Bland

“ Perhaps, Gentlemen, you will suppose I am guilty of a great deal of Vanity, in imagining myself capable of so grossly imposing on the Understanding of a Lady of such refined sense as Miss Blandy was acknowledged to be. In answer to which I can only say, that when Love has taken possession of the Heart, it leaves but very little Room for Reflection. That this was Miss Blandy's case, I will give you some few instances of the violence of her Passion, and then leave you to judge to what extravagant Lengths that might carry her. ”

“ Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent master in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have a quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating manners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A gentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die. You shall win, however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit, Blandois. You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged you, to your own high spirit. ”

“ However, we've seen the last of him now. He came in to-day in his usual state, and began, 'Where's that fool Bland?' Oh, I very soon showed him where I was. If we do lose the custom of his friends, it won't ruin us. ”

“ Mrs. Bland.—I wish I might. I'll follow your example, and solve my doubt in trumps.
Young Darby.—How charming of you, Mrs. Bland; I was so hoping you might.
Mrs. Bland.—Oh, Mr. Darby, did you want it? ”

“ Nothing, answered the Captain, seems impossible to Men of undaunted Courage and heroic Spirits.... Now, as to Miss Blandy, with whom you are surprized I should enter into such deep engagements, attend to my Reasons, and your Wonder I believe will soon cease. I am, you know, the Son of a Nobleman, and, consequently have those high Thoughts and ambitious Desires which are inherent to those of a noble Extraction. ”

“ It is true that the old gentleman never led the conversation to Blanden's late experiences, but in his fresh, sterling nature, in his devotion to his profession, lay a power which was capable of holding enthralled the evil spirits of a distracted life. ”

“ You always has it out and airs it, and makes yourself sad with thinking of it. 'Tisn't because you're poor that you're sad; 'tis because you think you're poor, and talk so much about it. You're not so poor as we, only you have so many grievances.'"
"Ah, you are speaking of the organist?" Lord Blandamer asked. "I fancy it was he who was talking with you in the minster this afternoon, was it not?" ”

“ Miss Blandy, I have upon my hands an unhappy affair, which to you I have made no secret of; I can assure you, before I speak what follows, I am not now married, nor never was; tho' by the nature of the Laws of Scotland, I am involved in some difficulties brought upon me by that affair, out of which it will be some time before I can extricate myself. Do you think you could love a man well enough to stay till this affair be brought to a determination? ”

“ You are so strong, I can't expect you to understand the imbecilities of such a weak fool as I am. From the moment when I ceased to spend all my time and all your money on your work, I seemed utterly degraded in my own eyes, and it did not seem to matter what I did, so I have gone on from bad to worse, and the principles you would die for, have only been will-o'-the-wisp lights to lead me into direr troubles than I should ever have known without them. ”

“ Blanden relinquished his visit to the singer, and hastened to his house, so as to be able to indulge in those thoughts and emotions which besieged him after the occurrence in the churchyard. He was in a mood in which life no longer seemed worth living; the ruin of youth and beauty filled him with deep melancholy, and the connection between human destinies, by means of which a load of guilt suddenly struck an innocent person, occasioned painful reflections. ”

“ Why do we not give you more severe talkings to than we do? They would do you no end of good, and we know it, and yet refrain. You scarcely ever get a severe talking to, any of you. Yesterday, after leaving Charing Cross Station, I walked up Bond Street. I was really going somewhere, oh sceptical child; you must not think your father was merely loafing. I was not in a hurry, and I looked at the shops. There were lots of pretty women driving up and down in their carriages, but I did not look at them; I was at odds with the whole sex. ”

“ But to refrain from sanding the sugar or watering the milk—especially for a 'family man,' who has 'others to think of besides himself'—to keep one's hand from this, and one's tongue from evil-speaking, lying and slandering, to keep one's body in temperance and soberness, to be true and just in all one's dealings—this would be not only difficult but absurd, nowadays. ”

