Elizabeth Thrale

“ Thrale is a most generous, sound-headed, practical, kindly man, without being very acute, or cultured, or any way accomplished. Mrs. Thrale, however, {136} has her literary qualities; can jingle a little of not inharmonious verse of her own; reads omnivorously; is apt in French or Latin; is full of esprit and liveliness, and is not without a certain charm of person. She is small indeed, but with striking features and picturesque; easily gracious at her table; witty, headstrong, arch, proud of association with the great Dr. Johnson ”

“ Her ladyship had no such misgiving. But an aristocratic prejudice dictated a reservation:—"Only it must be poured straight off before it gets like ink.... Oh, stop!—it's too black already. A little hot water, thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one will remain, like the bones of the Apteryx.
"We'll pay a visit to Dave," said Sister Nora. ”

“ When the young women devised all kinds of impossible excuses to linger in his vicinity he sent them away with hot indignant faces. Among those who sought their sterile amusements in Wycombe it became the fashion openly to express hatred and contempt for “that engine fellow.” It was agreed that he “wasn’t a proper man.” Another section, however, talked scandal, and hinted that assistant-engineer Eileen was the cause of Thrale’s pretended misogyny. ”

“ Thrale and Mrs. Piozzi are two distinct persons. Mrs. Thrale, whom the world smiled upon, whom the wits liked and society courted, who had the best men in England for her friends, is a woman who will always be pleasant in memory. Her unaffected grace, her kindliness, her good-humor, her talents, make her perpetually charming. She was helped by her surroundings to be good, pleasant, and clever; and she will always keep her place as one of the most attractive figures in the circle which was formed by Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Fanny Burney, and others scarcely less conspicuous. ”

“ Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which might induce counter-revelation. But the old lady did not respond, clinging rather to inquiry about her informant's affairs. ”

“ Thrale, laughing, 'you must take great care of your heart if Dr. Johnson attacks it; for I assure you he is not often successless.'
"'What's that you say, Madam?' cried he; 'are you making mischief between the young lady and me already?'
"A little while after he drank Miss Thrale's health and mine, and then added:
"'Tis a terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies well, without wishing them to become old women.'"
Madame D'Arblay's memoirs are sadly defaced by egotism, and gratified vanity may have had a good deal to do with her unqualified admiration of Mrs. Thrale ”

“ The dark hung mysterious all about us; I could feel cold draughts of air; I believed that I could hear furtive whisperings and footsteps, doors softly opening and closing, hangings waving; all this might have been the wind without. Certainly I heard Thrale chuckle behind me, as he locked the door and fixed the chain; he answered Mr. Bradbury, “As you wish, sir.”
“Strike a light, Thrale,—d’ye hear me?—a light. I’ve no mind to break a leg or my neck in the dark! A light, Thrale!” ”

“ Occasional sarcasms no more prove disregard or indifference, than Swift's "only a woman's hair" implies contempt for the sex.
Miss Thrale's marriage with Lord Keith in 1808 is thus mentioned in "Thraliana":
"The 'Thraliana' is coming to an end; so are the Thrales. The eldest is married now. Admiral Lord Keith the man; a good man for ought I hear: a rich man for ought I am told: a brave man we have always heard: and a wise man I trow by his choice. ”

“ Thrale!"
A high French authority has laid down that good breeding consists in rendering to all what is socially their due. This definition is imperfect. Good breeding is best displayed by putting people at their ease; and Mrs. Thrale's manner of putting the young authoress at her ease was the perfection of delicacy and tact.
If Johnson's entrance on the stage had been premeditated, it could hardly have been more dramatically ordered.
"When we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made my father and me sit on each side of her. ”

“ Still, though incensed at this random gossip, Mrs. Thrale had a fair consciousness of her own eligibility and power. She remembered her wealth, her ancient lineage, her reputation for wit and learning, and triumphed to herself, between the pages of her diary, that to marry for love would be rational in her, who wanted no advancement of birth or fortune; and, "till I am in love," she added, "I will not marry, nor perhaps then." That she did eventually promise her hand to the singer Piozzi has puzzled her biographers as it at first puzzled, nay, astounded, her family and friends. ”

“ A few years ago Barrie wrote a delightful play, “What Every Woman Knows”; and I hasten to say, for the benefit of those who have not seen this play, that what every woman knows is how to manage a husband. In this respect Mrs. Thrale had no superior. Making due allowance, the play suggests the relationship of the Thrales. A cold, self-contained, and commonplace man is married to a sprightly and engaging wife. With her to aid him, he is able so to carry himself that people take him for a man of great ability; without her, he is utterly lost. ”

“ Thrale always appeared to me to possess at least as much information, a mind as cultivated, and more brilliancy of intellect than Mrs. Montagu, but she did not descend among men from such an eminence, and she talked much more, as well as more unguardedly, on every subject. She was the provider and conductress of Johnson, who lived almost constantly under her roof, or more properly under that of Mr. Thrale, both in Town and at Streatham. He did not, however, spare her more than other women in his attacks if she courted and provoked his animadversions. ”

“ This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs. Thrale was, however, composed perhaps of cupboard love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled and gratified, from morn to night, by incessant homage. The two first ingredients are certainly oddly heterogeneous; but Johnson, in religion and politics, in love and in hatred, was composed of such opposite and contradictory materials, as never before met in the human mind. This 257 is the reason why folk are never weary of talking, reading, and writing about a man ”

