Amelia Opie

“ Opie to her father was perhaps her most prominent characteristic. They were companions and friends through life; and when, at length, in a good old age, he was taken from her, she wept with a sorrow which no time could obliterate, and for which there was no solace but in the hope of rejoining him in a better world. Deeply touching are the evidences of the love which prompted her pen in its most successful efforts, influenced her in all the steps she took throughout her career, and rendered her indefatigable in cheering and soothing him through the long years of his declining age. ”

“ Consequently, great was my impatience till the day of the dinner came, and the great orator arrived; but though he again talked most pleasantly, and on law subjects too, not one single allusion did he make to the Huntingdon cause. In vain did I try to take courage, and remind him of his promise; I was not then a married woman, and fancied it would be presuming to do so; but, when I heard his carriage announced, and saw him about to depart, made valiant by despair, I exclaimed “Oh! Mr. Erskine, you have not fulfilled your promise! you have not told us the particulars of the Huntingdon cause!” ”

“ I have another woman in my mind’s eye; one who has been the liveliest of the lively, the gayest of the gay; admired for her talents by those who knew her only in her writings, and esteemed for her worth by those who were acquainted with her in the relations of private life; one who, having grown up in the laxest sect of semi-christians, felt the necessity of vital religion, while attending upon her father with dutiful affection, during the long and painful infirmities of his old age ”

“ I rose, and went to Lady Charleville. “This,” said she, “is Lady S. Napier, will you sing her a ballad?” and, recollecting how ill I once used Lady C. in not answering a letter of hers for three years, and eager to make amends, I said I could not sing anything worth hearing, but I would try. “Surely,” said Lady Sarah, “that was injudicious; Mrs. Opie would rather not have had the attention of the company so loudly solicited.” “Very true,” replied Lady C., “but your ladyship is always the best-bred woman in the world, and I the worst, and I never see you without taking a lesson in manners.” ”

“ I try not to be impatient of the duration of this winter, and I rejoice at the belief, (probably, however, an erroneous one,) that my only tree, an elm, in my south garden, into which my sitting room looks, is budding! It is a pain to me to think of the sufferings of inanimate nature, as well as of human nature. I grieve for the cruel sea’s inroads at Cromer! But, as almost all things “work together” for some “good,” these dangers give rise to circumstances, honourable to one’s species; for instance, the pious child that would not be saved till his father’s safety was secured. ”

“ The sea is sometimes calm, and its roar becomes a gentle murmuring, but these rolling waterfalls seem to know no change, but fall and roar for ever, exempt from the common doom of created things, which is to alter and to end. There is an inhabited castle on a rock beside the Rhine-falls; I should like to know whether its inhabitants have, of necessity, acquired the habit of speaking so loud as to break the drum of the ears of their acquaintances!
We go on improving in our enjoyments. I mean, the natural beauties we see, go on increasing in sublimity and charm ”

“ London, August 23rd, 1749.
Worthy sir, your letter of December 24th, 1748, and my very dear niece, Amelia Briggs, came safe to England the latter end of May last, praised be God! My honoured father dying in May 1748, yours to him came to me with one directed for myself, in both which you give very uncommon proofs of real friendship. Friendship in prosperity is common; but in adversity none are true friends but the pious. ”

“ Those courts are epitomes of human life, and their walls, within their bounded space, contain beings full of the passions, infirmities, resentments, self-deceits, self-interests, fears, hopes, triumphs, and defeats, incident to our common nature, and the proofs and results of which are there painfully brought before us.
A court of justice may be likened to a stage, the principal performers on which are the barristers; and happiest are they who have the most frequent opportunities of moving the feelings, and influencing the convictions, of that respectable audience—a British jury. ”

“ Nay more, were I not certain my father would disapprove such, or indeed any connexion for me, there are moments, when, ambitious of being a wife and mother, and of securing to myself a companion for life, capable of entering into all my pursuits, and of amusing me by his,—I could almost resolve to break all fetters, and relinquish too, the wide, and often aristocratic circle, in which I now move, and become the wife of a man, whose genius has raised him from obscurity, into fame and comparative affluence ”

