Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.
Mr. Editor,—As it is the fashion, at present, to be very
much interested about everything that concerns ‘Give a woman,’ says Lord B., ‘a looking-glass and a
few sugar-plums, and she will be satisfied.’
This is really too bad, and, if
ever I should fortunately get married, you shall see, Mr. Editor, or rather my husband
shall see, if I am so easily satisfied. I’ll have the looking-glass and the
sugar-plums, to be sure, as matters of the first importance; but, besides every thing else
that I choose to wish for, I’ll have a library of my own selecting, into which,
notwithstanding Lord Byron’s sneers, I will admit some of his
poems, and, as I am very fond of studying history, I will have all the Scotch novels, and
all the English ones that are historical, for I think it is a great deal pleasanter to
study history under such enticing forms, than in the dry musty old volumes of the
historians themselves; and as to correctness, &c. &c., that is no great matter, as
you know there are always two ways of telling the same story. But this is nothing to the
purpose.angel is, by courtesy,
exclusively our’s? Who ever heard of a man looking like an angel?
Earthly angels, you know I mean, Mr. Editor; as to ‘right earnest’ angels, nobody,
I suppose, considers Lord B. as much resembling them. ‘High intellect, profound thought,
and deep-felt tenderness, may be read in every line.’ High intellect and profound thought
I have nothing to do with—how should I? They would make an odd sort of union with
looking-glasses and sugar-plums—he might possess them for aught I know—but where
could his deep-felt tenderness be, when his opinion of females, the chief objects, one should
suppose, of a man’s tenderness, was so degrading and contemptible? I could say a great
deal more on the subject, if I had time, but I must hasten to my ‘looking-glass,’
and shall not satisfy your curiosity as to whether I am going to Grizzledina.
P.S.—Tell spinster. It does not mean an old maid, but an
unmarried woman, whether young or old; and I rather suspect your friend,