I took my place at table in
no joyful mood, and partook of the food moderately, lest I should
finish by intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the
funeral of Hadon came into my mind.[1] When shall I revisit
Streatham?"
[Footnote 1: "Si recte memini in mentem venerunt epulae in exequiis
Hadoni celebratae." I cannot explain this allusion.]
The exclamation "When shall I revisit Streatham?" loses much of its
pathos when connected with these culinary details.
Madame D'Arblay's description of the last year at Streatham is too
important to be much abridged:
"Dr. Burney, _when the Cecilian business was arranged_[1], again
conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. No further reluctance on his
part, nor exhortations on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her
from that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had so
recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. And truly eager was
her own haste, when mistress of her time, to try once more to soothe
those sorrows and chagrins in which she had most largely
participated, by answering to the call, which had never ceased
tenderly to pursue her, of return.
"With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, they re-entered
the Streatham gates--but they soon perceived that they found not what
they had left!
"Changed, indeed, was Streatham! Gone its chief, and changed his
relict! unaccountably, incomprehensibly, indefinably changed! She was
absent and agitated; not two minutes could she remain in a place; she
scarcely seemed to know whom she saw; her speech was so hurried it
was hardly intelligible; her eyes were assiduously averted from those
who sought them; and her smiles were faint and forced.
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