Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
When the service was ended, and they were again got into their coaches,
Amelia returned the doctor many thanks for the light in which he had
placed divine worship, assuring him that she had never before had so
much transport in her devotion as at this time, and saying she believed
she should be the better for this notion he had given her as long as she
lived.
The coaches being come to the water-side, they all alighted, and,
getting into one boat, proceeded to Vauxhall.
The extreme beauty and elegance of this place is well known to almost
every one of my readers; and happy is it for me that it is so, since
to give an adequate idea of it would exceed my power of description.
To delineate the particular beauties of these gardens would, indeed,
require as much pains, and as much paper too, as to rehearse all
the good actions of their master, whose life proves the truth of an
observation which I have read in some ethic writer, that a truly elegant
taste is generally accompanied with an excellency of heart; or, in other
words, that true virtue is, indeed, nothing else but true taste.
Here our company diverted themselves with walking an hour or two before
the music began. Of all the seven, Booth alone had ever been here
before; so that, to all the rest, the place, with its other charms, had
that of novelty. When the music played, Amelia, who stood next to
the doctor, said to him in a whisper, “I hope I am not guilty of
profaneness; but, in pursuance of that chearful chain of thoughts with
which you have inspired me this afternoon, I was just now lost in a
reverie, and fancied myself in those blissful mansions which we hope to
enjoy hereafter. The delicious sweetness of the place, the enchanting
charms of the music, and the satisfaction which appears in every one’s
countenance, carried my soul almost to heaven in its ideas. I could not
have, indeed, imagined there had been anything like this in this world.”
The doctor smiled, and said, “You see, dear madam, there may be
pleasures of which you could conceive no idea till you actually enjoyed
them.”
And now the little boy, who had long withstood the attractions of
several cheesecakes that passed to and fro, could contain no longer, but
asked his mother to give him one, saying, “I am sure my sister would be
glad of another, though she is ashamed to ask.” The doctor, overhearing
the child, proposed that they should all retire to some place where
they might sit down and refresh themselves; which they accordingly did.
Amelia now missed her husband; but, as she had three men in her company,
and one of them was the doctor, she concluded herself and her children
to be safe, and doubted not but that Booth would soon find her out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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