ABSTRACT
There was one person in the family at Eaglefield Castle to whom the news of Henry Beverley’s death occasioned, to say the least of it, no concern. This fair stoic was Mrs. Margaret Eaglefield. Perhaps this may seem a little inconsistent with what has formerly been said of the exquisite sensibility of her feelings; but we must relate things as they are, though they offend against the canon of the critic who directs characters to be preserved uniformly throughout*. 120 Now it is certain, / and we do not think the case peculiar to her, that though Mrs. Margaret still kept up her sensitive sympathy for lap-dogs, spiders, wasps, maggots, and tom-tits, she did not feel any violent paroxysm of sorrow for poor Beverley, though she paid to his memory the decent tribute of a tear, which she squeezed out (though with some difficulty) even without the assistance of an onion. In truth, Mrs. Margaret, like many other persons of exquisite sensibility, was tremblingly alive to the tender passions. A tale of distress always excited her feelings; but as persons who are in the habit of pampering the appetite by high dishes lose all relish for plain food, so it may possibly happen, that those who use themselves to weep over highly wrought scenes of fictitious distress may lose a sense of sorrow for events in ordinary life. Besides, though we are far from adopting with the misanthropic Swift, as a general truth, the abominable maxim of Rochefoucault, that there is always something in the misfortunes of our best friends that is not displeasing to / us; 121 yet it will frequently happen that there are circumstances in the misfortunes of persons with whom we are only acquainted that bring their consolation with them, and which can never occur in a tale of fictitious woe; and many a maiden aunt, who may possibly, while she casts her eye over these pages, breathe a sigh of sympathy for the premature separation of Henry and Emilia, will not very seriously lament the fate of a gallant warrior, who stood between one of her own relations and a splendid marriage that flattered her ambition.