“ There no prompting of witnesses, no lies, no little arts of law will do. There, I doubt not, I shall meet my poor father and mother, and my much loved friend (through the mercies of Jesus Christ, who died for sinners) forgiven and in bliss. There the tears that cannot move man's heart shall be by God dried up. Farewell, Sir, God bless you, and believe me, while I live, ever Your much obliged humble Servant,
M. BLANDY.
(N.B.—This letter was attested to be M. Blandy's, &c., Apr. 4th, 1752.) ”

“ They just wag their heads and laugh and exclaim, 'Oh, the Blands!' and don't expect anything better of us. Conversations are started when some one comes in saying: 'Have you heard the latest about the Blands?' I'm sure they would be disappointed if we ever reformed. People have always been so kind to me"—Natalie's voice deepened again—"Ah! ”

“ Blandy's disorder was owing to poison, and strongly, from circumstances, that the prisoner was privy to it, the poor man, now too far gone, being informed that there was great reason to suspect his own child, what expressions does he make use of? No harsher than in the gentlest method saying, "Poor love-sick girl! I always thought there was mischief in those Scotch pebbles. Oh, that damned villain Cranstoun, that has ate of the best and drank of the best my house afforded, to serve me thus and ruin my poor love-sick girl!" ”

“ The pleasures, the emotional outlets of art, the distractions which intelligence can always find in the world, are closed against them. Meanwhile, beneath their commonplace domesticity the passion for Romance, though smothered, smoulders on. One fine day, on the most ridiculously inadequate provocation, it bursts into a flame and then—“decree nisi with costs.”
Poor devils, poor, poor devils, they haven’t brains enough to outwit a Slaters’ detective or even a prying housemaid.
Brains, ah! yes. Brains are your stand-by in marriage as in most other of life’s perplexities, Alexa. ”

“ I exist beautifully. I look nice, I talk, when I take the trouble to talk, quite prettily. I wear my clothes with an air. I am an example of what a human being should be. Thus, by merely being, do I recompense the world for all the trouble it takes for me.” If he does say that, then I for my part can think of no adequate rejoinder. If it be a man who talks like that, one kicks him and takes the consequences ”

“ By suspending the good lady's suspension till the end of vol. three (I don't cut her down to a single one) , the interest is never suffered to drop till it reaches the New one. Or, as I'm doing the Newgate Calendar, (I like to have two strings to my bow!) what say you, gents? if, in my fashionable novel of Miss Blandy (the Oxford lass, who popped off in her pumps for dosing—“poison in jest!”—her doting old dad,) St. Bartlemy and his conjurors were made to play first fiddle! ”

“ Judging from my own observation and knowledge of the way in which human nature is composed I haven’t the smallest hesitation in answering “No.” My observation tells me that there may be outward acquiescence, my penetration tells me no less surely that there is always hidden resentment. A thwarted desire for freedom works like poison in the blood; in the long run it sours the finest temper. It gives birth to a fire which, though it may never flame, continually smoulders ”

“ Addington, this single question, whether the horrors and agonies which Miss Blandy was in at this time were not, in your opinion, owing solely to a hearty concern for her father?—I beg, sir, that you will excuse my giving an answer to this question. It is not easy, you know, to form a true judgment of the heart, and I hope a witness need not deliver his opinion of it. ”

“ Francis Blandy, deceased, upon her oath saith, that about two months ago she heard Miss Mary Blandy his daughter say, Who would grudge to send an old father to hell for £10,000, and saith, that she hath heard her often wish her father dead and at hell ”

“ Of course it gratifies our vanity, and of all gratifications, or nearly all, the gratification of vanity is the sweetest, the one with least alloy or unpleasant after-taste. Vanity suffers from hunger, but never from indigestion, no, nor from satiety. ”

“ And yet I don’t know that I am quite honest in saying that I am sorry for it—another instance of how difficult it is to tell the truth, you see—for it seems to me that a good deal of the joy, or at any rate of the excitement, of life is brought about by just that difference. Life has little that is exciting to your civilised man, and if you deprive him of that...! ”