“ Idleness was the fault that he was most violent against in both sexes; and I shall ever regret those habits of indolence which made me neglect to write while it was in my power to profit by his criticisms and advice, and when, by employing myself more regularly in that manner, I should have been sure to receive the proudest and dearest reward of woman, the approbation of a husband, at once the object of her respect and of her love.
Mr. Opie entertained a partiality for works of fiction, and not unfrequently indulged himself in reading a novel, even if it were not of the first class ”

“ I feel it a very desirable house to die in, that is to be ill in; a “pleasant cradle for reposing age;” and I do so love to look at my noble trees and my castle turrets rising above them; and when the leaves fall off, I shall still have the pleasure of seeing the green and grassy mound of the Castle. From one of my drawing room windows I see the woods and rising grounds of Thorpe. I neither hear nor see the cattle on market days, and I am quite happy in my choice, and deeply thankful that “the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.” ”

“ I never saw him satisfied with any one of his productions, and often, very often, have I seen him enter my sitting room, and throwing himself in an agony of despondence on the sofa, exclaim, ‘I never, never shall be a painter, as long as I live!’”
Happily for women they have, in the little domestic cares of every day life, a source of employment and interest, which, compelling their attention, diverts their thoughts into wholesome channels, and saves them from uselessly brooding over evils they cannot avert. ”

“ All the authors, of both sexes, and artists too, that are not too ignorant or full of conceit to be capable of alarm, tell me they have had the same feeling when about to receive judgment from the public. Besides, whatever I read appears to me so superior to my own productions, that I am in a state of most unenviable humility. Mr. Opie has no patience with me; but he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others, and underrate myself. ”

“ By the bye, your books are lying on the table of our drawing room most days, and I hear great praise of them; and yet I do not feel the slightest curiosity to open one of them. The reason is, there are also a hundred of Sir Walter Scott’s in the same place, and as it is impossible to read all, I have no wish to read any; for to read without judging, is to read without amusement; and how can I judge without comparing, detecting likenesses, or admiring originality? ”

“ So far all our recollections of childhood and adolescence, though they call up tender thoughts, excite none of the deeper feeling with which we look back upon the time of life when wounds heal slowly, and losses are irreparable. This is, no doubt, the reason why so many persons who have begun to write their own lives have stopped short when they got through the chapter of their youth.”
The poet elsewhere observes, that the wounded spirit, which shrinks from such a record of past griefs, finds solace in breathing out its regret in the tender strains of verse. ”

“ She is gone to-day on her way to London. How many things I want to say to thee, but can’t say them! but I am very thankful for what I can do, and I do not repine at what I can’t do; and life flies only too fast. I do not see, at present, any chance for my speedy recovery; but life has still its charms. I am so glad to have an excuse for lying in bed all day: it is so troublesome to move from bed to chair, and thence to sofa.
Thine ever, most affectionately,
A. Opie. ”

“ I hear that an accusation is bringing forward against me, and as I shrink not from the charge, I came to surrender myself, and save you the trouble—here I am, guillotine me, if you will, I am firm and steady.’ I endeavoured to convince him the decree of accusation might be repealed, and that all that was necessary was his concealment till the danger was gone by. ‘Conceal me then in your house, my own is not safe,’ cried he; but I convinced him that mine was too public. However, I sent to a friend in whom I could confide, who concealed Legendre in his, till the decree was annulled. ”

“ The life of the good old Quakeress, and once dashing Amelia Opie, is one of very remarkable interest. Possessed of a singularly joyous temperament, full of artless vivacity, and gifted with the most loveable powers of conversation and expression, she went forth in early womanhood into the élite of London society, and found a welcome, through her own natural graces and cheerfulness, among the most brilliant circles of wit and intellect of the metropolis ”

