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ANNA ST. IVES
THOMAS HOLCROFT
1792
CONTENTS
Volume IVolume IIVolume IIIVolume IVVolume VVolume VIVOLUME VII
Explanatory Notes
ANNA ST. IVES
A NOVEL
VOLUME I
LETTER I
Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton
Wenbourne-Hill
Here are we, my dear girl, in the very height of preparation. We beginour journey southward at five tomorrow morning. We shall make a shortstay in London, and then proceed to Paris. Expectation is on tiptoe: mybusy fancy has pictured to itself Calais, Montreuil, Abbeville, inshort every place which the book of post roads enumerates, and some ofwhich the divine Sterne has rendered so famous. I expect to findnothing but mirth, vivacity, fancy, and multitudes of people. I haveread so much of the populousness of France, the gaiety of itsinhabitants, the magnificence of its buildings, its fine climate,fertility, numerous cities, superb roads, rich plains, and teemingvineyards, that I already imagine myself journeying through anenchanted land.
I have another pleasure in prospect. Pray have you heard that yourbrother is soon to be at Paris, on his return from Italy?—My fathersurprised me by informing me we should probably meet him in thatcapital. I suspect Sir Arthur of an implication which his words perhapswill not authorize; but he asked me, rather significantly, if I hadever heard you talk of your brother; and in less than five minuteswished to know whether I had any objections to marriage.
My father is exceedingly busy with his head man, his plotter, hisplanner; giving directions concerning still further improvements thatare to be made, in his grounds and park, during our absence. You knowhis mania. Improvement is his disease. I have before hinted to you thatI do not like this factotum of his, this Abimelech Henley. The amiablequalities of his son more than compensate for the meanness of thefather; whom I have long suspected to be and am indeed convinced thathe is artful, selfish, and honest enough to seek his own profit, wereit at the expence of his employer's ruin. He is continually insinuatingnew plans to my father, whom he Sir Arthurs, and Honours, and Nobles,at every word, and then persuades him the hints and thoughts are allhis own. The illiterate fellow has a language peculiar to himself;energetic but half unintelligible; compounded of a few fine phrases,and an inundation of proverbial wisdom and uncouth cant terms. Of thescanty number of polite words, which he has endeavoured to catch, he isvery bountiful to Sir Arthur. 'That's noble! That's great your noblehonour! Well, by my truly, that's an elegunt ideer! But I always saidyour honour had more nobler and elegunter ideers than any othernoble gentleman, knight, lord, or dooke, in every thing of what yourhonour calls the grand gusto.' Pshaw! It is ridiculous in me to imitatehis language; the cunning nonsense of which evaporates upon paper, butis highly characteristic when delivered with all its attendant bows andcringes; which, like the accompaniments to a concerto, enforce thecharacter of the composition, and give it full effect.
I am in the very midst of bandboxes, portmanteaus, packing-cases, andtravelling trunks. I scarcely ever knew a mind s