You may, if you touch upon this subject, throw in these sentences of hers, spoken at different times, and on different occasions:
“Persons of accidental or shadowy merit may be proud: but inborn worth must be always as much above conceit as arrogance.”
“Who can be better, or more worthy, than they should be? And, who shall be proud of talents they give not to themselves?”
“The darkest and most contemptible ignorance is that of not knowing one’s self; and that all we have, and all we excel in, is the gift of God.”
“All human excellence is but comparative—there are persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.”
“In the general scale of beings, the lowest is as useful, and as much a link of the great chain, as the highest.”
“The grace that makes every other grace amiable, is humility.”
“There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonourable action.”
Such were the sentiments by which this admirable young lady endeavoured to conduct herself, and to regulate her conduct to others.
And, in truth, never were affability and complacency (graciousness, some have called it) more eminent in any person, man or woman, than in her, to those who put it in her power to oblige them: insomuch that the benefitted has sometimes not known which to prefer—the grace bestowed, or the manner in which it was conferred.
It has been observed, that what was said of Henry IV of France, might be said of her manner of refusing a request: That she generally sent from her presence the person refused nearly as well satisfied as if she had granted it.
Then she had such a sacred regard to truth.—You cannot, Sir, expatiate too much upon this topic. I dare say, that in all her letters, in all the letters of the wretch, her veracity will not once be found impeachable, although her calamities were so heavy, the horrid man’s wiles so subtle, and her struggles to free herself from them so active.
Her charity was so great, that she always chose to defend or acquit where the fault was not so flagrant that it became a piece of justice to condemn it; and was always an advocate for an absent person, whose discretion was called in question, without having given manifest proofs of indiscretion.
Once I remember, in a large circle of ladies, every one of which (I among the rest) having censured a generally-reported indiscretion in a young lady—Come, my Miss Howe, said she, (for we had agreed to take each other to task when either thought the other gave occasion for it; and when by blaming each other we intended a general reprehension, which, as she used to say, it would appear arrogant or assuming to level more properly), let me be Miss Fanny Darlington. Then removing out of the circle, and standing up, Here I stand, unworthy of a seat with the rest of the company, till I have cleared myself. And now, suppose me to be her, let me hear your charge, and do you hear what the poor culprit can say to it in her own defence. And then answering the conjectural and unproved circumstances, by circumstances as fairly to be supposed favourable, she brought off triumphantly the censured lady; and so much to everyone’s satisfaction, that she was led to her chair, and voted a double rank in the circle, as the reinstated Miss Fanny Darlington, and as Miss Clarissa Harlowe.
Very few persons, she used to say, would be condemned, or even accused, in the circles of ladies, were they present; it is generous, therefore, nay, it is but just, said she, to take the part of the absent, if not flagrantly culpable.
But though wisdom was her birthright, as I may say, yet she had not lived years enough to pretend to so much experience as to exempt her from the necessity of sometimes altering her opinion both of persons and things; but, when she found herself obliged to do this, she took care that the particular instance of mistaken worthiness in the person should not narrow or contract her almost universal charity into general doubt or jealousy. An instance of what I mean occurs to my memory.
Being upbraided, by a severe censure, with a person’s proving base, whom she had frequently defended, and by whose baseness my beloved friend was a sufferer; “You, Madam,” said she, “had more penetration than such a young creature as I can pretend to have. But although human depravity may, I doubt, oftener justify those who judge harshly, than human rectitude can those who judge favourably, yet will I not part with my charity. Nevertheless, for the future, I will endeavour, in cases where the judgment of my elders is against me, to make mine consistent with caution and prudence.”
Indeed, when she was convinced of any error or mistake, (however seemingly derogatory to her judgment and sagacity), no one was ever so acknowledging, so ingenuous, as she. “It was a merit,” she used to say, “next in degree to that of having avoided error, frankly to own an error. And that the offering at an excuse in a blameable manner, was the undoubted mark of a disingenuous, if not of a perverse mind.”
But I ought to add, on this head, (of her great charity where character was concerned, and where there was room for charity), that she was always deservedly severe in her reprehensions of a wilful and studied vileness. How could she then forgive the wretch by whose premeditated villany she was entangled?
You must everywhere insist upon it, that had it not been for the stupid persecutions of her relations, she never would have been in the power of that horrid Lovelace. And yet, on several occasions, she acknowledged frankly, that were person, and address, and alliance, to be allowedly the principal attractives in the choice
