DOI article:
Ramsden, Hermione Charlotte: A forgotten novelist
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25498#0300
296 A Forgotten Novelist
poured forth over five glasses of Madeira in succession, must often
have been a severe trial to his patience. It was Lady Mary’s
desire that he should be the most accomplished gentleman of his
age, and in order that this wish might be realised, she was anxious
to procure him a tutor who had studied manners under Lord
Chesterfield, in place of the worthy Mr. Lindsay, whose views on
education were the direct antithesis to her own. Of Lady Mary
it is said that “her affections went to the whole duties of a
mother.It was she who regulated his taste in dress,
who superintended the friseur in the important decoration of his
head.”
Poor Sir George ! What a vision of powdered hair and pig-tail,
flowered satin waistcoat and velvet coat, to say nothing of the
shoes with diamond buckles ! He was only just twenty when the
story begins, and as yet quite unspoilt by the world ; his chief
delight at this period was to converse with Lindsay on Cicero and
Demosthenes, Horace and Virgil, or to spend a quiet evening “in
moralizing upon the various follies of mankind.” It was noc
without reason that he had asked Lindsay to become his friend and
guide, for he sadly needed some one to whom he could confide his
love for Miss Cornelia Colerain. Mr. Lindsay was a man of
parts ; he had met with a variety of misfortunes, and was a philo-
sopher, if, also, somewhat of a pessimist. His chief aim at this
time seems to have been to warn his pupil against the dangers of
matrimony, because, as he says :
“ The love of woman and the love of fame lead to different
things ; no one knows better than myself how fatal love, as a
passion, is to manly exertion.”
Even the worthy Lindsay does not seem to have held the
ordinary views on the subject of marriage, for on one occasion he
shocks the fair Quakeress by observing that :
“If
poured forth over five glasses of Madeira in succession, must often
have been a severe trial to his patience. It was Lady Mary’s
desire that he should be the most accomplished gentleman of his
age, and in order that this wish might be realised, she was anxious
to procure him a tutor who had studied manners under Lord
Chesterfield, in place of the worthy Mr. Lindsay, whose views on
education were the direct antithesis to her own. Of Lady Mary
it is said that “her affections went to the whole duties of a
mother.It was she who regulated his taste in dress,
who superintended the friseur in the important decoration of his
head.”
Poor Sir George ! What a vision of powdered hair and pig-tail,
flowered satin waistcoat and velvet coat, to say nothing of the
shoes with diamond buckles ! He was only just twenty when the
story begins, and as yet quite unspoilt by the world ; his chief
delight at this period was to converse with Lindsay on Cicero and
Demosthenes, Horace and Virgil, or to spend a quiet evening “in
moralizing upon the various follies of mankind.” It was noc
without reason that he had asked Lindsay to become his friend and
guide, for he sadly needed some one to whom he could confide his
love for Miss Cornelia Colerain. Mr. Lindsay was a man of
parts ; he had met with a variety of misfortunes, and was a philo-
sopher, if, also, somewhat of a pessimist. His chief aim at this
time seems to have been to warn his pupil against the dangers of
matrimony, because, as he says :
“ The love of woman and the love of fame lead to different
things ; no one knows better than myself how fatal love, as a
passion, is to manly exertion.”
Even the worthy Lindsay does not seem to have held the
ordinary views on the subject of marriage, for on one occasion he
shocks the fair Quakeress by observing that :
“If