“ Miss Blandy was named as the chief of them, and famed for a great Fortune. Accident soon gave me an Interview with her; I visited, and was well received by the whole Family, and soon insinuated myself into her good Graces, and I quickly perceived that she had swallowed the Bait. The Father entertained me at Bed and Board, and the Daughter obliged me with her Company, and supplyed my Wants of Money upon every Emergency, nor was the Mother less fond of me than the Daughter.
But no human Bliss is permanent; it was not long before a Discovery was made that I was a married Man. ”

“ I shall not kill him, Alexa. I shall probably be tremendously nice to him if [169] he wears the right necktie. You might give him a hint about that. One never does do the things one most passionately desires to do—they are always so outrageous those passionately desired things.
Haven’t you often, when sitting at dinner, say, with a lot of depressingly correct people, ached and ached to rip out some hideous, impossible, unspeakable expression, just to watch their shocked, flabbergasted faces; and then to disappear for ever from the cognisance of man? I am sure you have; we all have. ”

“ During the past ten days, as the men's money was being spent, and as the want of work gave them more time to reason on the causes of their trouble, a strong feeling of resentment had been growing up among them against the two young masters, who had held, as it were, the happiness, the comfort, perhaps the lives, of all these men in their hands, and had thrown all to the dogs rather than humble their own insensate pride and abate their own insensate obstinacy. ”

“ Had you ever directed any letter for her before?—I have, a great many. I used to direct her letters to Mr. Cranstoun. [He is shown a letter.] This is one.
Did you put it into the post?—I did not. I opened it, having just before heard Mr. Blandy was poisoned by his own daughter. I transcribed it, and took it to Mr. Norton, the apothecary at Henley, and after that I showed it and read it to Mr. Blandy.
What did he say?—He said very little. He smiled and said, "Poor, love-sick girl! What won't a girl do for a man she loves?" (or to that effect) . ”

“ Make the world interesting to yourself, as I charged you before, and make it comfortable. To do that is about the most one can hope to do ’twixt swaddling clothes and shroud. I don’t ask you to venerate other people’s prejudices—scorn them as much as you like ”

“ During one of their daily walks this singular lover informed his betrothed that he had a secret to communicate, to wit, that over and above the Scottish complication, "he had a daughter by one Miss Capel" a year before he met the present object of his desires. Miss Blandy, with much philosophy, replied that she hoped he now saw his follies and would not repeat them. "If I do," said Cranstoun, "I must be a villain; you alone can make me happy in this world ”

“ Blandy, for all your kindnesses to me and my girl. God grant that you may both live long, that you may be a blessing to each other. Whatever little unkindnesses may have passed I freely forgive you. Now, if you please to go down, Mr. Blandy, for my spirits fail me." My father then kissed her, and retired in tears, saying, as he went, "The doctor still may think of something that may be of service to you." At this she smiled and said, "Not without you can give me a new inside." When my father was gone, my mother took hold of my hand, drew me to her, and kissed me. ”

“ Did you sit up with Miss Blandy the night after her father died?—I did till three o'clock. She went to bed about one. She said to me, "Betty, will you go away with me? If you will go to the Lion or the Bell and hire a post-chaise I will give you fifteen guineas when you get into it and ten guineas more when we came to London." I said, "Where will you go then? Into the north?" She said, "I shall go into the west of England." I said, "Shall you go by sea?" She said, "I believe some part of the way." ”

“ But, and here is the spice of it, at any moment one of the buttons may come off by accident, or be taken off by fraud, and then—well, then certainly a garment may be torn to rags, possibly a heart may be pierced.
Where does flirtation end? you ask. Well, [101] I can tell you where it never ends. It never ends in a row. Never, at any rate, when he or she has more brains than a guinea-pig. Of course, with downright fools there is no telling. If there be ever so slight a row, ever so faint a scandal, then there has been something more than a flirtation. ”