“ My acquaintance with the subject of these Memoirs, commenced nearly forty years ago; and well do I remember the first impressions made on me by her frank and open manner, the charm of her fine and animated countenance, her artless cheerfulness and benevolence, and the extraordinary powers of her conversation. But it was not till the time of Dr. Alderson’s last illness, that my acquaintance with Mrs. Opie ripened into confidential friendship. ”

“ Briggs, the much esteemed relative of Mrs. Opie, had, for some time past, been suffering from pulmonary disorder; and as he expressed a desire to see her, she was prepared to expect the summons, which was not long delayed. On the 9th of January she wrote:—
I do so enjoy my home. In a morning I am only too full of company; but when at nightfall I draw my sofa round, for a long evening to myself, I have such a feeling of thankfulness!—and so I ought. It is well to see how the burden is fitted to the back by our merciful Father. I have been a lone woman through life; an only child! ”

“ Why should I dwell on emotions which every one probably has felt on entering the Louvre gallery? My own pleasure, my ignorant pleasure, was nothing to the more scientific delight of my husband; and I recall with melancholy satisfaction, the enjoyment which he derived from this visit to the French metropolis; an enjoyment purchased and deserved by many years of the most assiduous labours in his difficult profession ”

“ Men of all views, political and religious, were there; all known, and having earned a niche there, by some superiority of natural or acquired excellences. There Lafayette, Cooper, David, Madame de Staël, and others, of her foreign friends, hung side by side. There J. J. Gurney and his brother, Elizabeth Fry and Lucy Aggs, and close by them the Bishops of Norwich and Durham, and Professors Sedgwick and Whewell; there the poets and statesmen, whose genius had charmed her; and last, though not the least, Mrs. Siddons, in her glory, as Queen Catherine. ”

“ Neither illusion nor reality, at any subsequent period of my life, ever gave me such a sensation of pure, heartfelt delight, as I experienced when morning after morning I looked on that blue sky, and listened to those bells, and fancied that I heard the music of the home of the blest, pealing from the dwelling of the most high. ”

“ One great advantage which assize courts possess over the theatre, is the certainty we have, that all the emotions we behold are real, not acted, and springing from the exigences of the moment; that the eloquent energy of the pleaders, the replies of the witnesses, and, alas! the fearful perjury sometimes elicited by cross-examination, together with every outbreak of tongue, are not only like the representations of great actors, “faithful to nature in the mimic scenes,” but are nature itself! ”

“ Opie,
Your kind Christmas-box arrived safe, and temptingly beautiful, yesterday evening; many thanks.
We are, even in these dark and short days, as brilliant on the high road, and in open air, as during the long and bright days of summer and autumn. I think I never saw a more gaudy, yet numerous and sober procession, (processions, I should say, for they lasted from morning till night,) than passed the house yesterday. I think myself particularly fortunate in the place of my abode, on this account. The present world is such a fine subject to excite intense reflection. ”

“ Set off in a heavy, dark, dirty vehicle, with Thomas Opie, for St. Ives! day bright, but cold; hills steep, rocky, rugged! car jolting; horse going a foot’s pace; and two hours and a half going through a barren, rocky country, full of mines, and desolate. Sublimely ugly! Halstown, a curious place; four and thirty double cottages of white stone, abodes of miners, placed in shelves on the edge of a rocky, steep, high hill. The bay and sea at St. Ives lovely. (22nd.) My last day at Penzance! I felt quitting a spot so endeared to me by hours of refreshing, and, I trust, beneficial solitude. ”

“ But even then, at this seeming height of his proud career, I do not remember to have heard him greeted by a single shout; the evidences of a people’s love did not hail his presence; and no eager and exulting crowd hung on his carriage wheels; and when I turned from the window, as the cortège disappeared, I felt disappointed, not only because I had not seen Buonaparte, but because there was no expression heard of animating popular feeling. ”