Your manner of acting by Mrs. Jervis, with so handsome a regard to my brother's interest, her behaviour upon it, and your relation of the whole, and of his generous spirit in approving, reproving, and improving, your prudent generosity, make no inconsiderable figure in your papers. And Lady Betty says, "Hang him, he has some excellent qualities too.—It is impossible not to think well of him; and his good actions go a great way towards atoning for his bad." But you, Pamela, have the glory of all.
12. I am glad you are learning French: thou art a happy girl in thy teacher, and he is a happy man in his scholar. We are pleased with your pretty account of his method of instructing and rewarding. 'Twould be strange, if you did not thus learn any language quickly, with such encouragements, from the man you love, were your genius less apt than it is. But we wished you had enlarged on that subject: for such fondness of men to their wives, who have been any time married, is so rare, and so unexpected from my brother, that we thought you should have written a side upon that subject at least.
What a bewitching girl art thou! What an exemplar to wives now, as well as thou wast before to maidens! Thou canst tame lions, I dare say, if thoud'st try.—Reclaim a rake in the meridian of his libertinism, and make such an one as my brother, not only marry thee, but love thee better at several months' end, than he did the first day, if possible!
Now, my dear Pamela, I think I have taken notice of the most material articles in your letters, and have no more to say to you; but write on, and oblige us; and mind to send me the copy of your letter to Miss Darnford, of that you wrote to poor penitent Jewkes, and every article I have written about, and all that comes into your head, or that passes, and you'll oblige yours, &c,
B. DAVERS.
LETTER XX
MY DEAR LADY,
I read with pleasure your commands, in your last kind and obliging letter: and you may be sure of a ready obedience in every one of them, that is in my power.
That which I can most easily do, I will first do; and that is, to transcribe the answer I sent to Miss Darnford, and that to Mrs. Jewkes, the former of which, (and a long one it is) is as follows:
"DEAR MISS DARNFORD,
"I begin now to be afraid I shall not have the pleasure and benefit I promised myself of passing a fortnight or three weeks at the Hall, in your sweet conversation, and that of your worthy family, as well as those others in your agreeable neighbourhood, whom I must always remember with equal honour and delight.
"The occasion will be principally, that we expect, very soon, Lord and Lady Davers, who propose to tarry here a fortnight at least; and after that, the advanced season will carry us to London, where Mr. B. has taken a house for his winter residence, and in order to attend parliament: a service he says, which he has been more deficient in hitherto, than he can either answer to his constituents, or to his own conscience; for though he is but one, yet if any good motion should be lost by one, every absent member, who is independent, has to reproach himself with the consequence of the loss of that good which might otherwise redound to the commonwealth. And besides, he says, such excuses as he could make, every one might plead; and then public affairs might as well be left to the administration, and no parliament be chosen.
"See you, my dear Miss Darnford, from the humble cottager, what a public person your favourite friend is grown! How easy is it for a bold mind to look forward, and, perhaps, forgetting what she was, now she imagines she has a stake in the country, takes upon herself to be as important, as significant, as if, like my dear Miss Darnford, she had been born to it!
"Well; but may I not ask, whether, if the mountain cannot come to Mahomet, Mahomet will not come to the mountain? Since Lady Davers's visit is so uncertain as to its beginning and duration, and so great a favour as I am to look upon it, and really shall, it being her first visit to me:—and since we must go and take possession of our London residence, why can't Sir Simon spare to us the dear lady whom he could use hardly, and whose attendance (though he is indeed entitled to all her duty) he did not, just in that instance, quite so much deserve?
"'Well, but after all, Sir Simon,' would I say, if I had been in presence at his peevish hour, 'you are a fine gentleman, are you not? to take such a method to shew your good daughter, that because she did not come soon enough to you, she came too soon! And did ever papa before you put a good book (for such I doubt not it was, because you were in affliction, though so little affected by its precepts) to such a bad use? As parents' examples are so prevalent, suppose your daughter had taken it, and flung it at her sister; Miss Nancy at her waiting-maid; and so it had gone through the family; would it not have been an excuse for every one to say, that the father, and head of the family had set the example?
"'You almost wish, my dear Miss tells me, that I would undertake you!—This is very good of you. Sir Simon,' I might (would his patience have suffered me to run on thus) have added; 'but I hope, since you are so sensible that you want to be undertaken, (and since this peevish rashness convinces me that you do) that you will undertake yourself; that you will not, when your indisposition requires the attendance and duty of your dear lady and daughter, make it more uncomfortable to them, by adding a difficulty of being pleased, and an impatience of spirit, to the concern their duty and affection make them have for you; and, at least, resolve never to take a book into your hand again, if you cannot make a better use of it, than you did then.'
"But Sir Simon will say, I have already undertaken him, were he to see this. Yet my Lady Darnford once begged I would give him a hint or two on this subject, which, she was pleased to say, would be better received from me than from any body: and if it be a little too severe, it is but a just reprisal made by one whose ears, he knows, he has cruelly wounded more than once, twice, or thrice, besides, by what he calls his innocent double entendres, and who, if she had not resented it, when an opportunity offered, must have been believed, by him, to be neither more nor less than a hypocrite. There's for you, Sir Simon: and so here ends all my malice; for now I have spoken my mind.
"Yet I hope your dear papa will not be so angry as to deny me, for this my freedom, the request I make to him, to your mamma, and to your dear self, for your beloved company, for a month or two in Bedfordshire, and at London: and if you might be permitted to winter with us at the latter, how happy should I be! It will be half done the moment you desire it. Sir Simon loves you too well to refuse you, if you are earnest in it. Your honoured mamma is always indulgent to your requests: and Mr. B. as well in kindness to me, as for the great respect he bears you, joins with me to beg this favour of you, and of Sir Simon and my lady.
"If it can be obtained, what pleasure and improvement may I not propose to myself, with so polite a companion, when we are carried by Mr. B. to the play, the opera, and other of the town diversions! We will work, visit, read, and sing together, and improve one another; you me, in every word you shall speak, in every thing you shall do; I you, by my questions, and desire of information, which will make you open all your breast to me: and so unlocking that dear storehouse of virtuous knowledge, improve your own notions the more for communicating them. O my dear Miss Damford I how happy is it in your power to make me!
"I am much affected with your account of Mrs. Jewkes's reformation, I could have wished, had I not other and stronger inducements (in the pleasure of so agreeable a neighbourhood, and so sweet a companion), I could have been down at the Hall, in hopes to have confirmed the poor woman in her newly assumed penitence. God give her grace to persevere in it!—To be an humble means of saving a soul from perdition! O my dear Miss Darnford, let me enjoy that heart-ravishing hope!—To pluck such a brand as this out of the fire, and to assist to quench its flaming susceptibility for mischief, and make it useful to edifying purposes, what a pleasure does this afford one! How does it encourage one to proceed in the way one
