Grandison

“ Such a kittenish disposition in her, I called it; for it is not so much the love of power that predominates in her mind, as the love of playfulness: and when the fit is upon her, she regards not whether it is a china cup, or a cork, that she pats and tosses about. But her sport will certainly be the death of Lord G——'s happiness. Pity that Sir Charles, who only has power over her, is obliged to go abroad so soon! But she has principles: Lady Grandison's daughter, Sir Charles Grandison's sister, must have principles. ”

“ Inevitable evils he bears as a man should. He makes no ostentation of
his piety: but, madam, Sir Charles Grandison is a CHRISTIAN.
You need not, sir, say more to me to exalt him: and, let me add, that I have no small pleasure in knowing that Clementina is a lady of strict piety, though a Roman Catholic.
And let me assure you, madam, that Sir Charles's regard for Miss Byron (his more than regard for her, why should I not say? since every body sees it) is founded upon her piety, and upon the amiable qualities of her mind. Beauty, madam, is an accidental and transient good. ”

“ From the England of Fielding and Richardson to the England of Miss Austen, from the England of Miss Austen to the England of Railways and Free Trade, how vast the change! Yet perhaps Sir Charles Grandison would not seem so strange to us now as one of ourselves will seem to our great-grandchildren. The world moves faster and faster ”

“ Then I heard the man coming up the stairs in his heavy hobnail boots. I heard him fumble at the door and I began to scream.”
“Poor creature,” said Grandison. “Who were these people?”
“The Puttys; Richard’s mother told me their story: they lived at the Burnt Farm,” answered Anne, and stopped, realizing that her words could mean nothing to Grandison. ”

“ William to his Mother. Sir Charles and Lady Grandison are expected this afternoon. We are all glad, the servants join in the general joy. Is it not a good sign, when the servants are attached to their masters? I will endeavour to be good and humane, when I am a man, it is so delightful to be loved. ”

“ Beauchamp is an agreeable, and, when Sir Charles Grandison is not in company, a handsome and genteel man. I think, my dear, that I do but the same justice that every body would do, in this exception. He is cheerful, lively, yet modest, and not too full of words. One sees both love and respect in every look he casts upon his friend; and that he is delighted when he hears him speak, be the subject what it will.
He once said to Lord W——, who praised his nephew to him, as he does to everybody near him; The universal voice, my lord, is in his favour wherever he goes. ”

“ Sir Charles paid the same diligent attention to cultivate your new friend’s mind, and Dr. Bartlett assisted: but poor Edward was suffered to run almost wild.
You have seen in the little garden I have, that weeds grow quickly; and would soon choke the vegetables and 11flowers, if a careful hand did not pluck them up by the roots.
Lady Grandison praises you; do your best to deserve her approbation, and you shall ever be the beloved of my heart.
12 LETTER V.
William to his Mother. I enjoy here much pleasure; we walk, we draw, we learn music; and we sometimes go to the Play. ”

“ I prefer him, I own, vastly to Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, whom I look upon as the prince of coxcombs; and so much the more impertinent as he is a moral one. His character appears to me ‘ugly all over with affectation.’ There is not a single thing that Sir Charles Grandison does or says all through the book from liking to any person or object but himself, and with a view to answer to a certain standard of perfection for which he pragmatically sets up. He is always thinking of himself, and trying to show that he is the wisest, happiest, and most virtuous person in the whole world. ”

“ We feel, indeed, a certain affection for Sir Charles Grandison. He is pompous and ceremonious to an insufferable degree; but there is really some truth in his sister's assertion, that his is the most delicate of human minds;77 through the cumbrous formalities of his century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately fashion, and to indulge in a little 'raillying,' only guarding himself rather too carefully against unbecoming levity. ”

“ CHARLES. I shall endeavour to do the best, and hope you will have no reason to complain of your young steward.
34LADY GRANDISON. I expected an answer like this; but the farm house you will inhabit, is situated almost in a desart; you will have few companions, and no amusements, except the pleasure of relieving the poor. We wish you to experience, that the consciousness of being useful is the truest pleasure; we can do without company when we have peace in our minds. ”

