>>> YOU ARE VIEWING A 200 LINE SAMPLE OF EBOOK# E06298 <<< TITLE: THE LADIES AUTHOR: E. BARRINGTON EBOOK: E06298 (O'Briens Book Cellar) LANGUAGE: ENGLISH [Illustration: _Elizabeth Duchess of Hamilton and Argyle nee Gunning_] "The Ladies" A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty by E. Barrington Illustrated with Portraits Preface The aim of these stories is not historical exactitude nor unbending accuracy in dates or juxtaposition. They are rather an attempt to re-create the personalities of a succession of charming women, ranging from Elizabeth Pepys, wife of the Diarist, to Fanny Burney and her experiences at the Court of Queen Charlotte. As I have imagined them, so I have set them forth, and if what is written can at all revive their perished grace and the unfading delight of days that now belong to the ages, and to men no more, I shall not have failed. Much is imagination, more is truth, but which is which I scarcely can tell myself. I have wished to set them in other circumstances than those we know. What would Elizabeth Pepys have felt if she had read the secrets of the Diary? If Stella and Vanessa had met--Ah, that is a tenderness and terror almost beyond all thinking! How would my Lady Mary's smarting pride have blistered herself and others if the Fleet marriage of her eccentric son-- whose wife she never saw--had actually come between the wind and her nobility? Was there no finer, more ethereal touch in Elizabeth Gunning's stolen marriage with her Duke than is recorded in Horace Walpole's malicious gossip? Could such beauty have been utterly sordid? What were the fears and hopes of the lovely Maria Walpole as, after long concealment of her marriage, she trembled on the steps of a throne? How did those about her judge of Fanny Burney in the Digby affair? Did she wholly conceal her heart? From her Diary we know what she wished to feel--very certainly not entirely what she felt. Perhaps of all these women we know best that Elizabeth who never lived-- Elizabeth Bennet. She is the most real because her inner being is laid open to us by her great creator. I have not dared to touch her save as a shadow picture in the background of the quiet English country-life which now is gone for ever. But her fragrance--stimulating rather than sweet, like lavender and rosemary--could not be forgotten in any picture of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries and among the women whom all the world remembers. They, one and all, can only move in dreamland now. Their lives are but stories in a printed book, and a heroine of Jane Austen's is as real as Stella or the fair Walpole. So I apologise for nothing. I have dreamed. I may hope that others will dream with me. E. BARRINGTON Table of Contents I. The Diurnal of Mrs Elizabeth Pepys _Had she Read her Husband's Diary_ II. The Mystery of Stella _Why might not she and Vanessa have met?_ III. My Lady Mary _To Dispel the Mystery of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's quitting England in 1739_ IV. The Golden Vanity _A Story of the First Irish Beauties--the Gunnings_ V. The Walpole Beauty _A Tale in Letters about Maria Walpole, Countess of Waldegrave, Duchess of Gloucester, Niece of Horace Walpole_ VI. A Blue Stocking at Court _Why Fanny Burney, Madame D'Arblay, retired from Court in 1791_ VII. The Darcys of Rosing _A Reintroduction to some of the characters of Miss Austen's Novels_ Illustrations Elizabeth Cunning Portrait by Catherine Reed Mrs Pepys as St. Katharine Portrait by Hayts Esther Johnson, "Stella" Portrait by Kneller Hester Vanhomrigh, "Vanessa" Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Portrait by Kneller Maria Gunning Portrait by Cotes Maria Walpole and Her Daughter, Elizabeth Laura Portrait by Reynolds Fanny Burney, Madame D'Arblay After Portrait by E. F. Burney Elizabeth Pepys 1640-1669 "So home to dinner with my wife, very pleasant and pleased with one another's company, and in our general enjoyment one of another, better we think than most other couples do." Elizabeth St. Michel, daughter of a French Huguenot, was fifteen when Pepys married her. She was only twenty-nine when she died. Pepys himself at their marriage was twenty-two. It is the skirmishing of young folk that he describes when he reports such animated scenes as the occasion when his wife threatened