so have mercy on me!