“ He is the best of men. O my good Sir Rowland Meredith! if you knew him, you would love him yourself, and own him for your son. I will not conceal his name from my father: Sir Charles Grandison is the man. Inquire about him. His character will rise upon you from every mouth. He engaged first all your daughter's gratitude, by rescuing her from a great danger and oppression; for he is as brave as he is good: and how could she help suffering a tenderness to spring up from her gratitude, of which she was never before sensible to any man in the world? There is something in the way, my good sir ”

“ When she stopped it was to pour out a flood of questions which went unanswered.
“It is not a joke,” said Richard Sotheby gloomily. “You will have to help me. You don’t object, I suppose,” he added in French to the girl, “if Grandison devotes his time to her?”
“How insolent you are, Richard!” said the woman, taking hold of Grandison’s arm, and putting her cheek beside his head. “I am to be sacrificed because you can’t face a woman. ”

“ Lord W—— is come. Lord and Lady L—— are here. They, and Miss Grandison, received him with great respect. He embraced his nieces in a very affectionate manner. Sir Charles was absent. Lord W—— is in person and behaviour a much more agreeable man than I expected him to be. Nor is he so decrepit with the gout, as I had supposed. He is very careful of himself, it seems. This world has been kind to him; and I fancy he makes a great deal of a little pain, for want of stronger exercises to his patience; and so is a sufferer by self-indulgence. ”

“ My name’s Grandison,” he said. “Richard Sotheby asked me to meet you here; he is not able to come himself....”
“Ginette Grandison’s brother,” Anne said to herself, looking into the surly, boyish face, and noticing Grandison’s shyness. Meanwhile the porter with the lovely cheekbones had disappeared with her suit-case.
“What does the porter matter?” she thought. “What does the suit-case matter? [170] What does it matter what this young man is mumbling about Richard? No, nothing matters. This is Paris; I have arrived, and a delightful happy life awaits me with these charming people. The opera ... ”

“ Lowther, the last letters I received from Italy should have been answered in person.'
But as honour, compassion, love, friendship (still nobler than love!) have demands upon him, let him obey the call. He has set me high in his esteem. Let me be worthy of his friendship. Pangs I shall occasionally feel; but who that values one person above the rest of the world, does not?
Sir Charles, as we sat at tea, mentioned his cousin Grandison to Lord L——: It is strange, my lord, said he, that we hear nothing of our cousin Everard, since he was seen at White's. ”

“ Each whisper was a charm that breathed love into her, that stole away her strength, and that changed her nature. Yet Anne still held herself alert, danger seemed near; at any moment a heavy footstep might sound upon the stairs, a voice break in. It seemed to her that if she sat very still the danger might pass, and when Grandison’s voice rose she stroked his hair nervously—hair as short and thick and soft as fur.
[208] “Richard—the danger is Richard,” she said to herself, recognizing that she was helpless in face of that danger. ”

“ Once I thought, proceeded she, that I never would make a second motion, were the woman a princess, who had confessed a prior love, or even liking: but the man is Sir Charles Grandison, whom all women must esteem; and the woman is Miss Byron, whom all men must love. Let me ask you, my dear—Have you any expectation, that the first of men (I will call him so) and the loveliest and most amiable-minded of women, can come together?—You sighed, you know, when you mentioned, that Sir Charles was soon to leave England ”

“ FREDERICK. It is praise worthy, but I acknowledge myself not so obedient.
WILLIAM. Such a chearful submission might possibly require more resolution than either you or I have; however it is possible; and as we ought to shew ourselves grateful for the kindnesses we have received, the only way we have of doing so is constantly to obey the injunctions 40of our parents, and never to murmur if they even seem hard.
FREDERICK. This may be true, yet these considerations would not change a desart, as Lady Grandison called her farm, into an agreeable abode. ”

