Inconsiderate and indiscreet, never saved by prudence, but often rescued by pride; often on the very verge of error, but never passing the line. Committing myself in every way—except in my own esteem,—without any command over my feelings, my words, or writings,—yet full of self-possession as to action and conduct,—once reaching the boundary of right even with my feet on the threshold of wrong; capable, like a menage horse, of stopping short, coolly considering the risk I encounter, and turning sharply back for the post from whence I started, feeling myself quite side, and, in a word—quitte pour la peur.
| 430 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Early imbued with the high sentiments belonging to good
birth, and with the fine feelings which accompany good education. My father was
a player and a gentleman. I learned early to feel acutely my situation; my
nature was supremely above my circumstances and situation, the first principle
or passion that rooted in my breast, was a species of proud indignation, which
accompanies me to that premature death, of which it is finally the cause. My
first point of society was to behold the conflict between two unequal
minds—the one (my mother) strong and rigid—the other weak and
yielding; the one strong to arrest dispute—the other accelerating its
approach. The details which made up the mass were—seeing a father
frequently torn to prison—a mother on the point of beggary with her
children, and all those shocks of suffering which human nature can disdain, and
which can only occur in a certain sphere of life and a certain state of
society. Man, who has his appetites to gratify, which Nature supplies in his
social or artificial character, has thousands of wants which suffering poverty
may deny; and even their gratification is not always attended with effects
proportionate to their cause. So delicately and fatally organised, that objects
impalpable to others, were by me accurately perceived, felt and combined; that
the faint ray which neither warmed nor brightened, often gave a glow and a
lustre to my spirits; that the faintest vapour through its evanescent passage
through the atmosphere, threw no shadow on the most reflecting object, darkened
my prospects, and gloomed my
| LADY MORGAN PAINTED BY HERSELF, ETC. | 431 |
It may be supposed that life hastens to its close when its views are thus tinged with hues so dark and so terrific? But the hand which now writes this has lost nothing of the contour of health or the symmetry of youth. I am in possession of all the fame I ever hoped or ambitioned. I wear not the appearance of twenty years; I am now, as I generally am, sad and miserable.
