(Doctor Burney to Fanny Burney.)
Chelsea College, February 19, 1793.
Why, Fanny, what are you about, and where are you? I shall write
at you, not knowing how to write to you, as Swift did to the
flying and romantic Lord Peterborough. I had written the above,
after a yesterday's glimmering and a feverish night as usual,
when behold! a letter of requisition for a further furlough! I
had long histories ready for narration de vive voix, but my time
is too short and my eyes and head too -weak for much writing this
morning. I am not at all surprised at your account of the
captivating powers of Madame de Stael. It corresponds with all I
had heard about her, and with the opinion I formed of her
intellectual and literary powers, in reading her charming little
"Apologie de Rousseau." But as nothing human is allowed to be
perfect, she has not escaped censure. Her house was the centre
of revolutionists Previous to the 10th of August, after her
father's departure, and she has been accused of partiality to M.
de N.(72) But Perhaps all may be jacobinical malignity. However,
unfavourable stories of her have been brought hither, and the
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Burkes and Mrs. Ord have repeated them to me. But you know that
M. Necker's administration, and the conduct of the nobles who
first joined in the violent measures that subverted the ancient
establishments by the abolition of nobility and the ruin of the
church, during the first National Assembly, are held in greater
horror by aristocrats than even the members of the present
Convention. I know this will make you feel uncomfortable, but it
seemed to me right to hint it to You. If you are not absolutely