“ When our hearts are engaged in a hope, we are apt to think every step we take for the promoting it, reasonable: Our passions, my dear, will evermore run away with our judgment. But, now I think of it, I must, when I say our, make two exceptions; one for you, and one for Sir Charles Grandison.
But, Lucy, tell me—May I, do you think, explain the meaning of the word SELFISH used by Sir Charles in the conclusion of the library conference at Colnebrook, (and which puzzled me then to make out,) by his disclaiming of selfishness in the conversation with the countess above recited? ”

“ My Lord, to mend the matter, lamented very pathetically, that Sir Charles was under an obligation to go abroad; and still more, that he could not stay to be present at the celebration of his nuptials with Miss Mansfield.
The Earl, Lord G——, Lady Gertrude, and the doctor, were to meet the bride and us at church. Lord and Lady L——, Sir Charles, and Emily, went in one coach: Miss Grandison and I in another.
As we went, I don't like this affair at all, Harriet, said she. My brother has long made all other men indifferent to me. Such an infinite difference! ”

“ Dear Miss Somerville,—I was much interested in your fruitless struggle to read “Sir Charles Grandison,”—the book whose separate numbers were awaited with such impatience by Richardson’s endless lady friends and correspondents, and even by the rakish world—even by Colley Cibber himself. I sympathize entirely with your estimate of its dulness; yet, dull as it is, it is worth wading through to understand the kind of literature which could flutter the dove-cotes of the last century in a generation earlier than the one that was moved to tears by the wearisome dramas of Hannah More. ”

“ Rousseau and Diderot from over in France, philosophers as they professed to be, blubbered their admiring thanks for Clarissa Harlowe.
I have spoken of him not because he is to be counted a great classic (though Dr. Johnson affirmed it) ; not because I advise your wading through six or seven volumes of the darling Sir Charles Grandison—as some of our grandames did; but because he was, in a sense, the father of the modern novel; coming before Fielding; in fact, spurring the latter, by Pamela, to his great, {67} coarse, and more wonderful accomplishment. ”

“ How amusing Richardson always was about Fielding! How jealousy, spite, and the confusion of mind that befogs a prig when he is not taken seriously, do darken the eyes of the author of “those deplorably tedious lamentations, ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Sir Charles Grandison,’” as Horace Walpole calls them!
Fielding asks his Muse to give him “humour and good humour.” What novelist was ever so rich in both? Who ever laughed at mankind with so much affection for mankind in his heart? This love shines in every book of his. The poor have all his good-will, and in him an untired advocate and friend. ”

“ While on a visit to Canterbury she made the acquaintance of the learned Mrs Elizabeth Carter, and soon became one of the admirers of the novelist Samuel Richardson. She was one of the little court of women who gathered at North End, Fulham; and in Miss Susannah Highmore’s sketch of the novelist reading Sir Charles Grandison to his friends Miss Mulso is the central figure. ”

“ Was not my situation critical, my dear? Had Sir Charles asked my opinion, before he had taken his resolutions, I should have given it with my whole heart, that he should fly to the comfort of the poor lady. But then he would have shewn a suspense unworthy of Clementina; and a compliment to me; which a good man, so circumstanced, ought not to make. ”

“ It is to French or Flemish art that the greater number and the most beautiful must be referred. At the same time, to take one example only—the diptych and triptych of Bishop Grandison in the British Museum—we have evidence that English ivory carvers were capable of rare excellence of design and workmanship. Nor can crucifixes be forgotten, though they are of extreme rarity before the 17th century. A most beautiful 13th-century figure for one—though only a fragment—is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. ”

“ The third, Abraham, hath left no issue; I was the fourth, and my sister Margaret, the fifth, who married Sir Edmund Turner, of South Stock, in Lincolnshire, a worthy pious man.
My father, in his old age, married again, the daughter of Mr. Shatbolt, of Hertfordshire, and had by her a son, Richard, and a daughter, Mary. The son married the eldest daughter of the now Lord Grandison, and the daughter married the eldest son of Sir Rowland Lytton, of Knebworth, in Hertfordshire. My father lived to see them both married; and enjoyed a firm health, until above eighty years of age. ”