indeed now it was impossible to know how to make him asy by day or by
night; that she lost her natural rest with him; and that for her part
she could not pretend to stand it much longer, unless she got her
natural rest. Heaven knows _my_ natural rest was gone! But, besides,
she could not even get her cup of tea in an evening, or stir out for a
mouthful of fresh air, now she was every night to sing Master Harrington
to sleep.
It was but poetical justice that she who had begun by terrifying me, in
order to get me to bed, and out of her way, should end by being forced
to suffer some restraint to cure me of my terrors: but Fowler did not
understand or relish poetical justice, or any kind of justice: besides,
she had heard that Lady de Brantefield was in want of a nursery-maid
for the little Lady Anne Mowbray, who was some years younger than Master
Harrington, and Fowler humbly represented to my mother that she thought
Master Harrington was really growing too stout and too much of a
man; and she confessed quite above and beyond her management and
comprehension; for she never pretended to any thing but the care of
young children that had not arrived at the years of discretion; this she
understood to be the case with the little Lady Anne Mowbray; therefore a
recommendation to Lady de Brantefield would be very desirable, and, she
hoped, but justice to her. The very desirable recommendation was given
by my mother to Lady de Brantefield, who was her particular friend;
nor was my mother in the least to blame on this occasion, for she truly
thought she was doing nothing but justice; had it been otherwise, those
who know how these things are usually managed, would, I trust, never
think of blaming my mother for a _sort of thing_ which they would do,
and doubtless have done themselves without scruple, for a favourite
maid, who is always a _faithful creature_.
So Fowler departed, happy, but I remained unhappy--not with her,
departed my fears. After she was gone I made a sort of compromise with
my conscience, and without absolutely breaking my promise, I made a half
confession to my mother that I had somehow or other horrid notions about
Jews; and that it was the terror I had conceived of Simon the Jew
which prevented me from sleeping all night. My mother felt for me, and
considered my case as no laughing matter.
My mother was a woman of weak health, delicate nerves, and a kind of
morbid sensibility; which I often heard her deplore as a misfortune, but
which I observed every body about her admire as a grace. She lamented
that her dear Harrington, her only son, should so much resemble her in
this exquisite sensibility of the nervous system. But her physician, and
he was a man who certainly knew better than she did, she confessed,
for he was a man who really knew every thing, assured her that this was
indisputably “the genuine temperament of genius.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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