him with the red-hot tongs. They had their brisk encounters and their affectionate interludes as well, when "very merry we were with our pasty, well-baked, and a good dish of roasted chickens; pease, lobsters, strawberries." In odd moments, Pepys applied himself to his wife's education. Dismissing her dancing-master by reason of jealousy, he began instead a course in Arithmetic. He himself taught her Addition, Subtraction, and the Multiplication Tables; but, says he, "I purpose not to trouble her yet with Division, but to begin with the Globes to her now." At her early death he mourned sincerely, and erected a memorial celebrating the accomplished charms of Elizabeth, his wife,-- "Forma, Artibus, Linguis Cultissima." [Illustration: Mrs Pepys as St. Katharine] I The Diurnal of Mrs. Elizabeth Pepys 2d _May_.--Sam'l now in great honour at the Navy Office, whereat my heart do rejoice, and the less for the havings, which do daily increase, than that I would willingly see him worshipfully received, the which indeede his hard work do plentifully deserve, he sparing himselfe in nothing for the advancing of his busyness. And I do reason with myselfe that though he have faults many and great (which God knowes is true) yet he do come up in the world and our gettings are very good and do daily increase. How they go I know not, for that little and grudging is spent on my clothes, and though Sam'l goes very noble still it is not possible but much is saved, though he do lament himself in very high wordes of our spendthrift way of life and small saving. But of this more anon. Up and dressed a pease pudding with boyled rabbets and bacon to dinner for want of a cook-mayde, Sarah leaving us at dawn, and he loving it mightily. The which he should not have this day but that I have a month's mind to a slashte wastcote which hitherto he hath soured upon. This done, a brave dish of cream in the which he takes great delight; and so seeing him in Tune I to lament the ill wear of my velvet wastcote as desiring a Better, whereon he soured. We jangling mightily on this I did object his new Jackanapes coat with silver buttons, but to no purpose. He reading in the Passionate Pillgrim which he do of all things love. But angry to prayers and to Bed. But it is observable that this day I discover Sam'l in the keeping of a Journal and very secret in this, and come at it I will, he being much abroad on his occasions the while I sit at home. 3d.--This day awakes Sam'l in a musty humour as much over-served with meat and Drink, and in great discontent calling me, do bid me rise and fetch his Pills that olde Mother Wigsworth did give him at Brampton. I merry and named him the Passionate Pillgrim from his love to these, whereupon he flings the Pills in my face and all scattered, Deb grudging to gather them it being Lord's Day. So I to churche, leaving him singing and playing "Beauty, Retire" to his Viall, a song not worthy to be sung on a holy Day however he do conceit his skill therein. His brown beauty Mrs Lethulier in the pew against us and I do perceive her turn her Eye to see if Sam'l do come after. She very brave in hanging sleeves, yet an ill-lookt jade if one do but consider, but with the seeking Eye that men look to, and Sam'l in especial. Fried Loyne of mutton to dinner, and Sam'l his head akeing I did sit beside him discoursing of the new hangings for the small closet, wherein great pleasure for it will be most neat and fine. And great content have we in such discourse and in our house and the good we are come to. 4th.--This day do Sam'l speak handsomely enough of his humour yesterday, charging it upon the Rabbets, and so I left it. And strange it is how when he do so repent my heart do take part with him though I would better renounce him awhile to learn him manners. So he to the Exchange and buys me a piece of Paragon to a pettycote, and though it be not what I would have of my own choosing yet I do receive it with many goode words as hoping all will yet be as I desire. So to sup on a good dish of beef _a la mode_, and he well content, it appearing he have this day bestowed upon himself at the Exchange a good Theorbo, four Bookes, and a payre of Globes, talking very high how these be for my instruction rather than his <<< END OF SAMPLE... (THE FULL EBOOK HAS 378255 TOTAL CHARACTERS) >>>