"[1]
[Footnote 1: By Sir Lucas:
"O'er the ice, as o'er pleasure, you lightly should glide,
Both have gulphs which their flattering surfaces hide."
By Sir William:
"Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide,
And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go:
Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide,
But pause not, press not on the gulph below."]
Madame D'Arblay's Diary describes the outward and visible state of
things at Brighton. "Thraliana" lays bare the internal history, the
struggles of the understanding and the heart:
"At Brighthelmstone, whither I went when I left Streatham, 7th
October 1782, I heard this comical epigram about the Irish
Volunteers:
"'There's not one of us all, my brave boys, but would rather
Do ought than offend great King George our good father;
But our country, you know, my dear lads, is our _mother_,
And that is a much surer side than the other.'"
"I had looked ill, or perhaps appeared to feel so much, that my
eldest daughter would, out of tenderness perhaps, force me to an
explanation. I could, however, have evaded it if I would; but my
heart was bursting, and partly from instinctive desire of unloading
it--partly, I hope, from principle, too--I called her into my room
and fairly told her the truth; told her the strength of my passion
for Piozzi, the impracticability of my living without him, the
opinion I had of his merit, and the resolution I had taken to marry
him. Of all this she could not have been ignorant before.
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