"She had cultivated a great deal of theoretical romance—in taste, not in feeling—an important distinction—which enabled her to be most liberally sentimental in words, without at all influencing her actions."
Mrs. Shaw represents those who so appreciate the value
of romantic affliction that, lacking a grief, they manufacture
a grievance to cover the deficiencies of a too roseate
existence. On a certain melancholy occasion to be sure
she orders "those extra delicacies of the season which are
always supposed to be efficacious against immoderate
grief at farewell dinners." But her usual manner—[1]
"* * * had always something plaintive in it, arising
from the long habit of considering herself a victim to an uncongenial
marriage. Now that, the General being gone, she
had every good of life, with as few drawbacks as possible, she
had been rather perplexed to find an anxiety, if not a sorrow.
She had, however, of late settled upon her own health as a
source of apprehension; she had a nervous little cough whenever
she thought about it; and some complaisant doctor ordered
her just what she desired,—a winter in Italy."
It is Mrs. Kirkpatrick, however, who takes the prize
in "pink sentimentalism," and holds it until the arrival of
the Countess de Saldar, and the Pole sisters. Behind the
"sweet perpetuity of her smile" is carried on an equally
perpetual manœvering, which ministers, under the auspices
of refinement and the proprieties, to a small and selfish
tyranny. If by any chance she is detected or foiled,
she is deeply wounded, for if she hates anything, "it is the
slightest concealment and reserve." Moreover, she never
- ↑ North and South, 9. Cf. Kingsley's crude and literal handling of the same theme. Anna Maria Heale was always talking of her nerves, "though she had nerves only in the sense wherein a sirloin of beef has them." Two Years Ago, 85.
