union takes place, I can scarcely conceive which will be hardest worked, my talking faculties or my listening ones. O what millions of things I want to inquire and to know! The rising generation, methinks, at least, might keep me some letters and packets ready for occasional conveyances. I should be grateful beyond measure. M. d'Arblay writes-" how desired is, how happy shall be, the day, in which we shall receive your dearest blessing and embrace! Pray be so kind not to forget the mate, always remembering your kindness for him and his. A thousand thousand loves to all." Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney. March 28, 1810. HAVE you received, my dearest father, the honour designed you by the Institute? The worthy M. le Breton, Secrétaire Perpétuel, entered your name upon the first vacancy the moment we informed him you would be sensible to such a distinction. I have never but once, as yet, been to the Institution; and that once was upon the occasion of the reception of M. de Tracy, with whom and with all his amiable family we are very much connected. He made a very good discourse, which he sent me a day or two after; and it was replied to by M. de Segur, now Grand Maître des Cérémonies, admirably in a discourse, which he also has had the goodness to send me in a very elegant letter from his charming wife, a lady who, though now a grandmother, retains the beauty of twenty-five, and the grace and attraction of eighteen years of age. You are always remembered here, and named with pleasure, by M. Suard and M. l'Abbé Morellet, both of whom we meet chez Madame de Tessé, one of the most spirituelle and instruite, and charming of women, though so little in her bloom that she has been married a second time to her first husband after a trial how she liked the state with him of fifty years. Adieu, dearest, most dear Sir! Oh that our approaching rejoicings may announce us some prospect of peace! I entreat to be remembered most affectionately to all my dear family and my friends, and to be kept always warm in the heart of my beloved father, who preserves an unalterable place in that of his dutiful and devoted F. D'A. P.S. M. d'Arblay conjures you to retain all your goodness for him. It cannot easily, dear Sir, be better bestowed. Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney. No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, Paris, May 1, 1810. A HAPPY May-day to my dearest father! Sweetscented be the cowslips which approach his nostrils! lovely and rosy the milkmaids that greet his eyes, and animating as they are noisy the marrow-bones and cleavers that salute his ears! Dear, and even touching, are these anniversary recollections where distance and absence give them existence only in the memory! and, at this moment, to hear and see them I would exchange all the Raphaels in our Museum, and the new and beautiful composition of Paesiello in the chapel. The pleasure of admiration is so relative that no intrinsic merit can awaken it like our proper inter ests. Yet I need not fear you will think me insensible to the noble works here exhibited. Oh, no! You, my dearest father, will unfold all my meaning, and enter into every feeling that makes even excellence vapid, which we can only witness through separation from those we love. Could you but send me a little food for the hope now in private circulation that the new alliance of the Emperor may perhaps extend to a general alliance of all Europe, Oh, heaven! how would that brighten my faculties of enjoyment! I should run about to see all I have hitherto omitted to seek, with the ardent curiosity of a traveller newly arrived; and I should hasten to review and consider all I have already beheld, with an alertness of vivacity that would draw information from every object I have as yet looked at with undiscerning tameness. Oh, such a gleam of light would new-model or re-model me, and I should make you present to all my sights, and partake of all the wonders that surround me! Were not this cruel obscurity so darkening to my views, and so depressing to my spirits, I could tell my dearest father many things that might amuse him, and detail to him, in particular, my great and rare happiness in a point the most essential, after domestic comforts, to peace of mind and cheerfulness, namely, my good fortune in my adopted friends in this my adopted country. The society in which I mix, when I can prevail with myself to quit my yet dearer fireside, is all that can be wished, whether for wit, wisdom, intelligence, gaiety, or politeness. The individuals with whom I chiefly mix, from being admired at first for their talents or amiability, are now sincerely loved for their kindness and goodness. Could I write more frequently, or with more security that I write not to the winds and the waves, I would characterize the whole set to you, and try to make us yet shake hands in the same party. I have heard of this opportunity so suddenly that I have not a moment for extending my use of it to my dear sisters, brothers, and friends, except through your goodness, which must again fabricate messages to all and every one from the materials you well know to be in my heart, and which no one can draw forth and disseminate with equal justness. M. d'Arblay is at his office, and knows nothing of this offer; he is well, but thinner, much, and overworked, terribly, at this moment. Alex. is writing on the same table, but not quite so familiarly nor so glibly; for he is preparing twenty lines of Euripides for his master. Heaven bless my ever dear father, prays his F. D'A. Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney. No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, Paris, ce 16 Sept. 1810. CAN I tell you, my dearest father!-oh, no! I can never tell you—the pleasure, the rapture with which I received your letter by Madame Solvyns. It had been so cruelly long since I had heard from you, so anxious and suffering a space since I had seen your handwriting, that, when at last it came, I might have seemed, to one who did not know me, rather penetrated by sudden affliction than by joy. But how different was all within to what appeared without! My partnerin-all received it at his bureau, and felt an impatience so unconquerable to communicate so extreme a pleasure that he quitted everything to hasten home; for he was incapable of going on with his business. How satisfactory, also, is all the intelligence! how gaily, with what spirit written! I have not been able to give the joy to Madame Solvyns, whom I have not the pleasure to know, nor have ever even seen, though I am well disposed to admire, after your agreeable picture of her, and the great obligation I owe to her. I have sent your message to M. Suard by a lady with whom he is particularly acquainted, and who assures me qu'il a été bien touché by your remembrance. With regard to the Institute, my dearest Sir, you are nominated correspondent in the class des Beaux Arts.' The Secrétaire Perpétuel, M. le Breton, has been so good as to bring to me himself the form of your nomination. He has received the letter you wrote of acceptance, and with perfect approvance. I am soon to meet M. Suard at the house of the lady I have mentioned, and I shall then make the enquiries you desire, of books and authors. I do nothing of late but dream of seeing you, my most dear father. I think I dream it wide awake, too; the desire is so strong that it pursues me night and day, and almost persuades me it has something in it of reality: and I do not choose to discourage even ideal happiness. But my poor mate dreams no such dreams: his bureau is of a business too substantial to allow of castle-building in the air. My castles are rather upon the sea; pray for me that they be not all drowned. Adieu, most dear Sir, Your own F. D'A. |