FullReads

“And reads,” said Lady N—-.

“And reads,” said Mrs. Fanshaw. “We have learned ladies now, wherever one goes, who tell one they never play at cards–I am sure they are very bad company. Jane,” said she, turning to her daughter, “I hope you won’t take it into your head to turn out a reading lady!”

“Oh dear, no!” said Miss Fanshaw: “we had not much time for reading at Suxberry House, we were so busy with our masters;–we had a charming English master though, to teach us elocution, because it’s so fashionable now to read loud well. Mrs. Harcourt, isn’t it odd to read English books to a French governess?” continued this young lady, whose constrained taciturnity now gave way to a strong desire to show herself off before Lady N—-. She had observed that Isabella and Matilda had been listened to with approbation, and she imagined that, when she spoke, she should certainly eclipse them. Mrs. Harcourt replied to her observation, that Mad. de Rosier not only read and spoke English remarkably well, but that she had also a general knowledge of English literature.

“Oh! here are some French books,” said Miss Fanshaw, taking down one out of the book-case–“‘Journal Etranger’–dear me! are you translating of this, Miss Isabella?”

“No,” said Mrs. Harcourt; “Madame de Rosier brought it down stairs yesterday, to show us an essay of Hume’s on the study of history, which is particularly addressed to women; and Mad. de Rosier says that it is not to be found in several of the late editions of Hume’s Essays–she thought it singular that it should be preserved in a French translation.”

“There is,” said Isabella, “an entertaining account in that essay of a lady who asked Hume to lend her some novels! He lent her Plutarch’s Lives, which she thought very amusing, till she found out that they were true. As soon as she came to the names of Caesar and Alexander, she returned the books.”

Mrs. Fanshaw was surprised that Lady N—- begged to look at this essay; and was much disappointed to observe that the graceful manner in which Miss Fanshaw presented the book to her ladyship escaped notice.

“Pray, Miss Matilda, is that a drawing?” said Mrs. Fanshaw, in hopes of leading to a more favourable subject.

“Oh, dear me! do pray favour us with a sight of it!” cried Miss Fanshaw, and she eagerly unrolled the paper, though Matilda assured her that it was not a drawing.

It was Hogarth’s print of a country dance, which was prefixed to his “Analysis of Beauty.”

“It is the oddest thing!” exclaimed Miss Fanshaw, who thought every thing odd or strange which she had not seen at Suxberry house. Without staying to observe the innumerable strokes of humour and of original genius in the print, she ran on–“La! its hardly worth any one’s while, surely, to draw such a set of vulgar figures–one hates low humour.” Then, in a hurry to show her taste for dress, she observed that “people, formerly, must have had no taste at all;–one can hardly believe such things were ever worn.”

Mrs. Fanshaw, touched by this reflection upon the taste of former times, though she seldom presumed to oppose any of her daughter’s opinions, could not here refrain from saying a few words in defence of sacks, long waists, and whalebone stays, and she pointed to a row of stays in the margin of one of these prints of Hogarth.

Miss Fanshaw, who did not consider that, with those who have a taste for propriety in manners, she could not gain any thing by a triumph over her mother, laughed in a disdainful manner at her mother’s ” partiality for stays,” and wondered how any body could think long waists becoming.

“Surely, any body who knows any thing of drawing, or has any taste for an antique figure, must acknowledge the present fashion to be most graceful.” She appealed to Isabella and Matilda.