I received your letter at Shrewsbury, where I have staid five weeks under the care of Dr. Darwin; from some part of his prescription I have benefitted, and my case seemed to me of that nature which warranted applying to an eccentric practitioner. Life is certainly valueless under torments; and I think it right to struggle with physical calamity, and yet endeavour to be ultimately resigned to the will of the Supreme Disposer of all events.
I thank you very much for wishing for my return to
Ireland, inevitably postponed, now, until next summer; I hope in God to be then
able to reside where only I feel myself useful, and consequently happy. I am
delighted that your last effort promises a fair superiority over your former
productions. You should think so, that it may in fact attain it; nor am I slow
to believe that every work you shall write the next thirty years will still
deserve a higher degree of estimation. A person gifted as you are with fancy,
taste and feeling, requires only a correct attention to the language and the
ripening hand of time (to prune away juvenile exuberance and consolidate the
judgment, ) to write well. A woman’s writings, too, should
| 340 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Now I do think, though you may smile at my notion, that
you had written with more simplicity and verve, and had less chance of your
talent being tainted and sullied, under the humble roof of Mr.
Hill, than in the circle you describe to me. Virtuous, laborious
life offers no sophisticated views, though sometimes, perhaps, coarse ones;
but, from those refined and alive to refinement as you are, you had nothing to
fear; whilst empty circles and ignorant fine ladies will taint your nicer
judgment, by not offending your lighter tastes, they will corrupt your talents
and reduce you to the vacuum of their conversation, which you must (to mix with
them) of course, form yours upon, and they shall (like cards) soon level all
distinctions, which talent and genius marked originally out for you, and lead
you imperceptibly on to the
| IDA OF ATHENS. | 341 |
What did poor Versailles ever do, you should in your wrath compare it with Dublin? . . . . The ghosts of Maintenon, Sevigné, Coulanges, nay, even Fontany, La Valiere and Montespan rise against you. Some of them had hearts—and most of them talents; they were at least elegant and refined in the manners of the politest court in Europe. In our days that court showed us, in the Duchess of Coigny, most extraordinary talent; and even in Diana de Polignac, a woman who could write as a gentlewoman and act as a friend. But what can your Versailles say or do, that shall tempt the heart of feeling to sympathy, or the eye of genius to rest with complacency upon them? Nature seemed to have intended Lady Aldborough for an exception to this sentence, the world, even their own world, has long since pronounced upon them! And I have felt deeply shocked for what she must have lately suffered.
But, wherever you are, accept my best wishes, burn my nonsense, and only consider it as a proof of the pleasure I find in corresponding with you that I have written so long a letter. And that I am, dear madam,
