For I am every day more and more sensible of the great
difference there is between being used to the politest conversation as
an inferior, and being born to bear a part in it: in the one, all is
set, stiff, awkward, and the person just such an ape of imitation as
poor I; in the other, all is natural ease and sweetness--like Miss
Darnford.
Knowing this, I don't indeed aim at what I am sensible I cannot
attain; and so, I hope, am less exposed to censure than I should be if
I did. For, I have heard Mr. B. observe with regard to gentlemen who
build fine houses, make fine gardens, and open fine prospects, that
art should never take place of, but be subservient to, nature; and a
gentleman, if confined to a situation, had better conform his designs
to that, than to do as at Chatsworth, level a mountain at a monstrous
expense; which, had it been suffered to remain, in so wild and
romantic a scene as Chatsworth affords, might have been made one of
the greatest beauties of the place.
So I think I had better endeavour to make the best of those natural
defects I cannot master, than, by assuming airs and dignities in
appearance, to which I was not born, act neither part tolerably. By
this means, instead of being thought neither gentlewoman nor rustic,
as Sir Jacob hinted (_linsey-wolsey_, I think was his term too), I may
be looked upon as an original in my way; and all originals pass well
enough, you know, Madam, even with judges.
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