But, in
purely conventional attainments, in most that relates to the world,
its usages, its finesse of feeling and manner, I could see that Emily
was the superior. Had I known more myself, I could have seen that both
were provincial--for England, in 1801, was but a province, as to mere
manners, though on a larger scale than America is even now--and that
either would have been remarked for peculiarities, in the more
sophisticated circles of the continent of Europe. I dare say, half my
own countrymen would have preferred Lucy's nature to the more
artificial manner of Emily; but, it will not do to say that even
female deportment, however delicate and feminine nature may have made
it, cannot be improved by certain general rules for the government of
that which is even purely conventional. On the whole, I wished that
Lucy had a little of Emily's art, and Emily a good deal more of Lucy's
nature. I suppose the perfection in this sort of thing is to possess
an art so admirable that it shall appear to be nature, in all things
immaterial, while it leaves the latter strictly in the ascendant, in
all that is material.
In person, I sometimes fancied Emily was the superior, and, sometimes,
when memory carried me back to certain scenes that had occurred during
my last visit to Clawbonny, that it was Lucy.
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