Love and Freindship

[marycatelli]

Ah, Love and Freindship.  I first ran across any mention of it in an essay by G. K. Chesterton -- an introduction to its first publication with the rest of her juvenilia, but one that I read isolated in a book of essays. It took me a while to track it down.


Well worth it. For one thing, you get the heroine introducing her situation thus:

My Father was a native of Ireland and an inhabitant of Wales; my Mother was the natural Daughter of a Scotch Peer by an Italian Opera-girl -- I was born in Spain, and received my Education at a Convent in France.

When I had reached my eighteenth Year, I was recalled by my Parents to my paternal roof in Wales. Our mansion was situated in one of the most romantic parts of the Vale of Uske. Tho' my Charms are now considerably softened and somewhat impaired by the Misfortunes I have undergone, I was once beautiful. But lovely as I was, the Graces of my Person were the least of my Perfections. Of every accomplishment accustomary to my sex, I was Mistress. When in the Convent, my progress had always exceeded my instructions, my Acquirements had been wonderfull for my age, and I had shortly surpassed my Masters.

In my Mind, every Virtue that could adorn it was centered; it was the Rendez-vous of every good Quality and of every noble sentiment.

A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every affliction of my Freinds, my Acquaintance, and particularly to every affliction of my own, was my only fault, if a fault it could be called. Alas! how altered now! Tho' indeed my own Misfortunes do not make less impression on me than they ever did, yet now I never feel for those of an other. My accomplishments too, begin to fade -- I can neither sing so well nor Dance so gracefully as I once did -- and I have entirely forgot the Minuet Dela Cour.

And even at seventeen she managed to keep up the parody throughout the work

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Comments

[redxcrosse.livejournal.com]

Don't faint, you'll die.

[marycatelli]

Run mad as often as you like, but don't faint.