The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Volumes One and Two. Harriette Wilson
creature!" uttered Wellington, "where is Lorne?"
"Good gracious!" said I, out of all patience at his stupidity; "what come you here for, duke?"
"Beautiful eye, yours!" explained Wellington.
"Aye man! they are greater conquerors than ever Wellington shall be; but, to be serious, I understood you came here to try to make yourself agreeable?"
"What child! do you think that I have nothing better to do than to make speeches to please ladies?" said Wellington.
"Après avoir dépeuplé la terre vous devez faire tout pour la repeupler," I replied.
"You should see me where I shine," Wellington observed, laughing.
"Where's that, in Gods name?"
"In a field of battle," answered the hero.
"Battez vous, donc, et qu'un autre me fasse la cour!" said I.
But love scenes, or even love quarrels, seldom tend to amuse the reader, so, to be brief, what was a mere man, even though it were the handsome Duke of Argyle, to a Wellington!
Argyle grew jealous of Wellington's frequent visits, and hiding himself in his native woods wrote me the following very pathetic letter.
"I am not quite sure whether I do, or do not love you—I am afraid I did too much;—but, as long as you find pleasure in the society of another, and a hero too, I am well contented to be a mere common mortal, a monkey, or what you will. I too have my heroines waiting for me in all the woods about here. Here are the wood-cutter's daughter and the gardener's maid always waiting for my gracious presence, and to which of them I shall throw the handkerchief I know not. How then can I remain constant to your inconstant charms? I could have been a little romantic about you it is true; but I always take people as I find them, et j'ai ici beau jeu. Adieu.
"I am very fond of you still, for all this.
"ARGYLE."
This was my answer:
"Indeed as you are as yet the only man who has ever had the least influence over me, therefore I entreat you do not forget me! I wish I were the woodcutter's daughter awaiting your gracious presence, in the woods for days! weeks! months! so that at last you would reward me with the benevolent smile of peace and forgiveness, or that illumined, beautiful expression of more ardent feeling such as I have often inspired and shall remember for ever, come what may; and whether your fancy changes or mine. You say you take people as you find them; therefore you must and you shall love me still, with all my imperfections on my foolish head, and that, dearly.
"HARRIETTE."
Wellington was now my constant visitor—a most unentertaining one, Heaven knows! and, in the evenings, when he wore his broad red ribbon, he looked very like a rat-catcher.
"Do you know," said I to him one day, "do you know the world talk about hanging you?"
"Eh?" said Wellington.
"They say you will be hanged, in spite of all your brother Wellesley can say in your defence."
"Ha!" said Wellington, very seriously, "what paper do you read?"
"It is the common talk of the day," I replied.
"They must not work me in such another campaign," Wellington said, smiling, "or my weight will never hang me."
"Why you look a little like the apothecary in Romeo already," I said.
In my walks Brummell often joined me, and I now walked oftener than usual: indeed whenever I could make anybody walk with me; because I wanted to meet the man with his Newfoundland dog, who was not the sort of man either that generally strikes the fancy of a very young female; for he was neither young nor at all gaily drest. No doubt he was very handsome; but it was that pale expressive beauty, which oftener steals upon us by degrees, after having become acquainted, than strikes us at first sight.
I had of late frequently met him, and he always turned his head back after he had passed me; but whether he admired, or had indeed observed me, or whether he only looked back after his large dog, was what puzzled and tormented me. "Better to have been merely observed by that fine noble-looking being, than adored by all the men on earth besides," thought I, being now at the very tip-top of my heroics.
Dean Swift mentions having seen, in the grand academy of Lagado, an ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method of building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downwards to the foundation; and which he justified by the like practice of those two prudent insects the bee and the spider. The operation of my love then was after the model of this architect. The airy foundation on which I built my castles caused them ever to descend. Once in my life, when I raised my air-built fabric unusually high, it fell with such a dead weight on my heart, that the very vital spark of existence was nearly destroyed. I have never enjoyed one hour's health since. Now, however, I look on all my past bitter suffering, caused by this same love, which many treat as a plaything and a child, and which I believe to be one of the most arbitrary, ungovernable passions in nature, as a wild dream, remembered by me merely as I recollect three days of delirium, by which I was afflicted after the scarlet fever, with the idea of rats and mice running over my head, and which thus kept me in a frenzy, from the mere working of a disordered brain.
Characters and feelings, unnaturally stretched on the sentimental bed of torture, must return with violence to their natural tone and dimensions, says a celebrated French writer. The idol of romantic passion, in some unlucky moment of common sense or common life, is discovered to be the last thing their worshippers would wish the idol to be found—a mere human being! with passions, and infirmities, and wants, utterly unprovided for by the statutes of romance. Soon, we find too, a certain falling off in our own powers of human life, a subjection to common accidents, to ill health, and to indigence, which sicklies o'er the rich colouring of passion with the pale cast of humanity.
But to proceed—if, in my frequent walks about Sloane Street and Hyde Park, I failed to meet the stranger, whose whole appearance had so affected my imagination, I was sure to see George Brummell, whose foolish professions of love I could not repeat, for I scarcely heard them. One day, just as I was going to sit down to dinner with Fanny and Amy, who was passing the evening with her, I felt a kind of presentiment come over me, that, if I went into Hyde Park at that moment, I should meet this stranger. It was past six o'clock. I had never seen him but at that hour. They both declared that I was mad, and Lord Alvanly calling on Fanny at that moment, they retailed my folly to his lordship.
"I dare say he is some dog-fancier, or whipper-in, or something of the sort," said Alvanly. "God bless my soul! I thought you had more sense. What does Argyle say to all this?"
Lord Lowther now entered the room.
"How very rude you all are," said Fanny. "I have told you frequently that this is my dinner-hour, and you never attend to it!"
"It is those d-mn grocers, the Mitchels," said Alvanly, "who have taught you to dine at these hours! Who the d—l dines at six? why I am only just out of bed!"
Lord Lowther made many civil apologies. He wanted to have the pleasure of engaging us three to dine with him on the following day, to meet the Marquis of Hertford, then Lord Yarmouth; a Mr. Graham, the son of Sir James Graham, Bart.; Street, the editor of the Courier newspaper; and J.W. Croker, M.P. of the Admiralty.
We accepted the invitation, and Lord Lowther, after begging us not to be later than half-past seven, took his leave.
Alvanly accompanied me as far as Hyde Park, laughing at me and my man and his dog all the way. The park was now entirely empty—nothing like a hero, nor even a dog to be seen.
"I must now wish you good morning," said Alvanly. "I am not going to be groom," he added in my ear.
I shook hands with him, without at all understanding what he meant, and walked down towards that side of the river where I had once or twice seen the stranger coaxing his dog to swim by throwing stones into the water.
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