Coke Clifton to His Sister, Louisa Clifton

Paris, Hotel de l'UniversitÉ, prÈs le Pont Royal

I write agreeably to your desire, sister, to thank you for all obligations, not forgetting your advice. Not but I am excessively obliged to you; I am upon my soul, and seriously, for having done me the favour to bring me acquainted with your charming friend. I have seen many women and in many countries, but I never beheld one so sweet, so beautiful, so captivating! I had heard of her before I left England, her fame had reached Italy, and your letters had raised my expectations. But what were these? The accomplishments and graces of her person, the variety, the pleasure inspiring heaven of her countenance, the cupids that wanton in her dimples, and the delights that swim and glisten in her eyes, are each and all exquisite beyond imagination!

Whatever you may think of me, Louisa, I do persuade myself I know something of women. I have studied them at home and abroad, and have often probed them to the soul. But I never before met with any one in the least comparable to the divine Anna! She is so unreserved, so open, that her soul seems to dwell upon her lips. Yet her thoughts are so rapid, and her mind so capacious, that I am persuaded it will cost me much longer time to know her well than any other woman with whom I ever met.

Having thanked you very heartily and sincerely for this favour, I shall just say a word or two in answer to yours. And so you really think you have some morality on hand, a little stale or so but still sound, which you can bestow with advantage upon me? You imagine you can tell me something I never heard before? Now have you sincerely so much vanity, Louisa? Be frank. You acknowledged I have crossed rivers, seas, and mountains; but you are afraid I have shut my eyes all the time! A loud tongue and a prodigious luck of wit! Antics and impertinences of young men of fashion! Really, my dear, you are choice in your phrases! You could not love your brother for any recital of the delight which foreign ladies look in him, and which he took in foreign ladies! But you could be in ecstatics for a brother of your own invention.

Do not suppose I am angry! No, no, my dear girl; I am got far above all that! Though I cannot but laugh at this extraordinary brother, which you are fashioning for yourself. If, when I come into your sublime presence, I should by good luck happen to strike your fancy, why so! My fortune will then be made! If not, sister, we must do as well as we can. All in good time, and a God's name. Is not that tolerable Worcestershire morality?

I am obliged to lay down my pen with laughing at the idea of Miss Louisa's brother, supposing him to be exactly of her modelling. I think I see him appear before her; she seated in state, on a chair raised on four tressels and two old doors, like a strolling actress mimicking a queen in a barn! He dressed in black; his hair smugly curled; his face and his shoes shining; his white handkerchief in his right hand; a prayer book, or the morals of Epictetus in his left; not interlarding his discourse with French or Italian phrases, but ready with a good rumbling mouthful of old Greek, which he had composed, I mean compiled, for the purpose! Then, having advanced one leg, wiped his mouth, put his left hand in his breeches pocket, clenched his right, and raised his arm, he begins his learned dissertation on well digested principles, ardent desire of truth, incessant struggles to shake off prejudices, and forth are chanted, in nasal twang and tragic recitative, his emanations of soul, bursts of though, and flashes of genius!

But you would not be satirical. Gentle, modest maiden! And surely it becomes the tutored brother to imitate this kind forbearance. My faculties were always lively? And I must pardon you if you expect too much?—Upon my soul, this is highly comic! Expect too much! And there is danger then that I should not equal your expectations?—Prithee, my good girl, jingle the keys of your harpsichord, and be quiet. Pore over your fine folio receipt book, and appease your thirst after knowledge. Satisfy your longing desire to do good, by making jellies, conserves, and caraway cakes. Pot pippins, brew rasberry wine, and candy orange chips. Study burns, bruises, and balsams. Distil surfeit, colic, and wormwood water. Concoct hiera picra, rhubarb beer, and oil of charity; and sympathize over sprains, whitloes, and broken shins. Get a charm to cure the argue, and render yourself renowned. Spin, sew and knit. Collect your lamentable rabble around you, dole out your charities, listen to a full chorus of blessings, and take your seat among the saints.

You see, child, I can give advice as well as yourself; aye and I will bestow it most plentifully, if you happen to feel any desire after more. I hate to be ungrateful; you shall have no opportunity to utter your musty maxim upon me—'That the sin of ingratitude is worse than the sin of witchcraft.' You shall have weight for weight, measure for measure, chicken; aye, my market woman, and a lumping pennyworth. Brotherly for sisterly effusions!

As for the right of eldership, I recollect that a dozen years ago I envied you the prerogative; but now you are welcome to it with all my heart. If, among your miraculous acquirements, you have any secret to make time stand still, by which you can teach me to remain at sweet five-and-twenty, and if you will disclose it to me, I will not only pardon all your impertinences, as you so pertinently call them, but do any other thing in reason to satisfy you; except turn philosopher and feed upon carrots! Nay I will allow you to grow as old as you please, you shall have full enjoyment of the rights of eldership.

In the mean time, sister, I once more thank you for bringing me acquainted with your friend. You seem to have 'put powder in her drink;' and I freely tell you I wish she loved me half as well as she professes to love her immaculate Louisa. But these I suppose are the flashes of genius, which you have taught her. However she is an angel, and in her every thing is graceful.

As for your other prodigy, I scarcely know what to make of him; except that he seems to have quite conceit enough of himself. Every other sentence is a contradiction of what the last speaker advanced. This is the first time he ever ventured to cross his father's threshold, and yet he talks as familiarly of kingdoms, governments, nations, manners, and other high sounding phrases, as if he had been secretary of state to king Minos, had ridden upon the white elephant, and studied under the Dalai Lama! He is the Great Mogul of politicians! And as for letters, science, and talents, he holds them all by patent right! He is such a monopolizer that no man else can get a morsel! If he were not a plebeian, I could most sincerely wish you were married to him; for then, whenever my soul should hunger and thirst after morality, I should know where to come and get a full meal. Though perhaps his not being a gentleman would be no objection to you, at least your letter leads me to suspect as much.

Do not however mistake me. I mean this jocularly. For I will not degrade my sister so much, as to suppose she has ever cast a thought on the son either of the gardener or the steward, of any man. Though, tied to her mother's apron-string and shut up on the confines of Worcestershire, she may think proper to lecture and give rules of conduct to a brother who has seen the world, and studied both men and books of every kind, that is but a harmless and pardonable piece of vanity. It ought to be laughed at, and for that reason I have laughed.

For the rest, I will be willing to think as well of my sister, as this sister can be to think of her catechised, and very patient, humble, younger brother,

C. CLIFTON

P.S. I have written in answer to my mother by the same post. From the general tenor of her letter, I cannot but imagine that, just before she sat down to write, she had been listening to one of your civil lectures, against wild brothers, fine gentlemen, and vile rakes. Is not that the cant? One thing let me whisper to you, sister: I am not obliged to any person who suspects or renders me suspected. I claim the privilege of being seen before I am condemned, and heard before I am executed. If I should not prove to be quite the phoenix which might vie with so miraculous so unique a sister, I must then be contented to take shame to myself. But till then I should suppose the thoughts of a sister might as well be inclined to paint me white as black. After all, I cannot conclude without repeating that I believe the whole world cannot equal the lovely, the divine Anna St. Ives: and, whatever else you may say or think of me, do not lead her to imagine I am unjust to her supreme beauty, and charms. An insinuation of that kind I would never forgive—Never!