“ In his first letter of condolence on Mr. Thrale's death, Johnson speaks of her having enjoyed happiness in marriage, "to a degree of which, without personal knowledge, I should have thought the description fabulous." The "Autobiography" and "Thraliana" tell a widely different tale. The mortification of not finding herself appreciated by her husband was poignantly increased, during the last years of his life, by finding another offensively preferred to her. He was so fascinated by one of her fair friends, as to lose sight altogether of what was due to appearances or to the feelings of his wife. ”

“ His squeaky voice soared to a pitch almost unprecedented even in the voice of Thrale.
"Listen!" he shrilled. "I've played cards with Douglas—yes! He's lost. Not much. Enough to make him wild to get even. No more. Now it'll be different. Get that? Different! He's going to lose big. Big! And you won't do a thing. Not you! You'll sit tight and see Duggy take his medicine. Yes, you will! There's a reason. Here!"
Leering triumphantly, Thrale flung a folded paper on the table before Lady Gaunt and stalked majestically toward the door. ”

“ On two occasions, Johnson incidentally imputes a want of liberality to Mrs. Thrale, which the general tenor of her conduct belies:
"August 2.—We went to Dymerchion Church, where the old clerk acknowledged his mistress. It is the parish church of Bâch y Graig; a mean fabric; Mr. Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale's father) was buried in it.... The old clerk had great appearance of joy, and foolishly said that he was now willing to die. He had only a crown given him by my mistress." ”

“ Whilst Thrale lived, Mrs. Thrale's regard for Piozzi was certainly not of a nature to cause scandal or provoke censure, and as it ripened into love, it may be traced, step by step, from the frankest and fullest of all possible unveilings of the heart. Rare indeed are the instances in which such revelations as we find in "Thraliana" could be risked by either man or woman, without giving scope to malevolence; and they should not only be judged as a whole and by the context, but the most favourable construction should be put upon them. ”

“ The highest authorities differ equally about her looks. "My readers," says Boswell, "will naturally wish for some representation of the figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well-proportioned, and stately. As for Madam, or My Mistress, by which epithets Johnson used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk." "He should have added," observes Mr. Croker, "that she was very pretty." This was not her own opinion, nor that of her cotemporaries, although her face was attractive from animation and expression, and her personal appearance pleasing on the whole. ”

“ Miss Thrale, who was absent from town, only just before she expired, but with the satisfaction of seeing her breathe her last in peace.
"Nothing could behave with more tenderness and propriety than these ladies, whose conduct, I am convinced, has been much misrepresented and calumniated by those who have only attended to one side of the history: but may all that is past be now buried in oblivion! Retrospection seldom improves our view of any subject. ”

“ There is also a very great difference, when arrangements are to be made for the domestication of a male visitor, between a family with a male head, and one consisting exclusively of females. Let any widow with daughters make the case her own, and imagine herself domesticated in Argyll or Harley Street with the lexicographer. The manly authority of Thrale was required to keep Johnson in order quite as much as to steady the imputed flightiness of the lady ”

“ The committee found their work more complicated in some respects after Thrale’s coming.
Thrale, himself, was supremely indifferent to any scandal or expression of hatred. He had his hands full, his hours of work were only limited by daylight, and six hours sleep was all he asked for or desired. After a very brief introduction to the intricacies of reaper and rake at the hands of Miss Oliver—her [242] father had never been able to afford a binder, but the days of corn-harvest were still far ahead—he set himself to learn the mysteries of all the agricultural machinery in the neighbourhood ”

“ Thrale's house is white, and very pleasantly situated, in a fine paddock. Mrs. Thrale was strolling about, and came to us as we got out of the chaise.
"She then received me, taking both my hands, and with mixed politeness and cordiality welcomed me to Streatham. She led me into the house, and addressed herself almost wholly for a few minutes to my father, as if to give me an assurance she did not mean to regard me as a show, or to distress or frighten me by drawing me out. ”

“ Madame D'Arblay, who was carrying on a flirtation with one of the executors (Mr. Crutchley) , and had personal motives for watching their proceedings, writes, April 29th:—
"Miss Thrale is steady and constant, and very sincerely grieved for her father.
"The four executors, Mr. Cator, Mr. Crutchley, Mr. Henry Smith, and Dr. Johnson, have all behaved generously and honourably, and seem determined to give Mrs. Thrale all the comfort and assistance in their power. She is to carry on the business jointly with them. Poor soul! it is a dreadful toil and worry to her." ”

“ Thrale suddenly drew back. “Do you understand?” he said harshly.
“Ye-yes, I think so,” returned Millie; and she straightened herself, looked up at him for a moment and then dropped her eyes, blushing.
“Very well,” said Thrale, “and here’s another [256] piece of advice for you. If you want to stay in the mill keep your attention on your work. You’re a man now, for all intents and purposes; you’ve got a man’s work to do, and you must keep your mind on it. If there’s any foolishness you go out into the turnip fields. ”

“ In 1763 she was married to Henry Thrale, a rich Southwark brewer, whose house was at Streatham on the south-east corner of Tooting Bec Common. There was very little sympathy between the lively girl and Thrale, who was thirteen years her senior, but gradually she drew round her a distinguished circle of friends. She was introduced to Samuel Johnson in 1765 by Arthur Murphy, who was an old friend of her husband's. In 1766 Johnson paid a long visit to Streathan1, and from that time was more or less domesticated With the Thrales. ”

“ Dear angel! this day he leaves a nation to which he was sent for my felicity perhaps, I hope for his own. May I live but to make him happy, and hear him say 'tis me that make him so!"—
In a note on the passage in which he states that Johnson studiously avoided all mention of Streatham or the family after Thrale's death, Hawkins says:—"It seems that between him and the widow there was a formal taking of leave, for I find in his Diary the following note: '1783, April 5th, I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. ”