The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 2 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
exhibiting those who have neither; as if its powers extended to bestow
the charms which it only displays.
The admiration of Lady Barbara for her instructress, lost some boundary
of moderation every day; and Ellis, though ashamed of such excess of
partiality, felt fostered by its warmth, and returned it with sincerity.
Lady Barbara, who was gaily artless, and as full of kindness as of
vivacity, had the strong recommendation of being wholly natural; a
recommendation as rare in itself, as success is in its deviations.
Miss Arbe was all happy exultation, at a prosperity for which she repaid
herself, without scruple, by perpetual, though private lessons; and
Ellis, whose merit, while viewed with rivalry, she had sought to
depreciate, she was now foremost to praise. The swellings of envy and
jealousy gave way to triumph in her own discernment; and all severities
of hypercriticism subsided into the gentler vanity, and more humane
parade, of patronage.
Another happy circumstance signalized, also, this professional
commencement of Ellis; Miss Arbe secured to her the popular favour of
Sir Marmaduke Crawley, a travelled fine gentleman, just summoned from
Italy, to take possession of his title and estate; and to the
guardianship of two hoyden sisters, many years younger than himself. His
character of a connoisseur, and admirer of _les beaux arts_; a person of
so refined a conformation, as to desire to be thought rather to vegetate
than to live, when removed from the genial clime of the sole region of
the muses, and of taste, Italy; made his approbation as useful to her
fame, as the active influence of Miss Arbe was to her fortune. This
gentleman, upon hearing her perform to Lady Kendover, declared, with a
look of melancholy recollection, that The Ellis was more divine than any
thing that he had yet met with on this side the Alps. He requested Miss
Arbe, therefore, to place his sisters under her elegant tuition, if he
might hope that The Ellis could be prevailed upon to undertake two such
Vandals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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