The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
Crutchley!—why he is the proudest among us!”
This speech she instantly repeated, and just at that moment the preacher said—“Those—who are the weakest are ever the soonest puffed up.”
He instantly made me a bow, with an expressive laugh, that thanked me for the compliment. To be sure it happened most untimely.
As soon as we came out of church, he called out—
“Well, Miss Burney, this is what I never can forgive! Am I so proud?”
“I am sure if you are,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “you have imposed upon me, for I always thought you the humblest man I knew. Look how Burney casts up her eyes! Why, are you so proud, after all, Mr. Crutchley?”
“I hope not,” cried he, rather gravely “but I little thought of ever going to Streatham church to hear I was the proudest man in it.”
“Well, but,” said I, “does it follow you certainly are so because I say so?”
“Why yes, I suppose I am if you see it, for you are one that see all things and people right.”
“Well, it’s very odd,” said Mrs. Thrale, “I wonder how she found you out.”
“I wonder,” cried I, laughing, “how you missed finding him out.”
“Oh! worse and worse!” cried he. “Why there’s no bearing this!”
“I protest, then,” said Mrs. Thrale, “he has always taken me in; he seemed to me the humblest creature I knew; always speaking so ill of himself—always depreciating all that belongs to him.”
“Why, I did not say,” quoth I, “that he had more vanity than other men; on the contrary, I think he has none.”
“Well distinguished,” cried she; “a man may be proud enough, and yet have no vanity.”
“Well, but what is this pride?” cried Mr. Crutchley; “what is it shown in?—what are its symptoms and marks?”
“A general contempt,” answered I, undaunted, “of every body and of every thing.”
“Well said, Miss Burney!” exclaimed Mrs. Thrale. “Why that’s true enough, and so he has.”
“A total indifference,” continued I, “of what is thought of him by others, and a disdain alike of happiness or misery.”
“Bravo, Burney!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “that’s true enough!”
“Indeed,” cried Mr. Crutchley, “you are quite mistaken. Indeed, nobody in the world is half so anxious about the opinions of others; I am wretched—I am miserable if I think myself thought ill of; not, indeed, by everybody, but by those whose good opinion I have tried—there if I fall, no man can be more unhappy.”
“Oh, perhaps,” returned I, “there may be two or three people in the world you may wish should think well of you, but that is nothing to the general character.”
“Oh, no! many more. I am now four-and-thirty, and perhaps, indeed, in all my life I have not tried to gain the esteem of more than four-and-thirty people, but——”
“Oh, leave out the thirty!” cried I, “and then you may be nearer the truth.”
“No, indeed: ten, at least, I daresay I have tried for, but, perhaps, I have not succeeded with two. However, I am thus even with the world; for if it likes me not, I can do without it—I can live alone; and that, indeed, I prefer to any thing I can meet with; for those with whom I like to live are so much above me, that I sink into nothing in their society; so I think it best to run away from them.”
“That is to say,” cried I, “you are angry you cannot yourself excel—and this is not pride?”
“Why, no, indeed; but it is melancholy to be always behind—to hear conversation in which one is unable to join—”
“Unwilling,” quoth I, “you mean.”
“No, indeed, but really unable; and therefore what can I do so well as to run home? As to an inferior, I hope I think that of nobody; and as to my equals, and such as I am on a par with, heaven knows I can ill bear them!—I would rather live alone to all eternity!”
This conversation lasted till we got home, when Mrs. Thrale said—
“Well, Mr. Crutchley, has she convinced you?”
“I don’t know,” cried I, “but he has convinced me.”
“Why, how you smote him,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “but I think you make your part good as you go on.”
“The great difference,” said I, “which I think there is between Mr. Seward and Mr. Crutchley, who in some things are very much alike, is this—Mr. Seward has a great deal of vanity and no pride, Mr. Crutchley a great deal of pride and no vanity.”
“Just, and true, and wise!” said dear Mrs. Thrale, “for Seward is always talking of himself, and always with approbation; Mr. Crutchley seldom mentions himself, and when he does, it is with dislike. And which have I, most pride or most vanity?”
“Oh, most vanity, certa!” quoth I.
At Supper we had only Sir Philip and Mr. Crutchley. The conversation of the morning was then again renewed.—
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Thrale, “what a smoking did Miss Burney give Mr. Crutchley!”
“A smoking, indeed!” cried He. “Never had I such a one before! Never did I think to get such a character! I had no notion of it.”
“Nay, then,” said I, “why should you, now?”
“But what is all this?” cried Sir Philip, delighted enough at any mischief between Mr. Crutchley and me, or between any male and female, for he only wishes something to go forward, and thinks a quarrel or dispute next best to fondness and flirting.
“Why, Miss Burney,” answered she, “gave Mr. Crutchley this morning a noble trimming. I had always thought him very humble, but she shewed me my mistake, and said I had not distinguished pride from vanity.”
“Oh, never was I so mauled in my life,” said he.
Enough, however, of this rattle, which lasted till we all went to bed, and which Mrs. Thrale most kindly kept up, by way of rioting me from thinking, and which Mr. Crutchley himself bore with the utmost good nature, from having noticed that I was out of spirits. . . .
July 2—The other morning Mrs. Thrale ran hastily into my room, her eyes full of tears, and cried,—
“What an extraordinary man is this Crutchley! I declare he has quite melted me! He came to me just now, and thinking I was uneasy I could do no more for Perkins,111 though he cared not himself if the man were drowned, he offered to lend him a thousand pounds, merely by way of giving pleasure to me!”
Miss Sophy Streathield is Commented on
Well-it was, I think, Saturday, Aug. 25, that Mrs Thrale brought me back.112 We then took up Mr. Crutchley, who had come to his town-house upon business, and who accompanied us thither for a visit of three days.
In the evening Mr. Seward also came. He has been making the western tour, and gave us, with a seriousness that kept me continually grinning, some account of a doctor, apothecary, or ‘chemist’ belonging to every town at which he had stopped.
And when we all laughed at his thus following up the faculty, he undauntedly said,—
“I think it the best way to get information; I know no better method to learn what is going forward anywhere than to send for the chief physician of the place, so I commonly consult him the first day I stop at a place, and when I have fee’d him, and made acquaintance, he puts